Teacup Browsing

• Would have like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. 

• Cardinal Dolan (who I knew when he was an auxiliary bishop in St. Louis) defends "virtuous capitalism."

• He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

• Italian nunsense.

• Muchas gracias.

• De nada.

• Guns don't kill people (in India).

• Learning from one's mistakes.

• Summer sunbathing tip.

• World Cup 101.

• Jesus backs Italia.

• I just learned a new word.

• Almost swearing on the good book.

• A bird in hand.

• Miami, San Antonio or Il papa? 

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Things We Do, See and Say at Church: Meditations for a Eucharist BasedSpirituality

 These meditations are intended for before or after the Holy Eucharist and are meant to enhance and deepen our participation in the liturgy through prayerful and mindful reflection on various aspects of the worship experience.

The Church

While visiting Canada I noticed that people talked about going "to hospital" or "to university" in much the same way that Americans talk about going to church.  The physical church is the first thing we see when arriving for the Eucharistic celebration.  While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with speaking of the church as a place, we must resist the temptation of looking at the church as merely a  physical edifice.  The physical church, the brick, wood, or steel structure, can serve as a mnemonic device to help us recall precisely what the church is.  Perhaps we can even distinguish between small "c" church (the place) and big "C" Church (the metaphysical reality).

The word "church" as rendered in the New Testament comes from the Greek term ekklesia which is formed from two Greek words meaning "an assembly" and "to call out" or "called out ones." As such, the Church consists first and foremost as a body of believers, people, who have been called by God to live as his people under the authority of Jesus the Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23).  The Church is made up of all those from every time and place who are vitally united to Christ, both living and deceased.  One pastor I know likes to celebrate the Eucharist envisioning the live assembly of saints in front of him and the "cloud of witnesses," those who have passed to their eternal reward, behind him.

In summary the church is not a place, it is a people.  As St. Peter puts it, "You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house." (1Peter 2:5).  If one could imagine a building molded out of human persons rather than raw material, one would be closer to the truth of what the church is.  Yet, the Church does not consist of discreet "living stones," rather, we are mystically and ontologically, although personally differentiated, united to one another.  

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body...Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."

 So, as you arrive "at church" look left, look right, look in front, look behind and  recognize that the Church is not a building but rather an integral and integrated relationship with God and with one another.

Witness Statements

Pentecost Sunday 2014

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

`In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.

________________________

Some real examples of witness statements:

Q: "The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective witness, isn't it? You too were shot in the fracas."

A: "No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval."

----------------------------------------------

Q: What is your date of birth?

A: July fifteenth.

Q: What year?

A: Every year.

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Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?

A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

------------------------------------

Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?

A: Yes.

Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?

A: I forget.

Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?

--------------------------------------------

Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?

A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.

Q: How long has he lived with you?

A: Forty-five years.

--------------------------------------------

Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that morning?

A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"

Q: And why did that upset you?

A: My name is Susan.

---------------------------------------------

Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the occult?

A: We both do.

Q: Voodoo?

A: We do.

Q: You do?

A: Yes, voodoo.

-----------------------------------------

Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?

A: Yes.

Q: And what were you doing at that time?

----------------------------------------

Q: She had three children, right?

A: Yes.

Q: How many were boys?

A: None.

Q: Were there any girls?

-----------------------------------------

Q: How was your first marriage terminated?

A: By death.

Q: And by whose death was it terminated?

-------------------------------------------

Q: Can you describe the individual?

A: He was about medium height and had a beard.

Q: Was this a male, or a female?

------------------------------------------

Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?

A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

--------------------------------------------

We are all witnesses.  The question is, what kind of witnesses are we?

At the beginning of the book of Acts, right before his ascension, Jesus makes a descriptive promise:  "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8).  

From this we can deduce two things: empowering is the chief characteristic of the Holy Spirit and the primary reason of the Holy Spirit's empowering is so that we might be witnesses to God's outrageous love.

In Acts, "the disciples were all together in one place."  In the upper room, cowering, fearful of the Romans and Jewish religious leaders who were out to get them. But they were Jesus-less now.  They didn't have the power of the messiah.  But they had the promise of the Holy Spirit which is realized at Pentecost like a violent rush of wind.  The Holy Spirit even allows them to preach in such a way that they would be understood in various languages!  It is no wonder that when promising the power of the Holy Spirit, Luke's Jesus uses the word dynamin, from which we get the word dynamite.  The Holy Spirit's power is explosive.

The Holy Spirit transformed a group of cowering misfits into courageous proclaimers (witnesses) of the good news that God loves us and wants to be in relationship with us.  And so empowered, they carried that message to the ends of the earth.  But they could only carry a message of God's diffusive love that they themselves experienced, otherwise, they would have been false witnesses.

Taking this in we can ask ourselves:

Have I experienced the love of God?

Am I in an intimate love relationship with him?

What kind of witness to this relationship am I?
Can I imagine being madly in love with someone and never talking about him or her?

What are my real life "witness statemments."

Because Pentecost is the day on which 3,000 new converts were added to the church, Pentecost Sunday affords a wonderful opportunity to publicly acknowledge our own, priestly and prophetic mission as Christians.   While Pope Francis has famously described the church as a "field hospital" where wounds are healed and God's love is proclaimed, to often it is tempting to treat it as a comfortable private (sometimes ethnic) club where outsiders need not apply. 

One of the great challenges of the Church in the modern age is to return the proclamation of the Gospel (evangelism) to its proper foundations and rescue it from the increasing secularism of marketing growth and moralistic interpretations.  Christ did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people live. The conversion of 3,000 at Pentecost was not a membership drive, but glorious reversal of both The Fall and the tragedy of Babel.  That is the Gospel we proclaim!  Not, “Join our church, be good, and God will take care of you,” but “Life, freedom, healing, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation are offered to you in the death & resurrection of Jesus.”  

That's a message we can not only get excited about, but also boldly proclaim.

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Teacup browsing 6.5.16

• Pentecost 2014 (this Sunday):  History and traditions.

• 28% of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

• A grim horror in Ireland.

• As the Bergdahl controversy continues (his homecoming celebration had been cancelled) check out some other famous, freed captives.

• Putin will not be voting for Hilary.

• Really, no joke:  the Duck Dynasty Bible.

• While Pope hints at the possibility of married priests, Portuguese priest are leaving to get married in record numbers.

• I'm all in favor of the Slow Food movement and some aspects of the Slow Church phenomena...as long as it's not used as an excuse against evangelism.

• Speaking of evangelism, Austin church gets creative and the Archbishop of Canterbury has an excellent idea.

• But here's an example of what not to do.

• Cristal, Maybachs, diamonds on your time piece and real happiness.

• Sterling sold the Clippers for $2 billion which could be tax free.

• The most beautiful places in the world.

• Memento mori as the monks used to say.  Or, you could be on a road trip with this guy.

• The second largest religions state by state and other interesting stats.  Spoiler: Islam tops.

• To rapture or not to rapture?  Methinks not.

• From the oops! department.

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A Centurion Faith

Daily Reflection for Friday July 6, 2014

Matthew 8:5-13

Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”  When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.  I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour.

___________________________

"Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith."

Really? Between all of the Apostles, all the religious leaders, people he has healed, no one's faith was equal to the centurion's who presumably wasn't even a religious man?  At first blush that seems far fetched.  However, a closer look might reveal why.

Firstly, the centurion's faith was simple: it was, unlike say, the religious leaders' faith; uncomplicated and free from required accretions.  Certainly there are some basic beliefs to the Christian faith, but at the same time we can have dogmas without being dogmatic about everything.  In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.  In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity (love).   Jesus responds to simple faith.

Second, and obliquely related to the above, the centurion's faith was humble.  "I am not worth to have you come under my roof..." We often pray for precisely the same thing that the centurion was asking for, health for ourselves or others, or for our or others' needs.  Unfortunately, we often arrogantly pray in such a way that it seems we are dictating to God what it is he should do.  

The Scriptures say, we do not know how to pray as we ought (Romans 8:26). Many other translations of this text say even more emphatically:We do not know what we ought to pray for. Yes, it is true, and yet we are often so sure of what is best for us, or best for others. But what we find the desirable outcome is not necessarily the best outcome. And this insight requires of us great humility. We see so little and understand even less. When we ask for some outcome, and it is not wrong to do so, we need to ask humbly. God alone knows the best answer and when to answer. This is humility.

Thirdly, the centurion trusted God's power to affect change in response to supplication.  The centurion believed that all Jesus had to do was "say the word."  This kind of wonder-working faith is needed by all of us, not just faith in the existence of God.  Many people believe in the existence of a deity but he many believe in the possibility of miracles?  That God is open to possibilities rather than to a fixed, predetermined fate?

Let us ask The Lord for an increase in this simple, humble, believing and expectant faith.

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Teacup Browsing

• Church of England bans clergy membership in fascist parties on the rise.  (The National Front, " aims to ensure the survival and advancement of the White Race and the British Nation.")

• Interesting conversation on whether the child-Jesus was capable mistakes.  Seems like an easy call to me. What do you think?

• Using religion to avoid God? 

• An Evangelical interviews NT Wright regarding his new book, Surprised by Scripture.  Here's a taste.

• The disruptive Pope continues to disrupt US Roman Catholic hierarchy. 

• The audacity of pope.

• Beards not  beer (or due process) in SC.

• Thirteen accidental inventions. 

• We should have cleaned as we went.

• Attention pols: how to get instant name recognition.

• What NBA teams are worth based on the Clippers sale.

• Now that's a selfie!

• 42% of Americans believe in creationism.  Israel to begin evolution curriculum next year.

• Ah, Florida!  Take a lesson from the bear.

• Adrian Warnock on Relational Christianity.

Christian Leadership

Daily Reflection for June 4th, 2014

1 Peter 5:1-4

"Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight,  not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it --not for sordid gain but eagerly. Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away."

_________________

Most everyone exercises some kind of leadership role, whether in the home, workplace or civic or faith community.  Peter, writing to presbyters or "elders" of the the various Christian communities of the Roman Empire, gives us some principles for effective, Godly leadership.

First, is putting first things first: tending to the flock.  If the leader loses sight of his or her primary leadership responsibility which is ministry towards those we lead, then the objects (people) of the leadership become merely utility, tools or human resources to be used for some other end.  When we understand that people are our primary concern we avoid a utilitarian ethic.

The personalistic norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end. In its positive form the personalistic norm confirms that the human person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love.

Second, we lead, or should lead, not because we have to, but rather because God has entrusted us with some form of temporal leadership and that is a divine calling which must not be take lightly.  

Thirdly, Christian leadership is not about gaining power, money or prestige.  Leading for selfish motives will inevitable frustrate the ends to which mission and ministry are ordered.

Finally, rather than leading by exercising juridical power, we are called to lead by example.  Good leaders must lead by example. By walking the talk, we become a person others want to follow. When leaders say one thing, but do another, they erode trust--a critical element of productive leadership. 

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