+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:

Wisdom 13:1-9; Romans 13:1-14; Luke 8:16-25.

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
Luke 8:19-21

Define “hearing the word of God and doing it.”

“Word” here is “logos” - with all the levels of Hellenic thought behind “logos” just like in John. (It doesn’t need to be “Jesus” as I implied yesterday. On second thought the presence of the “Logos of God” is powerful with or without teaching that Jesus is that. And here Jesus is speaking. Would he have said such of himself, I don’t know.)

The word rendered “it” might just as easily be translated as “him”.

But the word “do” now… that’s the word “poieo”, ποιεω. It means to create or perform, or even to write poetry.

“Hear the Logos of God and perform him in your life - write the Logos of into the Poetry of your life.”

It’s like St James, Jesus brother, says in his epistle: Be doers of the word. Like it says in the top left, underneath “Christ is Risen!”: Be poets of the Logos.

How?

Jesus blows his 1st century culture out of the water… his first obligation as an unmarried man, as the oldest son, was to his (we assume widowed) mother and family. Jesus says, “No”. In another place he won’t even let a man go bury his father - a primary mitzvah to accompany the dead. Jesus takes all the normal family duties of 1st century Jewish life and turns them on their head. Even here - “Hey, yer Mom’s outside!” A good Southern Boy (or a good Jewish Boy) would be outside lickity split. Not Jesus: “Who ever hears the word of God and does it is my mother.” So a simple guess - doing the word of God = following the commandments - nope. Jesus says that’s not it.

St Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, I think, gets us someplace - let’s say half way. His view point is slightly skewed by his apocalyptic fervour and his Jewish roots. He seems to think the world’s about to end so he doles out some commandments: Pay your taxes, obey the king, don’t cause any trouble and make no provision for the flesh. Later the Church will have to pretend that St Paul was talking Christian morals and not Mistaken Apocalypse. That’s one way to react. But St Paul does hit on something important: Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. This is good Rabbinic teaching that he, no doubt, learned at the feet of Gamaliel. He’s wrestling with this as much as we are invited to do: what does it mean to be doing the word?

Love fulfils the law… How do we write the poetry of God’s logos into our lives? Sometimes it might be as easy as saying hello. For some it might mean starting a food pantry and realising one’s mission. For folks like Leonardo Boff, it could mean walking away from a Church that turns her back on the poor.

I visited an Episcopal Church a couple of weeks ago. The place was full. Communion took forever. My friend and I were handed a bulletin when we entered and someone shook our hand when we left. That was it for personal contact. We get more contact in an Orthodox Church where no one talks at all before the service - because of the lunch that happens after liturgy. But there wasn’t even a coffee hour. No one came up to us to say “ooo, strangers?” It felt very bizarre to, basically, walk in, take some bread and wine and then leave. I’m giving them a second chance at some point in the future because it can’t be that bad! Maybe something was happening that day.

Another visit, to a second Church, this past Sunday: 8 AM at the local Anglo-Catholic place. There’s an irony there because all of the folks who founded the Orthodox mission parish to which I used to belong were all former members of that Episcopal church. People said good morning to me as I walked in. After Mass - which was conducted in a surprisingly informal way for an Anglo-Catholic parish - there was no one shaking hands at the door so I ambled off to my scooter, parked down the block. The priest came out the front door and tracked me down to shake my hand, to welcome me, to invite me back.

That little bit of love, that tiny hospitable action made all the difference in the world. It fulfilled all the law.

I can’t pass up this one thing even though it mayn’t have anything to do with the main point…

For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator. Yet these people are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him. For while they live among his works, they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful.
Wisdom 13:5-7

If you want intelligent design, there it is. But I like how the writer goes easy on those who are “seeing God and desiring to find him.” Even though the very next verse is “they are not to be excused…” he does admit, “They are little to be blamed.” But maybe it does have something to do with the point: that little bit of love shown to the creation - does that fulfil the law?

Glory to God for all things - or as today’s saint, Gregory Nazianzus, says, “All that is prays to you.” And the psalmist says, “In wisdom have you made them all.”