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5:07pm |
Shared 2 links on Google Reader. (Show Details)
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For He not only speaks to those in whose hearing He then spake, but even to all who came after them, before our time, and even to us, and to all after us, even to His last coming. but shall that day find all living, or will any man say that He speaks also to the dead, when He says, —Watch, lest when he cometh he find you sleeping?—
Why then does He say to all, what only belongs to those who shall then be alive, if it be not that it belongs to all, as I have said? For that day comes to each man when his day comes for departing from this life such as he is to be, when judged in that day, and for this reason every Christian ought to watch, lest the Advent of the Lord find him unprepared; but that day shall find him unprepared, whom the last day of his life shall find unprepared. — Epistle 199, 3 on the Gospel of St. Mark, verses 32-37.
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1:06am | A shot at the Fathers |
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1:06am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: A shot at the Fathers http://tinyurl.com/67uq7r
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1:21am | November 29 – St. John Chrysostom |
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1:21am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: November 29 – St. John Chrysostom http://tinyurl.com/5g46v9
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5:22am | Advent or death |
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5:22am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Advent or death http://tinyurl.com/69x39c
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5:51am | First Sunday of Advent (B) |
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5:51am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: First Sunday of Advent (B) http://tinyurl.com/62zthv
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7:20am |
Scrobbled 17 songs on Last.fm. (Show Details)
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2:01pm | November 30 – St. Augustine from an Epistle cited in the Catena Aurea |
First reading: Isaiah 63:16-17,19, Isaiah 64:2-7
Psalm: Ps. 80:2-3,15-16,18-19
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Gospel: Mark 13:33-37
we are sinful;—¨
all of us have become like unclean people,—¨
all our good deeds are like polluted rags;—¨
we have all withered like leaves,—¨
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
Our first reading from Isaiah is key to understanding that we must be people of expectation, but not only.
Isaiah describes his expectation. Isaiah wanted his people to know and experience that expectation. If only they could feel my longing. I know it and feel it. If only they would know it and feel it. He knew that everything was wrong and that his people were a people of rejection. The people were apart from God. Isaiah describes their desolation. They have wandered away. They had shut God out of their hearts and minds. Their hearts had no feel for God and for His ways. In fact they considered God to be a sort of formless concept. Something you might think about from time to time, but life is just too busy, too complex, too short for a far off, distant, formless concept. Isaiah goes on to say of God: we fear you not.
Isaiah wanted his expectation to end. He wanted to experience God first hand. He wanted the people to see God, to experience Him. If he, and the people, could experience God surely they would come back. With those great deeds, the heavens rent and the mountains shaking like jello, everyone would certainly say:
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you—¨
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
In the middle of all that mess, in the middle of an unfaithful people and a God who wouldn’t send flaming bolts and fiery chariots from heaven as a convincing sign, Isaiah recalls we cannot escape God.
O LORD, you are our father;—¨
we are the clay and you the potter:—¨
we are all the work of your hands.
Brothers and sisters.
Let me ask you, can we escape our maker? Artists and craftsman leave their mark on what they make. Do you have grandma’s china at home? Turn it over and you’ll see the makers mark. I have lovely carvings and handcrafted items from all over the world. Each bears its makers mark. We too. Isaiah knew that, and that is our hope. Because of that indelible mark, that longing for God that is built into our very being, no matter our wandering, no matter our distance or the hardness of our hearts, God is near. He calls after us and is willing to welcome us back.
What a wonderful sign and symbol of love! Isaiah started by asking God to come in an amazing, God like, spectacle. Flames, heavens rent, quakes, chariots, angels, and powers. He ends by stating that we are the work of God’s hands. Because we are the work of His hands He is in us.
Even if we separate ourselves through sin, through intentional laziness toward our relationship with God — putting him in the background, or forbid through outright rejection of God, we do not have to wait for the fiery spectacle to come back. All we need know is that we must get back to work.
If we are separate there is a road home, there is the grace of repentance. God loves us so much that He waits with open arms — and those open arms are for everyone:
But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
My friends,
We have every right to be a people of expectation and a people focused on the last things — a people awaiting the consummation of everything in Christ, but that expectation does not outweigh the fact that we must act and we must act urgently. We must repent of our sins, and set to work today. Isaiah wanted the people to see God, to experience Him. We have to make that happen in our own lives and in the lives of others. That is our job.
Jesus notes that the master put his servants in charge and told the gatekeeper to keep watch. The servants had work to do. We are those servants and we have work to do. That work begins here and now — in real and practical ways.
Our world, for all its advancements, is the same world that Isaiah lived in. People don’t recognize God and they don’t acknowledge Him. We live in a world of rejection. People’s hearts are hard and they ignore God. Most of all they turn their backs to Him, piling on excuses for staying away. If they have a concept of God it is a god that is to their liking, that has no requirements, that likes whatever they like, and for the most part can be ignored.
Can that be changed? Of course! God has written Himself into our very being and we are incomplete without Him. That image, that is in all of us, is the image of the real God.
To change the world, to help it in recognizing God, we must first set to examining ourselves: How do we treat each other, our neighbors, the pesky aunt or cousin, the unfriendly cashier at the supermarket or department store? How do we manage our money — are we free of debt? How do we treat the foreigner, the homeless, the prisoner, the drug addict, the ex-con, or the AIDS patient? How does God’s Church act? How do we live as God’s people?
We can run through a lengthy examination of conscience, but that exam is not focused on the past alone. That examination needs to be prospective, forward looking, and encompasses tomorrow and every day thereafter.
What’s so different about us? What’s so great about faith — true faith in God? The greatness of faith can only be shown through us. It won’t come in rent heavens and quaking mountains. It depends on us. That is the real work — making God real in our lives and the lives of others. Showing God to others by our words, looks, hands, actions, and way-of-life so that they might experience Him in their lives. So that they might experience the reality of God — that the seed that is already in them might grow.
Brothers and sisters,
We are His servants and we have a huge obligation — but more so — we have an even greater amount of help. St. Paul tells us:
for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,—¨
that in him you were enriched in every way,—¨
with all discourse and all knowledge,—¨
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,—¨
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift—¨
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.—¨
That means you. That means me. We are His servants and we lack nothing. We can do everything He needs us to do. We can bring back the most distant. All of us, together, gathered in the Holy Church, have all the gifts necessary for the work that needs doing. While we wait in expectation, while we reform our lives, while we draw closer to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we work, drawing all into a life of joyful work and expectation. Let us tell the world by our thoughts, words, actions, and work that we await, but not only. Rather that we await and we know. God is in the world. God is among us. God wants all us all to enter into His joy. For He said:
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
Amen.
A PNCC Pastor asks: “Is this what getting ready for Christmas has come to mean?” in light of death of a Wal-Mart employee in a mad rush on so called “black Friday.” The NY Times article: Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death describes the carnage that occurred at a Wal-Mart store in Valley Stream, N.Y. Some excerpts from the article:
Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him.
Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said.
Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.
Detective Lt. Michael Fleming… called the scene —utter chaos— and said the —crowd was out of control.— … —I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,— he said. —Certainly it was a foreseeable act.—
Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like —savages.— Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.
—When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ — Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. —They kept shopping.—
I agree with the Lieutenant, “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.” But isn’t that statement utterly hopeless? Isn’t it is an admission of our failure as people who should be placing compassion and love ahead of material desire? Sadly, we, who call ourselves Christian, are unable to keep to the spirit of Advent preparation. It is an admission of our sinfulness — a sinfulness on steroids. While the Church cannot predict particular results from our sinfulness, it does tell us that sin has consequences, and as scripture tells us, the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:16).
The Church teaches that we, as Christians, should be involved in continual preparation for Christ’s coming. A one day shopping orgy is not a part of that preparation or the anticipation we should be holding to. A day spent in piling on debt, in serving other masters, is not a valid exercise in preparation for the celebration of incarnation of Christ.
I’m not one for the either/or neither/nor point of view on Advent. Can we shop? Certainly. Can we prepare for the coming celebration with eager anticipation and joy? Yes, but each in proper proportion to our focus on Advent preparation and expectation. Our preparation involves the state of our souls. Our expectation is focused on our joy at the incarnation in light of the fulness of the Kingdom to come. Our earthly preparation and our heavenly preparation are united and in balance if they reflect a life centered on Christ, a life of Christian preparation and anticipation, of Christian repentance, renewal, and joy. Of Advent.
It really is about Christ, about our Advent preparation of fasting and penance. If Advent is focused on proper preparation and joyful anticipation of that time to come, then Advent opposes death. If our Advent is a time of renewal then our joy will be a fuller joy, our giving and sharing will be more joyous, and we will be properly focused.
The folks at Wal-Mart and other retail outlets, most especially the executives who perpetuate false consumerism, the politicians who encourage us to spend, pile on debt, and live beyond our means, and those alleged Christians standing on-line at so many stores bear a share of responsibility for this death and for the death that goes beyond bodily death. It really is Advent or death and the choice is ours. Advent or death – I’ll take Advent
There are many moments recorded in Scripture when the disciples were at a loss for words, or when their words were utterly inadequate. Faced with some wonderful revelation of God’s glory, their tongues were tied. And since the description of these revelations in Scripture comes from these same disciples, we must sadly acknowledge that we can never know fully what occurred. Since each of us would have wanted nothing more than to have been witnesses of Christ’s earthly ministry, we naturally feel deep regret at the lack. Yet God has deprived us for a purpose. He does not want us constantly to look back at those events hundreds of years ago. Those events are signs of what we shduld seek and discover here and now. Since Jesus healed people of their sicknesses, we should evoke that same miraculous power today. Since Jesus revealed himself in glory on the mountaintop, we should look for all the reflections of God’s glory in the people around us. Since Jesus transformed people’s souls, turned hatred into love and bitterness into sweetness, we should strive for that same transformation in our own lives. When God reveals his glory here and now, we, too, are at a loss for words; but in our dumbness we understand better the events described in Scripture.
Someone named Ceecee left a rather nasty comment on my November 27th Fathers post, taken from the works of St. John Chrysostom. I won’t allow the comment because of its tone, and because of the fact that she disparages the saint by calling him anti-Semitic. Of course I can see where she is coming from. She believes that the Jewish people are (present tense) “chosen.” She goes on to note that “[Chrysostom] spread a curse to the church, because anyone who curses the Jews is cursed by God themselves.” She notes that “Jesus is not pleased with John Chrysostom.” and that she gets her “Christian teaching from some truly Christian sources.”
The problem with these statements is that they mimic the typical Fundamentalist/Evangelical line; that somehow Jerusalem, the Jewish people, the state of Israel, etc. are necessary in the present day
For more on the subject of the Fathers and alleged anti-Semitism take a look at the following from the Orthodox Christian Information Center: Was St. John Chrysostom Anti-Semitic?
Calling any Church Father anti-Semitic on the basis of ostensibly denigrating references to Jews, therefore, is to fall to intellectual and historiographical simple-mindedness. Applying modern sensitivities and terms regarding race to ancient times, as though there were a direct parallel between modern and ancient circumstances, is inane. This abuse of history is usually advocated by unthinking observers who simply cannot function outside the cognitive dimensions of modernity…
There is an excellent study by Robert L. Welken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century. It is an essential work. It very convincingly demonstrates not only that St. John Chrysostomos was not an anti-Semite, but that his supposed writings against the Jews are actually against the “Judaizers,” a terrible mistranslation which convicts him unfairly of racism, when in fact his words are addressed to a theological element in the Christian Church. This work was published in 1983 and is a “must” for anyone wishing to understand the issue at hand.
I would also direct you to a study, History, Religion, and Antisemitism (I could be wrong about the title, but it is close to this), by Stanford Professor Gavin Langmuir, a prominent historian of anti-Semitism, which was published in Berkeley, in 1990, by the University of California Press. This work approaches the history of anti-Semitism with a sophistication, based on good historical research, that puts an end to that unenlightened and artless theory, first put forth in the last century by eccentric (though admittedly trained) scholars and passed about today by coffee shop “scholars” …; namely, that there is a chain of thought connecting St. John Chrysostomos, Luther, and Hitler, and that its links are cemented together by anti-Semitism. In so doing, he offers peripheral support (amidst some ideas about Christian thought that I would question) for many of the points that I have made about our contemporary ignorance of the historical image of Jews in the ancient world, their anti-Christian sentiments and their violence against Christians, and the many ways that the Fathers of the Church used the word “Jew” in their writings and the diverse images that this usage entailed…
If you are confronting someone who has accused St. John Chrysostomos of anti-Semitism, enlightening such a person may be a difficult thing. You will face endless citations from his writings that most simply refuse to put in context. Moreover, there are people who simply refuse to relinquish the idea that anti-Semitism links Christianity, the Reformation, and The Third Reich. This comfortable view of history helps them to avoid that complexity that characterizes the true course of human experience. It also allows them to attribute to the Fathers of the Church a meanness of spirit by which they can separate themselves from the Patristic witness and thus the compelling force of Orthodox Christianity. …[B]lasphemy which is supported by ignorance, and which gains social acceptance, is one of the most destructive forces in society…
Also see: Was Saint John Chrysostom Anti-Semitic? from the St. John Chrysostom website.
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1:57am | November 28 – St. John Chrysostom from Sermons on Lazarus and the rich man |
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1:57am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: November 28 – St. John Chrysostom from Sermons on Lazarus and the rich man http://tinyurl.com/6oywy7
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9:00am |
Shared 4 links on Google Reader. (Show Details)
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10:03am |
Scrobbled 14 songs on Last.fm. (Show Details)
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11:21am | World AIDS Day Interfaith Service in Stratford, Connecticut |
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11:21am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: World AIDS Day Interfaith Service in Stratford, Connecticut http://tinyurl.com/5h7cxu
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From the Stratford Star: World AIDS Day service at St. Joseph’s Dec. 1
St. Joseph’s of Stratford National Catholic Church, 1300 Stratford Road, will host the annual World AIDS Day Interfaith Service Monday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m.
Bishop Anthony D. Kopka is the host pastor and Karen E. Lasecki is the parish organist.
The event is sponsored and conducted by the Stratford Clergy Association. Officers are President, the Rev. Julie-Ann Silberman-Bunn, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Bridgeport in Stratford; vice president, the Rev. Edward Rawls, pastor of First Congregational Church in Stratford; and treasurer, the Rev. Fredric Jackson, pastor of Stratford United Methodist Church.
World AIDS Day started in 1988 and the Stratford Clergy Association has embraced the effort to increase awareness, fight prejudice and improve education about AIDS. Members also gather to remember those in their congregations and in the community who are suffering with AIDS or have died from it, as well as their families.
This year’s service was planned by Bishop Kopka, the Rev. Silberman-Bunn, the Rev. Robert Genevicz, the pastor of Stratford Baptist Church, and the Rev. Mary Snell Willis, the pastor of Lordship Community Church in Stratford.
The service will begin in the courtyard of St. Joseph’s with a candlelight ceremony, then proceed into the church. Interfaith hymns, prayers and readings will be offered by members of the town clergy. Three brief reflections and a history and perspective on World AIDS Day will also be offered by clergy. The congregation will be encouraged to remember by name those who have died from AIDS and those who are suffering, followed by silent meditation.
Afterwards, the parish members of St. Joseph’s of Stratford will welcome everyone into Prime Bishop Hodur Hall for a reception and time for sharing.
Clergy who wish to participate in the service are asked to notify Bishop Kopka by calling 203-377-9901.
Slave and free and simply names. What is a slave? It is a mere name. How many masters lie drunken on their beds, while slaves stand by sober? Whom shall I call a slave? The one who is sober, or the one who is drunk? The one who is the slave of a man, or the one who is the captive of passion? The former has his slavery on the outside; the latter wears his captivity on the inside. I say this, and I will not stop saying it, in order that you may have a disposition which serves the true nature of things, and may not be led astray by the same deception as most people, but may know what a slave is, what a poor person is, what an ignoble person is, what a fortunate person is, and what passion is. If you learn to distinguish these, you will not be subject to any confusion. — Sermon 6.