JESUS AND SACRIFICE

This post is a continuation on Christianity's need for a Copernican revolution.  At the center of all Christian teaching is one person, Jesus of Nazareth.  Who Jesus was and is or wasn't and isn't is what this and other posts will explore.  In this post, the concept of Jesus as a sacrifice and its impact on Western thinking and how the early Church's theology of Jesus' being a sacrifice shaped our understanding of Jesus will be briefly explored. 

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The central thesis of all Christian theology is that God, out of love for the world, "sent"  his Son, Jesus to become for us a sacrifice that would save us from our sins and that all who believe this will be saved and  resurrected like Jesus on the "last day." This is the doctrine upon which the Christianity has been premised for more than two thousand years.   From this premise other teachings about Jesus were derived like his virgin birth, his physical resurrection, his ascension into heaven, that he is the Messiah (the Christ), that he is both fully human and fully divine, that he is the second person of the Holy Trinity, and so on.   These teachings form the soteriology (the salvation theology) of Christianity. 

The question being raised in this post is whether any of the above is accurate or true?  Specifically, was the whole meaning and purpose of Jesus' life was to be a sacrifice to pay the price of our sins or is there another way to understand Jesus?

Many books and articles have been written seeking to explain the "real" Jesus.  The questions they raise are valid because we don't know a great deal about the historical Jesus apart from documents written decades after his crucifixion and explained him in terms of a theology premised on the notion that he died as the Son of God to save us from our sins and then resurrected.

The concept of human sacrifice in some form or another appears embedded in the human psyche as a necessary price to be paid to fend off some personal or cultural threat of evil or misfortune.  This particular concept of sacrifice is as old as religion itself.  Today, the concept of sacrifice is largely understood in a humanitarian sense, as a price paid in response to some evil or disaster caused by human failure or a natural catastrophe.  It is as if sacrifice is treated as the primary form of currency in a cosmic or divine economy that we humans are bound to pay.  While we don't practice deliberate animal or human sacrifice to fend off misfortune or as an atoning response for human failure, we tend to imbue the tragic deaths of those fighting wars, the victims of war, and, in particular, the heroic individuals who lose their lives in the act of trying to save other lives as being sacrifices; the price we pay to fend off greater misfortune or as a response to human failure on a grand scale.  

THE PERSISTENCE OF SACRIFICE  IN THE 21st CENTURY

I am working on this post on the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attack of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the Capital in Washington, DC.  Sacrifice was front and center as a result of that attack.  Sacrifice is what motivated the terrorist who were willing to die and willing to take the lives of their victims for what they believed was a righteous cause to end the evils they attributed to Western culture.  In response to that attack, there were many in the United States who lost (sacrificed) their lives in an attempt to save the lives of others; such as the firemen, police, first responders and many civilians who tried to save the lives of those who were victims of that attack.  

Those who perpetrated those attacks are rightfully considered by most people in the world as misguided, radicalized terrorists who had no regard for their own lives or the lives of their victims. Still, for others, their act was a sacrifice to preserve a particular way of life.   On the other hand, those who died saving others from the effect of their attack did so because of their commitment to save the lives of others.  Ironically their heroic acts, are also considered sacrificial acts. Their acts are often spoken in terms of the price we, as a nation, have to pay in order to ensure our way of life, our freedom, liberty, and democracy.  

What I want to underscore here, however, is that sacrifice, as the price paid to save another person's life is not what such heroes did.  They did something far more extraordinary.  Their selfless act of putting their lives on the line in order to preserve the lives of others was a sublime act of grace. Those who lost their lives; in such situations as those responding to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks,  did not do so as a sacrifice, but rather as an act of immense caring concern and loving-kindness to those in immediate need; what, in the scriptures, is called mercy.  Their actions gave testimony to their direct participation in the life-giving kenotic activity of God expending self in order to expand SELF; giving witness to the interconenctive bond of life we all share. Mercy, as we shall see supersedes any sense of sacrifice and mercy is always an act of grace.

                                      CHRISTIANITY'S ASSOCIATION WITH SACRIFICE

Western culture is largely influenced by Christianity. The Western idea of sacrifice is clearly attached to the idea of a Christ-like understanding of sacrifice; as in, the purpose of Jesus' life was to die (be sacrificed) as a ransom (to pay the price) to save us (past, present, and future) from our sins or the effects  thereof (i.e. eternal damnation).   Broadly speaking, the Christian notion of Jesus' death as a sacrifice is viewed by Christians both as means of appeasing the wrath of God to fend off eternal damnation and as a deeply forgiving response to Jesus' willingness to pay the cost of our collective human failures (sin).  

While appeasing the "righteous" wrath of God for our failures is in keeping with the ancient religious purpose of blood sacrifices, its renders the Christian and Jewish concept of a loving God as a capricious god whose wrath could only be appeased by the willing blood sacrifice of someone worthy enough, spotless enough, and sinless enough to pay the price exacted by such a god.  The problem with this understanding is that by the time Jesus shows up on the historical landscape, the prophets and the psalmists of Israel had already discerned that God had no taste for blood sacrifices or burnt offerings of any kind; that what God really wants from us is our contrite hearts, humility, and exhibiting deep care for those in need.  This is the God that Jesus called his Father.

Jesus never portrayed God as being anything other than loving, patient, and immensely forgiving.  Jesus never talked about God in terms of demanding a sacrifice for our sins, much less a blood sacrifice.  That Jesus "knew" he would die was not prophetic foresight, but rather an expression of his awareness of the perilous conditions of the time in which he lived and the danger of preaching something that challenged the religious authorities and the tenuous status quo of his day.  Even though the notion that God did not demand burnt offerings (blood sacrifices) had been around for a long time in Judaism, sacrifice remained a central feature of Temple worship in Judaism. Human sacrifice, however, was never an option in Judaism.  The very notion of human sacrifice was considered abhorrent to God.  In fact, if one reads the speeches of Peter in Act 2 and 3, the earliest account of a disciple of Jesus talking about Jesus' death and resurrection to their fellow Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Pentecost and when speaking before the High Priest at his defense for speaking about Jesus, Jesus' death is never cast terms of being a sacrifice for sins.  So how did Jesus' crucifixion come to be considered a sacrifice?  

The simple answer is that Jesus' followers felt compelled to give Jesus' tragic death a meaning and a purpose, beyond simply having him suffer the persecutions and death of other prophets.  In order to do so they scoured the Hebrew scriptures in order to find language that gave it a meaning and purpose,  which they found mostly in the Book of Genesis, the Psalms, and in the Prophets.  In particular they saw in the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, God's willingness to sacrifice his son; with Jesus becoming the substituted ram, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, according to John's Gospel.  But is that what God required?   God didn't require that of Abraham.  In fact, the interpretation that Judaism provides for that event is wasn't about Abraham sacrificing Isaac, but rather a test of Abraham's faithfulness, to demonstrate God's faithfulness to what God promised Abraham, and to eradicate the idea of human sacrifice as a necessary means to appease God.  

The notion that Jesus' death was a sacrifice to cover the sins of the world was not apparent in the earliest (pre-Pauline) days of Christianity as noted in Peter's preaching on his way to the Temple.  In fact there appears an association between the Temple and the Church of Jerusalem in the early apostolic period before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.  Temple worship was practiced by those associated with the Church at Jerusalem, whose members considered themselves practicing Jews who followed Jesus and Jewish tradition.  While this association is largely ignored in the New Testament we find strong evidence of this association in Acts 21 where the apostle Paul is directed by the elders of the Church in Jerusalem to undergo ritual purification in the Temple for misguiding Jews about not needing to circumcise Jewish male infants.  He and those with him were to undergo some sort of atoning ritual and sacrifice for his perceived misconduct.  Paul and his followers are depicted as heading to offer a sacrifice and undergoing a period of ritual purification.  Their attempt to do so led to Paul being arrested by the Romans.  

If Jesus' crucifixion was considered a sacrifice "once for all" as Paul claims, or as the Letter to the Hebrews (10:26)  points out "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left."  If that is what all early Christians believed, what led Paul to agree to participate in a ritual purification rite and offering an atoning sacrifice in the Temple in Acts 21?  

What we see are rather diverse accounts of early Christian thought on Jesus' death being defined as a sacrifice.  The death of Jesus was disorientating to the early Jewish Christians.  If the tragedy of Jesus' death was mitigated by being understood as the ultimate sacrifice that atoned for the sins of the world,  why sacrifice at all?   Why go to the Temple?  

That the early Christian community within Jerusalem continued with Temple worship suggests that the earliest (pre-Pauline) followers of Jesus did not view Jesus' death as a sacrifice, but rather a grave injustice against God that was corrected by God resurrecting Jesus.  Ironically, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  Judaism largely abandoned the need for blood sacrifices and burnt offering and substituted other rituals.  Ironically, the idea of Jesus being a blood sacrifice for the sins of the world, became the centerpiece of its theology and its liturgical and worship traditions.   

If habits die hard, traditions die harder.  The tradition of Holy Communion as a re-enactment or remembrance of the Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is engrained into the Christian mindset.  It has given rise to the idea of sacrifice in the form of people being killed in war or for a righteous cause is a necessary price to pay fend off evil is an unquestioned factor used to justify war and mitigate the loss of loved one's who die as a result of trying to save the lives of others just like Jesus did.

JESUS ON SACRIFICE

Jesus' references to sacrifice in the Gospels is sparse.  At no time does he talk about his death in terms of it being a sacrifice. He mentions sacrifice twice in the Gospels: He tells a man healed of leprosy to show himself to the priest and offer the prescribed sacrifice as testimony of his being healed in order for the healed leper to return to society (Mark 1:44) and in his referencing  Hosea 6:6  twice in Mathew 9 and 12, where the prophet quotes God as saying, " I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  

What appears to be interpreted as Jesus referencing self-sacrifice are his comments about talking up one's cross and following him Mathew 10 & 16, Mark 8, and  Luke 9  and " No greater love is this, than a man lays down his life for his friends." John15:13.  These statements have all been interpreted in the light of Jesus' crucifixion as implying sacrifice, but Jesus is not implying that we sacrifice.  Jesus is talking about kenosis (acts of grace) putting aside one's self or emptying one's self in order to make room for the other, to participate God's life-giving kenotic act of creation, and orientating ourselves to God's original intent of creating us for the purpose of returning God's love by caring for (showing mercy) and loving that which God loves, all of creation.  

Heroic acts in which a person puts aside one's self in order to save others are not sacrifices but rather redemptive, kenotic acts - acts of grace.  They are not a payment or a price paid to appease, to fend off, or a response to someone or something as an act of atonement.  They are simply freely given (debt-free).  They exemplify the very definition of grace itself.  

Jesus' death was not a sacrifice required by God.  If Jesus crucifixion is to be viewed as a sacrifice, it was because the religious authorities and the Roman officials were convinced that it was better for one man to die (be sacrificed) as a means of fending off the risk of an open rebellion during the Feast of Passover. (See John 11:49)

The truth is that Jesus' crucifixion was a cruel injustice committed against a righteous man, who did not seek death or who personally viewed that his death was paying the price God demanded to forgive our sins, but who, according to the Gospel of Luke, in the midst of dying committed an act of mercy by forgiving those who caused his suffering and death, turning his death into a kenotic act and a redemptive act of sublime grace; precisely what God requires of all of us, to show mercy and not to engage in the bartering act of sacrifice.  As a testimony to Jesus' righteous mercy, God, according to the all the Gospels, resurrected him.  

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEED FOR A COPERNICAN REVOLUTION - ORIENTATION

It was an earth-shattering moment when Nicolaus Copernicus presented the Christian (western) world with a heliocentric understanding of our solar system,   To no longer find ourselves on a flat earth at the center of creation, with the vault of the heavens revolving around us and the infernal depths below us was not only dislocating where we were but also where God was in the scope of things and, more importantly, what our place in this emerging understanding of the universe is.  When something that was held as fact for over a thousand years becomes a farce, everything associated with that farce is open to question.  

In the multitude of discoveries that have dwarfed Copernicus' discovery in the centuries that followed, we find ourselves in a universe that has no center to speak of.  A center can be anywhere, everywhere, or nowhere, which brings us back to Paul's use of the Greek poem to Zeus that defines God as that Being in which we live and move and have our being in Act 17.  God is everywhere, but no one can point a finger and say this is the precise location where God dwells. 

Was Paul just being clever by beating the Athenians at their own game in order to protect himself from being convicted of introducing a new religion within Athena's city or did Paul truly view God as a being we are part of?  One can't be certain, but what is certain is that Paul entered that particular definition of God and us into the biblical record and it has become increasingly prevalent in today's understanding of who we are and who/what God is.  In a universe that has no discernible center, Paul's definition of God as Being in which all beings exist is truly mind-bending and ahead of its time.  Suddenly, we find ourselves connected to and proceeding from something beyond comprehension; something that exceeds the limits or limitlessness of the universe itself.   

What Copernicus unintentionally accomplished was to reveal a crack in the theological certitude regarding the inerrancy scripture. Church authorities were stricken with justified fears that if people could no longer be certain about the inerrancy of scripture (i.e. that God could cause the Sun and Moon to stand still in Joshua 10) would they be certain about the Church's doctrines and dogmas derived from them and would it ultimately lead to questioning the authority of the Church's leadership?  While there was some comfort for them in the fact that the vast majority of the people attending worship services remained illiterate, the handwriting was literally on the wall with the invention of the printing press and the ability to widely distribute information throughout Europe.  

I think it safe to say that this fear remains to some extent intact today, and while science is more readily accepted, the crack that began with Copernicus' discovery has been widening into a canyon.  While the inerrancy of scripture has been largely dismissed by most mainline denominations, the doctrines derived from an inerrant perspective of them remains largely unquestioned and untouched.  

The bridge used to spanned the theological crack opened by Copernicus' discovery has been and continues to be ecclesial traditions; particularly, in liturgical churches, but as the gap widens that bridge is increasingly stretched beyond sustainability as long-held traditions in mainline churches devolve into traditionalism or concretized beliefs in the inerrancy of scripture in pentecostal or fundamentalist denominations as the last bastion against to fend off the findings of science and the intellectual advances in biblical research.  

Our scriptures are sacred to the extent that they are our stories that speak of our relationship to each other within the context of the creation we live in and of the creative force which brought it into being, the source of being we call God.  The Abrahamic scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, along with the scriptures of other religions are vital to understanding our story, the human story, and the meaning they give to our existence in the expansive and expanding universe we find ourselves in.  They embody the core and foundational beliefs of who we are and what we are part of and belong to.  

There is a need to orient our understanding of these ancient scriptures in the light of science and our contemporary life experiences.  We need to look at them with fresh eyes that are not tethered to long-held traditional beliefs that insist on understanding and interpreting our scriptures in a particular ideological or theological way.  While within these scriptures there is found a human theologic about who we are and who God is, there is a need to freely explore scripture objectively apart from it. The value such theologies within scripture contain is not in the concretized truth religious authorities assign to them, but rather that they exemplify the ever-evolving story of our endeavor to seek the truth and understand ourselves in light of our relational experience to each other, the world we live in, and the kenotic force that brought us into being, God. 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

  

CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEED FOR A COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

Is Christianity in need of a Copernican style revolution, an orientation to the world and the universe as it is?  Has Christianity been too reliant on premises that are misleading?  

Beginning with this post, I will reflect on things that I no longer feel comfortable with regarding the religion I was born into, Christianity.  I am a church-goer.  I have been all my life, but throughout my life I have become increasingly interested in the impact emerging scientific revelations about the universe, our world, and human history has on how many of us Christians think about Christianity.   

I was raised to believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of God, to be taken literally as fact unless something was declared a parable.  I've lost that belief some years back.  Today the Bible is not the Word of God to my mind, but rather words about God.  For me the Bible is more about understanding the world of our making in relationship to the world intended by the source and force behind Earth's and the universe's creation, God as portrayed in its scriptures. 

I am a theist. I believe there is a reason and a cause for my existence and existence as whole that is more than mere happenstance.  I wouldn't go so far as to call it an intelligence, but rather a desire far beyond the reach of our intellectual capabilities to fully comprehend it.  In my opinion the only proof of "God's" existence is existence itself, the paradoxical "because" response to the unfathomable question why anything exists.   

While I no longer view the Holy Bible as the Word of God, I consider it to be holy; in that, it consists of group of diverse writings and types of literature written over a period roughly encompassing a thousand years from which evolves an inspired understanding of our relationship to God, ourselves, and the universe we live in.  Holy does not imply something to be scientifically or historically accurate or factual.  Holy means that something is sacred; that it is something to be respected and honored.  Holy scripture implies that literature designated as such requires deep and patient consideration in order to discern its deepest meanings.

It seems to me that what the writers of the Holy Bible had to contend with was how to adequately portray the life-changing and ever-evolving human experiences we all encounter in a way that captures the imagination and awakens the hearts and minds of it listeners and readers to that Being "in which we live and have our being."  (See Acts 17)   Paul's use of that poetic description (derived from a poem about Zeus at the altar the Unknown God at the Agora in ancient Athens) is a fine example of a Copernican moment as it represents a giant leap in our understanding of God and who we are.  It was Copernican in the sense that it orientated or should have oriented Christians to where we stand in our relationship to God and what is meant by Jesus' use of the term, "The Kingdom of God.  

Unfortunately, throughout much of Christian history Paul's adaptive definition of God has received very little attention.  Increasingly, however,  there is a sense of a new approach in mainline Christian denominations in their understanding of scripture as a result of the scientific and the historical revelations that have been taking place over the past 100 years.  This is an apocalyptic age, an age of revelation; a period in our history where we are being confronted by historical and scientific facts that are making us take a hard look at long-held "truths" that have suddenly appeared permeable and open to question.

While it has taken the West roughly four hundred years to fully accept and apply the scientific ramifications that began with Copernicus's heliocentric view of our solar system, it has taken Christianity roughly six hundred years to begin understanding its ramifications when it comes to Christian theology.  While most mainline Christian denominations accept the science of astrophysics, anthropology, and the overwhelming evidence of evolution, they have yet to explore their ramifications when it comes to what they tell us about our scriptures and in particular how they inform our understanding of God, Christ, and Jesus.  In a sense, many denominations are tongue-tied to a way of speaking about God, Christ, and Jesus that has been around since the dawn of the Christian era.   They struggle with trying to make the language of the ancient church convey new meanings such language does not possess as a way to accommodate new understandings by cloaking them in traditional language; something that strikes me as being in defiance of Jesus' warning against trying to put new wine into old wineskins (Mark 2:22).    

Two contemporary examples come to mind.  It has become popular in some theological circles to redefine certain scriptural terms as a way to help us look at scripture in a new way.  Atonement is one of them.  By definition, atonement means making reparation for some wrong-doing or sin.  This is how it is used in scripture and what it means in scripture, however, it is being redefined as "at-one-ment" by some.  While I understand the novel appeal in trying to recast atonement as meaning being at one in Christ, it does so at the expense of its original definition. 

Another term is that is mistreated is when Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." at the Last Supper.  Remembrance is exactly what Jesus meant, to remember him.  Today, some have recast it as meaning that when the community of the faithful are present during this sacrament they are literally "re-membering" Christ (literally putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again) in themselves by ingesting the symbols of Jesus' body and blood, the bread and wine used at Holy Communion.  

While these fanciful redefining efforts are an attempt to present new or renewed theological understandings regarding the Body of Christ in the world, they are done at the expense of these words' original meanings.  In themselves atonement and remembrance serve a historic and theological purpose within scripture.   We are not bound to agree with how they have been applied or are being applied today, but we shouldn't change the original meanings of such words as if the authors who used them in scripture got it wrong or meant something other than what these words were meant to convey.

What is needed is a reorientation with regard to what the scriptures are saying in the light of new scientific and historical discoveries about our world today.  In short, there is a need for new language that speaks clearly and directly to what our scripture are saying without the need to change the meanings of the original words found in Scripture. 

Throughout scripture there are important clues that can keep us orientated to the unfathomable being-ness of "God" and ourselves.   There is a need to examine what makes these scriptures holy and useful in understanding ourselves and the world we live in and the trajectory they cast our journey through life in.  During this series, I will utilize some of these stories found within the Holy Bible that are Copernican in nature; that keep us orientated to God and what they tell us about this life's journey. 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

 

   

   

A FINAL REFLECTION

 This is the final reflection that I am writing specifically for Christ Episcopal Church as our church has a new rector starting this week.  Naturally, I will continue to post articles on this blog site, but they may not be a regular weekly event.  

                                                                             PSALM 84:1-2

How lovely is your dwelling place,

    O Lord of hosts! 

My soul longs, indeed it faints

    for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh sing for joy

    to the living God.

A FINAL REFLECTION

With this being my final reflection after having written a total of 70 reflections since March 2020, I invite you to join me in reflecting on the more than three and a half years our parish has been without a rector.  We are grateful for Fr. Tim Fountain who for more than a year served as our interim priest and shepherded us through the early months of our vacancy.  We are also grateful for the services of Rev. Ellie Thober and Mother Pat White Horse-Carda, who served as our celebrants during our monthly Eucharist services.  In between times, our worship team of Deacon John, Liz, Dick, and myself took turns officiating and preaching during our Sunday Morning Prayer services until COVID-19 hit and things drastically changed.  We were among the first churches  in our community to close our doors and one of the last to reopen them.

The heart yearns for the familiar; to what seemed reliably available to our members prior to the pandemic. Since we did not have the technology available to do online video services and many of our older members did not have the means to retrieve them if we were able to offer them, I offered to do a written weekly devotion that could be mailed or emailed to our members while our church remained closed.  These devotion were also made  accessible to those who followed our church on Facebook and our church’s website. 

In those Sunday Devotions I would utilize photos throughout the devotions that I had taken of our church’s windows and furnishings to draw attention to some of the details that can be easily overlooked within the ornate setting of our church; to visually cast the devotions within a setting familiar to us members.  Unlike many of those who attend our church, I had keys and would frequent the church to ring the churches bells at 3 PM each weekday in conjunction with other churches to show support for the frontline workers fighting this pandemic, our doctors, nurses, and first responders and then to keep in practice as our church’s organist.  

For many of our members this period of lockdown was agonizing.  I can honestly say that having access to an empty church was no less agonizing because an empty church is just that, empty, and its empty nave conveyed a sense of loneliness for the people who frequently worshiped in its space.

I am convinced that God’s good will is most evident when things aren’t going well; when we experience a period of disorientation, isolation, or feel challenged in some respect - what I have referred to in some of my reflections as being placed on “pause.”  2020 could be described as a year in which the “Pause Button” was hit and “normal” was put on hold.  In my musings on Jesus’ Transfiguration and other transfiguring events described in our scriptures, I presented pause as a moment that precedes a transfiguration; a period of prepping one to see God, oneself, and life as a whole in new light.  

Acts of faith emerged during a time many of us were compelled to stay put and keep our distance.  I believe acts of faith that kept us connected to our church home was when our vestry utilized this “pause” to make needed repairs to our church.  These began with upgrading the church’s fire alarm system.  COVID-19 underscored the need to upgrade the church’s air-flow and filtration system.  There was also an urgent need to make extensive repairs to brick exterior of our 139 year-old church building.  Accomplishing those tasks were not merely works of love for the home of the oldest congregation in the former Dakota Territory, but were acts of faith.  While our doors were not open, the message was clear to us and our community, “We’re alive and determined to carry on by God’s grace.” 

Another act of faith was in extending a call to Fr. Mike, to be our full-time rector.  Through much of our interim period we were given to understand that our parish could not afford a full-time priest; that we would have to rely on either sharing a priest with another parish or, for the foreseeable future, continue to rely on supply priests.  Fr. Mike, in an act of faith, reached out to us and felt drawn to us and we felt drawn to him.  Money was gifted to our parish that allowed making this call not only a possibility but a reality.

We are now about to embark on a new adventure, a new ministry with the arrival of Fr. Mike.  Faith abounds and we must keep faith in God and with each other.  There is a sense that this period of pause is nearing its end and transfiguration for our parish is at hand; that we shall see and be seen in a new light.  What that exactly means, however, is yet to be seen. 

What is certain is that loving acts of faith will be required moving forward.  The arrival of Fr. Mike doesn’t mean our parish has achieved its goals or that our work as parishioners is done. With Fr. Mike’s arrival, a new day is dawning and our work is just getting started. Our goal and our ministry is to continue the ministry of Jesus in our world and increase the family of Christ in our midst; a goal that will hopefully continue long after us by future generations.

If you are a reader of these reflections, consider yourself a part of our church family.  If you live in or near the Yankton area, consider being present with us in our/your church home on Sundays whenever you can. Your presence will be much appreciated.  You will be welcomed and loved as a child of God, as all are children of God and siblings of one another.  

Ours is a church, a family, one can ease into.  There’s no rush or need to make a hasty commitment.  Sit with us for awhile, pray with us, worship with us, and learn about us and the God we love.   So come and be transfigured with us.  Share with us a new vision; a new adventure into the light of God’s love for all.  

* * * * * * * * * *

God of wonder and grace, we thank you for protecting and keeping our church family together during this long interim and the uncertainty of this pandemic.  We give you thanks for the services of Fr. Tim, Rev. Ellie, and Mother Pat and for those of our parish who served when there was no priest available.  We give thanks for those who looked after our church home, our vestry and others; for the completion of many needed projects and for the prayers and financial support of the faithful members and friends of this parish.   Above all, we give thanks for your Holy Spirit which guided Fr. Mike and us into mutual ministry together.  Bless him as our new rector and bless his family as they make a new home with us.  Bless us also as we join with Fr. Mike in engaging and envisioning new ministries.  Keep us mindful of your love and bind this family of faith ever closer to one another in your love.   Strengthen us in faith that we may increase the family of Christ in our midst.  All this we ask through the same Jesus Christ, your Son, our Brother.   Amen

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

TOUCHED BY FAITH - A REFLECTION ON THE HEALING OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Mark 5:21-34

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him.  And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

TOUCHED BY FAITH

The story of this anonymous woman who touched Jesus’s garment and was healed is found in the gospels of both Mark and Luke. It occurs shortly after Jairus’ desperate plea for Jesus to put his healing hands on his dying daughter, as Jesus was heading to Jairus’ house to do so.  While we don’t know exactly what this anonymous woman’s bleeding condition was, her way of handling it in this situation strongly suggests it was an ongoing menstrual condition that Leviticus 15 addresses.  It would  explain why she saw a need to sneak up on Jesus to touch his cloak from behind.  

Asking Jesus in public to heal her would have risked revealing a condition that would have exposed her as being in a perpetual state of uncleanness.   It would have placed both Jesus and her in an awkward position which, in her mind, would have risked her being turned away by Jesus.  

While Jairus could ask Jesus to place his hand on his young daughter because bleeding wasn’t an issue, Jesus laying his healing hands on this woman would have made Jesus unclean until evening; basically putting Jesus out of commission for the day.  It would have also put Jairus and his daughter in a hopeless position. If Jesus would have physically touched her or she inadvertently touched his skin, he would have been considered unclean and Jairus, being the leader of the synagogue, would have felt compelled to follow the law.   Suddenly this healing story is filled with nuanced complexity.  

We know from other healing stories, Jesus was capable of simply healing someone by telling a person he or she was healed, but this suffering woman had no way of knowing that.  She was going on what she heard Jairus ask Jesus. “If you put your healing hands on my daughter, she will be healed.” Understandably, she likely thought being touched by Jesus was a necessary factor in being healed by him. 

Her approach to Jesus, however, reveals her to be an astute biblical scholar, because she saw a possible way out of her dilemma. While Jesus couldn’t touch her or her clothes or anything she sat on, the law was silent about a woman touching a man’s clothing and maybe, just maybe, touching Jesus’s cloak would be enough to be healed, such was her faith.  So in the press of the crowd surrounding Jesus she sees an opportunity to reach out and touch the back of his cloak.  In doing so, she is healed.  At the same time, Jesus feels healing go out of him; that someone had been healed and so he asks, “Who touched my clothes?”  In response, his disciples say, “Who hasn’t touched your clothes in this crowd?  We’re all being touched.”  

If the disciples were amazed by Jesus’ question, the woman felt caught, exposed, and filled with fear because of it.  She immediately confesses she touched him and tells him everything, to which Jesus says, “Daughter your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from suffering.”

This humble woman was a person of deep faith; a faith that sustained her hope, a faith that prompted her to act from love, and a faith that led her to find a way.  Faith kept hope alive in her.  Faith and hope was all she had left, after trying everything she could to find a cure.  She lost her savings and her livelihood, but she didn’t lose her faith, and she didn’t lose hope.  

When hope came to her in the person of Jesus, she didn’t think only of herself.  As desperate as the stakes were for her and seeing that particular moment as the one and perhaps only opportunity to change her life around, she wasn’t thinking only about herself.  Selfishness on her part, at that moment, risked harming not only herself, but also Jesus, Jairus, and his daughter.  She didn’t want to risk harming others.  She exhibited a love of neighbor and with the eyes of faith she found a way.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Have you noticed, how often the people Jesus healed and who exhibited the deepest faith are never named; like the woman in today’s reading from Mark or the Roman Centurion who sought healing for his slave, the Samaritan leper, the blind man from his birth, or the paralyzed man lowered through a roof by his loving faithful relatives and friends?  We don’t know their names, but we recognize their faith. Faith is not about who we are but about how we trust and in whom we put our trust.  

Faith is always an action.  Faith in Christ always makes room for hope and love.  Faith is important to our health and well-being, not merely as Christians but as human beings.  Faith needs to be exercised, and it often is when we are faced with things beyond our control; situations that place us in a some sort of dilemma or predicament, the proverbial locale of finding oneself between a rock and hard place. 

Faith makes us alert to what is going on in our lives. Faith becomes an exercise in patience when there is no clear path ahead.  Faith never gives up; always seeking a path forward, and when one appears, faith prompts us to take it and act upon it, like this woman.  

As we were reminded several Sundays ago in an excellent homily by Liz, we are a family of faith.  We need to keep that in mind moving forward.  We need to keep putting our trust in God and in each other to continue the redemptive and healing work of Jesus in our time.  

We have spent almost four full years searching for priest and getting by with what we have.  We lived through most of 2020 and the early part of this year having no services, and yet, here we are back in our church home.  It has not been easy and when our options and a quick path forward seemed to dim early in our search process, we grew patient in faith, and faith found a way that led us seekers to find another seeker in Fr. Mike.  Faith finds a way if we keep it and are willing to be patient; if we are willing to let go and let God show us the way.

Amen  

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

A QUESTION OF FAITH - A REFLECTION ON JESUS CALMING THE STORM

 These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Mark 4:35-41

When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

A QUESTION OF FAITH

Every story in the Bible is layered with meanings.  Miracle stories are no exception and most, if not all, are there for us to explore and probe the meaningful depths they contain.  Miracle stories in the Bible are there to deepen our faith that God is involved in our day to day lives.  Paraphrasing the author of the Gospel of John at the close of chapter 20, we read, “Jesus did many other miracles and signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book  But these are written, that you might have faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that in faith you will live confidently through him.”

We don’t need stories to prove the existence of God or proof that God can perform miracles because most of us, through the eyes of faith, have witnessed the miraculous handiwork of God in our own lives.  Miracles always take us by surprise, but it takes faith to see them as such or they merely become an unexplainable phenomena that has no particular meaning in our lives.  One of my favorite biblical scholars and authors is Rabbi Jonathan Sachs who wrote in his book, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, “Faith is about seeing the miraculous in the everyday, not about waiting every day for the miraculous.”   

* * * * * * * * * * *

The miracle of Jesus calming the sea paints a picture, an icon, or a triptych to meditate on. 

If this miracle story was to be depicted as a triptych, the first panel might portray a boat packed with Jesus’ disciples.  The boat has a mast with the sail loosed from its fittings and flapping wildly in the wind. The boat is being buffeted by the waves on all sides and filling with water.  Nobody is in control of the boat’s rudder. Jesus is asleep in the stern near the rudder and appears oblivious to the storm raging about him. The disciples, drenched with water, are depicted pleading with Jesus to wake up, with gesture suggesting they want him to take control of the rudder.  Jesus does not appear wet at all and has a serene expression on his face.

In the second panel, we see Jesus standing serenely at the stern, ignoring the rudder, with one hand raised to the wind and the other pointing to the waves. He appears to be talking while his drenched disciples are crouched down and holding on to the sides of the boat, the mast, or each other.  

In the third panel, Jesus hands are still in the position we saw them in the second panel, but now the sky is blue and cloudless, the sun is shining, and the sea is as calm as glass. The disciples are no longer wet, their faces are lit with a mix of amazement and laughter.  If this triptych was in a museum, a docent might ask, “As you are looking at this triptych, what do you think is going on? What is your take away?”

* * * * * * * * * *

Like most miracle stories in scripture, this story takes on a parabolic hue that allows us to see it as a metaphor for something much larger than a one-off phenomenal event some millennia ago.  As such, let’s take a deeper look at this iconic miracle story and treat it metaphorically.  Like all stories with a parabolic hue, their intent is to place ourselves in them in order to find their meaning. There are many ways to look at a story like this one. The following is just one example: 

We’re in a boat with Jesus and his other disciples riding on the Sea of Life.  The boat’s name is Faith.  Storms happen very quickly on the Sea of Life.  When they occur they can rock Faith to the point we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed by the never-ending onslaught of issues and problems driven by the winds of disappointment, discontent, division, and general dysphoria.  When these storms continue for a time, it can appear that Jesus is sleeping on the job so we pray, “Wake up Jesus!  Don’t you care about that we’re about to fall apart and sink in our despair?”  So Jesus wakes up and he says to winds of our disappointments, our discontents, our divisions, and dysphoria, “Peace! Be still” and suddenly things quickly settle down and Faith is sailing calmly on the Sea of Life. 

The story doesn’t end there.  Jesus has some questions of his own, “Why were you afraid?  You are in safe in Faith.  You were acting as if you’re paddling through the Sea of Life without a boat.”  

* * * * * * * * * * * 

It is easy to lose sight of faith during the storm squalls that quickly happen in our daily lives. There are times when it feels like we’re trying to paddle through life without a boat.  Even when we’re sitting in the boat of Faith, the nave of a church, we can be swamped and buffeted by the fierce wind and waves of life.  We feel drenched with disappointment, discontent, and dysphoria.  It can seem as though God is not present, but God never leaves us.  Within such life-storms, however, we, like Jesus’ disciples, can experience the calming presence of God in our midst.  

When Jesus asked his disciples, “Where is your faith?”  He wasn’t criticizing them for a lack of faith, but making them aware of it.  The irony in Jesus’ question is that it was their faith that led them to awaken him to take control of the boat they were in.  What they didn’t expect was Jesus ignoring the rudder to direct their lives but rather taking control the elements of their situation; the wind and the waves, the very causes of their concern.  God controls the very issues we are concerned about, and in the calm that ultimately follows such life-storms, the faithful see God’s miraculous handiwork in their lives.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE EXTRAVAGANT MINIMALISM OF GOD - A REFLECTION ON JESUS' SEED PARABLES

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Mark 4:26-34

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

THE EXTRAVAGANT MINIMALISM OF GOD

God is an extravagant minimalist.  It seems evident that God likes to start small and watch God’s creation grow and flourish. This extravagance of God’s minimalism is revealed in some of Jesus’ seed parables.

Nothing illustrates God’s extravagant minimalism better than Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, the second of the two parables in today’s lesson from Mark which is found in all three Synoptic Gospels.  As most of us know, the mustard seed Jesus is talking about is considered the smallest plant seed.  It was also a seed that produces a weed-like shrub that could grow to the size of large entangled tree-like bush which, as this parable depicts, serves as an excellent protective habitat for birds. 

Although this parable talks about the mustard seed being sown, as one would sow wheat or barely, most farmers in the time of Jesus wouldn’t dare plant it in a field because once it takes off, it is hard to control and spreads like a weed, overtaking the area where it exists.  It is not only considered an invasive but also a pervasive plant. That pervasive invasiveness is the point of Jesus using the mustard seed as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God.  Its wild, uncontrollable nature is particularly suited to describe the entangled spread of God’s Realm.  

* * * * * * * * * *

Found only in the Gospel of Mark, the Sowing Seed Parable is easily overlooked because it follows the well-know Parable of the Sower and uses the every day life cycle of plants to makes it point.  Within its simple agrarian reference to a farmer planting seeds, we are offered a profound insight into the nature of God's Realm.  Just as life seemingly ends with death, life comes from death.  The two are intertwined.  With the notable exception of the story of Jesus’ resurrection, this cyclical paradox is not apparent in animal and human life.  Where it is apparent is in plant life, where one can easily observe life emerging from death. 

Using the cycle of plant life of the wheat and barely grown in the area where Jesus lived, we observe, that unlike the GPS generated planting methods used today, the farmer of Jesus’ day would have simply cast these seeds on the ground and let nature takes its course. Even with the vastly improved technological planting of today, we remain amazed that “earth produces of itself;” that life from death is inherent in and emerges from the ground we walk on. 

In what may strike some as a mechanistic view of God establishing an order that lets nature takes its course, Jesus reveals that like plant life, human life has its course; that being the living souls we are follows a similar pattern.  We too are products of the earth, formed by God from its soil and breathed to life by God’s Spirit to become “living souls,” only to die so that we might live again; a cyclical process revealed in the linked together  stories of Adam's and Eve’s realization of death and Jesus’ realization of life being raised from death.

Within the parameters of human existence, is the inherent capacity for productivity in both the physical and spiritual nature of our soulfulness.  Over time, however, that which is physical will eventually die,  just like plants.  “All flesh is grass,” observes Isaiah. [See Isaiah 40:6-8].  

This parable, however, demonstrates that physical death is only part of the story.  What dies is brought to life again.  Seeds may lie dormant for millennia, only to come back to life when exposed to life-giving light and nourishment.  There is a potential energy in the seeds themselves; a soulfulness, if you will, observed in all living things, plants and animals alike.  

 

While some of our scriptures and a good deal of theology and doctrine derived from them portray death as a curse that resulted from our primeval parents’ one act of sin, the Sowing Seeds Parable suggests otherwise.  Perhaps the curse of death is not that physical life has an end but rather that we humans know it will end.  Jesus died and would have died even if he wasn’t crucified.  Death is a natural part of life and is essential for a life cycle to exist.

All physical life dies at some point. Even planets and stars die, while at the same time new planets and stars are being created. Today, we have the ability to observe such activities through astronomical technology; something the writers of our scriptures did not have available to them, and we know that stars have been dying long before life showed up on earth, which prompts one to consider whether one moment of transgression by two humans caused universal death?  It makes one wonder how our scriptures might have been written had their authors known what we know today.

Jesus’ Sowing Seed Parable suggests that death is at the service of the creator and the act of creation; that death serves as the means to bring forth abundance; that death is an intricate part of the kenotic paradox of God expending God’s self in order to expand God’s self, what Jesus referred to as the Kingdom of Heaven.  The Realm of God is all around.  We are already in it, just not aware of it.  From our perspective, life from death is a mystery and may seem implausible, until we observe plant life and see the mystery of life emerging from death.  Paul perhaps states and sums up this mystery best:

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

                ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

  Where, O death, is your victory?

      Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin (knowing - nw), and the power of sin (knowing-nw) is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”   [1 Corinthians 15:51-57 NRSV]

Amen

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm