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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.
The following is translated from German – I mention that because there are a few spots where the phrases don't translate well into English. This was the sermon I gave yesterday when I was subbing for our priest, who's on a trip this week.
I don't know who of you likes to work in the garden or in the fields, but if so, then today's readings are just for you. The opening hymn, Morning Has Broken, fits this theme. All that's missing are the chirping of birds and perhaps as a Communion hymn the "Morning Mood" from the Peer Gynt suite.
Today we hear about seeds, sprouts, blooms and grains. That all has something to say, a mystical meaning, a message for us. Unfortunately for us modern people, we tend to associate different things with gardening: mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, pulling weeds, maybe spray against bugs. It's all about appearances, largely a façade for the neighbors – so that everyone in the neighborhood knows that no slobs live here.
But that's not at all what is meant in the readings. Most people today in Europe or North America no longer have a close connection to Mother Earth. Gardens are a thing of hobbies or for show. Tilling the fields is just a thing for farmers, while we go and buy our food at the supermarket. Fresh food from the garden is uncommon, sometimes even a burden: anyone with a friend who gardens will no doubt be showered with extra zucchinis and apples and cherries until you can't stand them anymore. But our existence certainly doesn't depend on it.
Back then, in Jesus' time, it was different. The overwhelming majority of people had to till the fields so that they had anything to eat. Even those who did not have to work in the fields were intimately aware of the work required and how it was going. Everyone knew if the harvest was good: you couldn't just go and get bananas from Central America or apples from Spain or asparagus from Greece. If the harvest wasn't good, you went hungry, and everyone else you knew did, too. In times of starvation, whosoever didn't grab a farming tool didn't eat.
Whoever works in their garden today thus only gets a tiny inkling of the enormous labor required to get nourishment from the fields. For tilling the soil is of necessity communal work. Alone, one can't sow the seeds, milk the cows, cut the fruit trees, and so on. Out in the fields, community is necessary, even vital. It's no coincidence that the earliest mighty civilizations – Egypt, for example – crystallized around agriculture. The first states – the first societies capable of survival – were primarily for encouraging and managing agriculture, and were made possible by agriculture's own existence.
Society itself is like a plant. It needs a bit of "tender loving care", as we say in English. It needs love. Plants may not think, but they need love anyway. Whosoever cares most for his plants will bear the greatest fruit.
I hear from some people that it's not necessary to go to church every Sunday, that the institution of church itself is a load of crap, that they feel turned off by organized religion (which sounds rather like "organized crime", and maybe intentionally). Such people like to say that nature is their church.
What the images in today's readings show us, however, is the exact opposite. Nature, life itself, needs community to flourish and grow. Whosoever cares most for his plants will bear the greatest fruit. Whosoever works most in the fields will reap the greatest harvest. Nature needs this care, this attention, this work so that it is useful to us. Society benefits when we all work together.
Further, it's of course the case that we can "meet God" anywhere in the world, whether in church or on the highest mountain or the deepest valley. But the question is rather, how and where can I most likely meet and experience God?
It is perhaps the case that Nature can be a church. But the truth is, society – the Church – is our nature.
In the community – communion – we celebrate Nature, and indeed our nature. Just as the individual can't bring nature to its fullest flower without the community, so too can one not bring oneself to the fullest flower without community. Naturally I get annoyed with things in the church's institutions. You have no idea how angry I get about the church, whether it's the recent vote on female bishops in the Church of England, or the fighting over our own central common funding scheme, or the latest pronouncements from Rome or Constantinople or Moscow. Nevertheless this community is vital for finding our own fulfillment, so that our nature finds its fulfillment – so that the Kingdom of God gets ever closer. It begins by going to church on Sunday, but also must continue with deaconry and social welfare, personally caring for others while also donating to worthy causes. It's work. Back-breaking work even. But if we want to reap the harvest, we have to till the fields.
In nature's fields, we are ourselves the seeds. We need this attention, this tender loving care. We bloom ourselves. The celebration of Holy Communion is an important part of this care, where we both in a mystical as well as literal sense water and feed ourselves, so that we can be a rich harvest.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Whosoever cares most for his plants will bear the greatest fruit. If we love one another and work for and with one another, then the harvest will be truly great. Amen.
Today I had to run the church service once again (this seems to be habit-forming). As it happens we use the Roman Catholic lectionary used in Germany, but with a few minor modifications, and sometimes if the translation is a tad blatantly sexist (such as using "Brothers" instead of "Brothers and sisters" in the Epistles), then we either modify the text accordingly, or more rarely, use a different translation.
Today was one of those days -- the epistle was littered with pretty obviously masculine choices for translating what in the original are more neutral terms. The person I asked to do the readings, a friend who is also Gloriana's godmother, is a bit strongly on the feminist side of things. She is also rather short. I asked her to do the readings when she arrived before the services, she noted that the lesson's translation was rather over the top, grimaced, and asked if she could use another translation. I said sure, which one do you want. She asked for the "Bibel in gerechter Sprache" (the name doesn't translate well, but more or less means "Bible in gender-neutral language" -- yes, it's a politically correct Bible ). I said, not really my cup of tea, but if that's what you want, there is a copy in the sacristy.
She went in, then cleared her throat loudly at me and waved me into the sacristy with a sheepish look on her face. I came in, she pointed at a high shelf where the book was perched, and asked me if I could get it for her.
I grinned and said that there was something delicious about a woman having to ask a man to get her a feminist Bible.
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.
I mentioned before about how our parish is likely going to have a full-body baptismal pool, rather like the ones in early churches (such as at Ephesus).
Yesterday at church I suggested we have a slogan:
"The Old Catholics. We baptize until the bubbles stop."
Our rector is currently on vacation, so yesterday it fell to me to plan and run the Sunday service in German. Here is a translation of the sermon I delivered. It has more or less the same starting point as the previous one because of the way the lectionary works.
In the readings in the Bible, we are confronted repeatedly with imagery that is clearly intended to illustrate the Christian message. The image that is perhaps most common is that of a journey: Abraham and Sarah leaving their homeland in what's now Iraq to go to Canaan, today's Israel; Noah and his Ark; Moses and the tribes of Israel on the way from Egypt back to the Holy Land; Mary and Joseph searching for a place to sleep, or indeed the Wise Men from the East searching for the newborn Jesus; Jesus wandering for forty days and forty nights through the wilderness.
In those times where Israel was held captive, whether in exile in Babylon or in Egypt, its people longed to go on a journey, back into their homeland, back into God's embrace.
In today's Gospel, we see this again. Jesus speaks of "lost sheep". For us today, that image isn't so pregnant as it was for people of those days, because most of us don't experience firsthand what a shepherd does. Most people, I think, have an image of the shepherd sitting there on a grassy hill watching over his flock. But shepherds rarely sit still. Mostly they are in constant motion, from one meadow to the next, and they have to pay great attention that all stay together -- for protection, for a feeling of safety. So Jesus asks the Twelve to find the lost sheep in His name and bring them back, so that all -- so that we -- can walk the same path together.
The psalm also mentions this idea: "we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture". Each of us is a sheep, and each of us sometimes gets lost or leaves the way -- we go in the wrong direction, separate ourselves from others and from the group that provides us protection and comfort. We have a word for that: sin. Sin is that which separates us from God, but also from each other.
Paul has the solution for us, but also a reminder. He notes that we human beings are not normally ready to stick out our necks for others. We don't like to sacrifice ourselves and seek first and foremost our own advantage. We do, however, have an example that leads us back together: Jesus Christ, who made the ultimate sacrifice, His own life. He did it so that we could reconcile ourselves -- so that we learn to get along; so that we learn to overcome our differences. And sometimes it's necessary that we forgive ourselves, so that we can forgive others and reconcile. When we are enemies of each other, we are enemies of God.
When we have problems with one another, it's very, very hard to admit our own error. That is a sacrifice that very few are willing to make. We lose face, or so we think. But in reality it is a thing that brings release and relief, just as it brings release and relief to admit our own sin. We say casually "nobody's perfect", but we don't take those words to heart. We can't manage to reconcile ourselves to others if we can't bring ourselves to admit our own faults clearly and openly -- and then the other is more willing to do the same.
So that we come together, whether it's in the family, at work, or indeed in ecumenism, we must all make sacrifices so that true community and reconciliation can take place. Holier-than-thou fingerpointing may feel good at first, but it doesn't really help us at all.
This is why we have to learn to accept and deal with the idea of sin. We don't like to admit error, certainly not in public. It's embarrassing. Others make fun of us. But it takes courage -- the courage to admit our faults and to work on them, to improve ourselves for the future, without harping on (or even noticing) the faults of others. Once we forgive ourselves, forgive our friends and neighbors, and reconcile ourselves to one another and with God, we can fulfill the mission given us by Christ in today's Gospel: go to the lost sheep of Israel, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God is near. For when we do this, the Kingdom comes ever nearer. 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.
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.
In our church's newspaper, there is a blurb (annoyingly without names or references) reporting about a 35-year-old woman in Munich who was pregnant with her first child.
During the pregnancy, she was diagnosed with cancer. She had the choice of aborting the baby and getting chemotherapy...or sacrificing herself so the baby would live.
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.
A Delaware school district has agreed to revise its policies on religion as part of a settlement with two Jewish families who had sued over the pervasiveness of Christian prayer and other religious activities in the schools.
One family said it was forced to leave its home in Georgetown because of an anti-Semitic backlash.
Sadly, further evidence that my fellow Christians can be remarkable numbskulls.
). I said, not really my cup of tea, but if that's what you want, there is a copy in the sacristy.
