A Chosen Vessel (Conversion of St. Paul, Jan. 25) Mid-week Reflection

Carravagio's Conversion of St. Pau

A Chosen Vessel

(Conversion of St. Paul, January 25) 

Mid-week Reflection

“Don’t even try.  You can’t teach on old dog new tricks.  A leopard can’t change its spots.”  These bits of proverbial wisdom stem from peoples’ experience and the frustration we encounter in trying to change long held patterns of thought and behavior.   It is important to remember that while they describe what is often the case, they are not certain descriptions of human possibility. 

Today (January 25) is the commemoration of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who went from ardent persecutor of Christians to being Paul, the main Christian missionary to the Gentiles. 

Most of us know the story from St. Luke’s portrayal of the event in the Book of Acts:  

“And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew near Damascus: and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven: and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute thou me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting: but rise, and enter into the city, and there you shall be told what you must do. And those journeying with him stood speechless, hearing the sound, but seeing no one.  Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing.  They led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was blind for three days, and ate and drank nothing during that time.”  (Acts 9:3-9)

Ananias Restoring the Sight of St. Paul (c.1631) by Pietro da Corona.   

The story continues with a devout Jewish Christian, Ananaias, receiving a divine revelation telling him to visit Saul at the house of Judas on the aptly-named "Street Called Straight," where he is to lay hands on Saul to restore his sight.  Ananias, having heard stories of just how aggressive and abusive Saul is, does not want to do this.  He finally relents when God tells him, “Go ahead and do this, for [Saul] is a chosen vessel for me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. 

Acts tells the story two other times, both in speeches placed on Paul’s lips (Acts 22:6-21 and 26:12-18).  These tell the story differently and seem focused on attracting the audiences addressed by the speeches:  Acts 22 seems to want to establish Paul’s credibility to a Jewish audience by linking him to Ananias' good reputation in the Jewish community in Damascus, while Acts 26 seems aimed at attracting its Roman audience by its emphasis on loyalty and obedience to orders.

In contradistinction to Luke, Paul himself refers to his conversion a couple of times in his own letters.  In Galatians, he stresses that the revelation came from God and not from some human intermediary (like Ananias in Acts):  

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being.”   (Galatians 1:11-16)

Despite this claim of having no human intermediary, Paul elsewhere sets his own conversion within the context of traditions that he had received from others:  

“For I passed on to you the tradition first of all that I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; that he was buried; that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then the Twelve; after that, he appeared to over five hundred of our family at once; of whom the greater part are still alive, but some have died. After that, he appeared to James; then to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared also to me, a monstrous child born at the wrong time, as it were.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) 

The great hope that the conversion of St. Paul gives us is this:  it is possible to change, even when you have a weight of experience telling you that you will always remain the same.  You can teach an old dog new tricks.   Or at least God can.  A leopard can change its spots.  Or at least God can make it so.  

But this is the result of serious "power from on high" and grace from God.  But it also stems from seeking the socialization and support from people living on the "Street called Straight," tradition-bearers like Ananias.   

Thanks be to God.  

--Fr. Tony+

Grace and Courage (Li Tim-Oi January 24)

Grace and Courage 

(Rector's Letter in the "Trinitarian," January 2012)

Gracious God, we thank you for calling Florence Li Tim-Oi, much beloved daughter, to be the first woman to exercise the office of a priest in our Communion: By the grace of your Spirit inspire us to follow her example, serving your people with patience and happiness all our days, and witnessing in every circumstance to our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In the Episcopal Church’s calendar, January 24 is the feast day of Li Tim-Oi, the first woman to be ordained a priest in any of the churches claiming the “apostolic succession” of an historical episcopacy.  Though part of our “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” it is a day we should celebrate big-time, not only for the great blessing of having sister priests, bishops, and primates serving among us, but also because her ordination was a moment of real grace, when the Church despite itself did the right thing and followed the Gospel.   

Li Tim-Oi’s ordination was a bit like that great turning point in early Christian history recounted in Acts 8-15 when the Church, again despite itself, reached out and brought in the gentiles as equal partners to what previously been a Jews-only affair:  Philip privately preaches to the Ethiopian Eunuch and baptizes him (Acts 8:26ff).  Then, after Saul’s conversion, Peter openly baptizes gentile Cornelius, against Peter’s native sense of religious duty to God.  It took a dream vision and huge amounts of “coincidence” to bring Peter to do the deed (Acts 10).  Saul, now Paul, preaches widely and succeeds beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.  And so the Church must meet and figure out in Council how to manage the new reality, Gentiles as Christians (Acts 15).   The story recounts a brilliant chapter in the Church’s life, one mirrored in Li Tim-Oi’s ordination. 

 The Rev. Canon Christopher Hall (on left)

I know a little bit about Li Tim-Oi because I was ordained in the same place she was made a deacon by Church of England Bishop Ronald O. Hall—St. John’s Cathedral in Hong Kong.  St. John’s still has Bishop Hall’s Chair in the chancel.  The Anglican College where I taught there, Minghua Theological Seminary, is named after him.   (His Chinese name is “He Minghua.”  “Minghua” was Hall’s Chinese given name.)   Many of the older St. John’s congregants remember Mother Li’s ministry.  I have often preached and celebrated at Morrison Chapel Macau, where Li Tim-Oi served for several years.  Last October, when I went to Hong Kong to tidy up loose ends in preparing to move to Ashland to serve you, I had the great pleasure of meeting and talking to Bishop Hall’s son Christopher, there on vacation from the U.K.

 Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok, her father, Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination 
as Deacon by Bishop R 0 Hall at St John's Cathedral HK. Ascension Day 22 May 1941

When Li was born in Hong Kong on 5 May 1907, her father named her Tim-Oi ("Much Beloved") because he valued his daughter even if others in his patriarchal culture preferred sons.  She was converted to Christianity as a student at an Anglican school, choosing as her Christian name “Florence” after Florence Nightingale, the famous 19th century English nurse known for her unselfish service.  

In 1931 at the ordination of a deaconess at St. John’s, Florence heard a call to ministry for herself.  Completing 4 years of seminary in Guangzhou, and was ordained deacon on Ascension Day 1941, and given charge of an Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macau (about a four hour boat ride from Hong Kong, now an hour by jet foil).  Macau then thronged with refugees from war-torn China, as its neutrality was respected even after Hong Kong fell to the Japanese in 1942.  

Since there was no way for Anglican priests to get to Macau to serve the community there, Bishop Hall took the emergency measure of authorizing Li Tim-Oi to celebrate the Eucharist as a deacon 1942-45. Then in January1945, he asked Li to meet him in a non-occupied area of South China, where he resolved the priest shortage by ordaining her “a priest in the Church of God.”

Known in the conservative press as "the red bishop" for his progressive positions 

on social justice, Bishop Ronald Owen Hall served in Hong Kong for 30 years, 

unable to return to the U.K. to serve as bishop there because he ordained a woman to the priesthood.  

He had previously been in correspondence and conversation with his fellow Bishops back in England, who had all uniformly told him that by ordaining a woman—regardless of the circumstances and the need—he would make himself a pariah in the Church of England and would never be able to serve as a Bishop in the U.K.  One of the reasons for Hall’s long tenure as Bishop in Hong Kong (30 years) was that he could not return to the U.K. except to retire.  This caused his family great hardship, since they were generally living in the U.K.  

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, otherwise a social and theological progressive for that day and age, privately expressed his divided mind on the matter: "If we could find any shadow of theological ground for the non-ordination of women I should be immensely comforted, but such arguments as I have heard on that line seem quite desperately futile."  Nonetheless, he publicly condemned the ordination: “I cannot think that in any circumstances whatever an individual Bishop has the right to take such a step which is most certainly contrary to all the laws and precedents of the Church  . . . I do profoundly deplore the action that you took and have to regard it as ultra vires [beyond your legal authority]. ”

Bishop Hall knew, however, that it was God, not Ronald O. Hall, who made Tim-Oi a Priest. Later in his life, he joked that at the time of the ordination, he was tempted to give Tim-Oi a new Christian name, Cornelia, seeing her ordination as significant an increase in the scope of God’s grace as the baptism of Cornelius the gentile.  Consistently throughout his life, Hall said that he did not regret ordaining Tim-Oi, and indeed claimed it as one of his finest hours and greatest acts.

After the war, the controversy over Tim-Oi’s ordination forced her, in the interest of preserving peace in the Church, to give up her diocesan priest's license.   She declined, however, to renounce Holy Orders, since she agreed that it was God, not Bishop Hall, who had made her a Priest.  Living in Guangdong Province after the communist takeover and during the Cultural Revolution, she was persecuted bitterly, but later said that knowledge that she was a priest had sustained her during the hardest assaults of the Red Guards.  

As the example of her life worked on the Church and times changed, Tim-Oi was able to practice her priesthood again.  She was recognized as a priest again in 1971 for the Diocese of Hong Kong.  When she retired to Canada in 1981, she was appointed a non-stipendiary priest in a Toronto parish, where she spent the remainder of her life.

At the provincial synod of the Chinese Anglican Church in Shanghai in 1947, Bishop Hall had tried but failed to get retroactive approval in canon law for Li Tim-Oi's ordination.  One of those attending was Gilbert Baker, who later as Hall’s successor as Bishop of Hong Kong would ordain Anglicanism's first two women priests legally with the blessing of the Anglican Consultative Council, in 1971.   The ordination of women as deacons, priests, and, increasingly, bishops, has now become the general norm throughout most of the Communion.   

Thank God for prophetic voices in our age.  Thank God for moments of grace when the Church, despite itself, better embodies hospitality, love, welcome, and mercy in its life and practice.  As we consider the divisive issues currently facing the Communion, where names like “Jeffrey Johns” and “Gene Robinson” appear instead of “Cornelius,” or “Li Tim-Oi,” let us remember the centrality of grace in God’s economy.  And let us too be courageous, like St. Peter and Bishop Ronald O. Hall.  

Father Tony+

Reverencing the Blessed Sacrament (Mid-Week Reflection)

Ceremonies Reverencing the Holy Sacrament

(Mid-week Reflection) 

Sisters and Brothers at Trinity, 

Some of you have asked about the use of the sanctus bell during the consecration of the Eucharist, as well as some of the small ceremonial practices I use when I celebrate.  Here is a beginning of an answer.  

 St. Paul, writing about 25 years after the death of Jesus, said,

 “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.   So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  (1 Corinthians 11:23-27) 

This early Christian saying lies behind the words of institution that are at the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer (the Great Thanksgiving).    Another Christian tradition recorded about 50 years later, takes the thought further: it has Jesus saying,   

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” (John 6:53-55).  

 
These sayings brought the Church to recognize the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  In both Eastern and Western traditions, many ceremonial practices resulted that sought to express faith in and reverence for the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament: the use of incense, bells, bowing or quickly kneeling (“genuflecting”), and ensuring that the consecrated elements were consumed reverently and not thrown or washed into the trash or sewer. 

The Western Church much later actually tried to define the method by which the Eucharistic bread and the wine supposedly became the body and blood of Christ:  a mystical miracle where the priest used God’s power to change the elements’ philosophical “substance” (bread-ness and wine-ness) into the blood-ness and body-ness of Divinity Itself: transubstantiation.    Such a definition required that the consecrated elements be treated as if they were God himself, and produced late medieval abuses such as simply observing the Eucharist but not partaking of the bread and wine, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as if it were God.   

The Eastern Church was reluctant to define such a mystery and accept the one-on-one identity of the consecrated elements and the Almighty.  Rather, it was content to simply affirm the Real Presence.  The radical Protestant Reformation reacted against what it saw as Rome’s “idolatry” of worshipping “mere creatures of bread and wine,” and instead focused on other early Christian passages where the Eucharistic Meal was treated as a memorial or remembrance.    

Anglicans remained in the middle (along with Lutherans), and affirmed the Real Presence and called for the reverencing of the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of the sacrament while declining to accept transubstantiation per se, on occasions preferring consubstantiation or transignification.  We have been consistent in viewing the Eucharist as a sacrament where the unseen power of God is made manifest and visible rather than a mere ordinance or memorial.  Many of us have preserved or revived the older traditions expressing reverence for the Blessed Sacrament while not adoring it as such.  That’s where sanctus bells, bowing, and washing of vessels come in.  

In all this, we have followed the lead of the young Elizabeth I, by affirming in faith the Real Presence while ambiguously declining to over-define the matter.  When queried under threat of possible torture or death as a heretic by Queen Mary’s inquisitors about her belief regarding the Eucharistic elements, Elizabeth replied with this quatrain: 

Christ was the word that spake it.
He took the bread and break it;
And what his words did make it
That I believe and take it.

Peace. 

--Fr. Tony+

Hearing Voices (Epiphany 2B)

Hearing Voices
Second Sunday after Epiphany (Year B)
15 January 2011: 8 am Spoken Mass and 10:00 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20); 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, `Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening." (1 Sam 3:1-10) 

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

I had a student several years ago who shocked a French class I was teaching.  He was a well-educated Cambodian who had fled the genocide in his country in 1975, and despite his sophistication and scientific orientation, affirmed in class his belief in ghosts. He told us this story:

When the Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Phenh in April, I was evacuated from the city along with everyone else.  I saw people shot on the street as class enemies simply because they were wearing glasses. I was sent to a labor camp near the Thai border.  It was very hard, but I managed relatively well until I realized that there was no hope—they people I would start becoming friends with would get into trouble with the camp leader and then be killed in a public struggle session.  I had heard that the swamp between the camp was impassable and full of quicksand, but getting across the border was my only hope. I fled in the middle of the night during a heavy downpour that limited visibility to just a foot or so.  Almost immediately I lost my sense of direction, and soon I was in water and mud almost over my head. I lost all hope.

But then I started noticing small blue lights—almost like flames—that seemed to call to me. I would follow them—first this one, then that one, and as I did, I noticed the ground under my feet would get more solid, and suck at my legs less. Soon, even though it was still raining heavily, I was following a path marked by blue flames on each side.  Gradually the rain stopped, and dawn came with me on solid ground.  Immediately soldiers surrounded me. But they were speaking Thai, not Khmer. I had successfully crossed the border. The soldiers did not believe that I had come that way through the night, because the swamp was a dumping ground where the Khmer Rouge had been dumping the bodies of those killed daily at the camp. “It’s haunted by all the dead,” they said, “and no one can get through.”

We all sat transfixed by the story. He continued:

Now I am an educated man. I have studied science and some philosophy. I know that I had low blood sugar, and was under stress. I know that I was probably suffering from hallucinations. I know also that sometimes in swamp areas the decaying vegetation can produce methane that can ignite and cause random flames. Sometimes there is bioluminescence cause by microscopic plants. I know that all of this might be the explanation of the flames. But when I think about what happened to me, I realize that the only language that can even approach describing it to say that the ghosts of those killed by the Khmer Rouge took pity on me and lead me through that swamp.

One of Cambodia's many monuments to the victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide. 

 

I have often thought of my student’s story when people ask me how it is that we Christians, living in an age of neuro-science, evolutionary biology, and particle physics, can say we believe in God, and that Jesus was God made truly human.

Most of us who show up to Church on a regular basis (or even on a not-so-regular basis) do so because at some time or another we have had an experience, an insight, a dream, or a deep feeling, where we felt, if only for a moment or if only in a glimmer, that God was speaking to us, that Jesus was embracing us in his arms.  This is true even of us Episcopalians, whom some love to make fun of as “the chosen frozen” because we tend to be suspicious of too-fervent claims of endorsement by the Almighty of any particular way of seeing things, and find it in bad taste to parade such experiences about in public.

“I heard God’s voice” is a dangerous claim. Think of the horrors that have been justified over the centuries with the words, “God commands this”: Holy wars, slavery, child abuse, assassinations, terrorism, sexual predation, the subjugation of nations, or women, or whole classes of people because of something they had no control over.  Some of these claims were cynical and others wholly sincere but deluded.   Granted, people have also cited God’s voice in arguing for good things, including the ending of many of the horrors just mentioned.  “I heard God’s voice” is a suspicious claim, if only because it has been used to argue such widely divergent things. 

On the level of observable facts, what people call “hearing the voice of God” appears to be indistinguishable from coming to a conclusion or a new insight about things through reasoning, introspection, or through states of altered consciousness or hallucinations, whether caused by ketosis and low blood sugar due to fasting, emotional distress, possible environmental hallucinogens like ergot, or just a genetic predisposition to neurological disturbances.   When people start talking about hearing the voice of God, then, we moderns are inclined to be like Ebenezer Scrooge when he first sees the ghost of Jacob Marley.  He denies what he is seeing, saying Marley is a hallucination induced by eating before going to bed, “a spot of mustard, a bit of undigested beef.” 

Yet we Christians persist in saying that we have heard God’s voice because, just like for my Cambodian student who, along with Scrooge, believed in ghosts, this is the only language we can find that adequately describes what we have experienced.   

Hearing God’s voice, hearing God’s call, is the theme shared by all of today’s scripture readings. 

In the reading from First Samuel, the boy Samuel hears the voice of God in the Temple in the night and mistakes it for the voice of his master, the prophet Eli.  This takes place in an era when “The word of the LORD was precious due to its scarcity, . . . and visions not widespread.”  Eli himself is going blind, as if to underscore that fact.  When Eli finally recognizes that it is God’s voice that is waking Samuel, he tells him, “Go, and listen with an open mind and heart.”   Note here that this is in an age like ours—not a lot of vision or hearing of God.  Samuel mistakes the voice of God for the voice of Eli, his teacher, religious leader, and surrogate father.  Samuel is inexperienced in recognizing God’s voice.  Eli, with his greater experience, helps Samuel in this.   Among the reasons we read scripture, pray, come to Church, and seek spiritual direction and religious formation is to form us so that we can better discern God’s voice and find encouragement to do what God tells us, however God might speak to us.

Similarly, the Gospel of John reading tells of Nathanael hearing Jesus’ call.  Like the voice of God in Samuel’s case, the voice of God to Nathanael moves from the small, easily explained away, to the more central, clear, obvious voice of God.  And this is so, despite Nathanael’s failings and prejudices.   The central image in Jesus’ message to Nathanael, that Jesus is the gateway to heaven, the ladder on which the angels pass between Earth and Heaven, underscores the point that God is speaking to Nathanael through the person of Jesus.  Jesus is the rule by which we must judge whether a voice is God’s voice or not.

This is also shown in the Epistle reading: St. Paul is replying a letter from the Church at Corinth where some people claim to have heard God’s voice recommending things that Paul roundly condemns.   They are incompatible with the voice he recognizes as God’s. 

There are many competing claims of God speaking here and there, and several differing views of what God’s voice says.  Learning to recognize the voice of God among such varied voices is important.   My experience is that there is one standard that is reliable and trustworthy: it is the person of Jesus himself.   In traditional Christian theology, we affirm that Jesus Christ was and is the definitive self-revelation of God.  This means that what the historical Jesus said and did is extremely important.  To be sure, this is all mediated through scripture, tradition, and reason.  The voice of Jesus in scripture itself is mediated by four very different views of Jesus found in the four Gospels.  But the ultimate standard remains Jesus himself, and getting acquainted with his voice provides us the experience that Eli had and Samuel lacked for recognizing when God is speaking. 

 

God does speak. I have heard the voice of God at times, and I believe that many of you have as well. 

“Hearing God’s voice” can only be experienced, as it were, from the inside, and does not make itself readily available for rational analysis from some theoretical objective sideline, let alone for apologetics.

We need not fear God’s voice. It is the voice of a loving savior, a dear friend.  Eli tells Samuel “Go and listen.” Phillip tells Nathanael “Come and see.” 

May we all be quick to do so. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Fully God and Fully Human (midweek reflection)

Fully God and Fully Human

Mid-week Reflection for Trinity Church Ashland 

As we work through the season of Epiphany, when the Church focuses on who Jesus is, based on how he has been manifested, the issue of how to describe the divinity and humanity of Christ in modern terms often arises. The Creeds use ancient philosophical categories that are unfamiliar to most of us as habits of thinking, so the need to rephrase the faith in ways that are familiar to us is great.

D. M. Baillie, a distinguished Scottish theologian, argues that the Council of Chalcedon's doctrine that Jesus Christ was “fully God and fully human” is perhaps best explained by what he calls the "paradox of grace." We Christians since antiquity have been aware that we possess what appears to be a genuinely free will of our own, that we are "not marionettes but responsible persons." At the same time, we are equally sure that whatever good there is in our lives comes from God acting in us. And we feel that we are never more truly free, nor more truly human, than in those moments when we are most dependent on and most open to God.

"This is the deepest paradox of our Christian experience, and it runs right through it, woven into its very texture," says Dr. Baillie. "I suggest that it . . . points the way to an understanding of the perfect union of God and man in the Incarnation." In the New Testament, Jesus is seen "surpassing all other [people] in refusing to claim anything for himself independently, and ascribing all goodness to God." Yet his disciples felt that when they were with him, they were in the presence of God. And Jesus told them they were right in believing that. "If the paradox of Divine grace is a reality in our poor imperfect lives at all," asked Dr. Baillie, "does not the same or a similar paradox, taken at the perfect and absolute pitch, appear as the mystery of the Incarnation?" (Cf. Louis Cassels, Christian Primer: Adult Answers to Basic Questions about the Christian Faith [Doubleday: NYC, 1964; rpt. FMP 1981] 24-26.)

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, provides another modern model in his discussion of "miracles." He writes, God is an "almighty power ..., a steady swell of loving presence, always there at work in the centre of everything that is, opening the door to a future even when we can see no hope. ... God is always at work, but that work is not always visible. God is always at work, but sometimes the world’s processes go with the grain of his final purpose and sometimes they resist. But if certain things came together in the world at this or that moment, the ‘flow’ would be easier and more direct. Perhaps a really intense prayer or a really holy life can open the world up that bit more to God’s purpose so that unexpected things happen. ... We’re never going to have a complete picture on how that works, because we don’t have God’s perspective on it all. But we can say that there are some things we can think, say or do that seem to give God that extra ‘freedom of manoeuvre’ in our universe. And whether we fully understand what’s going on or not, we know that it’s incumbent on us to do what we can to let this happen. We pray, we act in ways that have some chance of shaping a situation so that God can come more directly in" (Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief [Louisville / London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007] 44-45.)

Jesus, as the One who perfectly submitted to God, who wholly aligned his will and his actions with God's ultimate purposes and love, was thus the supreme miracle-worker and the ultimate Miracle. In the words of Celtic spirituality, he was the thinnest of "thin places" between our world and the Ultimate. In "emptying himself" to God (Phil 2:1-13), and submitting fully to God, the Man Jesus is an exemplar for us.

Seeing such "emptying" of self as the heart of growth toward God, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) wrote the following prayer as part of his Spiritual Exercises:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All I have and call my own, you have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Amen.

Kings vs. Wizards (Epiphany)

 

Kings vs. Wizards

8 January 2012

Feast of the Epiphany (observed, transferred from 6 January)

8 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.  When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.  “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
   are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
   who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.  He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.  On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.  (Matthew 2:1-12)

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

One of my dearest friends once told me that he at times just could not work up faith in God.  “I was raised as a Christian and went to Church as a boy.  I was an acolyte.  I was an Eagle Scout. But when I look at the world, it’s really hard for me to believe in God.  I’d like to have a simple faith, but there just seems to be too much wrong out there to have a good and loving God behind it all.  Part of what is wrong with the world is me, I admit,  ‘cuz I’m no angel.  I’d like to have faith, but seem just not able.  Does that make me a bad person?” 

Here was a man who had on occasion tasted God’s grace and love, but found it hard to, as he put it, “believe in God.”   Other dear friends of mine are a little more aggressive in their unbelief:  reacting to abusive Church authority or dishonesty in not acknowledging the obstacles to faith, they believe there is no such thing as God, and that faith and religion are harmful atavisms that need to be rooted out.

Our scriptures today are those for the Feast of Epiphany, which took place on January 6. The church is thus still greened for “Three Kings’ Sunday.”  Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.  Early Jewish Christians saw this as the manifestation of Christ to the unbelievers. 

Today’s Gospel tells the story of strange figures from the East arriving in Jerusalem seeking the child born “King of the Jews.”  The visitors are called Magoi (Latin: Magi).  The Greek word often describes Persian astrologers or diviners, or even Zoroastrian priests.  The word is related to our word “magician” and always is tinged with Mystery and the Occult.  Probably the best translation for it is Wizards.

 

We don’t know how many of the Wizards arrive; we usually number them as three because that is how many gifts they bring: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We usually say they are kings because of the passages we read today from Isaiah and Psalm 72, where foreign kings bring gifts and tribute to the Ideal King of the Future. 

All three gifts are luxury items, and tell us more about Jesus than about those bearing the gifts.  

Gold is a gift one gives a king.  Frankincense is a fragrant resin of a bush originating in Yemen that is used as incense in worship, driving away the smells and thoughts of everyday life.  It is thus an offering to God.  Myrrh is another fragrant resin from Yemen, used as an ingredient in medicines and to prepare bodies for burial.  It is thus a gift to a great healer, but also a sign showing that Jesus was born not only divine but fully human and mortal, destined to die.

Before I left Beijing, a dear friend who is an arts promoter in China and the Near East gave me a gift for going away and to celebrate my new ministry to you here in Ashland.  She had just been to Yemen, and brought me fresh frankincense and myrrh.   This is what they look like. 

As we processed into the Church today, we used my friend’s gift to symbolize our prayers rising to God and remind us of the Magi’s gifts, the gifts of strange unbelievers who come to Jesus.  We will use them again to cense the altar and ourselves as we offer our gifts of bread and wine on the altar later today. 

I prefer to see the Magi as Wizards rather than kings, because their exotic strangeness and not their royalty is the point in today’s Gospel, which sets them in polar opposition to an archetypical bad king, Herod the Great.  

Herod was a consummate player of power politics, marrying and divorcing well-connected wives, murdering princes and priests, and on three separate occasions suddenly switching his allegiance to political and military patrons in Palestine and then Rome on his way to the throne.   He was Jewish, though only marginally so in many people’s eyes since he was from a country that had been forcibly converted a generation before.  He believed you had to hold onto political power through any means necessary, and the easiest way was to suck up to the more powerful and simply make possible opponents disappear.  He had worked hard to get where he was. He had no intention of losing his throne to some upstart offspring of the Davidic line.  “I got MINE and no one is going to take it away from me” sums up his approach to life.  

Where Herod is a Jew, but a bad one, the Magi are gentiles, but righteous ones.   Where the King’s heart is tightly closed, the Wizards’ hearts are open.  Where his fist firmly grasps his power and prestige, their hands are filled with gifts.  Where he does exactly what he has always done to stay on top, they are compelled to go beyond their comfort zone, study foreign scriptures, leave their homes, and search for a good only dimly conceived.

When the Wizards arrive at their intended destination Jerusalem, they are disappointed to find out that things are not as they have imagined.

They are nine miles off track. It is Bethlehem, village of shepherds and the poor, rather than Jerusalem, city of the rich and powerful, where they are actually headed.   Their open hearts and minds respond, and they change their understanding and direction.   Ability to reorient is a sign of an open heart. 

The King, however, only changes his tactics:  when the Wizards do not return, he persists in his murderous plans to protect his perks, but now killing innocents in addition to the pretender to the throne. Stubborn persistence in futile patterns of thought and behavior are signs of a closed heart. 

The contrast could not be greater:  King vs. Wizards, closed heart vs. open hearts, stinginess vs. generosity.    This teaches us something important about people and faith in general, and addresses my friend’s question. 

In my experience, what matters most is not whether you are a believer or not, but what kind of heart you have.  Is it open or closed?  Does it seek something beyond itself or is it satisfied or stingy with what it has?  

You have some believers who have open hearts and some who have closed hearts.  And you have some unbelievers with open hearts and some with closed hearts.    The people with open hearts, whether believers or not, are people open to God’s grace.  The people with closed hearts, whether believers or not, close themselves to God’s grace. 

Believers with cold, tightly closed hearts give faith and religion a bad name.  They can be something very close to demons:  inquisitors, Pharisees, guardians of public morality and correct doctrine, holy warriors, who do horrible things to other people using their God or their faith as an excuse.  In the Gospels, the only people with whom Jesus regularly gets angry are the closed-hearted religious.  To them he says, “Whores and traitors will get into the Kingdom of God before you will, because they at least recognize their need for God.” 

Unbelievers with cold, tightly closed hearts can be something close to monsters because they can do horrible things to others simply to protect their own position and prestige, or to build the utopia their godless ideology demands.   They are people like another Herod in the Gospels, Herod Antipas, the son of King Herod the Great in today’s story.  Antipas kills John the Baptist, and Jesus calls him a “fox” at one point (Luke 13:32).   Antipas wants to see Jesus as a novelty just before his crucifixion, and places him in what Luke calls a “gorgeous robe” to ridicule him.  To this closed-hearted unbeliever, Jesus won’t even speak, not a single word (Luke 23:9).

Believers with open hearts remain in awe of what they do not understand about God, what is unclear, and how far removed they are from Deity.  As Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Unbelievers, even disbelievers, can remain open in their hearts, even if they cannot work a faith up for right now.  An example of this is people in recovery in Twelve-Step programs who cannot profess faith in God, but yet “come to believe” in a power greater than themselves, a Higher Power, any higher power.

Do not misunderstand me.  Sometimes we can go from closed-heartedness to open-heartedness quickly, even with no immediate change in our opinions, and then back again.  Openness is a habit of the heart, an orientation of the personality, not signing on to a particular idea.   The Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible normally translated as “faith” or “believe” all have a sense of putting your heart into God, of trusting him.   The first commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God,” not “you shall subscribe to the intellectual proposition that there is a God.” 

This week I want you to ask yourself:  am I a King like Herod, or a Wizard like the Magi?  Do I have an open heart?  Do I let humility, good will, and even humor break into my prior conceptions and help me change?  Am I willing to stretch myself beyond what is comfortable, be generous, and follow God where God leads, or do I want to say “I have MINE, and I want to keep it!” or “This is what I believe, and that settles it, no more questions!”   

May we all live in love and humility, with our hearts and hands open.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Epiphany Door Blessing (Midweek)

January 6 Door Blessing

Fr. Tony's Midweek Message 

The Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 (this Friday) commemorates the manifestation of Christ to the world. The word Epiphany comes from the Greek word for manifestation or to show forth.  Epiphany falls on the twelfth day of Christmas and thus ends Christmastide.  It begins a period before Lent where the Church focuses on who Jesus really is.  The theme of the readings and hymns in church start with light and then focus on the wondrous deeds of Jesus in his ministry.

The January 6^th celebration commemorates the arrival of the Magi told in Matthew 2:  strange Persian religious figures follow a star to find the baby Jesus and come to pay him homage and to bring him gifts.   Since we do not have services planned for Friday, we will be using the Epiphany readings this Sunday (and thus celebrate “Three Kings Sunday”).  We will be using incense during the 10 a.m. service (more on that in a minute). 

The gifts of the Magi, gold frankincense, and myrrh, help us to see who Jesus is.   Gold is a gift one gives a king.  Frankincense is an incense used in worship as a symbol of prayers rising to God and a way of driving away the smells and thoughts of everyday life.  It is thus an offering to God and points to Jesus as the thinnest of places where divinity expresses itself in humanity.  Myrrh was used as a medicine and an embalming agent to prepare bodies for burial.  It is thus a gift to the great healer, but also a sign showing that Jesus was born not only divine but fully human and mortal, destined to die.

The wise men’s gifts themselves are symbols that manifest who Jesus is.  The wise men themselves are symbols for all the various peoples of the world who would come to believe in Jesus.  In honor of Three Kings Sunday, this Sunday at the 10 a.m. Holy Eucharist, we will use frankincense mingled with myrrh to symbolize our prayers and how they drive evil from us, and remind us of how Jesus was manifest in the Magi’s gifts. 

For those who want to celebrate in a small way the actual Feast of the Epiphany this year, there is something you may wish to do on Friday January 6.

For centuries, Western Christians (those stemming from the Latin-speaking Church) have had a special tradition of celebrating the end of the Christmas season and praying for blessings in the New Year.  It is a practice of simple January 6 door decoration.   Since the Middle Ages, some Christians have marked the doors to their homes with the year, the letters C, M and B, and four crosses.  They generally mark these in chalk above the main entrance to their homes.  This year’s marking is this:
20+C+M+B+12

The letters C, M, and B stand for the names ascribed to the wise men in medieval poetry (Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar).  They also stand for the Latin phrase of blessing:  Christus mansionem benedicat, translated as “May Christ bless this house.”

If you would like to bless your home for the New Year and mark it with chalk on January 6, the following words can be said while writing each part of the sequence:

“Lord Jesus, around two thousand (20) and twelve years (12) ago, by the light of a great star you showed the way for the three Wise Men,
(C) Caspar,
(M) Melchior,
(B) and Balthasar to find you as a newborn baby.  Christ (++) fill our home with Your light, and bless us (++), and remain with us throughout this New Year.  You are the Son of God made flesh, and showed yourself to the whole world.  Help us now to show forth Your light to all through our acts of love incarnate.  Amen.”
–Fr. Tony+

The Holy Name (Christmas 2B; Holy Name of Jesus)

Verdun Altar Piece, Circumciso Christi

The Holy Name

1 January 2012

Christmas 2B; Holy Name of Jesus

Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

10 AM Festival Holy Eucharist

Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 8; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2:15-21

 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. (Luke 2:15-21)

God, breathe into us a desire to change—
take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

It is wonderful finally to be here at Trinity Ashland.  Elena and I have been looking forward to this since October, and we want to thank the members of the search team, the transition team, the vestry, and the Trinity staff who have helped us move here from Beijing. 

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Once called the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, it commemorates the events recounted in today’s Gospel, the circumcision and naming of the baby Jesus.  In recent years the Church has focused this feast on the naming rather than the ritual performed by a moyel, which was perhaps a bit too graphic for modern tastes of primarily gentile congregations. 

The principal idea of the Feast of the Holy Name is that just as Jesus was marked as part of God’s chosen people by the imposition of Abraham’s sign of the covenant, and just as he was marked as God’s agent for saving us by being given the name the angel had prescribed for him earlier, so Christ marks us as his own and gives us his name when we are baptized.  That’s why the other readings talk about God placing his name on his people, and of us having to follow Christ’s example of acceptance and humility. 

The importance of naming, and recognizing the right names for people and things is a key idea behind the Feast so re-conceived.  Myths of power established through naming are found in many cultures.  The Egyptian goddess Isis gains control over Ra only by discovering his true name.   In the Sumerian creation myth, the god Ea begins to create the heavens and the earth “before they had been given names.” In Genesis 1, God creates all the objects and frameworks of the universe through pronouncing their names.  In Genesis 2, Man establishes his dominion over the animals by naming them.

The fact is, we still place a great deal of stock in the process of naming.  Note the care that new parents usually take to ensure that they have chosen just the right name for the newborn.  Think of the difference between the two expressions “to name names,” and “to call names.”  We say “you are calling that person names” implies that what you are saying is not truly who or what that person is.  But if you are truly going to tell the truth and not varnish it one bit, you “name” names. 

The playwright and women's issues activist Eve Ensler, as part of the “This I Believe” Project, said the following: 

I believe in the power and mystery of naming things. Language has the capacity to transform …, rearrange our learned patterns of behavior and redirect our thinking. I believe in naming what's right in front of us because that is often what is most invisible.   . . . When I was finally able as an adult to sit with my mother and name the specific sexual and physical violence my father had perpetrated on me as a child, it was an impossible moment. It was the naming, the saying of what had actually happened in her presence that lifted my 20-year depression. By remaining silent, I had muted my experience, denied it, pushed it down. This had flattened my entire life. I believe it was this moment of naming that allowed both my mother and I to eventually face our deepest demons and deceptions and become free. …

Naming things, breaking through taboos and denial is the most dangerous, terrifying and crucial work. This has to happen in spite of political climates or coercions, in spite of careers being won or lost, in spite of the fear of being criticized, outcast or disliked. I believe freedom begins with naming things. Humanity is preserved by it.

What Ensler is talking is actually a central doctrine of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, the Rectification of Names. “Calling things by their right names is the beginning of wisdom” runs a Chinese proverb based on the idea (cf. Analects 12.11). The words we choose to call things are an important indication of what a society values, or what a society thinks it should value.   Anthropologists have said many times that the process of choosing names for things is one of the principal ways we impose order on perception.

I just finished 25 years of working as a spin doctor for the U.S. federal government.  I know all too well the power of the words you choose to call things, both to establish truth or to hide it.  Our military talks about “going kinetic.”  That means starting to move troops and weapons to actually kill people.  Our political leaders often talk about “preserving our way of life,” but what they usually mean by this is holding on to our possessions, our privilege, and our control of others.  The previous U.S. administration decided to use the words “enhanced interrogation techniques” to describe what previously had always been called “torture” and thereby justified a horrible departure from our best national values.   

  

Bulgarian novelist Elias Canetti, reflecting on the importance of honest use of language, wrote, “You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic.” 

Given the centrality of Jesus to Christian faith and the importance of names, it is  natural that Christians have always reflected on the names our Lord Jesus should have. 

Note the magic and power of names in the following passage from Revelation 19:11-16,  where the seer John sees our Lord coming to set the world right:  

Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is named Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, "King of kings and Lord of lords.”

It is hard for most of us today to appreciate that Jesus of Nazareth did not stand out from his contemporaries simply because of his name “Jesus.”   The name is just too unusual for English speakers to think of anyone but our Lord when hearing it.  

The Greek word Iesous transliterates the Aramaic name Yeshua‘ (“Josh”) and the Hebrew name Yehoshua‘ (Joshua).  Out of reverence, Christians in general (except for Spanish speakers) have tended to not use the name “Jesus” to name their children.  Jews have preferred the Hebrew name “Joshua” to the shortened Greek-form “Jesus” since the latter had become associated with the object of Christian devotions.  But this was not the case at the time that Jesus lived. The Jewish historian Josephus mentions at least ten different people at the time who played historical roles that had the name. It was actually extremely common.

Both Matthew and Luke say that the name “Jesus” was given to the baby before his birth.  In Luke, the angel Gabriel during the annunciation tells the Blessed Virgin that she should name the baby Jesus (Luke 1:31), without giving any reason for the name.   Matthew, however, also gives a folk etymology for the name:  Gabriel says to Joseph, “[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  This play on words is a little bit like claiming that a man was named Bill because his mother knew he would be working in Accounts Receivable.   The folk etymology for Iesous was apparently popular, since the Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria also explains the Greek name Iesous as “salvation.” 

This explanation thinks that the name Jesus, Yeshua‘, is related to the verb “to save,” yasha‘.  But this folk etymology, however theologically satisfying it might be, is not correct.  Just as Bill is a shortened form of William, and has nothing to do with billing, Yeshua‘ is a shortened form of the Hebrew name Yeho-shua, or Joshua, and has nothing to do really with the verb “to save.” Yeho-shua combines the divine name of God, Yahweh, with the verb shawa‘, which means “help,” not “save.”   The original name Yeho-shua was the cry of a mother in labor—“Yahweh, HELP!” 

The fact is, Jesus was an extremely common name in Palestine during this time period. But we learn several things about the historical Jesus through his name. 

Though he came from a heavily gentile territory, Galilee, Jesus came from a somewhat pious and nationalistic Jewish family.  Yeshua‘ was a nationalist name: it brought to mind Joshua, the hero who followed Moses and brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land.   The people in Jesus’ family have similar nationalist names. Mary, his Mother, brings to mind Miriam the sister of Moses.  Joseph, his legal father, brings to mind the patriarch Joseph who saved the Israelites by providing refuge in Egypt. Matthew 13:55 mentions four brothers of Jesus:  James, Joses, Simeon, and Jude.  All are names of great patriarchs from Israel’s past: James has the Aramaic or Hebrew name Jacob, the original name of the Patriarch later known as Israel.  Joses is the Greek form of the name Joseph.  Simon and Jude are Greek names for brothers of Joseph, Shimeon and Judah. 

The name of Jesus is thus a call for help, understood as an assurance of salvation.  Jesus’ family gave it to him, under angelic instructions or not, in part because it evoked hope. 

We thus again return, as in most of our Christmastide readings, to the doctrine of incarnation:  God taking on human weakness and limitation, becoming (except for sin) fully human.   And this incarnation is not just individual and isolated, but, fully human as it is, is also social, communal, with hopes for social liberation and justice as well as for individuals being made right with God. 

“Yahweh, HELP!” we cry.  And we recount to each other the stories of God saving His people in the past, of mighty acts of love beyond measure, mercy passing thought. 

“Yahweh, HELP!” we cry.  And we find hope for being saved. 

“Yahweh, HELP!” we cry.  And to us a baby of promise is born, a child ensuring peace is given. 

I am truly thankful finally to be with you here in Ashland.  I pray that in the coming weeks and years we may find deeper and deeper community with each other and find it in that baby whose name is hope itself. 

In our prayer life and quiet time this week, let us reflect and meditate on the Holy Name of Jesus.  And let us be honest and open in our naming of names, and calling out the demons in our lives who parade under false names or no name at all. 

In the name of Christ, Amen