At The Party of the Resurrection

One winter day in 1984 up in Lake Almanor, I’d just kindled a fire in the wood stove, when I heard a frantic flapping noise. Quickly opening the stove door, I was panicked to found a bird which had apparently gotten into the stove pipe. Luckily, the fire was small enough that only a few feathers had gotten singed, and so we were able to extricate the bird from a fiery fate! Reflecting on my agitated reaction to finding this creature, I wondered then, and have wondered since, how would I, how do I respond to human beings in similar dire, distressing situations? The Gospel reading on this last Sunday after Pentecost (Matthew 25:31-46), just before we enter into the Advent season of a new liturgical year, confronts us about such reactions and responses.

Preparing us for the coming reign of God, the most important phase of which was Jesus‘ in-breaking into human history through human birth, Matthew’s parable is the third and final one in Chapter 25. Jesus has spoken to us over the past few weeks from Matthew’s pages describing, in brief glimpses, the dynamics of what’s needed to be part of the coming reign of God. “The reign of God will be like this: ten young bridesmaids...five of them...wise, and the other five...foolish…” “The reign of God is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them...each according to their ability…” And today: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory...all the nations will be gathered in front of him, and he will separate people one from another…” This last parable, sometimes referred to as an “apocalyptic vision”, i.e., a vision which uncovers or  reveals something, immediately precedes Jesus’ announcement to his followers that, within a very short time, “...the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Jesus’ death and subsequent being raised from the dead are the signs which will inaugurate the reign of God among us. 

To convey this message to his hearers, Matthew employs the language of animal husbandry, so well-known to them: specifically,  the image of sheep and goats. The first reading today from the prophet Ezekiel (34:11-16; 20-24) is further evidence of a tradition, long before Matthew’s time, of the use of similar imagery. But that isn’t the primary focus. Since “goats” didn’t carry a negative connotation in Palestine, the distinction between them and “sheep” isn’t the key element here. The emphasis in both Ezekiel and Matthew is on God, the Shepherd figure, as one who identifies with the flock, seeks them out, feeds them, protects them, strengthens and heals the weak and injured, and calls to task the unruly ones within the flock. Robert McAfee Brown, in his book, Unexpected News: Reading the Bible Through Third World Eyes, says: “The judge who directs attention to the poor and outcast is numbered among the poor and outcast. The judge is not an abstract or aloof—or terrifying—deity. Rather the judge is Christ himself, one whose own life was actively identified with the poor and outcast, which is the surest possible sign [that] we could have that love for God (represented by such a One) and love for the poor (represented by such a One) are inseparable.”

The sorting-out process which Matthew depicts as necessary for coming into the reign of God is rather simple. He envisions that at some time in the future every human being will appear before Jesus the Christ, God’s Anointed One. A evaluation will be made on how each of us has lived: either as one who took care of people, including the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the prisoner, or as one who chose not to do so. Matthew’s Jesus says that just and righteous people tend to respond to others’ needs by providing basic things: things like a meal, a drink, clothing, company, a sympathetic ear. Simple things. Easy things, if one really cares. No questions asked. No preconditions. No strings attached. Just a loving response to need, whatever and wherever.

Jesus further hints that those who care and respond do so without calculating, without looking for some “payoff” or advantage, without expecting recognition or thanks. In fact, he says, most of the time it never even occurs to folks like this that what they’re doing for others is any big deal: “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, etc…” Their response is rather like a reflex: there’s a need, and I try to take care of it. Simple.

People, on the other hand as Jesus notes, who don’t respond in this way also don’t even notice that there is a need: “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, etc…and didn’t take care of you?” Sometimes people become so self-absorbed that they simply overlook or ignore cues to the obvious need in front of them. Sometimes they justify inaction by conditions and qualifications which they’ve previously set up in their own minds.

The truth is that any human being in need can be helped by someone, in some way, and should be helped, however one can do it. In the Gospel Jesus reminds us that people in need, even the least, are his family: the Greek word used is adelphoi = brothers [and, by implication, sisters]. John the Evangelist would later write in his first Letter: “If you don’t love your neighbor whom you see, how can you love God whom you don’t see?” And in this day and age especially, what holds for us as individuals also holds for larger entities: nations, states, governments, etc. Quoting Robert McAfee Brown again: “One important aspect of justice, José Miranda [a rather colorful Pentecostal minister in Florida] reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice—restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly. So Jesus' vision is not a plea for tax-deductible donations but a fervent cry for justice, for setting right what has gone wrong.”

Dom Helder Camara, a Brazilian Catholic bishop and a remarkable human being, who died in 1999 at age 90, was often tagged by some merely as a “liberal theologian”. In fact, Dom Helder was a simple man who lived simply and had great love for simple things, especially for people and the earth. Like St. Francis, he proclaimed the Gospel by the way he lived and by how he treated other human beings, especially the weakest and poorest. Not that it was any easier for him as a bishop to deal with them than it is for you and me. Dom Helder once said: “Do people weigh on you? Don’t carry them around on your shoulders: take them into your heart.” 

A question which you and I might need to think about in light of Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel is this: if today were the last day of my life, would Jesus, the Good Shepherd, invite me to stand on his right hand or on his left? Can you or I become part the reign of God by giving food or blankets to homeless street people?? Or can you and I be excluded from God’s reign for neglecting drug addicts and winos huddled against downtown walls; or for not being much interested in angry people behind prison bars?? Only you and I can answer for ourselves. But one thing is sure: God in Jesus takes dead seriously each of our needs and continues to make Godself one with each of our hungers, thirsts, sicknesses, anxieties, and the things which may hold you or me captive. 

Through Baptism Jesus dwells in my heart, lives in my life, speaks through my words, reaches out with my hands. He daily invites you and me to eat at his table: a table where Jesus, the poor and humble One, serves the servants, where Jesus the Good Shepherd spreads a feast to which you and I can bring nothing except ourselves. A table where saying “Good morning!” to a stranger, or pouring a cup of water for someone thirsty, or passing a food dish to a hungry child, or merely listening to someone talk about his or her life and struggles, his or her “story”, true or fabricated, is regarded by Jesus as worthy of his finest blessing: “Come, you who are beloved of my Father, be part of the reign of God prepared for you…”

In March, 1986, Dom Helder Camara wrote a poem, called At the Party of the Resurrection:

In the ordinariness of the day-to-day

I looked most intently

at the faces of the Poor,

consumed by hunger

squashed by humiliation,

and in them I discovered Your face,

O Risen Christ!   

    

A Committed American Champion For Non-Violence

"Once, a journalist asked Leo Tolstoy who he thought the greatest American writer was. 'Adin Ballou,' Tolstoy answered. The journalist was puzzled. Who? He had never heard of Adin Ballou. Few people had. 

Unfortunately, even today, few people know about Adin Ballou. But I agree with Tolstoy. Not only was Adin Ballou an original thinker and a significant writer, but I consider him one of the most influential Christian peacemakers in our history." (Fr. John Dear, S.J., "Adin Ballou's vision of non-violence", National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 15, 2011)


My long-time friend, former seminary-mate and priest colleague, and brilliant theologian, Jim Fitzgerald, regularly sends me articles of theological, social, and political interest. Today I learned from him about someone totally unknown to me, whose name I'd never heard: Adin Ballou (1803-1890). At this time of the Occupy Movement across the country, I wanted especially to share this with you.


Adin Ballou was Christian minister, very much in the forefront of pacifism, socialism and abolitionism in the U.S., and the founder of the Hopedale Community. Through his long career as a Universalist, and then Unitarian minister, he tirelessly sought social reform through his radical Christian and socialist views.


Born in 1803 on a farm in Cumberland, R.I., to Ariel and Edilda Ballou,  Adin was raised a Six-Principle Baptist until 1813 when his family was converted in a Christian Connexion revival.


Ballou married Abigail Sayles in early 1822, the same year in which he converted to Universalism. Abigail died seven years later, shortly after giving birth to a daughter. Then Ballou himself suffered a life-threatening illness later that year. He was nursed back to health by Lucy Hunt, whom he married a few months later. Hosea Ballou II (1796–1861), an American Universalist minister and first president of Tufts University, officiated at the ceremony.
The Ballous had four children, only one of whom, Abbie, survived. Adin Ballou
died in Hopedale in 1890, and Lucy Ballou died the following year.


Ballou traveled throughout New England, lecturing and debating on practical Christianity, Christian nonresistance, abolition, temperance, and other social issues. He believed that practical Christians were called to make their convictions a reality, thereby initiating a new civilization.


In 1830, Ballou aligned himself with the Restorationists, who were upset with the views among some Universalists: that complete salvation and no punishment would follow death. Although Ballou served the Unitarian church, 1831–1842, he continued to identify himself as a Restorationist. The Restorationists believed that the spiritual growth of sinners could only be acclaimed through God’s justice in the afterlife before they could be restored to God's grace. Ballou agreed to edit and publish the Independent Messenger, a Restorationist publication. His views caused him to lose his pulpit in Milford, MA. In 1831, along with seven other ministers, Ballou established the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists.


Ballou became a Christian pacifist in 1838. He and a few ministerial colleagues and lay people composed the Standard of Practical Christianity in 1839. In it they announced their withdrawal from "the governments of the world." They believed that the dependence on force to maintain order was unjust, and they vowed to not participate in such government. While not acknowledging man's earthly rule, they also didn't rebel or "resist any of their ordinances by physical force." "We cannot employ carnal weapons nor any physical violence whatsoever," they proclaimed, "not even for the preservation of our lives. We cannot render evil for evil ... nor do otherwise than 'love our enemies.'"


Beginning in 1843 Adin Ballou served as president of the New England Non-Resistance Society, working with his friend, William Lloyd Garrison, until they broke over Garrison's support for violence in fighting slavery. In 1846 Ballou published his principal work on pacifism, Christian Non-Resistance. He was also involved with the Universal Peace Union, founded in 1866. During the Civil War, Ballou stood by his pacifist views when other Christian pacifist leaders did not.


In 1837, Ballou publicly announced he was an abolitionist, and lectured on anti-slavery in Pennsylvania in 1846 and in New York in 1848. His antislavery sentiments are exemplified in his 4th of July, 1843 address entitled The Voice of Duty, in which he called on Americans to honor the foundations of the country by not being selective or hypocritical in their judgment of whom should be free: “We honor liberty only when we make her impartial — the same for and to all men.” Ballou also responded to those who claimed that those supporting the abolishment of slavery dishonor the U.S. Constitution. He claimed that he stood “on a higher moral platform than any human compact.” Of the Founding Fathers Ballou said: “I honor them with all my heart for their devotion to right principles, for all the truly noble traits in their character, for their fidelity to their own highest light. But because I honor their love of liberty, must I honor their compromises with slavery?”


Through the temperance movement, Ballou outlined "three great practical data in ethics": 1) that righteousness must be taught definitely, specifically, and practically to produce any marked results; 2) that adherents of a cause must be unequivocally pledged to the practice of definitely declared duties; and 3) that such pledged adherents must voluntarily associate under explicit affirmations of a settled purpose to cooperate in exemplifying and diffusing abroad the virtues and excellences to which they are committed, and not act at random in disorganized and aimless individualism.


By 1840, Adin Ballou was convinced that his Christian convictions wouldn't allow him to live in the governments of the world. In 1841, he and the Practical Christians purchased a farm west of Milford, MA. The community settled into Hopedale, as they called it, in 1842. The community came to a practical end in 1856 when two of Ballou’s closest supporters, Ebenezer and George Draper, withdrew their 75% share of the community’s stock to form the successful Hopedale Manufacturing Company. George felt that the community wasn't using sound business practices. Nevertheless, the community continued as a religious group until 1867, when it became the Hopedale Parish and rejoined mainstream Unitarianism. On December 15, 1873, the trustees of the community conveyed all right, title, interest and control over to Community Square. Adin Ballou remained as Hopedale’s pastor throughout its transformation, finally retiring in 1880. Adin Street in the town of Hopedale, MA is named after him.

In a tribute to Adin Ballou, Fr. John Dear, S.J. (National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 15, 2011) says: "...Tolstoy begins his mammoth anti-war masterpiece, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, by describing his discovery of Ballou's writings on Christian nonviolence, and how it affected him. Tolstoy spent the remaining years of his life expounding on Ballou's teachings. Tolstoy even wrote to Ballou and corresponded with him during Ballou's last year. Tolstoy would never have developed his thoughts on peace and nonviolence without Ballou, and Gandhi would certainly never have espoused his visionary nonviolence without Tolstoy. Like other Abolitionists, Adin Ballou based his life on the ethical teachings of Jesus. But Ballou went further. Not only was he faithful to them throughout the terrible 19th century, he articulated a fundamental insistence on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, particularly the fifth antithesis: 'Offer no [violent] resistance to one who does evil.' (Matthew 5:39)".

Turning Our Talent Loose

“When inertia gets the better of you, it is time to telephone the undertaker.” -- Elbert Green Hubbard (1856-1915).  As an historical side-note, Hubbard was a writer/editor, who died with his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, feminist and writer, on the British ocean liner, the Lusitania, which was sunk by a German U-boat, May 7, 1915, off the coast of Ireland. His nephew by adoption was L. Ron Hubbard , of Scientology fame. Luther Burbank, noted botanist/horticulturist/scientist of Santa Rosa fame, contributed to a memorial book in memory of Elbert Hubbard and his wife.

How many people do you and I know who are frozen by apathy and lack of commitment, trapped by being neither for nor against anything? Perhaps many, perhaps even ourselves at times: the person who’s unsuccessfully looking for a job; a parent trying to maintain a relationship with a teenager, or vice versa, but seeing it slip away; spouses trying to remain committed to one another amid seemingly insurmountable problems; champions for peace, trying to raise others’ awareness, but who are shouted down, even shot down; seekers of justice for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, who see their efforts ignored and come to naught.

Faced with such a situation, one can react in two ways: 1) continue making every effort to change it; or 2) quitting, because of understandable disillusionment and hurt.  Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel narrative (Matthew 25:14-30) is essentially a story about a person who shut down.  The main focus is the servant who was given one talent. The talent was originally a measure of weight, but later became a monetary unit of the highest denomination. One talent = 6000 denarii. Two denarii could provide a man and his family one day’s adequate living. 730 denarii would provide for a whole year, so the one talent here is a tremendous sum. The word “talent” passed into English usage during the Middle Ages as a synonym for abilities or natural endowments, hence “talents”. Notice that all three servants were assigned their respective sums “each according to their ability”, according to Matthew.  So there’s no question that what they were given could have been increased.  When the owner returns, the one-talent servant hands back what he was given, reasoning that he knew that the owner was “harsh” and that he feared him.  Nevertheless, since the man could have increased what he was given, the master is unmoved by his excuses, and so dispossesses him of even the one talent, and gives it to the guy who has ten talents.

That’s heavy! We might even be tempted to side with the slave: “The poor guy, he hasn’t done anything! Give him a break.” But that’s the point -- he’s done nothing!  Jesus here exposes a flawed attitude toward life.  Good, held back, is often as great a sin as evil which is perpetrated, maybe more so.  It’s one thing to risk using one’s talents and failing.  It’s another not to use them at all, by choice. The root of the servant’s fatal attitude was probably fear: fear of failure, fear that, failing, his master would think less of him, or worse.  His fear of commitment leads the man to live defensively.  Rather than “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” this servant’s motto becomes “Nothing risked, nothing lost.” So often, fear is at the root of our faithlessness and of bad stewardship of God’s gifts. We lack trust in God’s faithfulness. The lack of initiative in faith distances us from the God who loves us, far more generously than we deserve.  “I was afraid, so I went off and hid your money in the ground.”

At the very least, this story is good psychology.  Too many of us under-live our human and spiritual potential.  The majority of our failings may lie in “leaving undone those things which we ought to have done”, as the Book of Common Prayer puts it.  What might happen if we were to get our talent out of the ground and turn it loose?

Bart Giamatti, former president of Yale and later the 7th baseball Commissioner, the one who handled Pete Rose’s unseemly withdrawal from the sport, once told a group of students: “I am concerned that, confronted by problems, many of us have no faith in time or believe we have no time to let faith grow.”  If nothing else, each of us has the “talent” of the present, today, the now, with which to serve God and others.  Do we discipline ourselves to block out time for others: our spouse, our children, our neighbors, the sick, the elderly, strangers? Do we take time regularly, daily, to devote to God, in quietness, worship, or just for marvelling at the wonders God continually works in our lives?

To under-live life by choice, humanly or spiritual, you need only take what you have, your potential, and hold it tightly all to yourself and  bury it.  Stick only with what you know.  Stay close only to the friends you already have.  Close off your mind to any new insights or creative vision.  Never dare to break loose or launch out into the deep.  “I was afraid, so I went off, and hid your money in the ground.”

You and I are quite aware, in our nation today, of the countless, sometimes overwhelming fears gripping us and causing us to hide.  Robert Bellah and his co-authors of the book Habits of the Heart speak of the fearfulness of community, of intimacy, and of commitment which our historically radical American individualism has honed almost to perfection and brought upon us today. Perhaps the ugliest and most damaging current form it has taken is the myth of any semblance of genuine bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress.  Back in the 1830’s Alexis de Tocqueville, noted French political philosopher, in his book Democracy in America, warned that this individualistic spirit might eventually isolate Americans from one another and from others, and thereby undermine the conditions of freedom.

Studies show that many of us today, in this country and worldwide, especially children, frequently live in fear: of hunger, of inadequate or no lodging, of any hope of getting a job, of financial collapse, or of a severely worsening global ecological situation.  We fear other nations: allies who compete with us economically and enemies who threaten our borders through violence and terrorism.  As a nation, because of fear, we’ve so often given up on the effort to do the right thing to resolve our problems in the interest of the common good of all, and simply buried our talents.

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, in his Nobel lecture, gave us much to ponder.  As a Russian author and exile in the notorious Gulag, he had an appreciation for freedom which many of us don’t really comprehend because, so far, we’ve never technically been without it.  He was very aware, from personal experience, of what can happen in a society where people, personally or as a nation fearful of others, turn to their own “successing”, and forego concern for life about them. That, he said, “is an illness of will of prosperous people. It is the daily state of those who have given themselves over to the thirst for well-being at no matter what cost, to material prosperity as the principal goal of life on earth. Such people...choose passivity and retreat, anything so that their accustomed life should continue undisturbed, anything so as not to have to cross over into hardship today, while tomorrow, they hope, will take care of itself.”  “I was afraid, so I went off and hid your money in the ground.”

Jesus taught from this parable shortly before he left his disciples.  Just as the owner went on a long journey, so Jesus is about to depart.  The message seems clear: the servants aren’t simply to mark time in the interim, but to take the talents given them, invest them, and utilize the increased fruits generously to the benefit of those around them.  Today we call that “stewardship”, in the broadest sense of the word. The Church is called to release what it has.  Faith must never become a dead-end for us.  We’re not called to be “catch-basins” for God’s grace, but conduits of God’s loving presence and compassion and hope to others. The Good News by which we’ve been saved, through God’s grace alone, needs to be carried to new hearers.  God’s Spirit is ever on the lookout for new dwelling places.

Whether on the national, diocesan, or parish level, you and I often fret and lament over the Church’s, or the parish’s, problems and crises.  It’s easy for us not to recognize that, in fact, most of the trouble and strife comes from the inside: from withheld initiatives inside us, from talents stashed away, hidden, in the ground, from paralyzing fear of making mistakes or of not pleasing others, from having to sacrifice oneself for someone else.  “If I don’t like it, why should I be involved?”  “My ministry.”  “What can Jesus do for me?”

Robert Bellah says: “The capacity of the Church to think about the needs of the world depends on the ability of the individuals to move away from their preoccupations with self.”  Whatever your talent or mine is, let’s turn it loose! By our life and attitude let’s say something about God’s incredible love in all of our relationships, to the people we meet, in the way we treat our family and fellow-parishioners. 

“I was afraid, so I went off and hid your money in the ground.”  This is not what God wants of you and me as God’s unique individual creation.  This is not what our country needs or can endure from us as citizens.  And it certainly isn’t what Jesus expects of us who claim to be his followers.  Elbert Green Hubbard, mentioned earlier, made another wise observation, when he wrote:  “The only real neutral in this game of life is a dead one.”     

   

   

Rethinking "Wise" & "Foolish"

Among the things which plague us in our lives there are three “witches”: “Shoulda”, “Woulda”, and “Coulda”; and two words: “If only…” “If only I’d said this/that…”; “if only I’d have done this/that…”; “If only it had turned out this/that way…” The writer of the Joshua reading (24:1-3a; 14-25) emphasizes that human beings are faced with choices, and have alternatives on which they must deliberately decide: “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served...or the gods of the Amorites...; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." 

My guess is that the five parthénoi [maidens/unmarried daughters/virgins], whom Matthew designates in the Gospel (25:1-13) as moraì [dull or stupid/heedless], were repeatedly saying “If only…”, both when turned down by their five “wise/practical” companions, and when they were left standing on the doorstep after the wedding party had arrived. They’d been faced with the same alternatives as their companions, yet chose to neglect planning ahead.

This is the first of three parables in Matthew’s Chapter 25 through which Jesus instructs his hearers to look ahead, to prepare, to be ready for the coming of God’s reign. He’d just said to them (Mt 24:43-44): “...understand that if the head of the house knew at what time the thief would come, he would keep alert and wouldn’t allow the thief to break into his house. Therefore you also should be prepared, because the Son of Man will come at a time you don’t know…”

Notice that today’s parable mentions a bridegroom, but no bride. The Hebrew Scriptures commonly refer to Israel as Yahweh’s bride: the main gist of Hosea’s prophecy. There’s a similar reference in John’s Book of Revelation, which speaks of “the marriage supper of the lamb” and of a vision of “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband…”, a description of the Messianic Community. What’s peculiar in Matthew’s account is the

presence of  the attendants. Having marriage attendants was part of a very ancient Near Eastern custom, but they would always have attended the bride, not the bridegroom. Probably those ancient manuscripts, such as the 16th century Douay-Rheims version, which depict the attendants going forth to meet “the bridegroom and the bride”, in order to accompany them to the bridegroom’s home, reflect a more ancient, possibly original, text.

Carrying through the theme of the Hebrew Scriptures, then, helps us see these 10 attendants in Matthew as representing those whose task it is to keep watch, to be alert for God’s coming visitation when God will claim the bride/Israel as God’s own. Matthew intimates that some will be prepared and ready; but some others will be careless, neglectful, irresponsible. Jesus‘ whole ministry inaugurates the coming of the reign of God, and Jesus is emphatic about his followers exercising vigilance as responsible custodians of the new Messianic Community.

Aside from that fairly obvious message, though, perhaps we need to look a bit closer at the episode to see if there could be other elements at work.  To start with, why does Matthew have Jesus begin with the word “Then”: “Then the kingdom/reign of heaven will be like this…” ? The common interpretation holds that "Then" refers to the coming of Jesus, but that doesn’t quite fit within the passage's context. "Then" occurs some 17 times in the fifth discourse in Matthew (24:1-25:46). This section appears because of the disciples' question in 24:3: "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" “Then” might refer either to the beginning of the birth pangs of the kingdom’s coming, i.e.,  the destruction, or it might designate the time after the destruction, after the Messiah has already appeared. If we go along with scholars who believe “Then” refers here to the beginning of the birth pangs, the present, we’ll see Jesus’ words as a rhetorical possibility. In other words,  the phrase "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this" doesn’t start a description of how the kingdom of heaven will actually be.  Instead, the words invite hearers to compare the story to the kingdom of heaven. When we do that, the story is just the opposite. The shut door alludes to the destruction, the beginning of the birth pangs. The message, however, is “Keep awake, maintain hope. Though you find yourself shut out now, there’s another opening coming.”

Matthew uses all sorts of “time” words, though not linear time: viz., "then", "the bridegroom was delayed", "midnight", "later", "you know neither the day nor the hour". Luise Schottroff writes: "The idea of time in this eschatology is not intended to present a coherent scenario for the end-time but to help listeners to understand their own present in relation to the coming of God. These listeners are to be strengthened to maintain their hope that injustice will have an end and justice alone will rule on earth." (The Parables of Jesus, Fortress Press, 2006)

The message is: “Hang in there, keep awake, trust that God will come after all the suffering. Despite the reality of life’s injustice, it will have an end and justice alone will prevail. The One Who is to come is truly Lord, not some false prophet. God alone will reign.” 

Another question to be asked is how come Matthew commends the behavior of the so-called wise attendants? When asked to show a little understanding and compassion by their sisters, they refuse to share. Their uncooperativeness with, even  resentment of, the other women is foreign to the broader message of the parable. They, after all, are quite as human as the heedless five, having fallen asleep also when the bridegroom was delayed. If anything, the foolish attendants show a high degree of resourcefulness and tenacity when they finally set their minds to it, somehow being able to find a supply of oil, even after being snubbed by the others, and even at the midnight hour when the shops are closed. Biblical scholar, Shauna Hannan notes: “If having enough oil, or enough of anything, is what is key to getting into the banquet, then this is simply unfair to all of those who simply do not have access like others do.”

Then, there’s another significant issue in Matthew’s passage: the bridegroom. Both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures depict God or Jesus as the bridegroom, but that isn’t necessarily the meaning here. Since no bride is mentioned in the story, it’s not likely that Matthew had in mind the allegory of the bridegroom and the Church. If, indeed, this bridegroom isn’t Jesus, perhaps the foolish bridesmaids don’t actually miss out by being left outside the closed door. The bridegroom is inside with those who refuse to share, with those who have all that’s needed for the celebration. Could it be, then, that Jesus is on the side of those who are shut out, since we know that he stands with the excluded. On the other hand, since Jesus, in Chapter 24, is encouraging the disciples not to be led astray by false messiahs, is the bridegroom of the story, perhaps, actually one of those? Might the bridegroom in the story be the one who tries to convince us to work energetically to claim what we’ve earned for ourselves without the need to care for others, to bask in the sunshine of our own accomplishments? If this is true, then when the bridegroom says to the "foolish" attendants, "I don’t know you", perhaps we could imagine them thinking that the feeling is mutual!

Luise Schottroff comments that “This is not an innocent text.” Matthew’s story speaks of social oppression and of violence. Maybe in the social reality of Matthew’s time people laughed at ugly or naïve girls. In fact, their derision amounted to a social death-sentence. In that kind of interpretation, the clever women are a metaphor for right behavior before God, at the expense of the naïve women. But that’s hardly the "Good News" which Jesus preached.

It might be advantageous for us to see today’s Gospel and those of the next two Sundays as a unit, and to keep our ear attuned to Jesus’ concluding words today: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” It’s a call to become a listening community: aware of the signs of the times, cognizant of the present birth pangs of the kingdom, comparing our present situations to the coming reign of God, and praying that that reign will come for us. 

Matthew’s parable, like all the parables, is a call to continually re-evaluate our circumstances and to change our lives. It calls us not to focus on our own narrow-minded, personal, smug needs and successes, like the “wise” attendants, but to stand firm in the present of whatever surrounds us and tests us, to yearn with hope and longing for the One in whom is all truth and provision, and to resist all the forces of selfishness and falsity. We pray with the Collect that “having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory , we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom…”    

Día de Los Muertos

The Martyrology announces today's liturgical feast thus: "Today we keep the commemoration of all the deceased faithful..." It's becoming more and more a practice in our country to observe a día de los muertos = Day of the Dead, undoubtedly because of the Mexican cultural influence as well as of the Church's observance of a day remembering those who've gone before us in death. It's now customary in many places for people to have altars of various sizes with mementoes reminding lthem of their dear departed ones. Mine, shown at the left, is a very simple collection of pictures of close family and a few special friends, along with a stylistic little skull which I bought last year at Oliver's Market, across the way from where I live here in Cotati.


Following on the heels of All Saints Day, All Souls Day only continues our remembrance and prayer for those irreplaceable people in our lives who've gone before. I find myself more and more full of gratitude for their legacy: the lessons they taught me, the spiritual grounding they provided, the modelling of love and compassion which they gave.


The liturgical observance of a day commemorating the faithful who have departed is due to the meek and holy Abbot Odilo of Cluny, who died in 1048. He instituted the practice of the Office of the Dead after Vespers on November 1 in 998 in all monasteries connected to the Abbey of Cluny. Eventually the practice of honoring All Souls was widely imitated and spread to the worldwide Church, reaching its culmination under Pope Pius X. In the "old days" we priests were permitted to celebrate the Eucharist three times on this day: perhaps a bit of "overkill", but the right intention was there. 


Fr. Pius Parsch (1884-1954), great liturgician and a leader in the Liturgical Movement, describes the Office of the Dead as "a prayer service filled with deep compassion, a spirit of willingness to aid the needy, true sympathy, but restrained by Christ-like love..." He sees the Eucharistic liturgy for All Souls as reflecting two distinct strata: 1) the ancient stratum dating back to Christian antiquity which emphasises joy in spirit and speaks the hopeful message of resurrection; 2) the sin-conscious stratum of the Middle Ages, neither joyful nor triumphant in tone, but filled with concern over the suffering souls. Death and judgment are seen in dark and fear-filled visions, most vividly in the famous depiction of the Final Judgment as Dies irae = day of wrath, immortalized by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Any of us who've had the privilege to view  that painting appreciate a bit of what the words of the Dies irae are trying to express.


Every time I chant, or even just recite, the Preface of the Dead, one of my most favorite prayers in all the liturgy, I experience the immense hope which today's liturgical feast is meant to instill in us. The Preface is a recent composition, modeled on the ancient Mozarabic liturgy. As I inch closer to the reality of my own death, it gives me tremendous confidence and peace:

"In Christ the hope-star of a blessed resurrection

has shone upon us.

Though the certainty of dying may sadden us,

the assurance of future immortality gladdens us.

For to those who have faith in You, Lord, 

life does not end -- it merely changes!

And when our earthly dwelling falls into ruins,

we find an eternal home in heaven."

The Communion of Saints: "Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow!"

The Communion of Saints has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Along with the people, and especially the clergy, of our Diocese of Northern California, I'm lamenting the untimely death of a unique woman, priest, colleague and friend: The Rev. Marcia Engblom. Marcia had been serving as Rector of St. Francis, Fair Oaks, CA, the first parish of which my family and I were members when we first came to the Sacramento area in 1977. Before that, Marcia was the interim priest at St. Luke's, Auburn. When I asked her how she would handle the "What to call a female priest" question there, she said that she felt comfortable with just about any appropriate designation, but that she'd make it known that parishioners could simply call her "Father Marcia", if that would be easier for them. And, indeed, she even signed her name thus in the monthly newsletter! Aside from her great openness and playful spirit, her laughter could win over the hardest heart. She and I, and, I'm sure others, delighted in comments playing off of one another and the repartee which so lifted one's spirit in her presence.

In early September Marcia underwent serious cardiac surgery to which, as I understand it, she was no stranger, having had previous treatment. I called her a few weeks ago and, though the extent of the surgery and recovery had understandably taken a little of the starch out of her, nevertheless she spoke quite positively, and was itching to get back to being a pastor to her people. And, once again, we laughed and joked! Her life, and ours, suddenly changed this past Friday as she stood in her tile-floored kitchen. Her heart experienced what was called a "hiccup", and Marcia collapsed, striking her head and suffering a skull concussion from which she never recovered.

As I prayed the Office for All Saints Day, I couldn't help being just a bit envious of Marcia, knowing that now she is part of that vast throng who have gone before us into Christ's Risen Presence. "Happy are those who honor the Lord, who adore God's commandments!...They shine in the dark for others who do right...Yes, these sorts of people will never be shaken; the righteous will be remembered forever!...Their hearts are steady, trusting in the Lord. Their hearts are firm; they aren't afraid...They freely give to those in need. Their righteousness stands forever. Their strength increases gloriously..."

It's natural, I think, to wonder how all this works, once you've passed over from human life in the Communion of Saints, into unending life in the Communion of Saints beyond. I feel sure that, whatever it is, the new life is anything but boring! I like to think that we retain, in infinite degree, all the good characteristics and qualities which make us "us". The Book of Revelation, in the reading for Evening Prayer today, depicts a voice saying: "See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and Godself will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more...God's servants will worship; they will see God's face, and God's name will be on their foreheads..." Inadequate, halting human words and images, trying to imagine a reality which can only be known by experiencing it. My conviction is that Marcia isn't only experiencing it, but is knee-deep in enthusiastic, all-out participation in the heavenly festivities, whatever they may be. I can imagine her lilting laughter ringing out loud and clear over prophets, apostles, martyrs, and angels.

By now I'm sure Marcia has met and compared notes with Steve Jobs who made the final journey just three weeks before she did. Steve's sister, Mona Simpson, wrote a touching tribute to her brother, and as I give thanks once again for being part of this unutterable holy fellowship of God's holy ones, which spans absolutely all barriers and, I believe, is supremely all-inclusive, I think of the closing lines of her eulogy: "Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."