About the past two weeks

February 23rd, 2010

About two weeks ago my wife and I drove up from Georgia to Kentucky;  since arriving here I found it helpful not to do much writing, just enough to fill out a grocery list, a list of disciplines that I need to strive for during Lent, perhaps a letter or two, and the barest of email postings.  In lieu of writing sentences, I’ve been reading them, especially those in these four books:  The Cambridge Companion of Orthodox Christian Theology, Vladimir Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, and Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God (especially Chapter 4 on ”Silence”).   Slowly, but what seems surely, I’m seeing more clearly what Eastern Orthodoxy is about, especially as it differs from our Western theological heritage; and, as I told my friend Harry this morning over coffee at Hardy’s, I find much of Orthodoxy more theologically and spiritually satisfying than what has been given to me in the Western church.  On a napkin this morning, I drew out (in an admittedly crude fashion diagrammatically) a rough sketch of Orthodoxy’s understanding of the Incarnation, quite wonderful in articulating the Biblical announcement of God’s enfleshment and our subsequent theosis

Years ago it was the pratice among some Lutheran churches to confess The Athanasian Creed on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and I can remember always being profoundly unable (and in a larger sense I still am) to understand what the Creed asked me to confess when I said the following:

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation; that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Essence of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood into God.

By the assumption of the Manhood into God.  This week I have come to more than simply an inkling as to what Athanasius and the Cappadotian Fathers were urging Christians in the Church to embrace in order to preserve and treasure rightly the fullest Presence of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit among and within us.   I now see that such an understanding can be appreciated best (some would say only) by those Christians and churches who understand the Gospel sacramentally in the strongest sense of that adverb.  Fortunately for me the Lutheran Church as I have lived within it has been profoundly sacramental (if not always orthodox in its articulation of the Incarnation).   Why it has taken me so long, now near the completion of my life, to be within my present understanding and enjoyment of the Incarnation, I don’t know.  Much has to do with the wayward life I have led.  All I know now is that I am grateful for the vibrant witness of the Orthodox Church and daily ask God to bless her as she witnesses to those like me outside her ecclesial embrace.

If any among my readers is an Orthodox Christian, I would deeply appreciate hearing from you.  Perhaps you might help me further my understanding of the Incarnation, my veneration of the Theotokos, my immersion in the Scriptures, my deeping appreciation and participation in apophatic prayer, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

A Merton observation

February 23rd, 2010

The contemplative Christian is, of all religious people, the one most likely to realize that she or he is not a saint and least anxious to appear one in the eyes of others.  –Thomas Merton

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

February 23rd, 2010

ash wednesday 2Realizing that Ash Wednesday came to us almost a week ago, nevertheless I’d like to share with you the fine homily Pastor Ron Luckey at Faith Lutheran Church, Lexington, Kentucky, gave to us on the first day of Lent before we received the Imposition of Ashes and Holy Communion.

The Homily                            

ash wednesday     Christians are known for doing a lot of odd, eccentric things in church.  We cross ourselves.  We kneel.  We bow at the waist when the cross passes in procession.  We lay hands on people’s heads and pray for their healing.  But there is probably no more eccentric act in the church than the ancient practice that we perform on Ash Wednesday.

     The palms from last Palm Sunday have been burned and mixed with olive oil to make a paste.  And in a few minutes from now well-dressed, educated, relatively sane adults with their bright young children in tow and their beautiful babies in their arms will come forward to have their foreheads smudged with those ashes.

     A primitive act really—worthy of a spread in National Geographic.  When you think about it, it runs counter to everything we hold dear in this society.  We live in a society that idealizes beauty and flawless complexions.  We spend billions covering up wrinkles and hiding the dark circles under our eyes and getting rid of blemishes and even risking skin cancer to make ourselves darker than we are.  And yet, once a year what do we do?  We make a choice to get up from whatever we’re doing, drive on wintry streets and come to a place like this where we know good and well that somebody like me is going to undo what we spend so much time and money doing.

     It’s really quite amazing.  In a world that promotes cover ups of all kinds—from cosmetics to politics . . . In societies that encourage us to pretend to be what we are not, people have gathered in churches all over the world today as they have for centuries to drop their guard and stop their pretending for awhile and admit who they really are.  In a world where a good name means everything and where unblemished credentials are a ticket to success, we come here on Ash Wednesday leaving our academic degrees at the door and all the things we may have going for us—our our reputation, our jobs, our bank accounts.  And we become marked men and women   wearing our true identity on our brow.  

     The mask comes off on Ash Wednesday.  And the church tells us who we are and where we’re headed.  ”Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  The same words God spoke to Adam way back in Genesis, chapter three, God says to us.  God says it, not to make us grovel.  But just to set the record straight.  To get us oriented again.  ”Remember that you are dust,” God says.  Not self-made like we are so fond of saying in this country.  “Remember that you are dust.”  Not self-sufficient, able to make it on our own.  

     The ashes remind us that when all is said and done, none of us has anything to write home about.  Everything we have comes from God.  And any good thing we are is God’s doing, not ours. We are simply dust.  Fragile and easily moved this way and that depending on how the wind blows. “And to dust we shall return.”  Which is God’s way of reminding us that there are limits to this life.  Boundaries that enclose our years.  Soon or late, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” Someday we will fall and not be able to get up.

     The ashes say we don’t have all the time in the world.  So we must not wait to tell our sons and daughters that we love them.  We must not wait to reconcile with someone with whom we are at odds.  We do not have the luxury of time to wait until it feels right to be compassionate to the poor and just to the unfairly treated.  We do not have the time to put off confessing some sin that separates us from God. “To dust you shall return.”

     The city installed speed bumps in our neighborhood a few weeks ago.  People were going too fast down a particular street a block from our house that has lots of children on it.  So, it was a good thing to do.  But at some level, I resent those speed bumps. They slow me down to ten miles an hour.  They get in my way.  But, if I were to complain, someone would say:  “They get in your way?  That’s why they’re there.  To get in your way.”

     Ash Wednesday is the speed bump the church puts in our way each year.  It’s the church’s way of blocking our path and forcing us to consider the danger our sin causes to ourselves and others.  It’s the church’s way o getting in the way so that God can have the last word with us and set us straight about who we are and give us a proper sense of urgency about our lives.  So that maybe…just maybe, we will pray and give alms and fast and work for justice and recommit ourselves to God and to one another.

     The church is not polite on this day.  It tells us in a blunt and curt manner things we don’t want to hear.  But things we need to hear. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  We can run from that truth on a lot of days.  But not this day.  And that’s a good thing, because then we’ll be in a position to truly appreciate and truly receive the fact that the mark on our brow is the mark of the cross.  The mark that keeps us under God’s protection even though, by our merits we don’t deserve it.

   This is not just any smudge we wear today.  This is a sign of who we are but also, thank God, of whose we are.

DOESN’T THIS MAKE YOUR DAY!

February 3rd, 2010

ATT00001A Benedictine friend sends this little story to all of us:  
 
A nurse on the pediatric ward before listening to the little ones’ chests would plug the stethascope into their ears and let them listen to their own heart.. Their eyes would always light up with awe, but she never got a response equal to four year old David’s comment.

Gently she tucked the stethoscope into his ears and placed the disk over his heart. “Listen,” she said, “what do you suppose that is?”

He drew his eyebrows together in a puzzled line and looked up as if lost in the mystery of the strange tap, tap, tapping deep in his chest. Then his face broke out in a wondrous grin and he asked, “Is that Jesus knocking?”

Blessed are those who walk with one hand held by God and the other one held by a friend.

The Third and Fourth Sundays after Epiphany: One Story, Two Sermons, the Second One Here

February 3rd, 2010
Bernardo Strozzi, "Prophet Elijah and the Widow at Sarepta," 1630s

Bernardo Strozzi, "Prophet Elijah and the Widow at Sarepta," 1630s

As I noted in my previous posting,  the appointed Gospel readings for the Third and Fourth Sundays after Epiphany are in fact one story, divided in half–Part I: Luke 4.14-21; Part II: Luke 4.21-30–giving pastors, priests, and preachers ample opportunity to clarify what Jesus did (and did not do!)  while giving his first sermon in the Nazareth synagogue, his hometown “church.”    Here is Pastor Luckey’s second homily, based on Luke 4.21-30, as the people of Faith Lutheran Church, Lexington, Kentucky, heard it on the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, January 31, 2010:

 The story in the gospel reading today began last Sunday.  You remember from last Sunday’s gospel that Jesus has been preaching and teaching throughout Galilee for several months and is home for a few days.  He goes to worship at the synagogue on a Friday evening, the beginning of the Sabbath.  He’s been asked to read scripture at the service and to give a little sermon based on the text.

This is how we left the story last week.  “He stood up to read,” Luke says “and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was Read the rest of this entry »

The Third and Fourth Sundays after Epiphany: One Story, Two Sermons, the First One Here

February 3rd, 2010

jesus in synagogueFor whatever reason (perhaps because it takes two Sunday to do justice to Luke’s story in chapter 4), the appointed Gospel readings for the Third and Fourth Sundays after Epiphany are in fact one story, divided in half, giving pastors, priests, and preachers ample opportunity to clarify what Jesus did (and did not do!)  while giving his first sermon in the Nazareth synagogue, his hometown “church.”   Although I heard Pastor Katie Pasch of St. John Lutheran Church in Griffin, Georgia, unpack the full meaning and impact of Luke’s story, her busy schedule (she was the grandmother of a new baby yesterday!) precluded her sending me her text; and as a consequence, I’m making available Pastor Ron Luckey’s two sermons.   Here is his first homily, based on Luke 4.14-21, as the people of Faith Lutheran Church, Lexington, Kentucky, heard it on the Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 24, 2010:

It’s a Friday evening.  Sundown.  The Jewish Sabbath has begun, and the town of Nazareth has gathered in the synagogue to worship.  Jesus, the hometown boy who’s been out in the world making a name for himself is in the congregation that night.  Before the service starts, the rabbi walks up to him.  “Jesus, I wonder if you’d be willing to be our assisting minister and read a portion of the scripture for us, and say a few words this evening?  I know the folks would appreciate it.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Praying before praying

February 3rd, 2010
Marc Chagall, The Praying Jew

Marc Chagall, The Praying Jew

Now that June is away for the week with her daughter and friends, I am at the lakehouse by myself until Saturday.  There are certain pleasures and blessings in being alone for a while, and even more of them when the solitude is extended.   Retired and in the house by myself, I have the privilege of planning my own days; and as a consequence I’m able to experiment somewhat with what goes on in my prayer life.   Having established a daily round of “fixed-time” Morning and Evening Prayer for many years now, I’m able to try some adjustments that may be for the better.

On most days my wife and I do our “fixed-time” praying at 8 in the morning and 5 in the evening.  Most of the time we simply drop whatever we’re doing, sit down, open up our prayerbooks, and, as we sometimes say, “go to it.”  What we really mean, of course, is that we want to “go to God.”   Our going usually takes about twenty minutes (a little more in the evening when we make our intercessions), and then we return to whatever else we need to do.   Daily prayer is thus something of an twice-daily interruption, two short openings in the day.

When I’m alone, however, I’m finding that my sense of “fixed-time” praying is under expansion so that more of each day is now opening up to “going to God.”  One addition to my habit of prayer is especially proving helpful, and I like to share how it is that I came upon it.

On a Friday two weeks ago a group from St. John Lutheran Church and I spent the evening at B’nai Israel synagogue in Fayetteville, Georgia, joining our Reformed Jewish brothers and sisters in their Sabbath worship.  Using their service book, Gates of Prayer, I mumbled my way through transliterations of Hebrew, listened to a good talk by the rabbi, and managed, at least a little bit, to acquaint myself with a spattering of Jewish prayer life.  As I opened Gates of Prayer, I found this sentence on page 3:

The pious ones of old used to wait a whole hour before praying, the better to concentrate their minds on God.

Reading that sentence took me back a bit!  Instead of dropping everything and jumping into prayer, the “pious ones” apparently spent considerable prayer time preparing for prayer.  Since reading that observation, I’ve tried to put its suggestion into practice by slightly changing how I begin evening and morning prayers now that I’m alone at the lakehouse. 

Here’s how it is working for me.  Instead of turning off the TV or coming in from some outside chore and entering prayer a few seconds later, I’m now deliberately settling into prayer with more preparatory silence.   First, I light the votive candle before icons of the Lord Jesus and His Mother.   Then I sit down and carefully preview what I’ll read in my prayer book and place my book marks accordingly so that I won’t need to fumble around later on.  I check my church calendar to make sure that I’m not overlooking something or someone special to the day.   Next I turn the day’s pages and find out what psalms and lessons are appointed for the day so as to alert myself as to reading surprises I may encounter.   Next I see what hymn is to be sung (or chose one), and if I don’t know the tune, I take the time to finger a nearby keyboard, learning the melody if that’s necessary.  All of this I do slowly.  I’m in no rush. 

I then look over my list of names of people who have asked for intercessions.  Now and then I’ll pencil in an additional name that comes to mind.  With my list updated, I then begin to review my own life for several minutes.  If I’m in Morning Prayer, I reflect upon what happened since yesterday’s Evening Prayer.  Did I do or not do anything that needs to be brought before God.  In the evening I review the whole day, examining personal motives, examining my conscious, noting especially where repentance is required and necessary.  I make a mental list of thanksgivings and praises I want to offer to God.   Once in a while I’ll look over my daily planner’s “to do” list to see if something was left undone that may need immediate attention during and after prayer.

What used to be about twenty minutes or so of “fixed-hour” praying is now turning out to take about twice as long.   Everything is slowly down.  I find myself more relaxed, centered, and settled.  It’s certainly not “a whole hour before praying,” but it is way of coming before God with more awareness and attention.  Perhaps it’s close to what the pious ones meant when they recommended praying before praying.

In Gates of Prayer, there’s this little story, also on page 3:

The REBBE [rabbi] of Tsanz was asked by a Chasid [Hasidic friend], “What does the Rabbi do before praying?”  “I pray,” was the reply, “that I may be able to pray properly.”

Two Fridays ago in their synagogue, God showed me how He can help me in my prayer life, and I learned a lot from my Jewish friends.  This week I’m beginning to realize that some time spent praying before praying helps my prayer life.

2 February 2010: The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple

February 1st, 2010

entrnce-of-our-lord-christ-into-the-temple-1-st-andrei-rublyov

 

My wife is away for the week, spending some time with her daughter Becky and classmate friends.  And since my flight to Haiti, once scheduled to leave this morning, was cancelled, I now have the opportunity to be more by myself than usual.  This brief “hermiting” means that my days are now more fully open to prayer, lectio divina, walking, and feeding Mitzy, the neighbor’s brown lab who wears a generous splash of white around her neck.   This afternoon I went over the library in Jackson and brought home Robert Alter’s The Book of Psalms, a distinctly Jewish reading of the Psalter that I plan to enjoy immensely.

On this Eve of The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord, I feel privileged to see the parents of Jesus bring their son into the Temple in Jerusalem for the first time. 

Evening Prayer, which I said about 5:00, was especially enjoyable, believing as I do that prayer time with God is to be thoroughly enjoyed whenever the opportunity arrives.  The appointed psalm was 84, and I quietly sung it twice so as to enter its beautiful going into God’s temple, the temple into which Blessed Mary and Joseph brought their infant son, forty days old.  One of my prayer books includes a number of icons appropriate for each season, and I was particularly struck with the theological loveliness of The Icon of the Presentation of Our Lord(albeit reproduced in black and white).  The editor of this prayer book, Frederick J. Schumacher, himself an iconophil, provided a helpful commentary on the icon, and I would like to share it with you, this time, however, with a reproduction of the icon in  color, The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple as written by St Andrei Rublyov.  In the sharing that follows, I lightly edit Schumacher’s commentary inasmuch as some details of Rublyov’s icon differ slightly from the reproduction in my prayer book:

The first known image of the Presentation of our Lord dates from the fifth century and represents St. Luke’s account (2.22-38) of the occasion when Mary and Joseph went to the temple in Jerusalem for the purification of Mary forth days after the birth of Jesus (Leviticus 12.6-8) and the consecration of him to God as her first-born son (Exodus 13.2).

Here we see the very author of the law himself who gave it to Moses on Mt. Sinai coming with the mother of God to fulfill the law pertaining to her and to himself.

As Luke records, we see that the meeting takes place in the temple, at an altar which is covered by a canopy.  In most icons there is a book or scroll on the table, symbolic of the Old Covenant, or else a cross foreshadowing the words spoken by Simeon to Mary that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also (Luke 2.35).

Mary is on the left side of the altar and extending her hands which are covered, symbolic of adoration and respect, as is the case in many icons in which something is being presented, here the very Son of God.  To the right of the altar Simeon, who was looking for the “consolation of Israel” and was “told by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2.25-26) is leaning forward as he has received the offering of the child and now hold him in his hands which are also covered (as are Joseph’s).  Jesus seems to be seated in the arms of Simeon as on a throne, and one can wonder—as some icons more vividly show—whether Simeon holds the child or the child holds Simeon.  This is expressed in the Orthodox tradition in the singing of Ode 9 of Matins where Jesus says, “I am not held by the old man; it is I Who hold him, for he asks Me forgiveness.”

One can imagine Simeon saying the words known as the Nunc Dimittis in reponse to his hope that  he would not die before he saw the Lord’s Messiah:

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace;
     your word has been fulfilled.
My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have
     prepared in the sight of every people:
    a light to real you to the nations and the glory of
    your people Israel

Here as Moses had once received the tablets of the law, Simeon now received the very one who with God the Father gave the law and is now present among his people in the flesh.

Joseph is following Mary, carrying the offering of “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons,” the offering of poor parents as prescribed in Leviticus 12.8.  Behind Simeon is the prophetess Anna, “who was of great age.”  She looks up in an expression of prayer which Luke tells us she engaged in day and night, not leaving the temple.  She also looks as though she is giving prophetic utterance that she “spoke of him for all who were for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2.36-38).

In its totality, the icon presents us with the message Luke proclaimed: that here two representatives of the Old Covenant meet the Savior who comes in fulfillment of the promise to Israel and to be a light to the whole world.  In the fifth century in Jerusalem this feast associated with Jesus as the light given to lighten the Gentiles was celebrated with the people holding candles.  From this tradition has come the other name for the day of Presentation in the western church, Candlemas.

Here is the collect or prayer for this day:
  
Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your Only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
  
For more reflection on the Presentation, visit the following:
  

29 January 2010: House cleaning in God’s presence

January 29th, 2010

cleaning houseToday while June has driven down to Macon to see about a recall regarding her Lexus (which she inherited from her brother Harold several years ago) from the Toyota corporation regarding something to do with an oil hose, I’m staying at home, having decided to do a bit of pre-spring house cleaning:  scrubbing the bathroom floors, cleaning spots out of the carpets with a pan of vinegar-water, pouring some Drano into a drain that should be taught to work better, washing a load or two of clothes, vacuuming the house, and straightening up my study.  All of this, quite frankly, in preparation for my stay-at-home next week while June goes on a cruise and her daughter and friends.  As you might imagine, I like a clean house, everything in its place, and a place for everything–as the cliche goes.

It’s on days like this that I like to remember Brother Lawrence who wrote The Practice of the Presence of GodBrother Lawrence is famous for his recommendations to be constant in prayer even while doing chores around the kitchen.  As a seventeenth-century French monk, Brother Lawrence developed a way of praying with awareness which some say is closely allied to the kind of attention practiced of by our brothers and sisters who train themselves in mindfulness meditation.   For example, in The Practice of the Presence of God, he wrote:  “Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we are aware of.”    Brother Lawrence was intensely aware that he was in constant need of grace, and much of praying was given to frequent repentance.   So with me.   Today I find myself far less devoted to God, my wife, friends and family that I wish.  Like Brother Lawrence I too am in need of grace, repentance, and forgiveness.   May God have mercy on me, and may He empty Himself into me even as I empty myself so I can be filled with His Spirit.   Renew my intensions, O Lord, so that this day I live with all my heart, soul, and mind given to You.  May God help me to love others, especially those whom I find irritating and irksome, while I take out the trash, get some laundry done, blow more pine needles off the deck, and drive the truck to the Monticello landfill where I take two old, wornout tires that need to be recycled.

28 January 2010: Thomas Aquinas, Teacher, 1274

January 28th, 2010

thomas_aquinas-719213Today our service book, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, asks us to remember St. Thomas Aquinas.   While Thomas is not one of the favorite saints in the Lutheran Church, our service books always include a number of his hymn texts, one of which is “Thee We Adore, O Savior” (ELW, 476).  Certainly in the overall history of Church, Thomas’ life, scholarship, and witness to the Gospel is exceptionally important.   Indeed, there is an increasing appreciation for Thomas nearly everywhere, especially for whose intellectual acumen allows them to follow his sometimes dense but insightful writing and thought.  Georgia most famous author, Flannery O’Connor, for example, read in her adult life from Thomas’ Summa Theologica almost every evening.   Aidan Nichols’ Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to His Life, Work, and Influence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) is one of the best books to read if you’d life to get acquainted with this towering theologian.  Here is the prayer the Church often uses to thank God for the gift of Thomas Aquinas:

Almighty God, you have enriched your Church with the singular learning and holiness of your servant Thomas Aquinas: Enlighten us more and more, we pray, by the disciplined thinking and teaching of Christian scholars, and deepen our devotion by the example of saintly lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.