Author Archives: Fr. Tom McAlpine

Unknown's avatar

About Fr. Tom McAlpine

Fr. Tom is a semi-retired priest in the Episcopal Church living in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Making G-d’s Generosity Visible: A Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany

Leave a reply

Good Shepherd, Sun Prairie, February 16, 2020.

The Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37

Three years ago, I had the privilege of being with you to celebrate and to preach when we last heard these lessons. I focused on the Gospel text: how are we supposed to hear it today? Some interpreters think Jesus is promulgating a new law, others, that he is encouraging us to pay attention to the intention of the law. I sided with the second group for a variety of reasons. If “do not be angry” is a law, then Jesus is in trouble, because he is periodically angry, even calling the scribes and Pharisees “blind fools.” Again, almost from the start teachers have had to warn the enthusiasts that “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away” is not to be taken literally. Again, the various destructive attempts of the church to make “no divorce” a law are evidence enough of the shortcomings of this strategy. So, as sermons go, not a bad one, and I hope it was helpful.

Today I want to approach the text differently, focusing on its immediate context in Matthew, because it’s really important that today’s lesson is not recording the first words out of Jesus’ mouth. Or out of Matthew’s, for that matter. Recall: Matthew devotes the first two chapters to Jesus’ birth, starting with a genealogy that highlights his link with Abraham and David, and includes the story of the Magi, who set Jerusalem on edge asking “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” The third chapter introduces John the Baptist and closes with Jesus’ baptism with the heavenly voice: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Whatever else that voice is doing, it identifies Jesus as royal.

So—chapter four—we hear the temptation story, arguably about just what sort of king Jesus is going to be, about just what sort of kingdom Jesus is going to announce. Jesus returns to Galilee: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the reign of God: throughout the Gospels Jesus tries to help us catch the vision. Here are two of the parables from later in Matthew:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

Find that treasure, find that pearl, and so many issues sort themselves out. Returning to today’s Gospel, hearers often find the teaching absurdly demanding. And it is: if we haven’t encountered the treasure/the pearl. As we begin to catch the vision, the teaching approaches being self-evident.

Chapter 5, in which we find today’s Gospel, opens with the Beatitudes. Catch the vision of the kingdom, and you understand who is fortunate: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, etc. Or, take seriously Jesus’ declaration that these are the fortunate, and you get a sense of what sort of kingdom Jesus is proclaiming.

And then comes what may be the truly scary part. It’s one thing to hear Jesus say “I am the light of the world.” Wonderful: it’s on Jesus. But here, right after the Beatitudes: “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.” We’re on the critical path for the world’s healing, the world’s restoration: “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

It’s important that that light shine, that God’s generous character be visible in the lives of those who bear God’s name. That, I think, is close to the heart of Jesus’ quarrel with the scribes and Pharisees, that they were spending too much energy seeking their individual purity, and way too little energy making God’s generosity visible.

Making God’s generosity visible: that may not be a bad way of summarizing what Jesus is getting at in today’s lesson. Handle your anger, handle your sexuality, in ways that make God’s generosity visible.

OK. Where does that leave us? I’ve read today’s lesson as flowing from Jesus’ vision of the kingdom. As we catch Jesus’ vision—and note that there’s no space between Jesus Himself and Jesus’ vision of the kingdom—texts like today’s lesson move from being absurdly demanding toward being self-evident.

But there’s where the rub is. Our vision of Jesus and the kingdom varies in clarity—to put it generously. But it’s fundamental. The Jesuit Pedro Arrupe put it this way:

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will direct everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

“Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.”[1]

It’s easy to get the impression that all this—motioning around the sanctuary—is about what we’re supposed to do. And what we’re supposed to do is, of course, important. But that risks missing the point. The point is what this generous God has done, is doing, and will be doing, and that this generous God invites us to join in the quest that what pleases this God be done on earth as it is in heaven. It’s worth protecting time for this reality to work on our imaginations, to mess with our imaginations. So we gather here, and at home we pray and open the Bible to catch and hold this vision, or, as Fr. Arrupe put it, to fall in love and stay in love. It’s a royal waste of time that our tradition cannot recommend highly enough.

But, since our bodies and spirits are intimately connected, it’s also true that as we follow Jesus’ teaching so that our bodies make God’s generosity visible, our spirits find it easier to catch and hold this vision of this God’s generous kingdom.

Let’s give John’s witnesses in the Revelation the last word:

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

[1] From James Martin’s The Jesuit Guide to (almost) everything, p. 219.

Re the Daily Office Readings 5/8/2020

Leave a reply

The Readings: Exodus 34:18-35; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13; Matthew 5:27-37

Two brief observations. “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (v.26b). The command also occurs in 23:19, one of many bits of evidence that a complex history of tradition and editing lies behind the present form of these chapters. Exodus 34 rather looks like an alternative tradition of the Sinai covenant, repurposed editorially as an account of the covenant renewal.

Re the specific commandment, Jeffrey Tigay in the Jewish Study Bible comments “As noted by Philo…Ibn Ezra, and Rashbam, this law is similar to the rules that forbid acts of insensitivity against animals such as slaughtering cattle on the same day as their young, sacrificing cattle in their first week, and taking a mother bird along with her fledglings or her eggs (22.29; Lev. 22:27-28; Deut. 22:6-7).” One example of the largely untapped resources for ethical reflection on how we live on this earth with our fellow creatures.

(For “how we live” less about altruism and more about self-interest, this from The Guardian.)

“The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (Jn. 1:17). True, but quite misleading if taken as a description of contrasting patterns of divine action in the Old and New Testaments. Even the most cursory reading of Exodus 32-34 shows that the giving of the law and its re-giving to this “stiff-necked people” (34:9; recall Spufford’s HPtFtU) is sheer grace on the part of Jesus’ Father:

“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

The other readings…

I’ve found it hard to read 1 Thessalonians sympathetically this time around: Paul too often sounds smarmy. But then I’m reading from a (sub-)culture with different rhetorical norms, and from a group not experiencing persecution. Abraham Smith has been helpful (again), noticing how much of Paul’s vocabulary challenges the pretensions of Rome, including ‘peace and security’, ‘gospel’, ‘savior’, and even ‘father’ (Augustus had really liked that title). In that fundamental respect Moses and Paul are working the same project: nurturing a community that is life-giving, not death-dealing. In this country we have a way to go before Christians are again known as the folk whose political allegiances lie Elsewhere.

Re the Daily Office Readings 5/7/2020

Leave a reply

The Readings: Exodus 34:1-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20; Matthew 5:21-26

Moses’ intercession succeeds. The LORD proclaims the Name and announces the renewal of the treaty (covenant)—along with its conditions.

The proclamation of the Name (vv.6-7) is, judging by the number of times it is cited elsewhere (e.g., Numbers 14:17-19; Nehemiah 9:16-19; Psalm 103:8; Jonah 4:1-3), the most important divine description in the Old Testament. Jewish tradition hears in it the thirteen attributes of divine mercy, and the text plays an important role in the liturgy. Without it, Jesus’ life and teaching make no sense.

The treaty and its conditions: here’s something from Brueggemann (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary) to chew on:

“The covenant requires that Israel undertake complete loyalty to God in a social context where attractive alternatives exist. In that ancient world, the attractive alternative was the established religion of the inhabitants of the land, with all its altars, pillars, and sacred poles—its technology to ensure productivity. In our own Western context, mutatis mutandis, the attractive alternatives to covenanted faith are likely to be the techniques of consumerism, which provide ‘the good life’ without rigorous demand or cost and without the covenantal requirement of the neighbor. Then, as now, the jealous God calls for a decision against that easy alternative.”

The other readings…

…leave me with more questions than answers. Jesus’ “if you are angry” is probably not about an emotion but—given the rest of the paragraph—an action. Paul’s “the Jews… [who] displease God and oppose everyone”: an example of this anger? Would it have been better to end v.16 with “overtaken us at last”? (And whatever Paul was doing, to what degree is he responsible for the afterlife of his words?) Abraham Smith (also The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary) makes the helpful observation that Paul’s words leave the Roman Empire offstage, although “the Jews” (however understood) pale in comparison to the fear and anxiety the Empire generates.

None of this is academic. We have enemies, who, unless we’re close to the top of the food chain, do us real harm. Anger is often (particularly for men) our go-to emotion, and strains to transition from emotion to action. What do I do with that? When do I use “them,” when “us”? LORD have mercy.

Re the Daily Office Readings 5/6/2020

Leave a reply

The Readings: Exodus 33:1-23; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:17-20

The chapter opens with a divine announcement of a bleak future: Moses and the people Moses brought from Egypt (v.1) are to go to the promised land but without the Lord’s presence. The people show signs of serious repentance; Moses continues to intercede, gaining first the Lord’s presence for Moses’ benefit (v.14) and finally the Lord’s presence for the people’s benefit (v.17). The point of Moses asking to see the Lord’s glory (v.18) is unclear; the effect is a parallel between the divine manifestation to the people and the making of the covenant (chapters 19-24) and the divine manifestation to Moses and the renewal of the covenant (chapter 34).

Childs comments “The Old Testament rather runs the risk of humanizing God through its extreme anthropomorphism—God changes his mind, v.5—than undercut the absolute seriousness with which God takes the intercession of his servant. Moses, on his part, refuses anything less than the full restoration of Israel as God’s special people.”

Abraham’s intercession gave Sodom and Gomorrah a decent shot at survival. Moses’ intercession secures a future for his people. To what intercession might this text motivate us?

And speaking of prayer…

The sandhill cranes were feeding in our yard again, causing this from Madeleine L’Engle’s And it was good to jump out:

“I was asked how we could pray for our planet, with the devastating wars which are tearing it apart, with greed fouling the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I replied that the only way I know how to pray for the body of our planet is to see it as God meant it to be, to see the sky as we sometimes see it in the country in wintertime, crisp with stars, or to see the land with spring moving across it, the fruit trees flowering and the grass greening, and at night hearing the peepers calling back and forth, and the high, sweet singing of the bats.”

There’s something of L’Engle’s “to see it as God meant it to be” in the gift of the presence of the cranes with their beauty and grace. L’Engle makes me wonder if their presence isn’t also an invitation to understand (offer up?) my delight as prayer, not only for them but for all God’s creatures, and an invitation to learn to see the beauty and grace proper to all these creatures.

A Prayer of Protection from the Coronavirus

Leave a reply

Lord our God, You who are rich in mercy,
and with careful wisdom direct our lives,
listen to our prayer, receive our repentance for our sins,
bring an end to this new infectious disease, this new epidemic,
just as you averted the punishment of your people in the time of David the King.
You who are the Physician of our souls and bodies,
grant restored health to those who have been seized by this illness,
raising them from their bed of suffering,
so that they might glorify You, O merciful Savior,
and preserve in health those who have not been infected.
By your grace, Lord, bless, strengthen, and preserve,
all those who out of love and sacrifice care for the sick,
either in their homes or in the hospitals.
Remove all sickness and suffering from your people,
and teach us to value life and health as gifts from You.
Give us Your peace, O God,
and fill our hearts with unflinching faith in Your protection,
hope in Your help,
and love for You and our neighbor.
For Yours it is to have mercy on us and save us, O our God,
and to You we ascribe glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
now and forever, to the ages of ages. Amen.

(Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; h/t Bp. Matt Gunter

For additional prayers from the Archdiocese, here.

Re the Daily Office Readings 5/5/2020

Leave a reply

The Readings: Exodus 32:21-35; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 5:11-16

Moses has persuaded the LORD not to destroy the people and start over with Moses, but there’s still the problem of the people “running wild (for Aaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies).” Moses has to ask for volunteers to salvage the situation; the Levites step up; the seriousness of the situation is reflected in the death toll.

The bigger problem: with the treaty torn up (the tablets broken, v.19), do the LORD and the people have a future, and on what basis? When Moses returns to the LORD to plead for forgiveness, the divine response is two-fold: a command to lead the people to the Land accompanied by an “angel.” Not by the LORD? All the instructions regarding the tabernacle and the priesthood (chapters 25-31): are they all now moot? The plague of unspecified severity (v.34, omitted, oddly, by the Lectionary) seems almost an afterthought.

Looking back over the whole chapter, what advice would we have given Aaron, with Moses off stage for who knows how long and the people expressing real needs? Or we can flip the question. Followers’ expectations constrain their leaders. When do our expectations place our leaders in Aaron’s situation?

Scripture

Leave a reply

This blog focuses largely on Scripture. Why might that be worth the trouble? This post, which I expect to revise periodically, notes possible answers.

Madeline L’Engle

So what do I believe about Scripture? I believe that it is true. What is true is alive and capable of movement and growth. Scripture is full of paradox and contradiction, but it is true, and if we fallible human creatures look regularly and humbly at the great pages and people of Scripture, if we are willing to accept truth rather than rigidly infallible statements, we will be given life, and life more abundantly. And we, like Joseph, will make progress towards becoming human. (Sold into Egypt)

Thomas Merton

The truth is that the surface of the Bible is not always even interesting. And yet when one does finally get into it, in one way or other, when one at last catches on to the Bible’s peculiar way of saying things, and even more to the things that are said, one finds that he is no longer simply questioning the book but being questioned by it.

…

If we approach it with speculative questions, we are apt to find that it confronts us in turn with brutally practical questions. If we ask it for information about the meaning of life, it answers by asking us when we intend to start living? Not that it demands that we present suitable credentials, that we prove ourselves in earnest, but more than that: we are to understand life not by analyzing it but by living it in such a way that we come to a full realization of our own identity. And this of course means a full realization of our relatedness to those with whom life has brought us into an intimate and personal encounter.

…

…the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a struggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction in the Bible itself. It should not be our aim merely to explain these contradictions away, but rather to use them as ways to enter into the strange and paradoxical world of meanings and experiences that are beyond us and yet often extremely and mysteriously relevant to us. (Opening the Bible)

Simone Weil

For it seemed to me certain, and I still think so today; that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms. (As cited in L’Engle’s And it was good)

Re the Daily Office Readings 5/4/2020

Leave a reply

The Readings: Exodus 32:1-20; Colossians 3:18––4:18; Matthew 5:1-10

In a post-Christian society ‘sin’ turns out to be a pretty useless word, if one is, like Francis Spufford, trying to commend Christianity to that society. Spufford’s solution in his book Unapologetic is to talk about the human propensity to fuck things up (HPtFtU). HPtFtU is on full display in our first reading: Israel is newly freed from Egypt, on a beeline to a land flowing with milk and honey, the ink not yet dry—so to speak—on the treaty that secures Israel’s status as the “treasured possession” of the God who’s just gained their freedom without breaking a sweat. The text is an opportunity to wrestle with Spufford’s diagnosis: “The HPtFtU is bad news, and like all bad news is not very welcome, especially if you let yourself take seriously the implications that we actually want the destructive things we do, that they are not just an accident that keeps happening to poor little us, but part of our nature; that we are truly cruel as well as truly tender, truly loving and at the same time truly likely to take a quick nasty little pleasure in wasting or breaking love, scorching it knowingly up as the fuel for some hotter or more exciting feeling.”

Re the Daily Office Readings 5/3/2020

2 Replies
Photo by Victoria Borodinova on Pexels.com

The Readings: Exodus 28:1-4, 30-38; 1 John 2:18-29; Mark 6:30-44

William Propp, reflecting on our first reading: “The Priestly Writer continually wrestles with a paradox so excruciating it verges on the comic. Israel and Yahweh crave nearness, yet can scarcely tolerate one another” (The Anchor Yale Bible). So here the description of the high priest’s clothing is punctuated with unnerving explanations: “so that he may not die… take upon himself any guilt incurred in the holy offering that the Israelites consecrate.”

How might we read the text? The New Testament sets the framework. Jesus is our High Priest (Hebrews, e.g., 2:17), echoed in the BCP’s prelude to confession in the Penitential Orders, (e.g., p.352) and the prayer before receiving communion (p.834). Christians, corporately (e.g., Eph 2:21) and individually (e.g., 1 Cor 6:18-20) are the Temple, echoed in this Collect:

“Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (BCP p.230)

So, in the New Testament the Church is a dangerous place, whether in Jerusalem (Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:1-11) or Corinth (“many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” in 1 Cor 11:27-30), both occurring at the intersection of issues of money and status. “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name” (Exod 20:7): where is the danger greater than in the Church?

So caution is important. Ditto clothing. Not the sanctuary garments for the ordained: after Jesus performed his supreme high priestly act stripped naked such garments are clearly in the “things indifferent” (adiaphora) category. But, picking up on Colossians’ references to stripping off and clothing oneself in yesterday’s readings (Col 3:9-12), we might wonder whether the proper clothing for Aaron and sons (Exod 28:41) and for ourselves (Rom 13:14; Eph 4:24; military: Rom 13:12 Eph 6:11-17 1Th 5:8) are analogous.

“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14). Even (especially?) in this season of COVID 19, clothing is important.