The Desire for God

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 -- Week of Proper 17, Year Two
Aidan and Cuthbert, Bishops of Lindisfarne, 651, 687
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 983)
Psalms 26, 28 (morning)       36, 39 (evening)
Job 12:1, 13:3-17, 21-27
Acts 12:1-17
John 8:33-47

There is something in the quality of Job's anguished cry for God in today's reading that reminds me of the passion of the mystics.  He dismisses his friends and turns his gaze solely toward God.  He faces God with fearlessness.  He demands that God release the divine punishing gaze from him.  He tells God to call and Job will answer.  Job willingly faces his own reality under the divine gaze, willing to see his fault, should there be any.  His deepest anguish is his desire for God.  He will see God, whether God be blessing or annihilation for him.

These sentiments reminded me of a poem or prayer that I had heard from St. Teresa of Avila, so I went to the Internet to see if I could find what I was thinking of.  I'm not sure I did, but I found this poem of hers that speaks of the passionate search for God.

If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong
As this which binds me unto thee,
What holds me from thee Lord so long,
What holds thee Lord so long from me?
O soul, what then desirest thou?
Lord I would see thee, who thus choose thee.

What fears can yet assail thee now?
All that I fear is but lose thee.
Love's whole possession I entreat,
Lord make my soul thine own abode,
And I will build a nest so sweet
It may not be too poor for God.

A soul in God hidden from sin,
What more desires for thee remain,
Save but to love again,
And all on flame with love within,
Love on, and turn to love again.

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

Victimizing the Victim

Monday, August 30, 2010 -- Week of Proper 17, Year Two
Charles Chapman Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac, and Ecumenist, 1912
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 983)
Psalms 25 (morning)       9, 15 (evening)
Job 12:1-6, 13-25
Acts 11:19-30
John 8:21-32

A major theme of the book of Job is to challenge the conventional theology which makes a divine connection between good fortune and misfortune in this world.  Job confronts the enduring certainties that reward is a sign of God's blessing and suffering is a sign of God's curse.

Job appears cursed because of his extreme suffering.  Job declares his innocence and names his suffering as unjust.  His friends throw the book at him, declaring that God punishes only the guilty and rewards only the righteous.  God is just and Job is obviously guilty, they insist.

In today's passage, Job lets them know he understands their theology, "I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you.  Who does not know such things as these?" 

Then Job accuses his friends of victimizing the victim.  "I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called upon God and he answered me, a just and blameless man, I am a laughingstock.  Those at ease have contempt for misfortune, but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable."

Job's friends still speak in our society. 

There is the silly variety, the gospel of prosperity.  Thousands fill a stadium in Houston to hear Joel Osteen do a comfortable and entertaining spin on the message of Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz. 

There is a darker message from Job's friends also.  We have a tendency to victimize the victim.  We see people suffering and we tend to think that they have brought this on themselves in some way.  We tend to ignore their suffering, or sometimes, add to it.

In our area, there are several hundred children whose parents brought them into the U.S.  The parents hoped for a better future -- good jobs, a safer community.  They found that here, and they went to work for themselves and their families.  They would have liked to have immigrated legally, but that's impossible.  There are visas for only a few.  The wait for legal immigration is more than 15 years.  Children get hungry every day. 

At a young age many children were brought from another country to our community.  They grow up in our schools, play sports, sing songs, make friends, and have normal lives.  Their parents work in our poultry and hospitality industries, in construction and service.  Most of their parents have income taxes and Social Security taxes withheld, but they don't file for refunds and they don't accrue years of credited service.  Their children grow up speaking English and making friends.  Some of them become fine scholars and noted athletes or musicians, and we a proud of their accomplishments.  Until they want to go the the University of Arkansas.  Then we tell them, you are not from here.  Your parents brought you here illegally.  You'll have to pay out-of-state or international tuition rates.  Most of their hard-working families can't afford the higher tuition.  We tell them, even though you may be an outstanding scholar, you can't qualify for the scholarships that your friends can.  Even if you can pay the higher tuition, come to the university and graduate top in your class, you can't work here once you graduate. 

The other day I read about a young man who grew up here.  He was in his final semester in the U. of A.'s architecture program.  But he can't apply for a job here in the U.S.  He's going have to move to Mexico, taking with him the skills and wisdom he acquired here.  He knows few people in Mexico.  He wants to work here.  But because his family brought him here without papers when he was a child, he will have to leave his friends and home here where he grew up.

Victimizing the victim. 

Job knows about that.  The ghettos know about that.  So does the Delta.  So do people of color.  Some people with diseases can tell you of the isolation.  There are few grocery stores in the ninth ward of New Orleans. 

There is a better way.  The way of compassion.  We have a small illustration of that in the Acts of the Apostles today.  When the prophet "Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world," Saul, Barnabas, and the other Christians in Antioch "determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea."  They could have just hunkered down and saved their own food.  They might have even said from their comfort that God sent the famine as a judgment, like some Christians said of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. 

How can we resist the temptation to blame the victim, to re-victimize the victim?  Compassion and empathy is the key.  

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

Lawsuits and Trials

Friday, August 27, 2010 -- Week of Proper 16, Year Two
Thomas Gallaudet with Henry Winter Syle, 1902, 1890
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 16, 17 (morning)       22 (evening)
Job 9:1-15, 32-35
Acts 10:34-48
John 7:37-52

Lawsuits, witnesses and trials are themes of our readings today.

Job responds to his friends' statements.  They have extolled God's justice.  Job asks, How can I know God's justice?  A human being cannot take God to court to administer justice.

Job asserts his innocence, but he has no court where he could be acquitted or found guilty.  God is too great; God does not respond to human subpoena.  "Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him.  ...For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.  There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.  If he would take his rod away from me, and not let dread of him terrify me, then I would speak without fear of him..."

I remember a class my freshman year in college.  A teacher asked a room full of Bible Belt students about God.  "God is all powerful, isn't that right students?  Omnipotent?"  Yes, we nodded our heads.  "And God is good, isn't that right students?  Infinitely loving and good?"  Yes, we nodded our heads.  "Well then students, why is there evil in the world?  Either God is all powerful and not good enough to do something to prevent evil, or God is infinitely good, but not powerful enough to prevent evil, especially when an innocent, like a defenseless child, suffers terribly."  Like Job, she wanted to take God to court and make accusation on behalf of all of the innocent who suffer.

The real trial that day was the one that opened inside each of us as students.  I became an agnostic that day.  In some sense, I put God on trial too, until I could answer that terrifying question to my satisfaction.

We resume today with Peter's visit to the unclean Gentile Cornelius and his family.  Peter tells a story of an innocent suffering.  He tells of Jesus of Nazareth and how God anointed Jesus "with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  ...They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day..."  Peter testifies to God's ultimate presence with us as innocent suffering.  "God did not abolish the fact of evil.  He transformed it.  He did not stop the crucifixion.  He rose from the dead."  (Dorothy Sayers)

Suddenly, with that word, Peter recognizes that the Holy Spirit is fully manifested with and in Cornelius and his Gentile companions.  Peter's verdict is instantaneous and decisive.  "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"  They are baptized into the Body of Christ.  Immediate and complete acquittal.  (One might wish for Peter to be a witness in the upcoming trial about gay marriage.)

One more trial.  Jesus invites anyone who is thirsty to drink of the Spirit.  Abundance freely offered to all.  So many respond gratefully.  There really is love and life, grace and abundance from God.  But others stay in their ghetto of literalism.  The Messiah is to be from David's family, from Bethlehem -- not Nazareth.  Some want to arrest him.  Nicodemus, one of the influential ones, asserts the right of legal process.  "Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?"  He's right, of course.  But some minds are already made up.  "Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you?  Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee."  Case closed.

My mind goes to all of the lawsuits and arguments and trials today.  So many are choices between life and death, acceptance and rejection, inclusion and exclusion, love and meanness, abundance and scarcity, graciousness and bigotry.  Our culture is full of conflicts and trials -- about Muslims, immigrants, gays, the poor, the environment, the uninsured.  There is so much suffering, and so much meanness. 

Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.  Muslims are our enemy; immigrants are criminals; gays are immoral; the poor are a blight; the environment is to exploit; the uninsured don't matter.  Can anyone take these things to court and find justice?

God did not abolish the fact of evil.  God transformed it.  Some of us recognize the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our neighbors who are Muslim, immigrants, gay, poor, and uninsured and we wish to honor God's presence in nature.  Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?

Will we walk the way of life and light, or the way of Job's friends and Jesus' enemies?  Judge for yourselves.

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

Funeral Words

Thursday, August 26, 2010 -- Week of Proper 16, Year Two

To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 18:1-20 (morning)       18:21-50 (evening)
Job 8:1-10, 20-22
Acts 10:17-33
John 7:14-36

I remember catching my breath at the funeral home.  I was standing near the grieving parent.  Her beautiful little child was in the casket.  A well intentioned neighbor smiling confidently, spoke encouragingly to the parent.  "I guess God just needed her more than you did.  Now there's another beautiful little voice in the angels' choir." 

The parent's face registered a quiet shock.  Chemicals roared in my brain. "Why would she say something thoughtless and stupid like that?"  The parent looked down and away.  It took but a second.  After quickly becoming composed, the parent recognized the good intent behind the vapid words, smiled, and said with genuine warmth, "Thank you so much for coming." 

Sometimes we get peeks at sanctity.

Bildad the Shuhite means well.  He's just heard Job challenge God over the extremity of his suffering.  This kind of thinking is false and will only amplify Job's troubles, Bildad thinks.  God does not pervert justice.  God upholds justice.  Job, your children died tragically.  This is the consequence of their sin.  If you will be upright and righteous, God "will rouse himself for you...  See, God will not reject a blameless person, nor take the hand of evildoers.  He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, ...and the tent of the wicked will be no more." 

The woman who spoke to that grieving parent was probably just repeating something she heard at church.  She meant it to be comforting.  She believes in a God who does right by people. 

Bildad the Shuhite was just repeating what he had read in scripture or been taught in by conventional his religion or philosophy.  It's the same theology that we hear in today's readings from Psalm 18.  God is just.  God upholds the innocent.  God punishes the guilty. 

But it doesn't always work out that way.

Jesus shows us God's deepest revelation -- God's most intimate and powerful presence.  It is the image of an innocent man tortured and dying on a cross while all of the authorities of religion and state name him as blasphemer and traitor.  This is where God is, Jesus shows us.

All of those certainties of right and wrong, sacred and profane, presence and absence, blessed and cursed, reward and punishment are qualified before the inscrutable mystery of God. 

Thank God that Peter wasn't too attached to what he had been taught about such things.  Like every good student of the Torah, he knew about God's blessing and curse, about what is clean and profane, right and wrong, blessed and cursed.  But he paid attention to a vision that came to him in a noonday trance.  Clean and profane animals descended to the ground, and a voice told him to get up, kill and eat.  "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean."  The voice challenged him, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."  The vision happened three times.

Just then strangers arrived at Peter's gate.  They were sent by one of the unclean, a Roman centurion named Cornelius.  Peter joined the strangers.  He will be tested.  He will see something inconceivable to a pious, observant Jew.  He will see the manifestation of God's spirit among those whom his scripture and his tradition tell him are unclean.  He will obey the new vision rather than the old interpretation.  Peter tells the strangers, "You yourself know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean."

Peter knows he will have a fight on his hands with all of his friends who hold to the tradition.  They will tell him what God has taught them for centuries.  They will uphold God's justice and judgment.  Peter will be challenged to defend what he has experienced as his friends throw the Book at him.  But Peter will stand by his vision.

I am reminded of another vision and another funeral.  A young man, Alan, son of an observant Baptist family, his uncle the pastor of their church.  With his parents at his hospital bed, he stopped breathing.  The nurse checked his pulse, shook her head, closed his eyelids and went for the doctor.  A few minutes later Alan bolted up from the bed.  "Mom, Dad.  I've just seen Jesus.  Call my brothers and sisters."  He told of visiting with Jesus in a beautiful field and asking to come back to say good-bye to his family.  A few hours later, after those good-byes, he died peacefully.  It was a holy death.

His vision and his holy death was important and healing for his family.  Alan was gay, and he died of AIDS.  They had been worried about him for they believed his sexual orientation to be sinful, unclean, cursed and subject to God's eternal judgment.  Preaching at the funeral, his uncle didn't mention that Alan was gay, didn't mention that AIDS took his life.  But he did tell the story of the vision, and he spoke confidently that Alan was in heaven with Jesus.  The words were comforting to the grieving parents. 

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

Misery

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 -- Week of Proper 16, Year Two
Louis, King of France, 1270
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 119:1-24 (morning)       12, 13, 14 (evening)
Job 6:1; 7:1-21
Acts 10:1-16
John 7:1-13

Job's words in this seventh chapter are so poignant.  He describes a living death.  His misery and suffering are beyond endurance.  Why? he asks.  We feel his weariness, his longing to be left alone, his longing to die.

Sometimes when I have been traveling, I have passed through places of incredible, grinding poverty.  I see people working under such hard conditions, and hear someone say that they are the lucky ones because they have jobs -- their families will have food tonight.  Earthy, dirty, unsanitary.  I
wonder about them.  What is their life like?  How different it is from mine.  What does this mean?  My mind goes to the epidemic of cholera now sweeping over the millions already ruined by floods in Pakistan.

Job's words ring like a challenge to God.  How can this be?  Why is there such suffering?  What is this to you, O God?  If this is your vision upon us, leave us alone.

"Do not human beings have a hard service on earth, and are not their days like the days of a laborer?  Like a slave who longs for the shadow...

"My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out again...

"Remember that my life is a breath; ...as the cloud fades and vanishes, so those who go down to Sheol do not come up; they return no more to their houses, nor do their places know them any more."

Job turns his complaint toward God.  He remembers the ancient myths of the storm god who defeated the dragon to be the chief god.  The Bible asserts God's power as supreme over them.  Job speaks sarcastically to God.  Why do you hurt me?  Am I as important as the gods of myth?  "Am I the Sea, or
 the Dragon, that you set a guard over me?  When I say, 'My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,' then you scare me with dreams and terrifying visions so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body.  Let me alone, for my days are a breath."

He closes with a bitter taunt toward God.  "For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be."

I have known people living in such despair.  When death feels like release.  When suffering is unmitigated and without reason.

It is important to know that God accepts, upholds and justifies Job in the end.  God visits Job with an experience of the divine reality that transcends all that Job has experienced.  God answers Job's friends, who are horrified at Job's challenging words toward God -- God says that Job's honest
y and integrity are more acceptable to God than their antiseptic and proper theology.

When we are angry, we can be angry toward God, for God is big enough to take our anger.  Ultimately, God is responsible for all, including the injustice and suffering of mere humanity.  Job's provoking questions are fair questions, real and honest questions.  If our misery is to have an answer,
the answer must come from God.  God, there is such misery.

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

Saint Bartholomew

Tuesday, August 24, 2010  -- Week of Proper 16, Year Two
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

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

EITHER the readings for Tuesday of Proper 16, p. 981
Psalms 5, 6 (morning)       10, 11 (evening)
Job 6:1-4, 5-15, 21
Acts 9:32-43
John 6:60-71

OR the readings for St. Bartholomew, p. 999
Morning Prayer:  Psalm 86; Genesis 28:10-17; John 43-51
Evening Prayer:  Psalms 15, 67;  Isaiah 66:1-2, 18-23;  1 Peter 5:1-11

I chose the readings for St. Bartholomew

We know little of St. Bartholomew.  His name appears in some, not all, of the lists of the twelve disciples.  Sometimes he is identified with Nathanael because the two do not occur in the same list, hence the gospel reading about the call of Nathanael.  That's all we get from the Gospels.

There are some legends.  There is the tale of a Gospel of Bartholomew, known to Jerome and to Bede but lost to us.  There is a tradition that Bartholomew traveled to India.  Eusebius says that a traveler to India found a Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew around 150 or 200 and was told it had been left behind by Bartholomew.  And he has a martyr's tradition claiming he was flayed alive in Armenia.

So we are given the delightful Psalm 86, a beautiful appeal to God from one in trouble or conflict.  Much of the sentiment of the psalm works well for any morning.  "Be merciful to me, O God, for you are my God.  I call upon you all the day long.  Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O God, I lift up my soul.  For you, O God, are good and forgiving, and great is your love toward all who call upon you.  Give ear, O God, to my prayer, and attend to the voice of my supplication...  I will thank you, my God, with all my heart, and glorify your Name for evermore."

We are also given the story of Jacob's ladder.  As Jacob flees from the expected revenge of his brother Esau whose birthright Jacob had usurped with cunning and deceit, Jacob has a dream of a ladder to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it.  God visits Jacob and gives him the same blessing God has given to Abraham -- offspring, land, and the promise that "all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring."  After many adventures, and some continued sharp dealing, Jacob will become Israel, the father of a nation.

We hear the echo of that story in Jesus' greeting to Nathanael.  "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!"  Israel/Jacob was a man of deceit.  Here is Nathanael, an offspring of Israel, a man in whom there is no deceit.  What a wonderful adjective.  How many people can we say of them, there is a person in whom there is no deceit.  That would be a fine thing to be said of someone at their funeral. 

So the mysterious, little known apostle Bartholomew gives us a gracious gift this morning.  He reminds us that those who leave no concrete record of deeds or accomplishment are still beloved, certainly remembered in the heart of God.  He gives us a lovely poem to gladden and lift our souls so that we may intercede and be thankful.  We are given a dream of blessing and promise.  We are invited to live this day with integrity, as people in whom there is no guile.

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

Conflicts and Troubles

Monday, August 23, 2010 -- Week of Proper 16, Year Two
Martin de Porres, Rosa de Lima, and Toribio de Mogrovejo, Witnesses to the Faith in South America, 1639, 1617, 1606
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 1, 2, 3 (morning)       4, 7 (evening)
Job 4:1, 5:1-11, 17-21, 26-27
Acts 9:19b-31
John 6:52-59

"...human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upward."  (Job 5:7)

Life is difficult.  Conflict seems ubiquitous. 

We hear the words of Eliphaz the Temanite today.  He scolds Job for not behaving better under his suffering.  Eliphaz is certain.  He is certain that God is powerful and just.  He tells Job to stop complaining and to trust God.  God will uphold the righteous and God will punish the wicked.  Eliphaz is certain.  He tells Job to buck up and take his suffering as loving chastisement, as divine discipline that leads to wisdom.  Eliphaz is certain.  God will deliver Job and let him come to a happy "ripe old age." 

One reason Eliphaz is so certain is that he is speaking orthodox words of conventional wisdom, words backed up by a long tradition of scripture and teaching.  He could have made this speech by knitting together scraps of scripture from the wisdom literature, from Proverbs and Psalms.  He's throwing the book at Job, the good book that is.  He's giving Job a good dose of traditional Biblical wisdom.  Maybe you've even heard Eliphaz's words quoted as authoritative Biblical writ -- "human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upward." 

But remember.  We're at the beginning of a contentious debate here -- Job verses his friends.  And we know the end of the story.  God will vindicate Job and honor him for his honesty, courage and integrity, even though Job challenges God and challenges the conventional Biblical and theological wisdom.  God will chastise Eliphaz and his companions.  God will not confirm their truths or their certainties, even though their words are grounded in scripture.

We see Paul (Saul) debating today.  He has switched sides.  The one who once pursued Christians in defense of traditional faith is now proclaiming in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God and Messiah.  He used to be certain that Jesus was not.  Now he is certain that Jesus is.  The writer of Acts is pretty impressed with Paul's debate:  "Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah."  But it seems Paul wasn't so convincing to everyone.  In fact, there is a plot to kill him.  His opponents guard the city gates.  But his disciples lower Paul from the city wall in a basket by night so he can make his escape. 

And Jesus stirs up trouble by using intentionally provocative and repulsive language.  He tells the people that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.  That's nasty.  Especially the blood part.  Observant Jews don't even eat the blood of animals.  When an animal is slaughtered for meat, it is butchered in a conscious way so that the animal's blood is returned to the earth, for its life belongs to God and life is in the blood.  It is not kosher to consume blood.  These words about eating flesh and drinking blood are repulsive and are in violation of the Biblical instructions of the Torah. 

Eliphaz won't convince Job that his conventional Biblical wisdom is sound.  Paul won't convince his fellow Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.  Jesus won't convince Jews that it is a good thing to drink his blood. 

But the Gospel of John gives us one clue.  The Gospel of John is an extended admonition against interpreting anything literally.  To interpret Jesus' words literally about eating his flesh and drinking his blood would endorse some form of cannibalism.  That's not what John is doing in this passage.  John is using Eucharistic language.  The flesh and blood of Jesus is the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  Throughout John's gospel literalists always misinterpret the message.

Job and Paul and Jesus continue.  They will live with disputations and troubles for the rest of their lives.  So will we.  

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

Enter Job

Friday, August 20, 2010 -- Week of Proper 15, Year Two
Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1153
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 140, 142 (morning)       141, 143:1-11(12) (evening)
Job 2:1-13
Acts 9:1-9
John 6:27-40

People can be broken.  We have our limits. 

People can also be wonderfully resilient.  Some display heroic heart.

One theme of the story of Job is to consider the depths of human suffering.  We see Job's wife broken today.  She is fed up.  She is ready for Job to curse God and die. 

But Job is not broken.  He will maintain his humanity and integrity throughout his ordeal.  He will also give voice to his pain, his anger and frustration, and his isolating condition.  He will challenge God, and he will challenge the traditional, orthodox teachings about God.  Ultimately, he will experience God and a mystical vision that will transcend all that he has known or suffered.  Job will be transformed.

We meet Job's friends today.  They are wise men from the east.  In the face of such tragedy, they sit in silence with Job for seven days and seven nights.  There is something to be said for such respectful presence.  When we are faced with things beyond our power and control, silence is appropriate.  There is a supportive power in presence. 

One of my favorite spiritual writers is the psychiatrist Gerald May.  Through his lifetime he has suffered occasional bouts of depression.  During one of those dark periods, he mentions with gratitude a friend who did nothing but come to sit in silence with Gerald for a while each day.  The friend didn't say anything -- didn't try to fix Gerald or cheer him up or give him advice.  The friend just came in, greeted Gerald, and sat with him in his depression.  Gerald experienced him as a great grace.

It is hard to refrain from trying to fix.  It's hard to face the darkness completely.  It's hard to refrain from giving our advice and interpretations.  Sometimes the best gift is presence.  Mere acceptance is a powerful gift. 

As we continue reading Job, it will turn into a theological wrestling match.  In some ways it is an argument between scriptures.

The friends will articulate one of the predominate schools of theology present in the scriptures, in Judaism and in Middle Eastern philosophy.  They will speak with the voice of the book of Proverbs.  Their theology is consistent with the teaching that motivates the writing of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and 1 & 2 Kings.  They believe in a just creation.  They believe that God rewards the good and punishes the wicked.  They teach that right action and right belief will bring God's blessing and that wrong action and foolishness brings punishment and suffering.

Job says they are wrong.  (The book of Ecclesiastes weighs in on Job's side of this argument as well.)

I don't know how people who treat the Bible as though it were some completely consistent book speaking as the literal voice of God handle this.  But we inherit a rich debate among the Biblical authors.  And I will say that I believe that Job and Ecclesiastes are much closer to the truth than Proverbs is.  Proverbs is Polonius.  Job is Hamlet. 

There is one more debate underlying this great work.  It is the debate between a religion that we learn from others -- a set of teachings and practices that we are told to believe and follow -- and the religion that we experience as the presence of the sacred.  It is the difference between secondhand religion and firsthand religion, the difference between conventional wisdom and the experience of the divine. 

The experience of the sacred embraces mystery and changes us.  This is the religion that Job gives witness to.  So much religion is secondhand religion, a set of orderly teachings about how things are and how we should be.  Secondhand religion gives us good gifts, and it often leads us to encounter and to know the sacred.  But secondhand religion can take us only so far, and it often degenerates into oppressive forms of certainties and control.

Job invites us into the encounter with Ultimate Mystery that leaves us transformed.  Job invites us beyond just hearing about God, into knowing God.

P.S.  The story of Saul's conversion is a similar story.  Saul goes toward Damascus to defend conventional wisdom and to enforce the orthodox teaching and practices that he has been taught by the authorities of his religion.  A firsthand encounter with Ultimate Mystery transforms him into the Paul of Christian history.

And, for me, one of the weaknesses of the language of John's gospel is his focus on belief as the ultimate response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  If we think of that word "belief" as an form of intellectual consent to some content, it is a very shallow and unsatisfactory response to God, I believe.  But if we think of that word "belief" as related to the word "belove" (they have similar roots), then we get closer to the transforming experience of being in love with the sacred, the ultimate, the all -- the firsthand religion of Job, Paul and Jesus.

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 Other Side

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 -- Week of Proper 15, Year Two
William Porcher DuBose, Priest, 1918
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 119:145-176 (morning)       128, 129, 130 (evening)
Judges 18:16-31
Acts 8:14-25
John 6:1-15

Whatever happened to the disciples, it profoundly affected the way they regarded people.  Like Jesus, the twelve apostles all grew up Jewish.  They grew up being taught the holiness code of scripture and the purity practices common to first century Judaism.  They grew up observing he sabbath, avoiding unclean people and circumstances, and eating kosher.  They heard the common references to "Gentile dogs" and they learned the animosity between Jews and their heretic Samaritan neighbors.  If you grow up in Fayetteville, you learn to call the Hogs.  If you grow up in Israel, you learn the purity practices.

Something remarkable happened to these Jewish men when they met and followed Jesus.  They gave up a lifetime of following the inherited practices of centuries, Biblical practices, and they opened to "others" who were previously unclean outsiders and enemies. 

In our story from the Acts of the Apostles, word gets to Jerusalem that their Hellenistic brother Philip had gone to Samaria where people heard eagerly about Jesus, and Philip baptized them.  You would imagine that the church's leaders in Jerusalem, being good, practicing Jews, would have been outraged.  The normal thing for them to do would be to send someone from the group to instruct the Gentile Philip about their customs and traditions -- Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 

So Peter and John are dispatched.  But instead of shutting down this unauthorized expansion into unclean territory, they bring the anointing of the Holy Spirit with them and reinforce this novelty.  Peter and John join the ministry of "proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans."

I haven't noticed this before, but the only account of the feeding of the multitudes in John's gospel appears to happen outside of Israel, in Gentile territory.  John 6 opens saying that "Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee."  That phrase commonly refers to the western and southern side of the sea which was also called the region of the Decapolis, a Gentile area that included ten cities.  It was unclean territory.  John sets his version of Jesus' feeding of the multitudes on the "other side," and afterwards, at evening, the disciples board a boat back to their home in Capernaum.

Mark's gospel is more explicit.  He narrates two separate feeding miracles, one in Jewish territory, one in Gentile territory.  In his account the numbers of people and the numbers of baskets and leftovers are clues about the participants.  Mark uses numbers that have significance to Jews in the account of the feeding in Israel; he uses symbolic numbers with Gentile meaning in the feeding on the "other side."  John's account uses the numbers from Mark's first feeding story in Israel, but John places the miracle in Gentile territory.  Whatever the numbers, it is a significant thing that Jesus fed multitudes of Gentiles.  He lived in a culture that taught Jews not to eat with Gentiles.  To do so was profane and rendered one unclean. 

One of the most remarkable things about Jesus was the radical, open hospitality of his table.  Another remarkable thing was his openness and generosity toward people who were not of his religion or tribe.  Both of these practices violated not only deeply embedded cultural practices, but also violated accepted interpretations of the commands of scripture. 

The early church embodied what they learned from Jesus and engaged with Samaritans without qualms.  They violated taboos and created rich relationships of inclusion for Samaritans. 

We are invited to do likewise, whether the "other side" is racial, cultural, political, religious, or a boundary of sexual orientation.  We inherit a tradition of defenseless openness toward the "other side."  How generous can our hospitality be?

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 Today

Friday, August 13. 2010 -- Week of Proper 15, Year Two
Samuel Johnson, Timothy Cutler, and Thomas Bradbury Chandler, Priests, 1772, 1765, 1790
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms [120], 121, 122, 123 (morning)       124, 125, 126, [127] (evening)
Judges 18:1-15
Acts :1-13
John 5:30-47

Away to visit the hospital early this morning.  No time to write.

Here are the readings.

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

Stoning Stephen

Monday, August 16, 2010 -- Week of Proper 15, Year Two

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 981)
Psalms 106:1-18 (morning)       106:19-48 (evening)
Judges 17:1-13
Acts 7:44 - 8:1a
John 5:19-29

To the people who stoned Stephen, his killing made perfect sense.  They believed that they were being faithful to God.   They were certain that Stephen was a blasphemer and an enemy to God and to their religion.  They listened carefully to his testimony, and Stephen's own words condemned him.  It was as if he uttered his own confession of condemnation.  They stoned him in obedience to the word of scripture, to cleanse the land of a dangerous impurity.  Not to have done so would have left them vulnerable to God's judgment and would have opened a path for the spread of a profound distortion of God's truth.  They acted decisively, and in good conscience. 

Prosecutors, juries and judges make the same kind of decision when they render a guilty verdict in a capital case.  They believe themselves to be faithful to the rule of law.  They make certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the charged person is guilty of a serious, capital crime.  They listen carefully to the testimony, sometimes including a confession.  The state executes the prisoner, with the consent of the jury, to cleanse the land of a dangerous impurity.  Not to do so would be to fail to punish in a way that is commensurate with the crime, and because our penal system is flawed, it assures that the criminal will never escape or be paroled where he might do violence again or might live with a freedom he has forfeited.  Juries, prosecutors, judges, prisons and executors act decisively, and in good conscience.

Nations and commanders make decisions to use military force to solve problems that they believe can be solved in no other way.  They believe that they are being faithful to God, if they believe in a God, and faithful to their nation and its values.  They make certain that their enemy is a danger and a threat to their vital national interests.  They listen carefully to intelligence, and they weigh the likelihood of success against the cost of not attacking.  They judge the intentions of the enemy.  They launch military force in accordance with their rule of law and the military rules of engagement, to protect those who are threatened and to cleanse the world of a dangerous threat.  Not to do so would leave them vulnerable to continued threat and would perpetuate the existence of something they believe to be evil.  Presidents, congresses, officers and soldiers act decisively, and in good conscience.

Sometimes we are wrong. 

To Christians, the execution of Stephen was wrong.  We name churches for him.  He was not a blasphemer, but he had a new revelation of God's presence through Jesus.  Something about that day made an impression on one of the leaders of the stoning party.  The story notes that the participants threw their cloaks down at the foot of one of their leaders named Saul.  He will become Paul, the Christian leader for whom we name our own church.

Since 1973, 138 prisoners on death row in America have been exonerated.  Guesses about how many innocent people have been executed legally in our nation are just guesses, but even one seems horrifying.  John Grisham narrates a non-fiction account of a recent unjust execution in Oklahoma in his book "An Innocent Man."  Sometimes prosecutors, juries and judges are wrong. 

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Al Quadea was not connected with Saddam Hussain and was not significantly present in Iraq before 9-11.  Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.  No one will ever know how many civilians have been killed during the Iraq war.  In 2008 the World Health Organization estimated 151,000.  In 2006, one of the world's leading medical journals, the Lancet, published a figure of 654,965 excess civilian deaths attributable to the war.  Media reports, and many deaths are not reported to the media, list 95,000-103,500 civilian deaths attributed to the war.  Sometimes presidents and nations are wrong.

God forgive us for our violence.  Why do we keep thinking we can solve problems by killing?  The list of martyrs and innocent deaths continues.  We ask God to bring resurrection out of death.  Bring new life from our violence.  Make more Pauls out of Sauls.  And help us to refrain our tendency toward violence when we become so certain.  There is no correcting for a wrongful death.  When someone who is innocent is executed, you can't let them out of prison and say, "I'm sorry."  What do you say to 100,000 dead civilians after invading their country on false pretense?

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 Today

Friday, August 13. 2010 -- Week of Proper 14, Year Two
Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore, 1667
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 979)
Psalms 102 (morning)       107:1-32 (evening)
Judges 14:20 - 15:20
Acts 7:17-29
John 4:43-54

I've got to be away early this morning.  No time to write.
Here are the readings.

Lowell

Samson and Jesus

Thursday, August 12, 2010 -- Week of Proper 14, Year Two
Florence Nightingale, Nurse, Social Reformer, 1910
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 979)
Psalms 105:1-22 (morning)       105:23-45 (evening)
Judges 14:1-19
Acts 6:15 - 7:16
John 4:27-42

As I read this part of the story of Samson today, two thoughts came to me. 

First, I remembered how much I loved these stories when I was a little boy.  These were great stories of strength and conflict.  Samson was like a super-hero, strong and mighty, doing battle with the bad guys.  He could tear a lion apart with his bare hands, and single-handedly take on a town, kill thirty men, take their festive garments and pay off the wicked Philistines.  The world was black and white; good and evil; right and wrong.  Samson was powerful and strong -- fighting for the right.  I loved these stories.

Second, I remembered when it hit me some years later, that Samson behaved like a thug.  I now know that the Philistines were a more advanced culture than Israel at that time.  The Philistines worked with metals that were unavailable to the Israelites.  They lived in the more fertile coastal plain, had a productive and diverse economy, sent ships for international trade, built chariots and cities, and lived in a more sophisticated culture than the more primitive hill-dwellers of Israel.  How different the Samson story would have sounded from the perspective of the Philistines. 

The Philistines are more like us -- the U. S.  Wealthy, powerful, internationally respected.  From their perspective, Samson is something of a terrorist from a group of religious fanatics.  His story would sound entirely different if told by the Philistine writers.  To them, Samson would be someone akin to Osama bin Laden.

The Samson saga is fascinating and compelling.  But it's all about killing and fighting and hurting.  Nothing gets solved.  We know the end of the story.  The blind prisoner Samson achieves his greatest feat through his death.  He kills a stadium full of Philistines.  How about that.  He showed them.  But nothing else was solved.

Cut to the scenes in Acts and in John. 

Stephen has begun his speech before the council.  He interprets the history of Israel, emphasizing God's initiative and God's promises.  He recognizes the divisions that are part of their story, the brothers who sold Joseph into slavery, but God was with him.  Stephen will continue his story, reminding the people of their failures and of God's faithfulness.  When he sees a vision of the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, he will be stoned to death.  But his witness will inspire others, including Saul, to follow a new way.  At the core of this new way, for at least its first three hundred years, was a commitment to a non-violent pursuit of love.

And in our Gospel, Jesus engages in a scandalous conversation with a Samaritan woman until he has broken down the hostility and conflict of four hundred years of animosity between enemies.  The Samaritans, who usually taunt and occasionally attack Jews traveling through their land, invite Jesus and his disciples to stay with them.  He does so.  There is reconciliation, healing and peace.  Jesus opens a new way.

The Jesus saga is fascinating and compelling.  It's all about loving and healing and reconciling.  We know the end of the story.  Everything gets solved.  The willing victim Jesus achieves his greatest feat through death.  He absorbs all of the evil and violence of the world into his body and spirit, and he returns only forgiveness and love.  He releases a spirit of resurrection that lives eternally, making peace between those who are divided, reconciling into one those who were estranged. 

Now that I am older, I like this story better than Samson's.  

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

From Prejudice to Grace

Wednesday, August 12, 2010 -- Week of Proper 14, Year Two
Clare, Abbess at Assisi, 1253
More about today's commemoration at our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 979)
Psalms 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 (morning)       119:121-144 (evening)
Judges 13:15-24
Acts 6:1-15
John 4:1-26

Conflicts born of prejudice underline two stories of expansive grace today.  

Within the early church's works of charity, there is an accusation of discrimination.  Already Luke has said that the members of the early church sold their property and held all things in common, giving to all as any had need.  Such an arrangement would be particularly important to widows, who may have no adult male responsible for seeing to their well being.  The church provided for a daily distribution of food.  One secular source complained that the Christians fed not only their own widows but others not associated with the church as well.

As we begin Acts 6, there is a complaint.  The Christians who came from Greek-speaking Gentile origins complain that their widows "were being neglected in the daily distribution of food."  They say that the Aramaic speaking Christians from Jewish origins are discriminating against them.

In a nice piece of management and delegation, the twelve apostles appoint seven people to a ministry of service.  The Greek phrase describing their service is translated literally "to serve tables."  It is also a Greek idiom that can mean "to keep accounts" or "to handle finances."  Either interpretation makes sense, as the ministry is to provide for needs -- food and/or money -- serving any who may have needs.  The church looks to this story as the beginning of the order of deacon,  a word meaning "servant, minister, messenger." 

A story about a problem of prejudice and discrimination becomes the impetus for creating a stronger structure of generosity and charity.  That's a creative example of solving problems.

In the Gospel we have an even more dramatic and more creative image of overcoming prejudice.  Jesus is traveling from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north.  He is taking the less-used direct route through Samaria.  That's a little like an American going from India to Rome by traveling through Iran. 

Four hundred years before Jesus, the people remaining in the land during the exile, many of them Jewish themselves, were excluded from the rebuilding communities created by the exiles returning from Babylon, despite the locals offerings to help with the rebuilding efforts.  The separation amounted to a form of ethnic cleansing, which left neighbors alienated from one another for centuries. 

By the time of Jesus, Jews regarded Samaritans as unclean heretics and enemies.  Samaritans ignored or made troubles for any Jews who took the direct route through Samaritan territory between Judea and Galilee.  There was deep hatred between the cultures.

Middle Eastern culture also forbade a woman to speak to a man who was not part of her family.  Cultural sensitivities were particularly tight with regard to sharing food or drink.

Jesus disregards all of these cultural taboos and prejudices.  Jesus opens conversation with a woman who is a stranger, a Samaritan, and he invites her into the shocking intimacy of drinking water together from her container.  From the cultural perspective of any Middle Eastern Jew, this encounter was an impossibility -- a scandal.  Yet Jesus reaches out in conversation with her to invite her into his community of "living water."  Many today point to this story and others as models for a church practice of "radical hospitality."

What are the cultural taboos, historical resentments, cultural and economic separations, prejudices and discriminations that divide people and communities today?  What limits our charity and service to the needs of others?  Whom do we think of as heretic or unclean, as less deserving than the others? 

Dare the church promote and maintain these divisions?  

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