+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
AM: Job 42:1-6, 1 Peter 1:3-9
PM: Isaiah 43: 8-13, John 14:1-7

Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble. Who among them declared this, and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them, and let them hear and say, “It is true.” You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
Isaiah 43:8-10

Today’s feast celebrates Thomas, rather famously called “Doubting Thomas” because of the words credited to him, demanding to see Jesus personally and to touch him, before Thomas would believe in the Resurrection.

It seems that doubt would be a fine place to start.

Jesus has not only room for doubters in his movement, he specifically commissions them for work. Look in the 28th Chapter of Matthew, where “they worship him but some doubted”. Jesus gives them all - even the doubters - the Great Commission. He does so without doctrinal tests or theological purity exams. He simply sends them all out to be evangelists. So also, God has a place for doubters. Look in today’s readings, where “the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears” are made - without demand for change or remodelling - to be God’s witnesses, and, collectively, God’s servant.

I do like to resolve doubt. I live doubt to be cleaned up in all areas. I like certainty. When offered divinely revealed answers, some part of me tends to roll over and play dead.

Increasingly (at the age of 43) I’m beginning to see that Certainty, far from “faith”, is in fact a form of “Control Issues”. A child can be certain that Santa will bring toys and that “Jesus loves the little Children”; that plus a few other rules (Don’t talk to strangers, be seen and not heard) make life rather easily manageable. But those rules promptly fall by the wayside. There is neither a tooth fairy nor a Santa Clause and God, at least, wants you talking to strangers a lot. The more mature you get the more of those certainties you have to let go of.

What I’ve noticed in myself is an odd cycle of doubt, leading into fear, followed by a demand for certainty - usually centred on “rules”. I did this a few years ago, when I converted to Orthodoxy.

I was visiting with the vocations committee at my Episcopal Parish. My whole life’s purpose was (in my own head) being called into question, called into doubt by the meetings with this committee. Mostly I’m still not sure what they were looking for. But ok. In the midst of all that doubt - which was focused on my own self - I was also participating in online discussions with other Episcopalians on their way into or just out of seminary. Everyone was expressing doubts, uncertainties, fears. Increasingly I became certain that there was a right way, damn it all to do this thing called Christianity. So… rather than face the chaos I was invoking upon myself (I, after all, asked for help discerning my vocation) I ran away. Orthodoxy - and a hyper-conservative form of it, at that - became my model.

I wrote essays lashing out at my “former” friends. One Sunday, flying home to SF from a visit with the folks and in the midst of a relationship breaking up - with a man that lived with me, in my own apartment, causing chaos all over my world - I wrote an angry, fearful essay that became quite famous, actually. I even got paid to have it published.

Fitting into the theological and moral box I’d made for myself I was inflicting my own idea of order on those around me.

The next stage in the cycle is claustrophobia and release. And I found myself boxed in, spiritually abused and falling in love - which ended the entire rules thing (for a time, anyway).

I like rules and certainties in relationships, in jobs, and in my home life.

But one thing I’ve learned in my own life - especially in my friendships and romances - is that if I fix the chaos, demand sameness, insist on “certain rules” to be followed, then I’m not relating to the other person/people as they are in themselves. I am, in fact, relating to me - and attempting to clone myself into the other person(s).

I’ve also learned that the cast majority of people are like me. They like order, structure, rules, allegiance. There are a few collections of people who, pardon me, think different. They are usually called things like “Cultural Creatives” or some such catch phrase. They are usually far away from “traditional societies” as we categorise such things. If you will, they are Postmodernism-as-culture. But that’s too much of a label, right there. I usually find myself falling in love with these people, either romantically or platonically. But still, a large majority of people in the world are more traditional, more boxed in by rules and craving more (not less) “order and decency.”

These are not the people that God wants. God loves them all, yes. I have no doubt about that. But when he wants something done he calls on the people that “are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears” to be his witnesses. He has named this people “Israel” - wrestles with God.

In her better moments and manifestations the Church is also called Israel and she lives up to the title. But the church, too, succumbs to the all-to-human desire for uniformity: confusing adherence to creeds and dogmas with the Kingdom of God, becoming in her turn people who “are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears”. Increasingly it seems that “faith” is not the opposite of “doubt” but really a vital component of it. I’m going to mix some metaphors here, sorry: in the midst of chaos, one must step off the brink without knowing where the safety net is. That step is faith: it happens *because* of doubt and through doubt. Not to fix doubt or stop it or even over come it. But only in the real presence of doubt can any faithful thing be done.

But the People of God have cultural creatives too and they know that wrestling is far better than rolling over and playing dead.

Shabbat Shalom!

Huw

Today’s assign readings:
Zephaniah 3:1-13, 1 Peter 2:11-25, Matthew 20:1-16

But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
Matthew 20:13-15

This is one of my favourite parables. I’ve usually heard this preached along the lines of “who you see in heaven will surprise you.”

Equally, I’ve heard it debated as such. The meaning seems to come off as “While we’ll be in heaven, those folks over there might also get in.” This is probably my own projection more than anything else, but the conversation usually sounds like, “We’re right - and they might be, or maybe they’re close enough for God not to care.” This is why Roman Catholics call the rest of us “ecclesial communities”. We’re not right, but maybe we’re close enough that God doesn’t care.

This is why, in my blogs, all of us - including the Romans - are called “Ecclesial Communities”. Not a one of us is right, but maybe we’re close enough… (and adding under my breath that if any of us are wrong, we’re probably all wrong).

I’ve sometimes heard (and meant, myself) “well, it doesn’t matter how much work you do, God will salve you anyway…” (*Heavy Sigh* as if to imply, he’s a damn good God to save the likes of you.)

But I’m interested in see this as an invitation - a reaching out. Instead of being about the first servant who gets pissy (which can be read to be about Jewish attitudes to Gentile converts) I want to see it as being about the last servants, hired at 5pm - pretty close to quitting time. And the days wages? Eucharist - not “Salvation” or “Eternal Life”.

The Kingdom of God - that is the Church - is supposed to be like this. Nowhere does it show up more triumphantly than in the Paschal Homily of St John Chrysostom, preached every year on the Steps of St Gregory of Nyssa Church at Easter (and in some other places). Most clearly I heard it my first year there, coming from the lips of a very tall man who proclaimed it as if he were a Baptist Preacher.

If anyone has laboured from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let him keep the feast. If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; for he shall suffer no loss. If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near without hesitation. If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let him not fear on account of his delay. For the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has laboured from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious. He both honours the work and praises the intention.

God both “honours the work and praises the intention”. The men standing idle in the parable are there “Because no one has hired us.” You’d expect to hear “because we are unworthy” or “because no one will pay us enough” or “maybe because we’re drunk”. Instead it’s because no one has invited them.

How many are not workers for God’s Kingdom because no one has invited them - or else how many have left because they were made to feel unwelcomed once they got “in”?

All the boundaries we’ve set up to working in the vineyard: God only asks a response to his invite.

Much love,

Huw

Commemoration of Kamehameha and Emma

Today’s assigned readings:
Obadiah 1:15-21, 1 Peter 2:1-10, Matthew 19:23-30

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10

The Priesthood of All Believers is one of those ironic doctrines: the Low Church folks put a lot of faith in the doctrine - but generally they don’t have a need for priests (they deny the need for sacraments). The High Church folks truly understand the priestly function, but they give the doctrine by lip service, because they have concentrated priestly function in a separate class of, well, priests. I think all of this arises from a confusion of the priestly role (of everyone) with the managerial and teaching role of the Elder - the Presbyter. The Low Church folks, having done away with the sacramental functions of the faith are left with a Pastor/Manager. The High Church folks give us the Priestly Administrator.

As something to compare these to, I bring my experience in other religions. Many religions have a priestly class, but equally they have priestly functions among the believers: for ancient Pagans some sacrifices were offered in the temples but others were offered at the home and these by the head of the house. The father (usually) served as priest in loco and this has carried over into Judaism and Christianity in some ways (the Father blessing Children on the Sabbath in Judaism or before bedtime in Eastern Orthodoxy). But it has not carried over in other ways: I’ve not heard of any Head of the House being encouraged to preside at Eucharist.

Given that is the primary function of the Christian Priesthood, that is exactly what I would expect the Head of the House in her roll as convener of the household table. This even if when the entire community gathered, there was a “presbyterial class” to convene the community.

I’ve quoted here, often enough, the teaching of Alexander Schmemann that all Christians are to stand as priest, offering the world back to God in a great Eucharistic sacrifice. But Schmemann would reserve a celebration of the Eucharist, itself, to someone who had been ordained - and not just any ordination: only those ordained to the priesthood, by a Bishop within Apostolic succession can preside at the “real” Eucharist.

Of course, in another way of looking, the Liturgy of the Eucharist is only a type and shadow of the Real Eucharist that all of us must perform in life at every turn.

Which thought, having occurred to me, has undone pretty much everything else I wanted to write on this topic. I’m so used to thinking of Church as the END ALL/BE ALL. Life goes to Church. What if, in fact, it’s the other way around? I see the Greek words, rendered in the NRSV as “proclaim the mighty acts”, mean to publish abroad the virtue, the “Arte” of God. In otherwords, our priesthood is not in standing around the altar. That’s just Sunday School. OUr actions are in the world.

Anyway: I’ve raised all the questions I want to raise, although my own exploration brought me to a place that surprised and derailed me.

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:

Nahum 1:1-13, 1 Peter 1:13-25, Matthew 19:13-22

Then someone came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to Jesus, “Which ones?”
Matthew 19:16-18a

Which ones?

That’s what we all want to know, huh? I mean we want Jesus - or anyone, really - to tell us the exact minimum needed for advancement. As a Religion Geek with a modicum of OCD - or else the hyper-exacting focus that comes with Asperger Syndrome - I enjoy knowing where the bar is. I want to be perfect at it, as well. One of the fun things about Orthodoxy (in any religion) is there is no minimum: if it’s a rule, do it. Thus when I was Eastern Orthodox I had trouble discerning between things one does “Because God…” and things one does if one wants/needs/can. If someone told me of a given rule, I just did it (for a time). Then, of course, I broke down and became Angry. You can only take on so much: you must prostrate, you must venerate, you must fast, you must… stop.

One of my favourite stories of Fr Victor Sokolov, of Blessed Memory, who was my priest, has me asking him how to do the Advent Fast. The “basic” fasting rule of Orthodoxy is to abstain from all animal products (land or sea) as well as oil. While we say it is essentially vegan, there are some oddities: like shell fish are allowed, even though other water creatures are not. It is assumed that everyone is doing the “basic” fasting. But then comes the variations for Saints’ Feasts, etc. One day may allow fish wine and oil, while the next may only allow wine and oil. And then there are questions one can ask: does “wine” mean all alcohol or only just wine? I’ve been told that Beer is always allowed. Does “oil” mean only olive oil or all oils? Can you have soy “fake meat” or is that just a cultural compromise? So I was looking at a calendar and I turned to Fr V and said, “How should I fast at Advent?” He flipped through the calendar, looking at numerous days marked “Full Abstinence”, “Wine and Oil”, “Fish Wine and Oil”, etc. He said, “This is for monks.” And sat it down. “Does watching the news make you angry?” Yes, I said. “Then stop watching the news!”

Of course, I promptly stopped watching the news and threw away all the meat in my house and I inflicted both my fasts (news and animals) on my boyfriend and anyone else that I could. I remember sitting at the office Christmas Party and enjoying the delicious guilt that comes from stressing over a menu on which *nothing* fits the rules.

Which rules?

The young man was asking, essentially, a rabbinical sort of question. Rabbi A might say some things are important. Rabbi B might have another list. But the thing about Christianity and Judaism is not that one must do everything all at once. They are ladders, steps to perfection; a perfection most of us never reach in this life time.

But all of the saints - Jewish and Christian - bring us to the same thing. Love God, love your neighbour as you love yourself. The saints of both traditions even said that the latter half was more important for the neighbour is here and now. In fact, God sent the neighbour your way exactly to teach you to love. To love the neighbour is to love God.

Jesus walks us up the steps in the verses today: If you’re keeping all the commandments that Jesus mentioned in verses 18-19, well then the punch line in verse 21 makes perfect sense. You are trained in the love required to not-steal and not-adulter, etc, well then giving up everything you own is the next step in love.

In his classic work, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, author Richard Bach has Jonathan teach his students starting with level flight. All his students (fellow seagulls) want to do flips and loops and speed flight. But Jonathan insists on teaching them level flight first. When he dies, he passes on the teaching responsibility to his student Fletcher. The book ends as Fletcher says, “Let’s start with Level Flight…”

In a true and mystical way, Jesus starts with the same. The commands Jesus quotes are all about how we treat our neighbour. We don’t take his life. We don’t take his spouse. We don’t take his stuff. We love him - even if he is our parents. And when you have succeeded in all of that, love them even more: sell everything and go live among them yourself. Become one of them. Jesus will show us the real meaning of love.

Eastern Christianity sees this as a synergy. You learn the steps: you move gradually along the way of perfect, participating in your own salvation. This is “working out your salvation in fear and trembling.” So also some Jewish teachers see the mitzvot, the commandments, as a ladder. You take on the mitzvot one at a time: today you give up shrimp. Tomorrow you worry about cheeseburgers. Later we’ll talk about keeping your head covered or wearing ritual clothing when praying. Each Mitzvot, each act of participating with the Holy One in making your own life holy, is an act of gradual purification that, as St Peter says, leads upward to love:

Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.

1 Peter 1:22

But you don’t start there. You can’t get to be perfect love, perfect truth, perfect God of perfect God without growing up a good bit first.

Let’s start with level flight.

Much love,

Huw

Today’s Assigned Readings:
Joel 3:1-2,9-17, 1 Peter 1:1-12, Matthew 19:1-12

The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake. But the Lord is a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. So you shall know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.
Joel 3:16-17

I was sitting in Mass yesterday, listening to Fr Brent preach on the Gospel of Christ the King - which passage tells only of how Jesus was crucified, with the paper tacked over his head, “King of the Jews”. It’s a telling picture for a king. Fr B went on about all the things we expect a king to do. Jesus didn’t do them. At all.

Yesterday I cited some problems that Jewish Rabbis have with the claim that this guy, Jesus, is the Messiah. The main one is the idea that “Moshiach Ben David” would establish God’s kingdom, here on earth. The Church counters with the idea that that kingdom has come. This idea is most clearly expressed (I think) in John Michael Talbot’s Behold Now the Kingdom:

A multitude followed a man, a prophet, who spoke words of wisdom
And they listened trying to understand the paradox of His great truth.

Blessed by those who are poor for you shall inherit the kingdom
And blessed be those who are weak for you shall inherit great strength.
Blessed be those who are children for you shall be counted as wise.
And blessed be the blindman for you shall see with new eyes.

Behold now the Kingdom, See with new eyes.
Bessed be those of compassion for you shall inherit compassion.
And blessed be those who forgive, for you shall be forgiven.
You shall receive consolation only in reaching to give.
And only in dying for others can you be reborn to live.

(I would suggest the 1980 album, “The Painter,” in its entirety for your Advent Meditations.)

It’s that call that we “See with new eyes” that stresses out not only Jewish Folks, but also a lot of Christians. The Jews who expected Messiah to re-establish, essentially, the Hasmonean Kingdom in perpetuity are no different that those Christians who expect Messiah to establish and protect for ever the Kingdom of Byzantium, Serbia, Russia or America.

But that’s where I stumbled yesterday at Mass. Fr B wasn’t talking about establishing a political Kingdom, of course. He was talking about the same images that John Michael Talbot sings: compassion, weakness, justice, wisdom of Children. These are not the things that win us political power. But these are the things that many (not all!!!!) Jews and Christians talk about.

“God spoke to me in thunder and lightening,” Grace Galindez-Gupana said. “The Lord said, ‘Make the flag of Israel, the standard of my people.’”

So she made the world’s largest flag. Sigh… how much money - and how many poor could that have fed? How much good? But no, the decision to image that God is really concerned with political affairs costs money - not only for flags, but also in taxes and time. And we can use political allegiance to isolate our brothers and sisters as well. Joel pits Israel against the entire world.

For I see a marked difference in the God shown in Joel 3:16-17, on the one hand, and the God shown in John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The salvation of the entire world - which all has become God’s people. (Some Christians turn this on its head and say that the Church has become Israel…)

Or am I too Gnostic?

The good thing about Judaism and about Christianity, properly understood, is it’s call for Justice. That is a Here-and-Now thing, not a “Pie in the Sky By and Bye” thing. Judaism and Christianity focus on the just treatment of persons by persons with the assumption that this will trickle up to the government. But even if it never does the interpersonal relationship are the ones that are important. The kingdom has nothing to do with Governments that are not headed by God (ie, not the USA, Russia, Greece or Israel) so we have to manifest the Kingdom in our homes and workplaces, in our bedrooms and our shopping trips. It’s this that makes our souls whole: connecting in God’s kingdom with others. Peter even goes so far as to make this wholeness, this salvation a continual process of our faith: “you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Or it’s not at all real.

Joel’s idea that “Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it: can be seen in three ways:

Politically, it can be a code-red terror alert.
Religiously, it can be so pure that, like Mecca and Roman Catholic and Orthodox Communion only the right sort are allowed anywhere near it.

Given the context of the passage either of these make sense.

But Spiritually, it can mean there are no strangers any more - for all are one in God’s kingdom.

I realised, sitting in Mass, why it is I’m attracted to Reconstructionist Judaism and Christianity with their focus on the Justice of Now - which is far more than liturgical piety or laws about pork. I realised why it is that I’m not attracted to anything about orthodoxies other than their cool religious technologies: icons, tallitim, candles, yarmulkes. In this world those things *tend* to be seen as a mark of someone arriving on the scene to make a judgement call and label some good and some evil.

I wish we lived in a world where those things were the mark of someone arriving to do Justice, love Mercy and walk humbly with God.

What can I do today to make that so?

Much love,

Huw