A Blessed Labor Day

Creator of all, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for ourselves alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and move us to advocate for those who are out of work. Amen.

"Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall..."

You’re all probably familiar with the old German fairy tale, Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge, or Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, collected and popularized by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, and the subject of many other narrative versions, films, TV shows, musical compositions, and even video games. It depicts a Queen who, while sewing at her window, pricks her finger with the needle, spilling three drops of blood onto the snow-laden ebony window frame. Looking upon them, the Queen expresses, aloud, the wish that she might have a daughter with skin as white as snow, with lips as red as blood, and with hair as black as ebony. And she does have such a daughter, made-to-order, whom she and her husband name Snow White. Unfortunately, the Queen dies soon after. The King remarries. His new Queen is very beautiful, but also very, very vain. She daily consults her magical mirror, asking: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” To which the mirror invariably replies: “You, my Queen, are fairest of all.” Predictably, Snow White grows to become more beautiful than the Queen, which the mirror isn’t shy about admitting, which sets up a long and interesting conflict between the two women.

St. James, in today’s second reading uses a mirror analogy, noting that, if any are followers of Jesus, i.e., “hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.” (1:23-24) Then, in an inspired statement, he says that “those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act -- they will be blessed in their doing...” (1:25)

Adele Stiles Resmer, Assistant to the bishop & Minister for Community & Mission in the Grand Canyon Synod, ELCA, suggests that, as we gaze at ourselves in the mirror of today’s Scripture readings, we try “...to hold these two realities together: the gifts of God that create the people of God; and the responses of God's people to these wonderful, life-giving gifts that continue to shape them into the people of God.” 

THE GIFTS OF GOD

In the first reading Moses instructs the people to “give heed to...to observe” the statutes and ordinances of the Almighty, which you and I recognize as the 10 Commandments, literally, the Ten Words, in Hebrew, or the Law. He gives three good reasons for this: 1) “so that [they] may live” as God’s people throughout successive generations, 2) that they may enter and occupy the Promised Land and thus become God’s faithful and compassionate people, and 3) that they may, both in their relationship with God and one another, become a wise and discerning community: a model for the surrounding nations. “For what other great nation has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is?...And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law?...” (4:7-8) 

For the Hebrew the word for law, torah meant “precept, statute, law”, but not in the strictly juridical sense in which we use those terms. The root of torah is yara, meaning to flow (as water); to lay, throw or shoot (as an arrow); to point out or teach (as if by aiming the finger). It has a relational flavor, which characterizes the Covenant by which God formed a people of God’s own, in which the people pledged to be faithful to the “statutes and ordinances” in response to God’s pledge of continual gracious and loving care of them in every way. The keeping of the Covenant on God’s part, of course, was never in doubt. The people , however, periodically needed to gauge how they were doing by looking into the mirror of God’s Covenant, for “this will show your wisdom and discernment”, as Moses says, or not, as was demonstrated over and over in their long history!

James, in the Epistle, identifies “every generous act of giving,...every perfect gift”, the chief of which was the Covenant, the Law, as coming “from above, coming down from the [unchangeable] Father of lights”. (1:17) He says that we are “a kind of first fruits”, first of the Mosaic Covenant of love, and then of the Law of Christ, in Jesus who is the Word of truth, “the implanted word that has the power to save our souls”. (1:21) That, of course, depends on our willingness to let ourselves be shaped by that gift from God in order to “produce God’s righteousness”, even as Moses cautioned that it did so for the people of Israel. If we learn from Jesus the Master how to, in James’ words, “be quick to listen, slow to speak”, rather than to simply drift through our daily living by becoming forgetful hearers when we look into the mirror, then we’ll come to recognize what James calls “the perfect law, the law of liberty”, or as Paul says in Romans, “the freedom of the glory of the children of God”. (8:21) The image is of the community of God’s people running amok, like little children, in the reign of God with all the exuberance of God’s joy and love and righteousness!

THE RESPONSES OF GOD’S PEOPLE TO GOD’S GIFTS

The writer of Deuteronomy indicates what should be the first response of the people of God to God’s gift of the Covenant: “You must neither add anything...nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord...You must observe them diligently...” (4:2 & 6) The “keeping” or “doing” of the Law is spelled out in a way of living which helps shape the people as a community of love in relation to God and to each other: care and watchfulness; not forgetting, not treating casually what they’ve come to know; passing their knowledge on to future generations. (Dt 4:9) 

Psalm 15 reminds the people that only those can be in genuine relation to the Most High who do the right thing and speak the heart’s truth (v. 2); who “do no evil to their friends” (v. 3); who stand by their commitments, even if it means personal inconvenience, hurt or loss (v. 4); who are honest and refuse to take advantage of others (v. 5)

James considers a community to be truly grateful for and responsive to being shaped by God’s law of love when it refrains from anger and from sordid and rank behavior, when it bridles the tongue, when it cares for the disadvantaged, especially those most vulnerable, such as orphans and widows, and when it keeps itself “unstained by the world”. 

Mark, in his Gospel (7:1-8; 14-15), relates a scene which graphically ties together all the elements we’ve just been considering. Central to it are “the [Jerusalem] Pharisees and some of the scribes”. Their name in Hebrew is perusim = the separate or separated ones, the separators, i.e., the distinguishers and expositors of the Law. They were laymen, in contrast the Sadducees who were a priestly party. Heirs of the priest and scribe, Ezra, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, rather than of the prophets, the Pharisees viewed Judaism as a religion, as well as a theocracy, centered upon the Law as handed down by Moses, and they interpreted the Law’s obligations most severely, mainly as prescriptions to be kept, rather than a way of living. In addition to God’s Law, they clung to oral traditions which, they said, came down through a chain of elders which they could trace all the way back to Moses. The Pharisees saw these oral traditions as a sort of fence around the Law, protecting it from any violations, which could be assured only by the exact observance, to the letter, of these human traditions.     

The Pharisees’ closest alliance was with the scribes: the teachers and interpreters of the Law. They disregarded and opposed the “people of the land”, what you might call the “Jewish 99%”, because they believed them to be ignorant folks who neither knew nor cared about the finer points of the Mosaic Law. Outside the New Testament, we only know of the Pharisees through two sources: 1) the Jewish historian, Josephus, and 2) from a few comments in the Talmud, the collection of writings by the Jewish rabbis which was itself strongly Pharisaic in origin. Interestingly, the Talmud singles out the same faults in the Pharisees as Jesus does in the Christian Scriptures! Jesus, of course, came as God’s Holy One, the Word of truth, to save all humankind, not just the select guardians of the Mosaic Law. He especially identified with the “people of the land”. Understandably, he and the Pharisees are at loggerheads from the very beginning of the four Gospel accounts. 

In the Gospel a band of Pharisees and scribes come up from Jerusalem to Gennesaret, on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee, to harass Jesus. The issue this time is the fact that some of Jesus’ disciples, whether through bad upbringing, bad hygiene, or just forgetfulness, “were eating with defiled hands... without washing them”. Mark makes it abundantly clear that, indeed, it was the Jewish custom to thoroughly wash the hands before mealtimes, as well any food from the market, and various “cups, pots, and bronze kettles”, etc.,  but he adds “...thus observing the tradition of the elders”, not the Mosaic Law. By this time in the history of God’s people, it’s clear that the Pharisees, by their own human interpretations, had both added to and taken away things from the Law, contrary to what Moses insists on in the Deuteronomy reading. Jesus calls them on this in no uncertain terms, although it’s unfortunate that the RCL chose not to include perhaps the most telling verses, 9-13, in the reading. Jesus’ pointed reply to his critics, in effect, forces them to look into the mirror of the Mosaic Covenant, God’s gift of love, whose purpose was to enable the people to live wisely and well, and thus to be shaped into a loving, serving community. What they saw in that mirror was the exact opposite: “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition”, Jesus says. In the omitted vv. 9-13, he continues: “For Moses said: ‘Give due right to your father and mother’; and: ‘Let him who speaks rudely to his father or mother be put to death.’ But you say: ‘If a man says to his father or his mother: Whatever I owe you is Corban, which means ‘gift to God’, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother, making void the word of God through that tradition which you hand down. And you do many other things of such a nature as this...”

Jesus also flings in their face the teaching of God’s prophet, Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most righteous of us all?” “Certainly not you Pharisees”, Jesus would say. 

I don’t believe that even Jesus considered the Pharisees all bad. According to the standards which they’d inherited down through thousands of generations, I’m guessing that they had glimpses of true Covenant religion, that they were more mistaken than evil. Yet, in reality, they caused a lot of harm for a lot of people. And Jesus expected them to be accountable.

It’s a timely warning for all us well-intentioned religious folks, who, just as the Pharisees, often look into our own mirrors and see something other than “the perfect law of liberty”. We make assumptions; we draw conclusions for ourselves, sincerely perhaps, and often try to pass them off as God’s law, rather than our own selfish willfulness. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the externals of religion, the “packaging”, that we neglect what really counts: the inner disposition and attitude of humble faith and gratitude for God’s gifts of love, and the selflessness and openness of letting God shape us, as God wants, into a community of dedicated caring and compassion.

I hope that you and I, when we look into our “mirror, mirror, on the wall”, will see reflected, instead, “the Lord our God” who is so near to us that you and I will actually resemble that God. And our mirror might even say to us: “You, O people of God, are the luckiest, the most blessed ones of all!” 

Who knows? Perhaps the mirror might look something like this one: 

SS. Aidan (c. 590-651) & Cuthbert (634-687)

1. Everliving God, you called your servants Aidan and Cuthbert to proclaim the Gospel in northern England and gave them loving hearts and gentle spirits: Grant us grace to live as they did, in simplicity, humility and love for the poor; through Jesus Christ, who came among us as one who serves, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Setting Our Hearts On the Living Lord

Regarding the overall message of today’s Scripture readings, Adele Stiles Resmer, who is Assistant to the bishop and Minister for Community and Mission in the Grand Canyon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, reminds us that your commitment, and mine, to serve God gets lived out over a lifetime. Who can count the challenges that stand in the way of such a commitment: losses, betrayals, the lure of success from wealth and position and power? She says that it’s in the reciting of our history, salvation history, that you and I are reminded of who God is and who we are in response to God. And she quotes an old saying which says, ‘If you want to hear the train, you need to be near the tracks.’ In other words, if you and I want to be faithful, we should “position [ourselves] in a place where [our] story is recited again and again” so that we can remember who we are in relationship with this God.

Fr. William Countryman, a noted CDSP theologian, writes along the same lines as Adele Resmer in his dated but still marvelous book The Mystical Way in the Fourth Gospel: Crossing Over Into God. Commenting on today’s Gospel passage, he says: “...Baptism...while necessary for the Christian life, does not guarantee the loyalty of those who receive it...even the fully initiated, those who have participated in the Eucharist, are not perfectly reliable.  Many of Jesus’ disciples leave because of his outrageous language; and among those who remain, even within the inner circle of the Twelve, is the betrayer...”

Jesus speaks again today of the wisdom of faith: that it is the setting of one’s heart and trust on the Father, through his incarnate Son who draws us, that ultimately leads you and me to eternal life.  “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day”  (John 6:40)  Jesus contrasts this with the foolishness of unbelief, expressed so directly in the opening line of Psalm 14: “Fools say in their hearts: ‘There is no God.’”

The basis for such faith comes from two sources: 1) from Jesus’ word that he is “come down from heaven” to give “eternal life” and to raise up; and 2) from Jesus’ own body and blood, now glorified and risen, which reveals the Father to us sacramentally, in the Eucharist, and spiritually through his indwelling and life-giving Spirit of love. 

Today’s Gospel passage opens with the final two verses of last Sunday’s Gospel. Jesus hammers away at the fact that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink; that in sharing his body and blood we “will live because of me”; that he himself, indeed, is the “bread that came down from heaven”, surpassing and supplanting the food from God given to the Jewish people’s ancestors.  Hearing these words, many of Jesus’ disciples exclaim: “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow” John comments: “After this a lot of his disciples left.  They no longer wanted to be associated with him.” (John 6:60 & 66) 

When Jesus asks if the Twelve also want to leave, St. Peter steps forward to speak for them.  First, he says: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life...” Did you ever ask yourself to what “words of eternal life” he was referring? You and I actually have heard them many, many times.  Here is is just a sampling of them:

• God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the good news. 
• Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.
• Whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.         
• Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
• Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the reign of heaven, but the one who does my Father’s will.
• The one who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
• Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  
• Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions.

“You have the words of eternal life.”  You and I listen to and read these words over and over again throughout our lifetimes.  Do we actually hear what they’re saying? Do we commit ourselves to live by them each day? Do we find it difficult to “come” to the Father, to truly set our heart on God? Do we, perhaps, resist being drawn because the demands seem too great? Are Jesus’ words and sacramental presence “hard sayings” for us? Hard, yes, because of our weakness in trusting.  Hard also, because we often don’t really agree that Jesus is really present in the whole Body of Christ which includes him, each of us, and every person for whom he died, no exceptions. Could that be why we have such difficulty seeing the connection between our following of Christ and the social issues confronting our society?  If we admit that they’re related, it puts some very uncomfortable responsibilities on you and me to do justice, to feed the hungry, to welcome strangers; to struggle, as Jesus did, “against...rulers, against...authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil...” (Ephesians 6:12)

The second thing which Peter says to Jesus in behalf of the other Apostles is: “...we’ve already committed ourselves, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”  The “words of eternal life” become real only when we come to the Father through Jesus in faith, when we set our hearts on him, particularly in the Eucharist, as we respond to the Father’s gift of drawing us.  This is a living encounter, and in it we echo the commitment which Joshua expresses in the first reading: “...as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice of himself on the cross, on behalf of humankind, intended and accomplished the restoration of our relationship with the Father.  All human beings, without exception, have been saved, redeemed. Jesus meant this restoring, this one-ing with the Father, for all and for each of us personally and corporately, and left us, in the Eucharist, the pre-eminent sacramental sign confirming this.

The Eucharist is the outward sign by which Jesus draws near to you and me as particular individuals, as well as to the whole community of faith.  In the fullest sense this sign is the pledge of the Father’s, the Son’s, and the Holy Spirit’s accessibility to you and to me, the tangible assurance that God in Christ desires to relate one-on-one to you and to me, and to the whole Body of Christ through the bond of love.  The sacrament is the open, frank, and unambiguous pledge of the fact that the Father, in Jesus the Christ, wishes to share God’s life, Spirit, presence, and grace with everyone who comes forward in faith to receive Christ’s body and blood.

When, as recipients, you and I set our hearts, in solid trust, on God, through the power of ritual supplication of Christ and his Church, then the outward and visible sign of bread and wine becomes, as the Book of Common Prayer says, “...the inward and spiritual grace...the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people...” (BCP, p. 859) Just as the Apostles, in their living encounter with Jesus, we also come to know, in Jesus present, “the Holy One of God”.

To enter into relationship with the Holy One, even though we don’t fully understand all its implications, is wisdom.  To do otherwise makes one, in the words of the Psalmist, a “fool”.  Which brings us back to Fr. Countryman’s stark reminder, mentioned at the beginning: “...Baptism...while necessary for the Christian life, does not guarantee the loyalty of those who receive it...even the fully initiated, those who have participated in the Eucharist, are not perfectly reliable...”

John takes great pains, at the end of this discourse in Chapter 6 which we’ve heard over the past five Sundays, to focus in on the disciples, including Judas, in vv. 70-71 which aren’t actually part of the RCL passage today.  Note that this is the first mention of Judas in John’s Gospel, quite interesting in that 1) John uses a veiled reference by Jesus that “one of you is a devil”; and 2) John describes Judas as “he, [who] though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.”  It’s a very different portrayal from Matthew who depicts a remorseful Judas, who, though greedy, is somewhat more pitiable because he’s driven to his own suicide.  In John’s Gospel, however, Judas simply doesn’t believe. He, like the others who walked away, hasn’t set his heart in trust on the Holy One who has shown by his words and actions that he’s the source of life and salvation.

When Judas appears again in John’s Gospel it’s at Jesus final supper together with the Twelve, where several times hints are again dropped that Judas is going to betray Jesus, and during which Judas disappears out into the night.  His next encounter with Jesus is in the garden when he brings a cohort of Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus.  John describes a Judas who is so unbelieving that he doesn’t even identify Jesus to the soldiers by calling him “Rabbi” or by kissing him. Jesus is the one who actually comes out of the garden, like a good shepherd defending his flock, and asks virtually the same question which he asked the disciples at the beginning of John’s Gospel: “Whom/what are you looking for?”  In Chapter 6, John acknowledges Judas by describing what Judas is going to do, which casts cloud over his loyalty as a disciple. Later, in Chapter 18:5 John refers to “Judas, who betrayed him...”, reminding us that Judas, once a chosen participant in Jesus’ ministry, now stands in the darkness of complete unbelief.

Someone has commented that there are people who can experience God in a wildflower, while others fail to discern Christ even in the consecrated bread of the Eucharist.  The key, as Jesus has told us over these past five weeks, is in allowing the Father to draw us, in setting our hearts in trust on Jesus, and in sharing together the living bread, in whom we have eternal life and who will raise you and me up at the last day.

Bernard of Clairvaux: The Love-Monk

"'I will love you, O Lord my strength, my strong rock and my defense, my Savior, my sole desire and love.'

My God, my helper, I will love you with all the power you have given me: not worthily, because that is impossible, but nevertheless to the best of my ability. Do what I will in life, I can never discharge my debt to you, and I can love you only according to the power you have given me. But I will endeavor to love you more and more, as you see fit to enable me to do so; and yet, never, never, as you should be loved..."

(From Bernard's treatise On the Love of God)

Black Elk (1863-1950): Man With A Vision

Black Elk with 2nd wife,
Anna Brings White, &
daughter Lucy Looks
Twice

Black Elk

Black Elk (Heȟáka Sápa) was a famous Medicine Man/Holy Man of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), a heyoka = sacred clown/jester. He was a second cousin of Crazy Horse.

"Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking", Black Elk once said. Born on the Little Powder River in Wyoming, he came from a line of powerful medicine men. Though he began hearing inner messages from the time he was about 4, it was at age 9 that he experienced a life-changing vision in which he heard a call to save his people. Black Elk said that during his life, he had several of these visions. In his "great vision," he said that he met the spirit who guided the universe and saw a great tree, symbolizing the life of the earth and of the Indian people. He only spoke of this after he was much older, but his family apparently understood that he was clairvoyant.

Black Elk was involved in several battles with the U.S. Cavalry, including the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, when he was about 12. In 1887, Black Elk traveled to England with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Black Elk remembers this as an unpleasant experience, as he relates in John G. Neihardt's later book, Black Elk Speaks. In 1890 Black Elk was among the injured survivors of the massacre at Wounded Knee.

He married his first wife, Katie War Bonnet, in 1892. She became a Catholic, and all three of their children were baptized as Catholic. It wasn't until after her death in 1903 that he, too, was baptized. He took the name Nicholas Black Elk and served as a lay catechist. He was a spiritual leader among his people, and saw no contradiction in embracing what he had found valid in both his tribal traditions and in Christian teaching. He was married a second time, in 1905, to Anna Brings White, a widow with two daughters. Together they had three more children and remained married until Anna died in 1941. Toward the end of his life, Black Elk revealed the story of his life and a number of the sacred Lakota rituals to John Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown who later published books: Black Elk Speaks (Neihardt, 1932) and The Sacred Pipe (Brown, 1953).

Black Elk died at age 67 on the reservation, August 17, 1950.

In a tradition not unlike the biblical prophets, Black Elk's legacy was strong medicine wisdom, as witnessed in just two quotes:

"Grown men can learn from very little children,  for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss."

"There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men."

Perhaps our world could use a few more sacred clowns!

Remembering Frère Roger Schutz of Taizé (1915-2005)

Loving God, whose blessed Son became poor that we

through his poverty might be rich:

Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, 

that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Roger

may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain

to the riches of the age to come,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

One of the singular blessings and joys of my life was to have met and prayed with Brother Roger in 1992 at the first North American "Pilgrimage of Trust" in Dayton, OH, and to have met and had a wonderful conversation with Brother Alois, his successor as leader of the Taizé community.  I was also pleased to read recently in some comments by Episcopal spiritual writer, Cynthia Bourgeault, that the Taizé community has continued to be energized and carry forward the momentum of Brother Roger's ideals and ministry under Brother Alois. Taizé is, in the words of John Paul II, "that little springtime", particularly in the lives of countless young women and men throughout the world.