Theology for Breakfast: Comfort Food in Forward DxD (Nov '20-Jan '21)

For the past several years before every sunrise I've read daily reflections published in Forward Day by Day for Bible readings allotted each day to Episcopalians by our Book of Common Prayer.

The issue concluding today covered a momentous three months. An election, presidential tantrums while dozens of courts slapped down baseless accusations of fraud, a make-or-break run-off for two Senate seats in my state of Georgia, a mob attack on the Capitol with intent to stop certification of the election and calls to execute the Vice President and Congressional leaders. In these two weeks, the pandemic's post-holiday surge forced our school to go remote. Add to all this that my brother-in-law died the day following the election, and you can see why I've needed some reassurance.

I found comfort and some amusement in the pages by Mariclair Porter Carlsen, rector of a church in Pennsylvania.

Carlsen likes food.

• Rev. 19.9 reminded her of Fr. Robert Farrar Capon's spiritual memoir - cum - cookbook The Supper of the Lamb. As the "alchemy" of cooking transforms ingredients into something "magical," writes Carlsen, "the rough parts" of our lives combine in "a whole that transcends its constituent parts, all through Christ's love and the heat of struggles and mistakes."
• From gardening, she knows that "first fruits" (James 1.18) are the prettiest of the season, but the smaller, lumpier fruits at the end of the season are just as nutritious and frequently sweeter -- and she's sure God loves those of us who may feel more like that latter than the former.
• Among all the Advent readings about dire end times, she pulls out another kitchen reference from Zechariah 14.21: When Messiah comes, even the ordinary cooking pots will be sacred as the vessels on the altar.

Carlsen responds to readings from Luke 16. When Jesus says "Whoever is faithful in little is faithful in much" (16.10), Carlsen says that, just as little lies can escalate in a dangerous way, a "small instance of love can snowball into a life lived with tenderness, compassion, and grace." Noting that all the dialogue in the parable of Lazarus occurs between the rich man and Abraham, she wonders what Lazarus would have to say. She asks us to consider who we are in that story.

About James, Carlsen guesses that he probably "wasn't much fun to know," but she thanks God for people like him, "speedbumps for the rest of us who lack their discipline...with one toe in the fountain of life."

The ominous promise to separate sheep from the goats (Mt. 25.32) prompts Carlsen to observe that all of us are goats some of the time, sheep some of the time. Drawing on several other parables of Jesus, she opines that Jesus searches for the sheep in us, "searching for us like lost coins, lighting lamps, sweeping out the farthest corners, refusing to count us as lost." She adds, "We are compelled to do this same searching" in strangers we meet.

I'm eager to get the latest issue, which seems to have been delayed in the mail.

[My articles about many previous issues of FDxD, along with my articles on many other aspects of the Episcopal experience can be found in a curated list at my page Those Crazy Episcopalians]

Acts of the Apostles: Joy and Encouragement

At the start of this sequel to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus ascends to the clouds, and a couple of “men in white” (angels, natch) tell the bewildered apostles to stop looking upwards – it’s up to them, now. From then on, a small band of Jesus’s followers grows by leaps and bounds. Lame beggars leap and bound for joy, as the power of the Holy Spirit fills the apostles. Magicians vie with apostles and lose. Authorities religious and imperial try to silence the apostles, to jail them, to banish them, but cell doors open of their own accord, earthquakes crack chains, and the Spirit gives the Christians just the right words to convince more and more to follow Jesus. Even death, the stoning of Stephen, the slaying of James, increases the resolve of the faithful.

Saul, arch-enemy of the Christians, converts on the road to Damascus and becomes preeminent evangelist and organizer.

Dissension and “sharp contention” arise, especially when Peter ministers to a Roman centurion and when Paul reaches out to gentile communities. In the last chapters, Paul outwits the authorities, pitting Pharisee against Sadducee, using his status as a Roman citizen to get out of one scrape after another. Each authority passes him up the ranks until he reaches his goal, Rome.

That’s how Acts reads when you take it in one sitting. (I actually stood under the kitchen light the whole time, and I did take a break mid-way for breakfast.) Like an epic movie about rebels facing an evil empire, it’s fun, it’s encouraging, it’s involving. It’s even funny in places. There’s the one about the seven naked exorcists, and Paul’s invitation to the Roman governor to join the faith, “I wish you were as I am--” adding a diplomatic hint, “except for the chains.”

In his book Introducing the New Testament, Mark Allan Powell raises questions that scholars and the faithful have raised about Acts from the beginning. Why in Acts does Paul not speak any of the doctrines he hammers in his letters – about the crucifixion and justification by faith? (Powell lists five major discrepancies, p. 213). Powell surveys different answers, but comes down on the common-sense observation that Paul in Acts is speaking to non-believers, while he writes in his letters to organized churches.

Powell gives us a long list of parallels between Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Acts (Powell 215). Both books begin with a preface to Theophilus, the descent of the Spirit, a sermon on prophecy fulfilled, and the healing of a lame man; parallels continue to the ends, where a Roman centurion endorses the hero (Jesus, Paul) and there’s a statement of Scriptures fulfilled. Besides the formal parallels, the two books share concerns for the poor and outcasts, an open mind towards pagans and opponents in the Jewish community (222). I noticed also attention to women in positions of influence that’s uncharacteristic of scripture outside of Luke and Acts.

Powell addresses the fact that anti-semites have drawn on Acts to justify their hatred. Powell considers the book to be an endorsement of Judaism. The ministry to the gentiles in Acts is a “continuation” of mission to Israel (219). Israel did not fail, and the church has not “superseded” Israel, Powell writes. Rather, as the Hebrew prophets foretold, Luke sees in the Jewish Christians the “remnant” of Israel (220).

Concluding his chapter on Acts Powell allows that modern Christians don’t experience their faith this way. He likens Acts to an agency’s PR brochure, neither making things up nor denying problems, but foregrounding his message:

Sometimes miracles do happen. Sometimes prayers are answered, heroes are rescued, pagans are kind, martyrs die bravely, and people of faith turn the world upside down (17.6). Remember those times.

Reading Acts this morning, I had a flashback to the only other time I read the book straight through. It was for a Bible class in high school. Back then, I was emerging from years of teenage agnosticism, and this book grabbed my imagination. Even today, I feel, if I weren’t already a faithful Episcopalian, I’d want to join this movement.

Trump Channels Charles I: Lessons of 1642

Capitol insurrectionists January 6 chanted "1776." But the rebels in that year were thinking of 1642. [See A Tale of Two Kings at the Journal of the American Revolution]

By 1642, King Charles I of England had ruled by himself 11 years, the very definition of an autocrat. Flaunting norms, he ruled by executive orders while he rejected mounting demands for him to call elections for Parliament. But when his pet projects and high life style exhausted the treasury, he had no choice: "No taxation without representation" was already an English tradition, and only the House of Commons could raise taxes. Charles reluctantly acceded to elections for a new Parliament. When his opponents won a majority, he ordered another round of elections. Voters named more opponents to this second Parliament than to the first. The House of Commons immediately took to voting on resolutions taking Charles to task for abuse of power.

The King marched on Parliament with soldiers at his side. Stunned by this breach of tradition, his subjects bowed to His Majesty, until Charles ordered his soldiers to arrest leading lawmakers. There were gasps and vocal protest. The leaders, warned in advance, had gone into hiding. Charles, aware that he'd made a royal blunder, said lamely, "I see that the birds have flown," and went home. Parliament, now more unified against him than before, continued their business with renewed vigor.

This past week, our President urged supporters to prevent the normal processes of our representative democracy. When he saw the resulting destruction and the revulsion that he had caused, he lost his head. On screen, he mixed messages:  "go home," "have peace," "these people are evil," and, in a lame conclusion, "We love you; you're very special." Congress went on to certify the election, much of the President's support having evaporated. Cabinet officials, corporate allies, and Republican legislators abandoned him over the next couple of days. A laughing seventh grader told me, "Twitter put Trump in 'time out.'"

[Images: Above, painting of Parliament, formerly kneeling, rising up against Charles I, by Charles West Cope from 1866. Then, the President's supporters crashed through gates and glass doors and entered the House of Representatives, shouting threats to Vice President Mike Pence and legislators. "The birds had flown."]

The ascent of Parliament in 1642 didn't have a happy ending. Civil war followed. The supreme victor was Oliver Cromwell, head of a Puritan faction in Parliament. He decapitated Charles, expelled his opponents from the House of Commons and, in mirror-image of Charles I's "personal rule," ruled with a rubber-stamp Parliament for 11 more years.

Still, in the long run, 1642 established the principle enshrined in our founding documents of 1776 and 1789: the "rule of law," meaning rulers must obey the rules. That includes those who make the rules and those who enforce them: none have absolute power over any other person, nor absolute impunity.  So, too, the voting majority may have their way, but they're limited by the laws that protect the minority's inalienable rights and their voice.

When the majority becomes the minority, they can be secure within the same framework, so long as we all play by the rules and accept the judgments of the referees. That's the lesson of 1642, followed by the other, darker lesson: when one side stops abiding by the rules, the other side can feel entitled to do the same.

Let's hold the line in 2021.

[I used to teach the English Civil War to 8th Graders from Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples. That was over 30 years ago, but his vivid writing lives in my memory. I may have appropriated some of his language in my account.]

Tail End of the 12 Days of Christmas

Tomorrow, the 12th day of Christmas, is a Teachers Work Day; classes begin Wednesday. Even this morning, I have to do some prep for the semester ahead. Familiar anxieties are welling up about things I should be doing and things I should have already done. So, let me savor this last morning prayer time before vacation ends by reflecting on how my church has supported me this season.

Hours before sunrise each of the past 11 days, I've re-read a lot of the prophet Isaiah and more scriptures about Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. The readings are prescribed in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer for the "Morning Prayer II" liturgy during the 12 days of Christmas. Familiar as these readings are, they feel fresh and urgent as the story unfolds morning by morning.

At noon for each of these days, our clergy at St. James have live-streamed services alone at the altar, sometimes with a lone lay reader to assist, in compliance with COVID restrictions for the Diocese of Atlanta. We don't get communion, but their thoughtful sermons have highlighted a different theme for each day.

With a short Compline liturgy at sundown, these liturgies for morning, noon, and night have kept me grounded in the meaning of the season even absent all the services, choir practices, and social gatherings that comprise my Christmas memories for 60 years.

Since Advent,I've skipped the canticles appointed in the prayer book, substituting Advent and Christmas hymns. I sing by myself at my kitchen table -- kind of sad, kind of funny, but I'm thankful as I sing that the songs bring to memory sounds of choirs past, including voices of singers no longer with us. I saved three of my favorite carols for today: "In the Bleak Mid-Winter," "What Child is This?" and "Silent Night."

At the tail end of the morning service comes "The General Thanksgiving," meant for unison recitation by a roomful of believers. I've memorized it so that I can recite it to myself in tedious or anxious times -- often at red lights. When I speak the words "we give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving - kindness to us and to all whom you have made," I immediately think of one creature He has made, the one curled up these cold mornings in the dog bed in the kitchen, or else on a cushion in the den. As I go on with the prayer, I massage her from head to tail: "We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life...." She exhales with a sound that I would make during an exertion, but from her it seems to be an expression that she, too, is feeling thankful for her creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life.

A bit further in the General Thanksgiving, we pray to keep "such an awareness of your mercies that we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives...." My hand's sense memory helps me to remember how I bless Brandy with a back rub every morning, and how she blesses me just by existing.

May this morning ritual, continued in the year ahead, keep me aware and thankful.

"Fulfilling the Scripture" Isn't "Proving a Prediction"

In today's gospel reading, Matthew tells us how Joseph fled to Egypt to save his little family from Herod's slaughter of the innocents, "in order that the scripture may be fulfilled." In today's sermon, Fr. Daron Vroon took the trouble to look up the scripture from Hosea, where the context is clearly not a forward-looking prediction but a backwards-looking statement about how God led His people out of Egypt in the time of Moses.

[Photo: Screenshot of Fr. Daron Vroon, Associate Rector of St. James Episcopal Church, Marietta, GA, from the live-streaming service January 3, 2021]

When we run across problems like this, Fr. Daron said, we tend to blame the writers for their naive ways or their careless use of sources. Fr. Daron reminded us that the author is not the only person involved here; we readers may be the ones who are reading the words incorrectly.

Fr. Daron went on to show that Hosea is depicting Israel as God's child -- cared for, led out of Egypt, educated with the law -- but, after all that, worshipping idols, disappointing the Father. Hosea tells Israel to get back on track.

Already, Fr. Daron's had made clear what was coming: The story that went awry in the time of Hosea is fulfilled in Jesus.

Fr. Daron quickly sketched out how other Hebrew Scriptures -- the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs, the erotic poetry of Song of Solomon -- are fulfilled by the person of Jesus.

The church fathers, whom Fr. Daron has been re-reading recently, saw every such problem in Scripture as an opportunity to think more deeply. Will do.

Bark! The Herald Angels Sing

On the Seventh Day of Christmas: In the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, today's gospel reading was in chapter 2 of Luke, about the angels appearing to the shepherds. So it's still a good time to share this image, a photo of Brandy and me by Susan Rouse, superimposed on a watercolor by Susan.

[For a curated list of reflections on dogs in our lives and in our spiritual lives, along with links to many more photos of Brandy and my other beloved dogs before her, see my page Loving Dogs]