felix hominum

Persians, Canadians and Barbarians

The Persians were barbarians, the Greeks thought, not because they were weak (they were mighty) or stupid (they were clever) or rustic (they built lavish cities).  They were barbarians because they were not free.  Or, to put it more precisely, they had become accustomed to living under despotism; they lacked the will to rise up against their overlords and govern themselves, city by city, by the use of their own minds and strong arms.  The barbarian may arouse pity, if he can no longer conceive of what it would be to stand tall and speak candidly; by this definition, the lowlier of the Calormenes in Lewis' Chronicles are pitiable barbarians.  Or he may arouse a kind of half-comic aversion, as do the Cyclopses in the Odyssey, who gather in no assemblies, pass no laws, unite for no large-scale industry or agriculture, and do not give homage to the politically organized gods of Olympus, but mind their own petty business, each of them ignoring his neighbors -- as the bleeding oaf Polyphemus finds to his discomfiture.  Or the barbarian may be one of the privileged few who cause others to truckle to his will, like the semisavage tyrants of Sicity (Agathocles, Hiero, Dionysus).

     Whatever the case, the barbarian is missing something central to being human: living as a free man with duties and responsibilities in a community, taking part in spirited debate, and not having to duck and scrape when some big shot from a distant Persepolis descends with the imperial decree.  The free man is both a dutiful son of his country and a father for it; the city commands his allegiance, but it is also in part his creation, his patrimony, which he will pass along to his descendants in turn.  The Greeks claim that when this political liberty -- it is not the radical individualism of a Cyclops in his cave -- is lacking, that itself is barbaric, regardless of whether the people possess sweet and gentle manners.  My family and I are preparing to go north for the summer, where the people of Canada have had the liberties of their small communities snatched from them by a bad constitution and a tyrannical court.  They are, as one defender of liberty has put it, a Nation of Bastards, wards of the state.  This novel kind of barbarism does overgo the barbarism of Persia, though, because the ancient Persians were willing enough to grant their outlands a measure of home rule; witness Cyrus's humane returning of the Jews to their homeland.  Chief Justice McLachlin of Canada will not allow such local variations for a Calgary or a Thunder Bay.  When it comes to detaching Canadians from the very culture that gave rise to Canada in the first place, only a mockery of debate is allowed.  And only the shreds and patches of political opposition, too.  Approach the presence, Clayton, Terence, Angus.  Bow with awful reverence prone, flat as the Canadian shield.  I'm not gloating over you, my friends of the permafrost.  We in America will soon be leaving our nose-prints in the dirt, too.

Anthony Esolen, in Mere Comments

Speaking of things which deal with Classics, I've been re-reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire over the last 2 weeks.  It is fascinating stuff.

 

sermon notes Matthew 7: 21-29; Pentecost 3

Matthew 7:21-29

[21] "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. [22] On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?'  [23] Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

[24] "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  [25] The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  [26] And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  [27] The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell--and great was its fall!"

[28] Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, [29] for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

For obscurity or detail sake, you could have a look at "Broken Parallelism in Matthew’s Parable of the Two Builders" (Direction, 2004).  Most English translations render an exact parallelism, instead of rendering the difference between verbs in v 25 and 27.

Sort of starting in the middle, I am struck by the imagery of the rain and the flood coming.  I think that what Jesus is getting at in train and flood imagery is the flash flood which can hit in the late winter rainy season.  Here's a brief bit of news on a recent flash flood near the Dead Sea:

The body of a Jewish American cantor who drowned in a flash flood near the Dead Sea on Monday was set to be flown back to the U.S. on Tuesday for burial, police said.

The man, David Tauber, was killed near the Dead Sea on Monday when floodwaters raced down the riverbed where he was hiking with his wife, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. His wife, Heather Tauber, survived and was treated by medics on the scene...

"[The downpour] was a minor event until it suddenly turned tragic," Merav Ayalon, a spokesperson for Kibbutz Ein Gedi said.

News story here.

That last quote is telling.  There is a suddenness to the floods with which Jesus' audience would have been familiar.  Not like our idea of flood - we have a few days forecast, we watch rivers rise, we can predict the rate at which things will happen.  Anyway, just a little food for thought before I get my caffeine fix and work on the rest of the reading.

 

prayers for the election of Yukon bishop

Update: 

The Most Rev Terrence O. Buckle, Archbishop of Yukon, Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of BC & Yukon, announced this morning that he has decided to remain in office after none of the four candidates in yesterday’s diocesan synod received the required majority of votes to succeed him.

Thirty-five delegates at Yukon Diocese’s special episcopal synod deliberated, prayed, and voted far into the evening at Christ Church Cathedral, Whitehorse.  In the end, however, the synod adjourned without selecting a coadjutor bishop to serve alongside and then replace Archbishop Terry Buckle, who had announced his intention to retire at the end of this year.

This morning at the cathedral, Archbishop Terry spoke to the assembled congregation before the commencement of the worship service.  He said he went home yesterday evening wondering if the Holy Spirit is saying that there should be no change in diocesan leadership, that this is not the time for him to retire.  Awaking with that same thought on his mind, he spoke to trusted advisors and friends and heard the same message.  He is now convinced that God’s will for him and the diocese at this time is that he should stay on as archbishop.

The congregation was filled with joy and excitement when we heard this.  May God bless Archbishop Terry and his family as he continues to serve our risen and ascended Lord in Yukon.

The voting rules require a winning candidate to receive a simple majority in each of the two houses of clergy and laity, and also demand a two-thirds overall majority.  As we have just seen, that can be quite difficult to achieve with several candidates and a total of only thirty-five voting delegates.  Seven ballots were held yesterday and, at one point, a candidate came within two votes of success.

There is some talk of revising the voting rules, but that will have to wait until a general diocesan synod.

via Scott Gilbreath

The Yukon diocese is scheduled to elect a bishop coadjutor on May 31.  Please remember the diocese in your prayers.

Send forth your Holy Spirit, O Lord, and raise up for us a shepherd of your own choosing: a bishop to lead and guide us, a shepherd of wisdom and strength, compassion and grace, holiness and learning, with vision and the commitment to build up your Church and unite your faithful people around the love of him who offered himself for us and for all the world, Jesus Christ our Lord.

As of the close of nominations for Coadjutor Bishop for the Diocese of Yukon as set by the Nominating Committee we are pleased to announce that three candidates will proceed to the election on the 31st of May, 2008 in Whitehorse, Yukon. They are The Venerable Gregory Gilson, currently Archdeacon in the Diocese of Caledonia in Dawson Creek, B.C; The Venerable David Irving, currently Executive Archdeacon of the Diocese of Kootenay in Kelowna, B.C.; The Right Reverend Larry Robertson, currently Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of The Arctic in Yellowknife, NT; and The Ven. Andrew Hoskin, currently an Archdecon in the Diocese of Algoma.

The Coadjutor Bishop-elect will be consecrated in October and will automatically succeed as Bishop of Yukon at the end of the year upon the retirement of The Most Reverend Terrence Buckle, Archbishop of Yukon and Metropolitan of British Columbia and Yukon.

Yukon diocese website

A Call to Pray for Mission in the Diocese of Edmonton

A Call to Pray for Mission in the Diocese

The Church Planting Mission Development Working Group of Executive Council invites you to a day of prayer. The day of prayer will take place on Saturday June 14th from 10:00-2:00pm at St. Mary’s Anglican Church 11203-68 St. Please bring a bag lunch, refreshments will be provided. For further information, call the synod office at 439-7344.

A few folks who have a heart for church planting and mission have been getting together.  It would be great if others could join together for prayer on this day.  Spend some time praying and listening for God's direction regarding mission for the diocese of Edmonton.

near Ephesus, Kushadasi harbour

Anglican Church of Canada posts $770,000 shortfall

The national office of the Anglican Church of Canada has reported a deficit for the fifth straight year in 2007, with a shortfall of $777,195; the amount is $290,768 more than the loss recorded in 2006 at $486,427.

The deficit would have been $1.97 million had General Synod not received a refund last year of $1.17 million from the federal government as part of the revised Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the financial statements showed.

General Synod treasurer Peter Blachford said there were a number of reasons for the deficit, but that the biggest cost was related to the transfer of Anglican Book Centre (ABC), the church’s Toronto-based bookstore, to the Lutheran bookseller, Augsburg Fortress Canada.

whole article at the Anglican Journal

In other ACofC news:

The diocese of Huron’s annual synod, or governing convention, voted on May 26 to ask the bishop to give clergy permission to bless same-sex marriages, “where at least one party is baptized” and to authorize an appropriate rite.

The margin in favour was 72 per cent in both clergy and lay houses (97 clergy in favour, 36 against; 227 lay people in favour, 87 against).

The diocesan bishop, Bruce Howe, said he “gave concurrence” to the motion based on the large percentage in favour, but he added that he intended to consult with other bishops before acting on the vote.

whole article here

Deputy Mayor sorry about burning New Testaments...

The burning of hundreds of New Testaments by yeshiva students in Or Yehuda last week was regrettable and unplanned, the city's deputy mayor, the man who spurred the students to act, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon of Shas used the opportunity of speaking to the Post, which publishes a monthly Christian Edition, to apologize to Christians worldwide, saying he hoped the incident would not inflame tensions between Jews and Christians.

Following the publication of the story on Tuesday, however, many messianic Jewish and other Christian groups expressed grave concern over the increasingly violent nature of anti-missionary activity in Israel.

Aharon had a very busy Tuesday. In the morning, Ma'ariv ran a story on how he organized to retrieve and burn hundreds of New Testaments given to Ethiopian Jews in his city by local messianic Jews. By 9 a.m. he was on an Army Radio news-talk show defending his actions, which he called "purging the evil among us."

At 10:30 he was on Channel 2's morning news show saying that Ethiopian immigrants in Or Yehuda were being encouraged to go against Judaism by messianic Jews. "We need to stop being ashamed of our Jewishness and to fight those who are breaking the law by missionizing against us," he said.

But by the early afternoon he had already been interviewed by Russian, Italian and French TV, explaining to their highly offended audiences back home how he had not meant for the Bibles to be burned, and trying to undo the damage caused by the news [and photographs] of Jews burning New Testaments.

But then he also told The Associated Press that he didn't condemn the Bible burning, calling it a "commandment."

from the Jerusalem Post

I saw this article a while ago, and have been interested in the various responses to this incident.  As numerous voices have said, this is an ironic picture, to say the least.

 

near St John's Church, ancient Ephesus

I have become like a pelican in the wilderness... Psalm 102:6

minaret, Blue Mosque, Istanbul

sermon notes Pentecost 2; Matthew 6: 24-34

What with the early Easter and Pentecost and all that, we are going with: Isaiah 49:8-16a;  Psalm 131;  1 Corinthians 4:1-5;  Matthew 6:24-34.  Things will be filled in over the next couple of days...  For now I have to call someone about a small leak in one of the rads in the sanctuary.

Matthew 6:24-34
[24] "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.  [25] Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Remember that just a few few verses before this, Jesus has told his hearers that there heart and their treasure seem to share the same geography - where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  So on one level he is following up on this.

While there is a tendency to think primarily in terms of trusting (trusting God vs trusting wealth), Jesus begins by talking about serving.  The language used to set the scene is one of servitude or slavery.  Trust involves choice, but slavery involves no choice - it is forced upon you.  What we are faced with is not a decision as to whether or not we will serve a master, but only what kind of master we will serve.  And Jesus wants to prod the fence sitters:  "a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other."  There does not seem to be much middle ground there.  Can God and wealth be so opposed?  Well, perhaps not, but serving God and serving wealth certainly are.

do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink

Someone I read pointed out that we can trust Jesus to take away our sins and give us eternal life, but we have trouble trusting him for the next sandwich.  Says a lot, doesn't it?

Jesus gives us a roundabout question:  of course we are supposed to agree with him that "life is more than food, and the body more than clothing".  But we are then faced with the question:  what is the "more"?  What the "more" is will be told in verse 33.  But for now we are told what we are to avoid:  worrying about life in terms of food, drink and clothing.  In a society whose financial (at least retirement) industry is built on the foundation of worry, this is either a frightening or a freeing message.  Makes me think of the collect for morning prayer (BCP): "whose service is perfect freedom". 

[26] Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  [27] And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? [28] And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, [29] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  [30] But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith?

Jesus turns our attention not to the negative characteristics of "wealth", but to the positive characteristics of God.  It is interesting how his persuasion proceeds.  He does not preach here against the evils of wealth or possessions.  Instead, Jesus asks us to consider the character of God, our "heavenly Father."  This is the true starting point, and a good lesson in apologetics:  begin with the goodness of God, rather than with the fault of that which you are trying to condemn. 

Secondly, we are invited to consider ourselves in terms of realizing that we are worth something to God - are you not of more value than they? We might tend to slip over this verse, perhaps out of a fear of  - oh I don't know -  thinking too highly of ourselves or something like that.  Fair enough;  there is more than enough back-patting in Christian circles;  why do we need an affirmation or mini-course in self esteem at this point?  I'm not really sure, but for some reason Jesus asks us to consider, really consider, that we have value in God's eyes.  I wonder if this is more connected with the preceding thought:  our value in God's eyes is due to the goodness of His character, rather than of ours.

[31] Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'  [32] For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  [33] But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  [34] So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

There is a good deal of food for thought when this gospel passage is heard alongside Isaiah:

They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;  they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them...But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me." Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

The question about what we shall eat and drink takes can take on a new meaning when heard in the context of communion.  With what do we feed our souls?  There is a marvellous answer to that question for those who hold to a higher view of the sacramental grace offered to us in the Eucharist.

Will continue tomorrow...

Tent dwelling; near Bergama, central west Turkey (May 2008)