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The Gospel reading today contains one of the most famous stories of the New Testament: the story of the loaves and fishes. The symbol of the loaves and fishes, like the mosaic on the cover of the bulletin, is one of the oldest associated with Christianity, perhaps older even than the Latin cross that most people think of when they have our faith in mind.
The reading from Isaiah also wonderfully foreshadows the loaves and fishes story. The prophet says, »Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.«
If you look at only those two readings, shorn of their context, and take them at face value, you’d get the impression that Christianity is really just some sort of all-you-can-eat buffet. Free food for the masses, no coupons required, offer limited where prohibited by law, no purchase necessary.
But like so often when reading the Bible, taking the texts out of context and at face value is a very bad idea, because indeed it leads to false conclusions. We need a bit of tradition to understand them. We need to take the entire Bible and use it as a foundation to understand each and every bit of it, and we need to look at it through the lens of the traditions handed down to us.
So what are the loaves and fishes all about?
There is a phrase in the story that gives us a clue. The phrase is this: »Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds«. Does that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck? It should, because it is a strong echo of another phrase from the Gospel of Mark that we will hear shortly during the Eucharistic prayer: »For in the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ›Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.‹« The parallels in the text are too strong to be a coincidence. Jesus breaks the bread, and gives it to His disciples.
Meanwhile early Christians came up with a symbol to represent Christ, one that many Christians use today – the Jesus Fish. The reason is of course that the Greek word for »fish« – ichthys – happens to also stand for the Greek words iesous christos theou huios soter, which in English simply means »Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior«. But the fish was also, like bread, a staple food in the Levant.
To really drive the point home, Jesus also says in the Gospel of John, »I am the bread of life«. When we receive the Eucharist, we are given the consecrated bread with the words, the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.
So what Jesus is doing in this story is foreshadowing the Eucharist that we celebrate today. Thus the loaves and fishes come to represent nothing less than Christ Himself, and His infinite love. There is always enough love to go around. Love is that which fills the deepest holes in our hearts. Jesus is love, the spiritual food for our selves that we need just as much as bread and fish for our stomachs.
The psalm offers yet another bit of foreshadowing: »The LORD upholds all those who fall; he lifts up those who are bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon you, O LORD, and you give them their food in due season.« God as Love is what gives us strength to go on; love is what feeds our hearts. And indeed Paul talks about how he has »great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart« – his feeling of emptiness will sound familiar to anyone searching for answers in our lives. But then »comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever« to fill that void.
It is also, I think, no coincidence that the leftover bread filled twelve baskets. The number twelve should be ringing big bells in our heads: the Apostles, who were filled with the bread of life, with the love of Christ, to go out into the darkness of the world and spread that infinite love. The Apostles are the beginning of our church, our community of love. The twelve baskets are the Church, feeding the multitude.
To go back to the Eucharist, one area of disagreement amongst us Christians is the question of what »happens« in the Eucharist, particularly in the bread and wine. Roman Catholics have their principle of transsubstantiation, that is, that the bread becomes the substantial body of Christ; we Anglicans and Old Catholics stick with a more generalized »Real Presence« of Christ; many Protestants say that Christ is only present spiritually; still others says it’s just a memorial.
What does all of that mean? What relevance does it have?
Some of you will have noticed that people genuflect in front of the aumbry or tabernacle, where the Reserved Sacrament is kept – consecrated bread stored in case of need, such as for the sick. Is it only bread that’s in there? Why kneel before bread?
Well, the Eucharist is the ritual and quite real expression of Christ’s love. What really makes the Eucharist happen is love. It can only take place in an atmosphere of love, of unity, of sharing community and Communion. While the priest is necessary for the consecration of the bread and wine, we all participate in its transformation. By praying together with the priest, by joining together as one body, we participate in a process that fills the bread with God’s love. By the power of the Holy Spirit, by God’s power, this is made possible. God is love.
So what we have in our hands after the completion of the Eucharistic prayer is not the result of hocus-pocus. It’s not magic at all. It’s God in our hands, but in particular it is love in our hands: love of all Creation, love of one another, love of God. We keep what looks like bread in a tabernacle and kneel before it because we acknowledge the limitless power of love. Amor vincit omnia: Love conquers all.
When you take the Eucharist in your hand later on, I’d like you to look at the bread for what it really is: the fullest expression of love – and food not for your stomach, but for your heart. Amen.
Before you watch this video, let me point out one reason it gave me chills.
There is an English Christian hymn that is in a sense the unofficial national anthem of England:
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among those dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire! I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.
The words formed the basis of much of the symbolism used in the movie Chariots of Fire (the title itself is taken from the hymn).
If there is a song that caputures English sentiment, its traditions and dreams, it's Jerusalem -- the idea of England as the literal, enlightened Kingdom of God. It refers to the legend that Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury, in some versions accompanied by Jesus Himself (the "feet in ancient times"), and to the legend of the Holy Grail and the Arthurian legends surrounding Glastonbury. (According to legend, the Glastonbury Thorn grew from where Joseph stuck his staff into the ground, and he hid the Holy Grail, the cup from the Last Supper, somewhere nearby.) I know many English people, especially nonbelieving ones, and I can't help but notice how Jerusalem moves even them.
Now watch The Verve's new video from their upcoming album:
The Verve managed to do a riff on Jerusalem and breathe new poignant meaning into it. I haven't gotten this excited by a new album in a long time -- and I love The Verve, especially Urban Hymns. Awesome stuff.
As everyone knows, I am a peaceful man except when angered, and believe the shedding of blood can never lead to peace if one's enemy is not wounded fatally.
Today’s Gospel has an interesting idea in it, one of the better-known sayings of Jesus as the closing line: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. The image of the yoke is an interesting choice, because it contrasts a bit with another well-known statement Jesus makes elsewhere, in the Gospel of John: “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free’.”
Freedom on the one hand, and yokes on the other. Is there a contradiction?
A frequent criticism I hear from non-Christians regarding the concept of Christian belief is the notion that by submitting ourselves to the restrictions and laws of our God, we make ourselves slaves. By believing in an all-powerful, all-seeing God, the parallel to a totalitarian state is made. God as Orwell’s Big Brother. All pretty threatening, worrying stuff. And indeed in some parts of the Church, the requirement to do private confession does have an aftertaste of the police state about it. So what is the meaning of freedom?
Most of us in Western countries, countries of the Enlightenment, tend to think of freedom mostly in the sense of “freedom to”. We are free to say what we want. We are free to live where we want. We are free to meet whom we want. And so on. We believe strongly in a free will and a free conscience. All those are good things.
So when someone comes along and talks about a yoke as a good thing, it’s a bit of a shock to us. If I came to you and told you to wear a harness so you’d feel freer, you’d think I was completely mad. So what is Jesus talking about here?
Well, freedom isn’t just “freedom to”. I think the best and most concise definition of basic human freedoms was made by Franklin Roosevelt in 1943, which went on to form the basis of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. These “Four Freedoms” are as follows:
Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of religion
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear
Note that the first two are “of” freedoms or “to” freedoms — freedom to think, say and believe what you want. But the next two are “freedom from”. To achieve these “from” freedoms, a bit more cooperative effort is necessary – a society to maintain and protect these basic freedoms and to give them meaning. “Society” means some basic set of rules of the road, rules of conduct, ethical rules, things that govern how we treat each other and ourselves.
The yoke of Jesus is a metaphor for the Law, and the New Covenant that Jesus represents. It is a set of rules we voluntarily agree to in order to realize the potential freedom they bring. If we follow those rules in good faith and in good conscience, but also of our own free will, then unimagined potential in our society can be released. But there is another word in there that is easily forgotten: the burden of this yoke is light. In contrast to other belief systems or religions, the Christian message has a very simple, clear basis: love God and love one another. From these twin ideas flow everything else. The rules don’t get much simpler than that, even if we often miss the target. The burden is light because we bear it willingly and reap its rewards in this life as well as the next.
So what are we being freed from? Simply put, sin. What is sin? I think the most basic definition of sin is when we fail to fulfill those two basic commandments – we fail to love God and one another, and we fail to follow through on that love. I would go a bit further and equate love with life itself. When it says “the wages of sin is death”, this reversal of working to allow life – our life – to flourish is made clear. Life itself is holy; damaging life is not.
Paul notices this in his Epistle as he notices his own failings: “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me”. This failure, this listening to the wrong voices or impulses, shouldn’t make us just feel bad or disappointed. It should motivate us to try harder to bring those two basic commandments to fulfillment in ourselves and in our society. The reality that we make mistakes or don’t live up to the high standard that God’s Law implies isn’t a reason to give up. It’s a reason to keep trying. It’s a reason to work for life itself.
Thus the ironic discovery we make here is that by voluntarily obeying some very basic rules, rules of love, we liberate ourselves. We choose life. As Paul says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
My yoke is easy, my burden is light; I am the way, the truth and the light; and the truth shall set you free. Amen.
While some of the humor will be lost on those of you not following the ins and outs of the current intra-Anglican spat over homosexuality (you probably have better things to do with your time) I present to you a blog that is true genius. The blog of one Rev. Dr. Christian Troll, Doctrinal Warrior, Vicar Superior at St. Onuphrius' Church of Ichabod Springs.
There are even atheists there with whom the good reverend jousts good-naturedly to great effect. (The linked entry is a good example.)
This is truly a brilliant piece of satire. GAFCON is really a group of evangelical Anglicans threatening to split the Anglican Communion ("Global Anglican Future Conference"), hence the name, which he morphs into "God and Father Christian, Obscuring Nothing". The blogs he links to in his profile are of the more virulent anti-gay (and in some cases anti-female ordination) type in the Anglican blogosphere.
In particular he has fun roasting the evangelical* Anglicans that are trying to not just leave the church, but take valuable property with them -- and have repeatedly been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
* - I hesitate to use the word "conservative" to describe them, because frankly I think conservatives have a bit more honor than that.
The lectionary, or cycle of readings, often has surprises for us. Today’s group of readings is no exception, because the three tie in so nicely to each other. They illustrate the way the Bible has echoes, with cases of history in some sense repeating itself to drive a point home.
Of course, sometimes the common thread in the readings isn’t all that obvious. What do the travels of Abram – note he’s not yet taken the name »Abraham«, so this is early on in his calling – have to do with eating with sinners and tax-collectors, or »publicans« as the King James Version we read today puts it? Or with the healing of a young woman or a little girl?
Well, everything, really.
The common thread is faith. Well, OK, that was easy, but what’s faith? In the original Greek of the New Testament, the word for »faith« – pistis – has the same root as the word »trust«, pisteuo. It is also related to the words and concepts of truth and honesty. So faith, truth, honesty and especially trust are pretty much the same thing. How do we see trust in these stories, and what does it do for us today in the 21st century?
Abram went on his great journey, setting out for Canaan, because of trust. He trusted what he heard God telling him. Sarai trusted that Abram wasn’t just hearing voices or doing strange things, but trusted him to lead, as did their entire household. God calls Abram to leave everything he has and depart from his family, and makes a promise to Abram that at the time seems to us readers a little bit ridiculous and hard to believe: God’s promising Abram a land of plenty, of being remembered and honored for all ages. Abram undergoes a long and hard journey, until he shows up in Canaan, where Abram builds an altar. It took a great deal of trust in God to do something like that.
Then in the Gospel, we have Matthew, the tax collector, sitting there minding his own business when Jesus shows up and tells him to follow Him. Imagine some total stranger walking up to you and telling you to follow him. Your reaction would hardly be »yeah sure, let’s go, and by the way, let’s have dinner at my place,« least of all if you’re a greedy penny-pinching tax collector, but that’s exactly what Matthew does. His trust in Jesus is so great that he drops everything and follows Christ, and invites him to join him to eat.
Then the Pharisees get wind of this. The Pharisees were very status-conscious and thought that being seen with lower class people was beneath them and degrading. They also were more interested in rules and regulations than the fruits of faith. In a way they were the pedantic snobs of their time. So they sneer at Jesus for eating with sinners and tax collectors. But Jesus points out why He is there to begin with: He tells them to understand what God means by saying “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. Mercy is the essence of showing our belief in God. Mercy, compassion, kindness. Not hard-hearted reeling off of rules and regulations.
And in a show of mercy, Jesus brings a woman back from death when her father begs Jesus to come and help her. That man’s faith allowed him to trust Jesus with his daughter’s life. Trust means life.
To drive that point home, we see another sick woman approach Jesus in desperation. She hopes that merely touching his clothing will heal her. And Jesus tells her that the mere fact she has faith in Him – that she trusts him – means she is healed. Once again, trust means life.
Other people would laugh at the woman for her simple, blind, naive faith. Indeed people did laugh at Jesus for claiming he can save the woman who has died. But the power of trust, the power of faith, made all these things possible.
What does that mean for us? Should we expect miracles just because we learn to trust each other?
In fact, we should. The division of this world comes from mistrust, from fear, from hate. Imagine the miraculous possibilities of a society where trust is so strong that we can work together in harmony, without fear. Instead of the economic dichotomy of guns or butter, just lots more butter (and a whole lot else besides). Not just beating swords into ploughshares, not just sharing resources, but using them more wisely and not wasting them on conflict and strife. Whenever we come together for a common goal, we achieve great things. It takes faith, it takes trust, it takes vision.
Humanity set out on a journey thousands of years ago with Abraham and Sarah, and God makes us all a promise: the Promised Land of milk and honey at the end of that journey. To follow Christ is to embark on that very same journey. We in the 21st century are just the latest generation in that journey of progress, but we still have a part to play – and the essential part is all that stuff surrounding that Greek work pistis: simple trust, faith, truth and honesty.
To trust God is to trust one other; to establish trust, it takes truth and honesty and candor. That begins not by wagging our fingers at others, but within ourselves, each and every one of us. To trust one other is get over ourselves and our own failings, to accept and look past our differences, to look each other squarely in the eye, and join hands as one holy community of God. Amen.
I am still the Hitler of our time. This Hitler has only one objective - justice for his own people, sovereignty for his own people, recognition of the independence of his people and their right to their own resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold. Ten times Hitler, that is what we stand for.
The following was the sermon I wrote for tonight's English church service at our parish. Needless to say, there was a lot of suppressed chortling and WTF looks, which is just the way I like it. :-)
The Easter season has, for the untrained yet modern eye, a lot of odd things going on. On Good Friday we have a rabbi being falsely accused and executed for saying we should be nice to each other. Then he comes back from the dead. Then, as we heard at the last English service, he does a vanishing act after walking along with some of his disciples – he breaks some bread and »poof!«. And now today we have Jesus doing his very own forerunner of »Beam me up, Scotty«.
Now I’m not going to remotely suggest that Jesus Christ went up to some Starship Enterprise waiting on him. But that’s what the text of the first reading sounds like at first glance: Jesus is »taken up into Heaven«, as if Jesus is up there in the stars and galaxies swirling above us, doing warp eight. Maybe the two guys in white are the landing party. As for us, we even use the word »heavens« as if the sky – or outer space – is indeed where Jesus went when he left his disciples.
Jesus’ words in the Gospel make it sound like that as well: He’s returning to the Father, going to Heaven, leaving the world. Live long and prosper.
The name of this particular season doesn’t help: Ascension Day. Christ »ascends« into heaven. The German word is even worse, Himmelfahrt, as if Christ gets into a car or spaceship and – zoom! – off he goes.
That’s not really what is happening, so I’ll stop weirding you out with that. I’ll weird you out with something else: Merry Christmas!
You may not see any Christmas trees or greenery, and the weather sure doesn’t look like a White Christmas outside, but today we celebrate Christmas – or more exactly, the fulfillment of Christmas. You see, Christmas is when God became incarnate. He walked the Earth as one of us. That says a lot about God and a lot about us.
To paraphrase from a sermon I once read, let’s say we heard that there was a cat that had died and then came back from the dead by God’s power, and used that power to do great things to help other cats. We’d know two things: One, that cat was pretty special, and two, God thinks cats are worth saving, because after all, He sent a cat to help kitties all over the place.
Of course, Jesus wasn’t a cat or a dog or a fish or a cow, but a human being. God sent His son to be with us and to show us the Way. He cares about us: as the Bible says, »for God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son«. Not only that, but because God became human, God knows what it’s like to be human. When we suffer, or go through rough times, it’s reassuring to know that God isn’t just putting us all through this, He went through it Himself, even death. God loves us very much and knows just how we feel.
So on Ascension, this Christmas incarnation stuff comes full circle: Jesus returns to His Father, and the cycle is complete. Not unlike the spinning of a galaxy coming full circle. Life is a series of cycles, of things coming to fruition. Ascension is the completion of such a cycle, just as our own lives are smaller cycles inside far greater ones.
Ascension is thus a reminder: First and foremost of God’s love and transcending power. But also of ourselves and our need to keep moving, to keep growing, to keep learning, as Time’s Arrow pulls us on and on along life’s path. What kind of a path, though?
The path of Ascension is not about is physical laws or literal senses of direction. Christ did not take a celestial elevator and certainly did not get beamed up. To think in such terms of »where is Heaven« is to fundamentally misunderstand the whole story of salvation. We can’t fly to Heaven any more than Jesus could.
There are, however, yet again hints of a journey in Jesus’ words, of travel. Over and over again, Jesus uses motion and travel to express what He is about. »I am the Way and the Truth and the Life«. Indeed the Christian Church itself in the early days was simply called »The Way«.
So Ascension is a story of progress, of growth, of achieving higher states of being. Not in a literal sense, as if taller people are closer to God than shorter ones. Rather, we reach a higher spiritual plane, of traveling higher and higher within ourselves to discover more about us. The more we explore and improve ourselves and shine light within the darkest recesses of our minds, the more we see and learn, the closer we get to God. Most importantly, we pass on the knowledge and insight that we find on to the next generation, and the cycle begins anew. Each of us has been given the power to ascend, to get ever closer to Truth.
Today’s archaic-sounding liturgy is also a reminder of that journey. Ancient people went before us, and we follow in their footsteps. As an old Anglican once said – Sir Isaac Newton – we stand on the shoulders of giants. As we recite the same prayers our forebears did, we remind ourselves of the Way of Christ. By looking backwards, we also force ourselves to look ever forwards. We learn.
Thus the Church is The Way. As we sit here together, sharing Communion with one another, teaching and learning from one another as well as from the wisdom handed down to us over the generations, we walk on Christ’s Way – a path that leads ever upwards, higher and higher, until we can reach the proverbial stars. Amen.
This is BBC Radio 3's weekly recording of Choral Evensong at various churches and chapels around Britain.
If you don't know what Choral Evensong is, it is an old Anglican liturgical tradition, originally combining the monastic canonical hours of vespers and compline into a new form called simply "Evening Prayer". The sung form of Evening Prayer is traditionally called Evensong, and is one of the most beautiful church services you're going to find.
An Evensong service also frequently contains Anglican chant, a form of singing unique to the Anglican tradition. It is basically a polyphonic psalmody, that is, a method of singing prose (Gregorian chant is "plainchant", that is, sung monophonically). It is harder to do than simple plainchant, but when done right it's really hypnotic.
The high point of an Evensong is also typically the singing of the Magnificat (also known as the "Song of Mary"), followed by Nunc dimittis (the "Song of Simeon"), at the midpoint of the service. This is a result of the combined nature of the Evening Prayer liturgy: vespers traditionally had the Magnificat as the central piece, and compline had Nunc dimittis.
BBC Radio 3 has a knack of getting the best choirs and arrangements, and the music is very well done.
I think it's worth noting that the second song you hear in the background happens to be an old Anglican hymn that is traditionally used at Remembrance Day and Anzac Day memorials, along with military funerals:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word; But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord, Familiar, condescending, patient, free. Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings, But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings, Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea— Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.
Thou on my head in early youth didst smile; And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile, Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee, On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.
I need Thy presence every passing hour. What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
Your comments would be appreciated, as this is a work in progress for Saturday's English service at our parish. Funnily enough, its development ran parallel to some of our recent discussion. ;-)
As many of you know, I suffer from a host of health problems. I won’t get into all the various illnesses I have, but suffice it to say that lately I’ve had a lot of health issues to deal with. I told this to a colleague earlier this week, and his reaction was to ask if I’d been cursed or if I had walked under a ladder or something.
In today’s Gospel, we have a man who was born blind, and the disciples have a similar sort of reaction. What sort of sin did this man commit to have been born blind? Or did his parents do something so terribly wrong that God punished them by making their son blind?
So we have to ask, does God make us suffer?
The »problem of suffering« is a common idea that is used to attack the very nature of belief in God. The premise is that an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God would not or even could not allow suffering, therefore there is no God.
The counter to that occurs to me as a parent quite easily. My children are very young and don’t understand very much yet, so my attempts at raising them will often seem irrational to them, even cruel. Here is my daughter enjoying herself tremendously as she draws on the walls and furniture, and along comes Daddy to take away the magic marker and tell her off, spoiling her fun. Not very easy to understand for a two-year-old. So from her point of view, Daddy makes her suffer sometimes, and she is as yet unable to see the greater good – the fact that Daddy is just trying to teach her the rules of social interaction, among which is not to draw with magic markers all over Mommy’s valuable lamp.
Jesus, insightful as always, points this out. He says, the man »was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him«. So what we perceive as suffering has a larger purpose that we simple-minded short-term-thinking human beings have difficulty seeing or appreciating. We see our short-term pain – like my daughter being yelled at by Daddy – and fail to see the long-term gain. We don’t think very well in terms of long spans of time, certainly not in generations, centuries or even millennia.
To add some more depth to the story, Jesus is once again confronted by the Pharisees, the learned ones who think they know it all. As is typical for them, they can’t see the forest for the trees, so rather than praise God for the blind man’s healing, they nitpick about how Jesus supposedly broke the Sabbath. They too lack the insight to see the bigger picture. They even assume the blind man must have been »born into sin« to deserve being blind.
So Jesus points out what by now is plain to us. The Pharisees, for all their learning and intellect, may see physically, but they fail to see spiritually. They are blind – far blinder than the »blind« man ever was.
Thus the key to understanding our own suffering, and to appreciating God’s work in our lives, is to open our inward eyes and truly see what is going on around us – to see that short-term pain as a learning opportunity, as a chance to care for one another, as a chance to show compassion and sympathy, as a chance to be healed. In so doing, we open our eyes to see the true light of the world, who is ever in our midst when we need Him. Amen.
Once again, the Anglican Bishop of Durham (home of my favorite cathedral), the Rt. Rev. Tom Wright. Here +Tom discusses his ideas on the afterlife. As it happens his concept of "afterlife" is much like my own, and is also strikingly similar to physicist Frank Tipler's conjectured Omega Point.
You may have heard about the ongoing firestorm regarding the speech by and BBC interview with ++Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Communion.
The thing is, this is a fascinating case of where both the press (feeding off the Beeb's initial report) and the blogosphere (kneejerk-reacting to the initial Beeb headlines) have got it all wrong, and are collectively creating the Himalayas out of a molehill. There are even calls for ++Rowan to resign for things he never said.
Here, for example, is an interesting comparison of the original Beeb article to a revision that appeared a mere ten minutes later:
Note how the message is subtly changed and the tone less sensationalist. But the initial article was enough to ignite a firestorm on the blogosphere long before anything even went to "press" in meatspace.
Here is another article examining the reaction and counter-reaction:
The problem is that the wire services picked up on the initial article and parroted it mindlessly without checking their sources or going to the original interview and lecture. Which, by the way, was immediately available on ++Rowan's website:
The thing is, what ++Rowan was saying was not that he advocated the introduction of sharia courts in Britain, or even that there should be parallel jurisdictions, and he certainly never meant that Muslims should have their own separate legal identity in Britain. Even his much-quoted word "inevitable" was shorn of its context and made to look like he wanted sharia introduced sooner rather than later.
But none of the subtlety of his attempt to start an honest, intelligent debate about religious law in a secular country came across. His reiteration of the rights of the individual and strong support of the common law were utterly ignored. Instead, verbal images of hands and heads being lopped off in English courtrooms made the rounds, nevermind that it had nothing to do with what he actually said.
What was even more astonishing was how the Times religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill -- who is widely read in Britain and Europe -- seemed to encourage it all, claiming in based on erroneous information in the Daily Telegraph that the Queen was going to dismiss him (which she can't, actually, and anyway she never criticized ++Rowan personally, but rather the ensuing brouhaha -- at least the Telegraph got that much right while getting other facts wrong) and perpetuating some of the other misquotes and distortions. But it sure attracted eyeballs to her blog, where she happily is leading the charge against him, going so far as to say "everyone knows what he said" while conveniently never, ever pointing people to his actual words (as I did above).
It gets better -- such as headlines claiming the Church of England General Synod is angry with him, but fail to mention that he got a standing ovation at his speech to the Synod (reported here).
Mind you, I'm not even arguing for or against what the Archbishop was suggesting. But it sure would be nice to debate what he said on its own merits -- and not based on the inane knee-jerk reactions to quotes taken out of context, or even outright lies.
As far as I am concerned, if I hear a news report, I don't trust anyone anymore. I don't care if it's CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, the BBC, the Economist, the New York Times, or any other publication. Go to the source and make up your own damned mind.
Who’s the bravest vicar in Britain? My money’s on Peter Owen Jones. No typical sherry-sipper, this man started as a farm labourer and ran a mobile disco on the side. He then moved into advertising, but heard the Call and became vicar of a parish in Cambridgeshire.
Now, 15 years later, he feels that the Church of England is too much a faith of the head and not enough a faith of the soul. So he set off on a quest in search of a more physical and mystical path to enlightenment, and we filmed it for the BBC.
Those of us who think the C of E has become a bit limp will applaud this man. First he goes to the Shaolin temple in the middle of China to endure a gruelling crash course in kung fu. He says: “It’s a place where one can attain spiritual enlightenment in the practice of extreme martial arts, which is about as physical as you can get. It is the expression of the divine within the physical.”
From the Shaolin temple we ventured to a remote mountain retreat to seek true Zen enlightenment through meditation. It was in this calmer but still physically arduous environment that his pilgrimage began to bear spiritual fruit. What impressed me was that this man was really hurting. I usually work on Dragons’ Den on BBC Two, and there the pain has to do with egos and cash. This was real physical endurance. By the time our journey ended in Egypt, where Pete spent three weeks in a cave, we were to see that very rare thing: a man living with his soul. Extreme Pilgrim, Friday at 9pm, BBC Two
You have been warned. Our Anglican-Shaolin priests will come and kick your unbelieving asses.
Unfortunately I never got a chance to write down my sermons from the last two months -- for All Saints' and Advent -- but here's the one I delivered at today's monthly service.
Happy birthday, Jesus! Let’s have a big birthday bash for our Lord! And look, there’s three Wise Men bringing presents!
Is that what’s going on in today’s Gospel? A birthday party? Or maybe a baby shower? One could be forgiven for thinking so, though one wonders just what a young couple with their first child would do with gold, incense and myrrh. The gold of course could be used to buy some diapers, but incense? Myrrh? How many people even know what myrrh is? And how do we know this baby, of all the babies ever born, is so special?
Fans of Monty Python will of course remember the Life of Brian, where the Wise Men knock on the wrong door and enter Brian’s stall, not Jesus’, and the mother is a bit perturbed by these three strange men barging in on her. She says to the wise men, »Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.« They protest that they must see the babe, that they are astrologers, travelers from the East. She tells them to »Go and praise someone else’s brat«, until they inform her they have presents, so she changes her mind, and is again perturbed when she finds out what the presents are. »Gold. Frankincense. Myrrh.« She asks »What is myrrh, anyway?«, and they tell her it’s a valuable balm, which she thinks is a furry animal that might bite her baby.
Of course, the beauty in this satire is that such a scene is more or less what many people think happened. Mary and Joseph are about to settle down for the night after having dealt with the shepherds showing up unannounced when three kings barge in with oddball presents for a baby. The problem is that the scene is torn from its context and a caricature of it has been fixed in people’s minds, so the deeper meaning is lost. (For one thing, we don’t actually know how many »kings« there were, and they weren’t kings, but Magi, wise men, learned ones.)
The Old Testament reading gives us a hint as to what is really going on. It says, »Arise, shine, your light has come!« and continues with the prophecy »They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.« This is Isaiah speaking, the prophet of the Israelites writing at a time of great peril and desperation for Israel, when Israel was beset on all sides by invaders and is badly divided amongst itself, wondering when Israel’s bondage and oppression and wars will end. He’s speaking of the Messiah, which means the Anointed One (just as the word »Christ« does), the Messiah being the person who will break those bonds and that will bring light and peace and hope into the darkness of our world.
These things take time. Making peace in this world takes time. Just imagine, Isaiah was writing around 750 years before Christ was born. And indeed the text of a Christmas chant makes the passage of time clear:
In the beginning God created the world. Billions of years had passed since our Sun and Earth came forth, millions of years since life arose on this Earth and humanity came into being, many thousands of years since tribes, peoples and cultures arose, two thousand and fifteen years since Abraham was born, one thousand five hundred and ten since Moses led Israel out of Egypt, one thousand twenty-three since the anointing of King David, in the hundred-ninety-fourth Olympiad, in the seven hundred fifty-second year after the foundation of Rome, in the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus, at that time all the Earth was at peace. It was then that Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the Father, desired to come into the world and sanctify it by His coming. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months after His conception He was born in Bethlehem in Judea, made man of the Virgin Mary. We celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in our own flesh.
That chant gives us another hint as to what’s going on in the Christmas season. It doesn’t sound much like a birthday party, does it? And it makes us feel pretty small compared to the vast sweep of time. Christmas isn’t about 2,000 years ago; it’s about millions and billions of years ago. And it’s about the years ahead of us, on the long road to the Kingdom of God.
The »presents« the Magi bring offer another hint. Gold is a present that was considered fit only for kings. Frankincense is a special kind of incense, a present only given to a High Priest, to be used in the Temple. And myrrh, that strange substance Brian’s mother couldn’t identify, is indeed a valuable balm – used for healing and was given to those who practiced medicine. So what the Magi were saying wasn’t »here’s a gift certificate for diapers and while we're at it a free pacifier« or even »your baby’s a Capricorn that will be prudent and wise and patient and all that«. They were hailing this baby as being the King of Kings, the High Priest, and the healing Savior who will, with time, heal all the wounds of this world. Those three gifts are a profound symbol of the meaning of Christ’s birth.
So where was Christ born? Well, in the literal sense He was born in Bethlehem in a manger, but as the Logos, the Son in the Trinity, he of course was never »born« like you and me; He always existed, even before Time itself. Christmas 2,000 years ago was just the point where He entered our world. And Christmas today is thus not an anniversary or a birthday; It’s a rebirth, a birth in ourselves, in our hearts, so that step by step, generation for generation, we fulfill the promise of peace Christ brings us. That’s the real present this Christmas. Amen.
I mentioned it briefly in FK's blog about the controversy surrounding the Golden Compass series, but I thought I would mention it here more explicitly. The Telegraph has an interview with Archbishop Rowan Williams and Philip Pullman, the author of the Golden Compass series and avowed atheist.
My favorite exchange from the interview (regarding mythology in the Easter passion):
PP: But doesn't the audience have to know that it is the skull of Adam [at the foot of the cross]? It doesn't come with a label saying Adam's skull, look. So this depends on a sort of shared knowledge?
RW: It depends on a sort of induction into how it all works. Likewise, I was going to mention in the Eastern Orthodox church, how do you show the resurrection? Well you can't actually show the resurrection, because if you try to show Jesus rising from the tomb, you end up with some of those rather embarrassingly awful Renaissance pictures of a sort of luminous figure bouncing out of the tomb on clouds and lots of people sitting around looking rather surprised.
The rest of the interview is like that -- well worth a read (and a chuckle). It's also refreshing to see two people have a friendly (and generous) debate.
