Friday, April 30, 2010

Letters of Growth

Friday, April 30, 2010 -- Week of 4 Easter
Sarah Josephine Buell Hale, Editor and Prophetic Witness, 1879

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 961)
Psalms 40, 54 (morning)       51 (evening)
Exodus 34:18-35
1 Thessalonians 3:1-13
Matthew 5:27-37

Our new observance from the trial calendar:  Sarah Josephine Buell Hale [Oct. 24, 1788-Apr. 30, 1879] A social reformer and advocate for women, she was an early supporter of the deaconess movement and helped establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. (Apr 30)
________

Paul writes today of his anxiety for the well being of the congregation in Thessoliniki.  He has been separated from them for a time, and he knows that they have been faced with many trials.  Paul writes to them after his companion Timothy has returned with good news -- the congregation continues to be healthy and vital.  Paul closes this section with a prayer for them.  "And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.  And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints."

I ran across another letter the other day, this one written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, published in the magazine Spirituality and Health.  He was writing in response to a question about the spiritual journey.  The person he was writing to was someone who had made a shift in their life from the pursuit of financial success to a focus on "all things spiritual."  Like Paul's congregation in Thessoliniki, this person asked the Rabbi for some guidance about that journey.

Rabbi Shapiro suggests that there are "three major phases of life."  After we have spent some time, usually some considerable time, achieving some degree of financial success, most people find that pursuit unsatisfying, and shift into a second phase of accumulating -- this time "accumulating spiritual things the way you used to accumulate material ones.  You 'collect' gurus, seminars, retreats, and mystical experiences in pursuit of the next spiritual high."

He says that this second phase of spiritual accumulation eventually "proves unsatisfying, and you enter the third phase -- divestment.  You simplify your life externally and internally.  You stop chasing gurus and focus on those few people who really matter to you.  You stop shopping for enlightenment and make peace with not-knowing.  You realize that life isn't a question to be answered or a problem to be solved but a gift to be enjoyed, both in solitude and with loving friends.  The first two phases are hard work.  The third is pure play."

I often meet people who are in this third period of life.  They tend to have space and availability for others.  They are often involved in giving themselves away, especially in response to the needs of others.  Their giving is natural, joyful, playful.  In their lives the Lord has indeed abounded "in love for one another and for all."  May God strengthen all of our hearts in holiness, that we may play with such peaceful loving kindness, that we may be blameless before our God and Father.

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

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Obeying the Law

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 -- Week of 4 Easter

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 961)
Psalms 119:49-72 (morning)       49, [53] (evening)
Exodus 33:1-23
1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Matthew 5:17-20

I can remember reading this gospel passage as a child and becoming very stressed about it.  "...not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.  Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven..."  There was some consolation that the issue was placement in the kingdom of heaven, not banishment.  Yet, I worried.  I knew that I didn't know all of the commandments of the law of the scripture.  Even if I knew them, I doubted I could keep them, especially down to the "least of these commandments." 

I had been taught that Christians didn't follow all of the laws of the Torah.  I knew we didn't eat kosher.  But here we have words attributed to Jesus that seem to say that all of the rules apply, including kosher.  I worried that we were all in a heap of trouble.

As we'll read tomorrow, Jesus intensifies the law.  There is a way of being obedient by following the letter of the law.  Jesus expects more.  Jesus expects the transformation of our hearts.  Jesus does not ask us to follow the rules, Jesus asks us to internalize the spirit and live by the same spirit which created the rules.  It's not enough to avoid the sin of adultery, but we are to guard our hearts and eyes from looking upon another person with lust.  Actually, that intensification of expectation brought me a lot of anxiety as well.

It always seems more difficult when we frame these anticipations negatively.  "Do not do X."  There is something inside us that seems to want to rebel at such limitations.  We see that struggle in our recent readings from Exodus.  There are some things that I find I respond to when they are phrased negatively.  There are certain things that I want to avoid.  I don't even want to get close to going there, so I can tell myself, "Don't..." 

But most of the time I find that I am better motivated when I frame things positively.  There is something inspiring when we embrace great goodness. 

"Love your neighbor as yourself."  That sounds both more intense and more inspiring than "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, or wife, or slaves, or ox, or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."  Love demands that we incorporate the letter of the law and raise expectations beyond mere performance and beyond the simple avoidance of wrong.  There is something important that happens when we shift our attention beyond mere performance of rules, a potentially self-absorbed focus that tempts pride and prompts anxiety.  Instead of asking myself "am I following all the rules," it seems more important to move my attention toward my intention and motivation.  What is my motivation?  What is my intention?  Motivation and intention guide action.  Can love be my motivation?  Can my intention be to act out of love?

There is something simple, inspiring and comprehensive about Jesus' summary of the law.  Love God with all your heart and mind and strength; and love your neighbor as your self.  Indeed, on this hangs all the law and the prophets.

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

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Virtues

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 -- Week of 4 Easter
Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 961)
Psalms 45 (morning)       47, 48 (evening)
Exodus 32:21-34
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 5:11-16

First, a note about the new observance from our proposed calendar Holy Women, Holy Men
Christina Rossetti [1830-December 29, 1894] One of the most celebrated poets of her day, she was the most talented member of an artistic Anglo-Italian family. A devout Anglican, she also wrote books on spirituality. Author of the hymn In the bleak midwinter. (April 27)
_____

"We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

It is a good thing to remember one another in our prayers.  Like many people I carry a prayer list with me.  It includes people who are ill or living with challenges that I am drawn to pray for.  I offer to God my care and concern for them and ask God's presence and goodness for them.  I also mention and remember my family and close friends and ask God's blessing for them.  As we draw closer to God, we are simultaneously drawing closer to one another.

I also regularly "give thanks to God" for St. Paul's congregation and "remember before our God and Father" the work and worship, the service and relationships that ground our community.  Note how Paul phrases his prayer for the church in Thessoliniki:  "constantly remembering ...your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."  That trio of faith, hope and love appears often in Paul.  Traditional theology calls these three the "theological virtues."  Faith, as active trust in God; Hope, grounding our trust in God's presence and power; Love or Charity, unlimited loving-kindness toward God and others.

Classical Catholic theology combines these three theological virtues with the four "cardinal virtues" to create a list of seven cardinal virtues.  Faith, Hope and Love are thus combined with Prudence, Justice, Restraint/Temperance, and Courage/Fortitude to create a classical list of qualities that Christians are invited to practice.  St. Augustine said this of the four cardinal virtues:  "For these four virtues (would that all felt their influence in their minds as they have their names in their mouths!), I should have no hesitation in defining them: that temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it."  As Augustine related these four to love, so Paul closes his famous essay in 1 Corinthians 13 with the words, "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."  Thus, we are reminded of Jesus' summary of the law and prophets in the single commandment to love:  Love God, neighbor and self.

In addition to a prayer list, it might not be a bad thing to also keep a virtue list.  Just as we remember those for whom we are called to pray, it is not a bad idea to remember the ideals and virtues that we are called to live by:

Faith
Hope
Love
Prudence
Justice
Restraint
Courage

Concluding with Paul's prayer:  "For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that God has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; ...so that you became an example to all the believers..."  Living under the seven virtues is a way to become an example to all the believers.

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

Monday, April 26, 2010

Mark's Gospel of Suffering

Monday, April 26, 2010 -- Week of 4 Easter
ST. MARK the EVANGELIST (transferred)

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)
EITHER the readings for Monday of 4 Easter (p. 961)
Psalms 41, 52 (morning)       44 (evening)
Exodus 32:1-20
Colossians 3:18 - 4:4(7-18)
Matthew 5:1-10

OR the readings for St. Mark (p. 997)
Morning Prayer:  Psalm 145;  Ecclesiasticus* 2:1-11; Acts 12:25 - 13:3
Evening Prayer:  Psalms 67, 96;  Isaiah 62:6-12;  2 Timothy 4:1-11
                                                *found in the Apocrypha

I chose the readings for St. Mark's Day

"Accept whatever befalls you,
     and in times of humiliation be patient.
For gold is tested in the fire,
     and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation."

These are words from Ben Sirach, a book of Wisdom literature in the Apocrypha, also called Ecclesiasticus.  These words seem especially appropriate for the feast day of St. Mark, (transferred from yesterday, April 25).  More than any of the other evangelists, Mark holds up the way of the cross, the path of suffering, as the model of life and obedience revealed through Jesus.  Mark doesn't dwell on Jesus' miracles and deeds of power so much as he focuses on Jesus' willingness to embrace the cross and its deep sadness. 

It seems that Mark is writing to a people who may be living through humiliation and the possibility of persecution and suffering.  For them following Christ is not a happy path leading to material blessings and enjoyable comforts.  Mark encourages his readers to persevere, or in the words of Sirach, "to accept whatever befalls you and in times of humiliation be patient." 

Life is difficult.  We often live in confusion and do not see a way through our troubles.  Such times are normal.  Jesus and the disciples have already shown us the way.  "For gold is tested in the fire, and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.  Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him."

It is significant that in Mark's version of the crucifixion, there are no poignant and comforting scenes as some of the other evangelists offer -- no welcome to paradise for the good thief, no commending of Mary to the beloved disciple, no reigning in triumph from the cross as in John's version.  In Mark, Jesus is taunted and abused throughout.  His only words from the cross are the words of spiritual abandonment:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me."

Mark is certain that out of suffering comes life in Christ.  His gospel is an encouragement to all who live through grief, threat, trauma, and misery.  He invites all Christians to embrace our own crosses with humility and hope. 

Mark's other invitation, especially directed toward those of us who live with so much privilege, toward those of us who do not live under persecution or threat, is the invitation to orient our concern and our attention toward those who do suffer.  We are to see in them the presence of Christ. 

If we are to be faithful in our time, we must become advocates for those who suffer -- for the poor, the humiliated, the threatened, the persecuted, the marginalized.  If we are to see Christ in our own day, our eyes must be focused on those who suffer.  If we are to love Christ in our generation, we can best love Christ by loving those whose lives include hardship and difficulties.  According to Mark's Gospel, it is out of such suffering that Jesus is revealed.

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

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Wilderness

Thursday, April 22, 2010 -- Week of 3 Easter
Earth Day
John Muir, Naturalist and Writer, 1914, and Hudson Stuck, Priest and Environmentalist, 1920


Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 961)
Psalms 37:1-18 (morning)       37:19-42 (evening)
Exodus 20:1-21
Colossians 1:24 - 2:7
Matthew 4:1-11

First, a note about our new observance from the trial calendar Holy Women, Holy Men:

Muir, John [1838-Dec. 24, 1914] American naturalist and writer born in Scotland, but educated in Wisconsin. His interest in nature was infused with his Christianity. His efforts preserved Yosemite as a national park, and he is greatly responsible for many national conservation policies.
with Hudson Stuck [Nov. 11, 1863-Oct. 11, 1920] Priest, missionary to Alaska and environmentalist, Stuck immersed himself the cultures of indigenous tribes and worked to preserve the Alaskan wilderness from overdevelopment. (April 22, Earth Day)

We are in the desert today with Moses and with Jesus. 

Our reading from Matthew is the story of the temptation of Jesus during his forty days and nights in the wilderness. 

In our teaching at St. Paul's, we often follow the tradition that Benedictine monk Thomas Keating offers, using the story of the temptation as a template for describing the human condition and the problem that we are in.  None of us comes to full consciousness with our innate, intuitive union with God still intact.  In our early years we experience trauma that can be understood in three ways.  We experience threats to our need for security, our need for esteem, and to our need for power and control.  In response to those threats, we create compensating behaviors designed to try to achieve and assure our security, esteem and control.  We develop strategies around these the three instinctual needs, and they become energy centers in our life, influencing and motivating much of our behavior.  We exaggerate our needs for security and our needs for esteem and love, and our needs for power and control.  We become attached to the cultural symbols of security, esteem, and power.  Our lives become centered upon achieving these exaggerated needs through our own strategies.  This is our False Self.

At the center of our being is our True Self, our continual union with God, who gives us perfect security, perfect love, and who is perfect power exercising ultimate control.  The Spiritual Journey is the wilderness experience of dismantling our attachment to the False Self and trusting God in the depths of our being so we can be who we truly are, beloved children of God resting in God's infinite security, love and power.  This is our True Self.

Sometimes in workshops about the False Self-True Self we will invite people to reflect about the ways that their wheels fall off.  What are our habitual ways of creating anxiety, alienation and damage in our lives and in our relationships?  Usually our broken and dysfunctional patterns are a manifestation of our exaggerated needs for security, affection/esteem and power/control. 

The road toward healing and wholeness is the road of trust -- our surrendering of our exaggerated needs and our intentional turning to God to trust God to keep us, love us, and to bring about God's good intention over time. 

Another way of describing what our problems are is reflected in the ten rules God gives Moses in the wilderness.  God gives the people a basic framework to protect their relationships with God and with each other in community.  As I read the Ten Commandments again this morning, it struck me how central is the gift and command of the sabbath day.  I speculated that in our overworked and busy culture, the sabbath may be the most violated of the commandments. 

How many of us truly stop, truly rest one day a week?  How much more secure, loved and empowered might we be if we did?

Lowell

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Revealing Trinity

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 -- Week of 3 Easter
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1109

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 961)
Psalms 38 (morning)       119:25-48 (evening)
Exodus 19:16-25
Colossians 1:15-23
Matthew 3:13-17

The hymn that we read today in Colossians expresses some of the spirit of our understanding of God as Trinity. 

Within God is relationship.  God pours out the divine life and love, speaking "Let there be...," and God's Word goes forth as the firstborn of all creation through whom all things are created and hold together.  In Jesus is the Word made flesh, fully assuming our human life to reconcile us by revealing our union with God through himself.  He is the face of God in a human life, the image of the invisible God for all humanity.  We see in him our essential union with God.  He reveals our essential being as God's beloved, for from the beginning God created us in the image of God.  "Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."  In Christ's passion, God embraces all that has been in rebellion to God -- our ignorance, our violence, our estrangement, our sin and our death.  God makes peace by accepting our evil and returning only love, thus creating new life -- resurrection.

All of this happens within the energy of God's Holy Spirit, which we see manifested upon Jesus in the story his baptism in today's reading from Matthew.  John's baptism was a baptism of repentance.  John spoke to Jews who had so lost their sense of identity that they felt called to undergo the ritual cleansing of baptism, a process previously reserved for non-Jews who were converting to Judaism.  These Jews sensed that they had lost their original identity as "a priestly kingdom and a holy nation," as we read in Exodus yesterday.  They listened to John, who convicted them of their alienation from their original identity, and John baptized them back into the people they were called to be.  In baptism they were forgiven and regenerated into their true identity as "a priestly kingdom and a holy nation."

Jesus embraces John's baptism, entering into the people's identification of their alienation, sin and lostness.  As Jesus pours himself into the water, the Spirit of God descends upon him like a dove, and a voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."  Jesus will be revealed as God's High Priest, inaugurating God's Kingdom, and restoring holiness to life.  Jesus reveals the nature of God, reveals the true identity of humanity, and reveals God's purpose that all things be reconciled and united into the Godhead.

Through Christ we are now presented to God "holy and blameless and irreproachable before [God]."  We are swept up into the divine life.  We are made one with Christ, and therefore we live in union with God and with all creation.  We are filled with the Spirit and given the very life and energy of the divine.  Our essential identity is within the eternal love and creativity of God.  There is nothing left for us to do but to be who we are.

Remember who you are and whose you are.  Through our baptism we are revealed as God's beloved children.  In Jesus, God shows the divine intention to embrace and overcome all that separates us from God and from one another.  In him we are raised into the new life of the Spirit.  We share in the Glory that is God's, revealed in Christ, "the image of the invisible God, ...the head of the body, the church..., the firstborn from the dead."  We are no longer enemies of God, but friends.  We are no longer enemies toward one another, but friends.  Peace and reconciliation.  It is God's gift to us, through Christ, in the Spirit.

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, Arkans

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Three Prayers

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 -- Week of 3 Easter

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 961)
Psalms 26, 28 (morning)       36, 39 (evening)
Exodus 19:1-16
Colossians 1:1-14
Matthew 3:7-12

Colossians opens with a wonderful prayer that is a good one for us to claim for ourselves or to offer on behalf of others: 

"...that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 

"May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light."

That's not a bad prayer to start any morning. 

This week I reconnected with a prayer written by my friend Jim Fenhagen who was the dean of my seminary when I was in school.  It is also a fine prayer for beginnings:

Holy God, be in my mind that I might let go of all that diminishes the movement of Your Spirit within me.

Discerning God, be in my eyes, that I might see You in the midst of all the busyness that fills my life.

Loving God, be in my heart that I can be open to those I love, to those with whom I share ministry and to the whole human family.

Gracious God, be in that grace-filled silence that lies deep within me, that I might live in Christ as Christ lives in me.

____

Both of these prayers remind me of one that I have loved and prayed enough that it is a prayer of my heart, it is one I know by heart.  It is among the prayers in the collection in the back of the Book of Common Prayer (p. 814-841)

A Prayer of Self-Dedication
Almighty and eternal God,
so draw our hearts to you,
so guide our minds,
so fill our imaginations,
so control our wills,
that we may be wholly yours,
utterly dedicated to you;
and then use us, we pray, as you will,
and always to your glory and the welfare of your people,
through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

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

Friday, April 09, 2010

Redeem

Friday, April 9, 2010 -- Friday in Easter Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 959)
Psalms 136 (morning)       118 (evening)
Exodus 13:1-2, 11-16
1 Corinthians 15:51-58  
Luke 24:1-12

"Redeem" is an important word in the Biblical tradition.  To redeem means to pay a ransom in order to set free and regain possession of a family member or plot of land that has been taken over by another person or owner.  In the Exodus, God redeemed Israel from its bondage and oppression.  To remind future generations that God redeemed them from slavery by the death of the firstborn of all human and animals in Egypt, the people of Israel are to perform an act of redemption for every human and animal male who is firstborn, to redeem them in memory of God's original act of redemption. 

The book of Numbers instructs the congregation that a firstborn son may be redeemed with a sacrifice of five shekels, or, since the priestly tribe of Levi belongs to God, a member of the tribe of Levi may substitute for another firstborn.  In essence, the lives of the firstborn are being purchased back from God who owns and claims them because of the Exodus.  Because a donkey is an unclean animal, a clean animal, a sheep, may be substituted in sacrifice for the firstborn male donkey.

The early church picked up the language and symbol of redemption as an interpretation of the death and sacrifice of Jesus.  The early church said that Jesus redeemed us.  Jesus, who was clean and perfect, offered himself in sacrifice to redeem us from our bondage. 

Paul speaks in today's passage in 1 Corinthians about the threefold bondage of sin, death and the law.  According to Paul's theology, Adam's sin introduced death to all humanity, and sin exercises its power through the Mosaic law which instructs us on what is sin, trapping us in our consciousness of sin and separation, leading to death.  Through Christ's death and resurrection, the power of sin, death and the law is broken.  Christ has redeemed us from our bondage.  We are free; free to love and to live in response to the acceptance, forgiveness and new life that is our gift from Christ.  

Paul insists that those who have died will share in the same gift of freedom and resurrection as those who are alive.  He expects the imminent return of Jesus at any minute, when those who are alive will escape death and Jesus will return to reign over a new earth where death and sin will be no more. 

One of the biggest challenges that faced the early Church was the delay of the expected return of Jesus.  It helps us date the various books of the New Testament to examine how they handle this aspect of early faith.  The earlier writings anticipate and expect an imminent return and reflect an ethic in that spirit -- Why marry?  There won't be time to raise a family anyway.  Stay single as you are.  But everybody still needs to work in order to eat.  Other books presume an extended delay in Christ's return and speak to the need for institutional structures and the maintenance of an established community, such as 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus.

One more note, just for fun.  The more literal translation of 1 Corinthians 15:51b is "We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed."  The NRSV and others render the passage "We will not all die, but we will all be changed."  One of the cutest uses of a scripture passage is a sign I saw in the infants' room of a Church nursery:  "We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed."  1 Cor. 15:51

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

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Remember

Thursday, April 8, 2010 -- Thursday in Easter Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 959)
Psalms 146, 147 (morning)       148, 149 (evening)
Exodus 13:3-10
1 Corinthians 15:41-50  
Matthew 28:16-20

In the middle of the dramatic narrative about the Israelites' escape from Egypt, the Book of Exodus pauses twice to give instructions about how the community shall remember their rescue.  The passage anticipates the day when the community will have entered the promised land.  It tells the people to observed an annual festival of Unleavened Bread.  The people are to tell the story and to remember.  "You shall tell your child on that day, 'It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.'"

In such a remembrance time becomes dynamic.  I am a slave in the 13th century BCE.  Look what the Lord did for me when I came out from Egypt.  I thank God for my liberation and the liberation of my community.  In my remembrance, I go to the past and actively recall the past to the future.  I re-enter the event of the Exodus, and I bring the work of liberation into my own day.  I become one who participates with God's activity of freeing those in bondage in my own generation.  Much prayer, ritual, and religious activity participates in this activity of making the past present.

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" we sing.  And we are there.  We break the bread and cry, "Alleluia.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us," and Christ is revealed in the breaking of the bread.  We participate in the Last Supper which happens now and is simultaneously a foretaste of our heavenly banquet.

Time and space is very fluid in religious ritual and prayer.  We enter into Kairos time and sacred space.  It becomes a thin place where past, present and future blend, where the created and uncreated touch, where finite and infinite, heaven and earth, life and death, now and eternity, material and spiritual all are near.  To remember in such a dynamic way is to bring the past into the present and to anticipate the future now.  The text of Exodus stops in its narrative to give instruction about this important act and tradition of remembering through the annual festival of Unleavened Bread.  Without such dynamic acts of remembering, we lose our grounding and identity.

There is another practice of remembering that is also mentioned in this text.  "It shall serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the teaching of the Lord my be on your lips; for with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt."  In tradition, observant Jewish men wear tefillin (sometimes called phylacteries) for their morning prayers, a set of small, cubic leather boxes painted black, containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses of the Torah, attached to the arm and hand and to the forehead by leather straps.  When we visited the Western Wall of the Temple, most of those making prayers in that place were wearing the tefillin.

All religious traditions have various ways to remind themselves of their faith.  Christians wear crosses or place scriptures, icons, or images in visible places as reminders of our stories and identity.  Some people make the sign of the cross before they pray.  We place the baptismal font with holy water at a convenient location on the way to communion at St. Paul's so we can touch the water and remember our own foundational Exodus, our baptism by which we were incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, given the Holy Spirit, and made heirs of eternal life. 

Ritual practice and remembrance are key components of reconnecting us with our stories, identity, and relationship with God and our community.  We return to our roots, and we are nourished.

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

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

"But some doubted"

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 -- Wednesday in Easter Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 959)
Psalms 97, 99 (morning)       115 (evening)
Exodus 12:40-51
1 Corinthians 15:(29)30-41  
Matthew 28:1-16

As happens elsewhere in Matthew's Gospel, he elaborates on Mark's text.  Mark tends to avoid the theatrical and showy presentation of the Gospel, but Matthew enjoys more thunder and lightning.  Instead of a man in white sitting quietly in the tomb, there is an earthquake and an angel at the empty tomb.  The women leave not in fear but in joy.  On the way to tell the disciples they encounter Jesus and take hold of his feet and worship him.

Matthew also gives us the story of the rumor that the body of Jesus was stolen, which he says is still circulated to counter the Christian's claim "to this day." 

Matthew closes with the appearance of Jesus in Galilee on the mountain.  (He records no other resurrection accounts in Jerusalem.)  Despite the rather compelling description of the earthquake and angel and of the appearance of Jesus to commission his followers to mission, Matthew says this of the appearance in Galilee:  "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted."  From the beginning, there was doubt within the community of the followers of Jesus.

It seems to me that doubt is a fundamental component of faith.  I've saved a few comments about doubt from elsewhere (but I'm not sure of the sources).  Doubt or the ability to question our beliefs is an essential ability if we are to learn and grow in our understanding of God.  The day we are certain about God is the day we have become as big as God, and know nothing of God.  Certainty leads to arrogance, while an openness and willingness to doubt leads to humility.  Certainty is the belief that we are smarter today than we will be tomorrow.

Frederick Buechner says, "Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep.  Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.  They keep it awake and moving."

I write these things from the perspective of one who is temperamentally inclined toward doubt.  I am a natural doubter.  I always have been.

But every once in a while I meet someone who seems to know in a natural and intuitive way, a knowing that seems to have little need for doubt.  William James called these the "once born."  There are those people who have had an intuitive relationship with God all of their lives, and faith is the most natural thing in the world.  In every congregation I've served, there have been a few of these once-born people.  They usually are rather quiet and soft spoken.  They do their ministry and say their prayers without drawing any attention to themselves.  They walk with an unstrained, continual awareness of God's presence.  I love to be with such people.  They tend to fly under the radar and carry so much of God's work and purpose.

From the earliest days, the community of the church included those who believed and those who doubted.  A healthy church is one that offers plenty of room for our doubters.  Plenty of room for us doubters.

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

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

"He Descended into the Lowest"

Tuesday, April 6, 2010 -- Tuesday in Easter Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 959)
Psalms 103 (morning)       111, 114 (evening)
Exodus 12:28-39
1 Corinthians 15:12-28 
Mark 16:9-20

"For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ."  Paul expresses Christ's victory as a complete victory.  Just as all humanity experiences mortal death as our shared inheritance through Adam, so also all humanity shall experience resurrection through Christ, for his victory is greater than Adam's fall.  Paul's testimony is among many expressions of a universal salvation, a faith that God's triumph in Jesus will be complete, that God will lose nothing and no one.

When we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, we were shown a location near the base of the hill Golgotha which is said to be the grave of Adam.  One legend says that Christ's blood seeped into the ground to touch Adam's remains and to raise Adam into the new life.  Many icons of the crucifixion show Adam's skull at the foot of the hill.  

Another tradition expressed in various ways asserts that Jesus "descended into the lowest" (the Greek translation) as we say in the Apostles' Creed, "he descended into hell."  1 Peter has a couple of references to the proclamation of Jesus' resurrection "to the spirits in prison" and "even to the dead."  Icons of Jesus' "harrowing of hell" are often prominent in Orthodox worship on Holy Saturday.  Twentieth Century Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Bathasar, who has greatly influenced Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, speaks of Christ's suffering continuing beyond his death, through his separation from the Father and his sojourn into Sheol to conquer godlessness, abandonment and death.

One legend tells of Jesus' opening the gates of hell and cleaning out the netherworld.  It is said that after hell had been emptied of its contents and Jesus had led its inhabitants out, Jesus continued to look for one who was still missing.  Finally, in a distant dark corner, hidden away from all others, he found him -- Judas.  And Jesus came to him.  There was another kiss, this time it is Jesus who kisses Judas.  It is the kiss of peace, and the traitor is forgiven and restored to the resurrection fellowship.

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

Monday, April 05, 2010

Mark's Ending

Monday, April 5, 2010 -- Monday in Easter Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 959)
Psalms 93, 98 (morning)       66 (evening)
Exodus 12:14-27
1 Corinthians 15:1-11  
Mark 16:1-8

Today's Morning Reflection is a bit late.  I did not turn on my alarm clock, and I slept about 12 hours.  It has been a wonderful Holy Week, and feels very good now to rest.

It seems appropriate somehow to read Mark's comparatively understated account of the resurrection.  Three of the women go to the tomb to finish the embalming work that had been cut short due to the sabbath.  They are worried about finding someone to help them move the stone which covers the entrance. 

When they arrive, the stone has been moved aside.  Inside there is a young man dressed in a white robe who tells them Jesus has been raised.  He tells them to "tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."  The women leave with "terror and amazement."  The scene closes with these words:  "And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."  According to our best scholarship, this is the end of the Gospel of Mark. 

Later generations were dissatisfied with this ending, and added some material that seems obviously different from Mark's Gospel.  A few have suggested that John 21 might be the original ending, but that doesn't seem convincing to me.  I think this enigmatic conclusion fits the message that Mark gives us.

Throughout his Gospel, Mark has portrayed the disciples as being perplexed and confused by Jesus' ministry.  They never seem to understand.  They get distracted by the possibilities of glory and honor, and Jesus has to re-emphasize that his mission is to serve and focuses on the way of the cross as being the way of life.  This ending fits the spirit of the rest of Mark's Gospel.

I've long imagined that Mark was writing to a community that was threatened or undergoing some form of insecurity or maybe even persecution.  It is a community that knows the claims of resurrection, and they know the disciples to be the heroes of their past.  But now they are left to face fearful consequences of holding to their faith.  Mark writes to encourage them.  He depicts their heroes, the disciples, as fallible human beings, just like them.  The disciples did not have any special insight or boldness that Mark's congregation lacks.  They too faced confusion and threat.  Yet, we know that the disciples prevailed gloriously.  We can also face the threats of our generation as faithfully as they did.

Mark's Gospel places fear and doubt within the character of faith and faithfulness.  A good disciple is one who follows the way of the cross, willing and able to bear whatever threat or suffering may be theirs in their own generation, drawing inspiration from Jesus, and sustaining their perseverance just as the apostles did, through one's own confusion, doubt and fears.

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

Friday, April 02, 2010

The Embrace of All

Friday, April 2, 2010 -- Good Friday

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 95* & 22 (morning)       40:1-14(15-19), 54 (evening)
Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-33
1 Peter 1:10-20                           *for the Invitatory
John 13:36-38 (morning)       John 19:38-42 (evening)

NOTE:  Today's Good Friday Liturgies are at 12:15 and at 7:00 p.m. (the latter with the choir).
The children will lead the Stations of the Cross at 5:30.


The reading from Lamentations is startling.  With the words "I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath" begins a litany of grievous suffering, all laid to the purpose of God.  "He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago."  God has trapped and tormented the one who writes. 

Then the focus changes suddenly.  "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

I am reminded of Job's words in his misery, "Even if he smite me, yet shall I trust God." 

Part of what the church says is that it is God's will that Jesus endure the suffering and death of Good Friday.  We say that Jesus did not turn away from our evil and violence, but accepted the worst that humanity can inflict.  He did not escape, but rather he absorbed our evil and violence, our sin.  In doing so, Jesus shows us God's nature.  God is with us even in our worst.  When we act unjustly, when we torture and kill -- God is with us. 

In Jesus, God has made human suffering very holy because it is God's suffering as well.  Therefore no pain or misery is without meaning.  God is in the midst of everything, even unto death. 

In Jesus, God uses evil, violence, suffering and death to bring about healing and hope for the world. 

That means that whenever we suffer in any way, we can unite our suffering to that of Jesus on the cross.  We know we have one who understands and who suffers with us.  We can ask God to use our suffering as God used Jesus' for the healing and hope of the world.  Ultimately, we can ask God to accept our deaths, as God accepted Jesus' death, for the good of all creation.  Thus, in the midst of the things that would otherwise seem only meaningless and tragic, we can see meaning and hope.  We can join the prayer of Lamentations, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

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

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Bread, Wine and Brutality

Thursday, April 1, 2010 -- Maundy Thursday 

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 102 (morning)       142. 143 (evening)
Lamentations 2:10-18
1 Corinthians 10:14-17; 11:27-32
Mark 14:12-25

NOTE:  Tonight's Maundy Thursday service is at 7:00

The last gift that Jesus can give to his friends before the cataclysm is to join them once again at a meal, to take bread and wine, to bless it, break the bread, and share this food and drink while identifying it with himself:  "This is my body; ...this is my blood."  At the family table with him is his betrayer. 

The group will be broken apart this night.  The leader Peter will deny Jesus three times.  Mark says they all fled in fear.  Jesus himself will be arrested, tortured, tried, convicted and killed in the particularly slow and gruesome manner that the Romans saved for those whom they wanted to humiliate particularly in order to discourage others like them.  Rome's pursuit of its justice was fierce and irrepressible.  No one could challenge the Pax Romana and not be utterly destroyed, the individual along with their family and allies.  Death haunts this table and last supper.

Within twenty-four hours of this evening, it should all have been over.  Another pitiful little group of Jewish rebels who dared to use their religion to raise nationalistic hopes -- destroyed.  These groups came and went.  Rome was skilled at suppressing them.

Their leader Jesus got branded "King of the Jews."  The Roman soldiers would show him.  They would put him on the stone checkerboard for the "Game of Kings."  The soldiers would cast dice and bet.  Each roll of the dice would determine the prisoner's next move.  Each stone had a consequence.  Spitting.  Beating.  Breaking.  Humiliating.  He would be hit and thrown from stone to stone.  The prisoner's possessions would be gambled away among the soldiers.  The game was so brutal that it was eventually banned by the Roman army, not known for discouraging brutality.  One square proclaimed the prisoner "King" for the day, so if the dice landed there, he would be dressed and taunted as pseudo royalty.  Landing on the king's square also carried the death penalty on the following day.  Many prisoners just died on the stones of the game.

Crucifixion was Rome's most brutal and humiliating execution.  Slow public death by torture.  Naked.  Exposed.  The carrion birds would sometimes begin their work before the prisoner expired.  After a crucifixion, it should all be over.  Rome knew how to stop seditious movements.

In the face of such violent repression, what is bread and wine? 

It was enough.  It has been enough for more than two thousand years.  From the first Easter when "they knew him in the breaking of the bread," the mystery of the table has communicated Jesus' presence and life -- nourishing, healing, inspiring, and uniting his friends into his mystical Body which has risen and continues to live beyond the brutality and death forever.

"This is my body;  ...this is my blood."  It is enough to overcome all else.

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