"Deliver me, O LORD, from evildoers;
protect me from the violent,
Who devise evil in their hearts
and stir up strife all day long." Psalm 140 (BCP)

Protect me from them
Protect them from me
Take away the vat of violence
A stew with chunks of anger
and herbs of hatred.
Give us the bread of you presence
to cool the burning tongue.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar,St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision* a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 6I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul* and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Acts 9:10-19 (NRSV)

Ananias had a problem. Saul had a formidable reputation as one who zealously persecuted the followers of Jesus and here was God telling him to go and heal this man of blindness. Ananias had a choice either to go and do what God told him to and possibly suffer arrest and death for revealing himself as a Christian to this known persecutor, or stay home and ignore the command God had given him.

It’s not easy to make choices sometimes. There are times it is very easy to jump into a decision only to find later that a little more forethought might have been the wiser course, but then there are times it is easy to sit and analyze something sixteen ways from Saturday until paralysis sets in and any choice becomes impossible. Even when it feels and seems that God is giving a direct instruction or at least a rather obvious push in the right direction, it is not always easy to follow that lead. It’s not always easy to ascertain whether it truly is God speaking or not, especially in a time when God’s voice is so often muted by the noise, confusion and fear so prevalent now. So often what feels so totally right and almost divinely ordained turns out to be a false illusion, a bad choice and/or a total opposite of what should have been.

Ananias had a rather startling but specific word from God about what he was to do. It probably took all the courage the man had to walk out his front door, up to the house on the street called Straight, and go in to the chamber where Saul was. We know what the result was and applaud Ananias’ obedience to God, but what if the decision were up to us? We have the benefit of hindsight; Ananias didn’t. But like so many in the Bible who heard God’s voice and obeyed, something big happened. Abraham’s offspring became like the stars in the sky that God had shown him. Moses kept the griping Israelites going for forty years until they were ready to enter the land God had promised them. The prophets got the attention of the people, sometimes not until after some catastrophe or exile, but they eventually listened. So it was with Ananias. Saul was healed and Paul was born as the second most influential person in the history of Christianity, all because another man overcame his fear and listened to the voice of God.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, *
for there is no help in them.
When they breathe their last, they return to earth, *
and in that day their thoughts perish. Psalm 146:2-3 (BCP)

Bleached by the sun
Frayed in the wash
The quilt fades
birds pick up the threads to build a nest.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar,St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

Rise up, O LORD; set me free, O my God; *
surely, you will strike all my enemies across the face,
you will break the teeth of the wicked. Psalm 3:7 (BCP)

Something quite satisfying
about the wicked gumming their food
mumbling their threats through flapping lips.
But then ---

Soon we will all be pureeing our food
sipping it through straws!!

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar,St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

"Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." Luke 23:56b - 24:11 (NRSV)

Arbiters of the Word
cannot hear the tales
of the spice girls
who went into the cave of death
and found Life out dancing on the hillsides.
Who is singing songs of resurrection to me this day?

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar, St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

"But they urged him strongly, saying, 'Stay with us, because it is almost
evening and the day is now nearly over.' So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; ..." Luke 24:13-35 (NRSV)

In the darkness of evening
we sat down to eat with the stranger.
As he broke the bread
our hearts saw the sun
rise between his fingers.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar,St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

St. Macarius [one of the desert hermits] was asked to explain a phrase of a Psalm: “The meditation of my heart is in your sight.” He proceeded to give one of the earliest descriptions of the “prayer of the heart” which consisted in invoking the name of Christ, with profound attention, in the very ground of one’s being, that is to say “in the heart” considered as the root and source of all one’s own inner truth. To invoke the name of Christ “in one’s heart” was equivalent to calling upon him with the deepest and most earnest intensity of faith, manifested by the concentration of one’s entire being upon a prayer stripped of all non-essentials and reduced to nothing but the invocation of his name with the simple petition for help. Macarius said: “There is no other perfect meditation than the saving and blessed Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ dwelling without interruption in you, as it is written ‘I will cry out like the swallow and I will meditate like the turtledove!’ This is what is done by the devout [person] who perseveres in invoking the saving Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” --Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Image Books, 1996), p. 22.

Merton goes on to describe the development of this form of prayer into a rich tradition in Eastern monasticism, but here he is interested in the “heart” of the matter, the invocation of the Name of Jesus with loving attention. To do this involves a turning of the whole person toward the divine mercy, summed up and expressed in the person of Jesus, who is present in the Holy Name, which as Scripture reminds us is closely tied to his role as Savior. To dwell on his Name is to invite his presence and that of the Spirit of love. Other forms of prayer may be desirable to cultivate, but true prayer is not so much a technique as a gift. In the utterly simple prayer of the heart, we turn to God empty handed and cry out for the Gift in whom all other gifts are given.

The prayer of the heart is closely related to what monastic tradition calls being “recollected.” This notion is itself analogous to what Twelve Step recovery names “serenity,” or what is meant by “centering prayer.” It would be an error to think of this as a withdrawal from the world. Serenity is not removal from the storm but peace within the storm. Centering prayer must never become “self-centering prayer.” Rather it is an attempt to pay attention to the inescapable presence of God, which grounds our very existence. The mercy of God comes as an unbidden gift, not because God ever leaves us, but because we choose to turn away. As Augustine once summed up the matter “You were with me; I was not with you.”

In dwelling on the Name of Jesus with loving attention, we remember who we are and whose we are, and we are plunged into the never failing river of grace that makes glad the City of God. To the extent that we are open to this grace, we will die to every lying way, to every overreach of ego, to all self-hatred and malice toward our neighbor. We will also find ourselves, as we are taken lifted up by the hand and given new life in the Kingdom.

Never underestimate the power of the Name, or the simplicity of true prayer. In the end, it is always the cry of a dearly beloved but frail and poor creature for help. And it is always answered before it so much as finds its voice. For the desire to pray is itself a grace, the beginning of an answer. And the act of prayer is at once our very own action, and the work of the living God.

Bill Carroll

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,"' Mark 1:1-3 (NRSV)

Get out the heavy equipment
bulldozers, backhoes
Dynamite, TNT,
those roads are full of potholes

who would believe they could be fixed
with a Word.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar,St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

Saul clothed David with his armour; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul’s sword over the armour, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, ‘I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.’ So David removed them. Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, ‘Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.’ But David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.’ - 1 Samuel 17:38-49 (NRSV)


“Little David was a shepherd boy/He killed old Goliath and shouted for joy..” (from an old Spiritual)

This is one of those Bible stories kids love. It has a character they can identify with (a young boy) who is sent out on a perilous quest (all good stories have an impossible quest in them) and who comes out the winner and hero (name one story other than Jesus that really turns out like that). The kids may have the equipment wrong; David’s slingshot didn’t have a rubber launcher between two uprights with a handle – but they get the general idea.

People who buck the system are also said to be “out to slay Goliath,” --big business, government corruption, global issues, neighborhood crime, even local HOA restrictions. Goliath is someone or something big, ugly, strong, powerful and almost unbeatable, a threat to security and liberty and a voracious beast set to devour us, our security and our financial stability. The Davids who go often seem like a lamb set in front of a hungry lion and with about as much chance to come out of it in one piece. Yet the David of the story isn’t that innocent a lamb. He’s had experience fighting down and dirty with predators who are out to steal his sheep and take him down with them, if necessary. He had a couple of keys to success in what would have been his back pocket, if’ he had had pockets!

One of David’s keys to success was going with what he knew. Helms? Breastplates? Double-handed swords? Shield? Greaves? They were chunks of metal designed to protect the wearer, if the weight alone didn’t drive him to his knees. David had a much simpler (and lighter) ace up his sleeve. Appear defenseless, lure the predator into range, and then let go with a plain ol’ river rock shot with speed, force and accuracy gained by lots and lots of practice. Goliath didn’t have a chance. He trusted his armor, size and ferocity but got bested by a guy who went with a simple solution to a big problem.

David’s second key was his trust that God was in charge of the whole show and would not allow David to be bested by an uncircumcised heathen who didn’t know God. David believed, and I think that gave him the confidence to think on his feet, choose his moment and strike, all in the name of God.

Whether a David fighting the Goliath of the Philistines or a lone figure standing up for the rights and well-being of those the world would just as soon shovel away somewhere and forget about, the key is knowing your strengths, choosing your moment and trusting God to have your back.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. Romans 10:4-17 (NRSV)

In the beginnings of my pathology residency, as I was beginning to turn pink and purple blobs under the microscope into recognizable diagnostic cues, I never forgot something one of my mentors told me:

"The eye cannot see what the mind does not know."

It was his urging to simply "spend time in the slide box," looking at the most obscure and rare cases, as well as the "bread and butter" cases, and reading about the obscure stuff--that taught me to be a better surgical pathologist with the day to day stuff. Exposure to the obscure creates an awareness for the mundane, and allows us to not become too focused on the tiny details. Knowing the obscure made the mundane jump out and be seen for what it was. Becoming comfortable with the mundane made the "Aha!" moment possible. Each feeds on the other, and cultivates the "whole."

"Salvation" might be described in the same vein. "The mouth cannot speak what the heart does not feel."

Salvation might be the most written about New Testament topic in all of Christiandom. Like art, people tend to claim they "know it when they see it," but any attempts to define "it" tend to lead to very obscure, arcane, and circular statements.

This passage is the linchpin of those who interpret "being saved" as the definitive entry point into Christianity. But, if the heart is asleep to the salvation that already resides in us through Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, the words, "I confess that Jesus is the Christ," are simply words. Compare that to Peter, when the disciples were asked, "Who do you say that I am," his modern day response would be something like, "Well, DUH! You're the Christ! EVERYBODY oughta know THAT!" What must have been looked upon by Peter's contemporaries as boorish and impulsive, was, in reality the purest form of confession--a confession straight from the heart--raw, effusive, and under a power of its own.

Yet, a quick Google search ("How to be saved") reveals that the contemporary expressions of Christianity that ascribe to "being saved" as the definition of "Heaven-worthy," focus on the lips, not the heart--right down to having the reader pray a suggested "sinner's prayer." (Aren't all prayers by all humans "sinner's prayers," when we get right down to it?) If we are looking for a formulaic punch card for a ticket to Heaven, look no further than Google, eHow, or ask.com.

However, this passage also points out the obscurities that remind us, "It's just not that simple." It also admonishes us not to spend a whole lot of time figuring out "who is, and who isn't." (“Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).") It tells us salvation is a "factory installed" part and parcel of the human condition as much as our genes and our mitochondria (“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.") It also states salvation freely crosses boundaries of ethnicity and religion ("For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.")

In short, this passage appears to be more about already being saved than it does about "getting" saved.

Finally, the instruction to "...confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" is not an exclusionary statement. This statement is not followed by, "or else." To believe in one's heart that Jesus is Lord, and to have it come rolling out much like how it did for the apostle Peter is certainly one manifestation of it. The passage actually leaves the door open for many, many more manifestations--manifestations that include the works of our hands and feet in service to the hungry, lonely, ill, or incarcerated, study and discussion of the Bible, or living lives of quiet faith rooted in the hearing of the Word and receiving the Sacraments.

Perhaps the question is not, "Am I saved?" but "How did my life today reflect the salvation that already lives within me?"

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepsicatoid

Monday, July 22, 2011 -- Week of Proper 10, Year One
Benedict of Nursia, Abbot of Monte Cassino, c. 540
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 974)
Psalms 25, (morning) 9, 15 (evening)
1 Samuel 18:5-16, 27b-30
Acts 11:19-30
Mark 1:29-45

In our Gospel reading today, Mark gives us a peek at a day in the life of Jesus. It starts, in Hebrew tradition, at sundown. (It is the sundown that ends the Sabbath when Jesus has amazed the synagogue in Capernaum.) In the cool of the evening, Jesus does his work as a healer. Presumably, he retires for rest later that night. Before sunrise, he rose for prayer. When his disciples find him, Jesus is renewed and focused by his meditation. He continues his work, traveling to the nearby villages to teach and heal.

Today is the feast of St. Benedict. Benedict's rule of life has brought focus and balance to centuries of Christians wishing to live an authentic and healthy life. Benedict's rule structures each day as being grounded in liturgical prayer and spiritual reading, with plenty of time for rest, for work, for eating, and for building relationship. The three promises of the Benedictine rule are promises of stability, obedience and amendment of life.

In her study of the Rule of Benedict, "Living with Contradiction," Esther de Waal summarizes these three promises this way:

For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced. Obedience compels me to re-enact in my own life that submission of Christ himself, even though it may lead to suffering and death, and conversatio, openness, means that I must be ready to pick myself up, and start all over again in a pattern of growth which will not end until the day of my final dying. And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it. ...My goal is Christ.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom expands on the notion of Stability: What is it to be stable? It seems to me that it may be described in the following terms: You will find stability at the moment when you discover that God is everywhere, that you do not need to seek Him elsewhere, that He is here, and if you do not find Him here it is useless to go and search for Him elsewhere because it is not Him that is absent from us, it is we who are absent from Him.

Balancing the promise of stability is the promise of Conversion of Life -- a willingness to turn and to change on a moment's notice when God's call opens a new opportunity or a new ascesis. We look for the presence of God in the new place. We live with an openness to change, to the work of the Holy Spirit in ourselves and in the world. We live with commitment to our own maturity. Benedict urges us to "keep your own death before your eyes each day." Conversion of life has something to do with Dorothy Sayers fine observation: God did not abolish the fact of evil. He transformed it. He did not stop the crucifixion. He rose from the dead.

Obedience is the humility and discipline of discernment, to listen to the call of God's presence in the people, things and circumstances of my life. The word "obedience" is related to the Latin word oboedire, meaning "to obey, pay attention to, give ear." Listening deeply we discern the yearning of the Spirit between the tensions of stability and conversion. My seminary professor Alan Jones offered his students this prayer that he used at the beginning of his day -- a prayer of listening obedience to the movement of the Spirit.

In your hands we rest
In the cup of whose hands sailed an ark
Rudderless, without mast.
In your hands we rest
Who was to make of the aimless wandering of the Ark
A new beginning for the world.
In your hands we rest
Ready and content this day.

Stability: It is here and now, in this place with these people, that God will meet me and guide me.
Conversion: I open myself willingly to the new opportunity, ready to repent with humble confidence in God.
Obedience: Listening obediently.

In your hands we rest
Ready and content this day

[all quotes from The Rule of the Order of the Ascension]

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 -- Week of Proper 10, Year One
Nathan Soderblom, Archbishop of Uppsala and Ecumenist, 1931
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 974)
Psalms 26, 28 (morning) 36, 39 (evening)
1 Samuel 19:1-18
Acts 12:1-17
Mark 2:1-12

I don't know who first coined the term "practical atheist." I first heard the term as a description of people who express faith in God but who live as though God were absent, as though everything depended upon their own resources. I find it all too easy to slip into practical atheism.

Last night I woke up in the latter part of the evening, long before the alarm clock's appointment -- my mind filled with things I need to do, those "things left undone which we ought to have done." My mind came awake and wouldn't quiet. I couldn't go back to sleep.

I got up and went to another room with something to read, something to take my mind off my mind. As I read, one of the problems that had contributed to my restless worry was solved. The brief reading that I had picked up, almost at random, gave me an insight that put one trouble to rest. I found I was relaxed again. I went back to sleep until the alarm's call.

I felt a bit like Peter, who in our story in Acts today finds himself bound in chains, guarded in a prison as he sleeps. It felt like a dream to him when there came a tap on the side and a voice saying, "Get up quickly." The chains fell; a door opened. When he "came to himself" he was free. It was God's doing. "Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me..."

How often it happens, when I feel anxious or overwhelmed, if I will relax and trust a bit, a chain drops, a door opens. Part of what I know and believe is that it is not all up to me. It is all up to God. But I forget. My prison is my forgetfulness, my own form of faithlessness. Practical atheism.

So often the angels come in the form of friends. Because I live in community, it is not all up to me. In today's story from Mark, four friends carry their paralyzed companion to Jesus. Their initial approach is blocked, so they get creative and "raise the roof" to get their friend to Jesus. Our friends can carry us when we get stuck. But you've got to be willing to lie there and let them.

At least part of what paralyzed this man in Mark's story was something in the man's past, something he needed freeing from. Jesus gives him the gift of forgiveness. He is unstuck. He can move; he can walk.

Some of the crowd is stuck theologically. Only God can forgive. Jesus can't say that; Jesus can't do that. Jesus gives them a wonderfully ambiguous response: "'But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' -- he said to the paralytic -- 'I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.'" That phrase "Son of Man" is like aces in some card games. It can go high or low. "Son of Man" can be carry superhuman connotations; it can also simply be another name for mortal. Take your choice.

Sometimes the gift of forgiveness is the gift one friend can give to another to overcome our paralysis.

Always we live in community. I am particularly grateful for all of my friends who can get creative and raise the roof for me when I am stuck and paralyzed.

It is never all up to me. God acts, and chains drop, doors open. Friends carry things for us us when we can't move ourselves. Forgiveness happens freely. Gifts all. It's all gift.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 -- Week of Proper 10, Year One
Conrad Weiser, Witness to Peace and Reconciliation, 1760
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office ( Book of Common Prayer, p. 974)
Psalms 38 (morning) 119:25-48 (evening)
1 Samuel 20:1-23
Acts 12:18-25
Mark 2:13-22

Jesus the stand-up comic. I can imagine the punch-line at the end of this reading from Mark being delivered by Jesus with some of the ironic quality of Jerry Seinfeld -- Jesus, looking at the odd and quirky things of life, and bringing them into fresh view with the kind of gentle humor that creates a touch of insight and entertainment.

How funny it would be for someone to take some unshrunk cotton and carefully to sew it just right on an old cloak. The first time it gets wet and shrinks -- rip.

Or and old, inflexible, leathery wine flask. Put some wine in there that is still alive, still active and fermenting. Eventually... splash. It will burst like slapstick.

The point is a powerful one. It's like Einstein's quote (if I remember correctly) -- you can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.

Mark sets Jesus' teaching-routine within a context that might have been comedic. Jesus has been befriending sinners and tax collectors. These are the people who deliberately choose not to observe the Torah. Jesus eats and drinks with them. They are soaking him in, breathing and expanding like new wine flasks filled with living new wine.

But the old ways are bothered. The Pharisees have been trying to teach the Torah observances to the people, helping them extend their faithfulness to the scripture into every part of their ordinary lives. There is a system. It is clear and written down. There is a process for interpreting difficult decisions. They know what is right and what is required to be righteous.

These sinners and tax collectors don't follow the right way. They should be straightened out, not partied with.

Yet, the old wine didn't work for these sinners and tax-collectors. The well-worn cloth didn't fit. But something about Jesus' new wine sparkled in their mouths. Their hearts opened to what Jesus was saying. They felt joy and newly born hope. God could be with them. They could experience love and acceptance. And from that motivation of love, they could live in a new way.

Where the law had been unsuccessful, love awakened new life.

All would be well if only the Pharisees could have seen the grace in the sinners' response. "It's not our way," they might observe, "but look what good it is doing for them." But their thoughts and hearts were a bit dry and leathery. They were too comfortable in their old clothes. This unshrunk cloth pulled and tore at their fabric. Sometimes that's the way it is.

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?

Five. One to change the bulb and four to talk about how good that old bulb was.

CHANGE THAT LIGHT BULB??!! My grandmother gave the church that light bulb!

"To become and to be a Christian is not at all an escape from the world as it is, nor is it a wistful longing for a 'better' world, nor a commitment to generous charity, nor a fondness for 'moral and spiritual values' (whatever that may mean), nor self-serving positive thoughts, nor persuasion to splendid abstractions about God. It is, instead, the knowledge that there is no pain or privation, no humiliation or disaster, no scourge or distress or destitution or hunger, no striving or temptation, no wile or sickness or suffering or poverty which God has not known and borne for [people] in Jesus Christ. He has borne death itself on behalf of [people], and in that event He has broken the power of death once and for all.

"That is the event which Christians confess and celebrate and witness in their daily work and worship for the sake of all [people]."
---William Stringfellow, My People Is the Enemy: An Autobiographical Polemic

Christian spirituality worthy of the name must steer clear of two pitfalls. On the one hand, we dare not let our spiritual lives become disembodied and abstract. To do so would be a denial of the Incarnation. Christianity is lived out in the world Christ lived and died for. As a central Christian testimony would have it, "God so loved the world..." (John 3:16). On the other hand, we dare not fall into despair when we notice the insufficiency of our own this-worldly action, considered in and of itself. Our action finds its meaning through witness to a victory already won by Another, who invites us to become his partners, without taking away the all too human character of our works. Because Christ has broken the power of death once for all, we are called to live as if death were not.

This stance, rooted in him, affects everything from our politics to our family and community life to the ways we suffer and grow throughout our lives. For the Christian, these are all a witness to the crucified and risen Lord, who has indeed broken the power of death. Because of this one saving event, Jesus Christ (in his mercy and justice) has the first and the last word. And, whether in the halls of Congress or the most intimate details of our human relationships, it points to our profound lack of faith and the pervasive power of sin that we still listen to other, far less gracious words. To be a Christian is to live out the implications of our baptism in the world as it is, without ever conceding the last word to scarcity or death.

For we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's very own.

Bill Carroll

Friday, July 15, 2011 -- Week of Proper 10, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 974)
Psalms 31 (morning) 35 (evening)
1 Samuel 21:1-15
Acts 13:13-25
Mark 3:7-19a

Bill, my best friend in seminary, enjoyed playing the organ. It was a form of relaxation and refreshment for him, and occasionally he would substitute in our seminary chapel worship when the regular organist was away.

One day while he was practicing he noticed a woman sitting in the chapel with her infant child. That wasn't so unusual since the chapel was a place people would come for prayer or reflection. But she wasn't part of the seminary community, and living in New York City you get used to some degree of vigilance on behalf of your environment.

Bill realized that he had left some music he needed in another place, so he left to get it, casting a discreet look toward the woman. He was gone only a few minutes, but when he returned the woman was standing at the high altar. She had her child lying on the altar in front of her. When Bill looked closer, he realized that she was changing the child's diaper.

After a moment's pause, he went to her, speaking in a gentle way, and said, "You probably don't realize it, but there are some in this community that might be offended at what you are doing, changing your baby there, on the altar. It's a very special place for us."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, looking furtively about. "I didn't know." And she quickly secured her child and left the chapel.

Bill went back to his practice. Then it gradually struck him. Here is a woman, obviously poor, vulnerable, maybe homeless, living in New York City with her infant child, escaping into a sheltered and safe place for just a bit of respite from her hard life. To her the altar was a safe and clean place for attending to the necessities of her child. How much better than many places she probably had to use for that purpose. And he had made her uncomfortable enough that she fled out into that harsh city, leaving a building erected in the name of a child who was born in a stable, a person who had no place to lay his head.

In our story today from 1 Samuel, David is in desperate circumstances. He's trying to survive. He violates religious laws by eating the holy bread that has been placed upon the altar of the temple at Nob. Yesterday we read of Jesus referencing this event when his hungry disciples violated the Sabbath by plucking grain when they were hungry.

People in desperate circumstances sometimes do thing things that trouble our scruples. Between necessity and scruples, Jesus seems to side with necessity.

Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, ‘Go, view the land, especially Jericho.’ So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there. The king of Jericho was told, Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.’ Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, ‘Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come only to search out the whole land.’ But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, ‘True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.’ She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. She said to them, ‘Go towards the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there for three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterwards you may go on your way.’ The men said to her, ‘We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down, and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family. If any of you go out of the doors of your house into the street, they shall be responsible for their own death, and we shall be innocent; but if a hand is laid upon any who are with you in the house, we shall bear the responsibility for their death. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.’ She said, ‘According to your words, so be it.’ She sent them away and they departed. Then she tied the crimson cord in the window. -- Joshua 2:1-21 (NRSV)

Rahab was what is commonly known as a "workin' girl." The word "harlot" gets thrown around a lot in the Bible, usually about women who were somewhat outside the normal sphere of wife and mother, decently hidden away in the house just waiting for the man to come home from work. Rahab had a family to support, and apparently no husband to bring home the bacon so she could cook it. Harlot? Maybe. Woman with a lot of mouths to feed and a roof to keep over her head? Definitely.

The story picks up with the entrance of two spies who just happened to choose Rahab's house as a place to hide. I mean, do you walk into a strange city where your clothes, accent and even lack of local knowledge or language would point you out in a New York minute and ask for the nearest prostitute who happens to live in a house with access to the outer wall of the city? That seems a bit far-fetched but in the world and words of the Bible, far-fetched things seem to be almost routine.

Sometimes God picks the oddest people to do the toughest jobs. Most of the heroes of the Bible (you know, the biggies like Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the major prophets, the 12 disciples, Paul...) weren't what you'd call star material for the gig God had planned for them, but they took the challenge and did their turn. But what of the women? Rahab is a prime example. Her quick wits sent the Keystone Cops of Jericho in the wrong direction, got the gates shut and everybody looking outside the walls for a potential danger that was already inside scoping out the territory and hiding in what was probably rather plain sight. Rahab's house was part of the city wall and so anybody looking over the parapet should have been able to see her rooftop fairly easily, one would think.

We know how the story ends: the spies are hidden on the rooftop, they promise safety for Rahab's family when the Israelite army gets there, and she lets them out of the city by means of a rope which would also undoubtedly have been visible to anybody patrolling the wall, hearing a strange sound or just happening to look over the parapet. That rope might have been made by Rahab herself from flax like that which hid the spies. Anyway, the spies shinny down the rope and scamper off to report to Joshua about Jericho and Rahab goes back to life as normal -- except with a certain piece of red rope hanging out the window of her house.

Rahab was resourceful, quick-witted, and trusting. She also had faith, faith in the word of spies (and men) whose very lives at that point depended on stealth and prevarication, and faith in a strange God who, as the local newscasts had it, did wonderful things. She took a risk, and harlot or not, it gave her a legitimacy that made her one of the ancestors of a certain child of another unlikely heroine of resource, quick wits, trust and a whole lot of faith. Rahab may have been a workin' girl, but this time she was workin' for God.

There's a special spot in my heart for Rahab.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-12:2 (NRSV)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Ever notice how certain creatures of the night get renewed popularity in popular horror films? It's striking that the two most popular "horror movie creatures" seem to be vampires and zombies these days. The renewed interest in vampires started with the Anne Rice novels. Lately, it seems that zombies are becoming all the rage. It makes me wonder what underlying statement we are making culturally about a basic fear--the fear of re-animation without animus--that we, as a culture, fear being ambient and responsive to stimuli, but bereft of self-awareness and a collective consciousness. We fear being controlled by the zombie master--submitting to a will in which our own ability to align our will is extinguished.

Paul speaks of something similar in this passage when he talks about not being conformed to the world but being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The Greek word used for transformation in this passage is metamorphoō--the basis of our word metamorphosis. We commonly use this word in describing the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, and the prefix meta- is a very common word in medicine both to the positive and to the negative--metaplasia, one tissue type being transformed to another in response to an injurious stimuli to protect it--and metastasis, the spread of a primary tumor to distant organs.

The ambiguity of metamorphoō is a good reminder that change in our lives is a process, not a single event--and that there are both choices and things beyond our choices that shape this transformation. The ultimate choice for us, however, is the choice to align our wills with the source of all that is holy. Transformation in the Christian journey is not a re-animation by God the Grand Zombie Master. Because God desires relationship with us, as illustrated again and again in the Bible, God desires our awareness and consciousness to both the divine, and to the collective consciousness of all souls, both in this present existence and in the plane of existence of the company of Heaven. We are allowed the freedom to make both positive and negative choices in this process of metamorphoō.

How has metamorphoō entered our lives this week? Has it been full of consciousness or devoid of it? What choices can we make that allow us to move from caterpillar to butterfly to those around us rather than be like a metastatic tumor, burdenous, beyond our control, and eventually fatal to our spiritual growth?


Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepsicatoid

Monday, July 18, 2011 -- Week of Proper 11, Year One
Bartolome de las Casas, Friar and Missionary to the Indies, 1566
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 976)
Psalms 41, 52 (morning) 44 (evening)
1 Samuel 24:1-22
Acts 13:44-52
Mark 4:1-20

My colleague Chuck Walling recently preached a sermon on the parable of the thorns. He offered some nice metaphors for the allegory.

The hardened path where the seeds fall and cannot grow is our status quo, he said. It is the way of the familiar, our habits that block us from the new possibility that God might throw our way. It is our hardened opinions and certainties -- the way we've thought before. Our interpretive paradigms that channel our perception and understanding so that we only see what we expect to see and we think along comfortable and well-worn paths.

He called the rocks in the landscape, our "never-never" rocks. These are the buried places that we protect from God's prying roots -- never-never will we let God go into that part of our lives. There are some behaviors and thoughts that we shield from God's intrusion. "Never-never will that change. Don't go there."

The thorns he spoke of as the distractions that waste our energy and choke our attention and time so that we attend to lesser things, he said. We fail to learn and grow because we don't give ourselves time to attend to the things that bring growth.

To this last point, I'm reminded of something. Positive Psychology guru Martin Seligman suggests that our well-being can be enhanced by our pursuit of what he calls "the gratifications" as we tone down our pursuit of mere pleasures. Gratification comes when we involve ourselves in challenges that require our best efforts and use our signature strengths.

Seligman references research by Mike Csikszentmihalyi about "flow" -- moments when we get so caught up in something meaningful to us that time seems to stop. Csikszentmihalyi tells of his eighty year old half-brother Marty who has a passion for minerals. One morning after breakfast Marty took up a crystal to study under his powerful microscope. After a while, he noticed that it was harder to see the crystal's internal structure clearly, and Marty thought that a cloud had passed in front of the sun. He looked up, and found that the sun had set. (Seligman, Authentic Happiness; Free Press, 2002, p. 114)

Seligman offers eight psychological components that describe a gratification:
• the task is challenging and requires skill
• we concentrate
• there are clear goals
• we get immediate feedback
• we have a deep, effortless involvement
• there is a sense of control
• our sense of self vanishes
• time stops ( Ibid, p. 116)

It is interesting that there is no experience of positive emotion as a component to this sort of gratification. If feeling is involved, it is usually in retrospect. "A mountain climber may be close to freezing, utterly exhausted, in danger of falling into a bottomless crevasse, yet he wouldn't want to be anywhere else." (Ibid, p. 119)

Seligman is convinced that the good life is related to our use of our signature gifts in challenging and meaningful activities that create more gratification in our lives.

I'm interested in recognizing the ways that I let my life get into a rut, blocking God's creative presence, letting distractions and little pleasures deter me from more meaningful and challenging opportunities. There are so many activities and things that produce gratification rather than mere pleasure. But they take do more effort and a willingness to risk. They are things that I can fail at. Sitting in front of the TV is so easy. Can't fail at watching a TV show. But sometimes, just to do so, is a simple failure itself.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 -- Week of Proper 11, Year One
Macrina, Monastic and Teacher, 379
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 976)
Psalms 45 (morning) 47, 48 (evening)
1 Samuel 25:1-22
Acts 14:1-18
Mark 4:21-34

"For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." (Mark 4:25)

I saw two economic charts yesterday. Each of them started in the 1980's during the Reagan era and tracked to the present. One chart measured wealth in dollars. The next chart measured after-tax income. The line-charts tracked first the wealthiest 1%, then the next 10%, then several lower levels of income from the 90% percentile down. (I don't recall the specific percentage breakouts.)

Here's what they showed. Beginning in the '80's there was a very large gap between the top 1% and everyone else. The top 1% have a lot more wealth than everyone else. There was also a significant, but smaller gap between the 90% and everyone else. Below the 90th percentile, the lines were all pretty close together. The amount of wealth was pretty close together for the rest of the percentile categories.

What the first chart showed -- wealth in dollars -- was that wealth has increased dramatically for the top 1% from the 1980's until now, with a few spikes up and down. Wealth for the top 90% has also increased significantly, but not as sharply as for the top 1%. The rest of America's economic world has been flat. The lower 90% haven't progressed.

But the chart on the right showed after tax comparisons. That's where you would imagine the lines getting a little closer. From those who have, more is expected. To those who need, there is some support. But no. The income gap after taxes is even greater. The top two lines tracked a bit more steeply upwards. And all of the other lines went from flat to sliding slightly downward.

The scripture has been fulfilled, it would seem. Since the 1980's at least, to those who have, more has been given; and from those who have less, more has been taken away. That's the way our economic system seems to have been working.

But that's not quiet the context for the observation from Mark's gospel. Jesus first tells his listeners, "Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you will get, and still more will be given you." Then he says, "For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."

I've always been perplexed by the passage. But within it's context, Jesus seems to be exhorting his listeners to abundant generosity. Give extravagantly and more will be given you. Your receiving is connected to your giving, he seems to say.

I don't know what to think about the last phrase -- "from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." Is it a commentary on the injustice of life?

Luke's version of this passage expands on the command "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." Luke omits the taking away from those who have nothing. (Lk. 6:37-38)

Mary's song imagines the powerful being brought down from their thrones and the lowly lifted, the hungry filled and the rich sent away empty. (Lk. 1:52-53) Not so for the most recent proposed strategy for lowering the Federal debt -- making most of the burden fall on the poor and vulnerable by cutting programs important to them while protecting the wealthy from any increased taxation. It seems that somebody believes in it is right for those who have to be given more and from those who have nothing, let it be taken away.

I hope God is underneath it all sowing seeds of generosity and justice. I hope somewhere out of the headlines, out of sight, there are mustard seeds, small and invisible, germinating, rooting, growing. Seeds that someday will give shelter for all of the birds of the air.

I worry at the signs, though. Will it be that what little generosity and justice we have as a nation will be taken away?

Wednesday, July 20, 2011 -- Week of Proper 11, Year One
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman, Liberators and Prophets, 1902, 1894, 1883, 1913
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 976)
Psalms 119:49-72 (morning) 49, [53] (evening)
1 Samuel 25:23-44
Acts 14:19-28
Mark 4:35-41

The story of David's encounter with Nabal and Abigail is as entertaining as an episode of The Sopranos.

David and his armed men had been running a protection racket in southern Judah. As the wealthy herdsman Nabal was shearing his sheep, some of David's men approached him for a payoff. Nabal disrespected them. David swore retaliation -- the death of every male under Nabal.

Nabal's wife Abigail intervened however, meeting David with generous gifts and extravagant expressions of respect. Her intercession stayed David's hand, and impressed the "rest of him" as well. When Nabal realized his close call, he suffered a stroke and died a few days later. David moved in on Abigail, and she was added to his harem. (Elsewhere the Bible names at least eight of David's wives.) The story closes with an ominous note that King Saul had given his daughter, David's wife Michal, to another man as husband.

Abigail is a strong and resourceful woman, yet I am struck by the limits on her options as a woman of her culture. I enjoy her power and decisiveness as she commands Nabal's servants and resources to plan a successful strategy to thwart the manly bloodshed. But from my cultural perspective, I'm troubled that her being added to David's harem is as good as it gets for her.

Today we celebrate the feast of four heroines of our culture's history -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman. These four were among the strong and resourceful women who challenged the entrenched sexism and racism of an earlier age. They had to struggle against conventional wisdom, religious authority, and the law.

Although we continue to live with crippling expressions of sexism and racism today, there has been progress -- slavery is illegal and is no longer defended by law or by Christian ministers; women may vote, hold public office, and exercise equal leadership in some, but not all, religious traditions.

We continue to express our racial bigotry in many ways, particularly through unjust laws that leave our immigration system dysfunctional, immoral and incredibly anti-family.

Yet, I am encouraged as our generation participates in yet another movement of liberation and equality, this time on behalf of our GLBT neighbors. We follow the same trajectory as the trail blazed by our ancestors who worked to free slaves and to bring equality for women and for people of color.

Elsewhere, there are new heroes and heroines every day risking their lives on behalf of the "Arab spring," articulating hopes rising deeply from within the human breast.

Likewise, it is encouraging when the perfidy of a corrupt system like the Rupert Murdoch empire is finally exposed and we have a communal opportunity to purge and cleanse.

I do believe that God's Spirit inclines our human evolution ultimately toward fullness and union. As abolitionist Theodore Parker is credited with saying, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

It is messy and conflictive. We shouldn't be surprised. It's always been messy and conflictive, full of abuse of power and and ambiguous sexual energy.

Every generation has the opportunity to expand the arc of justice. But we have to be able to see where conventional wisdom, religious authority and the law are being stretched by the moral universe in our own day.

Fifty years out from the bloody conflicts of the 1960's Civil Rights movement, we see articles and documentaries reminding us of those days. There is much to cringe over with embarrassment. Many of us, and our parents, chose wrongly in that struggle.

But in my lifetime, I have seen so much to be encouraged about. In my youth, people spat upon and physically attacked youngsters who thought it was okay for black and white people to learn together, eat together, be together. The law stood to uphold the attackers. Today we have a black president whose parent's marriage would have been illegal in more than thirty states. Beginning this Sunday, hundreds of gay couples will celebrate their right to marry in the state of New York. And across the Middle East, the breath of freedom and representative democracy inspires hope in the teeth of violence.

Yes, it is a mess. But it is a beautiful and hopeful mess.

"The brethren also asked [Abba Agathon], 'Amongst all good works, which is the virtue that requires the greatest effort?' He answered, 'Forgive me, but I think there is no labour greater than that of prayer to God. For every time a [person] wants to pray, his enemies, the demons, want to prevent him, for they know that it is only by turning him from prayer that they can hinder his journey. Whatever good work a [person] undertakes, if [she] perseveres in it, [she] will attain rest. But prayer is warfare to the last breath.'" The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Cistercian Publications, 1975), pp. 21-22.

I'm not sure that prayer is always so intense, but it can be and there is a great deal to learn from what Abba Agathon says in this story. Too often, we underestimate the difficulty of prayer, and we find ourselves discouraged by the many distractions and temptations that in fact beset us, when we try to give more of our attention to God. Metaphors of vigilance and warfare are found in the Bible. "Could you not keep watch one hour?" Jesus asks his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood," says the author of Hebrews.

And yet, this vigilance, this "warfare to the last breath" is only part of the story. Our fundamental choice, empowered by the ever present Holy Spirit, is whether or not to turn our faces toward the Author of Life. Letting go is among the easiest and the hardest things we ever do. The demons Abba Agathon is talking about are far more powerful than we. I'm not one for complete reductionism here, but often language about the demonic points to self-destructive parts of ourselves. (It can also signify overwhelming social forces.) God may require our cooperation to win the battle, but the battle does belong to the Lord. Agathon is filled with insight when he notes that the demons would like nothing more than to keep us from prayer. For ultimately, only the living God--only the strange, weak power of Christ Crucified--can disarm these powers and bring us out of the house of bondage and into the promised land.

And so, we keep our eyes turned to the Divine Mercy as we persevere in prayer. May we do so to our last breath.

Bill Carroll

Friday, July 22, 2011 -- Week of Proper 11, Year One
St. Mary Magdalene
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)
EITHER the readings for Friday of Proper 11 (p. 976)
Psalms 40, 54 (morning) 51 (evening)
1 Samuel 31:1-13
Acts 15:12-21
Mark 5:21-43

OR the readings for St. Mary Magdalene (p. 998)
Morning Prayer: Psalm 116; Zephaniah 3:14-20; Mark 15:47 - 16:7
Evening Prayer: Psalms 30, 149; Exodus 15:19-21; 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

I chose the readings for St. Mary Magdalene

The women were only doing their duty. It was the humble work of anointing Jesus' body for burial. Earlier there had been no time in the rush before the sabbath. This was unclean work. Religious men would not touch a dead body. It would make them unclean. This was women's work.

There is an interesting detail in Mark's Gospel. "Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid." Are they the only ones who risked staying close enough to the burial to know where the council member Joseph of Arimathea had taken the body? The men are notably absent in Mark's account. After Peter's denials, there is no mention of the other apostles or the male disciples. Only women. Watching the suffering. Women's work.

Maybe it was because Mary Magdalene had been through so much suffering already that she could get up early that Sunday to do this duty. Luke's Gospel says that she had been freed from seven demons by Jesus. She's been through so much, and Jesus has freed her. What despair she must feel now. How hard it is to make one step follow another when things are so dark and hopeless. Yet there she is.

The women proceed toward their bitter task. Although they don't know how they will get the stone moved to access the body, they move ahead in trust. "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" they wonder. A man might not have gone ahead without figuring out ahead how he would get the stone moved. That's a detail that might have frozen me. I don't ask for directions. I don't expect that someone will be around to help me. I assume it's all up to me. The women don't let such details retard them. They move ahead decisively.

When they arrive, the tomb is open, and a young man gives them the news of resurrection. Mark's account leaves them there, amazed and terrified.

"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!" speaks the prophet Zephaniah on this feast of St. Mary Magdalene.

"The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies."

The prophet goes on to say that we shall fear no more.

God will "deal with all your oppressors..."

"And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise..."

"At that time I will bring you home, at that time when I gather you; ...when I restore your fortunes before you eyes, says the Lord."

These are things I want to see. Resurrection. Rejoicing. Enemies turned away and oppressors dealt with. The lame and outcast secure and respected. Homecoming. Fortune restored.

I want to see this for our nation and for our planet. I want to see the lame saved and the outcast gathered. To see the homeless housed and the unemployed's fortunes restored. I'm tired of the oppressors. I'm tired of the wealthy and powerful, the polluters and abusers, making the rules and getting things their way. I don't want angry, greedy people continuing to make more bad decisions. I want hopeful people. People who are willing to do their duty. People who can face the deadliness of reality. Willing to trust. Willing to anoint dead bodies and to keep on going, in charity and in hope. I want hopeful people who can see resurrection. No more fear. No more manipulation by fear. Love and duty. Perfect love casts out fear. Mary Magdalene knows all about that.

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. Mark 6:1-13 (NRSV)

Our passage points out that Jesus more than likely suffered a problem anyone who ever grew up in a small town, or attended their high school reunion, can identify with--no matter how renown a person gets, set foot in your home town, and someone invariably cuts to the chase as to "identity." Chances are, the Nazarenes very likely remembered Jesus as a reflection of their own sense of history, propriety, and local gossip, rather than who he was.

"Hey, aren't you Mary and Joseph's boy? I remember you. Precocious little feller. Didn't you run off from your parents for several days when y'all went to Jerusalem, and they couldn't find you, and they found you, bold as brass, sittin' with the Kohenim? I'm tellin' you, if you'd have been my boy, I'd have whupped you silly all the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth."

It was probably things like that, the Nazarenes remembered, rather than choose to accept Jesus' divinity. After all, nothing good ever comes from here. People have a tendency, especially when it comes to healing, to think "the good stuff" is over there. Small town folks swear the local doctors are quacks, and the good ones are at the University. People who work at the University Hospital say, "I wouldn't take my dog there," and use the private hospital in town. Then, of course, there's that crowd that knows for a fact that no one for miles around is any good, and it's the Mayo Clinic or Sloan-Kettering or Barnes-Jewish that cornered the market on "good" doctors.

At any rate, the effect was almost like Kryptonite on Jesus. He healed a few people, but overall, it was not a very rewarding homecoming. In short, most of the Nazarenes simply couldn't believe that "Mary and Joseph's boy" could even be close to anything resembling the Son of God. Didn't Mary get pregnant kind of mysteriously? Didn't Joseph get ripped off on the marriage deal, but married her anyway? What was that all about, anyway? And Jesus--he was all set up to take over his daddy's carpentry shop, and he just up and took off--running around with no money, teaching and preaching. What kind of fool would ever think he's even a prophet, let alone the Messiah?

I can only imagine the dismay and frustration Jesus must have felt over this "welcome," as well as the bewilderment and aggravation his family must have experienced over his reply about "prophets without honor." (In fact, I can hear my late grandmother's classic retort to any time I seemed just a little too cool, just a little too superior: "Who do you think you are, Lady Astor's horse?")

Our Gospel story serves as a very important reminder that there are times, no matter how much we love someone or something, no matter how right we feel or excited and committed we are about something, there are times that we are simply not the one called to do the job. There are times our best efforts won't be heard or understood, whether it's at home, at work, or in the life of the parish. Rather than obsessively beat our head against the wall, or pout in the corner licking our wounds, we should take our cue from Jesus in this story--find the ones who are called to do the job, send them out with our best instruction and our blessing, and rejoice in the good that they have accomplished.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepsicatoid

The earth is the LORD'S and all that is in it, *
the world and all who dwell therein.
For it is God who founded it upon the seas *
and made it firm upon the rivers of the deep.
"Who can ascend the hill of the LORD? *
and who can stand in the holy place?" Psalm 24:1-3

Who can stand in the holy places?
Dream-bearers
seeking beyond themselves
carrying the world in their hearts.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Interim Vicar,St. Catherine's Episcopal Church, Manzanita OR, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

Monday, July 25, 2011 -- Week of Proper 12, Year One
Saint James the Apostle
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)

EITHER the readings for Friday of Proper 12 (p. 976)
Psalms 56, 57, [58] (morning) 64, 65 (evening)
2 Samuel 2:1-11
Acts 15:36-16:5
Mark 6:14-29

OR the readings for St. James (p. 998)
Morning Prayer: Psalm 34; Jeremiah 16:14-21, Mark 1:14-20
Evening Prayer: Psalms 33; Jeremiah 26:1-15; Matthew 10:16-32

I chose the readings for Friday of Proper 12

Herod Antipas becomes a major character in today's gospel. Antipas was a surviving son of Herod the Great, who was so paranoid and jealous that he had several of his sons executed. Caesar Augustus supposedly quipped that it would be better to be one of Herod the Great's swine than one of his sons, for the swine had a better chance at living. (Herod the Great was said to practice kosher.) In 5 BCE, Herod the Great's oldest son and presumed successor Antipater was brought before Herod on charges of attempted murder. Antipas was named to succeed as king. But the following year, after Herod executed Antipater, the king changed his will to divide the rule among three of his sons. Rome confirmed Herod Antipas as tetrarch ("rule of a quarter") of Galilee and Perea. His two regions were divided by the Jordan River and by the Decapolis.

During a visit to Rome, Antipas fell in love with his half-brother Herod Philip's wife Herodias. (Herodias was herself the granddaughter of Herod the Great.) She apparently returned Antipas' affections and promised to marry him. Antipas divorced his first wife, Phasaelis, the daughter of the powerful King Aretas IV of Nabatea. The resentments provoked hostilities during which Antipas suffered a significant defeat when Philip's forces joined the Nabateans.

We see John the Baptist in prison having publicly accused Herod Antipas on account of marrying his brother's wife. The gospel reading seems rather sympathetic toward Herod, laying the cause of John's execution on Herodias and her daughter, named Salome in Josephus' history. It is a sad and sordid tale, ennobled by the faithfulness of John's disciples, who claim John's body for respectful burial. (Mark's account sharply contrasts John's disciple's courage and loyalty with the fleeing of the twelve at Jesus' execution.)

One of the things that strikes me as I regularly read the Daily Office is how the Biblical narrative is so enmeshed in politics and intrigue. John the Baptist becomes a political martyr for his challenge to the ruler. Jesus is executed as a traitor and enemy to the state. Today's first reading from 2 Samuel speaks of David's anointing at Hebron as king over Judah. One of his first acts is to invite the city of Jabesh-gilead to join his reign, although that city lies in the heart of the territory of Saul's immediate successor Ishbaal.

It takes a strong political stomach to read the Daily Office. The scripture's occupation with such matters implies that we too are to pay attention to the politics and intrigue of our own day.

When I was in the process of formation toward ordination, a sincere and earnest priest gave me some fatherly advice. Be a good pastor, he said. Take care of your people. Teach them the doctrines, worship and prayer of the church, but don't get involved in political controversies. Leave the church out of politics, he advised. That will only cause you problems and division. You'll lose support and parishioners, he said. There's enough to do just being a good pastor.

In giving me that advice, he may have been worried that I had been influenced by example. I had grown up in St. Peter's Church in Oxford, Mississippi. My childhood rector was Duncan M. Gray, Jr., who had acquired some notoriety for his outspoken support of integration when that was the most divisive political issue of our day.

I was influenced by example. Although I haven't lived up to his legacy, my childhood priest became a model of priesthood for me. As a priest, when I met faithful, Christian gay couples whose lives and loves had the same qualities as my own marriage, I recognized the same fears and conflicts over sexuality as I remembered from the racial conflicts of my youth. I began to speak out for what I understood to be a compelling cause for love, justice, and equality. To me, I was following a beloved example, although my mentor, now my bishop, did not agree with me theologically. With his great grace, however, he agreed to disagree, and he gave me his love, respect and support. (I commend to you the recently published biography, And One Was a Priest: The Life and Times of Duncan M. Gray, Jr., by Araminta Stone Johnson.)

There is an attraction about turning one's attention away from the conflicts and ugliness of politics and the daily news to attend only to things spiritual. There is something comforting about keeping one's mind and heart above. It's surely safer for priests to be good pastors and take care of their people.

It is also very easy to become enmeshed in the pride and power and abuse that infects political conflict. We can easily lose our grounding when politics defines our interests. If we think we are following our Baptismal Covenant when we "persevere in resisting evil," we also have to remember that we promise to "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself." If we "strive for justice and peace among all people," we must do so while we continue to "respect the dignity of every human being." (Book of Common Prayer, p. 304-305)

I like Mark's notice that Herod Antipas knew that John the Baptist was "a righteous and holy man," and that Herod "protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him." John accused Herod, and was enough of a threat that Herod imprisoned him. But John did so, it would seem, in a way that must have nonetheless respected Herod's dignity as a human being.

Sometimes it turns out badly, as it did for John. But he did his prophetic witness with an admirable strength, integrity and grace.

Where are our boundaries and our callings? The example of scripture and history seems to demand our political engagement. But the same example also encourages us to practice that engagement in the spirit of being "in the world but not of the world." I'm thankful for a good mentor. How can we confront the conflict and intrigue of our own day while remaining faithful to the call to compassion? How do we hold the Bible and Prayer Book in one hand, and the daily newspaper in the other?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 -- Week of Proper 12, Year One
Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, 976)
Psalms 61, 62 (morning) 68:1-20(21-23)24-36 (evening)
2 Samuel 3:6-21
Acts 16:6-15
Mark 6:30-46

Two things strike me today as I read the story from Mark's gospel. First, I connect with Jesus' compassion for the disciples (and for himself) as he responds to their weariness, inviting them to "come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." Second, I sense the obligation Jesus places on the disciples when they recognize the hunger and need of the multitude. He tells them, "You give them something to eat."

When I am very tired, as I feel today, it is good to hear the kind voice of Jesus inviting me to withdraw, to rest a while. My tendency toward imbalance is my habit of trying to do too much, more than time allows. I can create stress for myself; I can flirt with exhaustion. It is easy to relate to the circumstances of the disciples -- "For many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat." Life can be too full, too busy. "Withdraw and rest a while," is a blessed permission. Even God rested on the seventh day and built sabbath into the very fabric of time.

But sometimes there is no rest for the weary. According to Mark's story, the crowd anticipated the disciples' destination. By the time they reached the deserted place, it was no longer deserted. I would probably be angry if I had been in Jesus' boat. But Jesus "had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd." So Jesus taught them.

When it was late, the disciples sought to shut down the meeting so the people could leave the isolated place in time to get food in the villages. It strikes me that the disciples are alert enough to be aware of their neighbors' need. They show some compassion. So often we aren't aware, we don't recognize the hunger or need of our neighbors. The disciples do well to see the hunger.

But Jesus throws it right back to the disciples. "You give them something to eat." You take responsibility. It is your responsibility. That seems like another way to say, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The disciples protest. They don't have enough money. (Somehow my mind goes to our Congress' current, and newly discovered, obsession with America's debt.) Jesus tells them to see what resources they have. It still doesn't seem like enough. But when they do a bit of organizing -- "groups of hundreds and of fifties" -- and some prayer, there is enough. There is abundance.

When the story is finished, there is a sense of satisfaction and refreshment. All have been filled. I don't feel so tired anymore.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011 -- Week of Proper 12, Year One
William Reed Huntington, Priest, 1909
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, 976)
Psalms 72 (morning) 119:73-96 (evening)
2 Samuel 3:22-39
Acts 16:16-24
Mark 6:47-56

Yesterday's and today's stories from the Acts of the Apostles give us an interesting contrast. They are stories of two women -- Lydia and the unnamed slave-girl.

We are given two piece of information about Lydia. She is "a worshiper of God" who shows up at the place of prayer in Philippi, outside the gate by the river. This is probably the Sabbath gathering place for the Jewish residents of the city. The description of her as "a worshiper of God" could mean that Lydia is Jewish. More likely, she is among the "Godfearers," Gentiles who were attracted to Judaism for its monotheism and high ethic, but who were not Jews themselves. Paul recruited most of his congregation from among the Godfearers.

The other thing we know about Lydia is that she is "from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth." Purple cloth is expensive cloth, also called royal purple. Thyatira is a city in the region in Turkey where this exclusive textile was produced. So Lydia is an international businesswoman. She has a home in Philippi, a city in Greece which is on the main Roman highway connecting the east and west empires.

Lydia is a strong, wealthy and independent woman, overseeing her household and her business. She meets Paul and opens her heart and home to his words. She and her household are baptized. She then welcomes Paul and his companions into her home. Her home becomes the first Christian church in Europe. We read about Lydia in yesterday's lections.

Today we meet a slave-girl who also lives in Philippi. She has a spirit of divination. She is probably a priestess or prophetess of the Python spirit, linked to the famous serpent oracle of Delphi. The account says that this slave-priestess "brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling." (Ironically, Lydia's hometown Thyatira was also a center for the Delphic cult of Python.)

Like Lydia, this slave-girl is drawn toward Paul and his companions. "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation." Annoyed by the oracle's repeated attentions, Paul orders her spirit of divination to come out of her.

"But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities." Isn't that familiar? It's all about money. It's all about power. The men play on anti-Jewish sentiment to incite a crowd. It turns into a legal lynching. Paul and Silas are severely flogged with rods and imprisoned in jail with their feet in stocks. (Today a prison cell like where they were held is preserved for tourists in the ruins of ancient Philippi.)

Two women. One an independent business woman. The other a slave-girl with a gift of divination. Lydia becomes the host for the new community of Jesus. I wonder what happened to the slave-girl. Her economic value to her owners would have been ruined. Paul had freed her from the spirit of divination that they used for their profit. Maybe she then became more centered and clear-eyed. But, in all likelihood, she was still a slave.

We are left to wonder about her. Was she welcomed into the Philippi church congregation? Although the early Christians did not publicly challenge slavery as an institution, Paul's churches did do something remarkable and counter-cultural. In his congregations, slaves were given equal standing with free persons. They may still be slaves in their homes, but in the Christian congregation they were equal members of the body of Christ. Paul wrote in Galatians, "for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (3:26f)

It is easy for me to imagine Lydia the wealthy, independent and powerful international business woman and this unnamed slave-girl embracing as equal sisters in the congregation meeting in Lydia's home. It is also possible to imagine this slave-girl ruined, still in bondage, but now of little value to her owners, demoted and relegated to a lower place of servitude. Maybe both scenarios could be true.

My sense of the spirit of Paul's congregations tells me that if this slave-girl became part of the Philippi church in Lydia's home, her fellow Christians would have helped support her in her lesser, non-priestess status. Paul wrote sharply to the Corinthian church when they violated his spirit of egalitarianism. Maybe Lydia's wealth also became a source of help for the slave-girl, not unlike a parish's discretionary fund can be a source of support for people in need.

I like happy endings. I can imagine this tale of two women ending well. I also know, the anonymous slave-girl might be just another of history's discards, unintended collateral damage in the spiritual war between the Church and the Greek Temple. If I feel a yearning for Paul and the Philippi church to reach out to her to help her, I also need to recognize our contemporary responsibility for the collateral damage created in our various wars of church and state. We also have a responsibility to help.

“God shows himself; God speaks. He may speak to other people, too, but in any case he is speaking to me. How the person next to me understands his word is none of my concern right now. God has chosen this hour and this occasion to meet me. He has the means and the power to do it in such a way that man cannot dodge the issue but has to make a decision—and will. When the believer realizes what is happening, he is usually so struck that he stands there like someone who has just been wounded. A part of him that before was whole and promised peace and seemed to have a future has broken into pieces and cannot be glued back together again. The familiar country road has suddenly stopped, and he now finds himself before a chaotic thicket. Man’s whole helplessness, indeed, his whole lack of a future, yawns open—that is, unless he resolves to jump over his own abyss to God. God’s ‘thou’ is so surpassingly powerful that man, no matter which way he moves, always remains in his clasp. A truce with God is out of the question. You have to stick it out right where you are until you have heard everything. God does not just go his way; he wants to be listened to now, and man has to be all ears. What God has to say will not take many words; it may be a single word, which afterward can be stretched out into a whole sermon. It is also possible for everything to get stuck in the initial stages so that God has to meet man for days and weeks and years until man gets an inkling of what he is saying. But as man’s Creator and Redeemer, God is so close to him and understands him so well that he knows precisely how to handle him, how to make himself heard, what word man will respond to without fail.”

Adrienne von Speyr, Man Before God (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), pp. 64-65

I wonder what this passage might say to us about the role of the Holy Scriptures and the sermon in what we call the liturgy of the Word. (Or, for that matter, what it might say to us about what we expect to hear when we read and meditate upon the Scriptures.) Do we come to the Scriptures expecting the kind of Word from God that could strike us to the heart? Do we expect to be bought to the point of crisis and decision?

Ultimately, no preacher is adequate to the task, and the Word of God is most often overheard in spite of the inadequacies of the preacher. And yet, perhaps, the poor state of the preaching ministry is as much the fault of our low expectations as it is the quality of those called and sent to preach. What do we expect? To be entertained? To be uplifted? To be confirmed in our prejudices?

Or do we instead expect “the Word of God, living and efficacious, sharper than any two edged sword”? Do we instead expect to come face to face with God’s mercy, truth, and judgment?

The Word of God is an unsettling one. It can console us but seldom without wounding us or causing the kind of chaos and helplessness mentioned above. In the words of Jesus’ preaching in the early chapters of Mark, the Good News of the Kingdom is a summons to repent—to turn our whole lives around. And there is a painful tearing away from our sins (which we love); there is a time of adjustment to the clean and pure light of God; there is a dying, before God brings us back to life.

Bill Carroll

Friday, July 29, 2011 -- -- Week of Proper 12, Year One
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany
To read about our daily commemorations, go to the Holy Women, Holy Men blog

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, 976)
Psalms 69:1-23(24-30)31-38 (morning) 73 (evening)
2 Samuel 5:1-12
Acts 17:1-15
Mark 7:24-37

I've been reading recently about the events of my childhood as we begin to reach the fifty year mark since the days of the civil rights movement. Newspapers and some television stations are doing retrospectives now about the Freedom Riders of 1961. In that year, white and black volunteers rode interstate busses into the South to challenge the Jim Crow segregationist laws. The 1960 Supreme Court ruling in Boynton v. Virginia struck down discriminatory laws in restrooms, waiting rooms and restaurants in bus terminals serving interstate travelers. The court's ruling was ignored in much of the South.

In May, 1961, the Freedom Riders left Washington, D. C. on Greyhound and Trailways busses to challenge the Jim Crow practices. In many places, particularly in Alabama, local law officials allowed mobs to attack and beat the riders. A bus was burned and its riders nearly lynched in Anniston, Alabama. Violence against them in Birmingham was organized by the Ku Klux Klan, with the particular leadership of Police Sergeant Tom Cook, a Klan member, and the infamous police Commissioner Bull Conner. The Riders were terribly beaten in Birmingham, and one with a serious head wound was refused admission to a Methodist hospital.

New Riders replaced those who had been injured. The beatings continued in Montgomery. In Jackson, Mississippi, law officers protected the Riders from mob threats, but arrested them by the bus-full. Some 300 Riders were arrested in Mississippi and then treated with multiple indignities in jail, especially in the state's penitentiary in Parchman. The Freedom Rides continued throughout the South, but especially into Jackson, until the Interstate Commerce Commission finally issued an order that would enforce the court ruling in November, 1961.

People were shocked by the disorder, violence, and racial animosity that was stirred up by the Freedom Riders. Much of the criticism was directed toward the Riders, not only in the South, but also in the North. Popular opinion often supported the local law enforcement's actions to uphold their laws and frowned on outside agitators whose only purpose seemed to be to stir up trouble and to break laws. Even the national press often portrayed the Riders negatively.

Some of these stories came to mind as I read today's New Testament passages. Paul and his companions invoked violent reactions in their own travels across Macedonia. In the port city of Thessalonica a mob attacked the church house of Jason and dragged some of the Christians before the authorities accusing them of treason. In the night, Paul and Silas escaped to the south west to Beroea, where things went well, until some from Thessalonica heard about them, and stirred up threatening crowds there. Paul's "Freedom Riders" provoked violent reactions from the local synagogues, not only because they proclaimed Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, but also because they invited Gentile "godfearers" into their fellowship without the Biblical requirement of circumcision and kosher observation. The Gentiles were often generous contributors to the synagogue, and their loss would be a significant economic threat.

In our reading from Mark, we see Jesus traveling outside his home country, leaving Israel for the region of Tyre. There a Gentile woman -- an unclean woman -- begged Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus' response seems to be a response of cultural conditioning, Biblical language, if you will. "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." In Jesus' home and village, Gentiles would have been called "dogs." There are many passages in scripture where the word "dog" is used as an epithet to call another unclean or low. (I can remember the "N-word" being used in common conversation, without passion, without express insult.)

But something about the woman's response -- "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs" -- changed everything. Maybe it was her humility, or her cleverness. Whatever it was, Jesus immediately shed any vestige of cultural conditioning and healed her child. From that moment on in Mark's gospel, Jesus gave to Gentiles the same gifts of healing and feeding that he gave to his own people.

Where do we see these things today? Maybe in our cultural attitudes and even our legal discriminations against immigrants. The anti-Muslim fever of some. Discriminatory laws and even violence against gay people and transgendered people. And we still have so far to go to realize the hopes for racial equality that motivated the Freedom Riders. Blacks in America still suffer from so many forms of overt and subtle racism, and carry heavy weight from the effects of past oppression.

We grow up inheriting the values and opinions of our culture. It was a great gift to me to grow up in a culture that was so wrong about something important as the South was wrong about segregation. I think that experience has made me suspicious of other things that look like prejudice and discrimination. I hope so.

In every generation there are those who would incite mobs to violence. They believe they do so in defense of something good that is threatened. Often, they are wrong.

In every generation there are dogs who only get the crumbs falling from the children's tables. Who are they? How can we recognize their full humanity?

In 2061, fifty years, what will we be embarrassed and ashamed about? How can we choose rightly, now?

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’
‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. -- Mark 9:33-37,42 (NRSV)

It is no wonder that this gospel lesson appears on the commemoration of William Wilberforce and Anthony Ashley Cooper, two who sought to heal the brokenness of the world by working to abolish slavery, return Jews to Israel and see to the welfare of children. Society, and even the church, had created stumbling blocks for many by denying the personhood and value of certain people and groups, and those stumbling blocks caused many little ones, beloved children of God regardless of size or age, to fall into hopelessness and despair. People like Wilberforce and Cooper worked to restore that brokenness and, years later, some of it has been healed.

There is still so much brokenness and so many stumbling blocks. There are still places where slavery of different sorts run rampant. The church has made strides to call attention to that wrongness and help to alleviate it, but the church also has remained silent in the face of other things that can and do make God's children stumble and fall.

How many children of God have been forced to their knees because of who or what they are perceived to be by others who see only rule-breakers? For centuries, African Americans were seen as not really full humans and that perception lead to their treatment as less than human. For millennia, children of any class lower than those of the rich, were considered not really human but rather to be put to "honest work" in factories that not only broke their starving bodies but their spirits as well. What now of women in the majority world countries who live on the edge of desperation because they are seen as sexual objects for men's pleasure or possessions to be used at will? What of GLBQTI folk who are no less fearfully and wonderfully made as any other children of God but who have lost faith in God and God's church because they are made to be slaves to the perception of "Christians" who "love the sinner but hate the sin." The Christians may be sincere in their belief, but so were the slave-holders, factory owners and brothel-keepers who claimed to be followers of Jesus but who put physical, mental and spiritual chains on those under their charge and care.

Love shouldn't hurt. We abhor physical violence against children, but why do we sit quietly while spiritual violence is done to those whose life and being are touted as "abominations" or whose physical body makes them vulnerable to power plays and violence?

What are we doing to keep God's children from stumbling and losing both faith and hope? Are we helping them heal --- or are we just handing them millstones in the name of God?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” John 1:43-51 NRSV

Nathaniel only appears in John's Gospel; given that he appears in context with Philip, as does Bartholomew in the Synoptic Gospels, it is assumed they are the same person. Tradition and early writings tell us that Nathaniel/Bartholomew was from Cana. Towns and villages had great rivalries at the time, without benefit of sports teams to diffuse the rivalry. In that frame of reference, Nathaniel's comment, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" is akin to the retort any loyal Missouri Tiger would use about a Kansas Jayhawk on first meeting, or that of every other Texas school towards a University of Texas grad.

Yet something happens to show Nathaniel that those initial words are meant to be eaten. What that "something" is, unfortunately, is not revealed in the passage. We know that Jesus saw Nathaniel doing something under the fig tree, but we are not told what. Much scholarly speculation has been made about that, including use of the fig tree as a symbol of studying the Torah (ancient yeshiva students often met with their teacher under a tree,) and the use of the fig tree as an apocalyptic image of Israel, but spending too much time on that merely detracts from what is shown in this story.

What we do see clearly is that the Gospel, right from the get-go, is spread by action, and not just by Jesus himself. Philip is shown in this passage spreading the Good News in Christ in the very first chapter of the Gospel of John, and later, Jesus himself tells Nathaniel what we would now say in modern-day language, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

The most effective evangelism tool in spreading the Good News in Christ is comprised of our actions--often actions we didn't even think about at the time--and we don't always know who saw us out under the fig tree. We are not always privy to how those actions change the lives of others, or plant a seed of thought in another person's head to be invited into a closer relationship with God. We don't know when we might be even called to eat our own words and get a miraculous surprise in the process! When it happens, would it be so easy for us to, like Nathaniel, blurt out its divine nature? Or would we try to rationalize it?

When we are open to the Divine Hand in our everyday dealings, we "ain't seen nothin' yet," either.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepsicatoid