It was a joyous event filled with true spirit. Visit us to share the good news. http://theholyapostles.com

The series of events that have occurred over the last year or so, have left the congregation of Holy Apostles Episcopal Mission without a sanctuary to call home. It will do no good to wonder about the what if’s and whatever’s of the decisions that led to our current circumstance. “It is what it is.” It’s time to move forward.

The majority of our small congregation will be “spreading the love” after the beginning of the new year. Our vision is to visit a new place of worship each week, and then get together afterwards to discuss how each of us felt about the experience. After our meeting we will post some of the comments and feelings we came away with on our website.

We also will be continuing our Bible Study group, “What was Jesus Thinking”. We’ll more than likely continue to hold our meetings at the church at Brighton and Fries, Tuesday evenings, 7:00 PM. The Diocese has offered the use of the building for as long as it is feasible and for that we are grateful.

I’d like to give a special thanks to Rev. Sare. She has been a true inspiration and guiding light for our congregation. Her insights, love and friendship have been our binding force over the last year. Thank you and May God bless.

This is going to be an exciting time for our community. We hope you’ll stop back at the website often to find the latest news, events and announcements of The Holy Apostles.

Peace

Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus (as if we weren’t certain)… he brings the ole memories back.  I remember having to do an in depth study into this passage for my introduction to the New Testament course.  I researched the meaning of every significant word in the original Greek, cross referencing with other places in the Bible those words had been found, comparing meanings, secondary meanings, tertiary meanings, and finally honed in on one or two points and wrote a several page paper on these six verses.

Do I remember one single, solitary thing about it?

Nope.

Granted, this may be more a function of the way my mind works than a commentary on the usefulness of the exercise.  If I don’t actively maintain information in my head, I lose it, and as much as I love literary criticism, my realization that I love literary criticism and that it could expand to a love of biblical criticism has been rather new on the epiphany front.  Right now I’m just trying to catch up to where progressive theology and biblical criticism was ten years ago.  Once I get there, I’ll work from that place.  I may be slow, but I am somewhat tenacious when something captures my attention.  I believe they call it an obsessive personality…

Speaking of which.  The current reading is “The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus”, a new translation and commentary of the four canonical gospels + Thomas by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar. Published in 1993.

I know, the Jesus Seminar is old news.  It is hot stuff no longer.  Look at me not caring.

I adored my Seminary experience, I really did.  It wasn’t all peaches and cream, but it was exactly what the spirit ordered, it really was.  When it comes to theology, however, there are brief moments of ire in which I feel so bloody behind it’s not even funny.  In those brief moments I wish I’d gone to EDS.  Thankfully those moments are brief and fleeting, and I’m back to my standard adoration of Virginia Theological Seminary and my seminary mates, who still rank among the people I love.

Spirit of God, lend us your liveliness and courage to time and time again think and do and be in the world in the spirit of love taught to us by Jesus, we ask through the same Messiah, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

There are days I wonder how Jesus put up with his disciples.

Yes, okay, most of the time I have the proper humility and I put myself in their shoes and I think, sure, sure, that would be difficult, anyone would kick their best friend when they were down, in the face of the Roman Empire, and with the threat of your own painful death before, sure, sure…  But days like today… well, if I were in charge of a modern-day reinactment of this part of Mark, I’m sure Jesus would have done a *facepalm*, possibly growled and might have let loose a string of profanity.  I’ve got the phrases all lined up.  I shant repeat them, here.

It’s just one of those moments – you know them.  It’s the moment when you and someone you love/trust are going along and you think you’re on the same page.  You think you’ve been on the same page for quite some time.  You’re in the lead, but that’s only because you intuitively get the lay of the land a bit better, but it doesn’t matter, right? Because you’re all on the same page! Right.

And then the person/people you’re with who are supposed to be on the same bloody page as you bust out with the classic stupid question that flaunts their ignorance.  

Now, I’ve always considered myself of the school that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I think I could refine that.  I think there is no bad in a questioning attitude, a discerning mind, but when people bring their arrogance, their power, and going beyond this story, their hatred and malice, when they bring these things and throw them at you in question form…  Oh, no. No, no, no.

Jesus doesn’t roll that way.

There are two things I think about when I read this passage these days.  In no particular order, as the order depends on my mood on any given day, I think about the weirdness of translation, and I think of some of my favorite principles of Buddhism.  So let me tell you what a camel and a sewing machine have to do with Zen…

To quote the Message translation (yes, yes, if you don’t like it, go look it up in the bible of your choice, then), when Jesus is driving one particular point home he uses possibly the weirdest damn metaphor in the entirety of the Christian Holy Scriptures.  I grew up with it, so it was a while (um, 30 years) until I realized just how bizzaro it was, and that’s saying something since I noticed other bizarre things about scripture much earlier on.  Like the entire book of Job.  But I digress.  So. The story has Jesus saying the following: “I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich man to get into God’s kingdom.”

Ouch.  Like, on a lot of levels.  And, while we’re at it… Huh?

I’ve heard theories (and I’m sure they’re referenced somewhere, but honestly, I have no idea where) that ‘the eye of a needle’ thing was really just a reference to a really tricky bit of geography that was difficult for camels to go through.  I’ve heard theories (again with the references) that it’s a bad translation, and that the word that looks/sounds like Camel also looks/sounds like Rope, which at least wouldn’t be mixing weird metaphors.  Either way, Jesus was trying to drive home a point, and though perhaps like Sotomayor’s rhetorical flourish that fell flat on the shoes of the Republican Senators with as much welcome as post-party projectile vomiting, so Jesus confuses and confounds us, his point, if we will allow ourselves to detach our terrier-like attention from the worrying details, is that the confounding and confusing thing he’d said a moment before, the very thing that his even his disciples were a bit squicky about… that thing, he meant it.  He really meant it.

So, enter my musings about Buddhism.

Non-attachment.  It’s a biggie in Buddhist circles.  Non-attachment to the outcome.  Non-attachment to stuff.  Non-attachment emotions.  Non-attachment to people.  Non-attachment to… yes.  Name something.  Non-attachment to it.  Now, non-attachment isn’t to be confused with a lack of compassion, or empathy, or if you will, a deep and abiding love… But it is love utterly without fear.  No fear of death, no fear of loss, no fear of lack of control, no fear of diminishment, all things that so often get all mixed up in our concepts of love, even without our realizing it.

Without our realizing it – now isn’t that just an operative phrase?  To realize something about ourselves requires a deep looking, an awareness that few of us manifest on a regular basis.  Doesn’t mean we’re not capable of it.  Doesn’t mean we don’t do it sometimes.  Doesn’t mean perhaps we’re one of those that do it often.  But as a people, it’s not something that’s highly valued in our society.  Perhaps that is true because when we start to look deeply into ourselves we see things we don’t like?  Well, that’s okay, too.  Practicing compassion is a good thing, and we can certainly start with ourselves.  

But this non-attachment thing is big.  It’s bigger than Buddhism, but certainly the Buddha pas put it in possibly the most succinct way of any spiritual teacher or wise person.  Jesus was all about it.  Don’t worry about what you will eat, or what you will wear, look at the lilies in the field… they’re prettier than all of us combined, and they don’t freak out about this stuff… And, sure, I paraphrased Jesus, but so did the gospel writers, so I’m in good company.  And then there’s this passage, today.  A good person who follows all the rules walks up and asks Jesus what he needs to do to gain the kingdom, to reach enlightenment, to be saved (pick your terminology).  And he’s already done all the typical stuff.  His ducks are all in a row.  I wonder if he wanted a pat on the back, or maybe he was in complete earnestness – who knows?  But then Jesus goes and blows him out the water.  Non-attachment.  Doing everything ‘right’ but still not feeling it? Okay, give up all your worldly goods, and dedicate your life to living these teachings and teaching them to others.

Eeeek!  And the guy goes away very sad, cause dude, he had a lot of good stuff at home.  Nice couches, Ming vases, a Summer home in Ostia… Okay, maybe not.  But you get the point.

So what’s the point? Is it that there is an ideal, and it is rather monastic, no matter what the religion?  Give it all up, have two pairs of shoes, three robes and a set of underwear to your name?  Nope.  Cause then we’ll start fighting over the robes and the underwear.  Trust me.  Millennia of monastic traditions all over the world have taught us this.  Even if we have nothing, we have our pride, and if all else fails, we can be attached to that.

No, the point is not to be attached at all.  So what is the opposite of non-attachment?  What is the positive of that negative statement?  I’ll take Eckhart Tolle’s definition, which is three tier and one is applicable in any given situation.  The opposite of non-attachment is either Acceptance (no matter the situation, we can accept that it is true, that it exists), En-Joyment (sometimes, we can infuse a situation with joy), En-thusiasm (from the latin root, to be possessed by a god, some situations merit this)… and none of these things require, or flourish, when we’re attached to the situation, be the situation our career, our flat screen TV, our sex lives, or an anticipated event.

Another way to think of non-attachment, particularly to the outcome, is a great bit from T.S. Eliot’s East Coker:  Wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

Prayer

Let your never-say-die love, O God, renew and remake the Church; and, because it cannot continue in health without your help, feed and water it with your Spirit so that it may flourish enough to bring light and life to all the world; through Jesus Christ our Messiah, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Exercise

Spend five minutes, three times a day, looking within yourself to see if you can find the seed of love that God has already planted within you.  Maybe it’s still a seed.  Maybe it’s already starting to take root in your life. What does it look like? What does it feel like?  How is it affecting your life? Having trouble finding it? –recall a time you felt affection, or compassion, or joy, or hope, or peace. Relive the experience.  This will be the opposite of what you feel when you’re having road rage, or busy being quietly resentful against a colleague or family member.  Get in touch with that positive sensation and explore it.  Look at it.  Poke it once or twice.  Get to know it.  See if you can provoke it into happening…  But mostly, just find it, this week. (Advanced studies on love and compassion to follow…

Daily Office for Thursday  in Proper 9, Year 1.  We’re sticking with First Samuel today, and the story continues on, 16:14-17:11, in which we see God exit stage left, Saul go mad, his court present the the harp cure, thus introducing David into his good graces… and the beginning of a battle scene with the philistine threat, as my OT professor always used to say. (Threatening because they had advanced metalworking and chariots, besides whatever strength of numbers they also might have had.)  But the story stops before they get to the good bits – the whole slingshot David-n-Goliath episode.

Nope.  Tonight’s episode simply ends after Goliath challenges the army, utterly intimidating them.  And when they heard this, they lost all hope.

I’ve got no other commentary on that, other than to say, yep.  Been there.  In all sincerity, I’ve been there.  Haven’t most of us?

There’s all kinds of good stuff in the readings today.  In Acts 10:1-16, Peter has his vision about what to eat, and over in 1 Samuel 16:1-13, God is telling Samuel to calm the hell down, get over Saul, and go do a little spy v. spy and anoint the new king.

As interesting as I find food (and dude, I finally cooked something for potluck, and it rocked. No one died) let’s talk about Samuel, because a little undercover work always beats out barbecued rattlesnake in my book.  Okay.  I admit.  I’ve never actually had barbecued rattlesnake, and the closest I’ve come to undercover work is the International Spy Museum and the collective knowledge of entirely too many Cold War movies, but we’re still going with Samuel.

There are a few things here that draw my attention.  The first (and only one I’ll get to today) is that God gives Samuel a swift kick where the sun don’t shine because Our Favorite Prophet is being mopey.  He had to make a hard decision (arguably God made it through him, but one never knows) and cut off Saul from God’s blessing (and, um, ouch anyone?) but like my parents used to say right before they beat me for some infraction, ‘This is going to hurt me more than you.’  While I was never quite convinced that was true, and I’m still not – adults have highly developed coping mechanisms that help them deal with emotional and physical pain much more so than children for whom the experience, depending on the child is laced with the terror that does not abate, thank you very much, it is also clear that Samuel was pretty torn up by what he had to do.  I daresay Saul was more pained, but that is neither here nor there.

I’ve always (okay, since my OT courses in Seminary) had a soft spot for Saul.  I mean… dude.  He, like all of us, was just doing the best he could, which admittedly wasn’t so hot in moments.  As a moral human being, the much vaunted David was actually much worse, but the difference is that David never disrespected God directly – just indirectly in every way possible, if we are to do what we ought not and judge by modern standards.  But I get it.  Saul was a king of the old world – he was strong and powerful, and everything a king was supposed to be in that time.  And a message here (if not THE message here) is that just because you have a king that is all that by every modern standard, it doesn’t mean anything if you (collectively) have no respect for the living God.

But of course, having ‘respect for the living God’ is a much debated thing.  Pick a practice, any practice, be it nature conservancy, abortion, gun control, corporal punishment, the death sentence, gay marriage, racial and gender equality, defense spending, the stimulus package, having a black president, a woman primate or a gay bishop… pick a practice, any practice and I can find you two people of deep conviction and righteous living who will be able to argue sincerely the question, each from opposing sides.  Most days I find that a strength of our culture.  However, as Cokie Roberts has observed on air at some point on NPR, reflecting on her life growing up with a Senator as a father, gone are the days when we can have such debates while simultaneously holding a deep respect for our debate partner, regardless of how much we may disagree with them.  

And I’d like to know – could we get that back, please?

Of course, I know what it means.  It means we’d have to start talking with one another again.  We’d have to start having fun with one another again.  We’d have to start getting to know one another again – the little things, which lead to the big things.  Because when we know about the little league games and the parents in the nursing homes and the stresses of raising a teenager we start to understand the hopes and dreams and pains and fears of the people across the aisle from us, no matter what the question is.  And when we realize that their hopes and dreams and pains and fears are so very shockingly similar to our own, we understand too that we share more than we don’t.  We share humanity.  Our humanity is greater than our petty squabbles.

At least, I hope it is.

Still.  I can’t help but have compassion for Saul.  He, like many leaders who ended up in failure, did the best he could.  And it still wasn’t enough.  Our histories, personal, national, and international, are filled with the same story on an infinite loop.

It was great to see so many people whose t-shirts and outfits proclaimed they were exploring their own sexuality in healthy ways mingling around with families, kids, the religious, non-profits, for-profits – as if to say, ‘God made me like this – whether or not you want to accept it is moot.’

I was part of a twitter conversation between some people who had divergent views on whether or not the Pride festivities should be family friendly, and one person said yes, the other no.  I understand where the ‘No’ vote was coming from – he was on the Marcella’s float, which always has many beautiful people wearing not so much clothing, but my view is this: God made us beautiful, and beautifully.  If more children got a chance to witness more people secure in their sexuality, in their bodies… well, in the words of one my parishioners, ‘maybe we’d have fewer gay teens trying to commit suicide.’  Indeed.  Maybe we’d have few straight teens committing suicide as well, to say nothing about our culture’s serious issues with eating disorders.

Anyway, on an up note: it was great fun, passing out a little cheer and having a little impact on the lives of complete strangers.