+Z’ev

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

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