+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
Deuteronomy 8:1-3, Colossians 1:1-14, John 6:30-33,48-51

Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
John 6:49-51

I have a huge, internalised and living devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. I’ve watched this evolve and develop since I was 18 and joined the Episcopal Church. But I say this all on my terms, my own meanings.

I never quite “got” benediction of the blessed sacrament as a rite. It’s kinda boring, actually. But the hymnody is awesome.

Therefore we, before him bending,
this great Sacrament revere;
types and shadows have their ending,
for the newer rite is here;
faith, our outward sense befriending,
makes our inward vision clear.

For such hymns alone, rarely sung outside of a Benediction service, I love the rite itself.

Eastern Rite Orthodoxy has no such service, but during Lent, at the rite of the Presanctified, pretty much the exact same things happen including an awesome moment of full prostration in the dark as the Blessed Sacrament is carried through the Church.

Now the powers of heaven are serving with us invisibly,
for behold the King of glory enters.
The mystical sacrifice,
all accomplished is brought forth.
Let us, full of faith and love, draw near.
Let us all partakers of life everlasting.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

But my devotion to the Sacrament has changed mostly since I moved to Asheville, NC. The arch begins (as with a lot of things) at St Gregory of Nyssa parish.

One thing I missed in the liturgy at St Gregory’s was any sort of pre-communion preparation. We got to the altar, the presider blessed and we ate. There was no warm up. The same is true of my current parish, St Mary’s here in Asheville. So, then as now, I began to take a few moments of silence and say my own prayers. And what I would say - then, as now (and the entire time I was Orthodox) - was the Prayer of Humble Access. I love this prayer!

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in thy manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.
But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy;
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood,
that we may evermore ever dwell in him, and he in us.

To this I have added the Byzantine prayers -

I believe, O Lord, and I confess that thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I believe that this is truly thine own immaculate Body, and that this is truly thine own precious Blood. Wherefore I pray thee, have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance; and make me worthy to partake without condemnation of thine immaculate Mysteries, unto remission of my sins and unto life everlasting. Amen.

Of thy Mystic Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of thy Mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the thief will I confess thee: Remember me, O Lord, in thy Kingdom.

Not unto judgement nor unto condemnation be my partaking of thy Holy Mysteries, O Lord, but unto the healing of soul and body.

But one Sunday, bowing before the Altar at the later service, and standing in the midst of the congregation (at St Gregory’s) I opened my eyes and saw the floor was covered with bread crumbs. And not in a little way, either - it was as thick as a bad case of dandruff on a black t-shirt.

Now, anyone who has “a huge, internalised and living devotion to the Blessed Sacrament” is going to, at this moment, have a huge, internalised and living liturgical hissy fit. The odd thing is, that after a moment, it made far more sense and comfort than you can imagine. The trajectory from my prissy Anglo-Catholic Sacramentalism to the crumbs on the floor, is what I think is interesting. I don’t have enough time or space to track the entire arc, but a few points are needed.

I asked Donald (the Rector) one Sunday if, when I was giving out communion and said “the body of Christ” was I referring to the bread I held or to the person I was addressing. Donald said, “Yes.”

The realisation that fellowship per se, with Christians is what constitutes Christianity. If you to be a Christian, hang out with Christians in a Christian community.

The need to create places of fellowship within liturgical constructs rather than to divide liturgy from fellowship.

Communion is sanctified and ritualised eating - sanctify and ritualise any meal for it to be communion.

The Orthodox Trapeza meal - a fellowship meal in the context of liturgy.

The Didache communion rite celebrated at a family’s supper table.

“My Flesh - Bread” “My Body - the Church as the Body of Christ” Partaking of Church (fellowship) is the same as partaking of Christ.

Fellowshipping with Christians in love is “the mystical sacrifice, all accomplished, brought forth…” to partake in communion is to partake of communion.

You are the sacrament of God to me.

We note this today because, of course, liturgical Christians believe that the Eucharist is, itself, an Epiphany. It is. But what it reveals to us is not somehow God in any different form than he has already shown us. It’s not the “Bread” per se, but the “being”. The Communion of the Church is not mere eating and drinking. It is the presence of God in human love.

The thing that has been missing since I came to Asheville - that was very present in San Francisco and New York - is fellowship. Only rarely over the last five years have I gone out to dinner with friends and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had people over for dinner - or been invited over for dinner - in the last 5 years. I have been totally cut off from communion and partaking in the body of Christ.

Even through I’ve been to church every Sunday.

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:
AM: Deuteronomy 26:1-11, John 6:26-35
PM: Joel 2:21-27, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.”
Deuteronomy 26:4-5

I’m very aware of my family, my history: my story. Especially, yes, as we enter what Americans call the “Holiday Season”, but also always. Living where I do, family history surrounds me: from Richardson County, Tennessee, to Richardson, Texas, and north up to Manitoba; from Great and Lesser Gransden in England, to the Gransden family cemetery near Edenville, Michigan; from the Tribal homelands of North Georgia, across the trail of tears to the Muscogee reservation of Oklahoma. My family, with many roots, is geographically centred here, in North Carolina. My fathers may not have been wandering Arameans, but every one of them picked up and moved, in some way, to combine and come here, to me.

Speaking to Moses, God reminds the Jewish people that they are not only to be thankful for what they have, but for what God did for their forefathers and mothers. There is no self-made man and (as we heard last night in the sermon) there is no self-made nation either: as the Jews would not even be but for what God did for their ancestors, so we too, would not be here but for the mercies wrought for our forebears either in this land or some other. What I have - all that I have - comes to me at the hands of all my ancestors.

The declaration Moses has the Israelites make, each at his own thanksgiving, is a solemn pronouncement that here, in this abundance, God has now brought me into the Promised Land.

Now, transfer this over into the primary act of Christian Worship: that of the Eucharist, Greek for “Thanksgiving”. When we make Eucharist, when we make thanksgiving, we are - each of us - making this same solemn declaration at the altar: “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

But we do not do it alone, at least not by God’s command. And, by God’s command, it comes with more than just our families or even those like us. “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”

You - believer - shall gather with the priests and aliens (ie the Non-believers)… to Celebrate what God has given. A very interesting picture of Eucharist.

A blessed Feast to you and your family!

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:

Deuteronomy 31:30-32:14, 2 Corinthians 11:21b-33, Luke 19:11-27

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.
Luke 19:11

John Wesley’s reading on this is the obvious one: “They thought the kingdom of God - A glorious temporal kingdom, would immediately appear.” It’s the obvious reading because not only was it true of the 12 Apostles, it’s true of some (all?) of us today.

I want the Glorious Temporal Kingdom to appear instantly, really. I’ve wanted it to appear when I was a member of the Moral Majority in the early 1980s, working to overthrow all the Godless Liberals that were ruining our country. I’ve wanted it to appear when I was working on social justice issues with the senatorial campaign of Mark Green in NYC. I wanted it to appear instantly when I campaigned for the NYC Gay Rights Law which Mayor Koch signed in 1986 - and I was horrified when the Supreme Court, later that same year, promptly overthrew that kingdom with the Hardwick case.

It may seem odd to you for me to compare the “Glorious Temporal Kingdom” to all these seemingly petty political decisions. But I tell you true, the amount of prayer that was put into the 1986 Gay Rights Law alone would have made you think I was praying for the conversion of Emperor Constantine. I count it an especial irony that I turned that event over to the intercession of St Patrick and he pulled it off - despite the political machinations of the the Roman Catholic Church in NYC, which is also under Patrick’s patronage.

In the reading from Deuteronomy (32:8-14), Moses sings:

When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him; no foreign god was with him. He set him atop the heights of the land, and fed him with produce of the field; he nursed him with honey from the crags, with oil from flinty rock; curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs and rams; Bashan bulls and goats, together with the choicest wheat - you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.

In my very uncycnical, young mind, each of these events should have fixed things for good for ever. We should have been dining on the honey from the crags and curds from the herd. But no. We’re humans and nothing is for good for ever. But there’s something else missing in my equation - in all such equations.

This odd parable of the talents in in our Gospel today. Follow it:

The departing Nobleman sets up a Junta and provides funds.
The Nobleman goes away to become King someplace else.
They reject him.
He comes back and asks for an accounting from the Junta.
1 guy gives him a tenfold return.
1 guy gives him a fivefold return
1 guy gives him his money back.
The Nobleman gives the last guy a royal what-for, and then says:

I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and slaughter them in my presence

So my question is, Does this story tell us about what Jesus taught just before his death? Or does this story tell us about what the Lukan community taught in the first century after Jesus, as the time of his “Glorious Appearing” drew further and further away from the time of his departure?

This is important because as the time grew longer - and some estimate Luke to be written as late as in the second century of the current era - the church started to grow roots, settle in, adapt to the world’s realities. The idea that Jesus was gone for a little while and might be back was replaced with the idea that Jesus will be back at some later date not yet determined. What do we do now? Ideas about selling everything and giving to the poor - in expectation of a speedy return and judgement - were replaced by ideas about giving to the poor because they need charity.

As the Church begins to weave more here-and-now reality into her teaching, is the man who hides his talent the man who was just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come back? Are the others the ones who managed to do good in the world, despite the absence of a “glorious temporal kingdom”? Is this parable a lesson in how important it is to avoid becoming “so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good”?

But, of course, we can read it further. The Gospel credits this parable to Jesus in response to the Apostles’ supposition, just days before the Cross, “that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.” That glorious temporal kingdom has held sway in the Church since Constantine found a way to co-opt the Church into the Roman State for his own political and, perhaps, spiritual ends. This is not just an Orthodox problem: it’s a Catholic problem and an Anglican one as well. In many northern countries it is Lutheranism that is the state religion. Each of these has not only great theological differences but also political ones: Lutheranism and, to a certain extant, Anglicanism outside of England, have both held sway in largely democratic countries. Even in England the monarch’s power is sharply curtailed. Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, however, do not do so well in marriages to democratic regimes where they might be out-voted.

In more modern readings, the man with one talent might be seen to be the man who refuses to play along. He’s the man who, despite the good that might come from co-operation simply stays away from the game. How do we know we’re not supposed to play along?

In my own adult cynicism I’ve become this man that doesn’t want to play along despite the good that might arise. Oddly enough I’ve felt that to be a more-Christian stand despite centuries of Christian politics. I begin to sound like Paul, huh? “Are they ministers of Christ? I’M A BETTER ONE!”

A curious thing, however: the man with one talent is not rejected. Only those who reject the Nobleman as King are slain. All the those who got a tenfold return, those who got a fivefold return and he who got nothing… they are all accepted (even though the guy with one gets yelled at). We’re all working out our salvation in fear and trembling, coming to different answers - struggling with the same issues, or different ones. How we get on in our love for each other - despite our differences - is what counts.

Today’s assigned readings:
Deuteronomy 30:11-20, 2 Corinthians 11:1-21a, Luke 19:1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.
Luke 19:1-3

Zacchaeus’ journey is not a long one - from his house, up the road, and finally up the tree. He had, of course, a life time of journey before that, all bringing him to this fateful day. The Gospel seems to boil it all down to the symbolism of his tree-climb, which the Fathers saw as a mark of his desire.

Zacchaeus climbed a tree and where have we gone? When I decided I didn’t believe all of this Christian stuff any more - at the ripe and wise age of 25 or so - I left the (Episcopal) church and journey on a long path through several different religions and “spiritualities”. I also added new levels of meaning to the word “publican” which, at least in the British Isles, means “bar tender”.

For a time I was a minister in a non-Christian group - which required an ordination ceremony. My mom was there - along with people from about 5 or 6 different religions. I said on that day that the Holy One sure was full of surprises: because no matter where I went, there He was. And when, finally, after all that decade of journeying I found myself going, again, to an Episcopal Church in San Francisco and working for a Roman Catholic university, my Mom laughed and said, “you can’t get away from the Lord.”

At that ceremony in that non-Christian tradition, two Christian musician friends of mine led the gathered group in a song by Sylvan Dunstan. The first verse reads,

Bless now, O God, the journey that all your people make,
the path through noise and silence, the way of give and take.
The trail is found in desert, and winds the mountain round,
then leads beside still waters, the road where faith is found.

Zacchaeus went up a tree, where have we gone?

And I think, if we focus only on the journey that Zacchaeus makes, we might miss the point: climbing a tree to see God-Incarnate can be just as useful as building a Tower to Heaven.

Our Lord was walking that day up the road towards Zacchaeus. A curious thing happens: climbing the tree, Zacchaeus finds that Jesus was actually coming to see him. He says, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.” You almost want Him to say, “What are you doing up that tree, I’ve been waiting for supper all this time, now stop playing and come down!”

It’s not enough that Zacchaeus was looking around: God was looking for Zacchaeus. Mom has it right: you can’t get away from the Lord.

St Nicholas Cabasilas says, “It was not we ourselves who were moved toward God, nor did we ascend to Him; but it was He who came and descended to us. It was not we who sought, but we were the object of His seeking. The sheep did not seek for the shepherd, nor did the lost coin search for the master of the house; He it was who came to the earth and retrieved His own image, and He came to the place where the sheep was straying and lifted it up and stopped it from straying. He did not remove us from here, but He made us heavenly while yet remaining on earth, and imparted to us the heavenly life not by leading us up to heaven but by bending heaven to us and bringing it down.”

The crowd, however, gets in the way. “When they saw it, they all murmured, saying that He had gone to be the guest of a man who was a sinner.” He went WHERE?!?! Why, that man is a mess. The other folks in that story are very important. They are important because of what they try to do: “And he sought to see Jesus, who He was, but could not for the press of the crowd… And when they saw it, they all murmured”

It appears there is a crowd of folks standing around God acting like His bodyguards: shooing away anyone who might, you know, not be “our type”.

This is exactly the difference between a Faith that reaches out and a faith that encloses. In a sense, the crowd had closed the possibility of conversion: they want conversion on their terms, for their kinds of people. Zacchaeus had a conversion that day, despite the actions of the Crowd. He turned away from sin. He climbed up the tree and waited, he gave away half his goods to the poor and restored by four any that he had defrauded.

When we’re “The Crowd” Our Lord might has well have gone home with a republican (if you’re a democrat) or a democrat (if you’re a republican). Our Lord might has well have sat down with those in prison (in Guantanamo Bay) or bided His time with a *real* publican: in a bar, with a bunch of drunks and singles looking for hook-ups.

Zacchaeus goes up a tree and found that God was looking for him. Would Jesus have found the short man anyway: hiding behind everyone and looking inconspicuous? Remind yourself where you were when God found you. Yes, even there: come here, Jesus says to you, we’re going to have a meal together - This day is salvation come to this house.

The second verse of that song echoes the prayer the Orthodox say at each liturgy “for all mankind” - Christains or not, knowing or not, we are all seekers.

Bless sojourners and pilgrims who share this winding way,
whose hope burns through the terrors, whose love sustains the day.
We yearn for holy freedom while often we are bound;
together we are seeking the road where faith is found.

We are all on this journey together - that includes not only us standing in Church. Everyone is on this journey. Some may not get there in this life time: and we continue to pray for them after they are gone. Some of us may think we have finally arrived when, as Zacchaeus found, there was something more to do. He thought he wanted only to see this cool guy he heard about. Instead he found himself saying, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore to him fourfold.”

How’s that for a costly tree climb?

Life is this journey for us. Today, in this story, we can realise not only that we are seeking God, but, lo, God is seeking us.

The final verse of that song relies on symbolism that St Gregory of Nyssa found replete in the Song of Songs. His commentary on that work is nearly scandalous for in many passages that we must admit would be “banned in Boston”, we find the true meaning of God’s searching for us.

Divine eternal lover, you meet us on the road.
We wait for land of promise where milk and honey flow,
but waiting not for places, you meet us all around.
Our covenant is written on roads, as faith is found.’

Zacchaeus had his conversion, meeting the God who came to find him; but the crowd? The crowd that was so pressed about Jesus that it wanted to let no one else in? Jesus walked away from ‘em.

Today’s assigned readings:

Deuteronomy 30:1-10, 2 Corinthians 10:1-18, Luke 18:31-43

Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
Luke 18:31, 34

One strand (maybe more?) of modern biblical scholarship says that Jesus would not have said such things as this about his death in the future tense. Some accuse these scholars of lack of faith in Jesus’ prophetic abilities. Personally, I think they are being charitable to Jesus’ apostles. This has always been one of the things that bothered me about the Gospels: how dense can the Apostles be? The script is like a bad, scary movie:

Jesus: I’m going to go up the hill here where I will be killed.

Music: Dunt Dunt DUHHHHHHHHHH!

Peter: Did he say something?
John: Maybe, but the music was too loud.

Audience: No no! Don’t go up the hill! DON’T GO UP THE HILL! ARGH! He went up the hill!

I don’t know what to make of these stories other than as exercises in community midrash. 40 or 50 years after the death of Jesus and after the experience of the Resurrection, the community says, “Knowing what we know now, how could the Apostles have missed the point so many times?”

And I have to ask myself that too: knowing what we know now, that this itinerant preacher from Nazareth was, in fact, the Son of the Virgin, the incarnate second person of the Holy Trinity, the Eternal Son of the Everlasting Father, the Creator of the Word, a Lamb led to Slaughter, Fully God and Fully Man, Eternally Present with His Father on the Thrown of Glory while, at the same time, present here on earth, without Passion, without sin… how could the Apostles have missed it?

And so I’m left in doubt.

The Jesus of modern scholarship - the political preaching, the Messianic expectations all revved up, the Roman squashing and crucifixion, the communities vague ideas of, Wow, if we just have a meal like Jesus used to, it’s almost like he’s really alive again, right here with us. This leaves me dryer than a hog waller in the middle of a six year drought.

And so I’m left in doubt.

I confess to liking a middle road:

The Jesus of Modern Scholarship slightly misunderstood: talking about a mystical Kingdom of God, but misunderstood by his Apostles (who wanted a *real* kingdom, Damn it!) and in this misunderstanding the Romans got involved. This Jesus *did* work miracles. And when (oopsie!) he got killed, God raised him: the tomb was empty. The reason the Apostles Never Got It was because God was working it out as it happened - free will coming into play. This Jesus didn’t have to die on a cross, but he did. God made it all up as it went along, and in the end, making the best out of the worst, God saved us. This Jesus could be any of the things in the first, traditional option: but he needn’t be. Of course, this Jesus is partly a construct of my own, based mostly on the portrayal in Zeffirelli’s 1977 miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth. So I’m making it up as I go along.

And so I’m left in doubt.

The two remaining options are rejection and submission. I can openly reject Jesus as needed at all in my cosmology, or I can just say, “Sure, whatever the church teaches…” (One then returns to the questions of where one finds church.) Jesus the hoaxing magician of Judea is relatively meaningless - to us or to them, really. Jesus the All Powerful, All Knowing, God-Man without any human qualities is meaningless - to us or them, really, and just as Gnostic as they come. (The Orthodox hymn referring to Jesus’ “passionless passion” seem to be to about the least human Good Friday possible.)

Paul says (on a wholly-other topic)

Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5

St John Chrysostom goes so far as to say that St Paul knew how icky the idea of “captive” was that he turned it around into “obey Christ”, as if this phrase turns the entire passage upwards, “from slavery unto liberty, from death unto life, from destruction to salvation.” But some Christians (regardless of their theological tradition) will go so far as to say that my doubts (regarding the teachings in their tradition) indicate that my thoughts have not been taken “captive to obey Christ”.

When I raised this line of reasoning a few years ago - on the topic of the Trinity - I came to the conclusion that what we think, how we conceive of the being we worship, is very important. My friend, Leesy, wrote to me noting that I had come very close to saying our theology creates the God we worship. Her point (I think, looking back through time) was that either God is those things, believe them or not, or God is not those things, believe them or not. I had no answer then. And so here I am now, in the same mode, albeit a little more honestly: instead of projecting my doubts outward, I’ll just be honest about them.

Of course the Jesus that makes sense to me couldn’t have founded an Infallible Church - either with or without a Pope and he’s also rather a bit more inclusive. This brings me to the point of wondering how the Jesus we conceive in our hearts might lead to the Church we choose and, most importantly, vice versa. If you want a Jesus-like-this, you’re going to need to assume a Church-like-this-and-not-that. This realisation, that my assumptions about Jesus makes the Church which makes theological assertions which reinforce my assumptions about Jesus and the Church, was, eventually the breakdown for me.

My usual point of departure for doubts is to let God speak for himself. As I say, if half of what we want to believe of God is true, that he is a person who loves us, then just ask and he will reveal himself. And I just don’t know, now.