Words 11.28

 Words Twice a Week        11.28

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Well so far no Advent wreath or calendar – I think I’m getting daily devotion emails from The Church of Heavenly Rest in NYC.  We’ll see how that goes -

Some days from the church calendar -

Nov 29 – Dorothy Day  She was a social activist and co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement.  She helped found 33 “Hospitality Houses” to feed hungry people.

Nov 30 – Saint Andrew One of Jesus’ earliest disciples, he brought his brother Peter.  Tradition says he preached in Eastern Europe after the Resurrection and according to Orthodox tradition, the apostolic successor to Saint Andrew is the Patriarch of Constantinople.    Tradition also says that some of his relics were transferred to a town  (now St Andrews) in Scotland and “his cross” is on the Scottish flag.  St Andrew’s Day is the national holiday of Scotland.

Dec 1 – Charles de Foucauld  His career went from being a cavalery officer in the French army, to being an explorer and geographer, to being a Trappist monk, to looking for an even more radical poverty, altruism, and penitence as a hermit.  Charles de Foucauld was declared “Venerable” on 24 April 2001 by Pope John Paul II, then “Blessed” on 13 November 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. On 27 May 2020, the Vatican announced that he would be canonized, while later on 9 November 2021 it was announced by the Vatican that Pope Francis would declare the late Trappist as a saint on 15 May 2022.

Dec 3  - Francis Xavier  He met Ignatius of Loyola in college (sounds like a bowl game!) and became his disciple. He went as a Jesuit to India, where he was a successful evangelist, and then went as the first missionary to Japan.

Dec 4 – John of Damascus  He was a Christian monk, priest, and apologist, born and raised in Damascus c. 675 or 676.  Tradition says he died near Jerusalem on Dec 4, 749.  His education was well rounded, and he is said to have made great advances in music, astronomy and theology, soon rivaling Pythagoras in arithmetic and Euclid in geometry.  He was given the nickname “Golden Speaker” and wrote hymns still used in Eastern Christianity and Lutheranism, especially at Easter.

Dec 5 – Clement of Alexandria  He was an early (150?-215? AD) theologian and Church Father. “He is venerated as a saint in Coptic Christianity, Eastern Catholicism, Ethiopian Christianity, and Anglicanism. He was revered in Western Catholicism until 1586, when his name was removed from the Roman Martyrology by Pope Sixtus V on the advice of Baronius. The Eastern Orthodox Church officially stopped any veneration of Clement of Alexandria in the 10th century.“  There you go – it ain’t easy being/staying a saint!

   Some Protestant claim that Clement of Alexandria rejected the real presence, which is however disputed by Catholics. These quotes are used to support the view that Clement did not believe in the real presence:

And He blessed the wine, saying, ‘Take, drink: this is my blood’ – the blood of the vine. He figuratively calls the Word ‘shed for many, for the remission of sins’ – the holy stream of gladness (The Instructor, 2:2) brought this out by symbols, when He said: ‘Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood,’ describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise (The Instructor, 1:6)

The Catholic response is that Clement believed it to be both symbolic and the real presence, the next quote is used to support the Catholic view:

Such is the suitable food which the Lord ministers, and he offers his flesh and pours forth his blood, and nothing is wanting for the children’s growth. O, amazing mystery!

Some days from the Earth/World calendar -

Nov 29

+ Atari released Pong in 1972.

+ George Harrison died in 2001.  He wrote Taxman, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, My Sweet Lord, and Here Comes The Sun.  That could be an Advent song!  Or maybe a solstice song after Dec 21 or so.  Harrison nudged the Beatles toward Indian music and culture, and he helped organize The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 – a forerunner to numerous benefit concerts.

Nov 30

+ The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union started after the USSR invaded and bombed Helsinki.  Jared Diamond used it in his book Upheaval as an example of how countries can recover after  - well, after upheaval!  He tells how after the four month war, Finland developed policies that allowed it to co-exist with it’s neighbor.  

+ Mark Twain was born in 1835, Winston Churchill in 1874.  Zeppo Marx died in 1979, Evel Knievel in 2007.

Dec 1

+ Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus in 1955.

+ Colombian drug Lord Pablo Escobar was born in 1949.

Dec 2

+ Colombian drug Lord Pablo Escobar died in 1993.

+ Britney Spears was born in 1981.

+ John Brown died in 1859.  He was an abolitionist, active with the Underground Railroad.  He was the leading exponent of violence in the movement, believing that decades of peaceful efforts had failed.  Captured after leading the raid at Harper’s Ferry, he was tried and hanged, the first person executed for treason in the United States.

Dec 3

+ The Bhopal Gas Disaster happened in 1984.  A gas leak from a Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant killed over 2,000 people.  It is said to be the world’s worst industrial disaster.

+ It’s the birthday of Joseph Conrad in 1857.  Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent, Typhoon, Lord Jim.  I guess I read some of them, at least – not sure I really “understood” them!  There were a couple of TV shows/series and a one act opera based on some of his books.

Dec 4

+ The Observer, a British newspaper, became the first newspaper to be published and read on a Sunday.  Now we get The Mining Journal on Saturday.  Sometimes I read the funnies right away, sometimes I wait to read them on Sunday!

Dec 5

+ Prohibition ended in the United States in 1933.  I don’t use alcohol, but I’m sure it made a big difference in life.

+ Walt Disney was born in 1901.  

+ W.A. Mozart died in 1791, Dave Brubeck died in 2012.

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 11.25 final

 Words Twice a Week        11.25

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.  And are ready to start off on a new liturgical year.

Some introductory thoughts and questions on some of the lessons for Sunday – the First Sunday of Advent.

Jeremiah 33.14-16

+ here’s an interesting note – this passage is basically a repetition of Jer 23.5-6.  There’s a suggestion that Jer 33 perhaps comes from a later time when disciples of Jeremiah continued his thought and words in new contexts.  Kind of like preachers today bringing to life the words of earlier writers.  Anyway, what is also interesting is that when we have gone through the whole year and arrive at Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday – Nov 20, 2022 – the Old Testament lesson is going to be Jer 23.1-6.  What goes around comes around.  Or as Martin Reinhardt says in one of his songs – We live in circles and spiral through time.  Of course for Christians this plays off against the idea that reality is “heading somewhere” and God will one day get us there.

+ The days are coming when the Lord will fulfill the promise.  But those days are not (were not) here yet – Israel was going through hard times.  And the above note suggests that there were perhaps a series of “hard times” periods.  How about us?  What kind of times are going through?  Some writers today raise the image of “The Long Descent”.  How does that fit in?

+ Is our life shaped by the reality that Jesus has come, or by the hope/expectation that he will come again, or simply by the promise of God to be with us until the end, and in fact to be the One who shapes that end?

+ note the theme of righteousness.  God’s promise to David had rested on David’s sons being righteous.

+ What do we do when God’s promises don’t seem to be coming to reality?  Wait and hope? Look for other possible meanings?  Give up?

+ Before Jeremiah, the “Day of the Lord” was just judgment, a time of fear and sorrow. Jeremiah – in bad times, possibly in jail himself – encouraged people to see it instead as a time of salvation and the coming true of God’s promises.  Of course, God’s judgment is always the tragic side of God’s justice.

Psalm 25.1-10

+ I don’t know – a lot of good stuff here, but it just seems to be one statement after another. I’ll have to look up in a book to see what this is all about.

+ ok, it’s an acrostic poem, ie, each line starts with the next letter of the alphabet.  I wondered if that was the case.

+ it’s an individual lament in vs 1-7 with response (by the priest/worship leader?) in vs 8-10.  If we look agt the whole psalm, vs 15-22 are a return to petitions, but now with having expressed confidence in God.  So vs 10-11 are really the center of the psalm, and express the central thought – God is love and faithfulness.

+ ok – that all helps!

+ note it calls on God to remember God’s promises and “remember not” our sinful ways.  What does it mean to ask God to remember – do we really think God forgets?

1 Thessalonians 3.9-13

+ Another stewardship passage – How can we thank God enough for you and for all your faithfulness!

+ and a pandemic psalm – if only we could be together face to face!

+ the back story is that Paul had established the church at Thessalonica (? the spell checker doesn’t seem particularly comfortable with this, I guess I could check a dictionary.) only a few months previously.  So he is impressed by their faithfulness and enthusiasm but concerned that they are “new believers” facing hard times and persecution.  What do you think – is it easier tyo face troubles as a new believer or one with years of experience?  And what difference does it make that we have 2000 years of Christian history and tradition behind us?

+ two themes – love and holiness.  Love within the community and love for all; ministry and mission.  Where are we doing well, where could we do better?  And holiness – it is something that comes from God, not just from our efforts.  John Wesley expected not to become holy in this life, but to “be made holy”.

Luke 21.25-36

+ There will be signs.  What threatening signs do you see today?  What hopeful signs?  Here’s a nice little piece on signs from Robert Raines – God speaks to us in [God’s] own special sign language – a baby.  Not much.  A small December child.  A baby is birth, beginnings, potential without guarantee.  A baby is helpless but not hopeless.  A baby is someone to watch.  A baby is the future appearing now.  Are there baby-signs from God signaling hope to us watchers on the hillside?

+ “When you see these things start to happen” – What “things” or signs would you act on, what would you do?

+ What things suggest that the kingdom of God/Abode of God/Time of God’s Peace is near?

+ “this generation will not pass away before these things happen” – how do we understand that?

+ “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with...the worries of this life.”  Don’t be so concerned with the dangers and threats and sorrows that you miss the sparks of hope? Alternatively, don’t let the seasonal frenzy entrap you so that you miss the real joy.

+ Do you remember, there used to be an outfit called Alternatives who put out Advent materials under the heading Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?  I wonder if they are still in operation.

+ it’s not a very “Christmasy” word!

+ note that Luke places this “apocalyptic discourse” as a public speech in the temple – Matthew and Mark tell it as a private word on the Mount of Olives.

+ apocalyptic – “used unimaginably large language to anticipate unimaginably important events.”  How do we deal with the literal language?

+ and how do we think about the connection between the first and second coming – the birth and the “second coming”?

+ and playing off the Thess passage, how do we think about a third “coming” – the “existential  coming as Jesus comes into our present reality?

Activity for the week – write a 7 line acrostic prayer (A-G) that reflects the themes of these lessons.  

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 11.25

 Beginning draft – more coming soon

Words Twice a Week        11.25

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.  And are ready to start off on a new liturgical year.

Some introductory thoughts and questions on some of the lessons for Sunday – the First Sunday of Advent.

Jeremiah 33.14-16

+ The days are coming when the Lord will fulfill the promise.  But those days are not (were not) here yet – Israel was going through hard times.  How about us?  What kind of times are going through?  Is our life shaped by the reality that Jesus has come, or by the hope/expectation that he will come again, or simply by the promise of God to be with us until the end, and in fact to be the One who shapes that end?

+ note the theme of righteousness.  God’s promise to David had rested on David’s sons being righteous.

Psalm 25.1-10

+ I don’t know – a lot of good stuff here, but it just seems to be one statement after another. I’ll have to look up in a book to see what this is all about.

1 Thessalonians 3.9-13

+ Another stewardship passage – How can we thank God enough for you and for all your faithfulness!

+ and a pandemic psalm – if only we could be together face to face!

Luke 21.25-36

+ There will be signs.  What threatening signs do you see today?  What hopeful signs?  Here’s a nice little piece on signs from Robert Raines – God speaks to us in [God’s] own special sign language – a baby.  Not much.  A small December child.  A baby is birth, beginnings, potential without guarantee.  A baby is helpless but not hopeless.  A baby is someone to watch.  A baby is the future appearing now.  Are there baby-signs from God signaling hope to us watchers on the hillside?

+ “When you see these things start to happen” – What “things” or signs would you act on, what would you do?

+ What things suggest that the kingdom of God/Abode of God/Time of God’s Peace is near?

+ “this generation will not pass away before these things happen” – how do we understand that?

+ “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with...the worries of this life.”  don’t be so concerned with the dangers and threats and sorrows that you miss the sparks of hope?

+ 

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 11.21

 Words Twice a Week        11.21

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Some days from the church calendar -

ok- I got mixed up last week and already gave you CS Lewis and Catherine, Barbara, and Margaret.  For the rest of the week -

Nov 26 – Isaac Watts  He wrote Joy To The World, along with 750 or so other hymns.  He wrote translations of the psalms into “New Testament language” and set to standard hymn meters. 

Nov 26 – Sojourner Truth – she was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.  She became an abolitionist and activist for women’s rights.  Her most famous speech is known as Ain’t I a Woman.

Nov 28 – First Sunday of Advent, and thus a feast Day of The Lord.  If it were not, it would be a day for Kamehameha and Emma, King and Queen of Hawaii.  Why, we might ask, do we in particular remember a king and queen of Hawaii?  Well, “In 1860, Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV petitioned the Church of England to help establish the Church of Hawaii. Upon the arrival of Anglican bishop Thomas Nettleship Staley and two priests, they both were baptized on October 21, 1862 and confirmed in November 1862. With her husband, she championed the Anglican (Episcopal) church in Hawaii and founded St. Andrew's Cathedral, raising funds for the building. In 1867 she founded Saint Andrew's Priory School for Girls.[19] She also laid the groundwork for an Episcopal secondary school for boys originally named for Saint Alban, and later ʻIolani School in honor of her husband.” Wikipedia

Some days from the earth/world calendar -

Nov 23

+ Dr Who premiered in 1963.

Nov 24

+ John Knox died in 1572.  He was a Scottish reformer and called the founder of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland.  As a reformer, he was often caught up in Protestant-Catholic controversies and forced to move from country to country.  While in exile in England, “he was licensed  to work in the Church of England, where he rose in the ranks to serve King Edward VI of England as a royal chaplain. He exerted a reforming influence on the text of the Book of Common Prayer.”  So one might ask why the Church of England does not recognize him with a day in the calendar.  Well, “Knox was notable not so much for the overthrow of Roman Catholicism in Scotland, but for assuring the replacement of the established Christian religion with Presbyterianism rather than Anglicanism.”  Might have something to do with it, but then I’m a United Methodist and don’t really know about these things!

+ DB Cooper hijacked a plane and parachuted out with $200,000 in 1971.  Here’s something I didn’t know – his name wasn’t really DB Cooper.  He bought the ticket under the name Dan Cooper and somehow that got twisted in the media to “D.B. Cooper”.  The Wikipedia article lists 14 different possible suspects!

+ Scott Joplin was born on this day in 1867.  Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, and over 100 other piano rags.  He wrote two operas – the first was A Guest of Honor about the 1901 White House dinner hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt for the civil rights leader and educator Booker T. Washington. The event was politically polarizing, with Roosevelt receiving an uncommon level of criticism from his political opponents for entertaining the African-American leader.  Unfortunately while touring, the company was robbed, the score was confiscated when Joplin could not pay the hotel bill, and subsequently lost.  The second opera was Treemonisha, about an educator kidnapped by a band of conjurers. It really wasn’t produced until 1972; Joplin received a posthumous Pulitzer prize for music for it in 1976

Nov 25

+ It’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

+ In 1960, three Dominican sisters opposed to the Trujillo dictatorship were killed and the deaths made to look like an accident.  In part because of this -

+ in 1999 the UN declared Nov 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.  (Actually they declared it on Dec 17, Nov 25, 2000 would have been the first one, I guess.)  Seems like we have a way to go…..

+ Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835.  At one time he was the richest man in America. He gave away $350,000,000, including $6,000,000 to provide 7689 church organs, “to lessen the pain of the sermons.”

Nov 26

+ Buy Nothing Day  Need I say more?

+ Casablanca premiered in 1942.  “Here’s looking at you, kid”

Nov 27

+ William Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway in 1582. (At least that was when the license was issues. The banns were proclaimed once, so the actual marriage was probably sometime around Dec 1 or so!)

+ James Agee was born in 1909.  He wrote “a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea.”  Wow!

+ the Nobel Prizes were established in 1895, when Alfred Nobel bequeathed a fund for granting prizes in literature, physiology, chemistry, physics, medicine, and the promotion of peace.

+ First Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924

Nov 28

+ Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean in 1520.  Only one of the five ships that sety out made it all the way around the world, and Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines, but his voyage proved that the world is round and predominantly water.

So first Sunday in Advent – doing an Advent Calendar/Wreathe this year?  Time to start thinking about it.  I always think I should do daily devotions during Advent.  We did when I was a child, but I don’t seem to carry it off too consistently these days.  Maybe this year – I’ll let you know.

That’s what I got for now…..

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Words 11.18

 Words Twice a Week        11.18, well, 19 by the time I got it done!

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Some introductory thoughts on some of the lessons for this Sunday – Christ the King/Reign of Christ.

2 Sam 23.1-7  “Last words of David”

+ “Son of Jesse” and Great grandson of Ruth; “anointed of God” (by Samuel, son of Hannah)

+ context/back-story: in the last several chapters we have had the bit with Absalom, political strife among the tribes, a famine leading to the sacrifice of some of Saul’s people, wars in which David is judged “too old to go into battle.”

+ vs 3 and 4 are actually God’s words about as just and righteous king.  In vs 5 David asks “Is not my house like this?”  Confidence or doubt?  How do confidence and doubt fit together in our faith?  Comparing with the Song of Hannah at the beginning of 1 Samuel, she ends with strong word of protection for David’s line.  David’s song ends a little more conditionally.  As the psalm will say, it depends on the descendants keeping faith.

+ the morning sun and the rain show the cosmic dimensions of justice and power.  Our actions affect the sun and the rain.  Ask the folks in British Columbia!

+ “David rule” is to rule justly, caring for the weak and the poor.  How is that going today?

+ Looking to Advent – there is the quality of “here we go, round again”, but “like the fish in the stream, we are confined to this world of injustice and sin and can little imagine the reign of Christ.  But the realities of God do not come and go, they simply are.”  - Texts for Preaching

Ps 132.1-12 (13-18)

+ David endured hardships (?) but said her would not rest until he had found a dwelling/resting place for God.  Did God need for him to do that?  In fact, didn’t God say God didn’t need David to do that?  What all is involved in finding or assigning a place to God? Where does God dwell/rest?  In human hearts?

+ note that it all depends on David’s sons keeping the covenant.  What does our democracy/civilization depend on?  Are we in danger of losing it?  One writer notes “In a democracy, it is not just the king, but every citizen.”

+ another writer notes “religious reality does not easily match up with political legitimacy.”

+ “After presence/place, it is Torah/obedience that matters.”

+ In what world does it make sense for Mike McCarthy to make an 8 hour speech?  When Abraham Lincoln could say everything that needed to be said in 300 words, 2-3 minutes?

Daniel 7.9-10, 13-14

+ just for fun, because it’s one of “The Night Visions” – sounds like it ought to be a serial on Masterpiece Theatre!

+ note that in vs 1-8 the four beasts appear, in 11-12 the beasts are destroyed.

+ Prophetic visions are generally concerned with immediate issues, apocalyptic visions are concerned with global history and radical transformation – ie, end/completion of things!

+ and apocalyptic visions are generally more exotic – thrones, “white as snow” (in a world without Maytag, what would that suggest?  Someone once noted that I was not a manual laborer because my hands were clean and soft.), fire!, a thousand thousand, and even ten thousand times ten thousand (which is only a hundred million – we’re used to bigger numbers today!)

+ “one like a human being” – what did that mean to Daniel and hearers?  What does it suggest to us – angel? Messiah? Jesus?

Rev 1.4b-8

+ Grace to you and peace from – in other words, this grace and peace rests upon – God who is, was, will be, the Alpha and Omega (from vs 8); and Jesus, faithful witness (passion/crucifixion), first born of the dead (resurrection), and ruler of kings of earth (exaltation).  We would have to say that “ruler of kings of earth” is more _______ than descriptive!  Unless we take it to mean rulers of earth are evaluated by how they live up to Jesus’ words.

+ who loves us, frees us from sin, makes us a kingdom/priests – so that our lives are evaluated against Jesus’ words as well.  Again, in a democracy it is not just the king!

+ he is coming and all will see, some will wail.  Who will that be?

+ “So it is to be.  Amen.” - church’s hope derives from utter confidence that Jesus will return. How do we think about that?

John 18.33-37

+ second scene in Jesus-Pilate conversation.  As always in John, it features irony, misunderstanding.  Again from a week ago (?) - a glimpse beyond what’s going on to what’s really going on.

+ while all others scramble around, Jesus stands firm, calm, poised.  He is in control, especially in this gospel.  No one takes his life – he gives it.

+ Fred Craddock reminds us that while Annas and Ciaphas and Pilate scramble and muddle around, the real trial is with Peter at the charcoal fire.  Jesus talks about Truth and Peter denies that he knows him.

+ Pilate asks “Am I a Jew?” - of course not, but he is casting his lot with the Jewish leaders and will end up boxed in by them.  Note Pilate is going back and forth because the Jewish leaders will not come in to him in order not to be contaminated before Passover, while they scheme to put Jesus to death.

+ Jesus is a king (Pilate will inscribe that on the cross!) but his kingdom is not from/of this world.  IThat does not mean it has no role to play in human affairs, but rather that it’s power, it’s authenticity, comes from somewhere else.  It does not rest on this world’s values.  Where does our government’s power come from?

+ Power and Truth – and “speaking truth to power”.

So Christ the King/Reign of Christ – a time to reflect on who/what rules our lives, and a time to rest in our confidence/hope that God is bringing something about.

Here’s a word from Frederick Buechner on Truth -

A particular truth can be stated in words – that life is better than death and love than hate, that there is a god or is not, that light travels faster than sound and cancer can sometimes be cured if you discover it in time.  But truth itself is another matter, the truth that Pilate asked for, tired and bored and depressed by his long day.  Truth itself cannot be stated.  Truth simply is, and is what is, the good with the bad, the joy with the despair, the presence and absence of God, the swollen eye, the bird pecking the cobbles for crumbs.  Before it is a word, the gospel that is truth is silence, a pregnant silence in its ninth month, and in answer to Pilate’s question, Jesus keeps silent, and even with his hands tied behind him manages somehow to hold silence out like a terrible gift. 

That’s what I got for now…..

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