That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Anglican (Page 40 of 115)

Chicanes – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Saturday in the week after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 5
32 You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left.
33 You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

A day or two ago a friend and colleague in ministry posted a Facebook comment about the word “chicane” which was new to her. Her husband, an intelligent and well-read individual, had used it and explained it properly, and she was singing his praises. I’d not seen the word for many years, not in fact since I stopped driving small go-cart racers in high school. A chicane is an S-curve added to a roadway to require drivers to slow down; they are used in racing circuits to test the drivers’ skill and to prevent them from attaining speeds unsafe for the raceway, and they are sometimes used in residential areas to calm or slow down traffic. Because of that Facebook mention, I thought of chicanes when I read this passage. Moses is speaking to the Hebrews crossing the desert, relaying God’s commands to them. They are to follow a straight path turning neither right nor left. I’ve never walked through the deserts of Egypt or Sinai, but I have hiked the deserts of the southwestern United States and, within the past year, a small part of the desert of Palestine. One would think a desert would be a place where you could walk a straight path; it is not. One is constantly turning right or left and changing one’s course in response to changes in terrain, to obstacles, and to dangers. What does God mean by ordering the Hebrews to take a straight path to “the land that [they] are to possess,” to turn neither right nor left in a place where turning one way and the other is an inevitability, where one cannot follow “the straight and narrow”? The commandment is clearly a moral metaphor, but it seems to me it is an impossible one. Life is more like a hike through the desert, with unexpected turnings and directional variety, than it is a walk across a level pavement. Life is full of chicanes, turnings left then right then left again, that test our abilities, try our patience, and slow us down.

Loss of Sabbath – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 29, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Friday in the week after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 5
12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
13 For six days you shall labor and do all your work.
14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.

I usually take Friday as my day away from the office, my “day of rest.” However, this week I “stayed home” yesterday and later in the day posted this summary of the day to my Facebook page: “This has been a productive, if somewhat expensive, alternative day off. I took today rather than tomorrow because [a] I have a wedding rehearsal tomorrow and [b] I was able to schedule some much needed auto maintenance today. Auto maintenance was the first accomplishment – new right front lower ball joint ($600, also the expensive part of the day). Mowed the lawn, whole thing, and cut two huge low-hanging branches off the thorny-something-or-other in the back garden that have made mowing a pain (in reality – the thing has 1-1/2″ long needle sharp spines!) Did three loads of laundry (one a big load of black shirts so I have uniforms for rehearsal, wedding, and Sunday). Made a big batch of ‘copper penny salad’ for church choir end-of-program-year picnic this evening. Hard boiled a dozen eggs and put them to pickle in a mixed brine saved from three sources: Lebanese pickled turnips, Palestinian pickled baby eggplants, and home pickled ramps and garlic. In a week or two I will be able to report on the success of said pickling of eggs. – It was also a day of memories of our pilgrimage to the Holy Land, set off by a lunch of pickled turnips, pickled eggplants, and toasted pita (spread with labneh and sprinkled with za’atar). – And I realized while driving home from the auto shop that it’s been ages since I wrote any poetry and also realized that it’s been about the same period of time that I stopped carrying an actual paper notebook to record random thoughts. My ‘mobile device’ just doesn’t function in the same way for that purpose…. loss of paper = loss of poetry. Going back to paper.”

Not only have I lost my poetry, I seem to have lost sabbath. I think the two are related.

Decluttering Idols – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Tuesday in the week following Pentecost
Deuteronomy 4
15 Since you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely,
16 so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure—the likeness of male or female,
17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

Today is “trash day” (or “garbage day” or “put the bins/bags/cans/boxes at the curb day”) in our neighborhood. I have lugged 12 large black pastic bags of refuse to the curb. Eight of them are from gardening – we pulled weeds and trimmed hedges as part of our Memorial Day observance. Two of them are household refuse. One, the heaviest, is a week’s worth of cat box siftings. The last is filled with idols.

My spouse and I are trying to declutter our lives – to keep what is meaningful and might have value for our children and (so far only one) grandchild, but to dispose of that which is merely of interest to us and needn’t be carried over by future generations. Making that distinction is difficult. The worship booklets prepared for my ordinations 25 and 24 years ago; the newsclipping about my wife’s joining her insurance agency; a prayer from a greeting card my mother kept at her bedside for many years…. Keep them? Toss them? Cherish the memories but let them go? Some hard-and-fast rules for disposing of idols would be very handy, but few of our memories are in the likenesses of winged flying things or fishy swimming things or scaley creeping things. That’s why only one bag in eight (and that the smallest of the bags) holds the discarded idols of decluttering, and it has taken three weeks to get that far. At this rate, we will never get to the Jordan much less cross it.

There Will Come a Time – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Monday in the week following Pentecost
Deuteronomy 4
9 But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children – . . . .

It is simply the fortuitous convergence of calendars that presents us with this reminder about memory and generational transmission on the day our secular society sets aside as “Memorial Day” for remembrance of fallen warriors. But, nonetheless, here it is – Memorial Day and a reminder to remember and pass on. – I was thinking, a few days ago, about the loss of family memorabilia. My friends talk of old photographs, diaries, news clippings, favorite recordings, memory books, pieces of handmade lace, and so forth that they have inherited from past generations: through a series of unpleasant family events that material is all but gone from both sides of my family. Until I came into my late-middle age (and, now, early dotage) the loss of these things mattered very little, but now I see their value and feel their loss. If you and your family still retain such family memorabilia, do not let them slip away. Your children and your children’s children may not care about them now, but there will come a time . . . oh, yes, there will come a time.

Blood sacrifice? Oh, how I wish not . . . . – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 23, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the Epistle lesson for Saturday in the week of Easter 7
Hebrews 9
11 When Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation),
12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

Oh, how I wish that the author of Hebrews and his fellow New Testament writers had steered away from the language of blood sacrifice! I know that they were trying to make sense of the death of Jesus and to make sense, somehow, of the earthly death of the one they believed to be the Messiah within the framework of the foundational Jewish faith. If they had to portray Jesus’ execution as a religious sacrifice, could they not have rested their argument on the observation of the Psalmist rather than the practice of the Temple priesthood? Could they not have remembered, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Ps 51:17) And again, “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. Let the oppressed see it and be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive. For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his own that are in bonds.” (Ps 69:30-33) Couldn’t they have looked to Isaiah’s prophecy recalling the psalms, “Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Is 57:15) They could have, but they didn’t. The language of blood sacrifice made sense to them in their time and place, and they left it up to us to make sense of it in our time and place. We must read it together with the Psalms and Isaiah’s prophecy, and understand it and Christ’s death in ways that illuminate our lives today. We can read it as metaphor; we can read it as the language of a former age; we can interpret it how we may; but we cannot reject it, as uncomfortable as we may be with it. But, oh, how I wish they had steered away from it!

“Must you…?” An ecological disappointment – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Friday in the week of Easter 7
Ezekiel 34
18 Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet?

Remember when your mother was really, really disappointed in something you had done (or were doing) and rather than get righteously angry all she did was shake her head, look sad, and say, “Do you have to . . . . ?” That’s how I picture God when I read this verse. To my mind, this is the strongest language in the whole of Scripture calling us to task for our ecological failures and supporting the church’s environmental ministry.

Fair? You want fair? – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Thursday in the week of Easter 7
Ezeiel 18
25 Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?

I recall a law school class in which a fellow student complained of a case’s result, “But that’s not fair!” The professor’s reply was, “Fair? If you want fairness, go to divinity school.” A dozen years later, I was in seminary and a fellow student complained of a story in Scripture, “But that’s not fair!” The professor’s reply was, “Fair? If you want fairness, go to law school.” I laughed until I cried, but couldn’t get the others in the class (especially the professor) to appreciate the humor. ~ I suspect that my law school instructor was suggesting that fairness is justice ameliorated by mercy. In law school we are taught that human laws are like mathematical algorithms; you comb through the facts of your case, find the salient elements, plug them into the law like variables into an algorithm, and out pops your result. For example, common law burglary is legally defined as the breaking and entering of the dwelling place of another in the nighttime for the purposes of committing a crime therein. Was the door standing open so that the accused was able to simply walk in? No “breaking,” hence no burglary. Did the incident happen at high noon? Not “in the nighttime,” hence no burglary. What if you have all the elements but the motivation, for example if the crime anticipated was the taking of bread to feed a starving child, is laudable? Too bad, the elements being present the accused is guilty of burglary, laudable merciful goal notwithstanding. ~ I suspect my seminary instructor was suggesting that fairness is a human concept inapplicable to God. “God works in mysterious ways,” as my grandmother used to say. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord,” according to Isaiah. When our human sense of justice demands retribution and God’s mercy permits an offender to go off scot-free, we say “unfair.” Worse, when an offense seems rather minor but God’s law demands death, we say “unfair.” Our human sense of equity is offended. ~ I’ve been a member of the Bar for over 30 years now, and a priest (as of next month) for 24; I’m still not sure about fairness and justice, and how the concepts apply in both human and divine law. I am sure, though, that when all is said and done I hope to receive neither from the hand of God; I hope I will receive mercy instead.

Prophets on the Streets? – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 20, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Wednesday in the week of Easter 7
Ezekiel 11
22 Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

Ezekiel’s ecstatic (delusional? hallucinatory?) vision of wheels within wheels, creatures with animal and human faces, flying thrones made of gems, and all the rest have always sounded to me like something out of the LSD-laced Sixties. I can remember cinematic and video attempts to portray the visions of “acid” users which the prophet’s descriptions call to mind. What would late 20th and 21st century folk make of someone who claimed the authority of God based on such visions? I suspect we would lock them away in some therapeutic facility or, more likely, let them roam the streets in shabby clothes, pushing a shopping cart filled with their possessions, and sleep in doorways covered in dirty blankets. How many prophets are wandering about (and wondering in) the streets of our modern cities ignored because they are misunderstood?

Gott [ist nicht] mit uns – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Tuesday in the week of Easter 7
Ezekiel 7
15 The sword is outside, pestilence and famine are inside; those in the field die by the sword; those in the city – famine and pestilence devour them.

Ezekiel’s prophecy of the day of doom and violence is disturbing. It should certainly have been disturbing for those to whom it was first spoken, and it should be disturbing for us. I find it personally disturbing because, I confess, I want it to apply to our present times. When he predicts disaster upon those who oppress the poor, upon a ruling class which hoards and squanders resources on their own pleasure to the detriment of others, upon sellers who for their iniquity are doomed . . . . when he predicts that their abundance and their wealth and their pre-eminence will vanish and never return . . . . I want that to apply to our present times! I understand the temptation of the armageddonists who want to read in Scripture a prophecy of retribution soon to be fulfilled – of course, they and I differ on exactly who should receive that retribution, but I can understand why they look at the Bible and read into it the troubles of our own times however wrongly they may perceive them. That’s what disturbs me, my own temptation to use Holy Writ for my own political agenda, to pull Ezeziel’s prophecy out of context and shout, “Look! My politics is God’s politics!” ‘Taint so . . . . My politics, I hope, is rationally and faithfully grounded in my faith, but I must always be careful to remind myself that “Gott [ist nicht] mit uns” when we misuse the Bible in that way.

Multi-Grain Cake – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT lesson for Monday in the week of Easter 7
Ezekiel 4
9 … take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread for yourself.

Ezekiel is given detailed instructions for a prophetic action, an embodied metaphor involving a brick, lying on his side for hundreds of days, and eating a mult-grain “barley cake” baked over human dung. (When he objects to the latter, Yahweh relents and allows him to use cow dung.) It’s all very strange and meant to portray a judgment against both Israel and Judah. What interests me this morning is this mixture of grains. My suspicion is that it is intended to portray a lack of purity (especially since the resulting “barley cake” is to be baked over dung). Purity, especially racial purity, is a constant concern of the Old Testament Hebrews: one finds it in restrictions against intermarriage with other nations or even between the tribes of Israel, in the banning of cloths made of mixed fibers, in the laws regarding what can and cannot be eaten. The nation’s concern with purity is, of course, attributed to their god, but one doubts the validity of that ascription. This morning it occurs to me that the mixture grains and legumes is considerably more healthy than a cake made only of one type of grain. Many years ago (when I was in college) I read Frances Moore Lappe’s book “Diet for a Small Planet” and learned about the improved protein-profile of mixed grains. Purity has its place, I suppose, but so too does combination and diversity. I, for one, would be delighted to eat bread made of “wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt,” although I shouldn’t like to have it baked over dung!

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