felix hominum

Mark 6: 14-29; Pentecost 6; sermon notes

I can't wait to see what people are going to come up with who do children's stories and such for this week in church:  underage girl dances for jaded old man, who then (to save face) orders the beheading of John the Baptist.

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.

Josephus, Antiquities XVIII 5.2

So Josephus, as well as Mark, tells us a bit about the death of John the Baptist.  There are lots of interesting tidbits about this Herod.  He is not the same Herod who was around for the birth narratives - that would be Herod the Great:  master builder, architect and general crazy man.  This Herod is Antipas, and seems to share only the last quality of the Great.  Let's set the stage for the Herod in this story.  He had married a Nabatean princess, who then fell out of favour, and he ended up marrying his brother's wife.  Apparently this did not sit well with the Nabateans, who subsequently waged some minor war with Herod and roundly defeated him.  Herod was bold if nothing else.  He was called Tetrarch, but wrote to the Emperor to ask for the title of "King".   Herod's nephew (Agrippa) decided in the mess of things to accuse Herod of disloyalty to Rome.  The emperor, Caesar Gaius Caligula, was not impressed and ended up issuing a decree of banishment to Herod and his new wife - sending them off to Gaul.  Well, there you have it.

That's a bit of background;  thoughts on the text itself will be up after dinner...

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some were saying, "John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him."  But others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old."  But when Herod heard of it, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised."

Church sign, Mount of the Transfiguration

Arab shopkeeper, Jerusalem

 

Isn't it a holiday or something

for the Americans?

vacation bible camp

Woo-hoo

"When in Rome"...  St Tim's vacation bible camps for kids:  ages 3-11
August 17-21.  Email st.tims{at]shawbiz.ca for details/registration

"US pastor opens church to guns"

A pastor in the US state of Kentucky told his flock to bring handguns to church in what he said was an effort to promote safe gun ownership.  Pastor Ken Pagano told parishioners to bring their unloaded guns to New Bethel Church in Louisville for a service celebrating the right to bear arms.
He said he acted after church members voiced fears the Obama administration could tighten gun control laws.

When the service began, some 200 people were present, AP news agency said.

"We are wanting to send a message that there are legal, civil, intelligent and law-abiding citizens who also own guns," Mr Pagano told the congregation.  "If it were not for a deep-seated belief in the right to bear arms, this country would not be here today," he said.

The pastor also held a handgun raffle, as well as providing information on gun safety.  I wish more churches did this, I wish more people did this," the Louisville Courier-Journal quoted one attendee, Doreen Rogers, as saying.  "For some reason, most people think that carrying guns is sinful. It's not. I think my life is worth protecting."

full story from the BBC

Crosses over Capernaum

Crosses over Capernaum
photo ©  Joe Walker 2009

Why I live under a curse

...because I am compelled to read and respond to the various papers presented by the Primate's Theological Commission.  Theology, like all intellectual disciplines, requires time.  An obvious drawback to engaging in dialogue with those who have produced this set of papers is the lack of time to adequately consider all angles of what is being said.  Nontheless, let me begin.  The order in which I am reading these papers is much like how I pick the movies I go to:  mainly based on the titles.  And for further reading, one might consider Pete Rollins' question:  who is a theologian?

Mostly I will respond according to the genre of my generation:  meandering. 

Walter Deller makes gives us some interesting "for instance" examples in his paper: Pastoral Practice and Doctrine—Two Instances of Change and Some Questions They Raise.  He uses two examples:  suicide and baptism of children born out of marriage.  I want first to look at the way he addresses the latter.  He relates the following to us:

As the synod presentation made clear it is still the practice in some parts of the Canadian Church not to baptize children who are born to parents who are not married. I am aware of clergy who have encountered in their ministry individuals who have been alienated from the church for long periods of time because of such refusals within living memory. This offers an interesting reflection point, since this instance is one where pastoral practice is in outright contradiction of doctrine.

He goes on to note that it has never been the doctrine of the church  to formally deny baptism based on the marital status of the parents.  Yet he notes that practices contrary to the teaching of the church have at least existed within the Canadian church.

There are a few problems I see with using this kind of example.  First, it must be noted that the practice was actually contrary to the teaching of the church.  As a model for implementing SSB, I find it less than persuasive.  Look at it this way:  the correction to a faulty practice is to bring it in line with the teaching of the church.  What is missing from Deller's example is the strong fact that this was not a widespread practice, and it was, by all accounts, contrary to the understanding of the sacrament itself.  So I find it rather unconvincing.  It does not prove a blanket "practices can change" principle.  It merely points out a set of clergy (how many? and for how long?) who engaged, of their own accord, in a practice which was contrary to the teaching of the church.  Seems to me that the model actually works against making a case for change...

Bishop Ron Ferris on the future of the Anglican world...

On the other hand I think we are also seeing Anglicanism become a multi-polar universe, so really what’s happening is that the Episcopal Church in the USA is becoming the rallying point for liberal Anglicans. Traditional structures of the ACC and the Lambeth Conference are for the middle of the road countries, and GAFCON fellowship has become the rallying point for evangelical and Anglo-Catholic Christians. Anglicans will likely find themselves somewhere between those three poles; some will belong to GAFCON, Lambeth and TEC; others will belong to one or two over the course of time.

from here.

Gustave Flaubert, Jerry Seinfeld, and the death of Michael Jackson

'What I should like to write' [Flaubert explained in 1852] 'is a book about nothing, a book dependent upon nothing external, which would be held together by the strength of its style...a book which would have almost no subject...style in itself being an absolute manner of seeing all things.'

in The Culture of Interpretation - Christian Faith and the Postmodern World, Roger Lundin, 62

In the progress of certain kinds of literary theory, the movement from content to style is absolute.  Flaubert's description of what he would like to accomplish - pure style - has in a way found its conclusion in the contemporary world.  And Flaubert (like Jackson) did not begin with "mere style".  Flaubert authored Madame Bovary and The Sentimental Education.

In Madame Bovary, which many regard as Flaubert's greatest work and one of the finest examples of novel in world literature, the character of Emma Bovary tries to fly from her essentially boring and meaningless life through adultery and living a high life of monetary excess.

there is a difference between nostalgia and memory

I''ll have to confess that we had ocassion to rent the latest incarnation of Brideshead Revisited.  The movie lacked a great deal;  it missed many of the central themes of Waugh's work.  Most notable, it mistook mere nostalgia for memory.  In a brilliant little piece of writing, Thomas HIbbs pointed out some of the shortcomings of the film's treatment of Waugh's text:

The desire to arrest time, to hold onto the present as if it could be preserved from age, is a powerful human motive—one at the root of art itself. (In both the book and the film one cannot help but think of Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”) While the film’s focus is on guilt and lost innocence, Waugh’s focus is on the way faith overcomes the limits of romanticism regarding innocence and the past. It is not simply, as Lady Marchmain severely puts it, that time and eternity are at odds with one another. Instead, the task of faithful memory, or desire recollected through grace, is to discern the workings of providence in and through the moments of time. Thus, time itself, ordinarily an instrument of decay, can be redeemed, as the moments of time are gathered, rather than dispersed.

What the film makers did was to reduce memory to mere nostagia.  It is the sort of mistake I see again and again in the life of the Christian church.  And I see it operating in at least two ways.  In its most obvious and plain form, nostalgia supplants memory by a sort of romantic longing, with the past as a reference.  It is a form of reference to Golden Age theory (we might call it).  All starts out well and goes downhill from there.  In its fundamental Anglican form, one can see it in the 1549 preface:  "There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted."  On the other side we have a form of philosophical Darwinism:  remnants in the Church (which is always "behind" the culture) of ideas of progress, evolution, and a necessary moving beyond all that has come before. 

Nostalgia is a convenient tool for both camps:  in the first case it allows for mere longing, and in the second case it is used to reinforce a notion that what has gone before must be treated in a merely nostalgic way.  The notion of memory, however, is quite different.  Memory (and Augustine gives us insight into this) is really a power of the soul - the ability to be free (to some degree) of the contstraints of time.  Memory helps us to be part of the communion of saints, and not merely to be nostalgic about a golden age.

16 papers from the Primate’s Theological Commission

And they can all be found here.

I know, I know...  First of all, who has time to read and adequately address such a plethora?  If St Augustine lamented the lack of time in book XI of his Confessions, then so can I.  But be that as it may, if one has the time, and one is Anglican, and one thinks that such things are helpful, then go and read them all and report back here.  BTW, just in case you had not guessed, they are all around THE topic.  Which is an area where good reflection is needed.

As an underlying principle, the notion that questions are 'open' is going to continue to be quite exciting.  Or, to put it another way, the notion that there are less absolutes than the church thought is working itself out in many ways.  Some say that we need to rethink our 'absolutes' in terms of ethics;  others say that we need to rethink our 'absolutes' in terms of polity. 

From a purely speculative point of view, the one gives permission to the other.  It is the same principle, only applied to a different category of church life.  One should not find it surprising that at the same time as there is a restructuring of ethical order, there is also a restructuring of ecclesiastical order within Anglicanism.

If it's all too much, take a break and go here: