LORD, WHEN DID WE SEE YOU?

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 

(Matthew 25:35-40)

The Kingdom of God turns the present powers of the world upside down.  In God's Kingdom, the proud are scattered, the powerful are knocked from their thrones, the poor and powerless are lifted up, and the hungry are fed, as Mary proclaims in the Magnificat.  Mary's prayer is subversive, as is the entire story of Jesus' humble birth, after which the family was forced to flee as refugees to a foreign land to escape from Herod's wrath.  Jesus was born a Jew, and he died a Jew, and his teachings in the Gospel are rooted in the Jewish bible.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.

(Luke 1:46-55)

The work of building the Kingdom of God is for those of us who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus. In this new year 2017 the challenges are great, and we will have plenty of work to do.

CHRIST THE KING

The Feast of Christ the King has come and gone, but images of Christ the King, sitting on a throne wearing a golden crown and royal robes, have long troubled me.  I'd allowed such images to take root in my mind and, in some sense, spoil the feast day.

Soon after the feast, in a sudden flash of enlightenment, I remembered that the Jesus I know was born of a lowly maiden in a humble shelter for animals. When Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph and was hailed as a king by the crowds, he rode on a donkey.  The only crown he ever wore was a crown of thorns, and the only royal robe he ever wore was when he was mocked and beaten as he stood before Pilate, and the crowd called for him to be crucified.  That's the Jesus I know and imagine on the feast day now, and I'm at ease.

Though I'd heard and read the stories in the Gospels over and over, I'd allowed the images of of different kind of king, an earthly ruler, take over on the feast.  Jesus invites us to join a different kind of kingdom, an upside down kingdom to the kingdom of the world, as described in the Magnificat, his mother Mary's prayer in the Gospel of Luke.  In Christ's kingdom, the lowly servants are raised high, the hungry are fed, the powerful are brought low, the proud are scattered, and the rich are left empty;

My soul magnifies the Lord,
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.
(Luke 1:46-55)

The sculpture of Christ on a donkey is from c.1480, in limewood and pine, painted and gilded, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The painting of Christ the King shows the sacred heart, a symbol that has long troubled me, too, but that's for another post or not at all.

ON GOING TO CHURCH AND NOT

The quote below is from At Home in the World: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Rosemary Radford Ruether.  The book is out of print, but I have ordered a used copy. Rmj at Adventus quoted the words at his blog, and I borrowed them.

Merton: I do wonder at times if the Church is real at all. I believe it, you know. But I wonder if I am nuts to do so. Am I part of a great big hoax? I don’t explain myself as well as I would like to: there is a real sense of and confidence in an underlying reality, the presence of Christ in the world which I don’t doubt for an instant. But is that presence where we are all saying it is? We are all pointing (in various directions), and my dreadful feeling is that we are all pointing wrong.

Yes, I suspect we are getting it wrong.  This past April, I stopped going to church altogether, because of pain due to a bad back which limited my activity.  I've been a lifelong churchgoer, though I changed denominations, but I found I didn't miss church attendance, which surprised me greatly.

Looking back now, I remember thinking about church, "What are we doing, and why are we doing this?"  Now I'm wondering if it was habit more than anything else that kept me going for so long.  Also, when I was involved in several ministries in my church, it all seemed to make more sense, but, as my health deteriorated, and I gradually eased out of ministry, I began questioning. As long as I was busy in the church, it seemed fine.

I read the Scripture passages for the day from the Lectionary and say my prayers at home; I'm immensely grateful for the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.  The 1979 version in modern English retains some of the grandeur and flavor of Thomas Cranmer's beautiful but simple language in the older version and includes at least some prayers in the old language.  My faith in the teachings of Jesus as a way to live my life remains firm, as does my faith in God, although my concept of who God is and how God relates to me is much less certain.  My one true certainty is God is love, or God is not my God.

Having said that, I have no idea how to get church right, except a vague idea that perhaps the Christian church ought to be poor and on the fringes of society and not so much about elaborate buildings.  It appears churches may get to such a place by force, as attendance drops and funding dries up.  I still believe Christian community is important, but I am open to the idea that community can take many forms outside the traditional gathering in a building.

In no way do I mean to disparage my parish church community; the rector is a fine man, and the members of the parish are good people who obviously live the Gospel as best they can.  I doubt that I'd find a better church anywhere nearby, and I'm certainly not looking.

I'm enormously grateful for my religious upbringing; the family I grew up in, with the exception of my maternal grandmother, was not especially devout, though my mother attended church regularly. Somehow the Christian teachings in my schools stayed with me for a great part of my life, though my practice and theology evolved over the years.  Being brought up in the church through religious schooling seems not to be what it once was.  All my grown grandchildren who attended Catholic schools from an early age do not regularly attend church. Their families were not especially devout, but, either the teachings in the schools have changed, or they just didn't persuade my grandchildren that church attendance was important.

All that being said, if I could, I'd very likely attend church during Advent, the season of waiting and expectancy for the coming of the Kingdom of God, which is right now and not yet.  I will very much miss my favorite service of the entire church year, the Christmas Eve service, when we celebrate the coming of Emmanuel, God with us, in the form of a baby, born of a woman in a humble shelter for animals.

Now, I take my community where I find it, and I found my sermon for the First Sunday in Advent at Adventus, by my friend Rmj.

Advent is about preparing for the coming, again.  Christmas is about the coming that has already happened.  Advent reminds us to wake up, look around, see a world that needs what is coming, what has come, and who came, and what happened after that.  We start over again, to end in four weeks with what we anticipated this time; and still we are surprised by it.  Christmas is about the same thing every year, and every year we need to see again that what we waited for, what we are waiting for, is already here.

THE GOSPEL AND SYRIAN REFUGEES

Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) - Caravaggio

Last Sunday, we heard the following passage from the Gospel of John in church:

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him,    ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’  (John 18:33-37)

The kingdom of God, as opposed to the kingdom of the world, is the upside down kingdom Mary describes in her prayer of praise to God which is called The Magnificat.

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’ (Luke 1:46-56)

In God's kingdom, the lowly are lifted up, and the proud and powerful are brought down, the hungry are fed, and the rich go away empty.  Thus the kingdom of God stands in opposition to the kingdoms of the world.  In his sermon, our rector, Doug, related the message of the Gospel to the plight of the Syrian refugees fleeing from persecution and violence in their own country and the opposition to accepting the refugees that we hear around the country.  The opposition claims to be rooted in fear that terrorists might slip through the stringent and lengthy screening process for Syrian refugees that takes up to 18 months or 2 years before approval is given.  Those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ have a choice: to allow fear to rule our lives, or to follow the Gospel of God's kingdom and welcome the refugees.  Doug said fear of terrorists and "the other" is understandable, but, for Christians, the message of the Gospel is clear.

For Doug to address the subject of welcoming Syrian refugees in the present, divisive atmosphere, when strong feelings run high against accepting more refugees, called for courage on his part, and he risked accusations of  "playing politics".  As for me, I'm grateful he addressed the matter of the controversy over the refugees.  If a Christian preacher preaches the Good News of Jesus Christ as described in The Magnificat and in many other words of Jesus in the Gospels, I don't see how he/she can avoid statements that might be called political.  Jesus preached over and over about the politics of power versus the powerless, and, though he embraces everyone with his love, he most certainly seems to me to favor the powerless.  

ARCHBISHOP ÓSCAR ROMERO - A SAINT FOR TODAY AND ANY DAY

A wonderful icon of Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador, written by Tobias Haller, along with San Romero's wise words:

A Future Not Our Own

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

From Journey with Jesus.

FEAST OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN

Grotto in honor of Mary on Bayou Lafourche in Thibodaux, Louisiana

O God, who have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Luke 1:46-55

 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

The Magnificat is one of my favorite prayers.  The words glorify God and remind us that the Kingdom of God turns the power structures of the kingdoms of this world upside down.

In today's Morning Prayer at The Daily Office, the Gospel reading for the feast day is the account in John of the wedding at Cana at which Jesus and Mary are both present.  During the course of the celebration, the wine runs out, and Mary tells Jesus, expecting that he will remedy the situation.  Jesus, though he is reluctant and impatient, honors the request of his mother after Mary tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”   He turns water into wine, the finest of wine, 

The instructions to the servants are Mary's final words in the Scriptures, words which all Christians might do well to live by, to do as Jesus tells us to do.  In her words, Mary directs attention to Jesus, and we honor Mary best when we remember that she always points to Jesus. 

THE KINGDOM OF GOD - A VISION

From today's Lectionary:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;

the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating;

for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people;

no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,

or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;

for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,

and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity;

for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—and their descendants as well.

Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox;

but the serpent—its food shall be dust!

They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,

says the Lord.

(Isaiah 65:17-25)

Will the year 2011 at all resemble the description from Isaiah?

Yet the passage is our joy, our vision, our hope for the coming year. The words are a call to us, God's people, by the grace which God bestows in abundance, "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God", to do our part, as best we can, to bring to reality the vision of the Kingdom of God.

In the words of Archbishop Óscar Romero, who was murdered for his efforts:

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.