Readings Over Thanksgiving

I'll be visiting family over Thanksgiving and won't be writing Morning Reflections. Here are the readings for the Daily Office

Wednesday, November 25
James Otis Sargent Huntington, Priest and Monk, 1935
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)Psalms 119:145-176 (morning) 128, 129, 130 (evening)
Obadiah 15-21
1 Peter 2:1-10
Matthew 19:23-30
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Thursday, November 26
Thanksgiving Day (Note: Eucharist at St. Paul's, 10:00 am.)
Today's Readings for the Daily Office

Either the readings for Thanksgiving Day (p. 1000)
Morning Prayer: Psalm 147, Deuteronomy 26:1-11, John 6:26-35
Evening Prayer: Psalm 145, Joel 2:21-27, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

OR the readings for Thursday of Proper 29 (p. 994)
Psalms 131, 132, [133] (morning) 134, 135 (evening)
Zephaniah 3:1-13
1 Peter 2:11-25
Matthew 20:1-16
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Friday, November 27
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)

Psalms 140, 142 (morning) 141, 143:1-11(12) (evening)
Isaiah 24:14-23
1 Peter 3:13 - 4:6
Matthew 20:17-28
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NOTE: the new Church Year starts Sunday (the first Sunday of Advent)
The Daily Office lectionary will be for Year Two (the right side of the page), starting on page 937 of the Book of Common Prayer

Lowell

The Wealthy and Powerful

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 -- Week of Proper 29, Year One
Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross), Mystic, 1591

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 994)
Psalms [120], 121, 122, 123 (morning) 124, 125, 126, [127] (evening)
Nahum 1:1-13
1 Peter 1:13-25
Matthew 19:13-22

A tenet of liberation theology is to see theology from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed. The tradition raises into focus the many passages from scripture which assert that God contends on behalf of the poor and oppressed, indeed that the poor are particular channels of God's grace. God has a preferential option for the poor, says liberation theology. God is working to reverse the structures that produce oppression, and we are called to participate in God's work.

The prophet Nahum announces God's judgment upon the Assyrian empire and its capital of Nineveh. Assyria was a superpower that dominated smaller, weaker nations like Israel and Judah, exploiting them through colonial expansion and heavy tribute (c. 704-612 BCE). Nahum pronounces God's judgment upon such an empire and prophecies divine punishment.

In Matthew's Gospel Jesus addresses a wealthy young man's question, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" The man has lived a life that is faithful to the commandments, but he lacks one thing, according to Jesus. "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." With that instruction, Jesus invites the anonymous young man into his circle of disciples. "Then come, follow me." The young man leaves, grieving, "for he had many possessions." Jesus concludes with this observation: "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

At least 80% of the world's population lives on less than $10 a day. For nearly all of us in the first world, these words of Jesus may leave us grieving too. Jesus' disciples were startled also. "Then who can be saved?" they asked. Jesus' response: "For mortals it is impossible, but for God, all things are possible."

A side note. Some have found Jesus' words so difficult, that they have tried to invent more palatable interpretations for the "camel through the eye of the needle" metaphor. One urban myth has persisted about an alleged city gate called "the needle gate" that was so small that camels had to be unloaded to crawl through its entrance. Appealing image, but untrue. The maxim, as hard as it may sound, is about a sewing needle and a real camel.

The scripture tilts with a particular favor toward the poor and oppressed and striking judgment toward the wealthy and toward those who have power. It is a frequent theme of scripture that tells us that God works to reverse the worldly circumstances of wealth and power. Jesus' punch line today is "many who are first will be last, and the last will be first" (see also Mary's Magnificat and Hannah's song).

Those of us who belong to great empires, and some have said the United States is the greatest empire of world history, and those of us who are the world's wealthy must stand humbly before the words of scripture and God's priorities that scripture reveals.

There are a few wealthy or powerful heroes in the Bible. Joseph of Arimethea comes to mind. At some risk he used his power and wealth to provide a respectful burial for an executed criminal.

Recently there has been some conversation on my blog (lowellsblog.blogspot.com) about taxes and about how we can best respond to the needs of the poor in our nation. I am a proponent of progressive taxation that gives relief to those who can least afford to pay and expects more from wealthy people who have more than adequate income, like me. I am also a proponent of our using our corporate structures to relieve suffering and give opportunity. I think that moral government is government that follows the priorities that scripture reveals, government that works more from the perspective of the weak and poor than from the perspective of the powerful and wealthy.

Prophets like Nahum have a lot to say to nations and governments. Jesus has a lot to say to the wealthy and powerful. And though "for God, all things are possible," our responsibility is to cooperate as much as we can with God's priorities. Jesus promises the disciples that their sacrifices will be abundantly rewarded in the end.
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A note about today's feast, which is new to the trial calendar, Holy Women, Holy Men:

Juan de la Cruz [1542-Oct. 15, 1591] Mystical theologian and Doctor of the Church
and Mystic, he was joint founder of Discalced Carmelites with St. Teresa. Author of
Dark Night of the Soul. (Nov 24)

Lowell
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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Divorce and Marriage

Monday, November 23, 2009 -- Week of Proper 29, Year One
Clement, Bishop of Rome, c. 100

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 994)
Psalms 106:1-18 (morning) 106:19-48 (evening)
Joel 3:1-2, 9-17
1 Peter 1:1-12
Matthew 19:1-12

It is pretty clear that the norms of the early church were very strict regarding divorce and remarriage after divorce. Mark's gospel (the earliest) forbids remarriage after divorce, and by implication, divorce itself. Matthew was familiar with Mark's gospel when he wrote his account. Matthew's gospel, that we read today, forbids divorce, "except for unchastity." The grounds, quoted in both passages, is the intention expressed in Genesis that the two become one flesh, "therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

In 1 Corinthians, Paul has a preference that everyone remain unmarried and celibate as he is. However, if your passions are uncontrollable, it is not a sin to marry, he says. Paul also disapproves of divorce, even if one is married to a nonbeliever. Yet if the nonbelieving spouse leaves the family, Paul does not blame the remaining spouse. If someone separates from their spouse, Paul tells them to remain unmarried. If a spouse dies, Paul advises the widow or widower to remain unmarried, but does not prohibit remarriage. The end is near, says Paul. We would all be better off if we remained as he is, unmarried and celibate.

In Matthew's account, when the disciples hear of Jesus' prohibition on divorce and remarriage, they complain, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." Jesus' response is interesting: "Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can." The footnote in my Bible remarks that this is an endorsement of voluntary celibacy. Paul is a model. But others have wondered whether the reference to "eunuchs who have been so from birth" might be interpreted as an acknowledgment same-sex orientation. I don't know.

There is a strong New Testament case to be made for several potential Christian policies toward marriage and divorce. Some church communities have taken Paul's advice and prohibited marriage or any form of sexual intimacy. For most of Christian history, divorce has been forbidden, except for unchastity. Anyone familiar with the story of Henry the Eighth knows that the legal and ecclesiastical wrangling involved with annulments and divorce could be cut-throat. I've given pastoral support to several persons who were deeply wounded in the complicated canonical process of negotiating Roman Catholic law regarding such things. Justice is not always served; compassion is not always primary.

In fact, I'll tell a story as an illustration of how messy these things can get. A parishioner of mine had been married to her husband for many years. She had done most of the raising of their two children as he had a traveling job. There were rumors that he was a womanizer, but she stuck by him. When the last child was grown and out of the house, he divorced her. She was devastated. He had taken up with a young woman who was about the age of their daughter. The young woman was Roman Catholic, and marriage in the church was very important to her and her family. He sought an annulment of his previous marriage of some 25 years. The annulment was granted. It seems that his former wife, my parishioner, was forced by her father into a shotgun wedding when she was around seventeen because her father thought she was having sexual relations with her boyfriend. She insisted she wasn't, but he insisted she marry. Under duress, she married. "Since we were married," she shrugged, "we did go ahead and have relations. But I didn't before." A few months later, she obtained a divorce.

The Catholic process ruled that because of that previous marriage, she wasn't actually free to marry her husband when they did so some 25 years before. That marriage was annulled, and her adulterous former husband was allowed to marry his new younger paramour in a church sacrament. One of my parishioner's adult children asked, does that mean I'm a bastard?

The Episcopal Church prohibited remarriage in the church after divorce until we changed our canons in 1978. It was the witness of remarried Episcopalians, who had remarried outside of the church, that persuaded the church to change. They displayed in their new relationships the fruit of the Spirit, and they said that their experience of new life through remarriage was an experience of resurrection. The Episcopal Church placed some boundaries and limitations around it, but opened the possibility of remarriage to our members. I had a friend who was a priest who did not agree with the change, and did not perform any remarriages. I've also known many people whose lives were deeply blessed by the possibility for another chance.

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Sharing God's Work

Friday, November 20, 2009 -- Week of Proper 28, Year One
Edmund, King of East Anglia, 870

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 102 (morning) 117:1-32 (evening)
1 Maccabees 4:36-59*
Revelation 22:6-13
Matthew 18:10-20 *found in the Apocrypha

Matthew's gospel invites the church to share in God's work and God's character of divine compassion and justice.

God's compassion is illustrated in the story of the lost sheep. If one of one hundred is lost or in danger, God's focus moves toward the needs of that one rather than the oversight of the hundred. This is not majority rule. The compassion God calls us to is universal. The spirit of this parable reminds us of the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke. Who is our neighbor? Everyone. Where is our responsibility? Upon the one who is needy, lost or in danger. No one is expendable. The flock is only whole when all are safe.

These parables are values guides for us, and they are challenging indeed. They ask us to reach out in compassion toward all so that none slip through the safety net. They speak to us of the poor, the addicted, the mentally ill, and all who are in danger in the wilderness. It is God's will that none should be lost. God's will be done.

Matthew's gospel also gives some guidance in times of conflict. The context is "if another member of the church sins against you." The issue is injustice. Your forgiveness of the other is assumed. But more than forgiveness, the gospel urges reconciliation. Talk to the person and attempt to reach reconciliation. If that doesn't work, bring some others so that you can reach more clarity. Divine justice is honest and clear. The text continues: If the other is in the wrong and refuses to listen, "let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." Of course, Gentiles and tax collectors were those whom Jesus befriended and sat with at his table fellowship, much to the consternation of some who were scandalized and offended by his generous friendships. Gentiles and tax collectors are among those that we are told must be invited into the church and its community.

Divine justice is honest. It speaks the truth in love. Justice speaks truth to power. And divine love is boundless. God seeks reconciliation for the alienated; healing and inclusion for those who are marginalized or in danger.

Our work has eternal ramification. When we bind one another in reconciling love, we are bound in heaven. When we loose things from their destructive bondage, they are liberated in heaven. But what if we do damaging work? What if we bind others destructively or loose others into danger? Does God allow our foolishness and destructive behavior to stand forever? In some ways, "yes." The past is past. It cannot be changed. A foolish or destructive act has consequences. Yet God is always working to restore the last sheep until the flock is complete and to create reconciliation until the Gentiles and tax collectors and everyone is included.

All it takes is for two or three to be gathered in God's name for God's presence to be released. When we ask in God's name, in God's reconciling spirit of compassion and justice, God works to see it to completion. And God gives us the joy and responsibility of sharing in that work. We never work alone. We work empowered by God's Spirit with us. The vision will be accomplished. One hundred percent of the sheep will be rescued. We can work with confidence and joy do to our little part in God's ultimate victory. Or, as Joan Chittister says, "We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again."

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Childlikeness

Thursday, November 19, 2009 -- Week of Proper 28, Year One
Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, 1231

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 105:1-22 (morning) 115:23-45 (evening)
1 Maccabees 4:1-25*
Revelation 21:22 - 22:5
Matthew 18:1-9 *found in the Apocrypha

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."

One of the qualities that children exhibit is a ready willingness to trust. Children trust their parents. They depend upon parents to give them whatever they may need. Children freely let their needs be known, trusting that a parent will provide. They "pray" earnestly and intently to their parents. And they live in a relationship of absolute trust upon their parents who care for them.

One of the reasons we find children so attractive is that they radiate that trust toward everyone. An infant will look with interest upon any face that may appear. A toddler will run up to strangers and engage in instant rapport. At least they will until they are taught not to trust some people. It is great fun to watch older people in a park as they watch children playing. Sometimes a child will approach an unknown spectator, and if not warned away by a parent, the most delightful interplay may occur.

A major leap in our spiritual journey happens whenever we may come to the place where we decide that we will trust God with a quality that has some childlikness in it. A part of that shift in our spiritual consciousness includes the conviction that life is ultimately trustworthy. Because it is created by God and given to us, ultimately life is trustworthy. Part of that shift is to look at creation and to say that it is good -- because it is created by God and it is the stage for God's ongoing work of love, life is good.

We make that leap of trust with full awareness of the brokenness, suffering, and evil in the world. Regardless of the darkness, we choose trust over suspicion, hope over despair, love over defensiveness. There is something childlike in that choice. Maybe there is some naivete involved, but it is to me a post-critical naivete. After we have seen the violence, oppression and suffering that so tragically scars the earth and its creatures, nevertheless we find beneath it all a beauty, mystery and love that transcends the evil.

Some have said that to come to a place of trust we must forgive life. We must forgive life itself for all its hurts and dangers and sufferings. At some level, for most of us, that also must include forgiving God. We look at all of the injustice and suffering, even recognizing the part that human will plays in all of that, and we realize that pain and death and accident and suffering are woven into the very substance of the creation that God has made. When we turn to God as the source and sustainer of it all, we can turn in outrage and accusation, or we can turn in a grateful accepting trust that somehow includes a willingness to let God off the hook for all of the hurt while we embrace God in gladness for all of the love. Like children, we may again be able to see the creation as being full of mystery, a profound playground of wonder and possibility. When our trust is deep, we can again see the stranger with open, defenseless curiosity and welcome. There is something about this childlike way that has the flavor of the kingdom of heaven.

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Paying Taxes

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 -- Week of Proper 28, Year One
Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 (morning) 119:121-144 (evening)
1 Maccabees 3:42-60*
Revelation 21:9-21
Matthew 17:22-27 *found in the Apocrypha

The story from Matthew's gospel offers some early church commentary on a controversial subject. The Temple Tax was much debated among Jewish scholars. Since the time of Nehemiah, Jewish authorities had collected a tax for the upkeep of the Temple. In earlier times the Temple was supported primarily by the royal house. Scholars debated whether the tax should be paid each year or whether the tax should be paid once in a lifetime.

Some scholars referenced the instruction to Moses in Exodus 30. After the discussion of the yearly day of atonement, Exodus 30 provides for a census. Tradition held that taking a census angered or insulted God. A census was often the basis for military conscription and for governmental taxation. The Exodus 30 instruction provides for a ransom, a fee of half a shekel, in order to ward of the plague that might be expected as God's reaction to a census.

After 70 CE, Rome picked up the tradition and imposed a two-drachma tax on Jews for the upkeep of the temple to Jupiter. From the Jewish perspective, that tax was humiliating, or possibly idolatrous. From Rome's perspective, it was merely an act of patriotism in relationship to the civic religion. Matthew's gospel was written after 70 CE when this Roman tax was a hot topic.

In the scene that Matthew gives us, the collectors of the temple tax ask Peter whether Jesus' followers pay the temple tax. "Yes, he does," answers Peter. It was an answer that would please Roman authorities when they might be suspicious of the new Christian movement.

There is a second conversation about the ultimate freedom that those who are royal children enjoy. The implication seems to be that Jesus' followers, as children of God, are completely free and liberated from obligations to lesser authorities.

Jesus' next act in Matthew's sequence seeks to keep the peace. Jesus has Peter catch a fish that will have the coin for the temple tax in its mouth. Peter is to pay the tax so that they would not give offense to the authorities.

The story is not unlike the question elsewhere in the Gospel whether it is right to pay taxes to Caesar or not. Jesus anwered, "Whose image is on the coin?" Every Roman coin bears Caesar's image. The wonderfully ambiguous answer: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God." Every listener would know that all things come from God -- the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.

Such answers intend to maintain the ultimate freedom that is ours as God's children and the absolute claim that God has on us and on all creation. They are also practical answers that protected the early church from persecution as enemies of the state.

There have been Christians who have protested the payment of taxes on religious and ethical grounds. Some were jailed during the Vietnam War era when they withheld a percentage of their tax that represented their share for the financing of what they believed was an immoral war. Acts of civil disobedience have generally included a willingness to suffer the consequences of such disobedience.

The early church walked a fine line between its declaration of challenge to the Roman Empire -- the fundamental creed "Jesus is Lord" defies the claim that "Caesar is Lord" -- and the church's wish to avoid active persecution. From Matthew's perspective, paying the hated tax to the Jupiter temple was not a place to draw a line.

Where is that line? For the most part, I am glad to pay taxes because our taxes support so many of the services that are basic to a healthy society. I am blessed to be in a high tax bracket because my wife and I both have jobs that pay us well. We certainly could afford to pay more taxes, and would happily do so if it would relieve the suffering for those who do not enjoy the security that we do. I prayerfully hope our nation is on the way toward providing a public way of insuring health care for all people as most other industrialized countries already do, and I would gladly raise taxes on people like me to underwrite such a benefit.

On the other hand, I opposed the unnecessary war and occupation that the Bush administration launched against Iraq, and the subsequent $700 Billion cost to taxpayers which helped reverse the budget surplus President Bush inherited, sending us into a deep deficit. (The human suffering from that decision to go to war is incalculable.) It would have been much more honest for Mr. Bush and Congress to raise taxes on people like me who can afford it in order to pay for the war rather than to continue to pass the costs to future generations. But it seems raising taxes is even more unpopular than war, so we borrow.

So, like nearly everyone else, I pay my taxes, and I argue about what the best use of our resources might be. I hope for a more progressive tax policy that relieves the poor and lets those of us to whom much has been given be expected to give more. Is there a line for me when the policies of a government might be so abhorrent that I would refuse to pay taxes? I don't know. Maybe there is. I know I respect many who have risked their freedom to raise into public awareness policies that are immoral.

I'll just leave it at that today, except to mention briefly about 10-year-old Will Phillips in neighboring West Fork who has endured some consequences as the result of his refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance until we truly live up to our pledge on behalf of liberty and justice for all. His interview on CNN is pretty impressive.

Lowell
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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkans

Equity and Justice

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 -- Week of Proper 28, Year One
Hugh, 1200, and Robert Grosseteste, 1253, Bishops of Lincoln

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 97, 99, [100] (morning) 94, [95] (evening)
1 Maccabees 3:25-41*
Revelation 21:1-8
Matthew 17:14-21 *found in the Apocrypha

"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."

As we near the end of the Revelation of John, we see a vision of the union of heaven and earth in a new creation. God gives to the thirsty water from the spring of the water of life. The effect of God's presence is justice, healing and peace.

We read of a similar vision from the psalms. Psalm 97 declares that the foundations of God's reign are righteousness and justice. God upholds the truehearted and delivers the saints from those who do wrong. Psalm 99 praises God directly, saying, "O mighty Ruler, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob."

Justice is at the heart of the vision of God's reign. God is love. Justice is the social form of love. The opposite of justice is human injustice. It is human injustice that brings the oppression and tears that need divine healing and peace. There is something fundamentally egalitarian about justice. Justice and equity are deeply related. When justice reigns, righteousness is upheld and human injustice is inhibited.

Those who would live in right relationship with God, which is what righteousness means, are those who uphold God's values, who strive alongside God for God's purposes. God promises ultimate vindication of the righteous.

Equity, peace, healing, and justice -- these are the cornerstones of righteousness. Inequality, violence, discord, and injustice -- these are the fruits of unrighteousness. Insofar as our power is exercised in ways consistent with the values of God, we are participating in God's reign. But God's judgment reaches out to frustrate the false ways of pride, greed, oppression and violence.

These Biblical words have social, economic and political consequences. Unjust political, economic and social systems create systemic injustice and human suffering. From the time of Moses, God has called us to oppose systemic injustice and to work to create systemic justice. The prophets of every age speak truth to power and call us to a high calling on behalf of God's justice.

From the Biblical perspective, the focus of justice is always on the poor. If you want to know what God wants, ask from the perspective of the poor. "Forgive us our debts" and "give us today our daily bread" are petitions from the poor.

Our political and economic system in this nation tends to be structured from the perspective of the wealthy. I ran across another example yesterday. It is not a criminal act if an employer withholds payment from a worker. But if that same worker, denied a paycheck, writes a hot check to buy groceries for his family, that's a crime. Stealing labor from a worker is a regulatory offense that rarely is prosecuted and results in a slap on the wrist. A hot check provokes quick police action, and not infrequently, jail. That's a system structured to favor the wealthy, those who can afford to employ others.

Equity and justice. The social form of love. Viewed from the perspective of the poor. "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." These are the things we talk about every day in our headlines. Will health care be available to all? Will everyone have the material essentials of life? Will our systems defend the poor or simply be manipulated by the most powerful and wealthy?

Christians have a vision of God's reign. We are to live by the values of that vision now. God's judgment will be based on those values. Will we be on the side of righteousness or on the side of injustice?

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Remembering Thin Places

Monday, November 16, 2009 -- Week of Proper 28, Year One
Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 89:1-18 (morning) 89:19-52 (evening)
1 Maccabees 3:1-24*
Revelation 20:7-15
Matthew 17:1-13 *found in the Apocrypha

One of the things we like to say about the Eucharist, is that it is a thin space, where the separation of time and space narrows. The eucharistic feast connects us with the Last Supper of Jesus and the eschatalogical banquet of heaven. The simple elements of bread and wine become our participation in the life of Christ. We are given the divine food that we may become the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus is present in the sacrament and in the body assembled. Human life becomes transfigured into communion with God and union with earth. We see beneath the veil, the glory of the divine within the created order. Bread and wine become the means of Christ's presence. The gathered church becomes the empowered Body of Christ.

The story of the Transfiguration is a story of a thin place, high upon a mountain, when, for a moment, three disciples see more deeply into the divine realities. They see the deeper beauty and glory of their friend and rabbi, whose face shines like the sun and whose clothes become dazzling white. They see him in relationship with the patriarchs of the law (Moses) and the prophets (Elijah). And they hear the words of divine blessing, spoken earlier at his baptism: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"

For a moment they see more deeply. With intuitive insight they have a glimpse of the spiritual reality that is below the material reality.

The question for the disciples, and for us, is whether they will allow the memory of this deeper reality to be the center of their paradigm of reality. Soon they will see other, more threatening realities -- the conflicts, the arrest, suffering and death. Which vision will be more real for them?

The resurrection witnesses to the ultimate reality of the vision of transfiguration.

How do we hold on to the vision of our reality impenetrated by divine light? How do we remember our essential identity as God's beloved? How do we claim and reclaim the insights we have been given in the thin places when the eternal and beautiful have been so close?

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Away Early

Thursday, November 12, 2009 -- Week of Proper 27, Year One
Charles Simeon, Priest, 1836

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 88 (morning) 91, 92 (evening)
1 Maccabees 1:41-63*
Revelation 19:11-16
Matthew 16:13-20 *found in the Apocrypha

I didn't have time to write this morning.

Thanks to everyone who is fasting today and praying for our stewardship campaign, asking God to give our congregation the resources to to God's to worship and serve faithfully in this place.

Lowell

Interpreting History

Thursday, November 12, 2009 -- Week of Proper 27, Year One
Charles Simeon, Priest, 1836

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms [83] or 23, 27 (morning) 85, 86 (evening)
1 Maccabees 1:1-28*
Revelation 19:1-10
Matthew 16:1-12 *found in the Apocrypha

"Red sky at morning; sailors' warning. Red sky at night; sailors' delight." The gospel opens with an old version of that maxim as part of a narrative about proper interpretation. The polemic of this section is directed at two of the competing religious parties that were dominant in Jesus' time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Along with a third religious party, the Essenes, these differing sects within Judaism had their origins in the Maccabean period. We begin reading an account of that history today.

Another old maxim: "History is written by the victors." Today we begin 1 Maccabees, written to glorify the Hasmonean dynasty established by the Maccabees. It begins in 167 BCE when the Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (meaning, "god made manifest") returned from war with Egypt and plundered the valuables of the Jerusalem Temple to replenish his funds.

The family of the Maccabees led a violent revolt which produced a century of Jewish independence and a dynasty of Jewish leaders. The book of 1 Maccabees was written during their rule and glorifies their exploits.

Not all Jews, however, agreed that militant action was the appropriate response to Gentile occupation. The book of Daniel was written during the same period and has little place for human militancy. And 2 Maccabees asserts that martyrs who submit to death are just as important as the Maccabean rebels. It is likely that the sect of the Essenes was created largely to oppose the Maccabean rule. The book of Daniel and the movement of the Essenes had an apocalyptic outlook that is absent from the political and military focus of the Maccabeans. And many Jews who were impressed with the learning and civility of Greek philosophy and culture preferred a Hellenized version of Judaism to the zealous militancy of the Hasmoneans. Although the rebellion of 167 BCE was successful, a similar revolt against the Romans, led by Zealots in the tradition of the Maccabees, was disastrous. At that time Jerusalem was sacked; the Temple has never been rebuilt.

There was enough discomfort with the whole history of the Hasmoneans that the book of 1 Maccabees was not included in the Hebrew Bible. A Greek translation of the original Hebrew text did find a place in the Septuagint, the Greek scriptures, which was the Bible that the early Christians used. Thus, a book extolling a history of a militant defense of Judaism was preserved primarily by Christians.

Can violence be religiously justified on behalf of nationalism or religious zeal? 1 Maccabees stands in a strand of history that says "Yes." Many other religious voices, including Jesus, according to the early church, say "No." The history of religious violence is a troubling record. This book we begin today is the victor's account of their successful rebellion. This historical account was finished before Judah was conquered by the Romans in 63 BCE when another victor began to write another history.

There have been times this week as we have been reading Revelation, a book that can be interpreted from a pacifist or from a genocidal perspective, that I have thought, how familiar some of these images and themes would sound to Osama bin Laden. For him, the smoke of the World Trade Center was like the fall of Babylon, something to rejoice.

One historian's hero will be another historian's terrorist. Often one of the most significant distinctions between the two interpretations is religion.

Lowell
_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville,

Healing and Feeding

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 -- Week of Proper 27, Year One
Martin, Bishop of Tours, 397

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 992)
Psalms 119:97-120 (morning) 81, 82 (evening)
Nehemiah 7:73b - 8:3, 5-18
Revelation 18:21-24
Matthew 15:29-39

I ran out of time before leaving for Clergy Conference Sunday and didn't post the readings Monday and Tuesday. Sorry.

I hope many of St. Paul's parishioners will offer a fast either today or Friday (or both) to pray for our stewardship journey this fall, asking God to give us all that we need to do God's work through this congregation.

The miracle of the feeding of multitudes is the only miracle of Jesus that is found in all four of our gospels. Today we have Matthew's version.

Matthew begins with Jesus' healing ministry. "The lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others" come to Jesus and are made whole. Then Jesus takes their offering, seven loaves and a few small fish, and there is food in the desert. They eat and are filled.

The number seven has a symbolic meaning signifying perfection. Seven is the sum of three (the spiritual order) and four (the created order). The seven loaves are a perfect offering. They nurture and satisfy the multitude, referenced by another symbolic number, 4,000. Four (the created order) intensified by the multiples of ten.

The story is a metaphor of the salvation that Jesus brings. Jesus brings healing to the broken and food to the hungry. Such stories can be interpreted on both the physical and the spiritual plane. Elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus proclaims, "Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." (11:28)

When we are lame -- stuck, and unable to move freely; when we are maimed -- experiencing injury of soul or spirit, hurt, angry, depressed; when we are blind -- unable to see our way, without vision or insight; when we are mute -- unheard, inarticulate, without inspiration: Jesus offers the gift of healing that makes us whole. Forgiveness, love, compassion, peace, empowerment.

Jesus feeds and energizes us though his compassion, so that we may be filled, satisfied, and strengthened for service.

The practice of daily prayer is a recapitulation of the miracle of the feeding of the multitude. We bring our weariness and brokenness to Jesus, we sit at his feet, and we are made whole again. We feed on his life, and we are renewed. It is a new day. A day to be whole and filled.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Fasting and Abundance

Friday, November 6, 2009 -- Week of Proper 26, Year One
William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1944

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 69:1-23(24-30)31-38 (morning) 73 (evening)
Ezra 7:27-28; 8:21-36
Revelation 15:1-8
Matthew 14:13-21

As Ezra prepares to lead a group of exiles to leave Babylon and to return to their former home in Jerusalem, he proclaims a fast. He asks God's protection upon the community as they make the long journey, and do so without an armed guard. In trust, Ezra commends their welfare to God's keeping.

For the first time in the dozen years since I've been rector at St. Paul's, I've asked people to pray specifically for our stewardship journey this fall. Maybe a fast would be in order as well. Like Ezra, I sense some vulnerability for us right now. The economic downturn has hurt so many people, including many of our parishioners, and we've increased our outreach in response. Our programs keep growing and need the basic support that will keep them vital. Last fall we froze salaries of our staff and cut program to the bone. (We've seen the effect of that, for example, in our wonderful music and youth ministries where our basic program needs this year have been greater than our budget.)

To my mind, now is a time when we're asking for those who can to deepen their level of sacrificial giving for the continued vitality and protection of our congregation. So many people have responded. Ultimately our trust is in God. We're praying that God will give us what we need. In the spirit of Ezra's example, I'm going to ask our congregation to fast. In our tradition, Wednesdays and Fridays are traditional days of fasting and abstinence (as we do on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). I'm going to ask our members to fast on either Wednesday or Friday of next week, or both, and to pray for God's protection over our congregation and its ministries, and for all of the resources we need to do the ministry God calls us to.

Our inheritance is an inheritance of abundance. The gospel story today expresses it beautifully.

The time seems ominous. John the Baptist has been executed by Herod. Upon hearing the terrible news, Jesus withdraws to a deserted place by himself. But crowds continue to follow. There are needs: for teaching, for healing, for prayer, for friendship. Jesus' response is always compassion. He serves their needs. But at the end of the day, his disciples are anxious. The crowd is large and their resources are small. The people are hungry, but there doesn't appear to be enough.

"You give them something to eat," he charges the disciples. "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."

Jesus organizes the crowd. He takes what has been offered, looks to heaven, blesses, breaks and gives. Not only is there enough, there is abundance.

That is the reality we claim. Every time we offer our lives to God on the altar, Jesus takes our gifts, blesses, breaks, and gives them in the communion that makes us whole. It is what we do; it is who we are. It is what God does; it is who God is.

There will be enough, and even abundance. We do our part in prayer and fasting; we give our five loaves and our two fish; God protects and feeds us.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Stories and History

Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Week of Proper 26, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms [70], 71 (morning) 74 (evening)
Ezra 7:(1-10) 11-26
Revelation 14:1-13
Matthew 14:1-12

A couple of things jumped out to me as I read the familiar story of Herod's execution of the imprisoned John the Baptist.

One of the characteristics of Matthew's gospel is that he writes with a special emphasis on framing the story of Jesus within the ethos of Judaism. He anchors Jesus in Jewish history, narrating the story of Jesus as the messiah who faithfully upholds the Torah and fulfills prophecy. Matthew quotes Hebrew scripture more frequently than the other New Testament writers, and he depicts Jesus as the new Moses, complete with a rescue from political threat as an infant, a sojourn in Egypt, lessons from a mountain, and complaints from listeners. Matthew uses careful scribal language -- the expression "kingdom of Heaven" rather than kingdom of God" -- much like contemporary rabbis will write "G-d" as an act of respect for the holy name. Where Luke will explain to a Gentile audience some Jewish habits or rituals, Matthew expects his Jewish readers will understand. Finally, some of the harshest polemic which we find in Matthew -- "His blood be on our children" -- sounds like the exhortation of the Hebrew prophets and the high emotion that often accompanies family quarrels or fights with those we know best. (I remember a dear friend, a priest of our diocese in Mississippi, excoriating our annual meeting naming those supporting women's ordination as "harlots" and "adulterers" who are repeating the sins of the Whore of Babylon. He joined a branch of the Orthodox church later that year.)

I mention these characteristics of Matthew's writing because the story of Herod, Herodias and John the Baptist as Matthew presents it has parallels with the ancient story of Ahab, Jezebel and the prophet Elijah. Matthew is inviting us to make the comparisons. The readers already know both stories. As was Ahab's pursuit of Elijah with the encouragement of the wicked Jezebel, so was the violence of Herod and Herodias toward John, according to Matthew.

Another thing jumped out to me thanks to the footnotes in the "Access Bible" that I use. There is a word used twice in verse 11 which refers to Herodias' daughter. The word is "korasion," meaning "damsel" or "young girl;" it references someone who is not physically mature. Although there is no description of the dance which would imply that it was lewd, my mind is profoundly influenced by movies and every other image I can recall, picturing the dance of Herodias' daughter. In all of those she is sultry, beguiling, enticing and luring. The historian Josephus names her as Salome, which is some circles is a synonym for a seducer.

The scene changes when we imagine an eight-year old delighting her elderly father who promises her a great reward. Then Herodias/Jezebel coaches the little one to ask innocently for the head of John the Baptist. Even more macabre than the movie version.

Coupled with our readings from Ezra-Nehemiah -- which does not work if we try to read it as history, but does make complete sense when we read it as an historical apologetic defending a theological viewpoint -- we're reminded that much of our scripture was written with intentions that transcend historical accuracy. The later gospels of Matthew and Luke exhibit the development of hero birth narratives that aren't part of the gospel as it was presented by the earlier writings of Paul and Mark. Matthew's birth story is strongly influenced by the Moses tradition and by Messianic prophecies; Luke's story is influenced by the story of Hannah and Samuel and the Davidic tradition as well as some elements that would have appealed to his Greco-Roman readers. These scriptures were written to inspire devotion and faith. As one commentator has said, they are "poetry plus" not "history minus."

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Some Days

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 -- Week of Proper 26, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 72 (morning) 119:73-96 (evening)
Nehemiah 13:4-22
Revelation 12:1-12
Matthew 13:53-58

Even though I went to bed early last night, I woke up tired today. I couldn't bring much energy to the Daily Office. The readings seem to fall flat for me.

For a while Psalm 72 sounded like an expression of hope for just governance. The Psalmist asks for a good ruler who will rule rightly, bring justice to the poor, defend the needy and rescue the poor from oppression. There is an appealing vision of bottom-up prosperity. Over and over the psalmist emphasizes that the just ruler will "deliver the poor who cries out in distress and the oppressed who has no helper. He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; he shall preserve the lives of the needy. He shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence..." In such an economy, the psalmist imagines "an abundance of peace" and widespread prosperity.

But there is a troubling aspect to the psalmist vision also. The psalmist expects this ruler to dominate the surrounding nations. Those nations will be expected to pay tribute and to bring gold, just like Israel had to pay cripplings tributes to their conquerors the days of their oppression. I'm reminded how often it is that abused people become abusers themselves when they gain some degree of autonomy or power over their lives.

As I read of Nehemiah's crusade to purify Jerusalem, I thought of the Taliban, a more extreme version of enforced separatist theocracy. The chapter continues with the ethnic cleansing of the city. Everything foreign is excluded from Jerusalem. We've seen the tragic dimension of such cleansings in our lifetime. Like some of the other religions that have texts which have been interpreted as condemnations against us, we have texts that would condemn all foreigners, separate from them radically, and impose religious practices upon all by force. Why aren't the law-oriented Christian groups marching on the mall and working to pass laws to shut down all commerce and commercial transportation on the Sabbath? Some of them approve of Nehemiah's tradition of throwing out all the aliens, but aren't bothered by Sabbath work or by some forms of inter-racial marriage.

And I just didn't have the energy today to work with the reading from Revelation. I know that underneath all of the violence and war-like imagery is a message of grace and encouragement. But reading it today was just tiring.

And the gospel today is a story of a down day for Jesus. He comes to Nazareth, and they take offense at him. Who does he think he is? We know who he is, and we'll keep him in his place, his hometown says to him. "And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief."

There are days like that... even seasons. For some, years. Times when we seem to slog to get through. We all have good days, and not-so-good days. Days of energy and creativity and anemic days. Times when things seem to come together and when nothing does. Events of grace and moments of injustice. It's all part of the whole.

Jim Finley tells of his meetings with his mentor Thomas Merton during Jim's novitiate. "How are you doing, Jim?" Merton would ask him. "Great. I feel wonderful and things are going well." "Don't take it too seriously, it'll get worse," was Merton's reply. Or if Jim answered, "I feel terrible. Nothing seems to be working," Merton answered, "Don't take it too seriously, it'll get better."

It's like that. The ebb and tide of things. But there is grace is just showing up. Doing your best even when it doesn't feel like it's enough. Reading and listening and praying, even when there's no experience of resonance. Don't take it too seriously. It'll get better.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Today's Readings

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 -- -- Week of Proper 26, Year One
Richard Hooker, Priest, 1600

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 61, 62 (morning) 68:1-20(21-23)24-36 (evening)
Nehemiah 12:27-31a, 42b-47
Revelation 11:1-19
Matthew 13:44-52

I had to leave early this morning to see someone off to surgery.

Here are the readings for today's Daily Office.

Lowell

Praying with the Psalms

Monday, November 2, 2009 -- Week of Proper 26, Year One
Commemoration of All Faithful Departed

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 56, 57, [58] (morning) 64, 65 (evening)
Nehemiah 6:1-19
Revelation 10:1-11
Matthew 13:36-43

The Psalms today are heartfelt expressions of anxiety and hope. All three psalms are cries to God for help. The psalmist feels threatened. We don't hear the exact nature of the threats, but Psalm 56 speaks of enemies, and 57 speaks of "lions that devour the people."

I think of so many people who have been harmed by the recent worldwide depression that we are beginning to emerge from. We have friends who have lost jobs. Others who have seen the work of decades disappear. At a time when the need is most critical, many non-profits have seen their contributions and resources shrink.

We watched the economic crisis happen as the numbers of people accessing our Seven Hills Homeless Center began to rise ahead of the reports of a systemic failure. We've seen the numbers coming for lunch at Community Meals rise so significantly that we opened the south section of the Parish Hall to accommodate the crowds.

I visited with a friend who has been working for quite a while to adopt a second child from China as a sibling for the beautiful child that they adopted several years ago. Because of the economic downturn, the family lost their employer-supplied health insurance benefit. The adoption process will not allow their plans to proceed unless they have insurance. When they sought to purchase their own health insurance, the company will not sell them insurance if they plan to adopt a foreign child.

And I think of the lions that devoured the people with their speculative derivative markets and risky economic deals. So often they were producing nothing, just moving money around, and abusing a system that lacked regulation and effective oversight. Many of the lions have fallen into the pit they dug (57:5), but they dragged the entire global economy into the pit with them.

The psalms offer us words to help us respond in times of trouble. "Whenever I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust and will not be afraid, for what can flesh do to me? ...Whenever I call upon you, my enemies will be put to flight; this I know, for God is on my side. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust and will not be afraid, for what can mortals do to me? ...For you have rescued my soul from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before you in the light of the living. Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful, for I have taken refuge in you; in the shadow of your wings will I take refuge until this time of trouble has gone by. I will call upon you, O Most High God, you who maintain my cause. You will send from heaven and save me; you will confound those who trample upon me; you will send forth your love and your faithfulness. ...Exalt yourself above the heavens, O God, and your glory over all the earth. My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody. Wake up, my spirit; awake, lute and harp; I myself will waken the dawn. I will confess you among the peoples, O God; I will sing praise to you among the nations. For your loving-kindness is greater than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds."

There is much to pray for, and there are signs of dawn, that possibly this "time of trouble" is beginning to pass by. This week there is the hopeful possibility that our congress will have the vision and goodness to create a plan that would extend health care coverage to all of God's children. What a glorious relief it would be if everyone in this great nation would finally have accessible, affordable quality health care, as so many other developed countries have. There are hopeful signs that we have paid most of the price for the economic misconduct of our recent past and that recovery is beginning.

Maintain your cause, O God, especially on behalf of the poor and vulnerable. Do not let the greedy lions continue to feed upon your children. Send forth your love and faithfulness. Rescue those who suffer. We put our trust in you, and will not be afraid. Our heart is firmly fixed in you, O God. We wake up the dawn today, with words and melodies of praise. Guide us to do what is right, and to act out of love and compassion to cooperate with your work of healing and reconciliation. In the shadow of your wings we take refuge, until this time of trouble has gone by.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

The Good and the Enemy

Friday, October 30, 2009 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One
John Wyclif, Priest and Prophetic Witness, 1384

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p.990)
Psalms 40, 54 (morning) 51 (evening)
Nehemiah 2:1-20
Revelation 6:12 - 7:4
Matthew 13:24-30

All of the readings today have some expression of judgment between the righteous and the evil, between God's people and God's enemies. The readings address the issues in different ways.

The psalms are personal prayers which ask God to defend and uphold the psalmist in a time of trouble and threat. The psalmist asks God to intervene to save and to punish those who oppress and oppose him.

Nehemiah tells of his commission from the Persian King Ataxerxes to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He is sent in 445 BCE, about thirteen years after Ezra's mission. This was a time of conflict between Persia and Egypt, so a fortified Jerusalem could provide a military base for Persia. Ataxerxes sends soldiers with Nehemiah to underline the strategic intent.

There is a second aspect of Persian policy that is important. The Empire controlled its occupied regions by controlling access to the land. Persian strategy mandated a strict tribal autonomy over traditional lands, and maintained that authority by creating strong boundaries between neighboring tribes. Intermarriage was forbidden because it tended to blur property rights. Persia encouraged each occupied region to maintain their traditional worship and to include prayers for the Persian King and Empire in their liturgies. The ties of worship also helped maintain tribal unity and purity, strengthening the attachments between people and land. It is Nehemiah's charge to carry out this policy in Jerusalem.

Nehemiah will face opposition. Neighboring tribes will be jealous of the refortification because this imperial preference will bring new money and prestige to Jerusalem, supposedly at their expense. But many of the Jews who had lived in Judah during the exile, and some who had returned, were married to members of the neighboring tribes and had family relationships with them. Nehemiah's plan for ethnic cleansing will rip their families apart. The building of the wall is a symbol of this plan of cultural separation. It will be controversial. (The book of Ruth was written as protest literature against this separatist tradition. The hero Ruth is a Moabite who is an ancestor of David.)

In the book of Revelation, the opening of the sixth seal imagines the consequences of human destructiveness and the justice of God. Although no act of judgment is portrayed, we see the anxiety of the judged. Their fear is contrasted with the sealing of the foreheads of God's people. The forehead is a symbol of human will and worship. The symbolic number 144,000 is built on the number 12 (God's people) and the number 10 (all). All of God's people are gathered from the four corners of the earth. In tomorrow's reading an innumerable multitude from "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages" will appear before the Lamb, joyfully joining the song of heaven. It is a remarkably inclusive image.

And in Matthew's gospel the church is told to leave judgment to God. In our world and in the church, good and evil exist together, the good seed and the weeds grow together. If we were to try to uproot the weeds, we would inevitably damage or even uproot some of the good plants. "Let both of them grow together until the harvest," Jesus says. Some have cited this passage to oppose warfare, for in every war the number of civilian casualties is greater than military causalities.

These readings have echoes today. Israel is building a wall that not only separates Jewish territory from Palestinian, but also breaks off access from one area of Palestine to another. Some Americans have called for a wall between our country and Mexico. Anti-immigration sentiment has a flavor of ethic cleansing to it, and many international conflicts are energized by tribal and ethnic resentments.

The New Testament readings offer realistic images about the damage that human division, oppression and violence brings. But they also offer a more non-violent, non-divisive solution. Let God sort out the good and evil. We are not wise enough. And when we see the image of God's resolution, we see people from every human family in a remarkably inclusive vision of universal reconciliation.
_____

A note about our new feast today:
Wyclif, John [c. 1329-December 31, 1384] Later called "The Morning Star of the Reformation," he believed all pious people have the right to read and interpret Scripture for themselves. His teaching influenced two early translations of the Bible into English (from the Vulgate Latin Bible). The popular legend that he was their translator is discredited. (Oct. 30)

Lowell
_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Ar

Two Visions

Thursday, October 29, 2009 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One
James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, and his Companions, Martyrs, 1885

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, 990)
Psalms 50 (morning) [59, 60] or 103 (evening)
Nehemiah 1:1-11
Revelation 5:11 - 6:11
Matthew 13:18-23

We experience a stunning contrast in today's reading from Revelation.

John's vision first takes us into the joy and harmony of God's presence, where "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them" sing in praise. They praise the Lamb. The Lamb is an amazing image. The Lamb is a gentle animal, vulnerable and unthreatening. The Lamb is a sacrificial animal that takes on the suffering of others in liturgical rites of purification. The Lamb is a recipient of violence, not an initiator. The Lamb is a symbol of peace and nonviolence. John's climactic vision of heaven is a universal hymn of praise "To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!"

Four living creatures speak the "Amen" to this universal hymn. These four living creatures seem to symbolize the four orders of creation. One is like a lion; another like an ox; another like a human; another like an eagle. They have miraculous gifts of movement (six wings) and full understanding (eyes all around and inside). (4:6bf) The twenty-four elders bow in worship. (the number 24 double the symbolic number of God's people, 12)

That is John's vision of universal harmony and peace that accompanies God's presence.

Now the drama shifts. The Lamb opens the seals of the scroll. As each seal is removed, we see a glimpse of an aspect of the cosmic drama of human destructiveness, divine justice, and eventual peace. Today we experience the four seals of human destructiveness.

The four living creatures call out four horses and their riders. A rider with a bow rides a white horse; a rider with a sword rides a red horse; a rider carrying scales rides a black horse; and a rider named Death and Hades rides a pale green horse. The appearance of a military conqueror always leads to war which always leads to famine which always leads to death. Sword, famine, pestilence and wild animals hold authority over a fourth of the earth. (Future series of scrolls will increase in their damage.)

The contrast is extreme. Universal harmony with the Lamb. Violence and death with the activities of human warfare.

(One note about the passage "do not damage the olive oil and the wine." So much of the famine that is a consequence of warfare comes from the destruction of annual crops such as wheat and barley. Long-term crops such as olive oil and wine are not so susceptible to war-induced famine. Olive oil trees can grow for centuries. Yet, I heard a story the other day of some Palestinian residents mourning over the destruction of 1,500 olive trees that were burned by Israeli settlers in a retaliation strike. Israeli authorities had removed the settlers from an unauthorized outpost in the West Bank. The settlers retaliated by destroying the orchards of neighboring Palestinians. In the Middle East, an act of violence against olive oil trees is considered particularly outrageous.)

John will continue the drama that shows the apocalyptic consequences of human evil and violence. But it is a drama with a good and peaceful end. The Lamb will triumph, and will do so without violence.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Today's Readings

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One
Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)

EITHER, the readings for Wednesday of Proper 25, p. 990
Psalms 119:49-72 (morning) 49, [53] (evening)
Ezra 6:1-22
Revelation 5:1-10
Matthew 13:10-17

OR, the readings for Sts. Simon and Jude, p. 1000
Morning Prayer: Psalm 66; Isaiah 28:9-16; Ephesians 4:1-16
Evening Prayer: Psalms 116, 117; Isaiah 4:2-6; John 14:15-31

I slept late today and didn't give myself time to write a reflection.
Here are the readings.

Lowell

The Journey of an Inch

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 45 (morning) 47, 48 (evening)
Ezra 5:1-17
Revelation 4:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9

We have two images of the interior life today.

The Revelation of John offers an image of the ideal spiritual landscape. John sees an open door and hears a voice, "Come up here..." He goes inward: "At once I was in the spirit." He comes to the center, to the throne of God. Everything is in perfect harmony around God's throne -- the twenty-four elders, the seven spirits of God, and the four living creatures. Heaven and earth, all creatures -- human and animal -- sing in harmony the eternal songs of praise. It is as it should be.

The Gospel of Matthew offers an image of the common spiritual landscape. Jesus describes a seed sower who has a strange process of agriculture. He broadcasts seeds extravagantly and abundantly across the landscape. The seed falls on different kinds of ground -- a path, rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil. In the good soil, the seed produces varying fruit, "some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."

Each of us in the complexity of our lives is that field. There are parts of us that have welcomed and nurtured what God has given us, what the Spirit has taught us. The welcome response produces good fruit. But our response is more ambiguous to other messages from God.

Where are the hard path places in our hearts, where we are defensive toward a new and more faithful way of living? How have we responded quickly to some call to wholeness and reconciliation, but failed to persevere and lost the edge and momentum of the vision? How have we been distracted or fearful or proud or greedy and let those lesser concerns block out the healthy response to God's calling? What have we embraced and made real of God's love?

At the center of our being, we are always one with God. God dwells in and with us at the core of our true self. Whenever we can let go of our attachment to the distractions of life, we naturally come to that place of union, like a rock drifting to the bottom of the sea. The experience of contemplative prayer fosters that union. Something like the images John sees is always present and alive in our deepest being.

Out of defensiveness and hurt, we all have created a false self landscape that blocks the free flow of the Spirit from deep within our lives. We've cut ourselves off, we are easily distracted, we lose our focus and center.

In her wonderful book "Wisdom Distilled from the Daily," Joan Chittister reflects on the Rule of Benedict and on Benedictine Spirituality. (The ethos of the Anglican Church is deeply Benedictine.) She says that "Benedictine spirituality requires all of us to go through life taking back one inch of the planet at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again."

That reclamation project is both inward and outward. The process of inward transformation is our spiritual journey toward holiness. The process of outward reconciliation is the planetary journey toward justice. It is all energized by divine love.

What part of the garden will we work today? How can I take an inch of my interior landscape, break the hard pan, till and fertilize, loosen and work it until it is fertile again? How can I take the inch of life that will be in front of me today to reclaim and work it on behalf of wholeness and health?

An inch a day. Doesn't seem like much does it? We can do it, an inch at a time.

Almost like an afterthought, a quote from the end of Graham Green's novel "The Power and the Glory" returns to me. It is the sudden realization that the whisky priest has as he awaits the hanging that will end his life. "It seemed to him at that moment that it would have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that there was only one thing that counted -- to be a saint."

A little self-restraint and a little courage, an inch at a time...

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Peace? No!

Monday, October 26, 2009 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One
Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, 899

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 41, 52 (morning) 44 (evening)
Zechariah 1:7-17
Revelation 1:4-20
Matthew 12:43-50

There is a problem with peace. At least there is a problem from the perspective of three of our readings today.

We interrupt our start in the Ezra-Nehemiah collection in order to read a dream vision from Zechariah. The vision fits chronologically with our reading in Ezra. The year is 519 BCE, the time of the building of the foundation of the Jerusalem Temple. Zechariah sees four horsemen, a heavenly patrol that watches over the world's affairs. (Four is a symbolic number meaning wholeness or totality.) The horsemen report, "We have patrolled the earth, and lo, the whole earth remains at peace." Sounds good, right? No!

The angel is angry that people are at ease while Jerusalem is in such ruin. The angel declares that God's time of judgment of Jerusalem is over, and that God has returned with compassion. The house of God will be rebuilt and "my cities shall again overflow with prosperity." It is a call for the world to shake off its attitude of comfort and presumption, and act with urgency to respond to the need of God's people.

We begin a journey today through selected sections of the book of Revelation for the next four weeks. John's vision is a vision of suffering and conflict, but the social context is peace and prosperity. Roman peace (Pax Romana) is exactly the problem that Revelation addresses. John warns the little Christian community not to be seduced by the glamour, luxury and imperial power of the Greco-Roman culture. All of that decadence and indulgence is the enemy which will be defeated by the triumphant Christ, who has "made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever."

And Matthew's gospel tells of someone who has cleaned up their act. They have repented and straightened up their life, emptied it and put it in order. For Matthew's theology, it is necessary to persevere in consistent action after you have repented. Not to do so could leave you in a worse condition. So, do not long for peace and quiet, says Matthew. Continue to persevere in discipleship, or "the last state of that person is worse than the first."

These messages and images are poignant reminders especially to us, first-world dwellers in a land of remarkable prosperity and imperial power. Zechariah would tell us today, "How dare you sit there in America, comfortable in your warm houses, when the Holy Land (and other lands) suffer and struggle so!" The book of Revelation could be written today for us, attacking the luxury, decadence and imperial power of the United States as today's Rome/Babylon. And Matthew's call to perseverance is always timely.

We want peace, yes, but not peace with injustice, or peace in the face of other's suffering. We want peace, yes, but not the peace that supports indulgence through abusive power. We want peace, yes, but not the passive withdrawal from consistent action. Peace that is true is peace that is inclusive, just, and active. Mississippian William A. Percy writes in the final verse of his great hymn (661), "The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing -- the marvelous peace of God."
____

This is one of those days when I deeply appreciate the annotations and scholarship of "The Access Bible" which I use for my daily readings. The editors do an especially fine bit of work interpreting the perplexing book of Revelation. The clarity and depth that they bring to just this one book is worth the price of the Bible.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Prayer, Foundations, and Spirit

Friday, October 23, 2009 -- Week of Proper 24, Year One
Saint James of Jerusalem, Brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Martyr, c. 62

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)
EITHER, the readings for Friday of Proper 24, p. 988
Psalms 31 (morning) 35 (evening)
Ezra 3:1-13
1 Corinthians 16:10-24
Matthew 12:22-32

OR, the readings for James of Jerusalem, p. 999
Morning Prayer: Psalms 119:145-168; Jeremiah 11:18-23; Matthew 10:16-22
Evening Prayer: Psalms 122, 125; Isaiah 65:17-25; Hebrews 12:12-24

I chose the readings for Friday of Proper 24

Chapters 3-6 of Ezra focus on the rebuilding of the Temple as the "house of God." It was simpler and more easily accomplished to build the building than it was to build the community as the "house of God." The latter took several generations. It is hard to date this material, but it probably is much earlier than 458 BCE when Ezra arrived.

Note the order of their work. They begin with worship. They set up the altar in the open, without foundations or walls, and they keep the ancient festival of booths, Sukkot, a fall harvest festival that remembers the days of Israel's sojourn in the wilderness. In some sense, the fragile community of returned exiles is like that earlier group, journeying to their home from the wilderness of exile. It is of first importance to them to establish a regular form of worship according to their traditions.

Some time later (around 519) they laid the foundations for the rebuilt Temple. There is an emotional response as they sing in a liturgy of praise. Sixty-eight years had passed since the former Temple had been destroyed. Yet there were some present who remembered that house, and the text says that "they wept with a loud voice when they saw this house." Commentators imply that their weeping was because this new Temple was smaller in size and less in grandeur than the Temple of Solomon. But the weeping over what was lost was drowned out by those who "shouted aloud for joy."

I know that whenever I move, one of the first things I try to establish is my regular discipline of prayer in the new place. When a new church community is founded, it typically begins with prayer and worship, and only later starts to build its building. When a child is born into a Christian family, we typically baptize the child, incorporating the infant into the Body of Christ and our prayers, and then the family and church work together to raise that child up in the Christian faith and life, into a holy temple. We begin with prayer as the foundation of the building of God's house.

In our reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he is closing his epistle with some final greetings. Yesterday he reminded them of his important mission of stewardship, the outreach collection for the struggling congregation in Jerusalem. He expects them to contribute to that work every week so that the collection will be finished by the time he returns. He commends Timothy and Apollos, the household of Stephanas along with other colleagues Fortunatus and Achaicus.

We also have a woman's name in the list, Prisca (Priscilla) and her husband Aquila, who lead a house church as they travel with Paul in Ephesus. It appears that they helped Paul found the congregation in Corinth and continued to travel with him. Acts 18 mentions that when Apollos came to Ephesus teaching boldly of Christ, though he knew only the baptism of John, the couple took him aside and "explained the Way of God more accurately." Prisca and Aquila are among the earliest theologians of the church. At the end of Paul's letter to the Romans, he again sends them greetings, and in those acknowledgments includes thanks to another woman, Junia, his companion and fellow apostle.

The evidence is strong that women in Paul's churches taught, led prayers, hosted congregations, and held high authority in the community. A couple of generations later, the writers of the letters attributed to Timothy and Titus expressed discomfort with this egalitarian tradition (which also seems characteristic of Jesus' company). The church lost one of its early graces, and diminished the ministry of women. It has taken centuries to reclaim that heritage, and even now, the Roman Catholic Church has announced it will welcome Anglicans who are more like Timothy and Titus than like Paul and Jesus.

At the end of the reading from Matthew today there is a passage that has troubled many and lacks definitive interpretation. The gospel speaks of the terrible consequences of blasphemy against the Spirit. I don't know what that means either, but in the context, it seems to mean something like failing to recognize God's power in the work of the Spirit. At an early time in our history we failed to recognize God's Spirit at work in the leadership and ministry of Christian women, and the church has suffered terrible consequences indeed. The Spirit is unpredictable and blows where she will. When we fail to recognize her, we lose some things that cannot be completely recovered.

A fun morning. From grounding prayers to laying foundations to foundational leaders and the eternal creative work of the Spirit. May this day follow such a pattern: prayer, foundations, servant leadership and always, God's Spirit to empower us.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Intro to Ezra-Nehemiah

Thursday, October 22, 2009 -- Week of Proper 24, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 988)
Psalms 37:1-18 (morning) 37:19-42 (evening)
Ezra 1:1-11
1 Corinthians 16:1-9
Matthew 12:15-21

Today we begin reading Ezra-Nehemiah for the next few weeks. Some background info is in order.

It is best to read Ezra-Nehemiah not so much as an historical narrative, but more as an historical apologetic. This work's intention is to defend a particular theological (and therefore political) perspective. Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the governor are both historical figures and literary figures. They work to rebuild the "house of God." The house of God is a major metaphor throughout the readings as they rebuild the physical structure of the Jerusalem Temple, as well as the renewed community in Judah, and finally the walls of Jerusalem. These walls also have a cultural effect to separate the Jews from the surrounding tribes and religions. The community as the house of God is being redefined.

Ezra and Nehemiah both carry out the policy of the Persian Empire and do so under Persian authority. The Persians used a fascinating technique to control their subject populations. The Persians maintained control of their conquered regions by controlling access to the farm land. Their emissaries were charged with maintaining order in agriculture, and a big part of that was securing stability in land ownership, defining the boundaries and access to lands.

The biggest threat to land boundaries was the presence of neighboring tribes. As long as the tribes stayed within their borders, passing on their ancestral lands from generation to generation, the goal of agricultural stability was maintained. But if families from different tribes intermarried, the definitions about who had access to which lands blurred.

Therefore the Persians enforced a strict policy against intermarriage between the tribes in their conquered territories. They authorized officials such as Ezra and Nehemiah to enforce their restriction on tribal intermarriage, in order to control access to the farmland and maintain order in the empire. You might say that Persia was the first agricultural multinational. The Persians also promoted the traditional religious practices of each region as an additional strategy for keeping distinct boundaries between the conquered nations. They used religious and governmental agencies to maintain separate territories based on tribal definitions to secure orderly access to the lands. The Persian ethnic cleansing policy pursued by Ezra and Nehemiah met with resistance among Jewish families who were already related to the neighboring tribes. Their policy and was seen as a direct threat to many married inter-tribal couples. The book of Ruth is a form of protest literature directed at the policies of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The fifth century BCE was a century of war and conflict for the great empire of Persia (modern Iran). There was a series of battles with Greece, and there were two rebellions by Egypt. A major Egyptian rebellion in the 460's made the region around Jerusalem strategically important.

Let's talk dates. Jerusalem was conquered and her people sent into exile by Babylon in 587 BCE. Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonians in 539 BCE, and Cyrus issued his Edict of Restoration for Israel (our reading today from Ezra 1) at that time. The important leader Ataxerxes I ruled Persia from 465 to 424 (Nehemiah was his cupbearer). Egypt rebelled against Persia in 460, provoking a six year war. Ezra came to Jerusalem in 458 BCE, and Nehemiah's first stint as governor as in 445. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah was written around 400 BCE.

During these days Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are writing great plays in Athens. Athens is attempting to become an empire competing against Persia and Sparta. The Great Canal begins in China and Buddha dies in India in the 480's; Confucius dies in 479. Socrates is born in 469; Pericles leads Athens 461-429 as philosophy and science bloom. The next century will bring us Alexander the Great and Republic of Rome is rising.

For the next few weeks we'll live with the sometimes petty, often whiny, challenging work of Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. There will be intrigue and drama, faithfulness and racism, politics and prayer. These leaders did it their way (also the Persian way), and the books in their names offer their contemporaries an historical and theological defense of their acts and offer us a wonderful peek at a troubled time.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Lamentations

Wednesday, October 21, 2001 -- Week of Proper 24, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 988)
Psalms 38 (morning) 119:25-48 (evening)
Lamentations 2:8-15
1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Matthew 12:1-14

While reading the passage from Lamentations my mind went to the pictures that all of us have seen of the suffering of people in violent and war-torn places. The pictures of mothers holding a dying child in their arms. Of refugees walking with stunned faces with nothing but what they can carry from their ruined homes. Of fires and smoke and bodies where a living community used to be. Of the obscene angle of naked bodies blown apart by ordinance. Of the forlorn look in the face of an abandoned orphan.

"My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city."

These words of Lamentations date from around 586 BCE. In almost 2,700 years of human civilization we have not learned enough to heal these images. They are as new as today's news. In Sudan and Chad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere, violence and disaster bring ruin, horror and starvation to millions today just as in Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE. "The infants and babes... faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom."

One feels a certain helplessness in the face of it all. Yet the demand of those eyes that look at us through the camera images is unyielding; the poetry of Lamentations is insistent. What can we do to make a compassionate response? How can we hold them in our heart, in God's heart? How can we offer our resources to respond to their need?

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Spiritual Beings

Monday, October 19, 2009 -- Week of Proper 24, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 988)
Psalms 26, 28 (morning) 36, 39 (evening)
Lamentations 1:1-5(6-9)10-12
1 Corinthians 15:41-50
Matthew 11:25-30

In Lamentations we are given an image of profound catastrophe and suffering. The city and nation has been destroyed. Life is grievously bitter.

Paul offers a vision through the suffering. He is one who has suffered greatly, yet he lives with courageous hope based on the resurrection (see yesterday's Morning Reflection). He comments on the dual nature of our being: We are mortal, perishable, and dust. We are also immortal, imperishable, spiritual beings. Just as we became human beings through Adam, we have become spiritual beings through Jesus. "If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body," he says.

In our reading from Matthew, Jesus invites us to live in the energy of the reality of our spiritual identity, especially in our experience of suffering and trials. "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

Our deepest reality is that we are God's beloved. At the center of our being, we are always one with God. Our spiritual body is eternally united with Christ. In Christ's spiritual embrace we are beloved, accepted, and whole. Jesus invites us to rest in that primary identity. Let spirit carry gently what dust imposes heavily. We are human beings, not human doings. Jesus invites us into the freedom and lightness that is our inheritance as spiritual beings: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

"I die every day!"

Monday, October 19, 2009 -- Week of Proper 24, Year One
William Carey, Missionary to India, 1834

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 988)
Psalms 25 (morning) 9, 15 (evening)
Jeremiah 44:1-14
1 Corinthians 15:30-41
Matthew 11:16-24

"I die every day!"

Paul's remarkable courage is manifest in many places in his letters and in the Acts of the Apostles. He frequently faced life threatening situations. He mentions one of those today -- "If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus,what would I have gained by it?" His letters are full of potentially demoralizing conflicts that he addresses among his churches. He lived a difficult life, full of conflict and threat.

There is something about his trust in Christ's power of resurrection that allowed him to face all of this with profound courage. "I die every day!" he says.

His courage was enabled by his detachment. He trusted the power of Christ in his life -- the power of life over death. He trusted Christ so much, that he could let go of everything. He could let go of the results of conflicts about things important to him, and even his own existence. By clinging to nothing except a fierce trust in God's activity revealed in Christ, he was free. Nothing could really threaten him. Not animals in an amphitheater, not a storm at sea capsizing his ship, not church fights that threaten to split the congregation he had founded. He was able to let go of his attachment to all of that, trusting in Christ's power of resurrection to bring about new life regardless of what the circumstances might be. He was bulletproof. Not a bad way to live.

Not a bad way to start each day. What would it take to die every day? What would it take to die every morning? ...to let go of attachment and anxiety about everything, including one's own being, and march into the day confident that God will bring the power of resurrection to whatever comes? That's the source of Paul's courage. We are given the same source for our own lives as well.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Ebed-melech

Friday, October 16, 2009 -- Week of Proper 23, Year One
Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, Bishops and Maryrs, 1555

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 988)
I got a bit confused today. After I finished my reading and Morning Reflection, I realized I was using yesterday's Daily Office Lections. Here are Today's assigned readings. Below that, the readings that I used from yesterday.

Friday's Readings:
Psalms 16, 17 (morning) 22 (evening)
Jeremiah 38:14-28
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Matthew 11:1-6

Thursday's Readings that are the basis of my Reflection:
Psalms 18:1-20 (morning) 18:21-15 (evening)
Jeremiah 38:1-13
1 Corinthians 14:26-33a, 37-40
Matthew 10:34-42

[Note: It's good to be back from our trip to China. We got in last night. We had a great trip. It was good to see Gray, and China is a fascinating place. I'm not sure what time my body-clock thinks it is, but it is certainly wonderful to be home.]

What a dramatic story we have from Jeremiah today. We are in the early 6th century BCE. Zedekiah became King in 597 BCE, appointed as a tributary by the Babylonian (Chaldean) Nebuchadnezzar II who had captured Jerusalem, deposed and exiled King Jehoiachin following a brief siege. Zedekiah was a strong leader. He sought to release Judah from the crippling tribute imposed by the Babylonians, entering an alliance with the Pharaoh Hopra of Egypt. That alliance became the official policy of Judah, and provoked a second and completely devastating 30 month siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which ended in the city's complete destruction and exile.

Jeremiah opposed King Zedekiah's policies. He warned against an Egyptian alliance and counseled surrender and complete vassalage to Babylon. In the name of the Lord, Jeremiah urged all Jerusalem's citizens to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, to leave the city and to abandon the King's military strategy. Jeremiah's words were about as welcome as the words of so many church leaders during our former administration's pursuit of war against Iraq in 2002-3.

We read today how three powerful Jerusalem leaders reacted to Jeremiah's un-patriotic counsel: "This man ought to be put to death, because he is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, and all the people, by speaking such words to them." In a passive aggressive action (with "plausible deniability," to recover a phrase from the Nixon days), Zedekiah acts as though he cannot control the patriotic fervor of these three leaders, and looks the other way as they conspire to silence Jeremiah. They will not actively murder him, but they lower him into the mud of a dry cistern to die of thirst and exposure.

But there is a righteous voice who speaks up courageously. He is a foreigner -- an African from Ethiopia. He is Ebed-melech, one of the king's officials, a eunuch. He speaks to the king's conscience and effects a rescue for Jeremiah.

The prophet Jeremiah will continue his anti-war counsel and remain in the middle of a fierce political and military conflict until Jerusalem is overthrown. Thank God for prophets who speak truth to power. It can be a dark and lonely ministry. But the prophet's calling is to speak God's word to the present moment. Christian prophets speak the word of Jesus to power -- applying the fundamental values of Jesus in the public forum: love, compassion and justice.

Today's gospel reading from Matthew speaks of the inevitable conflict that discipleship often provokes. Living in the spirit of Jesus means making love, compassion and justice more important than anything else. Faithfulness to the example of Jesus is even more important than one's family loyalties, we read in the gospel for today. More important than family, nation or self-interest.

Ultimately following the way of Jesus -- the way of love, compassion and justice -- is the most authentic way to be loyal to family and nation, it is the most authentic way to be your true self and to act in accord with your deepest self-interest. But power and fear and ego will challenge the values of Jesus. Jesus promises great reward to any who follow faithfully -- divine hospitality, the reward of the prophet, the reward of the righteous, the reward of the compassionate (vs. 40-42)

Twenty-six hundred years after his life, we remember Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch of the tragic court of a sixth-century BCE Judean king. His "cup of cold water," the compassionate rescue of a prophet who was saying uncomfortable things that seemed threatening to a threatened nation, is remembered in the reading of millions of people today who follow the Daily Office. We hear how Ebed-melech had the courage to speak an unpopular word to power and to act out of love, justice, and compassion on behalf of a prophet during an extreme moment of a nation's history. Ebed-melech receives the prophet's reward, the reward of the righteous, the reward of the compassionate, and we celebrate his example of divine hospitality as inspiration for us to act with similar virtue in our day.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Knowledge and Love

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 -- Week of Proper 21, Year One
Jerome, Priest and Monk of Bethlehem, 420

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 986)
Psalms 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 (morning) 119:121-144 (evening)
2 Kings 18:9-25
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Matthew 7:13-21

I leave in the morning tomorrow for a trip to visit my son Gray in China. I'll be away for a couple of weeks. I'll send emails daily through an automatic program to pass along the Daily Office readings. But I won't have cell phone or computer there. (I don't have a way to send the readings to my blog. But the Office is always on line at www.missionstclare.com)

"Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him."

Scientists know that as researchers solve one mystery or problem in the quest for full understanding, new questions always emerge. Knowledge is a receding horizon.

Even what we think we know is always open to amendment and reinterpretation. I think I can recall the quote correctly: A friend of mine tells about something that one of his professors always says to the incoming class at Medical School. "Half of what you learn here will be obsolete by the time you finish your practice. We just don't know which half."

Knowledge is a good thing, a share of the truth. But we must always hold our knowledge with humility. There is always more to learn. What we know is always subject to change. Although the accumulation of great knowledge is a privileged exercise that often gives certain privilege to the knower, it is best held humbly.

But love is available in abundant depth to all. God is love, and God is pouring love upon us constantly. Whenever we respond to love in any degree, we are living in divine energy. When we love, we know God and God knows us.

I used to direct summer camps for mentally challenged adults. I was often awed by their love and courage. I knew people in that camp who had very limited capacity for knowledge, who would never be able to graduate from high school or understand a theology text. But they had a deep capacity for love and an open appreciation of life. They were profoundly in touch with mystery, and they knew God. I could tell that many of my friends at that camp had a much more intimate and developed relationship with God than I did. My thoughts and my complicated inhibitions blocked me from what they could run to with abandon. You do not have to have a high IQ or graduate degrees to love.

Killian Noe runs a recovery program for urban addicts in Washington, D.C., at the Church of the Savior. She is fond of saying to people whose lives have descended into the depths of bondage and despair, "No one is ever too far gone to find their way home." She welcomes addicted street prostitutes into a residential community that is grounded in spiritual principles and supports spiritual practices like Centering Prayer to help addicts find their way home. Graduates from her program have a remarkable 96% drug free rate.

At the heart of the spiritual principles that they teach at the Church of the Savior is this from Killian Noe: "What is most true about each of us is that we are loved, and that God's love abides in us, just as surely as a peach pit is at the core of every peach, love is at the core of every human being."

Love is foundational. It is the core of our being. At the center of our being is love. It is God's love, God's presence. Loving us into being. That is the most important and most true thing about us.

Love is ubiquitous. Everyone has access to love; everyone has capacity to love. Love builds up.

What if we worked as hard and practiced as hard to learn love and tp apply love as we work and practice to gain knowledge? For knowledge I went to school full time for over sixteen years. What if I had spent as many years working full time for love.

In a way we do live and work and study love full time, always. That's another way of describing life. When we are conscious of love, we are aware that we are God's beloved. When we are unconscious of love, we are still being loved into being, we are still God's beloved -- we are just asleep to reality.

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." The problems of our generation will be solved most truly by love more than by knowledge. And every one of us has abundant access to love, abundant capacity for love. So, let us love one another as Christ has taught us.

Lowell
___________

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Whales and Glory

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 -- Week of Proper 21, Year One
Saint Michael and All Angels

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)

EITHER the readings for Tuesday of Proper 21, p. 986)
Psalms 89:1-18 (morning) 89:19-52 (evening)
2 Kings 17:24-41
1 Corinthians 7:25-31
Matthew 6:25-34

OR the readings for St. Michael and All Angels, p. 999
Morning Prayer: Psalms 9, 148; Job 38:1-7; Hebrews 1:1-14
Evening Prayer: Psalms 34, 150 or 104
Daniel 12:1-13 or 2 Kings 6:8-17
Mark 13:21-27 or Revelation 5:1-14

I chose the readings for St. Michael and All Angels

I woke up with a vivid memory of a dream. So I wrote that before doing my reading and Morning Reflection. The dream was about seeing and encountering some whales. One whale -- a smaller, pale green one -- came up to the beach and let me snuggle it, putting its snout into my arm and shoulder socket and letting me hold it, lying on the sand. Another -- a larger, round rainbow colored one -- rolled over me a couple of times on the beach. There were lots of whales all around, and a local told about a place nearby where there were even more, very large whales. He had dived with them.

So Psalm 148 with its praise of God's creation resounded with special vividness as I read it. "Alleluia! Praise God from the heavens; sing praise in the heights. Praise God, all you angels; sing praise, all the heavenly host. Praise God, sun and moon; sing praise all you shining stars. ...Praise God from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps..."

And the Job reading is the beginning of God's answer to Job from the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? ...Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?..."

I know I have often read this and felt some of the sense of terror and intimidation (maybe even bullying) that I might imagine Job experiencing. But after the dream with the whales, it was a delightful speech, a glorious and wonderful manifestation of God's loving glory and God's care for the creation. I kept reading beyond verse 7. "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? -- when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?" And I was back on the beach in my dream, marveling in the wonder of the sea, it's boundaries and the wonderful frolic of the whales. (One of Kathy's favorite verses is "...and there is that Leviathan whom you made for the sport of it." Psalm 104:26)

And the opening of Hebrews speaks in joyful celebration of the incarnation of God's Son. "He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word." The Son is greater than the angels, says the author of Hebrews. "For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you'?"

We have been made one with the Son. We too are heirs of Christ and children of God. We have been raised to the intimacy and glory of the divine. God invites us to share the divine life and fellowship, and God's Spirit dwells in us. We share the power of the sustaining word. We are frolicking with whales, singing with the angels, blown wonderfully by the whirlwind, sharing in God's delight and creativity. It is God's gift to us to be friends of God, children of God, heirs of God, incarnations of Christ's Body, filled with the Spirit and made one with the divine. That's one whale of a life God gives us.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Three Good Readings

Monday, September 28, 2009 -- Week of Proper 21, Year One
Sergius, Abbot of Holy Trinity, Moscow, 1392

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 986)
Psalms 89:1-18 (morning) 89:19-52 (evening)
2 Kings 17:24-41
1 Corinthians 7:25-31
Matthew 6:25-34

This is one of those days when all three of the readings seem particularly stimulating to me.

In 2 Kings we see some of the origin of the bitter animosity between Jews and Samaritans that we see reflected several places in the Gospels. It is a sad story. The northern kingdom of Israel was invaded and defeated by Assyria. The capital city Samaria held out under siege for three years. Imagine the courage and suffering behind that story.

Then the Assyrians deported the people of Israel to cities near the Assyrian homeland and resettled captives from other lands into Israel. When lions began threatening the settlers, the Assyrians retrieved one of the exiled priests and returned him to the shrine at Bethel to placate "the god of the land," as the Assyrians referred to the God of Israel. The Jewish priest "taught (the settlers) how they should worship the Lord." But those who had been exiled into Israel also brought their own religious customs and worship with them. The deuteronomic editor concludes, "So they worshiped the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away."

It seems that another Biblical editor disagreed with the deuteronomic editor. "They do not worship the Lord and they do not follow the statues or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel." The section 34b-40 stands out as an insertion from a later scribe who had more stringent views about the heresy of the Samaritans than did the deuteronomic author. In verse 41 we return to the familiar voice of the deuteronomic editor: "So these nations worshiped the Lord, but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children's children continue to do as their ancestors did."

By the time of Jesus, the animosity between Samaritans and Jews was bitter and extreme. Yet Jesus reached out compassionately, visiting with a Samaritan woman at a well and offering her living water, and telling a parable using the generosity of a Samaritan to illustrate our responsibility to our neighbor. Jesus' example is illustrative today as a guide for us as some Americans are reacting with considerable prejudice against our Abrahamic brothers and sisters who practice Islam.
__________

Paul's quip that "those who marry will experience distress in this life" is often quoted in mirth. But the passage we read today is a good example of an interim ethic. Expecting the imminent return of Jesus and its accompanying social and cosmic upheaval, Paul has a sense of urgency that changes relationships -- domestic, personal, and economic. "For the present form of this world is passing away."

One of the biggest challenges of the early church was the growing delay of the expected return of the Lord. We see the church's adaptation as we move from Paul's early letters, influenced by immediate expectations of a climactic return, and the later letters of the Pastoral epistles -- 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus -- more concerned with establishing long-lasting systems.

There are some Christians who combine an expectation of the second coming with the command in Genesis to have dominion over the earth as a justification for a fundamentally exploitative attitude toward the environment. They ignore the New Testament images that insist that Jesus' return is to the earth and his call is for an earthly reign of justice and peace. Christians who pursue a more Biblically grounded tradition of stewardship for the earth, for the earth is the Lord's, have been troubled by politicians like the Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt and by Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin ("drill, baby, drill") who seem to follow an interim ethic -- use and abuse the earth; Jesus is coming soon and he'll destroy it anyway. Happily for the future of the church, early Christians did not universally follow Paul's advice, or there would not have been another generation of Christians to continue the faith.
__________

Well, I've used up most of my time and words, but the best reading was today's Gospel. "Do not worry about your life..." "Look at the bird of the air..." "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

The day is starting. Time to relax.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Sex Talk

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 -- Week of Proper 20, Year One
Philander Chase, Bishop of Ohio, and of Illinois, 1852

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 984)
Psalms 78:1-39 (morning) 78:40-72 (evening)
2 Kings 5:19-27
1 Corinthians 5:1-8
Matthew 5:27-37

Although the essence of Paul's theology is that in Christ we are freed from the anxiety of trying to live up to the commandments of the law, he consistently demands faithfulness in sexual relationships. There is something profound and vulnerable about the particular love that is expressed through physical intimacy. Paul expects those who live in Christ to protect such intimacy within the bonds of exclusive faithfulness. In today's reading he scolds the congregation in Corinth because they have tolerated a sexual scandal. He expects them to act to correct an incestuous relationship. The health of the congregation and the wholeness of the offender are both at stake, he says.

We hear Jesus address a similar issue in Matthew's account today. Part of Jesus' expectation is the guarding of the mind and the imagination. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." That has been a disheartening verse since adolescence for me.

In my sermon Sunday, I talked about how we distort and exaggerate simple emotions by adding our commentary and tapes to create inflated and sometimes overwhelming emotional states. Feelings just are. Emotions happen. Deep in our DNA is an appreciation for beauty and the corresponding energy of sexual attraction. We can simply observe the emotion of sexual energy that arises from deep within, below our consciousness of choice.

But we don't have to act on any of our emotions. We can simply observe them. In Jesus' language, we may look at a woman and be moved. If we simply observe that, with a bit of appreciation for the wonder of beauty, all is well. But if we add to that simple emotion the extra energy of lustful imagination, and if we begin to "commit adultery with her in our heart," we have violated that person's dignity and created a potentially dangerous temptation in our soul.

Jesus uses exaggerated language to urge us to guard our thoughts and actions. Do not let the imagination of even one eye or the sideways act of one hand lead you into danger. Or as my roommate Bubba used to say when he saw me beginning to launch into an opinionated tirade, "Nip it! Nip it in the bud."

Paul uses the metaphor of leaven. Traditionally yeast is an image of corruption. "A little yeast leavens the whole batch." It doesn't take much contamination to defile or dishonor something good and pure. Paul uses the imagery of Passover. "Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened."

The thought of Passover, and the Passover duty of removing all leaven from the household, moves Paul to a memorable phrase that has found its way into centuries of liturgy. "For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

Sincerity and truth. That is an antidote to our afflictive emotional temptations. If we are sincere and singularly dedicated to the truth, we will guard our eyes and thoughts and hands.

Matthew ends with a similar sentiment. Jesus tells his disciples, "Let your word be, 'Yes, Yes,' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one." Sounds simple. Sincerity and truth. A simple "Yes" or "No." When we get much more complicated, we usually start rationalizing. That's often the path to catastrophe.

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas