tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37180854882016329502024-03-28T23:29:09.229-04:00Into the Company of the BlessedMusings about the spiritual life and the mission of the Church by an Episcopal parish priest.Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.comBlogger320125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-87545410654797370452019-01-17T22:30:00.003-05:002019-01-17T22:30:48.971-05:00One Hit Wonder?<br />
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The Lord will arise upon
you, and his glory will be seen upon you.” Isaiah 60:2</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my
hometown, the Fireman’s Carnival is undoubtedly the biggest event of the year.
It’s been held on the first week in August as long as anyone can
remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thousands flock to the muddy
grounds outside town for the ferris wheel and the country ham sandwiches, some
low stakes games of chance and the goldfish booth that finances the
junior-senior prom. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone knows that the biggest attractions
are conversations with old friends and the hand-cut french fries. But
there’s always entertainment as well--a show on the stage at 7 and 10.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s usually country music, and in the old
days, when you had to become a star the hard way, many of the greats trod our
hometown boards: Patsy Cline, Conway Twitty, Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass
Boys, even once, Grandpap said, the great Hank Williams himself. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
affordable talent is harder to find these days, so the series usually builds up
to a Saturday night performer who might just ring a bell. We called them
the “one hit wonders.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last time I
was at the Carnival on the Saturday night, it was a band whose 15 seconds of
fame came with a tune called “She Never Cried When Old Yeller Died” back in
1993. I think they sang it three times that night, and when they did, the
crowd went wild.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a second you could
see past the grizzled beards and the beer bellies to what it must have been
like 25 years ago when they were on top of the world, and a life of fame and
fortune seemed to be spread before them. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There’s
something sad in figures like this: the one-hit band, the pitcher who broke all
the records in high school and then petered out in AA ball, the businessman who
made one amazing deal at 27 and never managed to replicate it again. Maybe
you felt a kind of ambiguity in your life’s early successes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is wonderful, you thought, but is it a
badge of a glorious future or just a fluke?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Could it be that I only have one great idea, enough talent for this one
crucial moment? Is this as good as it’s ever going to be?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I would
not have been surprised if a thought like this passed through the minds of
those looking on at the scene recounted in today’s Gospel, the arrival of the
wise men who bowed low to worship the infant Jesus. “His glory will be
seen upon you,” Isaiah had prophesied long before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God would reveal Himself to the wise and
powerful of all nations, and they would come to His sacred people and land to
adore Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kings would bring gold and
incense, a testimony of belief and reverence. And here we have it, as
colorful and dramatic a story you will ever find, and all of it spread before a
baby, just weeks old.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Artists
have long delighted in depicting this moment. If the government wasn’t
shut down, you could spend a marvellous afternoon today wandering the
Renaissance rooms at the National Gallery, just looking at paintings of this
event. There are so many of them for two good reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The three kings were the saintly patrons of
Florence, so commissioning altarpieces of them earned donors some patriotic
stripes back in the fourteenth century. But for a Biblical scene, this
one also gave such a large scope for the artist: splendid costumes, rearing
camels, sometimes great crowds of locals join in the festivity, with pipes and
dances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my
favorite painting of the scene at the Gallery, a joint work of Fra Angelico and
Fra Filippo Lippi, a peacock fans out His tail on the roof of the holy house
where Mary and Joseph are holding the babe. And why not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of all the scenes in the life of Jesus, this
is the one where a peacock would be perfectly at home, amid the astronomical
heralds, the stooping grandeur and the costly presents.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jesus
appears here as the universal king, acclaimed with joy by those who have
travelled from the ends of the earth to seek the one for whom they have always
hoped. He is serene and confident, receiving the praises of His
subjects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who kneel before Him are
grateful, humble and reverent, for He is not merely a king but God Himself in
our flesh. The Psalms capture the moment exactly:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“O magnify the Lord our God, and fall down
before His footstool, for He is holy.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>”
“O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, bring presents, and come
into His courts.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is
Epiphany, the showing forth of God’s glory. For one golden moment, the
Lord was seen clearly in human flesh. The Blessed Virgin and Joseph were
reassured, the wise men stared up with full hearts, the crowds were amazed.
God was here among us, and received from us that which is “meet, right
and our bounden duty.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>”
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory,
as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>”
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But this
golden moment was not to last. That night the child and his family would be
shuffled off to Egypt, fleeing a murderous king. The wise men would slip
away, presumably back to their old lives uncertain about what it all would
mean. This is not the last Epiphany in Jesus’ earthly life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, most of the other great moments of
revelation will serve as our Gospel lessons over the next two months: His
Baptism and first miracle, the dramatic call of the first disciples, His
glorious transfiguration. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But most of Jesus’ life was in obscurity,
among people who ignored or misunderstood Him, or who felt threatened by Him
and responded with hostility and aggression. At least some of those who
met Jesus decades later and heard the old tale about the wise men must have wondered
if it wasn’t a mistake, or if that initial promise had never really been
fulfilled. Was Jesus a one-hit wonder?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>they might have thought. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They
would be wrong, of course, for the wise men’s vision was, in fact, full of
grace and truth. He is now as He was then, seated on the throne of
majesty, in the new Jerusalem above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>John described it to us in this way in His Revelation: “The city has no
need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and
its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the
earth shall bring their glory into it.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>”
This day we praise Him, with angels and archangels and all the
company of heaven,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>” and we know that we will
see Him as He is, as they did who bore their gifts of gold, frankincense and
myrrh.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We too
have our moments of epiphany, when God’s glory is shown forth, and faith seems
easy, moments when we taste of that joy and peace to come. Ours is not a
religious tradition that insists on a decisive moment when we come to faith,
but most of the real Christians I have met can point to at least a few of them.
They usually come at the beginning--around a campfire at youth camp, or
at grandma’s funeral or peering over the Grand Canyon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of my own epiphanies involve Gothic
architecture, polyphony and lots of incense: to each his own, I guess.
Those moments make real for us what was only notional before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of them, we can commit ourselves to
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But after
those golden moments, the days of obscurity and struggle always come. And
we can be tempted to look back on our past experiences with doubt, to wonder if
it all was really as true and compelling as we remember it to have been.
Were we, too, just a one hit wonder?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If God was present to me so powerfully then, we think, why won’t He show
His face now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is
no answer for such questions, aside from a trust in the steadfast goodness of
God, whose mercy is strength enough for the struggles we now face. As
John Henry Newman wrote in an Epiphany sermon, “For all seasons we must thank
Him, for time of sorrow and time of joy, time of warfare and time of peace.
Each has its own proper fruit, and its own peculiar blessedness...When
Christ gives us what is pleasant, let us take it as refreshment by the way,
that we may, when God calls, go in the strength of that meat forty days and
forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ps. 34:3.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Ps. 96:9</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Holy
Eucharist, </span><u><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Book of Common Prayer</span></u><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1979), 333.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John 1:14.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Rev. 21:23.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">BCP, 333.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3718085488201632950#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif;">Newman, “The Epiphany Season.” </span><u><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parochial and Plain Sermons</span></u><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">. London:Rivingtons, 1875, VII.84.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-6385156734774133452018-10-23T08:30:00.000-04:002018-10-23T08:30:04.080-04:00All that Belongs to Him<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">“The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which
I am baptized, you will be baptized.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>St. Mark 10:39<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">Jesus often spoke in phrases heavy with meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He used images freighted with symbolic power,
ambiguous turns of phrase that force the listener to slow down and
consider.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meditation--a word that comes
from the Latin for what a cow does with her cud-- is not merely a pious
practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must often chew long on
these phrases to draw out their full meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">That can be difficult for us in a world where people try to conduct
national policy debates in 280 characters or less.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By and large, we long for the single-page
memo, the objective facts distilled out from the spin, the bullet points
drained of their adjectives. Many of us seem to be drowning in a sea of words
as it is. We don’t think we have time for beautiful rhetoric or the probing
syllables of poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">But we can miss a great deal if we rushly too quickly to the point,
especially when the words spoken to us are about those things at the core of
our existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a>God’s Word, we discussed
last week, is a two edged sword, exposing our consciences, fertilizing our
imaginations, inflaming our passions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus speaks to us in a manner worthy of our dignity, expecting us to
listen with all our faculties, so we hear a message that might at long last
break through and bring the change we truly need.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">Today’s reading is one of the most striking examples in the Gospels of
Jesus using complex, powerful and arresting phrases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He speaks of the cup that He must drink and
the baptism with which He will be baptized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These things are integral to His kingdom, symbols that conjure up the
world into which He is calling His disciples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">And when Jesus speaks of them to James and John, they are sure they
know just what He means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His journey to
Jerusalem is approaching its destination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The crowds are moved by His words and demonstrations of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James and John love Him and they want to be
right alongside Him in the victory that surely soon to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In your glory, Jesus, can we sit beside
you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the great battle soon to come,
can we be shoulder to shoulder?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
parade through the streets when thousands shout your name, can we march on
either side?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the triumph banquet,
when we feast on Herod’s lambs and wine from Pilate’s cellar, can we share the
table with you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">“Are you able to drink my cup?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus asks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be sure, they
think; that golden cup, encrusted with gems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At grand occasions kings took such a cup and shared it out with their
most trusted followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What about my
baptism?” He asks them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our translation
is less helpful here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Greek word can
just mean “my submerging.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an
everyday word then, not a religious one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As a commentator noted, James and John may have thought Jesus was
talking about a bath.<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a>
Just then, King Herod was showing his wealth and high cultural accomplishments
by constructing Roman-style baths throughout Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ancient bath was a social center, a place
for relaxing and intimate conversation. “ Will you taste my cup and soak in my
bath?”--that’s what James and John hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The question suggests refreshment and renewal, the welcome delights at
the end of the hot, dusty road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it
also hints at intimacy and common purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Will you share in all that belongs to me?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">We are able, they say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We long
for that cup and that baptism, a share in your glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">But no, Jesus tells them, you don’t understand what I’m saying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus means a different kind of cup, what
Isaiah calls “the cup of fury, the bowl that makes men stagger.<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To Jesus the word points to the suffering
that surely lies ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cup that
James and John are so eager to drain is the same one Jesus will beg the Father
to remove from Him in Gethsemane in a few weeks’ time.<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And His baptism, His submerging--for Jesus
this means the flood of hostility and injustice that will soon swallow up His
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can see that the waters are
rising around Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has, in fact, just
told His disciples of the cross that lies ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cup and baptism of suffering, these are
my destiny, He means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you would have
a part in what is most central to my life, you must suffer with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will you share in all that belongs to me?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">He answers for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will
drink my cup, Jesus tells them, and you will be baptized with my baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suffering lay ahead for both of them: James
would be the first of the apostles to die as a martyr, by Herod’s sword in
Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John would bear the burden of
establishing the church in many places before ending His life in exile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here on earth, they would never drink from
gilded chalices or soak their weary bodies in refreshing marble baths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">But Jesus doesn’t deny that someday they will share in His royal
banquet, and be refreshed in the river of life that flows like crystal from the
throne of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rebukes their ambition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He hints at a weakness that will make cowards
of them on His day of trial. Surely the suffering must come first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is no iron appeal to duty either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A glorious reward still lies ahead of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If we have died with him,” Saint
Paul writes, “we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign
with him.<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">But Jesus also points to another cup and another baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are like me, they are the first things
that come to mind when I hear the passage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One night soon, Jesus would hand them a cup, “This is my blood of the
new covenant, shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After He had drained the bowl of wrath at
Calvary, and passed through death’s waters to life again, then He would give
them a baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">The sacraments are borne of Christ’s steadfastness unto death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their power springs from the gift of His life
for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drink of His own blood and
are baptized into His death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet His
passion is, as George Herbert wrote, “That liquor sweet and most divine, which
my God feels as blood, and I as wine.<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></sup></a>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For us, the sacraments bring strength and
consolation in the midst of our struggles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Through them we share in His resurrection and the transforming work of
His Spirit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus’ cup and baptism are a
foretaste of the glories still to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And as in the suffering and the glory, through the sacraments Jesus bids
us share all that belongs to Him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">Jesus asks us,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Do you want to
grow closer to me, to walk in my steps?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a penetrating word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
first, we know, it is an invitation to deny ourselves, to give generously of
what we have to advance His work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
respond to that call when we care for our sick children and our fading elders,
when we feed the hungry and console the brokenhearted, when we persevere in
prayer and sing on through pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus
does not promise any more worldly acclaim or comprehension than what waited for
Him at Calvary, at least not in this life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But He does say that this path brings us closer to His heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">We ask you today to make a commitment to the work of this parish in
the coming year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These gifts are a way
of taking up that cup and sharing in that baptism, especially if they come of
real sacrifice, especially if they are the first fruits of your labors and not
what’s left over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are also a way of
drawing closer to the rest of us, casting in your lot with this band of
imperfect people who depend together on the strength extended through His Sacraments
and who look in hope together to the glory still to be revealed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with
the baptism with which I am baptized?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">By your grace, may we answer: “We are able.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><sup><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></span></sup></a><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;">Swete, Henry B.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>The Gospel
According to Saint Luke.</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Third
Edition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>London: Macmillan, 237.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><sup><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></span></sup></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"> Is. 51:17.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><sup><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></span></sup></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"> II Tim. 2:11.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><sup><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></span></sup></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"> Matt. 26:41.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Proper%2021B%202018.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><sup><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></span></sup></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"> The Agony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-8472838610508671052018-03-07T16:34:00.001-05:002018-03-07T16:34:24.087-05:00The Most Natural Burden<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><i>“H</i></span><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><i>onour
thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></span><i><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">upon the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12</span></i></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
lost my two remaining grandparents last year. There was nothing
particularly dramatic or unexpected about their deaths. They departed
this life after extended struggles with disease and debility, looking ahead in
hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They died holding the hands of
their children. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My
mother and her siblings were alongside them through so much of the dramatic
change, and it’s been moving for me to watch this from the sidelines. For
them it was a year of sitting in dozens of doctor’s offices, heating up dinner,
writing out notes to guide confused minds, sorting the bills, arranging a last
family picnic on a sunny July day. </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It
was really all quite ordinary, the ending to a story they had all been
expecting to tell for the whole of their lives, but beautiful taken together.
This is how life is meant to be. To be sure it was a burden, but the
most natural burden of all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Piety
is the word for it, the natural duty we owe to those who have given us life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the Romans, it was the fundamental
virtue. They traced the origins of their civilization to “pious Aeneas.”
His great journey began as he fled the blazing ruins of Troy, struggling
beneath the weight of old Achises, his aged father. Horatius, their
heroic warrior, had sacrificed his life for piety, defending Rome’s first
bridge, the <i>Pons Sublicius</i>, against the Etruscans. The story was a
favorite of Churchill’s, who had learned to recite Mccauley’s great description
of it as a Harrow schoolboy. Maybe you remember the scene in <i>The
Darkest Hour</i> when he recited a few verses from the poem, a summons to his
people who nearly lost their nerve in the face of the Nazi menace:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“And how can man die better</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Than facing fearful
odds</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For the ashes of his fathers</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the temples of his gods.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To
me, at least, it seems deeply significant that this is not far from where the
Ten Commandments also begin: the ashes of our fathers and the temples of our
God. God gave two tablets of the law to Moses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first had three commandments outlining our duty to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second had seven, listing our duties to
our neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And though some dispute
it, I don’t think the order of the commandments on each table is random.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are first bound to acknowledge one God
only, the source of all good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when
we look around us at others, first we must honor our father and mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If God is giving a law for the whole human
race, he naturally begins with what is most universal. Each of us has
been created by God, as He transmitted life to us through our parents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
will not all marry. Not all will have the opportunity and inclination to steal
or kill or give false testimony. But each of us has received generously
from our parents. They have given us life. They have nourished us
and cared for us. Most often, through their guidance, we have come to
emotional and spiritual maturity. As Thomas Joseph White has written,
“Children who receive these gifts from their parents cannot repay them by any
proportionate compensation. They remain ontological and moral debtors to
their parents for life.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
do what we can to repay that debt by loving and honoring our parents. In
childhood, we obey them. In adulthood, we care for them in the inevitable
decline that marks the end of life. Human life begins and ends in
dependence, relying upon generous love extended through natural obligation, the
practice of piety. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I don’t want to be a
burden,” the well-meaning person says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Such wishes don’t count for very much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is nothing more natural than taking up the burden of caring for
those who are closest to us, to whom, as Father White says, we are “ontological
debtors.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
natural obligation must take precedence over many other good things that we may
wish to do. We are all limited human beings, and the choices we make
about our use of time and money should reflect these natural priorities.
St. Augustine famously wrote that while we should love all, we cannot do
good to all. “But among those to whom we are bound to do good are those in some
way united to us.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In that order of
loves, our parents must take a primarily place—charity, literally, should begin
at home. Jesus himself faulted those who ignored this natural
responsibility, and St. Paul is blunt and direct in his condemnation in I
Timothy 5: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Most
classical commentators on this commandment have extended it to speak of a
natural respect and obligation, a sort of piety toward those other systems and
leaders within whose care God has placed us. We love and respect our
country and its leaders, our teachers, those entrusted with keeping the common
peace, our employers and the ministers of the church. Saint Paul
summarized this at the close of a famous passage about respecting civil
authorities: “Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue
to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is
due.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
extend this respect and answer these obligations even when these institutions
and their leaders inevitably fall short of what we would wish them to be.
There is but one perfect parent, our Father who art in heaven. Our
own parents, like our policemen, priests and presidents will often fail in
discharging their responsibilities. The Scriptures are clear that much is
demanded by God of those to whom He has given authority. Sometimes those
placed over us must be confronted, sometimes criticized, occasionally even
resisted and refused. Jesus gives us an example of this done faithfully
in today’s Gospel reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
ordinary, faithful posture for us will be to bear with them in humble loyalty
because we trust that God has given them to us and us to them, so that together
we might grow in His grace.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
we honor our parents, God assures us, we will enjoy a long life in the land He
has given to us. The promise is probably not so much about living many
years, as enjoying a stable, fruitful common life. God assures us that when
we live in this nexus of dependence and gratitude, we will be at peace with
each other. Our leaders will know what is expected of them. The
vulnerable will be protected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Piety is
ultimately for the sake of the common good. </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But we live in a
culture where so many social bonds are frayed, and there is a diminished <span style="background: white;">sense of mutual dependence and obligation.
Contemporary American culture is shaped by deep individualism.
Continually, we are told that we can flourish only by leaving home and
rejecting our formative influences. Our cultural heroes are often the
rebels, the masters of their own fates. How much traction could a leader get
these days with an appeal to “the ashes of our fathers and the temples of our
gods?” We yearn for freedom, but often have little concept about what to
do with it once it comes. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I could cite plenty
of examples about how badly out of sorts things have become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think it’s more constructive to reflect
on how we may be able to serve our neighbors in love, so that our people may
live long in the land God has given to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We should be the ones who accept burdens, who honor and care for those
who need our help. The frail and confused, the mentally ill and the sorrowful,
especially those in our own families and congregation should be always in our
prayers and often on our agendas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an
age of widespread distraction and overheated ideology, many community
organizations are in deep need of committed, generous leadership, of people
blessed with the kind of gifts God has given many of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a time when everyone seems to have a
grievance, a respectful and supportive word to a civic official, a member of
the armed forces, a police officer, is an important affirmation that their
sacrifices are valued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we should do
all we can to ensure that no one dies alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The fourth
commandment assures us that loving our neighbor begins with a trust in God’s
wise purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It flows from deep
gratitude for those with whom He has bound us. Piety’s duties answer to the
blessings we have received so abundantly. Life has its burdens, but these are
tightly bound with its richest joys. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> McCaulay,
Thomas Babington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>The Lays of Ancient
Greece and Rome</u>, XXVII<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
White, Thomas Joseph, OP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exodus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Brazos Theological Commentary on the
Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2016, 185.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Qtd.
in Thomas Aquinas, <u>Explanation of the Ten Commandments</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trans. Joseph B. Collins, Aeterna Press,
2015, Article 6.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> I
Tim. 5:8.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/frmam/Downloads/Lent%203B%202018%20(1).docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Rom. 13:7.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-22805674279896298032018-03-01T19:36:00.001-05:002018-03-01T19:36:24.216-05:00Where the White Light Flickers<br />
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<a href="https://traversecitycarmel.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/carmelite-dfloeter-305-e1380252525336.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="409" data-original-width="390" height="320" src="https://traversecitycarmel.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/carmelite-dfloeter-305-e1380252525336.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From <i>The
Sounds of St. Francis,</i> March 2018.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
twentieth century English poet John Betjeman (1906-1984) is one my very
favorite modern writers. Calling him modern, though, may be a bit of a
misnomer, for his verses never ranked very highly among the literary
establishment. He was far too traditional in his political and religious
opinions and loathe to take himself too seriously. He also managed to
write verses that ordinary people can understand (and often they even rhyme).
He was very popular in his lifetime, and was even England’s poet laureate
for the last twelve years of his life.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most of
Betjeman’s verses are about the English countryside, old buildings, social
satire, and the Christian faith. He was a faithful Anglican, a warden of
his parish church. His faith was awakened, like my own, as a young man in
the pews of Pusey House, Oxford. He had a deep devotion to the church’s
liturgy and sacramental life, shaped by his time in that enchanting place.
The transforming power of the Eucharist is an oft-repeated theme in
his work. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of my
favorite Betjeman poems is <i>A Lincolnshire Church</i>. In the midst of
describing of a very ordinary building with a somewhat indifferent
congregation, the author pauses to survey the tabernacle, the place where the
Blessed Sacrament is reserved:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And there
on the South aisle altar</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is the
tabernacle of God.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There where
the white light flickers</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By the
white and silver veil</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A wafer
dipped in a wine-drop</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is the
Presence the angels hail,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is God
who created the Heavens</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the
wide green marsh as well</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who sings
in the sky with the skylark</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who calls
in the evening bell,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is God
who prepared His coming</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
fruit of the earth for his food</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
stone for building His churches</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And trees
for making His rood.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
where the white light flickers,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our
Creator is with us yet,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To be
worshipped by you and the woman</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of the
slacks and the cigarette. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
passage is classic Betjeman—the elegaic survey of rural beauty, the gentle
humor, and the joyful trust in God, immense and gracious, who has given all
this to us, and who has come to be with us in the gift of the Sacrament.
There’s no surprise when he ends the poem a few lines later:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
where the white light flickers,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here,
where the rain descends,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The same
mysterious Godhead</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is
welcoming His friend. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a few
months, the white light will also be flickering here at Saint Francis. A
tabernacle, designed by our own David Tozer is being constructed to be placed
in our own “South aisle altar”—in the Chapel that is. Those of you who
serve on the Altar Guild will know that the Blessed Sacrament has been reserved
at Saint Francis for many years, in a cabinet in the Sacristy. The new
tabernacle will allow Christ who comes to us in bread and wine to have a place
at the heart of our common worship. A white candle will burn beside the
tabernacle, a sign of Christ’s Presence, and God will welcome all his friends
to greet Him in prayer and praise.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We had
hoped that the tabernacle would be finished by the beginning of Lent, but the
church pew construction company has too many other orders to handle—which, in
the wider perspective, must be a good thing. It will probably arrive
sometime in May. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However,
it seemed fitting to prepare for its coming by devoting some time this Lent to
exploring the gift of the Eucharist. Our Sunday morning forum will
discuss the way the Church’s teaching and practice of the Eucharist developed
over time: what Christ intended when he took up the bread and wine at the Last
Supper; the way our worship was shaped by missionaries, persecution and
imperial patronage; and countless reforms over the centuries that have aimed at
bringing the Presence of Christ closer to His people. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On
Thursday evenings we will explore a different devotional theme at the heart of
the Eucharist each week: “the well of life,” “true bread from heaven,” “my
flesh is food indeed,” “I will eat with him,” and “we are all partakers of one
bread.” Psalms, Scripture texts, hymns and passages from Christians poets
and theologians will throw light on these aspects of Christ’s Presence with us,
and we will gather our prayers each week in a Litany of the Blessed Sacrament
taken from the most recent edition of <i>The Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book</i>,
a devotional companion to <i>The Book of Common Prayer.</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Finally,
we will welcome Brother Thomas Piolata for a Lenten Quiet Day on March 17.
Brother Tomie is a Capuchin friar, a delightful and wise young man who
has answered God’s call to serve him as a follower of St. Francis. He is
a classmate of Pastor Allison’s and Father Mac’s at Catholic University, where
he is studying for his doctorate in historical theology. He will speak
about the place of the Eucharist in the theology and spiritual vision of Saint
Francis of Assisi, our patron. St. Francis had a deep devotion to Christ’s
Presence in the Eucharist, which he linked closely to the Cross and the
vocation to give his life in service to the poor. Brother Tomie will
unfold this for us, and ponder how St. Francis’ teaching can draw us closer to
the same Lord who we worship with him. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I hope
that in days to come you will find yourself drawn to that place “where the
white light flickers,” but even more to the One who waits to meet you there.
He is your friend and mine, who comes to dwell in us and to fill us with
His life-giving Presence. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-81245211936843561822018-02-22T17:41:00.001-05:002018-02-22T17:41:47.183-05:00Bearing with Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16IrcMKz9Lbd-Q7F8Gor9JY8EEZH9kQ7ZfXZZRy_CAOdwp9_A06IJkkmLFpU5jgA16xwi52kGlRm7qkkMlIV6xrTvB-UEHWQALeqipEjtNmtjR61t7p7ObrJerp9izsjAlACqgQdqc4Ma/s1600/1947+Packard+Clipper+Super+Coupe+Motor+Car+Company+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16IrcMKz9Lbd-Q7F8Gor9JY8EEZH9kQ7ZfXZZRy_CAOdwp9_A06IJkkmLFpU5jgA16xwi52kGlRm7qkkMlIV6xrTvB-UEHWQALeqipEjtNmtjR61t7p7ObrJerp9izsjAlACqgQdqc4Ma/s1600/1947+Packard+Clipper+Super+Coupe+Motor+Car+Company+6.jpg" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="1000" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it,
that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living
creature of all flesh that is upon the earth</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Genesis 9:16<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My
uncle told me recently that he’s in the market for an alternator—or maybe it
was a fuel pump or a carburetor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not
so good with that sort of thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s
been scanning eBay and reading collectors’ magazines, because you can’t just
call up NAPA to ask them to order you one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He’s
restoring his grandfather’s 1947 Packard, and the old one has given way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s at least the second time he’s had to
overhaul with that old car, and he said he’s wondering if it’s really worth all
the fuss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not quite old enough to
be valuable, and it really isn’t all that stunning, the chariot of a
second-rate insurance salesman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s never
been all that reliable, and I think you can guess what the gas mileage is like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s
special to him, though, it reminds him of his grandfather, who gave it to him,
and he loved his grandfather.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
also about the first real thing he ever owned, and he’s fooled with this car
longer than he’s fooled with any other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sure, there were lots of more impressive cars over the decade: a tail
finned cruiser, a foreign sports car or two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were fun and handsome, but when the price was right he left them
go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he held on to that old Packard,
and he’s expects he’ll go to the fuss of finding that part so she can lumber
down the backroads again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Most
of us have something like that old Packard in our lives, don’t we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that is mostly fuss and bother,
something we should really replace, but we just can’t be persuaded to let it
go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it’s not a car, maybe it’s an
appliance of some sort, or a camp along the lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could even be a job or our home, or a
position of leadership we’ve assumed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
know it’s going to break down again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ll know that, in the end, it can’t really be as grand as we hope it
might.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we love it, it’s important to
us, and so, we’ll bear with it for a while longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our
Old Testament lesson today is the conclusion of the story of the great
flood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in it God announced his
decision that, almost against His better judgment, this creation of his is
worth keeping on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He makes a covenant, a
solemn promise, that he will not again destroy the earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">God
had every reason to do it, you know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
story makes that perfectly clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first five chapters of Genesis are like a descending spiral of cruelty,
violence and contempt. Not long after Adam and Eve were expelled from the
garden for disobedience, their eldest boy Cain murders his brother Abel in a
fit of jealousy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s succeeded by
Lamech, a man fixed on revenge, and then there’s a confusing story about
illicit sex between women and angels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The author sums up the whole mess this way: “the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Lent%201B%202018%20(1).doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Everywhere the Lord looked on His creation, he saw sin and destruction and
chaos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once He had said, “it is very
good”—but now He saw only wickedness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
so, He just let it go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Scripture,
tellingly, doesn’t say that God was angry, it says He was grieved, that “he was
sorry that he had made man and that it grieved him to his heart.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Lent%201B%202018%20(1).doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
The floods of water are like so many tears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they’re fitting as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because man had made the world ugly, and turbulent, everywhere there was
chaos. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People grasped at nothing beyond
this world’s goods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, God let it
loose upon them, He opened up the heavens, and uncovered the fountains of the
deep, not so much as a punishment sent on them, as letting things run their
course—stewing in their own juice, so to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes a man loves money so much that God lets him become nothing
more than a change purse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes food
drives people to be nothing more than a yawning belly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man who loves drink enough can drown
himself in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And here, God let the
chaos triumph, and it all became, as Genesis had begun, “without form, and
void, and darkness over the face of the deep.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It became as if God had never even created at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Except
for Noah and his family, and that boat full of animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God saved them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He saved them because Noah was righteous,
because he trusted God enough to listen to His commandments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But really, God saved them, because He hadn’t
given up on all this, because He had made the created world in love, and for
that sake of that love He would not allow it to destroy itself completely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God wanted something more out of this world
than “the wickedness of man, and the imagination set on evil.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
so, God begins again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the sun
returns and the waters dry up, He commands them to come forth from the ark. He
calls them forth in the same divisions from the very beginning: the birds of
the air, the beasts, the cattle, and man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He tells them to be fruitful and multiply, as he had told Adam and Eve
in the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make no mistake, it is
a new creation, a new start for the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
would be nice wouldn’t it, if God then said something like, “well now I know
that you’ve learned your lesson. You must be different now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure that after all that we won’t be
needing this kind of punishment anymore.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He doesn’t say that at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, once the waters have cleared, God promises, in the words of Genesis 8:21,
“I will never again curse the ground because of man, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i> the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though you human beings are still
foolish, and cruel, even though you still are set on destruction, I won’t let
this happen again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And sure enough, Noah
the righteous ends his illustrious career by inventing wine and ending up drunk
and naked, calling down curses on his firstborn son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God doesn’t remake human nature, he just
says, I expect I’ll have to bear with it for a while longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
truth, He says an awful lot more than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s much more to come in God’s story beyond the ninth chapter of
Genesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What God does here is to make a
solemn promise to all creatures, the first of many covenants to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, as covenants go, it’s not a very
ambitious one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God promises to hang up his
warrior’s bow, to never again destroy the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the prototype, if you will, a first step
in the great plan He has made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
will be more to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The covenant tells
us enough of who God is and clears just enough space to make us want to know
what must come next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
much is clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human beings cannot save
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our track record through
history, the testimony of our own consciences surely shows us that “the
imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know ourselves to be, as today’s collect
says, “assaulted by many temptations,” each with his own weaknesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our education, our governments, our
ideologies and technologies will not solve the ancient fault, the blot that
marks our character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only our merciful
God, who holds back the waves of chaos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only our merciful God, who comes as a Man to face temptation squarely,
and to master it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only our merciful God,
who climbs the Cross when the sky turns black, and allows the flood of human
sin gather to swallow Him up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only our merciful
God, who continues to work through damaged goods like us, broken people hardly
worth the trouble, but whose lives are crowned with the fulness of His grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Lent%201B%202018%20(1).doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> Genesis 6:11<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Lent%201B%202018%20(1).doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Genesis 6:6</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-36459356288412334962018-02-11T19:31:00.000-05:002018-02-22T19:32:32.139-05:00Mirrors of His Glory<br />
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<a href="http://davidanthonyporter.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55043abd088340120a6b317dd970c-320wi" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://davidanthonyporter.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55043abd088340120a6b317dd970c-320wi" width="247" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from
him, and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And
when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the
other.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II Kings 2:14<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Henry Ford
didn’t the invent the car, but once he got started, no one ever made them the
same way again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fats Domino wasn’t the
first to play the jazz piano, but once you had heard him, they said, it was
like something entirely new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People had
dunked a basketball before Michael Jordan stepped onto the court, but now you
can’t imagine that feat without him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Elijah
wasn’t the first prophet, either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People
had been moved to speak God’s Word before, they had stood fast for the truth
when it wasn’t popular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
mysterious man from Tishbe changed the meaning of prophecy forever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Elijah had
called the people to spiritual renewal and denounced corrupt kings face to
face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He worked great miracles of
healing and destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had summoned
fire from heaven and withheld the rains for three and a half years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God fed Elijah in the wilderness with bread
delivered by ravens and revealed to him His glory on the side of Mount
Sinai.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Elijah did
it all clad in a mantle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a>His mantle was
the symbol of his prophetic office, a rough cloak, made of animal hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the dress of a man of the desert, one
who sat lightly to societal compromises and drank in the divine Word
unfiltered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had used the mantle to
hide his face from the Presence of God, and it had hung over his shoulders as
he healed the sick and cried out against idolatry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t know
that any of us has ever met someone quite like Elijah, but we have all known
singular characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might assume
that a leader as gifted and charismatic as Elijah would stand alone, that the
gift of speaking God’s Word comes only rarely, that it would vanish when this legend
left the scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If God had intended it
that way, Elijah would have borne that mantle around his shoulders when God
assumed him into heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Elijah had
redefined prophecy--but his new model was for imitation as well as
admiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elijah had disciples, and
Elisha, the best of them, would walk away from Jordan’s bank with the old
prophet’s mantle around his shoulders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Elijah had
operated a series of seminaries, schools of the prophets, training young
leaders in God’s law and forming them to direct the faith of the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had called Elisha as his successor years
before, when the young man was plowing his father’s field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elijah had thrown the same mantle around his
shoulders then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he knew his death
was coming, Elijah made the rounds, visiting the sons of the prophets, with
Elisha trailing behind him, hanging on his word until the very end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As he was
preparing to depart, Elisha asked his spiritual father for a double portion,
the share of the inheritance due to the firstborn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elisha wanted to be leader of the spiritual
family that Elijah had started.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elijah
left behind his mantle as a sign of this inheritance--a physical reminder, a
sacrament of God’s power revealed in human words and deeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Elijah parted the river with the mantle,
so now does Elisha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Elijah had once
spoken, so does Elisha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elijah worked
fourteen miracles, the Scriptures tell us, Elisha twenty-eight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t know
if Elijah’s mantle came to rest on still more shoulders when Elisha’s work was
finished, but I’d like to think that it was so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God certainly continued to raise up prophets, generation after
generation, to warn of idolatry’s perils and to spread hope in dark days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The desert winds and the beating sun had
likely reduced the old cloak to shreds centuries before, but when the last
prophet appeared, he too wore a mantle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was in the desert, dressed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild
honey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John the Baptist, the final Elijah
pointed out the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Elijah
went up to heaven, his successor cried out, “the chariot of God and its
horseman.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase is obscure, and
perhaps he was just describing what he saw, a wagon of light, borne by angels,
“the sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s also possible that Elisha meant it
as a reverent description of his master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The chariot was the greatest military technology of the ancient
world--the supersonic jet and nuclear missile of its time, a symbol of awe-inducing
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elisha may be saying that through
Elijah, God had come to the world in glorious might.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through Elijah’s words, God’s thoughts were
revealed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His deeds declared God’s
intentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through Elijah,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s glory was poured out into the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jesus shone
brighter than the sun on the mountain, and Elijah stood beside Him, pointing to
the goal of his own striving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elijah may
have been the horseman of God’s chariot, but Jesus is still more, God Himself
in flesh, ever ancient, ever new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus
worked miracles, and spoke truth, but still more--he reconciled humanity to God
through the gift of His own life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus
blazed with the uncreated light of God’s presence, and His disciples shielded
their eyes from a scene that opens a window onto the world to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no question that Jesus is singular
in a way Elijah could never be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus is
the only-begotten One, who discloses the Father’s glory in a complete and final
way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And yet,
Jesus too has disciples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would raise
them up that day to walk down the mountain beside him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In time, He would send them out to share His
Gospel, committing to them His power to forgive sins and to call down God’s
blessing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would hand on to them the
words and actions that make ordinary water into a bath of new life and bread
and wine a means of union with Himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He would breathe upon them His own Spirit, to encourage, guide and
strengthen them in their work, and to rest upon those they would call to
continue that work after them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are,
of course, physical signs of that continuing ministry, like the wonder-working
mantle that Elisha took up from His master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The stoles worn by bishops, priests and deacons are signs of that yoke
of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do not themselves work
miracles, but they point out a sacred power protected and directed by God Himself,
so that His people may receive all things necessary for life in fellowship with
Him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And in
another sense, has not Christ given to each of us, to all baptized in His Name,
a share in that grace-giving power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
has given to each of us the power to keep His commandments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has given good news for us to share with
friends and family, a word of hope for those in despair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gives us insight and compassion to feed
the hungry and comfort the sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all
have the same Spirit, and the great company of heaven interceding for us--so
that we might reveal God’s purposes to all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We are in
the midst of the church season for taking stock of our inner lives, examining
our consciences, as the Exhortation says, “to perceive wherein you have
offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or
deed.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are invited to confess
privately to me on Shrove Tuesday evening, and we will all confess together in
the penitential services of Ash Wednesday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We do well
to examine ourselves in light of how much power and strength God has vested in
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should think over the high
privileges of baptism, the grace extended to each of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will read through the vows I made at
ordination when I prepare my confession this week, and perhaps you could
consider reviewing your baptismal promises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s not
enough to bring before God our disappointments with the ways we fail to measure
up to our own standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God has made us
for deep holiness, lives of clarity and power that reveal His truth, goodness
and beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has made us to be
“chariots of God and horsemen,” entrusted with life-changing gifts for
others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the grace extended in absolution
and renewal in His Holy Spirit, may we find the fulness to become mirrors of
His glory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-18371242238559519472018-02-07T17:25:00.002-05:002018-02-07T17:25:43.399-05:00Review: Museum of the Bible Offers Minority Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Museumofthebible-2017-11-04-exterior-front-up.jpg/220px-Museumofthebible-2017-11-04-exterior-front-up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="220" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Museumofthebible-2017-11-04-exterior-front-up.jpg/220px-Museumofthebible-2017-11-04-exterior-front-up.jpg" /></a></div>
From <i>The Living Church</i>, 21 Jan. 2018<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Bible is big,
according to the new Museum of the Bible. It’s also influential, easy to
understand, relevant to everyday life, and very American. The museum also
suggests that the Bible is not all that complex or challenging. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The museum
announces its presence with a text-emblazoned portal, three stories of the
first chapter of Genesis, presented as a massively resized version of the plates
used by the Gutenberg Bible’s printer. The entrance hall features enormous
overhead screens, on which an ever-changing rotation of evocative photographs signals
the technological thrust of the museum’s displays. The building’s glass-walled,
futuristic cap offers stunning views of the U.S. Capitol, just two blocks away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Though founder
Steve Green deflected attention during a press conference to the institution’s
50,000 founding donors, the Museum of the Bible is his brainchild. Green, president
of Hobby Lobby, began collecting biblical artifacts in 2009, aiming to present
them to the public in a format that would garner wide attention. A committed
evangelical who has taken his turn in the culture wars, Green knows how to make
a political statement. His museum aims to educate and to inspire, but those brassy
yards of bas-relief text are also a way of claiming a permanent corner of the
public square for his people, the people of the Bible.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The museum’s six
floors include a 472-seat theater, a rooftop garden, two restaurants, and
nearly a dozen halls for temporary exhibitions. The permanent collection
includes a floor each devoted to the Bible’s history, narrative, and impact. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The impact floor is
easily the most powerful space of the museum. Divided into three sections, the
museum traces the influence of the Bible on American history, popular culture,
and contemporary people. The American history section, with views toward the
Capitol, provides an accurate and balanced description of the nation’s
religious history. The personal Bibles of William Bradford, Abraham Lincoln,
and Elvis are here, and one exhibit text describes the Bible’s understanding of
kingship as “an early chapter in the history of limited government and
constitutional thought.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A series of
point-counterpoint displays focus on a series of social disputes in which the
Bible has played an important role. Samuel Seabury debates Benjamin Franklin
about the theological propriety of revolution, while other believers debate the
abolition of slavery and the place of religious instruction in public schools. The
survey sidelines contemporary squabbles, ending when baby boomers were still
adolescents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The popular
culture section exhaustively traces the Bible’s influence on literature,
popular music, film, education, and medicine. A series of video screens feature
contemporary entrepreneurs, scientists, humanitarians — and prisoners — offering
testimony about how the Bible inspires and guides them. In another section,
dropdown screens feature people speaking about their favorite Bible verses and
times when the Bible has been helpful in facing personal crises. Many of the
speakers are thoughtful and compelling, providing powerful models for sharing
one’s faith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The museum’s
evangelical thrust is also evident in its contemporary room, which features a
live-stream panoramic view of the Old City of Jerusalem, and a series of
screens flashing the latest references to the Bible on Twitter, as well as the
top Bible-focused web searches in countries across the world. Interactive
screens invite visitors to offer adjectives to describe the Bible and to create
Instagram-worthy placards of suitably uplifting texts (all from the NIV)
against lush natural backgrounds.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk500166675"><o:p></o:p></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Bible’s narrative is treated through a three-section
interactive experience. The center section is a village from the time of
Christ, with costumed reenactors performing everyday tasks amid items that
evoke Jesus’ parables. The New Testament is treated in an animated film, while
a longer, 40-minute, Disney-style experience leads visitors through about a
dozen stories from the Hebrew Bible, as the museum calls the Old Testament. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The narration of the film and the walk-through
experience avoid any particular interpretive spin. The New Testament film sees Jesus
entirely through the perspectives of different participants in the story
(Peter, Mary of Magdala, the centurion, and Paul). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Hebrew Bible section is careful to focus only on
stories of deep importance to both Jews and Christians (there’s no sacrifice of
Isaac). It does not mention prophets who promised a coming Redeemer. The
closing scene of the spectacle is set in a darkened room lit by the many stars
of Abraham’s vision. It includes a glowingly illuminated Torah scroll, as though
the final goal and purpose of the Bible is really just the Bible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The great weakness of the museum is its historical
collection. The curators have purchased a massive quantity of material in just
eight years, but most biblical artifacts and manuscripts of true significance
are in the collections of national museums, universities, and religious
institutions, which are loath to put them on the market. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The museum’s collection of antiquities is notably
thin, focused especially on a few scraps of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and those of
contested authenticity. Most of the large pieces in the biblical history
section are reproductions (though one must often consult the fine print to
notice). These have an apologetic aim, and include much of the archaeological
evidence corroborating details of biblical history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A visiting exhibition from Jerusalem in the museum’s
basement, showcasing impressive discoveries from a single excavation in the
Valley of Elah, shows just how meager the assorted pot fragments and partial
stele in the permanent collection really are. The patristic-era and medieval
material is slightly better, with a few handsome illuminated manuscripts, but
all pale in quality to the few magnificent pieces from the Vatican Collection in
one of the temporary exhibition halls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The collection of Reformation and modern-era material
is much stronger. Early English Bibles are represented in exhaustive detail,
some in very fine copies. A striking room contains copies of thousands of
contemporary Bibles, each in one of the world’s languages, with empty cases
representing each human language that lacks a Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is some compensation for the quality of the
artifacts in the extensive use of technology, a step that was probably
inevitable given that most of the collection consists of books, otherwise
viewable a page at a time. One interactive screen provides superb images of the
Lindisfarne Gospels (they remain firmly in the British Library’s display case).
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another allows the visitor to use multispectral
imaging to explore the different textual layers of one of the museum’s most
important ancient manuscripts, the <i>Codex
Climaci Rescriptus</i>, a palimpsest text originally from St. Catherine’s in
the Sinai. The document includes ten different texts (biblical, liturgical, and
devotional) that were written on the parchment over several centuries, each
scratched off before being overwritten by the next. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Slightly more unnerving are the full-size video
versions of John Wycliffe and Martin Luther who appear to state their case for personal
Bible reading from behind realistic alcoves cut into the museum wall. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Bible Museum fails in its aim to discuss the
Bible’s place in history by sidelining its relationship to Christian worship. The
connection of the Bible to the liturgical year and the Eucharist are ignored. One
exhibit text suggests that medieval Christians largely printed biblical texts
in their missals and breviaries because copying full biblical texts was too
expensive, not considering that they might have thought prayer was an essential
part of experiencing the Bible rightly. While there is a fairly large
collection of Torah scroll covers, one searches in vain for a jeweled Gospel
book. The canon formation process, which was presided over by bishops and
placed major emphasis on liturgical use of texts, is ignored. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-align: justify; text-indent: 10.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The museum also fails to account for the fact that
Christians have traditionally read the Bible differently than Jews, as a text
that finds its focus in the person and saving mission of Jesus Christ. Typology
in any form has been scrubbed from its presentation of the Old Testament. I
could not find a single artistic depiction of parallel stories from the two
Testaments and the apocrypha is ignored</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At numerous press
conferences, the Museum of the Bible’s officials have stressed their desire to
gather many perspectives, to present a nondirective, journalistic experience to
visitors. “We are not advocating for one faith perspective,” director Tony
Zeiss said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s a good
deal of surface inclusivity. Important partnerships have clearly been formed with
Jewish scholars and religious leaders, who have a prominent presence in the
museum’s content. An Israeli rabbi will write a Torah scroll for several months
as an artist in residence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-align: justify; text-indent: 10.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But the true
convictions at play are not easily masked. Inevitably the Museum of the Bible reflects
the Bible as Steve Green has encountered it in his life. This is a museum of
the Bible as encountered in evangelical quiet time: personal, inspiring,
applicable — and probably a little political.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s nothing
wrong with that. Tens of millions of Christians experience the Bible in just
this way every day. But in the Bible’s long and complex history, this approach
is a minority report. The Museum of the Bible falls short in its failure to
cultivate a churchly imagination. This challenges its claims to tell an
authentic story about the founding text of the Christian faith. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-82754102986869946972017-12-31T15:08:00.000-05:002017-12-31T15:08:08.214-05:00Adopted<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://scwgno.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/father-abba.jpg?w=547" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="276" src="https://scwgno.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/father-abba.jpg?w=547" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“God sent forth his Son,
born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as sons.”
Galatians 4:4-5</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We do not
know the name of Saint Paul’s father.
This may strike you as trivial, a trick question for the daily double on
Bible Jeopardy, but I think there’s deep theological significance in this
important omission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We know a
great deal about Saint Paul, because he intertwines bits of his biography into
his teaching. Scholars can date his
missionary journeys down to the month, and he names dozens of his friends and
associates scattered around the Mediterranean world. He tells us that he came from the city of
Tarsus, that before he met Jesus he was a member of the Pharisee sect within
Judaism. We know that Saint Paul’s
father came from the ancient tribe of Benjamin, and that he was a Roman
citizen, a fairly unusual fact for Jew of this time, and a fact on which the
drama of his son’s later life turned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But Saint
Paul never names him. In that respect he
is unlike almost every major figure in the Old Testament. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a>Leaf through the books of the prophets. There it will stand in the first verse or
two: “The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz;<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”
“the words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah;<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”
“The word of the lord came to Ezekiel, the priest, the son of Buzi.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” The Old Testament is crammed with genealogies
and census rolls, miraculous births that salvaged the family lines by filling
old wombs with new life. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s
because in the Old Covenant, the people of God are a single race, an extended
family bound together by common blood.
The most important religious credential a Jew could present is a lineage
table, and the most important religious duty was to perpetuate the line. God
had revealed his will to his people, giving a law to their ancestors at Mount
Sinai. He had called them to serve Him
together, and preserved them through many hardships. Saint Paul understood the weight of this
heritage, and at several points in his writings, he expresses deep gratitude
for it.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
something had happened in his life, something that drastically reordered his
priorities. Saint Paul met Jesus in a blaze of glory on the road to
Damascus. He met One who was a fellow
Jew, a faithful servant who kept the law.
But Jesus was also the only Son of the Father, the eternal Word, the one
in whom God had made all things and filled them with light. In Jesus, St. Paul beheld a human being who
shared completely in God’s love, who knew the Father’s mind and fulfilled the
desires of His heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And then
Jesus extended that same intimate knowledge of the Father to him. When Saint Paul heard the Gospel, and
responded in faith; when he was baptized and received into the body of the
Church, he found a relationship with God unlike anything he had ever known
before. God was close at hand. He understood God’s will and had a new
strength to do it. The Holy Spirit was
within him, drawing from him a love that answered that shown to him by
God. “Abba,” it led him to cry, “my
father.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jews did
not call God “my father.” He was the
“Blessed One,” “The Almighty and Everlasting One,” above all, “The Lord.” To call God “my father,” sounded
disrespectful, too assertive. The prophets might speak metaphorically of God as
a parent of the nation because he guided and disciplined them. But “my father” seemed to shatter the
distance that seemed necessary for authentic religion. That is, unless God himself had shattered
that distance, and remade authentic religion in sending His Son to take on our
flesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">St. Paul
needed a new word to describe this new, intimate, transformative relationship
he had with God. He found it in an
unlikely source, in Roman law, in a social practice scorned by his fellow
Jews. God had adopted him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If you do
a word search of the Old Testament, you won’t find the word adoption, just like
you won’t find anyone calling God “my father.”
But adoption was common among the Romans, and both adults and children
were adopted. The first emperor,
Augustus, had been adopted by Julius Caesar, and Augustus, in turn, adopted his
successor, Tiberius, and it happened six more times afterwards. Adoption transferred an individual
irrevocably from one family into another.
It brought an entirely new beginning to one’s life. A person’s old debts were cancelled, and a
new name was given. The adopted child was elevated to the new family’s social
class and assured of a share in the father’s inheritance. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This Roman
concept seemed designed to fit what Saint Paul had experienced when He came
into a new relationship with God through Jesus.
His sin had been forgiven and his life begun anew. The Holy Spirit, that bond of love which
united Father and Son now bound Him into the same fellowship. It was like receiving that new name, and it
brought the full privileges that belonged to the life of this family. This new position also assured him of the
inheritance, a share in the joyful life with God in the kingdom that awaited at
Christ’s glorious return.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By the
grace God extended to Him through Christ, St. Paul had been brought into God’s
own family. He was a son of God, a
brother to Christ himself. None of us
knows what kind of relationship St. Paul had with his natural father. I don’t think there’s any reason to assume it
was a difficult or strained one. But in
light of this new relationship, within this new family, it lost its former
religious significance. The credentials
of his lineage could make St. Paul an honorable and faithful servant. But God had made him a son, an heir of the
kingdom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That same
kind of relationship, with all its privileges and benefits, is extended to each
of us who belong to Christ by faith and baptism. The Prayer Book’s Christmas Collect prays, “<span style="background: white;">Grant that we, being regenerate and made
thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy
Spirit.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” Whatever debts you contracted in your life
before Christ have been forgiven. The
same Spirit that binds together the Father and Son is present in your heart,
drawing you into a deeper fellowship with God.
You too can pray to Abba, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” You are assured of a place in God’s eternal
kingdom as you continue to grow in Him, being “daily renewed by the Holy
Spirit.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">You have
been adopted. That means your past does
not define you. You may come from a
wonderful family or one you barely escaped with your sanity intact. You may remember your father’s name with
gratitude every day or hope to never hear it spoken again. Your life before Christ may have been marked
by earnest devotion or careless hedonism.
You may have known great privilege or severe hardship. But the life you enjoy with God now and will,
by his grace, enjoy forever is not controlled by any of that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Your
Father has spoken for you. You belong to
Him. All He has is yours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Isaiah 1:1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Jeremiah 1:1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Ezekiel 1:3.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> c.f. Romans 9.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> C.f. Lyall, Frances. “Roman Law in the Writings of Paul: Adoption.” The Journal of Biblical Literature. 1 Dec. 1969, 466. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Christmas%201%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Collect for Christmas Day, Book of
Common Prayer (1979), 160.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-21301326771723714712017-12-25T15:37:00.000-05:002017-12-31T15:37:34.640-05:00The Christmas Cow<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/f/2/lenox-china-bone-white-bisque-nativity-the-animals-box-camel-cow-donkey-euc-935a68996465129bdcb36c3366f21048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="800" height="190" src="https://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/f/2/lenox-china-bone-white-bisque-nativity-the-animals-box-camel-cow-donkey-euc-935a68996465129bdcb36c3366f21048.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” Isaiah 1:3</i></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My mother’s nativity set is porcelain. It was a rather optimistic choice for a family of three curious boys, and the figures received their share of battering over the years. None of them so much as the cow. The cow in the Michael family nativity set is missing at least one horn. The glaze is scuffed off in a few places, and the hindquarter has a long brown seam, carefully mended with adhesive after a precipitous fall.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was my fault. When I was four or five I went through a cow stage. Some boys memorize the starting lineup for their favorite baseball team or the Air Force fighter plane fleet. But growing up in the country, with two farmers for grandfathers, my obsession was cows. I knew all the breeds, where they had originated, which local farmers raised which kinds. I could tell you the strong points of Guernsey milk and Angus steaks, and I knew all about those “hairy coos” in the Scottish highlands. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And Christmas is the perfect holiday for a little boy drawn to cattle. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a> I had a favorite carol, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Away in a Manger</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, because the cattle get a mention in the second verse. And right in the middle of our living room, there was a cow in gleaming porcelain. He may have been intending to adore the Savior of the world, but when mom wasn’t looking, the figures could be artfully rearranged, for many sorts of dramas, with the cow at center stage.</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was very surprised, when I came to read the Christmas story for myself, that Saint Luke never thought to mention the cow. His trough is there to be sure. “She brought forth her firstborn son, and laid him in a manger.” The cow gets a mention in a number of the carols, and no Renaissance painting of the Nativity would imagine leaving him out. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t just about lending a bit of realism to the stable scene. The cattle, and the donkey too, for that matter, point back to the words of a prophet from centuries before. Isaiah, the most prolific of God’s spokesmen in the Old Testament, “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know.” The master’s crib--St. Luke uses the same word for the manger in the Bethlehem stable. It’s a rare term, unmistakably pointing the listener back across the centuries.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ox and the ass trust the one who feeds them, Isaiah is saying. They come when he calls. They are eager to receive the good things he brings to them. They bend down into the crib, the manger, and they feast on the good things he has prepared for them. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But God’s people do not know Him. They ignore the words of his prophets. Their hearts are hard. God told Isaiah to warn Israel about the judgment that was coming, the invasions they would suffer, the way all they held dear would be taken from them. There was still time for them to turn to God and ask for mercy, still an opportunity for a new start. But Isaiah can see that when he speaks, people just seem puzzled. The ox is stupid, the donkey is stubborn, but neither can compare with the ignorance of God’s people.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is as if God is just too far away, as if he speaks in a language they cannot understand. One moment the people seem to fear him, and the next they act as if He takes no notice. The prophet, for all the brilliant power of his words--and they are among the most arresting in literature--he can see that they will not go far enough. God’s people are in a fog, a haze of self-deception and destructive habit. Sin has got hold of them, made them into beasts,</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what if God came even closer to us. Would that be enough to break the spell? What if He spoke not just in thunderclaps and fiery visions, but face to face? What if God lived among as one of us, to show us God’s true intention? What if God set aside all His power, renounced all that would terrify and compel? What if He came as a baby, and a poor one at that, laid in the manger of a cow? </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well then, perhaps, we could listen and watch in a different way, and recognize God for who He has always been. He made us in love, and longs for us to love Him in return. He gives wisdom and strength, and hopes we will receive them and use them for the life He has intended for us all along. He makes us new, eager to welcome our Master, content to trust Him. Once we were as stupid as oxen, as stubborn as donkeys, but when we meet Jesus we reclaim the dignity and purpose of creatures made in God’s own image. Once beasts, we become human beings. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can see it that day at the manger. The legends say that the donkey and the cow bowed before him first, and so they might, for He is their master too. The Scriptures tell us shepherds, common men who stumble in from the field. They bow low, and when they have seen Him, they are filled with an inexpressible joy. Wise men would come in time, scholars from a distant land, speaking in strange languages, and they would do much the same. So it happened over and over again in the thirty three years of his earthly life, and after his resurrection even until this night. Men and women have met Jesus, and the spell was broken. They trusted Him, and followed Him, and their lives were changed forever. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He comes this night to break the spell of sin and awaken hearts to deeper faith. He comes to bring peace to troubled souls and a warm welcome to the wanderers. And He comes to feed us, like a good farmer feeds his cows. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His sacred food will soon be spread here for us, His own Body and Blood. The Altar is the Master’s crib. The miracle of Christmas unfolds for us anew when we feed on Him who is our Lord and our life. A poet once greeted Him with these words:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now God is flesh, and lies in Manger pressed</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O happy field wherein this fodder grew,</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew.</span>Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-49481077182884907182017-12-19T15:13:00.000-05:002017-12-31T15:14:23.550-05:00Perishing Words<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/-/media/Images/People/J/john-jesus-ghirlandaio.ashx" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="389" height="228" src="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/-/media/Images/People/J/john-jesus-ghirlandaio.ashx" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“And he confessed, and denied not; but
confessed, I am not the Christ…He said, I am the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”
St. John 1:20,23</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We are living in an age of powerful words. Over the last few months, women from every
corner of public life have found the courage to come forward to say: “I was
violated, demeaned, treated with cruelty.
Sexual abuse affected me too, and I will be silent no longer.” And it seems that every morning there is
another apology, another resignation of some powerful man. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the last few years, people all across the
nation have spoken out about racial discrimination and brutal treatment of
African Americans. There have been bestselling
books, protests and counter protests, verdicts rendered. Old statues have fallen, flags have been
hauled down, and a few football players sit on the sidelines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Words are, of course, the oxygen of
politics. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a>We await each morning the 140
characters that may alter “the course of human events,” and the analysis and
punditry that responds seems unending. Our
political system depends on the exchange of arguments, offered for persuasion
or in pursuit of consensus, for the brokering of compromises and the deployment
of consolation prizes. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So many words—on the grand stage of history and
in the give and take of our ordinary lives.
We hope that these words will be effective. We shame offenders and hope they will be
contrite. We denounce injustice and hope
that finally things will change. We hope
it is possible to arrive at the truth of things, that there can be debate that
reveals the common good. Maybe words can
reshape a sexual culture polluted by aggression, and maybe they can absolve our
nation’s original sin, and maybe there can be a future for a political system
that has long been a light for the rest of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But sometimes, I fear that we’re just dealing in
words, and that words are not enough. I
read an article yesterday that cited a recent study that found that 24% of
young Americans have concluded that democracy is a bad or very bad system of
government, and 32% would welcome as our leader a political strongman “who
doesn’t have to bother with parliaments and elections.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” Those are not insignificant numbers. Many young Americans have lost confidence in
the reliability of the system. They
don’t think that words can deliver on their promises. Antiracism activists have frequently
expressed similar discouragement in recent months, and in time, I expect, those
leading the charge against sexual harassment will as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe activists are always bound to be
disappointed in this world, but I wonder if they are not also pointing to a
more profound disenchantment with all the scolding and advocating and
negotiation, all those words that point out problems, but never seem to do much
to change the heart and create meaningful community. Maybe this is what T. S. Eliot was addressing
when he wrote in <i>Burnt Norton</i>, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Words
strain, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Crack and sometimes break, under the
burden, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Decay with imprecision, will not stay in
place, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Will not stay still.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">John the Baptist was a man of words. The Gospels give us a few extracts from his
sermons, and they are fierce and compelling.
He spoke the truth to those in power, called the nation to a spiritual
revival. He was the first true prophet
God had sent in centuries and people could see it and responded with wonder,
all the world travelling out into the desert to hear his voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">God had given John a message and he proclaimed
it boldly. He called God’s people to repentance
because the Redeemer was drawing near.
In today’s Gospel reading, He is very near indeed, this promised
Redeemer. These are the words of John
the day before Jesus appears. “He stands
among you already,” John says, “and you know him not.” John says he is the voice, a messenger from
God promised by Isaiah centuries before, but his voice is receding before the
One who is soon to arrive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">John is a prophet and prophets sense these
things even before they know them clearly.
In his words to the crowd, John stresses repeatedly what he not: not a
wonderworker like Elijah, not the herald of the end of time. He is a voice and only a voice, pointing away
from himself, and before the One who is before Him, his words “slip, slide, and
perish.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">John can declare and condemn and exhort. He can show Israel its sin but that is all he
can do. Two days hence he will point the
Promised One, “behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the
world.” John points out the barrier
between God and us and Jesus removes it.
John tells us we are dead in our transgressions and Jesus brings life to
the dead. John tells us we must change,
and Jesus works within us by His Spirit, making all things new. We need more than words, and Jesus is the
Word made flesh, not just the Truth, but the Way and the Life. He shows us how to live, and grants us the
power to do it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To be sure, Jesus also commands us to use
words. Jesus commands his ministers
speak in His name, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit,” “your sins are forgiven,” “this is my body.” When we speak these words, He is with us to
bring to life what they signify. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He places His Gospel, the great message of what
He has done, in the hands of all his disciples.
He will be with us, He assures us, whenever we share it.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> His Gospel is a word that encourages the
steadfast and breaks the power of sin and brings hope to those who suffer. It is powerful and active, because when it is
spoken, Jesus comes and makes his home in the hearts of those who hear it.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It seems to me that the word of the Gospel has
the power to change things that all those other words cannot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jesus, after all, did have a message about the
gift of sexuality, teaching that it belongs within marriage where it joys may
strengthen the loving life of the family, and He gives grace to millions of His
followers to live accordingly. He is the
One who breaks down the dividing wall between peoples of all races, so that we
may feast as brothers and sisters at one table in the kingdom, and in the church’s
universal spread we see a foretaste of this.
I wouldn’t presume to enlist Jesus’ endorsement for any particular form
of human government. But I do pray that
He who is the King of the kings of the earth would grant, as the Prayer Book’s Collect
for our Country says, “that there may be justice and peace at home, and that,
through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of
the earth.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am grateful for honest, courageous and
truthful words, no matter who may speak them.
I rejoice in the small things done by ordinary people, acts of
generosity and goodwill that make a difference.
But I put my ultimate trust in the only One who can bring true renewal
to the human heart, the Word who spoke at the beginning and will announce the
final day. He is here, and before Him, all other words pass away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Schmitz, Matthew. “Neuhaus was Right.” <u>First Things</u>. 16 Dec. 2017. </span><a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/01/neuhaus-was-right"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";">https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/01/neuhaus-was-right</span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";">,
c.f. Mounk, Yasha and Robert Stefan Foa, “Yes People are Really Turning
Away From Democracy.” <u>The Washington Post.</u> 8 Dec. 2017.
</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/yes-millennials-really-are-surprisingly-approving-of-dictators/?utm_term=.80ecb88a91f0"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/yes-millennials-really-are-surprisingly-approving-of-dictators/?utm_term=.80ecb88a91f0</span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Matthew 28:20<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> John 14:23.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Downloads/Advent%203B%202017.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> <i>Book
of Common Prayer</i> (1979), 820.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-4838056322195552782017-11-28T18:45:00.000-05:002017-11-28T18:45:23.514-05:00Not Changing the World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5491f6c3e4b054ec6c30ce55/54921330e4b01a5cea381d0b/55a481ebe4b0750a4c1740c7/1474649319213/?format=1000w" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5491f6c3e4b054ec6c30ce55/54921330e4b01a5cea381d0b/55a481ebe4b0750a4c1740c7/1474649319213/?format=1000w" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="512" height="237" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Then the righteous will
answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">and feed thee, or thirsty
and give thee drink?” St. Matthew 25:37</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Love
God. Love your neighbor. Change the World.” For some years this was the official tagline
of the Episcopal Church, the slogan you would see on the denominational
website, the mantra repeated by the Presiding Bishop at official gatherings. Under the leadership of our current presiding
bishop, Michael Curry, the new tagline is, “The Jesus Movement.” But the
“change the world” language does get trotted out from time to time. It has an enduring to stir people’s hearts
and to get them thinking big about the implications of following Jesus Christ
in the life of the Church.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of you
will know that Fr. Mac and I do a fair amount of writing for The Living
Church’s <i>Covenant</i> blog, and this week
there was a compelling article by our friend Dan Martins, the Bishop of
Springfield, about this slogan, “Love God.
Love your neighbor. Change the
World.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” Bishops Martins acknowledged, “It’s catchy,
it’s memorable, and you can’t really argue with it without sounding hopelessly
curmudgeonly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But Bishop
Martins also challenged at least one common interpretation of the idea that the
church’s responsibility is to “change the world.” Public worship, evangelism, prayer and Bible
study, forming the faith of young people—all the other things that the church
does--according to this interpretation, are ultimately instrumental means
towards the ultimate goal of social change.
According this view, he suggests, “the prize on which we are to keep our
collective eye is a completely just society, yielding peace throughout the
world.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This view
lines up pretty squarely with the agenda of the Social Gospel, an important
movement within American Protestantism that began in the mid-nineteenth
century. Social Gospel leaders brought
rhetorical power, social influence and the tools of scientific planning to
tackle a series of deep public injustices.
They founded thousands of relief organizations and lobbied for new laws,
with the New Testament in one hand and reams of social statistics in the
other. They had enormous confidence
about the ability of religiously motivated people to make true and lasting
change. Indeed, many of the relief
programs in our great cities that continue to feed the hungry, clothe the naked
and house the homeless can trace their origins to an earnest Congregationalist
or Methodist minister (occasionally even an Episcopalian) fired with the energy
of the Social Gospel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">William
Blake’s “Jerusalem” functioned as an anthem for the movement in England, and
gives a good taste of its universal spirit.
It famously closed:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
will not cease from Mental Fight,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nor
shall my Sword sleep in my hand:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Till
we have built Jerusalem,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
Englands green & pleasant Land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
breathless passion for righting deep-seated injustice and ancient wrongs is
quite moving (especially when sung to Sir Hubert Parry’s stirring tune). You
can sense in it the determination and the confidence that made some great
saints and gave to many more a sense of common purpose in a deeply changing
society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Could it,
though, be a bit <i>too </i>confident and
determined? Could it be a bit too
certain of having the plans figured out already, with just the right amount of
skill and strength to do it all in a generation? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
theological temptation of the Social Gospel is to slide too easily into
Pelagianism, the false belief that human character and human society can be
perfected by our effort alone, without any need for God’s grace. Pelagianism is arrogant, overestimating human
skill and integrity. It also never quite
reaches its goals, running aground on the hard rocks of folly, sin and
death. The Social Gospel was deeply
influential in many places, but Denver, Seattle and Milwaukee never quite
became the new Jerusalem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Today’s
Gospel lesson was a great favorite among the leaders of the Social Gospel
movement. In this well-known parable of
the Last Judgment, Christ highly praises services rendered to the poor and
needy. He stands in the long tradition
of Israel’s prophets. In messages like
today’s Old Testament lesson, they emphasized that those given authority would
be judged on the basis of their just treatment of the poor and vulnerable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jesus tells
us here that He stands in the midst of our dealings with those who suffer. When we feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
visit the sick we are ministering directly to Him whom we love above all. This kind of work expresses the new life of
loving generosity that He has established among His people. He promises the greatest possible reward for it—an
honorable place at His right hand, and eternal life in His kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But what
strikes me as I read the parable is how surprised the sheep are when the great
king singles them out for commendation.
“When did we see you?” they ask Him.
Were you really there when we were feeding the hungry and giving the
homeless a place to sleep and visiting the poor fellow in prison? These sheep, they don’t really sound like
people who are confident that they know how to change the world. If they have already drafted the plans for the
new Jerusalem and resolved not to “cease from mental fight,” they don’t show it
very clearly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Did they
think they were changing the world in those acts of mercy? Somehow, I doubt it, at least most of the
time. They are humble tasks, after all. Visiting the sick, clothing the naked—these
are simple duties, likely to go completely unnoticed by the world. In his sermon on the passage, St. John
Chrysostom calls them “light things.”
Because the tasks are expected of all, they are easy to fulfill. The great preacher added, “He said not,
"I was in prison," and ye did not set me free, but, and "ye
visited me not. Also, His hunger
required no costly dainties, but necessary food.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a></span>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Perhaps also
they are surprised, because there’s no great sense of accomplishment that comes
with these kinds of tasks. You go to a
sick person’s bed, and there’s so little you can actually do. You feed a homeless person one day, but as
you walk away, you can guess he’ll be waiting for another meal tomorrow. I’ve known a few people who have given
themselves completely to the kind of ministry that Jesus praises in this
parable. Most days, they really don’t
feel like they are changing the world.
They are sometimes discouraged and often exhausted. They run up against mental illness and racism,
a culture of generational poverty, habitual
cruelty, corrupted social systems: the kinds of things well-meaning people
can’t master. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But they They
can be kind. They can soothe the pain a
bit. But they don’t claim to a solution
to hand. And maybe that’s a good
thing. Bishop Martins put it this way: “We’re
more like a Tylenol to the world’s headache, taking the edge off the pain, than
we are a surgical procedure that permanently fixes the problem. God will do the
heavy lifting, in his way and in his time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For me, at
least, that gets the balance right.
Jesus is a great king. He began
to change the world when He broke the power of sin and death at the Cross. And he will transform and fulfill the world
completely, when He returns in His royal power at the end of time. In his kingdom, there is perfect justice and
all are sustained with what they need.
He will cleanse the world of sickness and corruption and we will all
live in peace and joy. He promises a
Jerusalem, but its founder and builder is God,<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
and it descends from heaven,<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
our true eternal home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s not
to say that we shouldn’t work to enact good policies, and that God doesn’t
bless good works undertaken to help people turn their lives around. There are good theological reasons for
faith-based advocacy. Some of you may
have power to change some aspect of the life of the world in a significant way,
and God surely expects you to use that power faithfully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But remember
that the work Jesus praises most highly praises are those ways we administer
“Tylenol to the world’s headaches.” He
wants us to get our hands dirty, to turn up even when it seems pointless, to
step into that uncomfortable but sacred place alongside another in his or her
suffering. It doesn’t feel like changing
the world. But He is there, ready to
meet us, our King present in “the least of these.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> Martins, Daniel. “Outcome Based Discipleship.” Covenant, 20 Nov. 2017. https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/11/20/outcome-based-discipleship/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> Qtd. In Thomas Aquinas, <i>Catena Aurea</i>, Matt. 25, Lectio 3.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> Heb. 11:10.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2029A%202017%20(1).docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif;"> Rev. 21:10.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-8865503829270215512017-11-19T13:00:00.000-05:002017-11-19T13:00:05.524-05:00Managing Well<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media.finedictionary.com/pictures/100/22/5732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.finedictionary.com/pictures/100/22/5732.jpg" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="319" height="320" width="243" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He entrusted to them
his property; to one he gave five talents,
to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then
he went away.” St. Matthew 25:14-15<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last
weekend, I went an apple butter boil, an old family tradition, at a cousin’s
farm in my hometown. By the bubbling
kettle, I struck up a conversation with another cousin, Robin. She plays the organ at Mount Carmel Methodist
Church, a mile or two up the road in Shanktown, Maryland, a place that doesn’t
make it onto the road atlas. Mount
Carmel is a white clapboard chapel, built around the time of the Civil
War. My grandparents were members and
four generations of Michaels sleep in its shady churchyard. I’ve always thought of it as a timeless
place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But Robin
said things have changed. There are only
twenty of them in the pews most Sundays.
There’s no choir or Vacation Bible School anymore. My cousin Andrew’s baby girl is the only
child. Mount Carmel has never been a big
church, and it has always shared a pastor with the other local Methodist
churches. But it was probably two or
three times that size when I was a kid. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s no
easy answer to the decline. They have
enjoyed a long line of faithful pastors.
They do good work in the community.
People just don’t go to church anymore, Robin said. Even when the mall is a half hour away and
nobody plays soccer on Sunday mornings, even in supposedly pious rural America. The social advantage, the cultural
expectation that came with church going twenty years ago has pretty much
vanished. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Robin
regretted all this, to be sure. She’d be
delighted to see the glory days return.
But she really didn’t seem all that worried. “How is it?” I asked. “Well,” she said, “we’re managing.” And she flashed a confident smile. She’s grateful that there’s a place in her
hometown where she can still use her gifts to play the organ, where twenty
people will still stand up on Sunday morning and sing those old songs she
loves. She’s thankful that the Gospel is
still preached and babies are still baptized and the dead are still given a
warm and grateful send-off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why
shouldn’t Robin smile? I could probably
name most of those twenty people in the pews at Mount Carmel. They are some of the finest Christians I know,
kind and generous people who do so much of the good that gets done in that part
of the world. They are faithful when so
many others can’t be bothered. They love
their Lord, and they are confident that His work must be done, on the cloudy
days as much as the ones when the sun shines brightly. “We’re managing,” she said. It’s just another day in the kingdom of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Today’s
Gospel is about managing, the managing done by the three servants of a great master. He committed many talents, great sums of
money, to them before he went into a far country. What generally interests people like us about
this story are the spectacular returns realized by the first two servants. Through what must have been great financial
know-how, they managed to double the value of the master’s investment. We want to know if they’re still taking
clients.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But, as
one commentator I read this week pointed out, what would have caught the
attention of Jesus’ audience was that <i>the
master went away</i>. <a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
When he returns, he praises the servants as “good and faithful.” It’s their
loyalty and commitment that matters most.
The bottom line is secondary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Times of
transition were beset with stress and anxiety in the ancient world. Saint
Luke’s telling of the same story adds a detail that presses home this
point. There, Jesus said that the master
went into a far country to receive a kingship.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> He was hinting at a news story everyone in
Palestine new well. Herod the Great had
made such a trip to Rome a few decades before Jesus’ birth. He lobbied for the right to be crowned, and
returned home a king. Two generations
later, his son Archelaus had made the same trip, to ask the emperor to sort out
a dispute between him and his half brother.
Archelaus was deposed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A master
who left for a far country might never return.
He could meet with violence or be delayed for years by bureaucratic
inefficiency. His fortunes with those in
power could change in an instant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wise men
didn’t carry too much gold in their pockets when they went on a journey. Putting your wealth into the hands of
reliable servants was a good option, if they were truly loyal. Everyone in the community would have known
that the servants dealt in funds that belonged to someone else. Would they go out and trade in their masters’
name? Their public faithfulness showed
that they stood by their master, that they really believed He would return and
give them what was owed. Or would they
play it safe and hide his wealth, hedging their bets to be sure they’d land on
their feet if things went badly for him?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When he
has returned, the master calls out the third servant as wicked and
slothful. He has wasted the talent and
proved himself unfaithful. He is too
afraid to take a risk. The master had
known his weaknesses—he was only given one talent after all. But he’d still taken a chance on the third
servant. He thought, perhaps, that if
only given the opportunity, he would make good.
But the servant has chosen poorly, and for that choice he is punished
severely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
parable comes in a series of stories Jesus tells about how it will be for His
disciples in the days to come. He will
go away from them, and yet in time, He will return, crowned in glory, to call
His servants to account. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
waiting would not always be easy for them, or for us. Sometimes He seems very far away indeed.
Jesus told his disciples that men’s hearts would grow cold,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
and that they would face opposition and hardship, “hated by all for my Name’s
sake.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” “When the Son of Man returns,” he asked the
Jerusalem crowd, “will he find faith on earth?<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The third
servant’s temptation is a real one, and not just in places where believers are
actively persecuted for the faith. We
rarely step away from the way of discipleship in a single bound. There are little excuses, good work postponed;
money frittered away, schedules we allow to become fuller than they really need
to be. Perhaps the master will look the
other way. I haven’t cast away my faith
completely. There’s still something to
show, we think, if he comes looking for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But before
he left us, Jesus entrusted to us great gifts—like “a pearl of great price,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”
he told His disciples, like “treasure buried in a field.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”
There are no things in this world so precious as the Word that sets us free
from sin and death, the Sacraments whose grace brings healing and renewal and
peace. These gifts can change people’s
lives and when they are used faithfully, they bring light and peace and hope to
everything they touch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But they
must be put to work if their true power is to be seen. As my cousin said, there’s managing to do—and
it has been left in our hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I look back on the past year with you, my
first year as your rector. I am deeply
moved by the way that so many of you are putting Christ’s good gifts to
work. In this season, when we are
receiving financial pledges, I am grateful for the generosity you show in sharing
your wealth for Christ’s work in this congregation. You give so abundantly of your time to
prepare the Altar for worship, to help us make good decisions, to sing God’s
praise, to serve the poor. You come to
learn God’s Word and then put it to work in your lives. You join in the prayers and receive the
Sacraments with gratitude and reverence.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m sure
there’s still more we can do. But it is
a great privilege to lead people who bear Christ’s Name so loyally and serve
Him so faithfully while we await His return in glory. Here at Saint Francis, I’d say we’re managing
quite well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Bailey, Kenneth<u>. Jesus Through Middle Easstern Eyes</u>. Downers Grove: IV Press, 2008, 399.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Lk. 19:12.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Matt. 24:12.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div id="ftn4">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Matt. 10:22<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Lk. 18:8.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Matt. 13:45.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2028A%202017.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> Matt. 13:44.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-7609186448201023182017-11-15T14:46:00.000-05:002017-11-16T18:24:20.377-05:00The faith of an alto: remembering Grandma<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqamuvMcJuh9CjI7IF7-xM9IQsP3lojIfmJ4FhfmLjocO9ZrAr3FD0HMQFAcyKcGYhAgMDXehAjTLDptiHn_EfONkntMpdRtaBNDuNNHbiz0VXIwOFAaL8KCSzE1c5GjCRdZ3R6I0Qv6o/s1600/Grandma+and+Grandpap+Choir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqamuvMcJuh9CjI7IF7-xM9IQsP3lojIfmJ4FhfmLjocO9ZrAr3FD0HMQFAcyKcGYhAgMDXehAjTLDptiHn_EfONkntMpdRtaBNDuNNHbiz0VXIwOFAaL8KCSzE1c5GjCRdZ3R6I0Qv6o/s320/Grandma+and+Grandpap+Choir.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Therefore are they before
the throne of God, and serve him day and night within his temple.” </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Revelation 7:15</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Grandma
was an alto. I learned this when I
joined the choir as a ten year old, before my voice changed. Mom placed me on the second row, between grandma
and grandpap. The joke was that this was
for the sake of public order. It took
advantage of the fact that grandpap could only hear well in his right ear. It kept me at a bit of a distance from those
other tenors and basses who always had a joke to tell at the wrong moment. But really, I think, it was so I would learn
from grandma what it meant to be part of a choir.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Altos
don’t get to sing the melody, like the sopranos, and they aren’t generally
given dramatic leaps or catchy rhythms like basses. They hold the middle voice and keep the beat. Sometimes they will sing pretty much the same
note for whole lines of music. The other
voices rise and fall, but altos are steadfast, anchoring the other members of
the choir and drawing them together into a sound that is all the richer and
more vibrant for their humble contribution.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
isn’t any choral singing without altos—just lots of performers vying for
attention, delighted in the sound of their own voices. The blend is the truly beautiful thing about
choral singing. It relies on listening
to each other, and requires that some must take the humbler place, offering
their best as a form of service to the whole, giving what they have in love
that does not seek for recognition or honor. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s
no mistake that the church has long given choral singing the primary place in
Christian worship. In that wondrous
vision of heaven that I just read to you, that great multitude before the
throne of God, “from all tribes and peoples and tongues,” they praise their
Redeemer with a common song. “Amen!,”
they sing, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power
and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are so many voices, more than we can number, and every kind of person God has
made has a place in that choir. But they
are all singing together. The
theologians sometimes debate about whether they sing in one voice or in perfect
harmony. But what is certain is that
there must be altos, the ones who learned to bring people together here on
earth. In heaven, perhaps, we all learn
to be altos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Grandma
sang in the choir right here at Saint John’s most every Sunday for over half a
century. I doubt that would have
ranked singing as the most important thing in her life. Yet the kind of singing she did all those
years reveals a great deal about the way she approached everything else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
an alto, she never liked to be the center of attention. In her youth, she was a great basketball
player, but only on the defensive half of the court. She was slow to express an opinion or to give
advice, slower still to pass judgment.
She spoke in a quiet voice. But a
good deal of the time, she just listened, with sympathy and understanding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
probably clipped five thousand stories from the Herald-Mail over the decades, stories
about other people she knew and loved, news she thought you would
appreciate. I got an envelope of
clippings every other week the whole way through college and sometimes it was
the best thing in a week. A word from
home, yes. But also a reminder that someone loved you so
much she was thinking of what you would like as she scanned the evening paper. Sometimes, when you went to see her, you
would notice the little stacks on the table beside her chair—a pile for Carol
here, something Neal would like over there, a word for this grandchild or that
one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
made a life out of acts of humble service, filling out the sound of life’s song
with gifts that were essential, though often taken for granted. She moved into her husband’s boyhood home,
with his parents still in it, and as they aged, she cared for them as well as
for four children. She cooked dinners—there was always
a cake in the cupboard-- and she sewed dresses.
She drove her children to sports practices and 4-H meetings, helped them
get those record books together at the end of the year and milked the cow
before dawn so they’d have a few more minutes to sleep. She sent cards and little gifts for every
holiday, birthday and anniversary to all those children and grand-children and
great-grandchildren. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
served this congregation as its treasurer for decades, in the days before Quickbooks
and Excel, when every figure had to be checked and rechecked on the calculator in
her little office beside the kitchen. For
many years she organized the annual turkey supper, a highlight of Clear Spring’s
social calendar, a meal with no shortcuts that depended on bringing together dozens
and dozens of volunteers, some of whom had their own opinions about how things
should go. Work like that demands smarts
and diligence, but also an ability to listen and negotiate, which made it just
the sort of thing she could do best. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
an alto, she delighted in drawing people together. She loved family gatherings at Christmas,
Easter and Thanksgiving, and the annual Fridinger reunion, held on a summer’s
day in her backyard. She would sit
quietly in her chair while the chaos unfolded around her, beaming. There were piles of pictures to look at afterwards,
every change in family life remembered and cherished. When there was conflict, she worked to keep
the peace, and when we celebrated together, she had the broadest smile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last
week, as she was dying, she was fairly lucid for a few hours, able to make her
wishes known. What she wanted then was
her family, to talk to her children, to have them by her side. Getting better, going home, being comfortable—these
things didn’t matter so much. But her
little choir, those people she had served in love all those years, she wanted
them close at hand every last minute possible as she prepared to depart this
life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">How, we
wonder, did she come to be like that?
Why did she take the humbler part and serve so earnestly, why step aside
and let others have the credit? Uncle
Charles and Uncle Bill would say that Grandma was always a little shy, and the social
expectations of her time had a role in the shaping of her life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> But I also believe that Grandma saw this as
the life God had given her, that it was her way of being faithful to Christ, a
sign of His grace at work in her. “Let
the same mind be in you,” wrote Saint Paul, “that was also in Christ Jesus, who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” You will have Christ’s mind in you, he tells
the Philippians, when you “do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in
humility count others better than yourselves.”
“Let each of you,” he continues, “look
not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Scripture
text that my mother and her siblings chose for Grandma’s memorial card is very
similar, from the Epistle to the Romans, “love one another with brotherly
affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow
with the Spirit, serve the Lord.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” He’s not giving generic moral instruction
here. These are words to those who
belong to Christ, those in whom the Spirit is at work. You will show your faith, Saint Paul means,
when you become like your master, who has loved you so generously. He urges
you on in the face of difficulty. He has offered the complete act of service
when He gave His life for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is the kind
of life that binds people together.
Jesus gave us more than an example.
His humble service led Him to the Cross, and through it to a new
resurrected life, a life infused with the power of the Holy Spirit. And He shares that life, and its victory over
sin and death, with all who come to Him in faith. Our hope in the face of death depends on the
power of His generous love, so strong that “neither life nor death, nor anything
else in all creation can separate us” from Him.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As our
lesson from Revelation tells us, He has won for Himself a people, a flock gathered
in peace. He feeds them, and protects
them from the heat of the day, and wipes away the tears from their eyes. They thrive through His humble service and His
sacrificial love. In profound gratitude
and joyful delight they sing to Him, one voice resounding across the new
heavens and the new earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Today we
send on, with our prayers, a new alto for that eternal choir. We look to Him who gave her to us in gratitude.
Our sadness is mingled with joy in what she will know with Him in the life beyond death. By His grace, in time, may we blend our voices once
more with hers in that song that has no end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
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<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> Phil. 2:5-7.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> Phil. 2:3-4.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> Rom. 12:9-10.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Funerals/Jeanne%20Corwell.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> Rom. 8:38-39.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-91482024005235732562017-11-05T19:51:00.000-05:002017-11-05T19:51:19.474-05:00The Youth Replies, I Can<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://sfx.rcav.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/youth-saint-graphic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://sfx.rcav.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/youth-saint-graphic.jpg" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="170" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“<i>These are
they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Revelation 7:14</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The tradition at
my high school was that each graduation speaker had to discuss as his or her
theme a famous saying of an American hero.
There was a rotating series of texts, and these were assigned by Mr.
Snyder, the venerable senior class advisor, who had been at it since my mother
was a student. Even by 1996, this sort
of thing was dreadfully old-fashioned, but no one really complained about it—it
was just how it was at Clear Spring High School. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I wasn’t told
until two weeks before graduation which text I would have to discuss. I wanted Daniel Webster’s words from the Dartmouth
College case: “she is a small school, but there are those who love her.” Whoever got that could write the tear-jerker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
instead, I was assigned a bit of a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background: white;">So nigh is grandeur to our dust,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background: white;">So near is God to man,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background: white;">When Duty whispers low,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Thou must</i>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background: white;">The youth replies,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>I can</i>.</span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I tried to pull
up my old speech recently, but due to an obsolete word processing program, it now
rests in the cyberspace graveyard. But I
remember much of what I said. It’s
probably what you, too, would have said when you were seventeen. The future is bright, we have great promise,
and Duty is whispering our name. Maybe
one of you, the graduating class of Clear Spring High, will find the cure for
cancer, or feed the hungry in Africa, or write the song that will give hope in
our darkest days. Be brave, take risks,
you can do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes, that’s how
young people are. That’s what they
believe. They’re not afraid. They don’t take time to calculate all the
risks. And yes, sometimes because of
that they fall flat on their faces. But
that’s also what helps them promise to love someone “until death do us part,”
to found a business based on the “big new idea,” to give themselves to fight
beneath their country’s flag. Emerson,
you might be interested to know, wrote those lines in 1863, as a part of a
recruitment drive to fill the gaps in the Union Army, those bluecoated men
fighting for freedom. “The youth
replies, <i>I can</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today we
celebrate the Feast of All Saints. Though
Emerson was a second-rate theologian at best, his lines speak directly to that
enthusiasm and courage, what Saint Paul calls a willingness “to spend and be
spent”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/All%20Saints%202017.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> that
marks the lives of the true saints of God.
“The youth replies, ‘I can.” I
can hunger and thirst for righteousness, and seek after purity of heart. I can endure “the great tribulation,” so that
my robes might be washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus, after
all, began his public ministry at thirty, and the apostles he called were
probably younger still—not old enough to own their fishing boats. The church has always placed the martyrs at
the first rank of the company of saints, and they’ve mostly been young as
well—maidens who refused to be violated, foot-soldiers who would not bow the
knee to idols, missionaries far from home armed only with a word of hope. St. Benedict started his monastery at
23. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, for whom
hundreds of hospitals are named, gave herself so completely to the care of the
poor and the sick that she died of exhaustion at 24. Martin Luther King launched the Montgomery
Bus Boycott when he was 26. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The stories of
the saints are marked by a thrilling boldness.
They laugh at the folly of a sad old world, push on in full confidence
that God is with them and nothing will be able to turn them round. One of my favorite authors, George Bernanos
wrote an amazing short story about Joan of Arc, she who, without a scrap of military
experience, relying only on a vision, took command of the French army at the
age of seventeen. Toward the end of his
story, Bernanos says with reflective astonishment: <span style="background: white; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To become a
saint, what bishop would not give up his ring, his mitre and his crozier; what
cardinal his purple; what pope his white robe, his chamberlains, his Swiss
Guard and all his temporal power? Who would not want to have the strength to
embark on this wonderful adventure; it is indeed the only adventure.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/All%20Saints%202017.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We long for the strength to embark on this
wonderful adventure. Following Jesus
demands all we can offer: our full concentration, the endurance of our bodies,
our unbounded love. We struggle against
the desires in our hearts that would lead us astray. We share a message that challenges the
world’s self-satisfaction and complacency.
There are always more hungry people to be fed, more troubled souls to
comfort, more broken relationships to be healed. And often, when give our best, we are greeted
with anger or indifference. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s no mistake that when Saint Paul tries to
describe discipleship to his congregations, he most always uses same two
metaphors: an athlete running a race and a soldier marching into battle. Running and fighting demand all we
have—exertion and pain for the sake of a glorious goal. Even after many years of imprisonment, as he
pens his final letter, he still writes, “I have fought the good fight, I have
finished the race, I have kept the faith.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/All%20Saints%202017.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> His sense of adventure was undiminished. He had aged, but in his heart, he was as bold
as he had ever been. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Did you notice how rousing the All Saints hymns
are today? “So may thy soldiers,
faithful true and bold, fight as the saints who nobly fought of old.” Gary humored me by printing for us Bishop
Heber’s All Saints hymn, “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.” It’s a recruitment song, edited out of our
current hymnal for being a little too vivid for sedentary Episcopalians—the tryant’s
brandished sword, the lion’s gory mane and all that. It’s the hymnological equivalent of “Uncle
Sam wants you”—Christ is charging ahead, will you come and do your part:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They climbed
the steep ascent of heav'n<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Through
peril, toil, and pain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">O God, to us
may grace be giv'n<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To follow in
their train!]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Discipleship demands all we can offer, but we
never struggle alone. In the great
adventure of sanctity, Christ is faithful to His own. He stands in His risen glory, and His arm is
not shortened. He gives us His Spirit,
to guide our minds and to fix our will on what is good and true. He surrounds us with brothers and sisters
pledged in baptism to the same cause.
The great heroes who have gone before us cheer us on, continually
praying for us. Grace abounds.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It abounds no matter how old we are in years, in
spite of the other obstacles and limitations we face. The only true enemies of sanctity are our
hesitations and excuses, our search for the comforts of religion without its
challenges, our fear of the risks that give space for God to show his true
power. The trumpet blares, and we stare
at our shoes. The days of youth seem far
spent. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Emerson was right. For those who are one with
the Captain of salvation, grandeur is always nigh to our dust, God is near to
man. The new wine of youth flows freely,
and the only true adventure in human life is ours for the taking. It’s not too late to become a saint. “The
youth replies, ‘I can.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/All%20Saints%202017.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> II Cor. 12:15.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/All%20Saints%202017.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> “Joan, Heretic and Saint.”
in The Heroic Face of Innocence. Trans.
R. Batchelor. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1999, 19. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/All%20Saints%202017.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> II Tim. 4:7.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-22780868906965139942017-11-04T21:07:00.000-04:002017-11-05T19:47:38.642-05:00Working Through Grief: A Sermon for All Souls Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://kiltoomparish.zipify.tk/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/07/Foreign-Cemetery-790x480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://kiltoomparish.zipify.tk/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/07/Foreign-Cemetery-790x480.jpg" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="790" height="194" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I look for the LORD, my
soul doth wait for him, in his word is my trust.” Ps. 130:5<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My
father died of a sudden heart attack when he was 54. I was 27, working my first real job, married
for a month, and completely unprepared for navigating the rest of my life
without my father’s guidance and support.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It
was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced. I know that doesn’t say very much compared to
what many of you have endured. But for
me, it meant deep personal sadness at the loss of a man I deeply admired and
who brought so much joy into my life. It
meant concern at the even more intense grief that my mother, my grandparents
and my brother were experiencing. And
the experience left me feeling adrift, more hesitant and uncertain about the
future, with a kind of fear in my heart I had never really known before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
was deeply grateful that I knew I could pray for my father, with words that the
church had placed in my mouth, when it was so difficult to know just what to
say to God about it all. My father died
on a Sunday afternoon, and he was buried on a Wednesday. The next Sunday morning I went to his grave,
and I took with me a little volume, <i>The
Priest’s Book of Private Devotions,</i> marked for the page for the Vespers for
the Dead. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
Vespers for the Dead are psalms and a canticle and a few collects, a version of
the church’s ordinary service of Evening Prayer with the material selected with
prayer for the dead in mind. The set of
Psalms build up to climax with Psalm 130, the <i>de Profundis</i>, a plea for God’s mercy for those who call from the
depths of sorrow, and the depths of the grave.
The service dates back to at least the seventh century, and it’s used by
Anglicans and Roman Catholics and other Christians too, I expect. The liturgy is simple and solemn, profoundly
rooted in God’s promises of protection, blessing and peace for those who belong
to Him. It takes about ten minutes to
read out loud. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
read the Vespers for the Dead that Sunday morning, and then every Sunday
morning after it for a whole year. I saw
the flowers on dad’s grave wither and the mounded dirt settle into the ground. I wiped the snow from his footstone and then
smiled to see grass rising up in the spring.
I had Sunday duties in the school chapel where I worked, so I’d have to
leave before sunup sometimes. The pages
in my prayer book are stained from the rain and the book opens right to it
without prompting. When I go back to
dad’s grave, I still say the Vespers. I
don’t really need the book anymore, though.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
words I said at my father’s grave through that long year were the same each
time, but the feelings I brought to them were different. Maybe I had experienced one of those
milestones of the first year without my father, or someone had spoken of him to
me. Maybe I had seen some reminder of
his love and was filled with gratitude for what a blessing he had been. Maybe my faith had been encouraged and my
hope stirred by a sermon or a hymn, and I was rejoicing that he was in God’s
hands. The Psalms have all that in them,
and more, and being able to offer this back to God, and to trust that these
prayers could play a role in my father’s journey into deeper union with God
beyond death was immensely helpful to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">People
say that you need to work through your grief.
There’s wisdom in that. You must
learn to love the person you have lost in a different way. You redirect your emotions and find ways of
renegotiating old habits and relationships.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There
were different parts of that “working through for me.” I talked to friends and my confessor about
how I was dealing with my father’s death, and shared memories with family
members about the times we had with him. I read the consoling letters people
had sent at the time of his death and a book or two about the grief process and
Christian hope. But the “working
through” that helped the most was driving up the hill to that cemetery just
outside my home down, opening my prayer book and saying those Psalms, in words
mingled with my pain and sorrow, as well as my gratitude and hope. That’s how I found peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
practice of praying for the dead can be of great value to those of us who are
left behind, but we trust that it also is a blessing to those who have gone on,
“through the grave and gate of death”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Holy%20Days/All%20Souls%202017.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
to a fuller life with God. The Prayer
Book’s catechism explains the practice this way: “<span style="background: white;">We pray for [the dead], because we still hold them in our </span>love,
and because we trust that in God's presence those </span>who have chosen
to serve him will grow in his love, until they see him as he is.”<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Holy%20Days/All%20Souls%202017.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> It’s a careful and restrained statement. It leaves the results of our prayers in God’s
hands, trusting that He will use the offerings of our love as will be best for
those who belong now even more fully to him.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">There are, of course, more technical and calculated
descriptions of how things are transacted in the world to come. But our church has found it wise to allow the
veil between this life and the next to be reverently drawn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">But our prayers do testify to a solid belief that
the dead are “in the hand of God” as our first lesson says. They also proclaim that through Him our
fellowship with them remains unbroken. We
pray for them because we believe that “with the Lord is plenteous redemption,”
and that Christ, as he has promised will grant eternal life to those who trust
in Him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">There is one extended discussion of prayer for
the dead in the Bible, in the obscure book of Second Maccabees. It’s a controversial passage because most
Protestants don’t accept it as canonical Scripture, but I think it’s very
valuable because it demonstrates this point, that prayer for the dead is rooted
in faith in God’s promises about the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Judas Maccabeus was the commander of the
Israelite army during their fight for freedom against the Hellenistic
kings. A large company of his men had
fallen in battle at a place called Adullam.
And after their death, he arranged to have sacrifices made on their
behalf at the temple in Jerusalem. He
and his soldiers prayed for them, not to honor their deeds, but to ask for God’s
forgiveness and help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Above all, he prayed for them because He believed
that God would keep his promises and grant redemption to His people. II Maccabees 12:44-46 says this, “Fo<span class="text">r if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise
again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. </span></span><span class="text"></span><b><sup style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span id="en-RSV-35378" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">45 </span></span></sup></b><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">But if he was looking to the splendid reward that
is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious
thought. Therefore, he made atonement for the dead, that they might be
delivered from their sin.</span>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Is that not what we
do today? We stand before God to pray for these men and women we love, but have
with us no longer. We trust His promises
that they will rise again. We know they
are not perfect, but we trust that God has prepared a splendid reward for them
with all who love Him. We ask His mercy
for them, and for us, to live more fully in hope in these days that lie ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Holy%20Days/All%20Souls%202017.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">Burial of the Dead<u>, Book of Common
Prayer</u> (1979), 480.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/dbef3ef4ec9a17f3/Documents/Sermons/Holy%20Days/All%20Souls%202017.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> An
Outline of the Faith, <u>Book of Common Prayer</u> (1979), 862.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-32429150897853225342017-11-01T18:27:00.000-04:002017-11-01T18:27:56.039-04:00In a Season of Elegy and Hope<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://brightbazaaar-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NYC-fall-color-central-park-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://brightbazaaar-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NYC-fall-color-central-park-9.jpg" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="760" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Episcopal Church lost one of its great lights when Richard
Wilbur died on October 14, aged 96.
Wilbur was one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century,
our nation’s second poet laureate, twice awarded with the Pulitzer Prize. At a
time when his rivals often seemed to need vulgarity and extremism to attract
public attention, Wilbur wrote beautiful and lyrical lines, often full of deep
gratitude and profound hope. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He was faithful member of his local Episcopal parish in the
Boston suburbs, where a friend of mine was his rector for a time. He kept a prayer book on his bedside table,
and his confident faith colors the generosity and patience that mark his work. Episcopalians may know him best for his striking
Christmas hymn, <i>A Stable Lamp is Lighted</i>
(#219). Set to one of David Hurd’s
arresting tunes, it weaves together the Nativity, the chaos and glory of Holy
Week, and the hope of final restoration.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had another of his poems on my mind this week, <i>In the Elegy Season</i>, one of his first to
receive wide acclaim. </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s about this
time of year, and the way that nature settles herself down to face the
inevitability of death as winter beckons.
The first stanza is sometimes quoted:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Haze, char, and the weather of All Souls’:</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">A giant absence mopes upon the trees:</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Leaves cast in casual potpourris</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Whisper their scents from pits and cellar-holes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The narrator looks back on a bountiful summer
not fully appreciated, and longs for the return of life in spring. Wilbur, though, will not leave us with char
and “a giant absence.” But in the midst
of this decaying landscape there are soft whispers of a promise yet to come:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Less
proud than this, my body leans an ear<br />
Past cold and colder weather after wings’<br />
Soft commotion, the sudden race of springs,<br />
The goddess’ tread heard on the dayward stair,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Longs
for the brush of the freighted air, for smells<br />
Of grass and cordial lilac, for the sight<br />
Of green leaves building into the light<br />
And azure water hoisting out of wells.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We
have not seen so much of “the weather of All Souls” this October. I picked a nice handful of raspberries from
my bushes yesterday. But the shortening
days point to what will surely come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
church, in this case, takes its cues from nature. November is the “Month of Holy Souls,” when
we ask God’s mercy for those we have lost to death’s cold hand. Our readings and liturgical prayers point us
to the promise of everlasting life, that “azure water” that refreshes the
sorrowful. Advent soon will be here as
well, with its summons to repent as we prepare to meet Him who is our Savior
and our Judge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We
will gather on All Souls’ Day to pray for the dead—those of our parish who have
died in the past year and others for whom you wish us to pray. In our Sunday adult forum, we will turn to
the Book of Job, and ponder what this man, the Bible’s great sufferer, may have
to teach us about sorrow, consolation and hope.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are not perhaps the
cheeriest of topics. But suffering and
death are an integral part of that life given to us—marked by Adam’s curse yet
made new by Christ’s glorious redemption.
In life’s apparent dead ends, in the situations for which we have no
simple answers, we may yet testify to a hope that surpasses all we can
imagine. Wilbur could look on the barren
tree and yet see “green leaves building up into the light.” Our assurance of
God’s final and glorious work will help us also to trace His purpose in dark
days. </span></span>Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-18725435156640675812017-10-23T20:31:00.000-04:002017-10-23T20:31:33.822-04:00Rendering to God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.baslibrary.org/sites/default/files/bsbr190201700l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="570" height="320" src="https://www.baslibrary.org/sites/default/files/bsbr190201700l.jpg" width="304" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Render therefore to
Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” St. Matthew 22:21</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was
quietly noted a few weeks ago that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has declined
to endorse an Obama administration plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20
bill. His predecessor, Jacob Lew, saw
honoring the great antislavery hero as the first step in redressing a historic
imbalance in the way we have honored national heroes. The $20 bill was a convenient place to start,
as Andrew Jackson has come under fire in recent years for his slaveholding and
for his decision to forcibly remove Indians to the West along the infamous
Trail of Tears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Andrew
Jackson also happens to be one of President Trump’s personal heroes. The President honors Jackson as a brave
soldier, and a symbol of democracy, the first true man of the people to be elected
to our nation’s highest office. The
president laid a wreath at Jackson’s tomb as part of the 250<sup>th</sup>
anniversary celebration of his birth and has hung a painting of him in the Oval
Office.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> You can be sure that Old Hickory won’t be
leaving the currency on his watch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The debate
over the $20 bill has caused some impassioned repartee, at least among the sort
of people who frequent the Facebook page of this former history major. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Treasury Secretary has either rolled back
an important step towards righting ancient wrongs or he has put the lid on some
juvenile political correctness. Both
sides agree on one thing: that our currency carries important symbolic weight. It represents our nation’s values, and lifts
up heroes worthy of emulation. It bears the
image of the kind of people we aim to be.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In that
sense, not much has changed since Jesus invited the Pharisees and Herodians who
had crowded around him to pull out a coin and show Him the image it bore. Coinage was the most effective form of
propaganda in the ancient world.
Invariably coins were stamped with the picture of the ruler. In the absence of good written records, historians
of antiquity use coins to date the reigns of kings. The coins often bore an inscription, a
message that the ruler really wanted everyone to understand. And sometimes, as in the case of the denarius
produced by someone in the temple crowd, those inscriptions could arouse just
as much controversy as our $20 bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus
asked the crowd whose image and inscription were stamped on the coin. They reply, “Caesar’s,” but that wasn’t
really a full answer. The coin did bear
an image of the ruling emperor, Tiberias Caesar, but it also had an inscription,
Tiberias Caesar, Augustus, son of the deified Augustus, <i>pontifex maximus</i>.” The
inscription was claiming the emperor was himself a god, and more than that, the
son of a god. He was also, it said, <i>pontifex maximus</i>, the chief
bridge-builder, who in his person united earth and the heavens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That title
goes back to the very beginning of the city of Rome, when Numa Pompilius, the
second king, had made a pact with Jupiter, the greatest of Roman gods. He would offer sacrifices to Jupiter, and
Jupiter would ensure victory to his armies.
Rome’s great victories and its fabled peace were rooted in this pact,
the <i>religio</i>, it was called. That’s where our word religion comes from--the
bond, it means, the connection between gods and men, secured by the divine
emperor.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any Jew
with an ounce of integrity in him classed this story as rank superstition, and
would have probably resented the inevitable need to carry a bit of it with him
in his pouch as he went about his daily business. But Jews differed among
themselves about just how offensive the coinage really was, and Jesus’
questioners they were, in part, inviting Him into a squabble that had long
ranged between them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Herodians were the supporters of the puppet king that the Roman authorities had
installed to rule the Jews. They were
always falling over themselves to make peace with their distant overlords and
would have shrugged their shoulders about the coinage—the price of doing
business, and all that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pharisees
resented Roman rule, and many would have been troubled about carrying around
all those little idols in their pockets.
Remember the moneychangers Jesus drove out of the temple? They were part of a work-around that the
Pharisees had helped to broker.
Sacrificial animals for temple worship had to be purchased at the
temple’s own stockyards, and you could only buy them in special temple
currency, which was conspicuously free of the heads of Roman emperors and
mentions of <i>pontifexes maximi</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On this
occasion, the two sides had set aside their squabbles to trap Jesus into making
a politically charged statement. What
about the tribute, they ask him, the annual head tax paid to the emperor by all
his subjects? Is it lawful or not? Jesus, after all, had been hailed as a
king. He claimed that through His words
and deeds the true God was coming to reign among His people. But what did He really think about the man on
the throne back in Rome, the one who claimed to be a god, who thought his
sacrifices reconcile God and man. Should
we pay taxes to someone like that? To
say no was an act of insurrection. But
to say yes could suggest there might be something to those claims Caesar was
making. It might imply that the kingdom
at the heart of Jesus’ own teaching was merely abstract, altogether tame, a
kind of glowing ideal in the mind far removed from the gritty realities of life
on the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus
gives a careful answer, one that means more than it seems to say at first
glance. On the one hand, “Render to
Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Pay the
tribute he wants, be a good citizen, do your part. Christians should pray for the leaders and
pay what is owed for the civil benefits they enjoy. Caesar’s coins, like all the things of this
world are passing away—if he wants them, let him have them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“But
render to God what is God’s.” That means on the one hand, that Caesar is only
Caesar, a sinner like all the rest of us.
There is only one bridge-builder, as Saint Paul would explain, “there is
one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a
ransom for all.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> There is only One who can establish a true <i>religio,</i> a holy bond that reconciles
humanity to its loving Father. And He
stands before you here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Insisting
that Caesar is only Caesar remarkably restricts his power. As St. John Chrysostom wrote, “When you hear
the command to render to Caesar the things of Caesar, know that such things
only are intended which in nothing are opposed to religion; if such there be,
it is no longer Caesar’s but the Devil’s tribute.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rendering
to Caesar and to God, most Christians have been loyal and productive citizens,
“living peaceably with all.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> But on the basis of Christ’s claim, some have
also challenged deeply rooted social injustices, fighting for the abolition of
slavery, for example, and protesting against discrimination. And for the sake of rendering to God what is
God’s, some have laid down their own lives, confessing steadfastly the one Lord
who brooks no rival. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Jesus
also is pointing to a deeper truth about human life and the God who sustains
it. For if the coin bears Caesar’s
image, we are the ones made in God’s image, we are His coinage.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> All that we have comes from Him, and He bids
us to make a fair return for the benefits we have received. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">God breathed life into us.
Through His Son, He forgives us, renews us in grace, and promises us
eternal joy in His Presence. Our talents and skills, the relationships that
bring us joy and meaning, and our worldly possessions and the wisdom to use
them rightly—all these come from His hands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He bids us love Him with all our heart, mind and strength,
offer ourselves as living sacrifices, doing His will, praising Him
continually. But we also offer back a
portion in the coinage of this world, gifts pledged for His work in the church.
In a few moments, you will bring these
forward for our common ministry in the coming year here at St. Francis. These pledges demonstrate our loyalty and
proclaim our faith. They are signs that
we have seen and know how good God has been to us. They are a humble return for His abundant
grace.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Appelbaum, Binyamin. “Mnuchim Doesn’t
Endorse Placing Harriet Tubman on the New $20 Bill.” The New York Times, 31 Aug. 2017, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/us/politics/mnuchin-harriet-tubman-jackson-money.html?_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/us/politics/mnuchin-harriet-tubman-jackson-money.html?_r=0</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Green,
Michael. <u>The Message of Matthew</u>. Leicester: IVP, 200, 223.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> I
Tim. 2:5-6.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Qtd.
in Thomas Aquinas, <i>Catena Aurea</i>, Gospel
of Matthew 22:15-22. <a href="http://www.lectionarycentral.com/trinity23/CatenaAurea.html">http://www.lectionarycentral.com/trinity23/CatenaAurea.html</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Rom. 12:18.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2024A%202017.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> c.f.
Augustine, <i>Sermon XL</i>.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-24017856974535655132017-10-18T21:19:00.003-04:002017-10-18T21:19:46.893-04:00Review: "Uncertain Times: Martin Luther's Remedies for the Soul"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://thewalters.org/assets/img/products/CT4783.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://thewalters.org/assets/img/products/CT4783.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>From the October 20 Sounds of St. Francis</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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Designing an exhibition to commemorate the Reformation’s 500<sup>th</sup>
anniversary is a fairly heroic task for any gallery. Far more art was destroyed than created in
the sixteenth century in those European lands that embraced the teachings of
Luther, Calvin and Cranmer. But the Walters
Art Gallery has made a humble but probing attempt in its single-room
exhibition, “Uncertain Times: Martin Luther’s Remedies for the Soul,” on
display until October 29 at the museum in downtown Baltimore.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fittingly, many of the most significant pieces on display
are not paintings, but books. The
personal prayer book of Luther’s close associate Philip Melanchthon is there,
worn from heavy use, annotated in the margins.
There’s a handsome early edition of Luther’s <i>Tabletalk</i>, the collection of theological rejoinders and moral
advice dispensed by the aged master in his later years over the daily bread and
beer, carefully recorded by his students.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Words are also the medium of a mesmerizing eighteenth
century German folk art piece featured centrally in the exhibition. The anonymous artist has scripted the many
lines of Luther’s <i>Small Catechism</i>
as a globe around the rose and cross of Luther’s coat of arms, a loyal tribute to the way in
which the theologian has most often been encountered across the centuries—in this
careful summary of Reformation teaching, written to be memorized by children as
they prepared for their confirmations.</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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The exhibition focuses closely on Luther’s teaching as “comfortable
words,” the way in which has assurance of God’s mercy towards sinful humanity
gave peace to those broken by sorrow or troubled by doubt. One of the curators, Yu Na Han, stumbled
across some advice given by Luther to a pastor about consoling women who had
suffered miscarriage shortly after she had lost a child. She was deeply moved by the reformer’s
assurance that God was not angry with those who suffer such tragedies, and
created the exhibit in part, to pass on some of what she had discovered and
found so helpful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Finding images and artifacts to illustrate this kind of
concept was no easy task, and the Luther quotations in the gallery notes are
often more effective than the pieces they are meant to illustrate. A book of spiritual advice by Luther’s
confidant Justas Jonas, for example, fits its purpose well, even if it is not
especially notable as a work of art. The
striking fifteenth century beer stein nearby is charming, though its presence
in such a small exhibition may overstate the reformer’s reliance on alcohol as
a means of spiritual consolation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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More of the actual paintings and engravings on display are
by Catholic artists than Protestant ones.
A striking painting of the common medieval scene of the mystical
marriage of Catherine of Alexandria’s and the infant Christ would have been
dismissed by most sixteenth century Protestants as superstitious, but the
curators are right to note the uncanny similarity between the scene’s spiritual
meaning and the “happy exchange” between Christ and the sinner celebrated in
Reformation piety. A Durer woodcut of
Christ with Saint John at his bosom, the only work by a well-known master in
the exhibit, treats a scene that was dear to Luther, though it dates to 1511,
when the artist and Luther were both still snug within the bosom of the Roman
Catholic Church. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The curator’s choices suggest that Luther’s fruitful
consolation, like anything else that is true and of enduring value in the Christian
life, was not really novel or iconoclastic.
He was formed by strains of faithful teaching that preceded him, and
themes that proved helpful in his own advice to others came to shape Christian
teaching in other parts of the church, even as Western Christendom was severed
by political and ecclesiological schism.
The most enduring work done by Luther and his followers, as they would
have been quick to claim, was the hidden labor of drawing souls closer to
Christ. It is difficult to bring such
hidden work to light, but the curators at the Walters are to be commended for
attempting it in such an earnest and thoughtful way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This exhibition aims at a salutary humility, like many of
the other Reformation commemorations at this 500<sup>th</sup> anniversary
(including, I hope, our October 29 program, <i>The
Spiritual Fruits of the Reformation</i>).
The 350<sup>th, </sup>375<sup>th</sup>
and 400<sup>th</sup> anniversary
celebrations, falling at a time when Western Protestantism confidently ruled
the world tended toward the bombastic and triumphalist—the Kaiser had the doors
of Luther’s old church engraved with the 95 Theses in bronze in 1892. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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We live in different times, and seek a word from the
reformers that can build up the shattered church’s unity and assist in the
urgent task of announcing the Gospel to a world where it is a word rarely
spoken. Exhibits like this show how
such work can be done with faithfulness and care. <o:p></o:p></div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-27729499779424346102017-10-16T21:04:00.001-04:002017-10-16T21:04:29.829-04:00He Remembers We Are But Dust<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://blog.spu.edu/wp-content/uploads/lectio/selections-from-israel/week4-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://blog.spu.edu/wp-content/uploads/lectio/selections-from-israel/week4-large.jpg" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="770" height="243" width="320" /></a><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Your
people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted
themselves; <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">they have
turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. Exodus 34:7-8</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last
week, the University of Chicago’s Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in
economics. Thaler will go down in
history as the man who slew <i>homo
economicus</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If
it’s been awhile since Econ.101, you might not remember that <i>homo economicus</i> was that mysterious
creature that sprung fully formed from the brain of classical economists: the
person who made all his decisions based on careful calculation and enlightened
self-interest. <i>Homo economicu</i>s would plan carefully for retirement by setting
aside savings early to benefit from compound interest. If the price of gasoline dropped, he would
use the discount in other areas of life instead of buying more expensive
gasoline. He will value his own possessions accurately and sell them if there
is an opportunity for gains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Richard
Thaler suspected that many people were not quite so logical. So he started asking them, conducting
studies. What he found is that people
are predictably irrational about their economic decisions. They make different choices when they are
afraid, or when they have developed attachments. They maintain habits even when they are
destructive. They spring for the quick pleasure and ignore the long term need. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Human
beings are not as strong, wise or noble as economists had expected they were. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a>Those responsible for large scale finance in
government or commerce would be wise to pay take note and make proper tweaks to
connect with human nature as it actually is.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> When asked how he planned to spend his
million dollars in prize money, he answered, “<span style="background: white; color: #333333;">I will try to spend it as irrationally as possible.”</span> <o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
must confess that I’ve never read any of Dr. Thaler’s books, so I don’t know if
he makes use of historical case studies to prove his point. But today’s Old Testament lesson, the
incident of the golden calf in the wilderness, would be among the best examples
of human weakness and folly I know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Israelites, after all, had seen the power of God at work in absolutely
spectacular ways. A few months before,
they had been bitterly oppressed slaves.
At the command of their leader, God had visited their taskmasters with a
series of ten astounding plagues. The
Egyptians had loaded them down with gold to hurry them on their way. The Red
Sea had been parted before them, and then it swallowed up their enemies, the
vanguard of the mightiest army on earth.
God had led them through the desert with cloud and fire. He fed them with miraculous food morning and
night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For
some weeks they had traveled through the desert, and they arrived at Sinai, a
commanding mountain. Moses, their
leader, went up to meet with God, to receive instructions about what would be
next. In an awesome display of His glory,
God began to reveal the law to him, writing it with His finger on tables of
stone. Enlightened self-interest would
say, “cool your heels, children of Israel.
God has been watching over you so far.
Let’s see what he wants to do next.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ironically,
just as God had begun to outline the procedure for sin offerings, a din reached
the peak of the mountain. The people had
taken the gold of the Egyptians, melted it down, and fashioned into a golden
calf. A “young bull” is better- Apis,
the Egyptian symbol for strength.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Ignoring the God who had saved them, the
Israelites were calling out for help from the idol of their former taskmasters. Aaron, whom Moses had left in charge, tried
to whitewash a situation he clearly couldn’t control. The statue, he claimed, was really meant to
represent the Lord. Idolatry on the one
hand, sacrilege—the worship of the true God by improper means-on the other.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> A sorry lot all round.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why
did they do it? They were afraid, of course.
The Sinai is a desolate place, spooky and harsh. I visited once years ago, when a regular bus
was a very uncertain proposition, and I was glad to get on to Cairo after a few
days. Some might have thought that Moses
had abandoned them. They missed the
security of life back in Egypt—freedom can be painful sometimes. Maybe they longed for a bit of a thrill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
His dialogue with Moses, God says they are stiff-necked, which means that they
sinned deliberately. It’s clear that
Aaron knew better, and his explanation of things when Moses eventually came
storming down the mountain is among the most pathetic excuses in world
literature—“ I threw [the gold] into the fire,” he told Moses, ”and there came
out this calf." Surely, they all
knew that to confuse the gods of Egypt with their Redeemer was deeply perverse,
a shocking ingratitude. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">God
says they must all perish, that His wrath, His righteous anger, will burn hot
against them. He had punished the
Egyptians for their cruelty and arrogance, and now He should justly do the same. They are <i>your</i>
people, God says to Moses, the ones <i>you</i>
have brought out of Egypt. Why don’t we
start again, God suggests—make a new Abraham out of you, the father of a new
nation. Maybe if they were all your own
children, Moses, they would get it right once and for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">God
was laying out nothing less than what pure justice demanded. But was He not also testing this leader,
Moses, to understand what kind of man he was, and what kind of God he believed
himself to be serving.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s
a moment of great dramatic tension, as we wait to hear how Moses will
answer. Moses reminds God that people
had only come from Egypt at God’s bidding and by His power. He reminds God of the promises He made to them
long before. “</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Turn from thy fierce wrath,” he begs,
“and repent of this evil against thy people.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Moses never
denies that total destruction would be just.
When he goes down to them, he himself is full of anger. But he doesn’t see much use in starting over
again. What Moses doesn’t say directly
but clearly implies is that this is just how it is for the sons and daughters
of Adam. They are people after all,
prone to sin, foolish, weak and broken. Destroy
them all, start over again, and in a generation they’d make all the same
mistakes. God must be merciful, for His
people cannot bear much righteousness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">My favorite
Psalm says it this way: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yea, like as a father pitieth his own children *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> even
so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> For he
knoweth whereof we are made *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> he
remembereth that we are but dust.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">God
chooses to be merciful to His people, despite their foolishness and sin,
remembering that we are but dust. It is
a choice he would make time and time again.
But choosing to be merciful there, at Sinai, just as He was giving the
law reveals a great irony. God is giving
a law which He knows this people will be unable to keep. He is commanding sacrifices that will not
really change their hearts or reconcile them to Him. The law God gives to Israel is marked as
provisional from the very beginning, a beta version that will need more work
before it can be released confidently to the whole world.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">God
chose that day in Sinai to be merciful, because he had a fuller purpose in mind. Even then He knew that He would one day
establish among us a Presence closer at hand.
He would send One of us who would obey as we could not, One who by His
faithfulness would take on the punishment rightly earned by us. God’s mercy at Sinai points ahead to a
reckoning, an awful cost yet to be paid by the strength of God’s love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Catherine
of Siena traced God’s purposes for this stiff-necked race: “Rebels that we
were,” she wrote, “we declared war on your mercy, and became your enemies. But stirred by the same fire that made you
create us, you decided to give this warring human race a way of reconciliation,
bringing great peace out of our war. So
you gave your only begotten Son…He became our justice, taking on himself the
punishment for our injustices. He offered
the obedience you required of him, in clothing him with our human nature…O
depth of love, what heart could keep from breaking at the sight of your
greatness descending to the lowliness of our humanity.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rebels
that we were—Israel, yes, but each of us as well. Each
of us has bowed to our own version of the golden calf in our moment of weakness,
folly and impatience. Each of us has failed
to the trust God who has been so good to us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Irrational human nature can’t get along on its
own. That’s what good doctor Thaler
prescribed for <i>homo economicus</i>. There must, he said, be “nudges,” good habits
plotted carefully into the structure of things, defaults to help us make easily
the decisions we would hesitate to make on our own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
have such nudges also. Here you are for one
of the most important of them: the weekly hour in God’s House, to hear His
word, to receive grace anew in absolution and sacrament. We have prayer, the buoy of the sinking
soul. We call on God to be with us in
our folly, to reshape our desires, to turn our hearts. And He pours out His good Spirit anew, even
on sinners like us. He has drawn near to
us and bound us to Himself. He bid us be
wise with His knowledge and strong with His power. He knows what we are and yet loves us through
it all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
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<!--[endif]-->
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Appelbaum, Binyamin. “Nobel in Economics is Awarded to Richard
Thaler.” <u>The New York Times</u>, 9
Oct. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/business/nobel-economics-richard-thaler.html</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
White, Thomas Joseph. <u>Exodus</u>. The Brazos Theological Commentary on
Scripture. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 265.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
White, ibid. 266.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Stuart, Douglas K. <u>Exodus</u>, New
American Bible Commentary. Nashville: B
& H, 2006, 672.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Ps. 103:13-14.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
White, ibid. 268.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Allison/Documents/Mark/Proper%2023A%202017.doc#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Dialogue, 13. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-67265177662479271312017-10-11T21:29:00.000-04:002017-10-11T21:29:02.841-04:00Abundance and Want<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0d/53/f9/0d53f935032735ea45294f27aeeb539f--a-mother-ephesians-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="388" height="312" src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0d/53/f9/0d53f935032735ea45294f27aeeb539f--a-mother-ephesians-.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>From the Sounds of St. Francis, 12 October, 2017</i></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are now into the third week of Stewardship-Tide at Saint Francis, when we are asking you to consider your financial support for the ministry of our parish in 2018. Our vestry will also need to decide on a pledge in the next few months, how much we plan to contribute to the ministry of our diocese in the coming year. With God’s help, both pledges will increase, so that together we may all be more faithful and effective in serving Christ and sharing His Gospel. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-67dd556d-0e2c-8cb9-d0ed-5eb4040c942d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The pledge we make to the diocese, like the gift you make to Saint Francis, testifies to the fact that our faith is communal, that a relationship with Jesus draws us into mutual dependence on other brothers and sisters. Because we follow the apostolic model of church governance, we must have a bishop, our chief teacher and minister of those sacraments that connect us with the universal body of believers. Our gift to the diocese first supports her ministry. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our relationships within the diocese also allow us to contribute to the good work being done in Christ’s Name in some of the most challenged parts of our region. Writing to the Corinthians about a collection he was raising for those suffering from famine in Jerusalem, Saint Paul stressed that Christian fellowship should be embodied in practical support extended from wealthier congregations to those who are suffering. “Your abundance at the present time should supply their want,” he wrote, “so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack.’” II Cor. 8:14-15.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While parts of Washington and its suburban regions, including our own, are very wealthy, our diocese also has churches and service-oriented ministries in rural Southern Maryland and in deprived sections of the city. It is also working to plant new congregations, especially among new immigrant populations. A few congregations receive direct support from the diocese. Others benefit from programs offered by the diocese focused on evangelism and congregational development. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a time of growing wealth disparity, we need thriving congregations in challenged areas more than ever. Like several of you, I was blessed to grow up as part of a strong church in a relatively poor rural community. In addition to giving me a firm grounding in the faith, my home church exposed me to the wider world of music, art and history. Learned ministers encouraged my intellectual interests, and through church camps and conferences, I built relationships with people from a variety of backgrounds and was exposed to new ideas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In his recent bestseller, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hillbilly Elegy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, J. D. Vance noted that his own ability to rise from a troubled background was closely related to his youthful involvement in a church that presented an alternative set of values to those of the surrounding culture. He also pointed out a reality that those of us who spend time in challenged rural communities know well: such churches are rarer these days than when he and I were young. The decline in church attendance of the last several decades has been especially hard on rural mainline churches, many of whom can no longer support a resident pastor and a thriving program of ministry. Under-resourced rural and inner-city congregations are growing older, and many struggle to keep going, with little time or energy for projects that serve their communities Fewer young people are being exposed to Christ and to faithful role models like the pastors Vance and I knew in our youth. The gifts we make to our diocese (and through the diocese, to mission work across the Episcopal Church and around the Anglican Communion) are among of the best opportunities we have to address these kinds of challenges. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the past several years, though, we have also been major recipients of the help offered by our diocese. During our search process, Bishop Budde and Canon Joey Rick both made visits to our parish at decisive times to help us move forward with a clear sense of God’s purpose and a commitment to common order. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since I have begun serving as your rector, diocesan leaders and connections facilitated by them have helped us develop a personnel policy, job descriptions for new positions (including translating them into Spanish), and to transition to a new IT consultant, computer server and database (with substantial cost savings on all fronts). Programs offered by our diocese reshaped our stewardship campaign and have helped expand our youth ministry. In the coming week, our Diocesan IT director will return to St. Francis for the second time to lead an orientation session about our new database. I have served in four different dioceses. The commitment to equipping congregations to thrive in ministry that I have found here in Washington, under Bishop Budde’s leadership is, in my experience, second to none.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In truth, the abundance of other Episcopalians in our diocese have, in Saint Paul’s words, “supplied our want.” Our diocese requests that each congregation contribute a 10% tithe of income to the diocese, but our current pledge of $31,000 is only 3.3% of our operating income. Our ministry here has been able to thrive because of the help extended to us. God is blessing us through the help of brothers and sisters, and hopefully the time will soon come when we can return thanks with funds to extend that help to others. </span></span></div>
Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-17418246351553490672017-10-10T08:38:00.002-04:002017-10-10T08:39:27.237-04:00Strip his sleeve and show his scars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” Galatians 6:17</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like a number of you, Allison and I have been watching the recent Ken Burns series about the Vietnam War. Like so many of his other documentaries, it carefully weaves together the story of that troubled era, placing each major leader and event in its proper place. It also has that human touch that marks Burns’ storytelling, breaking the wide narrative to focus on the experiences of ordinary people who patrolled the jungles, marched in protest and captured it all behind the lens of a camera. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In his Civil War epic, Burns was restricted to diaries and letters, but for this series, he and his crew interviewed dozens of people, American and Vietnamese, about what they had seen and felt. It was striking how vividly these men and women could recall the events of a half century ago: the sounds of exploding shells, the feel of boots sloughing through the rice paddies. Several of them pulled up a pantleg or unbuttoned a shirt to reveal the traces of old wounds. I can remember that day because I see it every day. I am marked forever. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My mind goes immediately to King Henry’s words in the English camp before the Battle of Agincourt:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He that shall live this day, and see old age,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though most of us don’t bear battle scars, there are other records etched in our bodies. The pains sparked by old mishaps on the sports field, the skin worn smooth under a wedding ring, the abdomen that never quite fits together again after the birth of a child. Our bodies tell the stories of our lives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Saint Paul turns to the record in his own flesh as he closes his impassioned Epistle to the Galatians. “I bear on my body the marks—stigmata is the Greek—the marks of Jesus.” That term, stigmata, it means the brand of one’s master. Sometimes in the ancient world, temples would purchase slaves to care for the buildings, and those slaves would receive the stigmata of the god or goddess to whom the temple belonged--his or her symbol branded on their flesh with a hot iron or tattooed with needle and ink. In some units in the Roman army, soldiers received the stigmata of their commander.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Saint Paul chose his term carefully. In some of his writings he describes himself as the slave of Christ. As his life was ending, he wrote to his disciple Timothy: “I have fought the good fight.” He bore the mark of his master proudly. Saint Paul means, of course, the marks of Jesus’ crucifixion, the flesh torn, the bruises, the steady pains borne of a lifetime of hardship and turmoil. He gives a catalog of the marks in II Corinthians chapter 11: five times beaten with whips, three times with rods, a stoning, shipwrecks, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst. Not nails through the palms and a bleeding side, but profound physical suffering, for the sake of His call to proclaim the Gospel, following in the steps of Him who gave His own life to set us free.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">His encounter with the Cross of Christ had changed everything in Saint Paul’s life. The Cross was at the center of His Gospel. Through His death, Jesus reconciled us to God, paid the price of sin, set us free from death and hell. The message of the Cross, he wrote to the Corinthians, is folly to those who are perishing, “but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” By the Cross of Jesus Christ, he writes, in today’s Epistle, “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Crux probat omnia: the Cross tests all things. The motto was Luther’s, but it is as good a summary of St. Paul’s life as anything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Galatians, I said earlier, was his most impassioned Epistle. He strenuously defended the Gospel he had received against false teachers who were trying to set up another path to reconciliation with God. Ashamed of the Cross, they were aiming to set up a system of rules, one step after another to climb up to heaven, avoiding entirely Christ’s self offering, the free gift on which salvation hangs. He has made his case against the false teachers, using all the tools of his rhetorical arsenal. But here, in the postscript, he points to His wounds--”he strips his sleeves and shows his scars”--for Calvary’s sake, I have these wounds. This Cross I defend is not just an idea to me, he means. Through His grace, it has become the story of my life. And here is the proof.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is no better text to read as we remember our patron, Saint Francis. For he too, was a man whose life was determined by the Cross of Jesus Christ. He came to his profound conversion to the life of the Gospel, through a vision of Christ Crucified. He had met a poor man, a leper, on a lonely plane. He walked up to give him some money and he embraced him with a kiss. And then the leper vanished from sight. A few days later, he saw the vision, Jesus the leper, suspended on His Cross. “His soul melted at the sight,” writes St. Bonaventure in his famous biography of St. Francis, “and the memory of Christ’s Passion was so impressed on the innermost recesses of his heart From that hour, whenever Christ’s crucifixion came to his mind, he could scarcely contain his tears and sighs.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">St. Francis gave himself to a life in full conformity with the sufferings of Jesus. He renounced all his possessions and lived as a beggar. He sought His Lord among the poor and the sick. He spent long nights in prayer and fasting. He preached a message of repentance, and turned the hearts of thousands of sinners to the mercy God offered freely in Jesus. St. Bonaventure says that when a community of brothers began to gather around him, they had no liturgical books for their common prayers. He wrote, “In place of these they had the book of Christ’s cross which they studied continually night and day, taught by the example and words of their father who spoke to them constantly about the cross of Christ.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The climax of St. Francis’ life, of course, came on Mount Alverna, two years before His death. His body had already been broken, like Saint Paul’s by the intensity of his labors, the rigors of his fasts, the poverty of his life. But there on the mountain, he saw Christ crucified again, surrounded by blazing angels. And he received from Him the stigmata, the marks of Jesus’ crucifixion on his hands and feet, and wound in his side that bled until the end of his life. “Now fixed with Christ to the cross, summarized St. Bonaventure, in both body and spirit”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do you have wounds to show from your life with Jesus? What would it mean for you to be fixed with Christ to the cross, in body and spirit? Saints like those we remember today make me feel ashamed. I look at my own life and I see how far I am from the courageous self-giving love that should mark the true servants of our holy Master. But they also encourage me to press on. I can serve the poor also. I too can fast. I can beg God’s forgiveness, from the heart, with tears that mark one who knows his sins honestly. I can give generously, to bless the church and those who suffer. I can share the Gospel with those God has placed in my life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My body does not yet show the One to whom I belong. I hold back parts of my life that are not yet fixed to His Cross. Is it not the same with you? But He is at work in us as He was in Saint Paul and Saint Francis before us. Day by day, he calls us closer to Him, bids us share in the “fellowship of His sufferings.” The path which leads us closer to His Cross is the way of true joy. Press on in hope.</span><br />
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Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-68317339121008193512017-09-13T07:08:00.000-04:002017-09-13T07:08:19.695-04:00Ponder: the majesty of the God of the immaculate present"The modern no longer knows what a throne is, how one sits on a throne, how one<i> thrones</i>. Looking back, we encounter the mighty throning depicted in Egyptian sculpture. We find it again in early Greek art, and (Christianized) in the mosaics of the first Christian centuries and in the stone figures of the opening middle ages. Then it vanishes. Personages no longer throne--they merely sit. And even the sitting becomes more and more restless. The ancient throning was not stiff--its movement lay in the potential power of the figure, in its stillness, intensity...Sitting has become careless, a flighty interim between coming and going. Something at the root of our lives has changed.<br />
When we ask a man today what he considers life, the answer will always be more or less the same: Life is tension, flinging oneself toward a goal; it is creation and destruction and new creation. It is that which rushes and foments, streams and storms. Thus the modern finds it difficult to realize that also the omnipresent present is life; intensity of gathered forces; powers that vibrate in stillness. <br />
When he considers God, he thinks of the restlessly creative one. Indeed, he is inclined to see the Maker himself in an unending process of becoming that arches from an infinitely distant past to an infinitely distant future. The God of the pure present, immutable, realizing himself in the reality of his existence, does not appeal to him. And when he hears of an eternal life in which all meaning is to fulfill itself, he is likely to grow uncomfortable: what does one do with an existence in which 'nothing happens'? The throne stands for the majesty of the God of the immaculate present. It stands for him who lives in eternal stillness, who in all the timeless simplicity of his will created, sustains, and reigns over all things. Before his countenance, earthly toil and struggle is but passageway, and their claim to be genuine life superlative nonsense."<br />
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Romano Guardini, The Lord (1954), 487-488Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-72002456728313959852017-09-12T16:13:00.000-04:002017-09-12T16:13:18.792-04:00In Remembrance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://cdn-prod.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/jesus-last-supper-01.jpg?x10423" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="300" src="https://cdn-prod.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/jesus-last-supper-01.jpg?x10423" /></a></div>
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<i>“This day shall be for
you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Exodus 12:14<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The Exodus story is one
of the Bible’s most vivid and dramatic narratives. The wickedness of Pharaoh, the steadfast
courage of Moses, the horrors of the plagues, the spectacle of the the Red
Sea’s high waves, frozen in place—they almost seem, to us to demand a
screenplay. There have been plenty of
Exodus movies, from Cecil DeMille’s great 1956 epic <i>The Ten Commandments</i>, to the animated <i>Prince of Egypt</i>, a favorite in our household. Earlier this week, I asked my sons if they
knew about the ten plagues, and was very impressed when they could reel off all
ten of them. “Did you cover that in
Sunday School?” I asked. “No dad,” came
the response—"it’s in the movie.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I didn’t ask them if they
had been reading about the Exodus directly from the Bible. But if they had
tried, they would have found a story paced quite differently from any film I’ve
seen.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> It’s not that the filmmakers need to invent
lots of episodes. All the powerful stuff
comes right off the pages. It’s that
they usually leave out much of what the Book of Exodus actually says. </div>
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Because Exodus isn’t just
a sequence of dramatic events. Those
events are interspersed with texts like the one just read to you, expansive and
detailed rules for ritual and moral life—granular stuff, as people say these days. There are details about when to begin the
feast of unleavened bread, how to choose the sacrificial victim and how to cook
him after the offering has been made, where to place his blood and how to dress
for the meal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A few minutes of this
kind of content, and the camera would be panning elsewhere and the audience
reaching to see if any popcorn is left in the tub. Today’s lesson from Exodus 12 is the Book of
Common Prayer’s traditional Old Testament reading for Morning Prayer on Easter
Day. A sarcastic English liturgist wrote
of this: “it must be a little baffling for those pillars of the Establishment
who manifest their zeal for Church and State by attending on a few great
occasions each year to find that the lesson…gives instructions as to how to
slaughter a lamb and serve it up.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”<o:p></o:p></div>
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As drama, the Passover
instructions—and our lesson contains less than half of them—are pretty slow
going. For as directions for the
carrying out of an activity, across thousands of years they are remarkably
clear, clear enough that Jews still read them out the fourteenth day after the
first new moon in the springtime, and keep the memorial day commanded by God to
their ancestors.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The presence of the
instructions says something important about the wider story in which they are
situated. God intends that we remember
His great acts in a particular way. You
can’t really get at what this story means by only reading its episodes or
watching a film about them. You must
enact it in your own time, thanking God anew for His mercy, eating a meal that
again binds God and His people in sacred communion, asking again His
deliverance from sin and protection from death.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Haggadah, the
traditional text read by Jews at the Passover meal explains it this way:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“In every
generation, each person should feel as if he himself had gone forth from Egypt,
as it is written ‘And you shall explain to your child on that day, it is
because of what the Lord did for me when I, myself, went forth from Egypt.’ Not
only our ancestors alone did the Holy One redeem, but us as well with them.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is what our Lesson
means when it speaks of the Passover as a remembrance or a memorial. The God who brought Israel out of Egypt has
promised to continually save and renew His people. Of course, we recall His great deeds of old
so they we will not forget them. But
even more, we recall them before God’s presence as an expression of our faith
that He will act anew. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Passover sacrifice
and meal look back, to be sure, but they also lean forward. They look ahead to a redemption even more
complete. A lamb offered in thanksgiving
and hope—a young male, unblemished. His
blood saves from death, and his flesh is offered as food for God’s beloved
people. For us, this Lamb points ahead to the one who was proclaimed “the Lamb
of God, who takest away the sins of the world.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed
for us,” Saint Paul writes, “let us keep the feast.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Last Supper that
Jesus kept with His disciples was, of course, a Passover meal. The Gospel writers carefully record the
special foods at the table, the ceremonial cups of wine that marked the
different stages of the feast. But then,
He set aside the expected words and actions.
He took the bread in His hands and blessed and broke it. “This is my body,” He said to them. God is doing a new thing. The body of the Lamb saved your ancestors
from death, freed a people from slavery.
But now, Jesus says, “I will offer My Body for you. My blood will be shed to seal a new and
lasting covenant.” It is to be a sacrifice
of thanksgiving complete and perfect, not for one nation but for the whole
world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Do this,” He commands
them, “in remembrance of me.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>” That’s old language of the Passover rite, do
this to make the memorial before God of what I am doing for you. Do this to declare your faith in me and your
gratitude for what I am doing for you.
And when you do, He promises, I will be with you in the sacred bread and
wine. You will feed on the flesh of the
Lamb that saves you, as your ancestors did in Egypt. From My Body, crucified and raised in power,
grace will flow anew. The Redeemer’s
work is not complete until He has fed His people with His own flesh. As it was then, so it is always.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Christ does not abolish
the Passover, He fulfills it, crowns it with glory. The ancient mystery remains, yet now all is
filled with power and life. The very
oldest Christian sermon we have, after the writings of the New Testament, is
the Paschal Homily of Melito of Sardis.
This is how Bishop Melito describes it:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Understand
this, O beloved: The mystery of the passover is new and old, eternal and
temporal, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal in this fashion:<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is
old insofar as it concerns the law, but new insofar as it concerns the gospel;
temporal insofar as it concerns the type, eternal because of grace; corruptible
because of the sacrifice of the sheep, incorruptible because of the life of the
Lord; mortal because of his burial in the earth, immortal because of his
resurrection from the dead.<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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We too must keep the
Passover. We remember God’s mighty
deeds, but we also praise Him and offer our sacrifice, the bread and wine of
the Holy Eucharist. We know that He who saved
of old saves us still. I myself went
forth from Egypt, indeed. I myself came
with Him through the Cross and the empty tomb.
I myself will feast with Him at the joyous banquet that has no end.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
c.f. Hoezee, Scott. “Exodus 12:1-14, Comments and Observations.” Center for Excellence in Preaching http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-18a/?type=old_testament_lectionary.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Greenacre, Roger. <u>The Sacrament of
Easter</u>. London: The Faith Press,
1965, 19.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
qtd. in Greenacre, Roger and Jeremy Haselock. <u>The Sacrament of Easter</u>. Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 1995, 30.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
John 1:29.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
I Corinthians 5:7.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Luke 22:19.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mmichael/Downloads/Proper%2018A%202017.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
qtd. in Greenacre, Roger and Jeremy Haselock. <u>The Sacrament of Easter</u>. Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 1995, 20.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-21444321094685821052017-09-08T11:03:00.000-04:002017-09-08T11:03:17.026-04:00Ponder: "whatever you are drawn to in following God's will"<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); box-sizing: inherit; color: #404040; font-family: Georgia, serif;">"A brother asked a hermit, “Tell me something good that I may do it and live by it.” The hermit said, “God alone knows what is good. But I have heard that one of the hermits asked the great Nesteros, who was a friend of Antony, ‘What good work shall I do?’ and he replied, ‘Surely all works please God equally? Scripture says, Abraham was hospitable and God was with him; Elijah loved quiet and God was with him; David was humble and God was with him.’ So whatever you find you are drawn to in following God’s will, do it and let your heart be at peace."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); box-sizing: inherit; color: #404040; font-family: Georgia, serif;">From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, qtd. in Stephen Freeman, "Having then Gifts Differing." (2010)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.95); box-sizing: inherit; color: #404040; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span>Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3718085488201632950.post-29315539021211970052017-09-01T12:30:00.000-04:002017-09-01T12:30:08.353-04:00Ponder: true justice is the fruit of bounty"A curious thing happens to the spokesman of justice in this parable. He is accused of envy. What a reply to one convinced that he has suffered an injustice! Instead of hearing as he expected, that untamperable right will be restored, he must learn that his real motive for intervening was inferior! Yet if we accept Scripture as God's holy word, we learn a strange rule about human nature: that when it becomes necessary to invoke justice, that irreproachable value and crystalline motive, almost always something is rotten in Denmark. To often 'justice' is used as a mask for quite different things.<br />
<br />
Human justice is highly problematical. It is something a man should strive for but not lean upon. Perhaps we come closest to the true sense of the New Testament if we say that genuine justice is not the beginning but the end, and the other justice so pompously displayed as the fundament of morality is a dubious thing. True justice is the fruit of bounty, and practicable by man only after he has been initiated into the school of divine love where he has learned to see people as they really are, himself included. Before one can be just, one must learn to love."<br />
<br />
Romano Guardini, <i>The Lord</i> (1954), 261.Rev. Mark A. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012940971872091853noreply@blogger.com0