One Father, One Teacher (Proper 26A)

 

One Father, One Teacher

30 October 2011 Proper 26A

Beijing China

Joshua 3:7-17; Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father-- the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted." (Matt. 23:1-12)

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.
 

One of the most perceptive but least helpful suggestions I ever heard was given to me years ago, just before an important job interview: “Just remember Tony, relax.  Be yourself.  Act natural.  Be a regular guy.  This is so important you don’t want to mess it up by appearing to be uptight or wanting this job too much.  But show them that you are really special and why they should want you. ” 

Be authentic.  Be yourself.  Don’t take on airs.  But don’t be too normal,  too routine. 

It felt like I had been told to stop breathing but not show it.  It felt like I was to gracefully, showing no exertion at all, defy gravity. 

Today’s Gospel reading is about being authentic.  Though its current form and setting probably reflects a dispute between Matthew’s community of Jewish Christians and the Pharisees after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., its basic thrust—avoid flamboyant show for show’s sake in religion and society, eschew hypocrisy, and flee use of religious rules as a means of oppressing others—almost certainly reflects the teachings of the historical Jesus. 

This weekend is the commemoration of Augustinian Father Martin of Erfurt’s posting his Ninety-five Theses on the Cathedral door in Wittenberg protesting Johann Tetzel’s sale of indulgences to raise money for the Holy See to build St. Peter's Basilica (through a complex Ponzi-scheme-like funding path).   While the Reformation, both Protestant and Catholic, brought the Church back to her roots, for which we must thank God, it also on occasion brought abuses.  An example is the radical reformation’s misunderstanding of what Matthew is teaching in this passage:  “Don’t use honorifics to refer to each other.”  “Don’t call anyone teacher,” that is, “Rabbi,” or “Doctor.”  Don’t call anyone “Father” as an honorific.  “Don’t use outward signs of piety at all,” whether religious vestments, High Church ceremonial, or even organs in Church.

The preface of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer begins with these words, “There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted.”  Cranmer was referring to the corrupted liturgy of the Church in his day, and the need to reform it.  But the words, I think, have a broader application and also can be seen as speaking to the corruption of good ideals by any group, including the reformation itself.

The fact is, when Jesus originally made the statement about “call no one father,” he was probably referring to our literal fathers, and not honorific titles, saying that even our family relations are secondary to our relationship with God.    In saying “call no one teacher,” he similarly was not calling for an abolition of teaching positions.  He was saying that our relationship to even great teachers is secondary to our relationship with God. 

Those who think that Jesus here just expects us to be plain folk, average guys, with no airs have misread what is at issue in the passage.  For trying to be plain as a way of being close to God, striving to be humble as a spiritual accomplishment, is a fool’s errand, just like trying to relax and be normal. 

Oscar Wilde once famously said, “It’s only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.”   As in so many of his witticisms, he has hit the nail on the head by turning a common moral nostrum on its head.   Shallow people indeed judge by outward appearances, and only by outward appearances.   But to not see outward appearances is also an indication of shallowness.  Deep people see beyond the outward, but do not completely ignore them, precisely because the outward is all that the shallow see. 

I attended a great concert last night—the China Philharmonic playing Mahler’s 90-minute and 5-movement Fifth Symphony (in C Minor).  It was stunning, and during it I realized that part of my joy in hearing it was that during parts I heard snippets and references to other music I knew.  I realized that these musicians (and the audience of which I was a member) were part of a great dialogue or musicians in the tradition of symphony orchestra going back three centuries.  It was glorious. 

Now I understand that often we hear in our current day the need for religious practice to be sincere, to be authentic, and to be unrehearsed.  Many people think that the use of written prayers is a sign of insincerity or “mechanical” or “hypocritical” religion. 

But I have to say that I have personally found great strength, comfort, and encouragement through that most fixed, traditional, and set habit of prayer, saying the Daily Office (Evening and Morning Prayer).  It was only after a few years of consistent effort to say, and then chant, the Office daily that I found myself liberated in my prayers.  I felt like I was part of a great dialogue, like that artistic one of symphony orchestras, of Christian prayer going back for centuries.   And one of the finest spiritual high points of my life so far was the chanted celebration of a Mass of the Resurrection, with all the trappings, in the unlikely setting of a Chinese military morgue autopsy room for a visiting American whose family had asked for a proper Anglican burial service. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not arguing here for the very things that Jesus condemns in this passage:  vanity and vainglorious use of titles, stageprops, and flash to create a false sense of closeness to God and superiority over our fellow human beings.  But I am arguing against using simplicity and “just plain folks” affectations to create the same vanity, vainglorious sense of closeness to God, and superiority over our fellows. 

The key is whether we focus on God rather than ourselves, and whether we constantly check our own self-regarding ego by service to our fellow creatures who stand equal to us before God. The key is being honest with ourselves about who we are. 

I want to close this reflection on authenticity by reading an excerpt from that old chestnut of a children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams,

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

This coming week, may we so conduct our prayer life and our service to others that we lose sight of ourselves, and that, not deliberately at all. 

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

The Heart of Scripture (Proper 25A)

 

The Heart of Scripture

23 October 2011 Proper 25A

Beijing China

Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,`The Lord [God} said to my lord,  "Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet"'?  If David thus calls him lord, how can he be his son?" No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. (Matt 22:34-46)

 God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen 

I once was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic in a Washington DC rush hour behind a dirty pickup truck with West Virginia tags that prominently displayed the bumper sticker, “GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, AND THAT SETTLES IT.”    At the time I was a Ph.D. student at the Catholic University of America in Biblical Languages and Literatures, wrestling on a daily basis with the difficulties and intricacies of figuring our what various passages of the Bible meant when written, and, more difficultly, how they could be applied to us today.  At the end of the hour behind that truck, staring at that bumper sticker and thinking about what it assumed, what it implied, and what the owner of the truck meant by putting it there, I have to admit that what had been on my part a mild intellectual disdain for and amusement at fundamentalist approaches to scripture, religion, and society had morphed into a visceral rejection of all that fundamentalism at any time stands for.  I say this by way of full disclosure, since today’s homily is about how we interpret scripture.   

You have to be struck by the great variety of material that is found in what we call the Holy Bible. There are legal codes. There is religious history and the retelling of legends (sometimes multiple retellings of varying forms of the same story). There are chapters of genealogical tables of kings long dead, as well as legends about the earth's and race's origins.  In the Psalms, you find poems clearly meant to be recited in rituals. There are also personal laments and prayers. There are stories—stories of noble people following God at great sacrifice, but more often, of typical ordinary people whose behavior falls far below what passes as “niceness” today. There is even an erotic poem, albeit one that the compilers of the collection later took to be religious allegory, the Song of Solomon.  The Bible is a loose collection of books, not a unified work by a single author.  And it was written and assembled over a period spanning about a thousand years. 

The morality and faith expressed in differing parts of this hugely diverse collection also varies widely. Frankly, we can on occasion be shocked at what we sometimes find there, even apart from the evil deeds narrated and clearly condemned by the narrator.

In the Old Testament, the holding of women and children as chattel to be used as one chooses is seen as normal and acceptable to some biblical writers. Genocide is portrayed as “holy” war required by God. Polygamy and concubinage by the forebears and great kings of Israel and Judah are seen in some texts as signs of prosperity and power—evidence of God’s favor. Other texts preach xenophobia and exclusion, if not outright hatred, of foreigners. The New Testament is not itself innocent here: some of its passages teach as a standard the subordination of women and slaves, and see both groups as chattels in part of a God-ordained order. There are those six “clobber” passages—in both the Hebrew and the Christian Testaments—that are used as proof texts against homosexuals, though they themselves probably do not speak to the issue directly themselves. Some of the four Gospels seem to seek to paper over Roman responsibility for the death of Jesus by blaming this example of the most Roman form of execution on the Jewish religious authorities; one even seems to apply this blame it to all subsequent Jews and another seems to say that Jews as a group have the Devil as their father.  None of these texts are examples of our best values at work.

Even in the Psalter, the poetic collection we Christians tend to see as devotional and use in our morning and evening prayers, contains some pretty harsh stuff. Psalm 137 says, O Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who pays you back with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your babies and dashes them against the rock!” (vv 8-9). And each time I hear the exquisite Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I am jolted by the mean-spiritedness of the line “you spread a banquet table before me—while my enemies have to stand there and watch it!  Na!”

 

But there are moments of bliss and ecstasy in this collection as well, and great moments of unswerving and unsparing moral clarity, in both Testaments.  The very fact that some of the biblical authors clearly condemn the values held by others of them is evidence for me of God’s work in the world, and in God’s hand production of this collection of ancient writings.   Throughout the biblical record, there is trust in a God who acts and approaches his people at whatever pathetic level they may be. There is hope in ultimate intervention by this God to change what is wrong in the world, and make things right.

The Gospels tell the story of what they see as God’s definitive act to do this: the life, death, and bodily reappearance of Jesus.   Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels routinely condemn fear and hatred of the foreign, legalism and the use of religion to oppress others, and tell again and again of a loving God who pours out his love and grace upon all, regardless of their condition or origin.

Some sayings, passages, or teachings in the Bible, though perhaps originally intended to express what the author thought was God’s will, are within the context of the whole collection clearly preserved as bad examples, or reassurance that even God’s people can be seriously flawed.

Others, in contrast, show with great clarity what God’s intention is: the parables of Jesus, the profound hope of the second half of the book of Isaiah, the stories of grace, love, and faith—like Ruth, or Job—within the larger context of human tragedy and horror. The stories of scripture, and the great variety of emotions expressed in the poetry of the Bible, tell us that it is O.K. to be human, but not O.K. to refuse to listen to God’s call to be something better than we are. 

The Bible, in its complex, mixed-up, variety, thus often tells us stories of change in human beings.  Sometimes the change is immediate, like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, sometimes a gradual process, like the gradual historical effects of God’s interaction with his people over time in terms of their belief systems.

One of the foundational principles of Anglicanism (found in the Thirty-Nine Articles) is that all that is necessary for our salvation is to be found in the Bible.  Another is that we cannot claim that something is an essential point of our faith without being able to demonstrate it plainly from the Bible. Another is the idea that despite its differences and disharmonies, Holy Scripture when read as a whole contains an underlying harmony and coherence.  It is here where all things necessary for salvation are to be found, presumably.

I agree with all these affirmations. 

It is important to not push these principles further than what they actually claim, for the writers of the Articles deliberately limited these affirmations.  There were puritans and radical reformers around who claimed that all truth is to be found in the Bible (not just what is necessary for salvation), and that if something is not to be found in the Bible, it is to be rejected.  There were defenders of Rome who argued that the basis of faith is only to be found in the teaching authority and traditions of the Church, whether set forth in the Bible or not.  But the English reformers took the middle ground, and placed their trust in the Bible within the larger  framework of the “tripod” of sources of Anglican faith:  scripture, tradition, and reason informed by experience.   To go further than they did and argue that all truth is to be found in, and only in the Bible, or that there is no error at all to be found within the Bible, is to risk bibliolatry, one of  the great besetting sins of the popular Christianity of our age that styles itself as “evangelical.” 

When we read the whole of this baggy, loose, and at times contradictory collection called the Holy Bible, it becomes clear that it impossible to say that each and every statement in scripture reflects God’s will for us.  It also is clear that there are many, many truths and important points of fact that are not to be found anywhere in the Bible at all. 

This is an important observation when it comes to scientific knowledge.  To quote an old saw about the Bible and Galileo, “The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”  The same principle applies, mutatis mutandis, to cosmology, physics, biology, and the origin of species.  

 

All protestants, like the writers of the Thirty-nine Articles, tend to say that true doctrine can only be established by proving it from the Bible. 

Careful reading of the Bible and Church history, however, suggest that the problem is more basic.  Because of the diversity of the Bible, you can prove almost anything from it if you are interested in just trotting out proof texts.  Witness the huge variety of denominations claiming to base their teaching in the Bible and contradicting each other at one time or another on almost every single point of doctrine. 

Today’s Gospel talks to these issues of Biblical diversity, authority, and interpretation probably better than any other passage of scripture, though it rarely is cited when the issues actually arise. 

Impressed that Jesus has silenced their own opponents the Sadducees, the Pharisees send a student of the Law to ask an important question of Law, what later rabbis would call a question of halakhah.  They want to get a read of what drives the man, and how he reasons about scripture.  They ask him a question they would often ask each other, “Of all the 613 commandments in the Torah, (365 'Thou shalt not's' and 248 'Thou shalt's’), which is the most important?  What is the heart of the Law?   What should we use as a first principle of interpretation so that we can prioritize and order all this mass of teachings in the Law?”

The initial answer Jesus gives is not all that unusual.  He quotes from the Shema‘ , the credo of Judaism that is recited every morning and evening in prayers: “ Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” that is, “you shall be faithful to him with all your will, life, and might.”  Other rabbis had also pointed to this central passage as the heart of the Law.  Jesus says that this is “the first, the most important commandment.” 

But then Jesus, without being asked, adds, “and a second commandment is just like this first one: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  On these two commandments depend the entire body of scripture.” 

He is quoting an obscure portion of the Leviticus Holiness Code, “You shall  not take vengeance against, nor bear any grudge against your kinspeople, but you shall love your neighbor as you do yourself:  I am the LORD”  (Leviticus 19:18).   

We often don’t realize that this juxtaposition was first made by Jesus, something completely new.  We do this because Luke places this second part of Jesus’ answer also on the lips of the young lawyer seeking to justify himself in order to suss out just how Jesus understands the term “neighbor.” (The story of the Good Samaritan is the answer.)  Though a generation later rabbis were to identify what we would call the golden rule as the heart of the Law, they do not quote Leviticus 19 as the heart of Law, link its use of the verb "love" with the use of the verb "love" in the Shema',  and say that this second commandment is "just like" the first. 

Jesus puts these two commandments on par with each other, and in so doing bridges a great divide in the tradition of the Hebrew scriptures. 

Walther Bruggemann, in his magisterial Theology of the Old Testament, points out that throughout the Hebrew scriptures, one finds two great thematic threads. On the one side, there is the holiness of God, the separateness of God, calling for a striving for purity and ritual holiness by God’s people, for being special and set aside for God’s service.  “You shall be holy for I am holy,” we read in Leviticus, and there follows hundreds of detailed rules setting boundaries and defining categories to help achieve holiness.    On the other side there is striving for justice, for treating people, especially the marginalized, decently and fairly. 

The two themes often seem in opposition.  The priests and the Law tend to talk a lot about purity and holiness.  The prophets tend to talk about dealing with others justly, especially those most in need.  For Samuel, Amos, Isaiah, Micah and others God says things like:  “I expect obedience, not sacrifice.” “I hate your sacrifices because you mistreat the widow and the orphan.”    “All I really ask of you is to treat the poor fairly, and to walk humbly with me.”  For the priests and teachers of halakhic law, however, God say things like, “You will be Holy for I am Holy, says the Lord.”  “You shall not pollute the land with impurity, or I will destroy you.”  “You shall drive out pollution from among your midst and separate yourself from uncleanness.” 

Bruggemann says that the two traditions are both important and mutually corrective. The boundaries established by the Law are what define and preserve the People of God, and allow ethical monotheism to flourish.  But if holiness is not tempered with the call for social justice, it becomes empty ritual, a mode of oppression, and dies.  On the other hand, calls for social justice in the absence of an authentic call to holiness rapidly degenerate into the most obvious self-serving form of interest-group politics. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says the heart of scripture is both faithfulness to a holy God and taking care of one’s fellow human beings.   And he uses a text right from the middle of the Holiness code itself (Lev. 19) to counterbalance the over-emphasis that he saw being placed on holiness at the expense of justice.  

It is very important to note that in the Gospels, whenever social justice is placed in conflict with ritual purity and Jesus is asked to decide between them, in every single case he opts for social justice.  For him, justice trumps purity and holiness in this sense every time.  

                                                                                                                                                                              
Martin Luther talked about the need for a “canon within the canon,” when it comes to interpreting the Bible and applying it to people in present circumstances. What he means by this is that we need a sense of what books and passages, what ideas and themes, should be given priority in interpreting the whole so that we can sort out and make sense of such inharmonious, if not downright contradictory doctrine and ethics that one finds in the Bible. Luther never would have argued this had he believed simply that all parts of the Bible were equally God’s word.  He believed the “canon within the canon” to be the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, apart from works, a choice clearly informed by his argument with Rome and the sellers of indulgences.  He felt so strongly about this that he dropped the Epistle of James, with its stress on works, from his canon of the New Testament. 

Jesus’ use of these two passages as the heart of scripture shows he too believed in a canon within the canon.

Though he believed that we should live not by bread alone, but “by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth,” he also knew that scripture could be abused, and that parts of scripture were not as useful in identifying God’s will as others.   He is constantly going up against Sadducees, Pharisees, and lawyers who quote scripture at him to prove points he knows are wrong.  Usually he quotes other passages, often obscure passages that reveal attitudes and feelings about the universality of the loving kindness of God, to correct these claims of “GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, AND THAT SETTLES IT.” 

Jesus’ use of “love your neighbor as yourself” as on par with “love God” as the true canon within the canon, as the heart of scripture by which all other scripture must be understood, means several important things about how we must understand and use scripture.   

An  approach to scripture that legalistically beats up on people is not warranted, but rather an approach that aims at serving our fellows.   In the great passage on scripture in 2 Timothy often quoted by fundamentalists, the very same point is made.  Note the pragmatic and pastoral rather than dogmatic and legal approach to scripture: “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, since you know from whom you have learned them.  From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in justice.  This is so that a person who is God’s own may be up to the task, ready for every good deed” (2 Timothy 3:14-16).

After giving placing the commandment to love one's neighbors as on par with the commandment to love God, Jesus then underscores his approach to scripture by asking the Pharisees a very inconvenient question.  They both believe that David was the author of the Psalms, and Jesus contrasts the commonly held believe that the coming ideal king who would set things right was a "son of David" with the fact that the Psalter itself refers to the ideal king as "my lord."  Jesus' point is that there are contradictions and inconsistencies right within scripture as we traditionally understand scripture.  The authority and mystery of scripture is too great to be reduced to legal casuistry, pedantry, or "clobber" passages.  It has to be liberated by the canon within the canon he has proposed, love of God and love of neighbor.

Love of a holy but gracious God, love of neighbors, whether like or unlike us—this core of scripture that Jesus saw should also be the core of scripture for us.  We should judge the use and interperetation of scriptural passages by whether they advance justice and fairness, the inclusion of the excluded in God’s love.  We should interpret all passages in light of this.    For Jesus himself is the Word of God, and he is the standard by which our interpretation or application of Scripture must be judged. 

Friends, let me tell you that I believe that the Bible is a reliable guide for our faith and life.  It is God's word, written down.  But it is not God's words themselves.  And understanding it well, and applying it well in our lives is not a simple matter at all.  Scripture is not so much God’s thoughts written down, as they are the field notes of God’s people over the ages.   As such, it is a treasure and must be a guide.

It is in this sense of the Bible as a work of the believing community inspired and led by God, despite weakness and occasional detours, that we can affirm our faith as based in the Bible.  We, the Church, are the believing community that produced and is also the product of the Bible.   Only when we take as the heart of scripture the need to love God and love our neighbor does the book begin to cohere and serve as a guide for faith and life.  It is in this sense that we can affirm with the English reformers that the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary for salvation, and are not self-contradictory.

May we all increase of study of scripture and its use in our prayer life. Pray morning and evening prayer, with all its reading of scripture.  Pick up a commentary on a book of scripture that presents a new view and perspective for you, and read it closely.  Let the Bible form you and mold you.  But do not worship it or make foolish mistakes about what it is and what it is not. 

In the name of Christ,   Amen. 

Caesar's Coin (Proper 24A)

The Tribute Money -- Titian

Caesar’s Coin

16 October 2011

Proper 24A

10:00 a.m. Eucharist

Congregation of the Good Shepherd

Beijing, China

Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away. Matt. 22:15-22

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

In the news this week, we read of demonstrations throughout the United States, Canada, and even in Hong Kong protesting social inequality, war, and corruption in the political, banking and credit sectors, and seeking to “occupy” business districts of major cities.   A year or so ago, we read of protests from the other end of the political spectrum by people styling themselves as heirs to the U.S. founders’ tax revolt that threw British tea into Boston harbor.    Rebels and protestors on both sides claim the moral high ground; believers on both sides think that God is on their side.  “Justice” cries one side; “liberty” shouts the other. 

Poster by this Week's Protesters

In today’s Gospel reading, people ask Jesus to endorse a tax revolt against the Roman Empire, a revolt for liberty, justice, and holiness itself.  The people ask this not because they seek such a revolt.  The Pharisees here are careful legal casuists who believe that one can pay Roman taxes and still keep God’s Law.  The Herodians are supporters of the local royal family who are Quisling collaborators with the Roman occupiers.  Both have marked Jesus as someone who has rejected the status quo, and want to force Jesus to take a public position that will either get him massacred by a mob outraged that he is a closet Roman stooge, or executed by a Roman Imperial state anxious to keep conquered peoples under tight rein and the revenues flowing.   

“Is it right to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?” they innocently ask.  

Such taxes had led to riots in the past and ultimately would lead to general insurrection and the destruction of the Jewish homeland by Vespasian and Titus in 70 C.E.   The tributum capitis (head tax) was applied throughout the Empire on every non-citizen living under Roman control.  Everyone was required to pay the sum each year simply for the privilege of living and breathing under the protection of the Pax Romana.  Protection money indeed.  

The Roman Procurator in Syria, Quirinius had provoked a district wide revolt just 25 years or so before by conducting a census to establish base lines for the tax (cf. Luke 2:2).  The revolt had ended with the Romans’ crucifying en masse several thousand captured tax rebels, and was the origin of the Zealot guerilla fighters who throughout the New Testament are called lestes, or bandits.   They took the payment of taxes to the Romans not only as a sign of political enslavement, but also as an idolatrous act forbidden by God, since the currency used bore images of men trumpeted to be gods in violation of the Second Commandment.

The scene in today’s Gospel takes place in one of the outer courtyards of the Jerusalem Temple (Matt 21:23).  It is Passover week; the city is crowded with masses of the devout commemorating God’s delivery of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  Political tensions are high and the risk of sudden outbreak of mob violence is great.   The previous day, Jesus drove out moneychangers (Matt 21:12) from the outer courtyard of the Temple, provoking the question “What gives you the authority to do such things?” 

The money changers, you will recall, were there to “assist” the devout by taking their unclean and idolatrous Roman coins and exchanging them—at a small commission, of course—for kosher Temple currency that worshippers could use to buy the sacrificial animals queued up in assembly-line fashion for fully commercialized slaughter at the altar.   Caesar’s money could not enter the Temple because it was unclean, so the religious establishment had let this thriving industry grow in the outer courts. 

 Second Temple Coin

Jesus’ public act of driving out this commerce, so needed to allow the sacrificial rites to proceed within the larger context of a political economy run by non-Jews, has led people to think that he is a closet tax resister, come to Jerusalem on a donkey to the adulation of crowds.   Later in the week, at his hearing before Pontius Pilate, they will charge him with this very crime—promoting tax resistance against the Romans—to argue for his execution (Luke 23:1-4).

It is in this tense scene that these Pharisees and Herodians approach Jesus, flatter him, and ask him innocently, “Is it permitted to pay taxes to the Emperor?”  

If Jesus says “yes,” he marks himself as an Imperial tool, a quisling, and a disloyal Jew, fair game for the rage of the mob.  If he answers “no,” he commits treason and marks himself for Roman execution.

Jesus says, “In what coin is the tax paid?  Can you show me one?” 

Roman Denarius 

They produce a Roman denarius, the coin for a common laborer’s wage for a day.  It is a common enough in archeological digs from the period, bearing an image of Tiberius Caesar on its front, with the inscription, “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the God Augustus.”  On its back is a picture of Tiberius’ mother Livia, wife of Augustus, seated in the posture of the Goddess Pax, or Peace. 

Jesus asks, as innocently as they had seemingly asked their question, “Whose image is that?  And whose inscription?” 

Jesus has thus caught those who had been setting a trap for him. 

They are in the Temple, in the same space that Jesus yesterday cleared of moneychangers because, he said, they demeaned God’s House.  By producing a Roman coin in this spot, those setting the trap for Jesus show to all the on-lookers present that they have carried a coin with an image—an idolatrous image, one with a clearly idolatrous inscription—into the sacred precincts. 

Their sheepish reply shows they know they have been had, “It bears the Emperor’s image and his inscription.” 

Jesus replies, “Well then, if this coin belongs to Caesar, then give it back to him!”  And then he adds, slyly, “And what belongs to God, give to God.” 

Christians over the centuries have understood this saying of Jesus in a variety of ways, generally understanding it as some kind of comment on the limitations of Christian’s obligations to earthly rulers.  They usually have pointed to Jesus’ reply to Pontius Pilate’s question about Jesus being a king, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over” (John18:36).  Christians have on this account identified two separate realms, two separate spheres: God’s workings versus earthly political activity, the Church versus the State.

Sometimes, we have interpreted this in light of St. Paul’s comment in Romans 13:1 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.” In other words, since it is God who set the earthly rulers in their positions over us, we owe obedience to them as a duty to God.  By definition, the Christian is a citizen who abides by the law of the land.  

This view became almost universal within Christianity after the Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion supported by force of law and arms.  Many argued that the state is an empire operating within a greater empire, God’s kingdom, and that Christian rulers gained their legitimacy from Church consecration.  They said this with straight faces, apparently unwilling to notice the unedifying fact that it was the earthly rulers who usually dictated terms to the Church under the arrangement.
Look at the results of such an interpretation.   The cross, previously a sign of Jesus’ passion, became fused in people’s minds with the Sword of Constantine, wielded under the phrase In Hoc Signo Vincis, “With this sign, conquer!”  IHS for "IHSUS, Jesus," became IHS "In hoc signo."  Christians murdered Christians in riots and even wars over exquisitely fine points of Christology, and exiled whole classes of people to maintain doctrinal purity and unchallenged political power. In the East the leading Churchmen became creatures controlled by a corrupt and oppressive Byzantine court.  In the West, The See of Rome, claiming an ever more powerful role as monarchial ruler of the Western Church even as the power of the West’s earthly rulers declined with the end of the Empire, eventually became such a symbol for corruption, abuse of power, and oppression that some, like Henry VIII and Martin Luther, actively embraced the idea of the Church subservient to earthly leaders.   The low point was the prostitution of the Church in Germany—both Protestant and Roman—in support of the Third Reich.  The kingdom within a kingdom of the Constantinian settlement has become a Reich within a Reich!

But this idea of two spheres is not what is intended in Jesus’ “render unto Caesar” saying. 

Pre-Constantinian Father Tertullian, in De Idololatria, points out that when Jesus says to give the coin with Caesar’s image back to Caesar, he adds “give back to God what is God’s.”  Tertullian asks, “What is it that has God’s image? Why, human beings, of course, since ‘God created human beings in his own image’ in Genesis 1.”  In other words, it is not a question of two spheres, but one alone: God’s.  We—all that we are, all that we will become—are the coin that bears God’s image and which we must give back to God.  Caesar’s coin with its image, because it distracts from this real issue, is thus labeled idolatry. 

When Jesus says “What belongs to God” he probably has in mind a lot more than even just us.  As Psalm 24:1 puts it: "The earth is the Lord's, and all that it in it; the world, and all those who live there."  

This idea of one sphere only coheres with much of what Jesus teaches elsewhere.  In his response to this tax revolt question, he shows that he sees many other deeper questions hiding beneath the surface of the presenting issues.  The tax coin is standing in for a whole lot of other things.
 
He is not in favor of idolizing Caesar by any means. But he is not in favor of revolting, for he knows that even such things as this can be just as corrupted.    “Go ahead and give Tiberius that coin, since it plainly belongs to him. But there are bigger fish to fry—like how we pay back to God what is his!”  He does not believe that you should get worked up over paying taxes, whether out of an outraged sense of political insult (a loss of “liberty”)  or maintaining your ritual or moral purity (not committing “idolatry.”)   If you are already up to your neck in swamp mud, you shouldn’t start going all sentimental about keeping your cheeks free of the filth. Jesus knows that we are living in occupied territory.  Not Romans occupying Palestine.  The Powers and Dominions, the evil systems that reign here, occupying God's good creation.  And he says, do what you need to do to get by under such an occuppation.  But don't let it fool you one bit. 


The problem is that money stands in for so many other things for us.  It objectifies value and worth, work, and honor.  “How much is that person worth?” we ask, oblivious to how we have reduced the person to mere possession of pieces of the economic pie.   “I have done right by her,” says the man about to be divorced for emotional abandonment, thinking only of the money he has sent her way over the years.   “Oh, he doesn’t work, then?” we ask about a stay at home father, just because his work isn’t quantified by measurable currency units.  The proverb says it all, "Money is Power." 

Jesus will have none of this.  

Talking about money and devotion to God elsewhere, Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters.  Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt 6:23-25).  
Money is not the only idol out there.  Political programs promising redemption, whether from the Right or the Left, have a way of standing in for other issues, just like money.     What matters for Jesus is an open-hearted trust and devotion to God, and the acts of mercy and social justice that result from this.

As Mother Jemma announced this morning, I am about to retire from the U.S. government after 25 years of service to devote my life full time to ministry in Ashland,  Oregon, at Trinity Episcopal Church there.   

 I have had many years to think about the contrast between what works and gets you ahead in government and what Jesus taught, between Caesar’s coin and God’s economy.  While I am very grateful that I have been able to serve my country with some very, very smart, competent, and moral men and women, I have seen, like many of them, systemic problems in the way governments in general work.  Let me share some of my observations with you by way of contrasts between the coin of the dominions of this world and God's economy.  

Caesar’s coin is to do the expedient.    God’s is to do the right, do the beautiful.  

Caesar’s coin is to control.  God’s is to serve.

Caesar’s coin is what is in the national interest.  God’s is what benefits those who need it most.

Caesar’s coin is achieving goals and benchmarks.  God’s does not worry about results. 

Caesar’s coin is force and violence.  God’s is gentle love. 

Caesar’s coin is judgment and punishment.  God’s is grace.

Caesar’s coin is reputation and public image.  God’s is character and service.  

Caesar’s coin is making your point.  God’s is listening. 

Caesar’s coin is taking credit and proper branding.  God’s is slight embarrassment at having to have been lucky enough to be there for a good thing, and a preference for anonymity.   

The world we live in is occupied territory.  All of us live under the Dominions,  and as such, we are all in Caesar’s game, and have to pay in Caesar's coin.  In the degree that this is so, we play by Caesar's  rules.  But as Jesus said after his arrest, "those who live by the sword die by it."  There is a much more important game afoot.  There are much, much more important issues that we should focus on.  

 I pray that during this week, in meditation, reflection, and prayer, we all take note of the idols in our lives and then move to put them in their place.  Let us identify and name the Powers.  If you are in the thrall of an idol, then stand up, get off your knees.  

Give back to Caesar what he owns.  But give to God what is God’s. 
 
In the name of Christ, Amen.

Bishop Joseph Schereschewsky (October 14)

Bishop Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky

October 14

Today in the Episcopal Church is the Feast Day commemorating Bishop Joseph Schereschewsky (6 May 1831-15 October 1906), known in Chinese as 施约瑟 Shi Yuese, Joseph Shi.  He was the Episcopal Missionary Bishop of Shanghai 1877-1884 and founded St. John's College there in 1879. 

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky was born in Lithuania in 1831, went to Germany to study for the rabbinate, there became a Christian, emigrated to America, trained for the priesthood, and in 1859 was sent by the Episcopal Church to China.  There he worked on translations of the Bible into classical literary Chinese (“Wenli”), mandarin (“guanhua”), and Shanghai dialect, as well as a translation of the Book of Common Prayer.  In 1877 he was elected Episcopal Bishop of Shanghai.  (There was a separate Church of England bishop as well overseeing Church of England missionary efforts in China.) 

It was as bishop that Schereschewsky combined two small Anglican schools and founded St. John's College.  In 1905, St. John's College became St. John's University and was accredited in Washington D.C., thus becoming the first university in China to also be recognized as a domestic university in the U.S.  St. John’s graduates could proceed directly to graduate study in the U.S. and as a result, the university attracted some of the brightest and wealthiest students in East China at the time. It was the first institution to grant bachelor’s degrees in China, starting in 1907, three years before the end of the Qing dynasty.

When I first came to China in the mid 1980s, among the few Chinese of the older generation who spoke English well were many who still spoke English with the distinctive St. John’s accent, an elegant combination of North American sentence intonation and vocabulary with softened and broadened British public school vowels and final r’s.  They had been taught English by teachers who themselves as young students had become fluent in English at St. John’s before it was  dismantled by the new Communist government in 1952, when its faculty went to Fudan, East China Norma, and Shanghai Jiaotong Universities and its campus became the site of East China University of Politics and Law.

Schereschewsky developed Parkinson's disease, and over time became increasingly paralyzed, resigning his position as Bishop of Shanghai in 1884, and spending the rest of his life completing his Wenli Bible, the last 2000 pages of which he typed with the one finger that he could still move.

Four years before his death in 1906, he said: "I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted."

Prayer

O God, who in your providence called Joseph Schereschewsky from his home in Eastern Europe to the ministry of this Church, and sent him as a missionary to China, upholding him in his infirmity, that he might translate the Holy Scriptures into languages of that land: Lead us, we pray, to commit our lives and talents to you, in the confidence that when you give your servants any work to do, you also supply the strength to do it; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

From Project Canterbury:

THE BIBLE, PRAYER BOOK, AND TERMS IN OUR CHINA MISSIONS. ADDRESSED TO THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS.

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To the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, etc., in Council Assembled:

RT. REV. FATHERS:--There are certain matters in connection with our China Mission, which I have long desired to bring before you. I touch in order upon all the points to which I think it necessary to call the attention of the House upon the present occasion; although in doing so, I must repeat much of that I have already published in the Church papers.

The Bible in Chinese. There are different versions of the Scriptures in the Chinese language; some have never been in use and some have become obsolete. Apart from the versions of the New Testament and other portions of the Scriptures in the different Colloquials in the south-eastern and the middle maritime provinces, there are three translations of the Bible in general use. Two in the literary or book-language (Wen-li) and one in the so-called Mandarin dialect (Kwan-wha) which is the spoken language of at least two-thirds of the Chinese population (say two hundred millions.) Here a few words of explanation. The spoken language or the Mandarin, although according to western ideas it may also be regarded as a literary language, seeing that almost all the light literature of China, some of the most popular tracts and exhortations, and many of the abstruse philosophical disquisitions of the school of the famous Chinese author Chu-hi, are written in it, yet the Chinese themselves do not regard it as a literary language. For literary purposes they make use of the so-called Wen-li or book-language, which is supposed to be identical with the language of ancient China. But there is a great difference between the antique and modern styles of the same book-language. This distinction is made by the Chinese themselves. Literary Chinese in the ancient style (Ku Wen) is understood only by scholars; whilst Chinese in the modern style (Kin Wen) is red and understood by all those who have merely an ordinary education. Chinese in the ancient style, or which is the same thing, ancient Chinese, is practically a dead language. It is used for a certain kind of literary composition, and is understood only by literary men. Not so with the book-language in the modern style. Although not spoken, it cannot be regarded as a dead language. It is used all over China when anything is to be [3/4] written. It is the language of the Codes of Laws, Collections of Statutes, Imperial Edicts, Official Proclamations, Public Documents, Official and Diplomatic Correspondence, Deeds and Contracts, Treatises on Science, Historical and Geographical works. It is the language of the Peking Gazette and the other few newspapers that are published in China. It is used in book-keeping, advertising, and even on signboards, etc. To illustrate the matter, suppose the Gothic of Ulphilas had become during the Middle Ages instead of Latin the literary language of all the Germanic tribes, and in the mean time Hoch Deutsch (High German or High Dutch), the language of Luther's Bible, had of the different German dialects become the vernacular of two-thirds of the German people, the court language, and the spoken language of officials and of the mercantile class all over Germany, the light literature such as novels and plays, etc., being written in this language, and the Gothic remaining even until the present time the literary language of German, with a marked distinction between the antique and modern styles, the comparison would stand as follows. The book-language of China would correspond to the Gothic, the Mandarin to Hoch Deutsch, and the different dialects spoken in Germany. Suppose again the Germans had remained Pagan, and different missionaries had come to propagate Christianity among them. It would be natural that they would translate the Bible in the literary Gothic, in Hoch Deutsch, and in the different dialects. I believe that this is an approximate illustration of the conditions under which the Bible is published in China. Of the two versions of the Bible in the book-language mentioned above, one was made about thirty-five years ago by English dissenters, and published by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the other made about twenty-eight years ago by two American missionaries, viz.: the late Dr. Bridgman of the American Board, and the late Dr. Culbertson of the Presbyterian Board, hence called the Bridgman and Culbertson version, and published by the American Bible Society. [I depend on my memory for these dates as I have no books of reference here.] The former uses Shang-ti for God and Shin for spirit, and the latter Shin for God and Ling for spirit. The former (the so-called Delegate's version) is in good idiomatic Chinese, but does not adhere to the original, the latter (Bridgman and Culbertson version) is a close translation, but in the endeavor to [4/5] be literal, style and idiom have been sacrificed to a considerable extent, and is besides in the antique style.

The Mandarin Bible. The New Testament was translated about nineteen years ago in Peking, by an association of missionaries, both English and America, including myself, and the Old Testament was translated by myself and finished and published in 1875. There are several editions of the whole Mandarin Bible, published by the American Bible Society. The first edition, published in Peking under my supervision in 1875 by the American Bible Society, had T'ien Chu for God, and editions with this term for God have been published from time to time, up to the present date. The American Bible Society also publishes editions of the Mandarin Bible with Shin for God, for the use of those American missionaries who do not see their way clear to adopt T'ien Chu. This Mandarin Bible belongs to the American Bible Society. The British and Foreign Bible Society, by permission of the American Bible Society, published an edition with Shang-ti for God for the use of English missionaries. This Mandarin Bible with the term T'ien Chu for God, was adopted by our mission about ten years ago. Although the Mandarin Bible, according to the statement of the Secretary of the American Bible Society in a letter to me, is ten times as much in demand as the Bible in the book language, still the latter is of great importance. But we want a version of the Bible in the modern literary style. As mentioned above, the Bridgman and Culbertson version (the Wen-li Bible published by the American Bible Society, and mostly used by American missionaries) is in the antique style and can be understood by comparatively few. A Bible in the modern literary language, whilst acceptable to the scholars, could be read and understood by all who are not illiterate. Years ago I was convinced of the necessity of such a version of the Scriptures, and I had it in mind to engage in its preparation, but was prevented by my illness. Within the last year I have been able to use a type-writer, and by its means have accomplished the revision of my Mandarin translation of the Old Testament. I have now begun the translation of the Old Testament into this modern literary language of China (the same style into which I translated the Prayer Book now in use in our Mission). The work is slow, but if I am permitted to continue it at the present rate, I hope to finish the Old Testament within three [5/6] years. I am in hops also to include a translation of the Apocrypha, which have never been translated into Chinese. The translation of the New Testament in the same style, has just been completed in China (although not yet published) by the Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, (Dr. Burdon) and Dr. Blodget, of Peking (American Board). And if I am permitted to finish my work, we shall have the whole Bible in the style, which will be acceptable to the literary class, and at the same time will be understood by those who have even an ordinary education.

One word as to the process by which I carry on the work. By means of the type-writer I render the Chinese in Roman letters according to a certain system of spelling. This Romanized Chinese must be written out again in Chinese characters before it will be available for publication. This re-writing must be done in China. I used the same process in the Revision of my Mandarin version of the Old Testament, which must also be re-written in Chinese characters in China.

The Prayer Book in Chinese. The first attempt to translate the Book of Common Prayer was made about forty years ago by Dr. Morrison, an English dissenter, at the instance, if I remember rightly, of the Christian Knowledge Society. It was not a translation of the complete Prayer Book; only the Morning and Evening Services, the Collects and some of the Offices. It was not a successful translation and has never been used. The next partial translation of the Prayer Book was made about thirty-five years ago by the late Dr. Medhurst, also an English dissenter, at the request of the late Bishop Smith, of Victoria, Hong Kong. Although an improvement upon Dr. Morrison's translation so far as the Chinese is concerned, it did not meet the requirements of a good translation, and it was little used. The next partial translation was made by the late Bishop Boone and the late Mr. Keith of our Mission. It was in the Shanghai Colloquial, and was in use in our Mission in Shanghai until the year 1880. The late Bishop Russell of Ningpo (C.M.S.), also made a partial translation of the Prayer Book in the Ningpo dialect, which belongs to the same family of dialects as the Shanghai Colloquial. The successor of Bishop Russell, Bishop Moule, also translated portions of the Prayer Book in the Hong Chow dialect (a kind of Mandarin). The first complete translation of the Prayer Book was published in the year 1870. It was in the Mandarin dialect, and made in Peking by Bishop, then Mr. Burdon (C.M.S.), and myself. [6/7] When I returned as Bishop in 1878, upon consultation with the clergy of our Mission, it was decided to replace the partial translation of the Prayer Book in the Shanghai colloquial, by a complete version in the modern literary style. The reason that the Mandarin Prayer Book spoken of above was not adopted, was because Mandarin not being the vernacular in that part of China, a Prayer Book in the modern book-language was thought to be in every way more desirable. Here I must touch upon a point which ought not to be passed over. It might be objected that the use of the Prayer Book in the book-language is not in harmony with the twenty-fourth article. To this I would say that apart from the consideration that in propagating Christianity in such a country as China account must be taken of conditions very different from those to which the article has reference; the spirit of the articles does by no means exclude the use of the Prayer Book in the literary language of China. The article was framed as we know with the view of excluding the Latin in public worship. The Latin was not only a dead but also a foreign language in England. The modern literary Chinese is neither the one nor the other. China differs from Europe in many respects. One of these differences consists in the fact, that whilst in the west the literary languages are spoken, in China the literary language is not spoken, and it is very doubtful whether at any period of Chinese history the book-language was the same as the spoken language. To adduce a somewhat parallel case, Hebrew is regarded as a dead language, but it cannot be considered such, as far as Polish and Oriental Jews are concerned, being constantly used by them for religious and literary purposes, although not spoken. The Church of England Missionary Society for the conversion of the Jews, is almost exclusively maintained by members of the evangelical party, who lay great stress on the Thirty-Nine articles. The Anglican prayer Book has been translated into Hebrew under the auspices of that Society, and Anglican services are held in Hebrew in different places. I have myself attended a service in Hebrew, in Palestine Place, Bethnal Green, the headquarters of the Society in London. If the use of the Hebrew Prayer Book in a congregation of Jews is not deemed to be contrary to the spirit of the Twenty-Fourth Article, much less must the use of the Prayer Book in the literary Chinese be regarded as contravening that article, when we consider in the first place, that the Chinese people use the literary Chinese a great deal more than the Jews do the Hebrew, [7/8] and in the second place that the literary and the spoken Chinese belong to the same family, whereas the languages spoken by the Jews and the Hebrew belong to different linguistic families. In fact the literary Chinese is contained in the spoken language. The two are identical so far as grammar and idiom are concerned. The difference between the literary and spoken Chinese consists mainly in that the literary language is more concise and has different particles and pronouns. In my opinion it is absolutely necessary to have the Prayer Book in literary Chinese. As mentioned already the Mandarin is the vernacular of two-thirds of the Chinese people; he remaining one-third (say one hundred millions) speak a great variety of unwritten dialects and patois, these varying in some cases every few miles. The Roman Catholics of course use the Latin in their services, but they have quite a number of devotional books for the people and these are all in the modern book-language. So far as I know they have not put any devotional book in a local dialect. The Mandarin is the only colloquial that they use. It is obvious that it would be as incongruous to multiply Prayer Books in the different Chinese dialects and patois, as it would be incongruous to put the Prayer Book into the different English dialects and patois.

To return to my version of the Prayer Book in the modern book-language. It was published in the year 1880 and was introduced in all our mission stations in China. Previous to this at Hankow and Wuchang a Mandarin Service Book was in use. In making this translation of the Prayer Book in the modern literary language, I have taken the greatest care and pains to have it accurate. I have made a translation both of our own American Prayer Book, and of the English Prayer Book, and combined them into one book so arranged that the Services can be used either by American or English Churchmen. I put the two Prayer Books together, that the book might serve as a basis for a united Prayer Book, that could be used both by our own Church and her Chinese converts, and by the English Church and her Chinese Converts. During the Lambeth conference of 1878 which I attended, a committee was appointed to take the subject of a united Chinese Prayer Book into consideration. The Archbishop of Work was the chairman of that committee, and the Bishop of Ohio and myself were members of it. The committee made a report as to how such a united Prayer Book should be made, but no further action was taken in the matter. As far as I know apart from the [8/9] term question (many if not the majority of the Church of England missionaries in China use Shang-ti for God) the Prayer of Consecration in our Communion Office, would present the greatest difficulty in the way of a united Prayer Book. American Churchmen would strongly object to giving up this Prayer, while as far as I know the majority of English Church missionaries in China would by no means accept it. It is possible that the missionaries of the S.P.G. in China might entertain the idea of accepting it, but those belonging to the C.M.S would be most unlikely to do so.

Change of terms. When I made the translation of the Prayer Book I used T'ien-Chu for God and substituted Chu-kiao for Bishop and Kiao-mu for Priest.

The Term for God. [I quote from my article on the subject of Terms which appear in the Churchman of Jan. 14th and 21st, 1888] Missionaries from the beginning have not agreed upon this question. The Earliest Roman Catholic Missionaries who went to China nearly three hundred years since, and who were Jesuits, as Ricci and his successors, accommodated Christianity as much as possible to the Chinese ideas, and allowed the worship of ancestors, Confucius, and the like. The term they used for God was T'ien or Shang-ti, they maintaining that under these names the Chinese worshiped the true God. The Dominicans who came after them objected to these terms and also to the practice of heathen rites by native Christians. The controversy between the Dominicans and the Jesuits was very sharp, and it was finally carried to Rome where the term of God was settled by a compromise; the term adopted being T'ien-Chu, composed of T'ien (Heaven) and Chu (Lord) and the meaning Lord of Heaven equivalent to God was attached to it. The Roman Catholics having used it ever since; it expresses to the Chinese the idea of the Christian's God. For spirit the Roman Catholics have always used Shin. Protestant missionaries have had a similar controversy as to the terms for God and spirit; one party adopting Shang-ti for God and Shin for Spirit and the other Shin for God and Ling for Spirit. Those who advocated the adoption of Shang-ti were divided into two classes, the extremists, who maintained that Shang-ti of the ancient Chinese Books was the true God and identical with the God of the Bible, and those who held that Shang-ti was not the true God, but argued since [9/10] the meaning of the term Shang-ti (Supreme Ruler) is good in itself, it could well be employed for God, and by instruction and usage the Christian idea of God would become attached to the term. The party who opposed the use of Shang-ti was also divided into two classes, those who maintained that Shang-ti was simply the Chinese Jupiter, and those who admitted that Shang-ti of the Chinese Classics may have meant the true God, but since Shang-ti is now identified by some of the people of China with the tauist idol Yu-hwang, and by some with T'ien (heaven) which at best does not rise above the pantheistic idea, they thought that it would not be safe to called God Shang-ti and thus expose the central truth of Christianity to pagan or pantheistic misconception. In general it may be said that in times past the English missionaries have belonged to the former party, and the Americans to the latter. Those who objected to the use of Shang-ti and proposed Shin, did so not only for the reasons mentioned above but also because they wanted a generic term for God and gods. Shang-ti could not be so used, they believed that Shin could. But there were many, myself among the number, who whilst admitting the force of the arguments that were urged against the use of Shang-ti, were not satisfied that Shin was the proper term for God. Those who adopted Shin as a generic term for God and gods argued, as the word for God in Hebrew, Greek and Latin and modern western languages is a generic term for God and gods, so we must also have in China a generic term for God and gods. This argument may be cogent or not; but in the opinions of many Shin cannot be made to serve as such a generic term for God and gods. I need not here enter into any argument to prove why it cannot, nor undertake a disquisition showing where Shin corresponds and where it does not with Theos and Deus. Those who use Shin for a generic term for God and gods, while admitting much that can be urged against its adoption for God, maintain that by a course of Christian teaching, the idea of the true God may come to be as fully represented by the word Shin as is the case with Theos and Deus. But it seems to me that there is a vital difference. As a Chinese noun may be either singular or plural, masculine or feminine Shin may mean either god and gods or goddesses and goddesses. Generally Shin is in the plural, meaning gods, unless it refers to some individual god understood or spoken of before. In western languages the word God being in the masculine singular and written with a capital letter is practically a different [10/11] word from the words gods. In Hebrew Elohim means the true God and Elohim aherim is applied to false gods. The Septuagint and Vulgate follow the same usage. In Arabic Allah means God and ilah god. Viva voce any term will answer, because it can be explained, but in the Bible and Prayer Book it would be perilous to use a word for God that is liable to be so misconceived by the heathen mind as Shin. No monotheists in China have ever before used either Shin or Shang-ti for God. The Nestorians transferred the Syriac word Aloho and the Mahommedans (there are several millions of them in China) use Chu (Lord) or Chen Chu (true Lord). Another objection to using Shin for God is that the Roman Catholics use Shin for angel, in the combination t'ien-shin (celestial spirit).

These considerations and others that I will not here enumerate, led some of us to the conviction that we must have separate words for God and gods. The word Shin would serve very well for gods, but another word for God must be found. Shang-ti we felt we could not conscientiously use; there was left the term T'ien Chu employed for more than two hundred years by the Roman Catholics. This term is not entirely free from objections. In the first place T'ien-Chu in an ancient Chinese book ascribed to Szi-ma-ts'ien, the Chinese Heroditus (about 200 B.C.), is mentioned as the designation of one of the divinities worshipped by the ancient Chinese. In buddhist writings Indra is called T'ien Chu the lord of the devas (gods.) With the buddhist t'ien is always the equivalent of the Sanscrit word deva. Indra is called lord of the devas because he is represented as being at the head of the thirty-two devas, who with him make up the number of the thirty-three vedic divinities. Moreover by the use of T'ien-Chu Protestants are liable to be confounded with Romanists who call themselves the T'ien-Chu-Kiao (religion of the Lord of Heaven), and this for many reasons is not desirable. I had myself advocated the use of Shang-Chu (Supreme Lord) for God. In the year 1863 the present bishop of Victoria (Dr. Burdon) and myself translated portions of the Prayer Book into the Mandarin, in which the term Shang-Chu was used for God. It was my friend Dr. Blodget of the American Board, who convinced me that in spite of objections urged against it, T'ien-Chu was on the whole the best term that could be used for God. About the year 1864 when I proposed to undertake the translation of the Old Testament, I laid the matter before the then Foreign Committee proposing to [11/12] use T'ien-Chu for God and shin for gods. And following the precedent of the Septuagent, Vulgate, the English Bible and most modern Western versions, I proposed to render Jehovah by Chu (Lord).

If I remember rightly, the Foreign Committee brought the matter before the House of Bishops, who asked the Bishop of Western New York to correspond with me on the subject, and I understood that I obtained the sanction of the House of Bishops to proceed with the translation on the principles mentioned in my correspondence with him, as well as to use T'ien-Chu for God.

A word just here about the term for spirit. Shin is a good term for spirit. One of the many meanings of shin is spirit. As mentioned above, the Roman Catholics as well as those Protestant missionaries who employ Shang-ti for God, use Shin for spirit, but inasmuch as Shin was reserved to be used for gods, in order to avoid confusion, Ling for Spirit, the term employed by all missionaries who use Shin for God, was adopted by those of us who preferred T'ien-Chu for God. According to the native dictionaries Ling and Shin are to some extent synonymous terms. In defining Ling it is said to be Shin, and in defining Shin it is said to be Ling.

In 1878 when I returned to China as bishop I had a conference with the clergy of our mission and we agreed to use T'ien-Chu, in all printed matter, as the Bible, Prayer Book, Catechisms, etc., leaving the missionaries liberty to use any term they preferred in viva voce preaching, although Shang-ti was never used in our Mission.

The Term for Bishop. The term formerly used in our mission for Bishop was Kien-tuh, for this I substituted Chu-kiao. The objections that I had to the use of the term Kien-tuh for Bishop are these. In the first place it is the title of a Chinese official (superintendent of granaries) and I thought it very incongruous to call a Bishop by the title of a Chinese mandarin, and in the second place, which to my mind was the stronger objection, Kien-tuh means and can only mean superintendent. Everyone, no matter to what school of thought in the Church he belongs, must admit that our Bishops are more than superintendents. The Historic Episcopate is one of the conditions of union set forth by the House of Bishops, and the idea of Bishop in that sense cannot be conveyed by the term Kien-tuh. We do not differ from the Roman Catholics as to Episcopacy, and it seemed to me that [12/13] there was no reason why we should not use the same term for Bishop. Another reason why I thought it well to use this term in common with the Roman Catholics was in order to assert our Episcopate. The use of Kien-tuh for Bishop gave them occasion to assert that Anglicans themselves by calling their Bishops Kien-tuh (superintendents) admitted that their Bishops were not genuine. I am able to state this fact from personal knowledge. It has been asserted that Chu-Kiao means lord of religion. It does not mean so. To have this meaning it must be reversed thus, Kiao-Chu, as in Chinese the genitive is always put before the nominative. The first word chu in the term Chu-kiao is both a noun and a verb. When it is a noun it means a ruler, lord, master, etc.; when it is a very it means to rule, to govern, to preside over, to manage, etc. In the combination Chu-Kiao, Chu is a verb. It has been objected that Chu-kiao means to "lord it in religion;" it may mean so, but not necessarily. Chu-kiao is patterned after the expression Chu-k'ao, the title of a high official who presides over the competitive examinations.

It is composed of Chu, to preside over, and K'ao, examinations. As a matter of fact the officer who presides over the examinations cannot lord it or act arbitrarily, as he must conform to established rules and regulations. If the Roman Catholic Bishops in China lord it in religion, it is as little owing to their title being Chu-kiao as their doing so in this country is owing to their title of Bishop, I would here say that it seems to me unreasonable to reject in China suitable terms that express ideas held in common by the Roman and the Anglican Churches, for no other cause than that they are used by the Roman Church. The Greek Church which opposes the Roman Church, as strongly as any Protestant Communion, yet in those things wherein the two Churches agree, they used in China the same religious terms.

Term for Priest. The old term in our Mission for Priest was Hwei-chang. I always thought it one of the most objectionable terms in use. It is composed of Hwei the word adopted for Church, and Chang Elder. Superficially it would appear to be quite a close translation of Presbyter, but this appearance is deceptive. Among the religious terms adopted from the Roman Catholics by protestant Missionaries some are good, some bad, some indifferent. To the second Category belongs in my opinion the word Hwei for Church. It is very difficult to attach the idea of Church to the word. The meaning of the buddhist term [13/14] Sangha is somewhat similar to that of Ecclesia. The Buddhists did not think that Hwei would be an adequate rendering of their term, so they transferred the Sanscrit word Sangha. Some of the early Roman Catholic Missionaries transferred the word Ecclesia, and to my thinking it is much to be regretted that they finally translated Ecclesia by Hwei. But as the word Hwei for Church has been long used both by Roman Catholics and Protestants it seemed best not to disturb it. Hwei is both a verb and a noun and it has many meanings. As a noun it means association, society, fraternity, guild, etc. There are in China many Hwei or guilds, resembling the mediaeval trade guilds of Europe. The heads or masters of such guilds are called hwei-chu or hwei-chang (master or elder of the hwei--guild or association). It is customary for such guilds to organize festivals in honor of their patron deity. These festivals consist in processions and theatricals and are also called Hwei. The managers of such heathen festivals and processions are likewise called Hwei-Chang. If it is objectionable to call a Bishop by the title of a Chinese Mandarin, how much more objectionable is it to call a Priest by the name of a manager of a heathen festival or procession. The Roman Catholics have the term Hwei-chang, but they apply it to a certain class of their laymen. I cannot tell exactly to what class, but probably they apply the term to the heads of religious confraternities. The Roman Catholic Hwei-chang act frequently as Catechists. These considerations induced me to substitute Kiao-muh, Kiao, religion, and Mu, Pastor, for Hwei-chang. None of the Protestant bodies call their ministers Hwei-Chang. They use the term Mu-shi, Mu, Pastor, shi, teacher, nearly the same as Kiao-Mu, but the latter I think is to be preferred. The principal word mu in this combination, is a high term. In classical Chinese it is applied to Masters and Governor. It is not different in its application from, if not higher than the Latin word Pastor. It is applied to Christ Himself in every translation of the Bible into Chinese. In the Rubrics I transferred the English words Priest and Ministers, chiefly for the reason that I could not find in Chinese words that would convey the same shade of difference in the meaning, as there exists between the words Priest and Minister in English. I also transferred the word Presbyter, in the Ordination Office. But it was not contemplated that these transferred words should be in general use, although indeed there is good precedent for using transferred technical terms, in which case [14/15] according to the genius of the Chinese language only one or two syllables of the transferred term is used. The Roman Catholics have no Chinese word for Priest, but have transferred the Italian Sacerdote thus Sa-che-ur-toh-teh; but they use only the two last syllables toh-teh for the whole word. The popular name for the Roman Clergy is Shin-fu, spiritual fathers. Toh-teh was out of the question. Besides other objections, if it comes to the using of a transferred foreign term it must certainly be acknowledged that the Anglican word Priest is to be preferred to the Italian word Sacerdote. But for general use there is no need to employ the transferred word. To my thinking Kiao-mu for Priest is as good a term as can be found in the Chinese. The other terms I left undisturbed, not that I thought them all satisfactory, but I was in doubt whether I could find others that would be an improvement.

Agreement made about terms not Adhered to in the Mission. Ten years ago as mentioned above, we agreed in our Mission that T'ien-Chu for God should be used in all our printed matter, as the Bible, Prayer Book, Catechisms, etc. The terms for Bishop and Priest were introduced into the Prayer Book by myself, but the Prayer Book was accepted by the whole mission and no objection was made to the use of these terms. When these three terms were introduced into the Mission, I thought that the question was settled once for all. But it appears that this term question has been re-opened in our Mission by the re-introduction of Shin for God, and Kien-tuh for Bishop on the one hand, and Hwei-Chang for Priest on the other. To my mind these three terms are of almost equal importance. It is nearly as objectionable to use incongruous and misleading terms for Bishop and Priest, as it is to use a vague, polytheistic term for God. This re-introduction of two discarded terms in one part of our Mission, and of one discarded term in another part of our Mission, cannot but create confusion.

Rumors have reached me that it might be proposed to divide the Missionary jurisdiction, and have one set of terms and one type of Churchmanship in Shanghai, and have another set of terms and another type of Churchmanship at Wuchang. In my opinion that time has certainly not yet come for the division of the jurisdiction. The having one set of terms at Shanghai, and another at Wuchang, as well as different types of Churchmanship at the two places, is highly to be deprecated. Such a state of [15/16] affairs would not only challenge hostile criticism both at home and in China, but would have a most unfortunate effect upon the work. Besides it would be a great disaster to have the term Shin for God again in use in our Mission.

Legislation of the Church Necessary. In my humbly opinion it is high time that the Church should legislate upon these vexed questions in our China Mission. It appears to me that all questions concerning vestments and other matters of mere ritual, sink into utter insignificance, compared with the terms question. The right term for Priest, concerns the dignity and position of the Christian Ministry. The right term for Bishop, concerns the characteristic feature of our Church as a part of the Church Catholic, and in possession of the Historic Episcopate. And the right term for God, concerns the very foundation of the Christian religion. The Church must see to it that these matters should not be left to the opinions or fancies of individual missionaries, or even of missionary Bishops. The Mission represents the Church, and is under the control of the Church, and the Church alone is the one to legislate upon such matters. In this connection I must confess that I have myself perhaps acted ultra vires in introducing in the mission a combination of the English and American Prayer Books as mentioned above. I have strong doubts whether I had a right to combine the two Prayer Books, although I have made no changes whatever in the text of the American Prayer Book. However this may be, I am convinced that no American Bishop in the foreign field has any authority to introduce any changes, or to omit anything in the American Prayer Book unless authorized so to do by special legislation on the part of the Church.

I would humbly suggest that the House of Bishops appoint a Committee to take into consideration the questions which I have here brought before the House, and to recommend legislation on those points where legislations is necessary.

I have, Rt. Rev. Fathers,

The honor to remain your

Humble and obedient servant,

S. I. J. SCHERESCHEWSKY.

Geneva, N.Y., Nov. 5, 1888.

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