+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
Amos 9:11-15, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3,13-17, John 5:30-47

Jesus is speaking: Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?
John 5:45-47

Gaudete Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent in the Christian calendar. The term Gaudete is broadly translated from Latin as Rejoice, a word that appears in the entrance antiphon (introit) of Masses held on this day:

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete: modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione petitiones vestrae innotescant apud Deum.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious over anything; but in all manner or prayer, let your requests be made known unto God.

It is also called “Rose Sunday” because on Gaudete Sunday rose coloured vestments may be worn instead of blue (in Anglican tradition, violet in other western rites) which is prescribed for every day in the season of Advent. In churches which have an Advent wreath, the rose coloured candle is lit in addition to two of the blue coloured candles which represent the first two Sundays of Advent. During the otherwise penitential season of Advent, the readings on the third Sunday emphasize the joyous anticipation of the Lord’s coming.

It’s that cross between the penitence of the fear of the Great Judge and the joy of the birth of the Saviour.

In all Orthodox Churches of the Eastern Rite there are two icons to either side of the altar. Sometimes these are just “head shots” but often they are full figure images: to the left of the altar is Mary holding the Baby Jesus. To the right of the altar is Jesus as an adult. One interpretation of the placement of these two images is of the three comings: Christ first comes as a little child on the left and as the conquering king on the right. Between these two comings, Christ also comes to us at the altar in the middle.

The first Coming and the final Coming are lost in the depths of time. It is the coming in the middle, at the altar of every day, where you have to go to him, to seek him. This is the one that is important. When I worked in customer service I kept two tiny icons of these images, one on either side of my computer monitor, as a reminder that it is the person coming to us in the middle that is Christ for me now.

Today we read that Jesus says “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”

And I want to ask, “Is Jesus there if you don’t go looking for him?”

Yesterday I posted an extended meditation on my blog discussing the prophecy mentioned in Matthew 1:18-25, where an angel quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah: All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” (Vs 22, 23)

I admit I don’t buy it: the few words of Isaiah, quoted out of context, are comforting and often heard at this season. But in context they have nothing to do with Jesus.

Unless you put him there first and then go back to look for him.

And I don’t think the essence of “faith” is telling a lie about a text: if the clear meaning of a text is not visible to someone without a clue, I think we may have a sectarian bias on our hands.

Moses didn’t make much mention of Messiah. In fact, he mentioned the name not at all. There’s no evidence the Jews were expecting Messiah in those days. Moses did write about a prophet “like him”. But even that seems to promise that prophets will come when Israel wanders from God’s way - not so much a prophecy of one guy as a promise to not leave them alone.

So what is Jesus saying here? That he is a Prophet? That he is part of God’s speaking to Israel? I don’t know. But there is nothing in the passage from Moses that indicates the preacher from Nazareth. Nothing at all.

And, of course, it is much the same with the other prophets: most of the snippets of prophecy that are offered in the Christian writings are taken horribly out of context and wrapped around Jesus the way one puts on a pair of designer jeans: of course we can see Jesus! You stuffed him in there tighter than a blouse on Brittany!

But was he there in the first place? Increasingly I don’t know the answer to that.

Dominus prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis.
The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious over anything.

I do know and I believe with a perfect faith, that God is at hand, nearer than the air I breathe and closer to me than I am to myself. I also know and believe that this guy, Jesus, taught us something about God that we had totally forgotten: about God’s love, not just for one people but for all people; not just for the “pure” but for everyone; not just for men or Jews or rich people - but for women and the outcasts of society.

As Christmas draws near this year I’ve no Tree, no Creche set up. The only thing that says “holiday” in this house (occupied by myself and a Muslim) is the animated blinking lights on my iBook (and Sno). The only Advent experience in my life this year has been singing the Prayer of the People at Mass on Sundays. (We did try to go to a St Nicholas day liturgy though!)

And yet I did light the candles for Hanukkah.

And the feast was a joy for me.

And I believe God is at hand - which makes living worth all the struggles.

Is Jesus the Messiah or just a good teacher of Judaism for Gentiles? Is he in Moses or Isaiah or Amos or Hezekiah? I don’t know. I think I could equally imagine the Muslim meanings of those text (pointing to the final Prophet Mohammed) or even imagine that they point to someone yet to come - or to no one in particular.

The icons either side of the altar are not needed to remind us that God is coming to us in the middle, every day. Here, now: in the eyes and heart of everyone we meet. This Moses did write about - and Jesus too - Love God and your neighbour as yourself.

God is at hand.

Rejoice!

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:
Amos 9:1-10, Revelation 2:8-17, Matthew 23:13-26

Jesus says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
Matthew 23:13-15

Depending on who is reading this passage (I’ve included v 14, which is not included in the NRSV) the meanings might get spun around. Some see Jesus talking in hyperbole to the religious leaders of his time. Some see Jesus talking in anger to a certain class of religious leaders of his time. Some read this to be Jesus condemning all Jewish ritual customs and, by extension, all those who practice them after Jesus told them to stop. (It’s assumed that up until then, these were decent customs).

I’m against the latter reading and not only because of the resultant anti-Semitism. My understanding of things now (and some readers will remember that I explored Messianic Judaism about 7 years ago) is such that I can not imagine Jesus telling people to avoid the traditions of his religion. Yet, like all Rabbis he offered correction and changes to those traditions. In yesterday’s reading, Jesus said, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” (Matthew 23:2-3) That’s as strong an endorsement as I need to avoid shellfish and pork - or, at least, not to condemn those who do so. Additionally, some now think that Jesus was a member of the Pharisaic party and was merely offering correctives.

Is he talking to all religious leaders? Is he talking to his own party or sect, suggesting that they clean up their act?

Taking either reading - for I think it makes little difference to us today beyond avoiding the first one that leads to anti-Semitism - can we hear anything for us today?

I don’t know if all people are effected by religions the same way I am. Conservative or Liberal, I like stuff and things to do. I like to partake (as was said of the Eleusinian Mysteries) of “things said, things done, and things revealed.” Give me an archaic custom or a pious phrase and I’ll work it into my life. In Eastern Orthodoxy there is a lot of stuff like this: things to hold, things to wave around, things to categorise, things to eat, not to eat, festivals, times and seasons… oh, so wonderful! One can be really real just by doing these things.

The thing is, in fact, than in Eastern Orthodoxy you can confuse the things with reality of Love for God/Neighbour/Self. Even someone like myself for whom Right Doctrine was important (going in to Orthodoxy) can easily confuse “Right Belief” with simply looking right: if you say the right things and know when to cross yourself in liturgy, you can’t be all bad: you look like one of us, you talk like one of us and you act like one of us. You must, therefore, be one of us. Easily the reverse was also true: that someone who failed to act right or who didn’t know the right things to say wasn’t “really” Orthodox. This could lead to recent converts like myself categorising most people born into the church as “liberals” or even “heretics”.

When I converted from the Episcopal Church, I discovered “the Convert List” - a mailing/discussion list for people who are converting/considering converting/have converted to Orthodoxy. Almost everyone on this list (of over a hundred participants) was a convert. This included the clergy: and here it’s important to know that on the parish level many - if not most - of the non-Greek Orthodox clergy in the USA are converts. In Traditional cultures, a boy training for the priesthood would have been mentored from an early age. Most of the current crop of American Orthodox Clergy were simply welcomed into the Church and ordained. Most mentoring was done by other convert clergy. I know one priest who was the spiritual son of a convert who was, himself, the spiritual son of a convert: three generations of adult clergy in less than 20 years no responsible for hundred of converts themselves.

Put all of these folks on a mailing list. Most of them, devoutly pious, can - like me - confuse saying/doing the right things with loving God. It’s far easier to get into debates about what sort of oil is acceptable in a fast (No oil? No olive oil? Only no-frying?) than it is to get saved. It’s far far easier to appear right - or even more right - than it is to set one’s heart on the right path. And once one has started down this road, it’s hard to come off of it. I remember an entire parish being scandalised because a recent convert wore the wrong shirt on the Sunday after he was baptised.

As I’m talking about these things, I want to be clear: I was *right there in the bunch* making sure the next person in line was more uptight than I was. We have a word (which come from the Yiddish) called “Frum”, meaning pious. One Orthodox blogger coined the term, “Uber-Frum” - Over-Pious or Hyperpious. I should have been aware the first time I asked for non-dairy creamer when my Orthodox hostess - and a priest’s wife! - offered me milk.

My friend, Fr Ernesto - himself a convert to Orthodoxy and sometime reader of these pages - constantly blesses God for finding Orthodoxy in an Ethnic Parish where all the clergy and most all the laity were raised in the Church, who knew which traditions could be ignored, which ones were fading away, which ones were useless and which ones - ie none of them - it was worth getting into a fight over. For him the baptism would have been more important than the shirt. Given the way many families act in today’s church, that the party had shown up the Sunday after the baptism at all would have been more important.

The thing is, after a period of keeping up with the Joneses, it all gets pretty old. Eventually you begin to wonder what white shirts and meatless days and bitchy gossiping mailing lists and pious complaining about what someone else is eating have to do with the Gospel or with God or even with life. Or I hope, at least. Some people seem to sill enjoy debating the piety of the Gregorian versus Julian calendar.

I know it’s possible to do this from the liberal point of view, too. Eventually burning out over which boycott and which petition is the right thing to do. I didn’t do it that way. I become Uberfrum and burned out rather fast. The point being - left or right, liberal or conservative - there’s something more important than all the right stuff.

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:
Amos 8:1-14, Revelation 1:17-2:7, Matthew 23:1-12

Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Amos 8:4-7

So, I’m curious: more to start conversation than anything else. I see quite clearly that, in the first person, each of us is responsible for care for the poor, but can we, in the church, expect our government to do it as well? Many of us do, demanding our gov’ts to provide just care and righteous laws. But failing that, is it our duty to follow the laws of our country or is it, rather, our duty to be just?

Do we have an obligation to force our idea of justice on others (by passing laws) or is it simply our requirement to do justice: even if we end up being punished by the laws of our country?

This comes to me now because many of us are shopping.

When we give our child (or other loved one) a gift that was purchased on the backs of the poor, on the backs of those who can’t afford any kind of justice themselves, on the backs of the oppressed, have we given any gift at all? God doesn’t want such gifts given to him. Why should our son or daughter?

We went out this year looking for a “gift basket”. Not one item that I found at the local department store (of the Gift Basket Variety) was made in the USA! Some packages of even US products were, in these cases, manufactured in China for gift giving! Some that were otherwise Italian or Swiss products! They were made in China too! I know the USA hasn’t a good record of human rights or fair employment, but certainly neither does China! I don’t feel obligated to change the laws of my country or of China, to force others to do what they have no mind to do. But I do feel obligated not to support them in doing so!

Is it possible to make just purchases? Is it possible to get righteous things without “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals?”

What cultural change would it take to consider such purchases - righteous and just ones - as “Kosher” while other such purchases were not? Imagine that products produced by company X are made by happy and justly-treated workers. If the store selling such products does not pay its own workers enough to shop there, is such an item Kosher? If The manufacturing is ok, and the store is good, what about the environmental damage caused by the item, its manufacture or its transport? Generally such pollution rides on the backs of those in the 3rd World. Is this product still kosher?

Is there any possible way to make it through the holidays without “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals?”

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:
Amos 7:10-17, Revelation 1:9-16, Matthew 22:34-46

And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
Amos 7:12-13

Beth-El was this little shrine town, 19 Kilometres north of Jerusalem. The Ark had resided there for a while, as had several generations of priests and prophets. When the temple was built at Jerusalem, the ark moved. But the holiness lingered on (the place was, probably, once a proper pagan shrine before YHVH took over - unless YHVH was the genus loci). When the northern and southern tribes split, Beth-El became the primary place of worship in the North (because the northern King didn’t want his people going south to Jerusalem where they might be led astray).

So, in a primary sense, Amaziah is 100% right: this is the King’s sanctuary.

I went to visit Richmond, VA, once, and worshipped at St Paul’s Episcopal Church on Capital Hill. It is a beautiful church, filled with wonderful stained glass and many plaques on the walls - almost all of them are dedicated to any one of Virginia’s noble sons from either the Colonial or Confederate era - mostly the latter. You can see the seat wherein Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his family sat. You can hear the story of a man coming in to tell President Davis of news. You can see a plaque dedicated to departed members of the President’s family. There is a rather wonderful painting of General Robert E Lee leading his forces away from St Paul’s following Christmas Eve services.

For all that the War Between the States was decidedly not about slavery, I’m sure no one ever preached on the deliverance from bondage of our “private property” in that pulpit. For all that Washington and Jefferson must surely have, more than once, visited: I’m sure no one ever preached loyalty to the British Crown in that pulpit.

I remember reading this year of a sermon given at Yom Kippur. The rabbi, I’m sure, had worked on her sermon for quite along time. But as she delivered the sermon, a rumble began to arise in her congregation. She was alluding, in some way I don’t remember, to professional sports. Seems that one of her congregants was not only involved in professional sports, but also embroiled in controversy at the time. Everyone was appalled that the rabbi would dare comment so in front of a member of the profession.

One other story comes to mind, of Episcopal Presiding Bishop Edmund Browning calling up President George H.W. Bush on the day that we were preparing to attack in Kuwait. The word had reached up at Episcopal Church HQ through our chaplains who were being mobilised. When the phone rang in the Oval Office, Browning reports that President Bush said, “Talk to Barbara, she’s the religious one.” And hung up.

In this country (and, indeed, in this era, since Constantine) the marriage of religion with the imperial power (be that money, military or political) has, more often than not been the tale of silence. Although several great saints of the Church are noted for sermons to emperors (and their wives), to kings and generals, they are rarely remembered because they won converts. Rather like Amos they are sent away, or urged away.

But I’m intrigued by Amaziah. What did he think he was doing? Whose priest was he? The priest of YHVH or of the King?

In the last century the story of Billy Graham and Richard Nixon comes to mind: when a recording of Graham making some anti-semitic remarks came to light, his defence was being overawed by the presidency. That it is a believable story is the scandal to me. Think rather of Martin Luther King speaking the Truth to power on the very mall of Washington: his was no prophecy to be accepted in a King’s Temple.

We know what the marriage of political power and religion can do. I think equally - or perhaps more important than that is the effect of the closeness of political power. Even those places that are not King’s Sanctuaries in reality can be so in name and custom. Look at the flocking of (some) conservative Christians to one candidate simply because he was a pastor in their faith. Think of how the Russian churches failed to support the poor prior to the 1917 Revolution and how they churches got some of what they deserved for failing to mind their Master’s business instead of supporting the emperor. Think of the secularist backlash church are experiencing in this country as our voices become in the mind of people universally tied to far right politics.

Were Amos to arise today, would he be preaching in any of our churches or would the local pastors be rather like Amaziah?

On a side topoic, there is an interesting parallel with today’s Gospel, (What is the greatest commandment?):

Regarding the teachings of Amos, the following utterance of Simlai, an amora of the beginning of the third century, is noteworthy:

Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses; King David reduced them to eleven (Ps. xv.); Isaiah to six (Isa. xxxiii. 15); Micah to three (Micah vi. 8); Isaiah, a second time, to two (Isa. lvi. 1); but Amos to one: “Seek Me and Live!” (Mak. 24a).
Jewish Encyclopaedia

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:
Amos 7:1-9, Revelation 1:1-8, Matthew 22:23-33

This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was calling for a shower of fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. Then I said, “O Lord God, cease, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” The Lord relented concerning this; “This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.
Amos 7:4-6

There are two such visions in today’s reading, a plague of locusts and the rain of fire. The third vision is a plumb line. I think there are only two possible ways to read the text in order to find the meaning - although there are four, I think, possible meanings to draw.

The two possible readings: literal and figurative. (There is a third way to read this text: it never happened and this is a work of fiction. But I don’t want to go there.) Literally, God really did plan to send a plague of locusts but Amos’ intercession made God change his mind. God really did plan to send a rain of fire but Amos’ intercession made God change his mind. Then came the vision of the plumb line.

Figuratively, God never planed to send those plagues, in fact, God’s entire dialogue with Amos is sort of a Who’s On First skit, leading to the plumb line vision. Amos is playing the role of Costello.

The problem is I don’t know if I like any of these readings for the meanings they provide.

Literally, we’re left with a very vindictive God who changes his mind at the intercession of humans, or, specifically, the right humans. This is the God who allowed 9/11 to happen because of gays. This is a deity who would kill thousands of people (in famine or fire) just to teach the remnant a lesson.

*shudder*

This is also a God who, if the right person prays, can change his mind. Remeber how Pat Robertson said God was sending the hurricanes to Orlando because he (Pat) was praying for them. Well this is like that in reverse: a God who will listen to the right person (Amos, Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee) but not to anyone else.

Figuratively, we get something worse: if God never intended those plagues, and this was an Abbott and Costello routine, God is really a bully: pulling psychological horrors out of his bag like Vincent Price in a the House on Haunted Hill just to sadistically drive his followers to the place he wants them to be.

I don’t like either possibility, but I do like some of the meanings we can get from both. I want to rescue the meaning of this passage because I love the passage that we will get tomorrow. I can’t ignore this passage and just pick up the “real meaning” with tomrrow. There is a way to read this passage where we can combine the “literal and figurative”. Because the split is caused not by the text but by our assumption of an omniscient God. The alternative version is a God who doesn’t know all time and all actions before they happen, but rather is learning and growing with us. This God can take his reminders from Amos, “O Lord God, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” without looking like either a bully or a vindictive ass.

Now, does that possibility of a learning God save tomorrow reading?

Is this a God that, failing punishment has decided to try another way or am I reading too much modern psychology into this ancient text?

Much love,

Huw