Healing & Sabbath

I was away for vacation but I wanted to share this blog post from Abott Andrew Marr on the readings for today.

He writes...

Jesus’ healing of the woman who had been crippled for eighteen years (Lk. 10: 13–17) is one of many healing miracles where the Evangelist emphasizes its occurrence on the Sabbath. These healings were provocative to the Jewish leaders because they interpreted the Sabbath law to preclude any kind of work. Jesus clearly intended to challenge that interpretation but there is a deeper teaching about the Sabbath that he wants us to learn.

We see hints of this deeper teaching in these stirring words from Isaiah about the Sabbath:

If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Is. 58: 13–14)

For the prophet, one dishonors the Sabbath by grimly pursuing one’s own interests instead of delighting in the Lord. In healing the crippled woman, Jesus was not pursuing his own interests, but that of another. More important, the healing caused much delight in the Lord on the part of the people who witnessed it except for the Leader of the Synagogue. A bit earlier, before speaking specifically of the Sabbath, Isaiah expressed God’s commendation of those who offer food to the hungry and “satisfy the needs of the afflicted.” ( Is. 58: 10) Jesus obviously thought that satisfying the need of an afflicted woman is a way of honoring the Sabbath.

Psalm 95 refers to God’s “Rest” to mean both entry into the Promised Land and the Sabbath Rest as God’s intended end for humanity. The rebellion of the Israelites in the desert threatens to prevent the Israelites from entering God’s “Rest” on both levels. (Ps. 95: 11) The author of Hebrews picks up this theme in its eschatological dimension, noting that Joshua had not led the Israelites into the ultimate Rest when we cease from [our] labors as God did from his.” (Heb. 4: 10)

The author of Hebrews returns to this eschatological theme at the end of the letter when he contrasts the frightening dark cloud of Mount Sinai that the Israelites came to with our coming to “Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (Heb. 12: 22–24) Once again, we have corporate rejoicing. More important, we have the “better word” of Jesus, the Forgiving Victim in contrast to Abel’s blood that inspired vengeance from which God had to shield the murderer.

The Psalmist’s warning that those who murmur against God and Moses will not enter into God’s Rest and the author of Hebrews’s use of the same threatening tone for those who refuse the warning from Heaven sound vindictive but the “better word than Abel” suggests otherwise. I think we do better to realize that God’s Sabbath Rest isn’t so restful as long as we grumble like the Leader of the Synagogue. Nobody was casting him out of God’s Sabbath Rest; he just wasn’t having any part of it.

Inspired by Jesus’ resurrection on the first day of the week, most Christians celebrate the Sabbath on that day when we celebrate the Paschal Mystery of Christ at the altar. Since the Resurrection points to the ultimate meaning of the Sabbath, I would think it is not too much to see this healing by Jesus as one of many foretastes of the Resurrection, an encouragement to celebrate new life from the bondage of illness and injury and social oppression. The healing of just one person seems a small thing compared to the heavenly crowd in Hebrews but the whole crowd rejoiced in the healing, indicating that healing one person entailed healing the whole community. This group rejoicing suggests that the Sabbath Rest is hardly a boring, static existence but a dynamic rejoicing in the interests and healing of others which leaves no room for murmuring and rejecting God’s blessings. We should be too busy rejoicing for that.

Day of Healing | Nationwide Bell Ringing

From the National Park Service:

August 25, 2019 is the 400th anniversary of the first landing of enslaved Africans in English-occupied North America at Point Comfort in Hampton, Virginia, now part of Fort Monroe National Monument, a unit of the National Park System.

The anniversary will be commemorated at Fort Monroe as a day of healing and reconciliation. The park and its partners are inviting all 419 national parks, NPS programs, community partners, and the public to come together in solidarity to ring bells simultaneously across the nation for four minutes—one for each century—to honor the first Africans who landed in 1619 at Point Comfort and 400 years of African American history.The nationwide bell ringing will take place at 3 pm EDT on August 25, 2019, the 400th anniversary.

From the Episcopal News Service:

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia Bishop James B. Magness invite Episcopal churches to take part in a national action to remember and honor the first enslaved Africans who landed in English North America in 1619 by tolling their bells for one minute on Sunday, August 25, 2019 at 3:00 pm ET.

“The National Park Service is commissioning, and asking, churches and people from around this country to commemorate and remember that landing and the bringing of those first enslaved Africans to this country by ringing bells. And if possible, by tolling the bells of churches and to do so on August 25 at 3:00 in the afternoon,” said Curry. “I’m inviting us as The Episcopal Church to join in this commemoration as part of our continued work of racial healing and reconciliation. At 3:00 pm we can join together with people of other Christian faiths and people of all faiths to remember those who came as enslaved, who came to a country that one day would proclaim liberty. And so we remember them and pray for a new future for us all.”

Prayers for Racial Healing in our Country:

O God of peace and healing,
We come before you feeling powerless to stop the hatred that divides races and nations.
We come before you saddened and angered by the denial of human rights in our land.
We come before you with wounds deep in our hearts that we long to have healed.
We come before you with struggles in our personal lives that it seems will not go way.
And we pray Lord, How long?
How long to peace?
And we hear, "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
How long for racial justice? "Not long, because no lie can live forever.”
How long for our wounded hearts? Not long, I call you by name, you are with me; you are mine.
How long for our struggles? Not long, for my grace is sufficient. I hold you in my everlasting arms beneath which you cannot fall.
How long for the healing of what is broken inside and all around us? Not long, for we shall overcome, together in partnership, human holy partnership, we shall overcome.
Amen.

Written by Larry Reimer and found among the collected prayers in Race and Prayer, edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester Talton.

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

from the Book of Common Prayer, p. 823

From our ECCT Bishops

ECCT Bishops Repudiate Christian Nationalism, Systemic Racism, in Wake of Gun Violence
Bishops Ian Douglas and Laura Ahrens join with colleagues in Bishops United Against Gun Violence (BUAGV) in decrying the recent gun violence in El Paso and Dayton; and commend the BUAGV statement to the Episcopal Church in Connecticut.

Bishops United Against Gun Violence is a network of close to 100 Episcopal bishops dedicated to ending gun violence in our nation through education, advocacy, pastoral care, and public witness and liturgy.

Both Bishop Douglas and Ahrens are founding participants in BUAGV, and Bishop Douglas serves as one of the network’s Co-Conveners.

Since last weekend, three young white men—all American citizens, all in legal possession of assault rifles—have murdered more than 30 peo ple in cold blood. Most of the precious children of God who are dead and injured are people of color.

When gun violence makes headlines, politicians supported by the National Rifle Association are quick to call white shooters “mentally ill,” while characterizing black and brown shooters as “criminals” and insisting that guns are not the problem. They choose to remain loyal to the gun lobby and its campaign contributions while denying the incontrovertible evidence that more guns mean more deaths.

Common sense measures like universal background checks, assault weapons bans, handgun purchaser licensing, and restrictions on gun ownership by domestic abusers point the way toward sane gun policy that is well within any sensible interpretation of the Second Amendment. They are necessary and long overdue, but they are not sufficient.

This latest sickening cluster of mass shootings has thrust into the headlines the deadly mix of white supremacy and gun violence that is coming to define our era of American history. Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise and our government holds asylum-seekers on our southern border in inhumane conditions. The president of the United States uses racist tropes and inflammatory language to incite crowds against people of color, refugees and immigrants; and hate crime reports have increased for three consecutive years. The hatred and fury that drives mass shootings can also be turned inward, where it fuels the invisible and growing death toll of gun suicides.

As Christians, we must work actively to dismantle the systemic racism that is part of our country’s founding narrative and that continues to fuel mass shootings and urban gun violence today. We must insist that both our fellow Christians and our elected leaders repudiate white supremacy and white nationalism and embrace humane immigration policies that follow God’s command and the Biblical imperative to welcome the stranger in our midst. And we must refuse to participate in scapegoating people with mental illness, a ploy too often used to distract from the urgent yet simple need to enact common sense gun safety measures.

Seven years ago yesterday, six people were murdered by a white supremacist at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. That massacre, one of two events that galvanized the creation of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, (the other was the shooting at Sandy Hook in Connecticut) brought us together across our differences to demonstrate that we believe in a God of life in the face of death. Today we are weary of witnessing the slaughter gripping our country. But we are no less determined to continue speaking, even when it seems our words make no difference; to continue praying in order to gather our strength to act; and to follow Jesus in speaking truth, especially when it seems that truth is out of season.

Bishops United Against Gun Violence is a network of nearly 100 Episcopal Church bishops working to curtail the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. Learn more at bishopsagainstgunviolence.org and follow Episcopalians United Against Gun Violence on Facebook.

A Litany in the Wake Of Gun Violence

O God of Life and Love, you created all people as one family and called us to live together in harmony and peace; surround us with your love as we face the challenges and tragedies of gun violence.

Silence is kept briefly.

For those we love, for our neighbors, for strangers and aliens, and for those known to you alone:
Loving God,
Make us instruments of your peace.

O God of Righteousness, you have given our civic leaders power and responsibility to protect us
and to uphold our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Silence is kept briefly.

For all who bear such responsibility; for all who struggle to discern what is right in the face of powerful political forces: Loving God,
Make us instruments of your peace.

O God of Compassion, we thank you for first responders: for police officers, firefighters, and EMTs;
for all those whose duties bring them to the streets, the lobbies, the malls, the homes, and all places suffering the daily ravages of gun violence; give them courage and sound judgment in the heat of the moment, and grant them compassion for the victims.

Silence is kept briefly.

For our brothers and sisters who risk their lives and their serenity as they rush to our aid: Loving God,
Make us instruments of your peace.

O God of Mercy, bind the wounds of all who suffer from gun violence, of those who are maimed and disfigured, of those left alone and grieving, and of those who struggle to get through one more day;
bless them with your presence and help them find hope.

Silence is kept briefly.

For all whose lives are forever marked by the scourge of gun violence: Loving God,
Make us instruments of your peace.

O God of Remembrance, may we not forget those who have died in the gun violence that we have allowed to become routine; receive them into your heart and comfort us with your promise of eternal love and care.

Silence is kept briefly.

For all who have died, for those who die today, and for those who will die tomorrow: Loving God,
Make us instruments of your peace.

O God of Justice, help us your people to find our voice; empower us to change this broken world
and to protest the needless deaths caused by gun violence; give us the power to rise above our fear of futility, and grant us the conviction to serves as advocates for change.

Silence is kept briefly.

For your vision of love and harmony: Loving God,
Make us instruments of your peace.

Eternal God, in whose perfect reign no weapon is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: Guide us with your cloud by day and your fire by night, and grant us wisdom and courage for the facing of this hour. All this we ask for the sake of your love. Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

— Freely adapted from a litany by Rt. Rev. Stephen T. Lane, Diocese of Maine (February, 2018)

Litany in the Wake of a Mass Shooting

The “Litany in the Wake of a Mass Shooting” has been updated to include two more mass shootings that took the lives of 29 precious children of God in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio within a single 24-hour period.

We offer this litany, once again, with the reminder that one does not pray in lieu of summoning political courage, but in preparation for doing so. Bishops United Against Gun Violence invite you to join in this litany and our commitment to take action so that our country can be freed from the epidemic of gun violence.

Litany in the Wake of a Mass Shooting

God of peace, we remember all those who have died in incidents of mass gun violence in this nation’s public and private spaces...

Read the whole litany here.

(or download it here)

Summer of Prayer VI

Anxious and Fearful
Lord Jesus, we come to you and give you thanks for your love and care for us at all times – times of joy and times of sadness. We ask for your peace and guidance to be with us during this time when we are fearful and anxious. We know you know our needs before we ask and you know what is best for us, so we ask for your gift of peace and understanding. Our prayer is offered in the name of your beloved son, Jesus. Amen.

(UTO Book of Prayers – Vicki Sweet, South Dakota)

Affirmation and Invitation
What is an Affirmation? Webster’s tells us it’s a positive assertion or declaration. I think of it as “breathing life” into an intention. And for me, Invitation means someone wants me to attend an event, be a team member or join in something that holds the promise of a joyful outcome, (like coming to the Lord’s table!) However, it may also involve a lot of work! That’s okay, the Invitation is what’s important. It feels good to be valued.

ECCT is into a two-year Season of Racial Healing, Justice, & Reconciliation. We are an inviting church; we post signs that say “All are Welcome.” Why do we need to Affirm and Invite? It is God’s church after all. Yet, we are learning new things this Season: the Episcopal Church has a history to overcome. Here’s a story: When I talk about my faith to some People of Color, I get this question: “Isn’t the Episcopal church a White church?” Or, when I meet White people, I am asked, “Are you Baptist?” This has happened quite a few times and my answers are always “no” and “no.” I then explain my faith journey.

So to me, in these divided times in America and around the world, where the cloud of separation hangs over God’s creation, making affirmative efforts is a powerful thing to do. I believe in Affirming God’s people, all colors, languages and cultures are welcome in the Episcopal Church and can help to overcome parts of our history and break down the stereotype of what is a White church or a Black church.

Another story: Years ago, I worked in a racial justice ministry in New Jersey, where I then lived. Our small, diverse group held church-sponsored anti-racism training. Soon, we figured out that it was experiences I welcomed into my life. Thought was given to saying “yes” rather than “no” and actually seeking out difference; then, I accepted God’s invitation and followed the path God laid for me. Like the time I took a belly-dancing class and ended up going to the instructor’s Bahá’í wedding reception! ~ Carol M. Taylor, Trinity Church, Lime Rock

Challenging and Changing the Rhetoric to Decency

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyZuJbVYT0

From our Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Some responses:


https://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2019/07/maryland-church-leaders-write-open-letter-to-president-trump/

https://cathedral.org/have-we-no-decency-a-response-to-president-trump.html


From our news:

https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/07/31/violent-dehumanizing-dangerous-national-cathedrals-sharp-criticism-of-trump-resonates-across-america/

https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/07/25/presiding-bishop-tells-young-episcopalians-we-must-help-america-find-its-soul/

400th Year Anniversary - Slavery Came to America

The following resources are provided by the Union of Black Episcopalians in recognition of the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia.

History

The year 1619, extensively linked to Jamestown, Virginia, marked the start of slavery in what is now the United States of America.  In August 1619, a woman and a man were aboard a ship known as The White Lion. They were among the “20 and odd Negroes” that disembarked in Virginia. They were Africans who were “brought for victuall [food],” as recorded by a merchant. Sometime after, the woman and the man, named Isabell Negro and Antoney Negro, had a son named William who was baptized, according to the 1624 census.

Collect for the African Diaspora 

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, you who have brought us thus far on the way; Give us grace to honor the lives of your precious children, enslaved in body yet free in mind. May we forever stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and make no peace with oppression, that children of slaves and former slave owners may one day live in harmony; through Jesus Christ our liberator, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayers of the People

Presider: As we commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619, the church invites us to give thanks for the resilience and cultural contributions of people from the African diaspora. Therefore, let us offer our prayers to our Loving, Liberating and Life-giving God.

Lector:   Repairing God, help us to lift every voice and sing, ‘til earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of Liberty for all your children, that our divisions may cease and we may be one. By your might;
People:    Lead us into the light.

Lector:   Reconciling God, we have come over a way that with tears has been watered, we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, give us grace to see in each other the face of Christ. By your might;
People:    Lead us into the light.

Lector:   Resilient God, keep us forever in your path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met you in gift of friend and stranger, in the crucible of fortitude and struggle, that we never forget the ancestors who have brought us thus far by faith. By your might;
People:    Lead us into the light.

Lector:   Restoring God, yet with a steady beat, our weary feet have come to the places for which our parents sighed, inspire us with the energy to run with perseverance the race that is set before us, keeping our eyes fixed on you. By your might;
People:    Lead us into the light.

Presider: God of Hope, stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, born in the day that hope unborn had died, revive in us your people that sense of hope that never fails so that we can make new this old world in the name of Jesus our brother. Amen.

Learn more about the history here:

https://hampton.gov/DocumentCenter/View/24075/1619-Virginias-First-Africans (PDF)

A Poem to Remember the Journey:

https://poets.org/poem/lift-every-voice-and-sing

August 4 Sermon (Proper 13)

O Lord, as we labor to produce a rich harvest, do not let greed or self-importance rule our lives. Let us not store up treasures for ourselves but grow rich in those things that are pleasing to you. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen. (Peter J. Scagnelli)

Anthony &, Isabella arrived on the shores of this country along with at least 20 others in August of 1619 in an English vessel, The White Lion, having been taken captive from the Kingdom of Ndongo in west central Africa. They were sold to Sir George Yeardley (Virginia’s governor) and Abraham Peirsey (the colony’s supply officer & trade agent) in return for food and supplies.

In 1624, Anthony &, Isabella’s son, William, was baptized at the local Anglican Church in Hampton, Virginia. His baptized name is William Tucker due to the fact his parents worked on the land and were owned by Capt. William Tucker. No other records exist about this family or their second child.

William was baptized in a church like ours but was never seen as an equal part of the community, he was probably bought and sold to other farms, by Christians who believed they had a right to do so.

400 years ago, slavery came to this country. And we are still feeling the after affects from that evil trade – for behind slavery stands the economic affects of free labor based on the idolatrous notion that one’s skin color determined one’s destiny. Such white supremacy still haunts us for we have failed to excise it from our land.

And behind that bigotry, lies greed. For slavery and greed go hand in hand.

St. Paul considered greed to be idolatry – the worship of money or prosperity or the want of things as if it were God. But such earthly passions were to be put away.

“Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)… seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self for in that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”

Such earthly passions are idolatrous, taking the place of God. Our God in Jesus has set us free. We are to give up the greed and lust that swallows us up; we are not to be enslaved to sin nor are we to enslave others through our bigotry or greed.

Our Book of Common Prayer puts it this way: “Our duty to our neighbors is to love them as ourselves, and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us…To resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people's gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him.” (BCP p. 848)

Our duty is to love but greed works against love, for Greed tries to possess people for our own good.

"We learn the essential lesson: do not attempt to possess things, for things cannot really be possessed. Only make sure you are not possessed by them, lest your God change." ("Possessed by a Thing," Michael Battle, The Witness)

In our first reading, the teacher, Qoheleth in Hebrew, is there to teach that everything is vanity & too often our striving for things is but chasing after wind. We strive and toil for things, things we will leave behind us when we die.

“I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me… yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.”

We seem to strive for that which will not truly give us life. This is vanity says Qoheleth.

“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Is how Jesus put it in our Gospel reading from Luke.

And Jesus tells a parable about a rich man, who has an abundance but instead of his duty to his neighbor, he ends up filling bigger and bigger barns but God says… “`You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

Greed – storing up treasures here on earth, rather than with God – such idolatry leads us away from God. Greed has us using people as commodities rather than loving them as beloved children of God.

The scriptures for today call us to live lives renewed with God’s love, not enslaving ourselves or others with greed where our lives chase the wind for a security that will never come, and loving our neighbors fully.

To turn away from such greed and idolatry, is to live generous lives.

Once upon a time, a monk, in his travels, found a precious stone worth a great deal of money. The monk kept it wrapped in a cloth in his traveling bag. As he continued on his way, he met a traveler, and offered to share his meager lunch with him. When the monk opened his bag, the traveler saw the jewel and asked the monk if he could have it to feed his family. The monk readily gave the jewel to him.

The traveler departed, overjoyed with the unexpected gift of the precious stone that would give him and his family wealth and security the rest of their lives. But a few days later, the traveler sought ought the monk at his monastery and gave him back the stone. "I have come to ask for something much more precious than this stone," he ex­plained. "Give me whatever enabled you to give it to me."

To not hoard our treasure but to freely give, to see others as if they were Christ, to take without hesitation the first step in being reconciled with someone from whom we are estranged, to love and trust and console and raise up another regardless of the cost to us—this is what Christ calls us to live our lives, the compassion by which we will one day be measured by God.

Today let us open ourselves to hear God’s Word through prayer, caring for each other, and living generous lives. May we lament our history of slavery and the bigotry that lives on and strive to live our lives by the generosity of love we give to all people in our country and in all of God’s creation. May our lives not be chasing after the wind, but in treating others as we wish them to treat us. Amen.

A prayer in times of violence

Remembering El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy, Brooklyn,  Chicago, Wisconsin...

From The Corrymeela Community of N Ireland:

God of all humanity

in times of violence
we see how inhuman we can be.

We pray for those who, today,
are weighed down by grief.
We pray for those who, yesterday,
were weighed down by grief.

And the day before,
and all the days before the day before.

We pray, too, for those who help us turn towards
justice and peace.

Turn us all towards justice and peace
because we need it.

Amen.