This is the time of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Its opposite comes at Midwinter, just before Christmas. We follow the wheel of the year, from solstice to solstice: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) The disc of the sun forms to our eyes a perfect circle - a picture of completion, of wholeness.
At the time of the summer solstice we celebrate the nativity of John the Baptist. John bears witness to the light. He prepares the way of the Lord, proclaims the way of peace. He proclaims the good news of the mercy of God to be embodied in Jesus Christ.
This is a season – as much as the winter solstice is – of the victory of the light of God. As Advent marks the fallow fields of winter, so this season marks the ripening for harvest – the harvest of the kingdom of peace, the gathering-in of the followers of the way of the Lord.
John baptizes the people, symbolizes their farewell to the old life and their welcome into the new way of being.
How are we to live this out? John himself focuses on practical matters. He told soldiers to be content with their pay and not force bribes from the poor. Let the one who has two cloaks, he said, give one to the person who has none at all. And a more radical departure from worldly norms was on its way with Jesus.
Six months before Jesus’ birth, his harbinger John appears. For the peoples of the earth summer has always been a time of fulfillment – here it becomes a time of promise. What is ripening?
On the Eve of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, the light of Christ is proclaimed at its zenith, six months before the Savior is born.
When I was in high school auto shop we had an old advertisement on the wall for Perfect Circle® piston rings. They began & ended at the same place. They were true – that is, they were not wobbly or warped or flawed. They were not, however, complete. To slip the ring onto the piston there is a little gap. You have to start somewhere. Then, when you are in place, you can do your job.
We can begin where we are, and we can start today. From here we can go on through the year, go on through the circle, the daily round, to a completion – that brings us back to the true starting point of all circles, the center.
Christ is the center: and yet he who was perfect was broken that we might be made whole. He made a gap through which we can enter – into the endless circle of divine life. It’s a perfect circle. And we are invited to take part.
Look at the Trinity icon, at the gazes of the three angels going around and around in a circle of hospitality and love. Theirs is a journey that is always complete, always beginning, always ending, always starting anew – and always welcoming us to join. The Trinity icon shows us the hospitality of God, giving rest to the traveler & strength to the weary, giving us all food for the journey.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
A Man of the City
C Proper 7 RCL
A man of the city – this is how the gospel describes him: not “the Gerasene Demoniac”, not “the appendectomy in Ward 7a”, but a person in relationship to a community. Jesus goes on to ask him your name: he continues to approach the other person with respect, recognizing his human dignity. And when the man is restored to himself, sitting clothed and quiet with Jesus’ feet, Jesus tells him to stay and be a witness in his own community to what God has done for him.
The people of the region see him, and Jesus, as problems. They tried to restrain the man – and he broke free. Jesus strikes fear into their hearts – God can do anything, even restore a man possessed by demons to his right place in the community, perhaps even set everything to rights… with all the problems that would create for the powers that be and those who love them.
Go away, Jesus, you are doing too much good. A little good is enough. If you restore even the demoniacs to their right minds, won’t you also proclaim the year of the Lord and restore us all to our rightful inheritance? Won’t that involve giving up what we’ve gained in our modus vivendi, our accommodation, to Pontius Pilate and the Roman occupiers? To the collaborators in the Sanhedrin and their minions?
Am I going to lose valuable rental property because this guy, the rightful owner, is no longer a raving lunatic in the graveyard, but claiming his place in town?
And worse than that: Jesus did not take him away when he’s gone. The man is still here, still a living witness to the living God. God has done great things for him. And if you don’t watch out, it could happen to you too.
The apostle Paul reminds us that it is not just “a man of the city” who is in chains.
Before faith came, as he put it, we were in bondage ourselves, to sin. The law guarded us, but it was not until faith came – faith and justification by faith in Christ – that we were set free. Acting as a schoolmaster or disciplinarian, the law treated us like unruly children.
Law means the rules and rule-keeping that kept us from sin or self-destruction during a time of our own incapacity (due to sin), as the shackles were meant to keep the man of the city from injuring himself during a demoniac fit. Like him we too lived in tombs – tombs of self-construction, our own vices and habits, which kept us from living freely as people of the city of God.
Jesus called us out of slavery, out of Egypt, out of bondage to our own erroneous ways, into the new land of freedom and ourselves. He gave us the keys to the city – the city not built by human hands, the New Jerusalem, city of God.
When Jesus asked the man his name, he is continuing to address him with dignity. He is also asking, “What is your handle?” as names were powerful in those days and if you had hold of his name you could hold power over a man. His name could give you some power over him just by addressing him, just by knowing who he was.
The sad answer Jesus gets is “Legion” – the man of the city is beset by a host of troubles. Jesus clears them all out, as he cleared the moneychangers from the Temple. This temple of the Holy Spirit, the man’s body, is now restored to its rightful condition, and he is free to praise God.
Like the man who lived among the tombs we have been set free. We are now clothed as he was clothed by Christ, in Christ. We are not now different from one another, one free, one enslaved, one rich, another poor, one privileged, another beset with oppressions. We are all one in Christ Jesus, heirs of hope.
God could raise up sons and daughters to Abraham from the very stones, Jesus taught us. Instead, he has raised us. From among the gravestones he has called us to rise and live. From the tombs of unrighteousness and wrong he has called us out into new life. And we are to witness to him, here in this city, where we live and where we are known. Let us declare what God has done for us.
Proper 7 - Year C - RCL Psalm 43 Galatians 3:23-39 Luke 8:26-39
A man of the city – this is how the gospel describes him: not “the Gerasene Demoniac”, not “the appendectomy in Ward 7a”, but a person in relationship to a community. Jesus goes on to ask him your name: he continues to approach the other person with respect, recognizing his human dignity. And when the man is restored to himself, sitting clothed and quiet with Jesus’ feet, Jesus tells him to stay and be a witness in his own community to what God has done for him.
The people of the region see him, and Jesus, as problems. They tried to restrain the man – and he broke free. Jesus strikes fear into their hearts – God can do anything, even restore a man possessed by demons to his right place in the community, perhaps even set everything to rights… with all the problems that would create for the powers that be and those who love them.
Go away, Jesus, you are doing too much good. A little good is enough. If you restore even the demoniacs to their right minds, won’t you also proclaim the year of the Lord and restore us all to our rightful inheritance? Won’t that involve giving up what we’ve gained in our modus vivendi, our accommodation, to Pontius Pilate and the Roman occupiers? To the collaborators in the Sanhedrin and their minions?
Am I going to lose valuable rental property because this guy, the rightful owner, is no longer a raving lunatic in the graveyard, but claiming his place in town?
And worse than that: Jesus did not take him away when he’s gone. The man is still here, still a living witness to the living God. God has done great things for him. And if you don’t watch out, it could happen to you too.
The apostle Paul reminds us that it is not just “a man of the city” who is in chains.
Before faith came, as he put it, we were in bondage ourselves, to sin. The law guarded us, but it was not until faith came – faith and justification by faith in Christ – that we were set free. Acting as a schoolmaster or disciplinarian, the law treated us like unruly children.
Law means the rules and rule-keeping that kept us from sin or self-destruction during a time of our own incapacity (due to sin), as the shackles were meant to keep the man of the city from injuring himself during a demoniac fit. Like him we too lived in tombs – tombs of self-construction, our own vices and habits, which kept us from living freely as people of the city of God.
Jesus called us out of slavery, out of Egypt, out of bondage to our own erroneous ways, into the new land of freedom and ourselves. He gave us the keys to the city – the city not built by human hands, the New Jerusalem, city of God.
When Jesus asked the man his name, he is continuing to address him with dignity. He is also asking, “What is your handle?” as names were powerful in those days and if you had hold of his name you could hold power over a man. His name could give you some power over him just by addressing him, just by knowing who he was.
The sad answer Jesus gets is “Legion” – the man of the city is beset by a host of troubles. Jesus clears them all out, as he cleared the moneychangers from the Temple. This temple of the Holy Spirit, the man’s body, is now restored to its rightful condition, and he is free to praise God.
Like the man who lived among the tombs we have been set free. We are now clothed as he was clothed by Christ, in Christ. We are not now different from one another, one free, one enslaved, one rich, another poor, one privileged, another beset with oppressions. We are all one in Christ Jesus, heirs of hope.
God could raise up sons and daughters to Abraham from the very stones, Jesus taught us. Instead, he has raised us. From among the gravestones he has called us to rise and live. From the tombs of unrighteousness and wrong he has called us out into new life. And we are to witness to him, here in this city, where we live and where we are known. Let us declare what God has done for us.
Proper 7 - Year C - RCL Psalm 43 Galatians 3:23-39 Luke 8:26-39
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Columba
We tend to think of Columba in terms of where he ended up – Iona – yet where he began was at the end of Europe, in the far west of Ireland, in the little church of St. Enda, in the Aran Islands. It stands today, open to the sky – and surrounded by graves three deep in the churchyard of the village of Killeany: a cloud of witnesses. There is no monastic community on Inishmor – these are the graves of the ordinary people of the island, interred in the sand built up over 15 centuries around the little oratory of the saints of Aran. These ordinary people are the ones here to carry on the faith, to learn, as would we, the traditions of the past and to pass them along to the people of the future.
1500 years ago a young man went to the end of the world to learn to be a leader of Christian communities. Known to us as Columba, “the dove of the church”, he went, as it is remembered on that island, to Inishmor, Aran of the Saints, the island farthest west in the bay of Galway, to enter St Enda’s “spiritual boot camp” (in Sarah’s phrase). In a monastery with room for a dozen monks and their abbot, Enda established a place to learn a model of Christian community that served to evangelize Ireland – and beyond. Like the monastic communities of Martin of Tours, provided a new vessel to convey the gospel to a new generation, a new situation and a new people.
After a spell, the young man, trained as deacon, priest, and poet, left Enda’s school for sanctity, traveling north to found communities in the north of Ireland and then crossed the sea to Iona, a small island in the Western Hebrides – indeed, an island about the size of Inishmor, three or four miles long and a mile wide – where he established the base for communicating the gospel to the Scots. It became the center of evangelism and witness to the people of Scotland, to whom it is a place of pilgrimage, and renewal in the faith, to this day. From there the good news spread to the north of England, where Aidan established his base at Lindisfarne…
June 13, 2007.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html
1500 years ago a young man went to the end of the world to learn to be a leader of Christian communities. Known to us as Columba, “the dove of the church”, he went, as it is remembered on that island, to Inishmor, Aran of the Saints, the island farthest west in the bay of Galway, to enter St Enda’s “spiritual boot camp” (in Sarah’s phrase). In a monastery with room for a dozen monks and their abbot, Enda established a place to learn a model of Christian community that served to evangelize Ireland – and beyond. Like the monastic communities of Martin of Tours, provided a new vessel to convey the gospel to a new generation, a new situation and a new people.
After a spell, the young man, trained as deacon, priest, and poet, left Enda’s school for sanctity, traveling north to found communities in the north of Ireland and then crossed the sea to Iona, a small island in the Western Hebrides – indeed, an island about the size of Inishmor, three or four miles long and a mile wide – where he established the base for communicating the gospel to the Scots. It became the center of evangelism and witness to the people of Scotland, to whom it is a place of pilgrimage, and renewal in the faith, to this day. From there the good news spread to the north of England, where Aidan established his base at Lindisfarne…
June 13, 2007.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html
a school for sanctity - and a base for mission
Columba
From Medieval Sourcebook: Adamnan: Life of St. Columba, Introduction [Seth Seyfried]:
St. Columba was born on December 7, ca. 521 A.D. to Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan in Gartan (Donegal). As a young man, Columba soon took an interest in the church... Columba went north and founded the church of Derry.
Tradition has it that after founding several other monasteries, Columba copied St. Finnian's psalter without the permission of Finnian, and thus devalued the book. When Finnian took the matter to High King Dermott for judgement, Dermott judged in favor of Finnian, stating "to every cow its calf; to every book its copy"... Columba refused to hand over the copy, and Dermott forced the issue militarily. Columba's family and clan defeated Dermott at the battle of Cooldrevny in 561.
Tradition further holds that St. Molaisi of Devenish, Columba's spiritual father, ordered Columba to bring the same number of souls to Christ that he had caused to die as penance. In 563, Columba landed on Iona with 12 disciples, and founded a new monastery. After founding several more monasteries, ... Columba died on June 9, 597.
Source: Life of Saint Columba, Founder of Hy. Written by Adamnan, Ninth Abbot of that Monastery, ed. William Reeves. (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1874) I
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html
***
We tend to think of Columba in terms of where he ended up – Iona – yet where he began was at the end of Europe, in the far west of Ireland, in the little church of St. Enda, in the Aran Islands. It stands today, open to the sky – and surrounded by graves three deep in the churchyard of the village of Killeany: a cloud of witnesses. There is no monastic community on Inishmor – these are the graves of the ordinary people of the island, interred in the sand built up over 15 centuries around the little oratory of the saints of Aran. These ordinary people are the ones here to carry on the faith, to learn, as would we, the traditions of the past and to pass them along to the people of the future.
1500 years ago a young man went to the end of the world to learn to be a leader of Christian communities. Known to us as Columba, “the dove of the church”, he went, as it is remembered on that island, to Inishmor, Aran of the Saints, the island farthest west in the bay of Galway, to enter St Enda’s “spiritual boot camp” (in Sarah’s phrase). In a monastery with room for a dozen monks and their abbot, Enda established a place to learn a model of Christian community that served to evangelize Ireland – and beyond. Like the monastic communities of Martin of Tours, provided a new vessel to convey the gospel to a new generation, a new situation and a new people.
After a spell, the young man, trained as deacon, priest, and poet, left Enda’s school for sanctity, traveling north to found communities in the north of Ireland and then crossed the sea to Iona, a small island in the Western Hebrides – indeed, an island about the size of Inishmor, three or four miles long and a mile wide – where he established the base for communicating the gospel to the Scots. It became the center of evangelism and witness to the people of Scotland, to whom it is a place of pilgrimage, and renewal in the faith, to this day. From there the good news spread to the north of England, where Aidan established his base at Lindisfarne…
The lessons appointed for use on the Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, 597 (June 9th): 1 Corinthians 3:11-23, Psalm 97:1-2, 7-12, or Psalm 98:1-4, and the gospel of Luke 10:17-20.
From Medieval Sourcebook: Adamnan: Life of St. Columba, Introduction [Seth Seyfried]:
St. Columba was born on December 7, ca. 521 A.D. to Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan in Gartan (Donegal). As a young man, Columba soon took an interest in the church... Columba went north and founded the church of Derry.
Tradition has it that after founding several other monasteries, Columba copied St. Finnian's psalter without the permission of Finnian, and thus devalued the book. When Finnian took the matter to High King Dermott for judgement, Dermott judged in favor of Finnian, stating "to every cow its calf; to every book its copy"... Columba refused to hand over the copy, and Dermott forced the issue militarily. Columba's family and clan defeated Dermott at the battle of Cooldrevny in 561.
Tradition further holds that St. Molaisi of Devenish, Columba's spiritual father, ordered Columba to bring the same number of souls to Christ that he had caused to die as penance. In 563, Columba landed on Iona with 12 disciples, and founded a new monastery. After founding several more monasteries, ... Columba died on June 9, 597.
Source: Life of Saint Columba, Founder of Hy. Written by Adamnan, Ninth Abbot of that Monastery, ed. William Reeves. (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1874) I
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html
***
We tend to think of Columba in terms of where he ended up – Iona – yet where he began was at the end of Europe, in the far west of Ireland, in the little church of St. Enda, in the Aran Islands. It stands today, open to the sky – and surrounded by graves three deep in the churchyard of the village of Killeany: a cloud of witnesses. There is no monastic community on Inishmor – these are the graves of the ordinary people of the island, interred in the sand built up over 15 centuries around the little oratory of the saints of Aran. These ordinary people are the ones here to carry on the faith, to learn, as would we, the traditions of the past and to pass them along to the people of the future.
1500 years ago a young man went to the end of the world to learn to be a leader of Christian communities. Known to us as Columba, “the dove of the church”, he went, as it is remembered on that island, to Inishmor, Aran of the Saints, the island farthest west in the bay of Galway, to enter St Enda’s “spiritual boot camp” (in Sarah’s phrase). In a monastery with room for a dozen monks and their abbot, Enda established a place to learn a model of Christian community that served to evangelize Ireland – and beyond. Like the monastic communities of Martin of Tours, provided a new vessel to convey the gospel to a new generation, a new situation and a new people.
After a spell, the young man, trained as deacon, priest, and poet, left Enda’s school for sanctity, traveling north to found communities in the north of Ireland and then crossed the sea to Iona, a small island in the Western Hebrides – indeed, an island about the size of Inishmor, three or four miles long and a mile wide – where he established the base for communicating the gospel to the Scots. It became the center of evangelism and witness to the people of Scotland, to whom it is a place of pilgrimage, and renewal in the faith, to this day. From there the good news spread to the north of England, where Aidan established his base at Lindisfarne…
The lessons appointed for use on the Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, 597 (June 9th): 1 Corinthians 3:11-23, Psalm 97:1-2, 7-12, or Psalm 98:1-4, and the gospel of Luke 10:17-20.
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