+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:
AM: Zephaniah 3:14-20, Titus 1:1-16, Luke 1:1-25
PM (Christmas Eve): Isaiah 59:15b-21, Philippians 2:5-11

There are also many rebellious people, idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision; they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what it is not right to teach. It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” That testimony is true. For this reason rebuke them sharply, so that they may become sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths or to commandments of those who reject the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure. Their very minds and consciences are corrupted. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Titus 1:10-16

It’s interesting to me that this reading comes up today: why, on the week before Christmas, would even the reasonably centrist liturgical folk who made the Episcopal Church’s lectionary (back in the 1970s) pick a reading that urges the silencing of “especially those of the circumcision”?

John Chrysostom notes that this is an urging for bishops to silence those who teach heresy.

For if he has undertaken the office of a Teacher, and is not able to combat these enemies, and to stop their mouths who are so shameless, he will become in each case the cause of their destination who perish.

In addition to the traditional view that Paul wrote this letter, the wiki cites the critical view:

The Pastoral epistles are widely regarded by contemporary scholars as being pseudepigraphical. On the basis of the language and content of the pastoral epistles, many scholars today doubt that they were written by Paul, and believe that they were written after his death. Critics examining the text fail to find its vocabulary and literary style similar to Paul’s unquestionably authentic letters, fail to fit the life situation of Paul in the epistles into Paul’s reconstructed biography, and identify principles of the emerged Christian church rather than those of the apostolic generation.

Those scholars who consider Titus to be pseudepigraphical date the epistle from the 80s up to the end of the 2nd century.

That later date makes sense to me given the strong words. But it may make sense to others to have Paul, himself, say these words. Fr P.N. Tarazai makes a point that even if the pastoral letters are pseudepigraphical, this was a common enough practice for students and disciples to write letters in the name of their teacher. My only reply to that claim - which he uses to justify what moderns would consider forgeries - is that none of the Apostles wrote letters in the name of Jesus. But, ok… Be this Paul or a forgery (or a nameless disciple’s perfectly acceptable pseudepigraphical work) the thing is in our Bible now and, lo, we need to shut the teachers of heresy up. And fast. Especially the Jews.

I think it’s interesting to get this reading today for a personal reason as well.

Yesterday, in response to what I thought was one of my better postings, I received an anonymous and abusive comment (and, depending on how you read it, it’s also anti-semitic). My normal policy is not to accept anonymous comments from readers I don’t know (which is to say I know the source of every pseudepigraphical posting). But this comment was annoying - and, I think, echoes the author of Titus in a way that urges reply. Using rather childish language - I assume the author has issues with English as a second language, or else is a teenager - I was told “Please become a Jew because you suck as a Christian.”

“especially those of the circumcision; they must be silenced”

Of course one of the problems, here in the 21st century, is to decide what is heresy. We can use the Orthodox model, the Roman Catholic one, the Evangelical one, the liberal mainline Protestant one, and most all of these are mutually exclusive (although inclusive enough, each in their own way).

But that’s not what I want to look at.

No matter how you define heresy, Why do we treat heretics this way?

I’m one to talk: I ditched an entire denomination once, and all my friends, in the hopes of finding doctrinal purity. Oddly enough I found better forgiveness and love among those whom I’d ditiched than among the doctrinally pure. I posted as much, this morning, at a blog asking “Why are you no longer Eastern Orthodox?“

Well there are theological excuses and debates possible on both side, “by their love you shall know them.” I fled ECUSA seeking all the usual things - “the church” and “true theology”. But ultimately I found that on the whole - at least in the tiny corner of the EO within my reach - it was the heretics and schismatics who showed more love more forgiveness and charity to each other, to others, to outsiders, to insiders.

I know there are other places where EO functions differently. I’ve seen them online. But they are rare.

But even so, among the liberal folks, there is a tendency to ditch the conservatives. There are Anglican websites where conservatives are treated as pariahs.

To be certain, there are problems in other communities. I noted to one commentator on my other blog that I know of this problem in Wiccan communities, and she pointed it out in Jewish Communities as well. It seems that many of us are just human beings.

The general attitude among Christians, left or right, is “well, cool. Good bye. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” Titus shows us it’s been a pretty common problem for a long while.

Why?

Much love,

Huw

Commemoration of Cyprian of Carthage

Today’s assigned readings:

1 Kings 18:1-19, Philippians 2:12-30, Matthew 2:13-23

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.
Matthew 2:16

Electronics engineers say that SNAFU and FUBAR were used before World War II by repairmen sent out to repair phone booths. They had to report the situation at arrival to the scene, often on a very bad line, so they developed these acronyms to make themselves understood.

So quothe the Wiki. Click through if you want to see what each of those acronyms means. But we see it here, in Matthew, and it’s present in all the other readings today as well.

The situation is normal: all screwed up.

The Human Condition, one might say.

In the Christian West we are used to hearing of the idea called “Original Sin”. This is certainly the Consensus of theological though. It’s the official doctrine of the Roman community as well as of the Lutherans and others. The idea is that when Adam and Eve sinned (as recorded in Genesis) the human race acquired a blot on the soul - a blot that is passed down to each successive generation of children. Augustine of Hippo went so far as to say it was passed down by the sex act (which I think tells us rather more about Augustine than about God). In the majority view in the West this is why we are baptised: to wash away that blot. Even Babies must be baptised because unless that blot is gone, they will not get into heaven (Or some variation on a theme there).

That doesn’t fit very well with the consensus of the the Christian East. Apart from some writers (Simeon the New Theologian comes to mind) the idea in the East is that the first sin of our first parents was a weakening of their souls. And this weakened soul is what gets passed on. It’s like a virus - if you have it, you will pass it on. But it’s not just a “sexually transmitted disease” as it is in Augustine. Rather it’s a cultural one: Adam and Eve sinned, but others sin as well. In a culture of sin it become easier and easier for anyone to sin. Each sin makes it easier for another person to sin.

In the first theology it is important that Adam and Eve actually exist: two people from whom the entire human race was born. They are important because the first sin must blot all souls.

In the second theology it is unimportant where sin entered the cultural food chain. Even if gluttony, greed and a wilful desire to disobey orders fell out of the tree with our first simian ancestors, it’s a cultural sickness we can well explain that all of us have. Evolution is possible as a story about human origins in this school of thought. (Avoiding the “Sexually Transmitted Disease” idea clears up the need for Mary’s “Immaculate Conception” by her parents, btw.)

This comes up in this meditation because all three readings are FUBARed, most especially the one in Matthew. To paint a good picture on a bad background, the Church calls this the “Massacre of the Innocents”. They make out the babies to have been unwilling martyrs, slain to protect Jesus. But the Gospel makes it clear that Jesus wasn’t even there. One wonders if, in the course of looking for one man of whom he was terribly afraid, any modern leader would destroy an entire town.

Oh… wait. Forget I asked that question.

But rather like Osama, Jesus gets away and those left behind have to pay the unfortunate price of having simply been in the area.

What are we to make of this? What places in my life have I, with the best of intentions, managed to mess up everyone else? What places in my life have I - with the worst of intentions - managed to take advantage of this FUBARicity and totally screwed up everything around me? (Never leave a company unless you can leave ‘em in the lurch was what I used to say.)

How is it possible that God lives in the middle of a world where this happens?

One of the realities of the second theory of sin - the majority view of the east - is that it is possible for us to make choices without messing everything up. This leads to another reality - that of “unknown” or “involuntary” sins: sins that we commit without realising so because of how sinful we are. Far from causing a lot of problems, this idea frees one from a LOT of angst.

Today is the commemoration of Cyprian of Carthage. this good Saint once ran away from a persecution - and got in trouble for it. Later he picked some sides in theological arguments:

After the persecution had died down, it remained to consider how to deal with the lapsed, meaning with those Christians who had denied the faith under duress. Cyprian held that they ought to be received back into full communion after suitable intervals of probation and penance, adjusted to the gravity of the denial. In this he took a middle course between Novatus, who received apostates with no probation at all, and Novatian, who would not receive them back at all, and who broke communion with the rest of the Church over this issue, forming a dissident group particularly strong in Rome and Antioch. (Novatus, somewhat surprisingly, ended up joining the party of Novatian.) Cyprian, who held the same position as the Bishop of Rome on the treatment of the lapsed, wrote urging the Christians of Rome to stand with their bishop.

Later, the question arose whether baptisms performed by heretical groups ought to be recognized as valid by the Church, or whether converts from such groups ought to be rebaptized. Cyprian favored re-baptism, and Bishop Stephen of Rome did not. The resulting controversy was not resolved during Cyprian’s lifetime.

That last bit makes it sound like the entire thing is resolved already, but it’s not: some places within the Orthodox Ecclesial Community still rebaptise persons who were baptised in other communities: Several monasteries on the Holy Mountain refuse to admit anyone to communion who did not receive baptism (or rebaptism) at Orthodox hands. My former pastor rebaptised pretty much everyone who came to his parish as a convert - even Roman Catholics. I’ve been told that the Antiochian Metropolitan of North America requires everyone coming from ECUSA to be rebaptised. In other words, the topic is still open for debate.

This is just more FUBAR, even within the Church. We could mention many other such places where the Church is sinning. But we don’t need to. We are a human community and of course, Snafu Happens.

Paul seems at turns to be thanking the Philippians for their help and guilting them into giving more. Obadiah makes it quite clear what he thinks God will do to him if he does what he’s been told to do. As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you I know not where; so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the Lord from my youth. (Vs 12). Why would he think that? Because of the SNAFUBAR reality in which we live.

But all of these writers also show us what to do - and Cyprian as well.

Paul will say “work out your salvation”. In other words, do the best you can. It’s one of the most important concepts in the NT. Jesus didn’t cause the murder of the children of Bethlehem. Joseph just did what he was told to do. Mankind messed up all by itself. Obadiah just did what he was told to do. Paul and Timothy can think of no other way than to ask the Philippians for someone whose absence worries them and to tell them “Do all things without murmuring and arguing”. To use a gaming analogy, Paul realises that no Janga Stick can be removed without the tower becoming weaker or even tumbling. But one must pull a stick nonetheless. That’s what playing the game means.

The idea to “keep on truckin’” is a theme of Paul’s. Run the race set before you, keep pressing on the the crown held out for you, etc. When you keep on, it’s God working in you. Work out your salvation - not everything will be the same for everyone and things will get totally screwed up sometimes - but it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This is the Christian doctrine of synergy in salvation. We work with God. And not only that but when one person does not sin it makes it easier for all the rest of us to not sin as well. That’s the converse of the other doctrine of Original Sin. Not only does one sin make it worse for everyone, but one good action makes it better.

So we keep on truckin even though everything is SNAFUed and FUBARed.

Tomorrow is the feast of the Holy Cross. Where all this truckin’ eventually leads. A Major SNAFU out of which a universal good.

Much love,

Huw

Commemoration of John Henry Hobart

Today’s assigned readings:

1 Kings 17:1-24, Philippians 2:1-11, Matthew 2:1-12

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3-4

Susan Russell, an Episcopal Priest from Pasadena, CA, wrote this in her sermon last week:

“Selective literalism” is arguably the most destructive force at work in the “church universal” today. Taking snippets of scripture out of context and honing them into weapons of mass discrimination, selective literalists portray themselves as preserving “the faith received through the ages” while perverting the core Christian values of God’s inclusive love and abundant grace.

She was talking about “conservatives”, of course, or the “bad guys”. In my comments over there I tried to point out that “we” do it to: liberals or inclusivists or “revisionists” or whatever you want to call the “good guys” in Susan’s view.

But we all do it. Within the current Anglican crisis, low church folks often ignore the literal meaning of some of the more spooky words (”This Bread Is My Body” or “You Must Eat of My Flesh”) while High church folks deny they are interpolating. Some seem to go light on the love your neighbours thing while others seem to forget that, yes indeedy, the scriptures deny the morality of sex outside of heterosexual marriage. And all sides seem to have a serious problem with the idea of “judge not lest ye be judged.” And all sides seem hell bent on being right to the exclusion of the other.

And Paul offers us this passage today, “in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

I’m going to be selectively literal and say that this - and other such - passages seem to me the heart of the Gospel and the actual source of the real inclusivity of Jesus’ path. It’s not that one side is right and the other wrong - but that there is room at Jesus table for all who would come seeking Jesus-in-the-other-person rather than seeking to serve themselves.

And I really believe this although I don’t know how it works because I’ve never seen it happen. Rather I see people fighting for “rights” or “right”. They are the same word, the same thing. Both are meaningless.

The Justice that Jesus offers us, the Peace he brings the Love he commands of us is never in the first person and always in the second or third person. My rights mean nothing but your rights are all. My peace is meaningless but yours is all. I don’t need to be loved, but I do need to love. That’s the martyrdom of Jesus, that’s the martyrdom, the only path of anyone who would claim to be followers of God in Jesus’ path.

I’ve cited one of my favourite CS Lewis quotes before. But I think it goes here again:

The real fun is working up hatred between those who say “mass” and those who say “holy communion” when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker’s doctrine and Thomas Aquinas’, in any form which would hold water for five minutes. And all the purely indifferent things—candles and clothes and what not—are an admirable ground for our activities. We have quite removed from men’s minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples. You would think they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the “low” churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his “high” brother should be moved to irreverence, and the “high” one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his “low” brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labour. Without that the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility.
The Screwtape Letters, Letter 16.

While it would not do to import our modern issues of sex into Lewis’ text, the fact of the matter remains: to those for whom the issue of “Mass” vrs “Holy Communion” is important, it is as much a matter of salvation as sex. The two positions are:
1) Popery is idolatry, a violation of the 2nd commandment.
2) The Traditions of the Church are not to be overthrown lest we leave the faith “once delivered to the saints”.

While both parties “back in the day” might have agreed on issues of sexual morality, both parties would also agree that the other party was pretty close to perdition. Further back in our Anglican history these were matters of life and death and treason to the Crown! Such matters were settled, on paper at least, by Queen Elizabeth. In life they continue to us today for, with minor exceptions, it is the descendants of the low churchers, via their missionary work in Africa, South America and Asia, that trouble us today. They still carry the more-protestant attitudes towards scriptural authority and church polity.

Today we are in need of another Elizabethan Settlement.

Paul offers us a way forward - have in you the mind of Christ - But what do you do when you want to sit at table with someone who refuses to sit with you?

As I told Susan over at her blog, I think we need to be honest. The question is not who is right. I have no doubt at all that these men and women are devout and faithful Christians. I know they feel otherwise about me. But I feel the same about the other side - Susan Russell’s side: I’ve no doubt that they are good and faithful Christians: but they don’t feel the same about their enemies.

And so, there we are.

The process of squeezing one’s enemies out of communion with one is very tiresome to all involved. No matter who the squeezers are.

Paul offers us a way forward - which will mean sacrifice on everyone’s part. Sacrifice is never over as long as one is alive.

Dare we take the offered route?

Much love,

Huw

Today’s assigned readings:

1 Kings 16:23-34, Philippians 1:12-30, Mark 16:1-8(9-20)

Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill… the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.
Philippians 1: 15, 17-18

As Blessed Oscar Wilde once said, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

I rather like that Jesus I talk about. Contrary to what some might want to say, he’s not a Jesus I’ve created in my own image. He’s something I could never hope to be. He’s loving and forgiving, he’s generous and inclusive, he’s non-violent, his anger is never selfish. He is not self-righteous or proud. And while his politics may look like mine, I’m clear that his are really based on spiritual values. Mine are sectarian and, for all that I speak of “not of this world”, I don’t have the language, wisdom or experience to pull that off.

But make no bones about it - mine is not the only Jesus out there.

Billy Graham, who is about 5 miles away from me by road as I write, and only about a mile away “as the crow flies”, has a different Jesus than I do. His Jesus is a little more uptight about some things that don’t bother mine. His Jesus is not as inclusive as mine, nor, I suspect, as non-violent; or at least his Jesus seems to like the military a bit more than mine.

Further afield but even closer to me physically, is a preacher you’ve never heard of whose followers all have bumper-stickers that say “Thus says the Lord” next to a picture of the preacher! His Jesus has pretty much already sent the rest of us to hell.

Between these three different Jesuses… well, you know them. Maybe you’ve even experienced them.

The Jesus we followed in the Orthodox Church was a living presence called “Christ God”. And he was rather awe-inspiring and not as human as one might like. In the Icons Jesus is usually depicted wearing a red tunic and draped with a blue toga. We were told that the blue represented his humanity draped around his divinity, the latter symbolised by his red robe. I don’t know about you but that didn’t always seem to agree with the whole “fully God, fully Man” thing. In fact, sometimes, this Jesus felt rather spooky.

The Jesus I knew when I was a Gnostic Pagan also felt spooky, but differently so: like he might morph in to Adonis, Osiris or Odin at any moment, flowing into their noted grumpiness.

The Jesus my late Grandfather seemed to follow was rather more upbeat than any I knew - he liked Rock Music in Church. But he had a problem because his people were going to heaven and the rest were going to hell: Nyah! Nyah! It seemed rather adolescent to me. But he was only a shade different that the Jesus I followed in High School, who left us so worried that some folks might end up in hell, that we’d be weeping if someone didn’t come to church for a few weeks.

But Paul makes a good point: it is good “that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true.”

All of these Jesuses seem very real to the people who follow them.

I believe there is. He’s alive now. Present and active in the life of anyone who will let him be.

And I believe that real and living Jesus is more loving and caring and forgiving than even our most liberal theologian is willing to let him be; more than even our most mystical saints care to imagine; more than any of us are yet open to see.

But all this talking keeps Jesus in the Public Eye.

This is the same thing we said about “The Passion of the Christ”. Most people I know personally felt it was more like a snuff film than a meditation on the Gospel. But it kept Christ on everyone’s minds for a season. Christmas does that (with or without our bickering about the “war on Christmas”). The scary thing is that some really bad things do it as well: “God Hates Fags” protests at soldiers’ funerals and Papal visits to Nazi concentration camps, Muslim ranting about the west’s “crusaders” and 9/11 memorials. Anything that calls Jesus to mind is a good thing because every such calling to mind is a chance for that mind to call out to Jesus.

Who, if he is alive and loves us half as much as we seem to want to imagine, will answer the call. And all these different Jesuses don’t matter one whit: I am a Son to my parents. To my sister I’m absent. To my Godson’s family I am an apostate. To my housemate I am who I am to him. To my Brodie I am a lover. To some of my friends I am generous, others will admit I’m controlling. Some of my clients treat me like their big brother and others (as today) call me Hitler. To some of my coworkers I’m a stickler for the rules to others I’m the funniest thing since Lenny Bruce. The “real me” doesn’t exist for none of us exist in a vacuum. We exist in relationship: to be fully human is to be in communion - as imperfect as it might be.

If Jesus were dead and buried and unable to reach us in the modern world. I’d expect him to be 100% totally the same for everyone - and 100% totally controlled by the creeds and doctrines we’ve used to define him. But he is alive, fully human and more. To enter into communion with this living soul is to find a Jesus that is entirely your own, unknown to anyone else - just as your spouse or lover is known only to you alone. Some people may need the Jesus they got. Some relationships may grow and Jesus will change.

Paul says here, “living is Christ and dying is gain” and while I can understand why “Dying is gain” might worry some, I think it’s just Paul’s idiom. Living is Christ. Everything… from the Morning trip to the bathroom to the lovemaking at night, from the daily office politics to the nightmares that wake your child: everything. To Live is Christ. Live. What do you do dead? Everything is Christ. Death just makes it moreso.

Much love,

Huw

Commemoration of Alexander Crummell.

Today’s assigned readings:

1 Kings 13:1-10, Philippians 1:1-11, Mark 15:40-47

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11

We start Philippians today! My favourite Pauline Texts are GEPC - Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, better known in Dixie by their mnemonic: “Georgia Electric Power Company.”

Philippians is generally assumed to be authentically Pauline. All things being equal some of my favourite verses come out of GEPC and so I’m really quite Pauline.

I’ve nothing profound to say about today’s verses because I’m no where near living them out. But I want to note it as a goal.

Paul prays their “love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight”

Love being Agape here, “divine” love, unconditional Love.

Knowledge is Epignosis here, a complete knowing. It refers to facts, to lists, meters, data.

Insight, here, is Aisthesis: perception through the senses… let’s go with “gut feeling” or, more to the point, full-on ESP. The KJV renders this as “judgement” - discernment.

Paul wants our love to know what is going on on all levels. It’s interesting that he assumes love to be the highest function and “knowledge” and “insight” to be builders of that. It’s interesting that he wants us to use this educated love to “determine what is best”. The Greek there uses two words in tandem referring to the refining of metals and then distillation (as of spirits). We are to use our love to purify, refine, distil, always finding the kernel of goodness and following that…

What is the kernel, the hard core of the faith?

What is the thing held in common by all Ecclesial Communities and by all Christians throughout all history?

Any clue?

Paul seems to say a) it’s in his teaching; b) keep working on it. Later, in Chapter 2, he will say “work out your own salvation…”

Salvation is not, simply, in taking what we’re handed and moving forward - letting ever more layers accrete on to the kernel. Rather salvation is taking what we are handed - even by St Paul - and distilling it, finding the hard, crunchy centre of truth and continuing to live in it, to work on it. As we pass it down it will grow more layers and they too will be stripped away.

Of course this is contrary to most religion today: our attitude is more layers is better. Nothing wrong with more layers - but they are usually cultural.

We need to keep stripping just to prevent the centre from getting obscured.

It’s a process in which we must engage in love and discernment. We too often fail in that. We make fun of those who strip off too much. We make fun of those who fail to keep stripping. We verbally abuse those who focus on something that we chose to ignore…

None of those options lead to the “harvest of righteousness” however.

It’s a lot easier to be “right” in our own mind than to be righteous in the eyes of God.

Much love,

Huw