+Z’ev

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks

Today’s assigned readings:
Genesis 9:18-29, Hebrews 6:1-12, John 3:22-36

The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.
John 3:31-36

Who says this? Is this intended to be attributed to John the Baptist (as some hold) or is this the author of the Gospel speaking? Is this a recording of a Catechetical commentary on some sayings, as some hold; or some other commentary from the Johannine community? Or, to allow for the most traditional reading, is this the Holy Spirit dictating some important theology into John’s pen?

How do we weave our personal midrash into this text if we can not be sure what the text was?

The Wiki article on the Gospel documents a whole series of differences between John and the other three Gospels. What do these differences mean? Why are they there? What differences were there between this community or this author and the sources of the other texts? (As an aside, some read the Gospel of John to be the most anti-Semitic, and others see it as the least.)

Do we need - at all! - to know what this text was or is the most important reality what it is to us now?

I spent the early part of this morning (from about 5AM until sunrise prayers) packing. I’ve got a week or so left to pack. I’m ok. This AM I tackled the prayer area in the living room. It’s changed a lot in recent years, but one thing that hasn’t changed is in the top left corner: I had a stash of Blessed Bread (antidoron) that I had collected from my days at Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco. In some ways I treated these as “relics” of my priest there - Fr Victor died a couple of spring times ago. But they were, really, blessed bread: just that. Nothing more. Yes, Fr V had touched them. But I can’t say much else. What had really happened is that I forgot to eat them in the week time after I received them (5 years ago) and now, they were simply white rocks of baked flour. I’d checked several times: they never moulded. Today, even, I nibbled one, it tasted stale, yes, but, apart from the crunchiness, nothing was wrong. Well, except for the fact that I should have 5 year old bread in my house.

I took them outside and now (9Am as I write) I’m watching the squirrels and birds duke it out.

I may shortly decide that I can do the same thing to the Pascha Egg that Fr J demanded we keep instead of break a couple of Easters ago.

What are these stale blessed items? They are unusable now. Piety has made them into useless dead things.

At St Gregory of Nyssa Church, following the service of the word, we would all dance (in a very organised line step) from our seats near the preacher up to the open space around the Table. As we went we sang a hymn and kept our hands on the shoulder in front of us: right, left, right, back; right, left, right, back; right, left, right, back. Far from being some kind of conga line, the visual effect was one of a mass of people swaying forward. In my memories of the experience I am reminded mostly of what the Israelites must have looked like crossing the Sea in awe and fear - everyone hold hand so as not to get lost! And sing! “Mi Kamocha Adonai? Me Kamocha b’Elim!” Who is like you YHVH? Who is like you among the gods?

When we got to the Table (the other side of the sea) there, like on Sinai, we wove again our covenant with each other, with the Holy One, with life itself. It was the same thing over again, but it was also something very new, something that would last until the next time we danced. In our dance we wove God into ourselves: the pattern was always the same, but it changed as often as our clothes, our lives.

In the Orthodox Church I experienced a few *very* good preachers - most especially my priest, the late Victor Sokolov (Memory Eternal!). I learned from them - just as much from the liberal sort of preachers I reference on a more regular basis - that it’s not the text that is important. Rather it is the Presence of God, active in our lives that matters. The text is an opening for that Presence, but it is not the Presence itself. The various patristic, ecclesial, critical and homiletic commentaries are also openings for that Presence. But they are not the Presence itself.

We learned in those sermons that we must, every time, dance again in the text. It’s meaningless otherwise, a dead bit of bread that is no longer holy, but only stale and useless for all but the birds and squirrels.

I think it’s important to see the Biblical Text not as some kind of finished product or fait accompli but rather as an open invitation to take our stories and dance them into the Gospel. And, of course, as we do that the Gospel dances into our lives.

But it changes.

“whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath”

Is this still part of our dance? Or, is this a comment from Jesus-following Jews woven into their dance in the same way that non-Jesus following Jews wove this into their liturgy:

And for slanderers [sectarians] let there be no hope, and may all the evil in an instant be destroyed and all Thy enemies be cut down swiftly; and the evil ones uproot and break and destroy and humble soon in out days. Blessed art You, LORD, who breaks down ememies and humbles sinners.

How do we weave today, when we feel a newer connexion? Or do we? What is the dance we use?

Much love,

Huw