That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Daily Office (Page 12 of 70)

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.

Eat This Scroll ~ From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 15, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT Lesson for Friday in the week of Easter 6
Ezekiel 3
1 He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. 2 So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. 3 He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.

One of my favorite collects in the Book of Common Prayer is that for Proper 28 which begins, “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them . . . .” I wonder if the idea of “inwardly digesting” the words of Holy Writ came from Ezekiel’s metaphor of eating the scroll. It’s such a great visualization of the way in which the spiritual and moral learnings of our religious tradition should become a part not merely of our intellectual baggage but of our very selves. It reminds one not only of the old shibboleth, “You are what you eat,” but of the wonderful words of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s eucharistic exhortation and prayer of humble access in the first prayer book of 1552, now preserved in the canon of Rite I of the current American prayer book, that we “may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.” (BCP 1979, page 336) The image is visceral and compelling, that the words of Scripture, and the very Word of God, should be digested and become “flesh of our flesh,” part of who we are, not simply part of what we believe.

Thanks In the Breach ~ From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT Lesson for Tuesday in the week of Easter 6
Deuteronomy 8
12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God . . . .

In the Episcopal Church (in which I am a priest) our standard worship service is the Holy Eucharist (Holy Communion). During the Liturgy of the Word in this service, after the Scriptures have been read, the preacher has preached, and the people have confessed their faith in the words of the Creed, there is a time of intercession called “The Prayers of the People.” Our prayer book rubrics require us to pray for the Universal Church, its members, and its mission; the Nation and all in authority; the welfare of the world; the concerns of the local community; those who suffer and those in any trouble; and the departed. Interestingly, they do not require us to give thanks for our blessings and good fortune, yet every one of the suggested forms of these prayers (there are six in the prayer book) includes an offering of thanks. The forms direct the prayer leader to be silent and allow time for congregants to add their own petitions, intercessions, and thanksgivings. One often hears prayers made for healing or other assistance; one seldom, if ever, hears utterance of thanks for food, houses, herds, silver, or gold. This admonition of Moses is “more honour’d in the breach than the observance.”

Unswollen Feet – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT Lesson for Monday in the week of Easter 6
Deuteronomy 8
3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years.

Every once in a while I am caught up short by something in Scripture that seems, if not out of place, at least utterly mundane, plain words plopped down in the midst of religious rhetoric, like plain stones mixed in with pearls. Today there is an example. Verse 3 includes an aphorism so well-known, so oft quoted (even Jesus quoted it to the Tempter), that one need only begin its first few words ~ “Man does not live . . . .” ~ and it is likely everyone within earshot will complete it almost verbatim. It is, however, followed by the homey recollection that “your clothes didn’t wear out,” and the startling reminder that “your feet didn’t swell.” ~ In my younger days, desert hiking and backpacking were among my favorite avocations. College weekends were often spent lugging a pack (including gallons of water in collapsible 1-quart plastic cubes) through the Anzo Borrego wilderness in southern California. Once I took up a career in law, I backpacked the Virgin River valley of southern Nevada. A few days hiking the desert and swollen feet were to be expected; several days and dry climate and harsh terrain could wreak havoc on natural fibers ~ worn clothing was not uncommon. So these two throw-away, pretty much forgotten recollections of Moses (reputed author of Deuteronomy) are (to me with my experiences and memories) even more revealing of the care of God than the magical manna! These folks hiked the desert for forty years, in sandals and cotton shifts, and their feet did not swell and their clothes did not wear out. This plain stone is as miraculous as the pearl with which it is found.

Creation in Salvation – From the Daily Office Lectionary

May 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments

From the OT Lesson for Saturday in the week of Easter 5
Wisdom 19
6 For the whole creation in its nature was fashioned anew,
complying with your commands,
so that your children might be kept unharmed.

Thus the Book of Wisdom describes what happened at the Hebrews’ crossing of the Red Sea: “the whole creation in its nature was fashioned anew.” It made me think ~ Is this what happens in every act of salvation? Even the smallest bit of assistance given by one person to another? Are salvation and creation inextricably linked so that every act of salvation is an act of re-creation, of renewal of the cosmos? I think they may be. (As an Anglican, according to Article VI of the Articles of Religion, I’m not supposed to “apply” the books of the Second Canon “to establish any doctrine,” but I think I could run with this.)

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