Arthur's Table

As was their custom on the feast of Pentecost the Knights of the Round Table gathered with their king at Camelot and regaled each other with tales of their adventures over the past year yet none took his seat until a new adventure had presented itself. And so it was that they not only looked to the past but cast their eyes ahead into the unknown yet eagerly awaited future.

My childhood copy of the tales of those knights and their kings contains several chapters that begin that way. As an early reader I was unsure where the idea of Pentecost came. Only to find out as an adult that it was a day fifty days after Easter that marked the beginning of the church. And to learn later that seven weeks after Passover comes the feast of Shavuot. The feast of the barley harvest and more importantly of the renewal of the covenant on Sinai with God’s people. 

One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of Naomi, Orpah, Ruth, and, eventually, Boaz. Boaz comes in to the story late, after Naomi and her two daughters-in-law become widows. Orpah stays in Moab but Ruth and Naomi trek across a famine-struck terrain to Naomi’s home town, Bethlehem. There they encounter, notably on the threshing floor, Naomi’s cousin Boaz.

The future becomes brighter; indeed Ruth becomes great-grandmother of David… and so this little family becomes the root of the royal family and indeed the holy one.

We might tend to look back as these ancient women might have; might have stuck with safety, as Orpah did; but we might also take a page out of their (four-chapter) book and look ahead.

Not a bad lesson for this spring day.

JRL+

Helen Cohn. "The measure of a people." Keeping the Faith, Home + Life, Arizona Daily Star. Sunday, May 9, 2021. E3.

sailsmanship

https://www.usna.edu/PAO/faq_pages/JPJones.php

 

When I was eight years old my brother’s friend Tom McCall gave me three books: a biography of Ulysses Grant, John Paul Jones: Fighting Sailor by Armstrong Sperry, in the Landmark Books edition from Grosset & Dunlap, Garden City, L.I., N.Y., and a biography of Lou Gehrig.

Recently after finishing Napoleon by Emil Ludwig (1924), I read part of Grant by Ron Chernow (2017). I’m now reading Samuel Eliot Morison, John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography (1959). Can “Pride of the Yankees” (1942) be far behind?

Two years earlier, when I was about six, my great aunt Carol gave me King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, as told by Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Penguin edition. That was a bit over my head at first, but I liked the illustrations, and eventually read it - and kept it.*

Earlier this spring I wrote about King Arthur, and the High Feast of Pentecost on which the knights would gather around the table and relate their adventures of the past year. What I wondered would this year’s feast look like? Would we be gathered again round our common table?

Now I wonder, as I read the praises of famous men, how we are measuring up? How are we individually doing? John Paul Jones was the first American naval hero, deservedly, as we’re told, for his captaincy, his admiralcy (if we allow him that word), his strategy, and his farsighted visions for the future and the good of the navy. 

He was a pill, otherwise: always complaining, always looking out for his own best interests; that is, moderated by an overwhelming patriotism, his chief fault, along with bad luck ashore. Jack ashore, Jack at sea: two differing creatures, in habit and pursuit. And yet we honor him. In the room beneath the chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy, reminiscent of the tomb of Napoleon at Les Invalides, is the tomb of John Paul Jones.

Houdon carved his likeness; the bust is there. He looks like Putin.

Who probably wishes he was Napoleon.

Guess he’s never read War and Peace.

What Jones was admired for was not just cannonading the enemy but how he sailed his ship and how he trained his men, so they would be ready for the encounter and the emergency of battle. That famous victory over Serapis owed as much to sailing and to sharpshooters in the tops as it ever did to big guns (the British had bigger). He prevailed, also, because he persisted.

Even when any other captain would have struck his colors and surrendered, and the pragmatical Capt. Pearson of the Serapis did just that, Jones “had only just begun to fight”.

Perhaps Grant in his way could be said to do the same, to persist; even when his army career was in ruins, something in him stayed strong, his heart stayed strong, and his self-belief, so that when the time came he climbed steadily and surely through the ranks to the summit of power. 


* Later she gave me a deluxe edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I’ve read and kept that too. When I was eight she gave me The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, celebrated author of The Adventures  of Tom Sawyer. ("There were things that he stretched, but mostly he told the truth.")

before the day of Pentecost...

Some weeks ago I speculated that the next time clergy and people in Arizona would gather in public together might be for the Feast of Pentecost. And that reminded me of a story. In fact, of a collection of stories, of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, as retold in a Penguin paperback by Roger Lancelyn Green. The first 'real' book I ever owned (besides The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and Sam and the Firefly) it was a gift of my great-aunt Carol. In it I read over and over the tales that began with "on the feast of Pentecost the Knights of Camelot gathered at the Round Table with King Arthur and recounted their adventures of the past year..." And then a new adventure would begin. We have had a strange year; what new adventure we will face we have yet to see; but we will have more than swords and shields and the strength of a horse to meet its challenges. And of course so did they; they too kept the faith....

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Bishop Jennifer Reddall of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona has announced that she is extending the suspension of public, in-person worship in our congregations until May 25, 2020, pending any additional instructions from the Governor of Arizona.  Later this month the Bishop and Standing Committee will discuss possible criteria for safely opening worship and other church activities. 

https://azdiocese.org/dfc/newsdetail_2/3202788

This year May 25th is the Monday before the Day of Pentecost....

Great adventures begin on Pentecost

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table / newly re-told out of the old romances by Roger Lancelyn Green ; and illustrated by Lotte Reiniger (Penguin Books, 1953), the first 'real' book I ever owned, contains many stories of the wonderful adventures of the mythical days of Camelot.

On the first day of the Round Table, King Arthur bestowed the Order of Chivalry, and adjured all his knights to return to Camelot every year upon the feast of Pentecost to swear their oath anew. Then all would take their places together at the Round Table.

Arthur swore, however, he would not eat that day until some quest or some adventure had come to them - and many did. It became as well the custom of the knights, as they came to the Table each year, to tell of their deeds and their adventures since the last gathering.

And so it was that great adventures began on Pentecost - the Quest of the White Hart, the first Quest of Sir Launcelot, the adventure of Sir Gareth, or The Knight of the Kitchen, and, ultimately, the Quest of the Holy Grail. And so it was that each year as they took their places the members of that great fellowship would recount to one another deeds of knightly daring, acts of courteous chivalry, and journeys of amazed remembrance.

The knights, it seems, like the disciples in the upper room, gathered together expectantly, awaiting something beyond ordinary mortal anticipation, and their wait was rewarded.

There is a hymn in our hymnal, #463/464, based on a poem of W. H. Auden, which I have quoted before in this space. It begins:

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures. ...

The adventures that begin on Pentecost are not just in fairy tales. Through all the ages of the Christian story God’s people have been embarked on an amazing adventure together.

Like the people of Israel, called out of Egypt, crossing Sinai into the Promised Land, or called home again from exile in Babylon to return to that land of promise, God’s people of the new covenant with God in Christ find themselves on a journey.

The beginning and end of that journey, like any true pilgrimage, like in the one who is both Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, of our lives: Christ the living son of God.

Each of us has a part in that great journey of faith, of God’s people, and each of us is on a journey of our own. From the beginning of our life of faith through to its completion, we are following Christ, and finding along the way that we see more than we can tell – but we gladly return to the Table, the Lord’s Table, every Pentecost, every Christmas, every Sunday, bringing with us tales of experiences that are rare indeed, uniquely ours, but sharing in common the calling and the faith and the fellowship that we find together.

Pentecost brings with it the bestowing of rare gifts – each unique, but each a part of the one great gift of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the holy Breath (Hebrew: ruach) of God upon his disciples. Every gift and each equips us for the great adventure. And so, blessed by God, we go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.

From the Rector's Study
For the Gospel Grapevine, May 2009

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Pentecost 2008

Fifty days after Easter comes the feast called Pentecost (which means 50 days). The people of Israel celebrated the harvest of grain, and the giving of the Torah, the Law, on the mountain.

Every year at the feast-time of Pentecost the followers of the king would gather together under one roof to await the arrival of a new adventure. They would take again the vows they had made on how they would treat other people, then gather at the table, but wait to sit down to eat until an adventure came to them.

[They met in a great castle in an enchanted kingdom. They were a mighty fellowship, a great group of friends, who met every year together, 50 days after Easter, on the feast day of Pentecost. There, gathered all together under one roof, they awaited and adventure. One year, a green knight rode into the midst of their banquet and challenged anyone brave enough to chop off his head with one blow. Another year, a damsel entered in tears; and the kitchen knave followed her on a quest. And there was another group of friends, followers of a king, who gathered every year at Passover and Shavuot, the harvest-festival 7 weeks later...]

One year, the king himself was not there; and they gathered in great fear, huddled together for safety. They were all together under one roof, all right, but they were worried because their king was gone – would he ever come back?

And yet -- That year the adventure was greater than ever. That was the day that the greatest adventure of all began.

Before he left them, their king had promised to send them a comforter, a counselor – a spirit like a strong wind or a powerful storm, the breath of God. That is what ‘spirit’ means – breath, or wind. (It is from the Hebrew word ‘ruach’ which means breath or spirit or wind.)

What entered the room that spring was the sound of a strong wind – like the wind that blew when Elijah was on the mountain – and a fire – like the burning bush that Moses saw on the mountain – like tongues of flame that rested on their heads.

The promise of the King had begun to come true. For soon they were no longer afraid.

Each of them found they could speak in a language they didn’t even know; but other people could understand them. They spoke boldly, of great things their Lord had done.

What they told, and what they heard, were stories of the mighty deeds of the king – their teacher, their master, and their leader, who was the Son of God.

There were people there from all around, near and far, listening – and even though the first followers of the king were all from the same country, these new people heard the stories of the great deeds of God each in their very own language. Wherever they were from, far away across the earth, suddenly they were at home, there in Jerusalem – hearing the words they’d heard back home at their own firesides. And the words were like flames, warming their hearts and brightening their eyes, until they, too, sang of the great things God had done – and was doing.

What is Pentecost? It is Shavu’ot, the Festival of Weeks, held seven weeks after Passover. It is a harvest festival for spring grain: the feast of the first fruits of the field. And it is the day the Jewish people remember the giving of the Law to Moses on the mountain. It is the feast-day 50 days after Easter Sunday – and it is the day that the followers of Jesus received, together, God’s presence in this strange, new, mighty way.

Who are the followers of Jesus? Back then they were Peter and Paul and Mary. And Persis and Salome and James. And John and Mark and Joanna … who are they today? Look around you! They have all gathered together, under one roof. They are the people in this room, and that includes you.

What do Jesus’ followers do? Back then they talked about the great things God does. They talked about the world God has made. They talked about the people he has loved. And they talked about what he has done for them. And they talked about the great things God was doing, right then and there.

And now … we talk about the same things! What a wonderful world this is, the love that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit have for us, and how that helps us treat each other better.

And what adventures did they have back then? They spread the word of God’s love for his people through out the world.

What else do they do? Back then, the power of the Spirit came upon them – and they went out into the world, spreading the good news of the kingdom of God, and showing what it meant by how they lived. They followed what their Lord had taught them: Love God whole-heartedly, with your mind whole and your spirit strong. Love your neighbor just as you would love yourself. Love one another.

What adventures do we have now? What adventures have you had already? What adventures are waiting for us, right around the corner – or even right now, while we are all together under one roof?

What the Knights of the Round Table were charged to do, the first day they gathered at the Round Table, on Pentecost, the day they swore their oath, is very much the same as what we are called to do:

“For the glory of the realm of righteousness do not ever depart from the high virtues of the realm.

“Do no outrage nor murder nor any cruel or wicked thing; fly from treason and all untruthfulness and dishonest dealing; give mercy unto those that seek it – and always give all the help in your power” to those who require it: the weak, the poor, the powerless.

Go out to help them, right the wrongs they have suffered, and never do any ill to them or allow it to be done. Be the voice for the voiceless; speak out for righteousness, and work for justice, that peace may reign upon the earth.

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


JRL+

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Roger Lancelyn Green, King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (Penguin, 1953) 63. Given me by my great aunt, Carol Mattingly: my first ‘real book’: I was about six.