From the Holy Saturday morning office

Hebrews 4:1-16

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
‘As in my anger I swore,
“They shall not enter my rest” ’,
though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ And again in this place it says, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day—‘today’—saying through David much later, in the words already quoted,
‘Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.’
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

latest sermon

Click here for the mp3 of yesterday.  (Sermon for Lent 5, Year B.)

O Sacerdos!

I like this, quoted in Michael Ramsey's The Christian Priest Today.  

O Sacerdos, quid es tu?

Non es te, quia de nihilo,

Non es ad te, quia mediator ad Deum,

Non es tibi, quia sponsus ecclesia,

Non es tui, quia servus omnium,

Non es tu, quia Dei minister,

Quid es ergo?  Nihil et omnia,

O Sacerdos.

[O Priest, what are you?

You are not from yourself, for you are from nothing;

you are not to yourself, because you a mediator to God;

you are not for yourself, for you are spouse of the Church;

you are not of yourself, for you are a servant of all;

you are not yourself, for you are a minister of God;

what therefore are you?  Nothing and everything,

O Priest.]

A little Allegri

Well sadly I've never had the chance to sing in Allegri's magnificent Miserere, but here's a nice recording of it, linked by NLM.  We're not as good as the King's College choir, but if you like this kind of music, come hear compline every Sunday at 9:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill.

wheatberry salad with dried cranberries and fresh herbs

Try this.  Utterly delicious.  Wheatberries:  who knew?  (They're available in bulk at Whole Foods and probably other places that sell grains in bulk.)

a sermon from last semester

[I used this on 18 November in preaching class.  We were assigned a single text, not a lectionary set, and that text is included below.  I think it turned out pretty well, though my preceptor pointed out how I yet again ended with a lot of salad -- "let us" "let us" "let us."  One tries.]

Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ²'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; ³therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. ⁵They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. ⁹And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

 

What the passage is about: listening to the Word

 

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

            For those of you who do not, like me, follow every jot and tittle of the Book of Common Prayer, that was the Collect from this past Sunday. It doesn't normally go with this reading, but I think it a fitting way to begin as we are sitting here wondering what this passage is really about.

            Right away I want to take away one of our easiest options: the one where we think this is yet another place in Matthew where Jesus is criticizing the Pharisees. It is, of course, that; there's no getting around the criticism, and it gets even harsher as the chapter goes on. (Think, "brood of vipers" language.) But I suspect that we are tempted to make this particular passage a stamp of approval on our own modern liberal anti-authoritarianism. Americans don't like hierarchy. We find it deeply suspicious. And that suspicion has something to do both with the assumptions of liberal democracy and the assumptions of Protestantism. I do believe that Jesus is a radical—even, perhaps, a revolutionary—but let us not read into his radical message our own hopes for anti-hierarchical revolution, whether they happen to center on Martin Luther or Barack Obama.

            This passage right away says something rather different about the Pharisees. Something different from what we've grown to expect from Matthew especially. "The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. Therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it." What? You mean we're supposed to listen to those whitewashed tombs, that brood of vipers? What could they possibly have to offer? There's been a lot of scholarly debate about this passage: what is Moses' seat, what teaching does Jesus refer to? I hope you don't mind if I simply offer you one explanation that I've found convincing. You see, the Greek word translated "teach" in many translations is not actually the verb "teach," it's the verb "say" or "speak"—legw, for you Greek scholars. Some of the translations pick up on this, and it makes all the difference. The point is that the scribes and Pharisees are those who, in the synagogues, read the Torah. Not everyone had access to the Scriptures on their own, so they had to rely on the synagogue officials. Jesus is telling his disciples: "I've told you over and over again, the way that the Pharisees interpret and live the Torah is wrong, but that's no excuse to avoid listening to the words of the Scriptures that have been entrusted to them."

How are we implicated in the critique of the Pharisees?

            Now maybe it's clear why I quoted this week's Collect. Jesus begins this passage with a very similar command: to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures. The Pharisees do not do this. What do they do instead? They pile on burdens, heavy to bear. They put on airs. They go around making public displays of their piety. They give themselves fancy titles.

            Now, parts of this passage present difficulties for those of us in the Catholic Tradition—isn't this kind of behavior precisely what we do? I mean, within the next year or two I will go around having people call me "Father." I just got back from my diocesan convention in which every statement begins with an address of the Bishop as "Right Reverend Sir." Are we implicated in the commands of this passage?

            Well, yes and no. St Jerome and other earlier commentators saw no contradiction in this passage and the emerging practice of calling monks and priests "abba" or "Father." For Jerome the point is that there is only one Father of all—the one whom we address when we pray "Our Father"—and that any early fatherhood—whether religious or biological—is only derivative, and only properly called when it in some way imitates the fatherhood of God. In other words, I can call my priest "Father" not because he is somehow special and worthy of the title, but because in a sacramental way he is to me a figure of God. When St. Benedict wrote his rule he suggested that obedience to the abbot of a monastery was inextricable with obedience to God. To put this more theologically, the Incarnation has made it so that God and humanity are so closely tied that when things are ordered rightly, our obedience to authority on earth is the same as our obedience to our Father in heaven.

            Aside from the Tradition, the New Testament itself should give us pause from interpreting this passage too literally: St Paul has no problem calling himself both a teacher and a spiritual father. If we take the canon as a whole we cannot see such forms of descriptive address to be incompatible with the message of Jesus.

            But that doesn't mean that we're home free.

            The Pharisees don't read the Scriptures rightly. But what makes us think that we do?

The dangers of interpretation

            Here's where, I think, it's especially important to guard against an overly Protestant reading of this text. That is, it would be easy to think: Oh, ok, so the key is simply to do what the Scriptures say—and that's clear, right? There's a big word for this—the perspicuity of Scripture. It's the notion that anyone can simply open up the Bible and understand what it says if only they put in a little effort. But if it's so clear what the Scriptures say, then how in the world did the Pharisees get it so wrong? These were the most well educated men in Israel. They were the ones who spent hours every day reading and memorizing the Scriptures. If there was anyone who might be said to have heard, learned, marked, and inwardly digested the Torah, surely it would have been them! Do we really think that we, Christians in the 21^st century, are somehow more devoted to the Scriptures? Do we memorize the Scriptures like the Pharisees? Do we spend hours every day mulling them over and discussing them with our colleagues? Do we wear the Scriptures on our bodies and offer prayer several times a day based on the Scriptural traditions?

            I just don't think that I can live up to those standards. Can you? So we are left with a mystery. How are we as disciples of Jesus to do what the Word says? How are we supposed to avoid the traps into which the Pharisees fell?

Jesus the Word of God

            "The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted." How do we do what the Word says? Well Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, tells us. "Follow me." For Jesus, we know, was the one who humbled himself and was thereby exalted: he humbled himself to be born of a Virgin, to suffer and die on a Cross, to be buried: and on the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. Jesus himself is the only way that we as the Church can ever read the Scriptures. He is the only way that we can avoid being an authority to ourselves: for it may be that I do not call anyone master or teacher of father, but if I think that I can read the Bible without Jesus—and more significantly, without his mystical Body in the Church—then I have begun to call myself father, teacher, master.

            Should it be so surprising that what the Pharisees were missing was Jesus? They weren't missing devotion and piety; they weren't missing learning: they were missing the second person of the Holy Trinity. They were reading the Word of God, but when they met the incarnate Word of God they did not know him. They thought that it was their job to be teachers and masters, fathers and rabbis: but those things only make sense when we remember that we are all the children of the one Father, and that we are united to him through his Son.

 

            Brothers and sisters, it is very easy to forget this. Whether we are pastors and priests, teachers, fathers, mothers, mentors, activists—wherever we are in the Church—we so often think that the important thing is to be something important: to preach the Gospel to those who haven't heard it, to care for those who need help, to make sure that the Church does what she is supposed to do, to reform this or that societal structure so that it reflects the kingdom of God. And all that is good, in a way. But we're not called to be important: we're called to be children of God, members of the Body of Christ.

            "You have forgotten your first love." Do you love Jesus? It is easy for me, as a High Church Anglican, to get lost in the flurry of ecclesiastical vestments, of beautiful ceremonies and buildings, or that way that, in a Solemn Mass, the world is transfigured into something altogether more heavenly. Some months ago when I first met with my Commission on Ministry to begin the ordination process I gave a summary of my background in the Church. One older priest spoke up and said, "You've said a lot about the Church, but do you really love God?"

            I was a little shocked by the question. Do I love God?! Well, part of the Catholic position is that devotion to the Church and devotion to God are inextricable, but, well, of course I love God, don't I? I mean I try: but when I look at my life, is it always reflective of that love?

            All of us know that it can be a lot easier to say "I love you" than it is to mean it, to live it; and sometimes of course the opposite is true: we're so wrapped up in the display of love that we forget that it needs to be expressed.

            How do we do what the Word says? How do we humble ourselves? How do we avoid making ourselves masters, rabbis, fathers and teachers? How do we give up our aspirations to importance? We can start by loving Jesus. He is the Word of God. He is the one whom we must hear, mark, learn and inwardly digest. Let us abandon ourselves to this love. Let us love our brothers and sisters who are fellow members of his Body. Let us eat his Body and drink his Blood in the mystical supper. Let us pin all our hopes on him and his love for us. And with his blessed Mother and all the saints, let us follow him to glory. Amen.  

Happy Christmas

nativity, originally uploaded by Musica Sacra.

Eight more days to go! (Or something like that. I can't count.)