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Re the Daily Office Readings 3/31/2020

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“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me…” A sharp warning, with no guarantee that it’s not also applicable to us hearers. So let’s chew on it a bit.

Today’s reading is part of a unit that perhaps starts in v.30 with Jesus warning the disciples “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands” (v.31). And we think “the hands of the priests, Romans, etc.” But then Mark tells us about the disciples arguing over who’s the greatest, John rebuking an unaffiliated exorcist, and (later) the disciples rebuking the folk bringing little children to Jesus—so maybe Jesus’ “human hands” isn’t about them.

Stumbling blocks look like one of the ongoing topics in Jesus’ arguments with the Pharisees and scribes, e.g., hand-washing, where Jesus cites Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, / but their hearts are far from me; / in vain do they worship me, / teaching human precepts as doctrines” and concludes “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (7:6b-8).

And there’s the challenge, because from the inside it can be really hard to distinguish between the commandment of God and human tradition. It’s easy to assume that our human traditions faithfully reflect God’s commandment.

So Jesus’ warning isn’t superfluous. Ironically, tragically, we have an example in today’s epistle: “women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (vv.34-35). Our Lectionary omits these verses, for on text-critical grounds they’re “almost certainly an early gloss” (Hays), not to mention flatly contradicting Paul’s earlier words (11:2-16). It’s those stumbling blocks we put in place with the best (?!) of motives…

The psalmist got it right: after eloquently praising the Law, “But who can detect their errors? / Clear me from hidden faults” (19:12).

Re the Daily Office Readings 3/30/2020

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The Daily Office Readings of the Episcopal Church (USA) are available at a number of websites including Mission St Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/english/) as part of Morning Prayer.

What’s the Church for, anyway? I ask because Paul introduces a new word, “building up” into his argument (vv. 3, 5, 12, 26). And “building up” is usually for something. In our first reading it’s the Exodus; in the New Testament it’s… Well, Presiding Bp. Curry talks about the Jesus Movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcipDDJoiIs); a sort of Exodus 2.0.

If something on that scale is the project, it’s important that Moses and Aaron work well together, that the folk in Corinth use their gifts in ways that build the church up, that the disciples stop arguing about who’s the greatest.

Paul’s argument about tongues and prophecy is, I think, more broadly about the difference between gifts that primarily benefit me (tongues) and those that primarily benefit those around me (prophecy). So Paul wants me to pay attention. Yes, I enjoy using my gifts. But am I using them in ways that best equip my community for its work?

BTW, Exod. 4:24-26 has long been a puzzle to interpreters. Propp in his Anchor Bible commentary (1999) may have made some progress. Here’s his summary: “Although Yahweh commands Moses to return to Egypt (4:19), he still holds him accountable for the death of the Egyptian. Zipporah sheds the blood of their son and dabs Moses’ penis with it, thereby expiating her husband’s sin.” Why’s that important? It’s easy to misread Exodus in a nationalistic way (Hebrews good, Egyptians bad). Here, on the eve of the exodus, that murdered Egyptian’s blood (2:11-12) is so important to God that God jeopardizes the whole project—until Zipporah finds a resolution.

Re the Daily Office Readings 3/29/2020

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The Daily Office Readings of the Episcopal Church (USA) are available at a number of websites including Mission St Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/english/) as part of Morning Prayer.

So on this 5th Sunday in Lent when many of us would really like to be coming together at St. Dunstan’s, 6205 University Avenue, Madison WI, we get this from Paul:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 12:1-2)

All of life is worship. That’s Paul’s, and, I think, Scripture’s vision of our human vocation, expressed universally at the beginning of Genesis and in psalms like 8, 103, and 104, expressed for Israel at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). Commentators generally agree that these first two verses introduce a major chunk of Romans running through chapter 15, so all the questions addressed there—living together in the parish, relating to the government, building bridges across ethnic divides—are questions of worship. And, in this season of too many dislocations, it’s worth remembering that the worship is equally honorable whether we come with full or empty hands. (It’s the poor widow’s two small copper coins that Jesus notices—and praises (Mark 12:41ff).)

Translators struggle with the end of v.1 (NRSV’s “spiritual worship”; Greek logikēn latreian). ‘Spiritual’ suggests interior or immaterial, but Paul’s talking about presenting our bodies. Perhaps KJV’s ‘reasonable’ is better, in the sense of a worship that matches / mirrors / corresponds to the mercies of God with which Paul has started the appeal.

We’d prefer to be gathered with Rev. Miranda at the altar. Paul reminds us that it’s at least equally important to God what we do at our own altars (worlds!), presenting all of our interactions as living, holy, acceptable sacrifices. Which makes me wonder: what transformation(s) (v.2) in my life might bring the biggest smile to G-d’s face?

Living when off the map

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This year St Dunstan’s (Madison WI) developed its Vacation Bible School around the Book of Tobit and the two Sundays after VBS bumped the normal Old Testament readings to continue the focus. I was invited to preach on the second of these two Sundays.

Readings: Tobit 14:3-4a, 5-8; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

How do you live when you’re off the map? Moses had provided a pretty clear map: live righteously and you’ll prosper in the land; live unrighteously and you’ll lose the land. But when you’re off the land through no particular fault of your own, what then? So it’s not surprising that we encounter a number of stories about that in the Old Testament: Joseph (minus his technicolor dreamcoat) in Egypt, Esther in Persia, Tobit in Assyria. The Joseph and Esther stories have a certain fairy-tale quality to them: Joseph becomes the #2 man in Egypt; Esther wins the beauty contest and marries the king. Tobit, after achieving some success in exile, gets bird poop in his eyes and goes blind, the loss which kicks off the main story in the book that eventually results in Tobit regaining his sight.

How do you live when you’re off the map? In addition to telling us a rollicking good story, complete with a carnivorous fish, a damsel in distress, and an angel in disguise, the book gives serious attention to that question. This morning we’ll look at two elements in its answer: bless God and give alms.

Bless God

God blessing us: we’re used to that idea. In the catholic (small c) tradition we believe that priestly ordination authorizes the priest to convey God’s blessing to us, and so we leave each Mass with “the blessing of God Almighty” ringing in our ears and working its way into our very selves. Scripture takes blessing as a given and so doesn’t define it. An approximate definition might include God’s presence, God’s generosity, health, fertility, success in ways designed to benefit us and those around us.

That’s important in Tobit. But Tobit focuses on our blessing God. We heard it in our first reading: “to be mindful of God and to bless his name at all times with sincerity and with all their strength.” It shows up at the beginning of some well-known psalms (Ps 103, 104). What’s that about? It’s like praise, but more oriented to the future: God’s reign really is beautiful; may it grow and expand! It’s like thanksgiving, but not tied to something specific I’ve or we’ve received.

We Christians haven’t done much with this, but our Jewish brothers and sisters have, and their practice might enrich ours. A Jewish prayer book puts it this way: “A berachah acknowledges God as the “Source” of whatever we eat or enjoy, or whatever natural marvels excite our awe.… The blessing makes us conscious that nothing in nature is to be taken for granted…” [1]

So there’s a blessing before drinking wine or grape juice:

Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

One for seeing beautiful trees or animals:

Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, who has such as these in His world.

One for hearing good news:

Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, who is good and beneficent.

One for hearing bad news:

Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, the true judge.

You get the idea. For the vision behind the practice we might look to Psalm 19. It starts:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows his handiwork.

It continues in this vein for a number of lines. The heavens clearly their act together. What about us? Notice how the psalm ends:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Blessing God is one of the quite lovely ways this can play out.

One more thing about this before I move on. Part of most people’s consciousness is this running series of responses that plays as a sort of sound track throughout the day, approving of this, disapproving of that, being anxious about this, being relieved about that. The practice of blessing God can be part of that running series, helping our responses to be more mindful, more realistic, perhaps less anxious.

Give alms

We heard that in our first reading too: “Your children are also to be commanded to do what is right and to give alms…”

What’s that about? In the last month or so our first reading has been from the prophets, Amos and Hosea. In coming weeks we’ll get a good dose of Jeremiah. And one of the primary prophetic themes is God’s passionate concern for the poor, God’s anger at how the poor are getting crushed. That anger explains why Tobit is in exile in Nineveh rather than home in the Upper Galilee. And the prophets were speaking directly to the folk in power, the folk who could do something about it:

Cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isa 1:16b-17 NRS)

But in exile, or in the bowels of some foreign empire the possibilities for doing something about it are severely limited, so God’s passionate concern for the poor translates into the repeated exhortation to give alms. Give, that is, to those at the bottom, to those who have no realistic prospect of paying you back or returning the favor.

The language for this practice is important: that “give alms” that we heard could be translated more literally as “do mercy.” “Doing mercy” is, of course, broader than giving alms, and in Tobit includes Tobit’s dangerous practice of burying discarded bodies. But “doing mercy” often, from context, means “giving alms” and that’s important because it connects the mercy we hope to receive from God with the mercy we’re exhorted to show to those who need it.

Being in exile makes it difficult to follow the Law’s commands regarding gifts for the sanctuary. And in exile the faithful connect those commands with almsgiving. So earlier in Tobit we hear Tobit tell his son Tobias:

Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practice it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High. (4:11)

This shows up in other writings of this period (Sirach), and lies behind some of Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Mat 6:19-20)

We, probably, are at a point somewhere between the prophets’ audience and Tobit’s audience. We have some power to “do something about it” with regard to the condition of the poor, and to that degree we need to listen to the prophets. But we often don’t have the power to do much, and to that degree we need to listen to Tobit, and pay attention to whether some of our resources are going into mercy, helping those in no position to return the favor. So Tobit is, alas, not particularly helpful for a capital gifts campaign, but very relevant when we pass the plate for the Middleton Outreach Ministry.

Bless God & Give alms

How do you live when you’re off the map? Bless God and give alms.

Looking at these two themes we might think of them as pointing to the twin virtues of gratitude and generosity. I could go on about this for a good stretch, but I’ll leave that for you in the coming week. Notice how many elements in our culture work against any sense of gratitude. Notice how nurturing gratitude, also through the practice of blessing God, helps us see our world more clearly. Notice how gratitude, in turn, frees us for generosity. The world is not zero-sum. God continually drenches the world with gifts. All of us have the privilege of blessing God for it, and mirroring God’s generosity in our own.

The privilege, that is, of doing so with Tobit and Anna, Raguel and Edna, Tobias and Sarah. And that’s not bad company.

[1] The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth (1998) 742.

The Damascus Road was the easy part

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A Sermon on the 6th Sunday of Easter (5/5/AD2013)

Acts 16:6-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:9-12, 21-22:5; John 14:23-29

We don’t often think of it in these terms, but the Book of Revelation may be the most important book in the Bible for understanding Christian worship. It offers a set of images to describe this world’s future: a future better than we deserve, a future we certainly can’t achieve. It is a future so glorious that it’s only right that we start celebrating, giving thanks for that future now. And so one of the most frequently used words for our worship is eucharist, a transliteration of the Greek word for celebration. Further, the same book describes the worship revealed to the seer: angels and archangels and all the company of heaven singing out “Worthy is the Lamb…” So in our Eucharistic prayers when we say “with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven” we’re acknowledging that our worship is joining with something bigger.

That future is a given. “After this I looked, —writes John—and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Rev 7:9-10 NRSV) In the midst of a world bleeding from more divisions than most of us can keep track of, it sounds wonderful. And we have the privilege of witnessing to this future now in our actions.

Wonderful. Piece of cake. Or—in light of the first reading—maybe not. Because if we pull out a map to make sense of those first verses it’s clear that Paul’s trying to go anywhere except Macedonia. And why would that be?

Well, although the Jews had been oppressed by many nations (Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, etc.), it was only the Macedonians, Alexander the Great and the leaders who followed him, that had seriously tried to abolish Jewish faith and practice. Less than two hundred years earlier Antiochus Epiphanes, paragon of enlightenment, had offered countless Jews a simple choice: eat pork or be tortured to death. (Read about it in the books of Maccabees!) Which nation had shown itself to be the deadliest enemy of the Jews? Macedonia. And Paul was supposed to go there?

“Those who love me—Jesus had said—will keep my word.” Paul, loving Jesus in the only way that mattered—kept his word. It took the Holy Spirit vetoing his travel plans twice and a vision in the night, but Paul kept Jesus’ word, went to Macedonia.

That was good news for Macedonia: for Lydia and her household, for others whose story we’ll hear next week. It was good news for our ancestors, for Macedonia represented the beginning of Paul’s mission to Europe, to our people. It would be nice if Acts had reported that Paul was eager to evangelize our people. Kicking and screaming would be closer to the truth—but we’ll take it.

And it turned out to be good news for Paul as well. Years later he writes a letter that readers refer to as the joyous letter. There’s so much joy in the letter, joy over what’s happening in that city, the joy that the Christians there give Paul, the ways they nurture his spirit. And that’s the letter to the Philippians.

We come together each week to celebrate the future that God is preparing for this planet. People “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” will participate. Some days we find it easy to witness to that future; other days—like Paul—we find it not so easy. Some days we deal with folk we hope are part of that future; other days… “Those who love me—Jesus had said—will keep my word.” May God grant us grace to continue loving Jesus, to continue witnessing to his vision of our planet’s future each of our days.