Today's Scripture Readings
Genesis 26: 26-31 (NRSV)
John 15: 5-8, 14-16 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
As an Episcopalian and an Oblate of St. Benedict, I am delighted to be commemorating today one our Benedictine Monks who went on to be an outstanding Bishop.
Wulfstan was educated in the Benedictine Abbeys of Evesham and Peterborough. He spent most of his life in the Cathedral Monastery of Worcester as monk, prior and then as Bishop of the see from 1062 until his death on January 18, 1095. (See Holy Women, Holy Men; p. 176).
The times that Wulfstan lived in the time of the Norman Conquest of Berkhamstead, and though he was sympathetic to King Harold of Wessex, he submitted to the wishes of William the Conqueror. He was one of the few Anglo-Saxon bishops to keep his see as the Conquest of the Normans in England over threw the typical way of life in 1066.
It must have been very difficult for Wulfstan to submit to those who had caused his country and the Church so much pain. However, Wulfstan did what the Rule of St. Benedict and the Gospel asked of him. He avoided the "self-seeking" attitudes that can be very problematic during such a period of time.
This commemoration and the Scripture Readings that accompany it are both wonderful and challenging.
In the Reading from Hebrew Scripture we see a very rare event. Individuals who are suspicious of each other sitting down and learning about the other and coming to a place of friendship and peace.
How wonderful it would be if Governments, churches, and groups with opposing views could sit down together; peacefully and with interest in each other to learn about one another.
Do you think if that those who target Muslims suspecting all of them as terrorists would actually let go of their suspicions long enough to sit down and learn about the goods of the Islamic faith and stop all their violent language?
Do you think people who insist on taking away a woman's rights to chose what reproductive health care is best for them, could sit down with people who are faced with their "choices" without using the extreme language of "killing" and "murder" long enough to hear about the tragedies of women who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted? Do you think those of us who do support a woman's right to chose would actually be able to talk about how damaging the loss of health care, education funding, job creation programs, funding for day care centers are to women who want to chose to give birth to a child?
Can those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer (LGBTQ) sit down with those who want to take away our rights for job discrimination, marriage equality and the like and actually feel like we have accomplished something?
If your answer to these questions includes: "Yes, I would love to, but the other side just won't listen" that is my response too. LOL
The only way we will be able to constructively converse with our opponents is for us to tell our stories through how we live as well as through whatever means help us to tell that story best. We will not be able to tell our stories if we respond to violent rhetoric with returned violence. Call them out for what they say and suggest doing, but do so in a way that we respect both them and ourselves; and we will "heap coals on the devil's forehead."
Our Gospel reading; one of my favorites; reminds us that those of us who call ourselves Christians are held together by a Person who's Name is Jesus Christ. Jesus is our connection to God and the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, all of us are connected to each other. By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; which we participate in through our Baptism; we become one with Christ and each other as we join Christ on the Cross and meet him at the empty tomb. In participating in Holy Communion we continue to be nourished by the Presence of God and recommit ourselves to reverencing God's Presence in others as well as ourselves.
Jesus in this Gospel is reminding us that he is the one by which we are bound to each other and that includes those that we struggle with in our relationships. Jesus tells us that we cannot accomplish living out the Gospel and loving one another in a holy and life-giving way, unless we root ourselves in him.
It is most interesting that in addition to commemorating Wulfstan, that today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict is the following.
I am going to add the next verse which is not part of today's reading. "Place your hope in God." (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 4, The Tools for Good Works, vs 41).
As soon as I read all of this I realize I stink at what God and St. Benedict are asking me to do. When I read about some Christianist who suggests that I am really a pedophile for wanting to marry my husband, I want to and sometimes do say every nasty word I can think of. I eat too much. I get tired of people treating me as a door mat. I get confused and discouraged.
Wait a minute! St. Benedict tells me to "Place my hope in God."
Jesus calls me; a guy who messes up time and again, Jesus' friend. Jesus wants me to be grafted into him so he can keep me connected to God in all of my disconnectedness. God invites me to a death of myself so that I can live in God. By giving up my life and my will, I live new life. I have to struggle to do this time and time again. Whether I succeed or fail; God still loves me. God loves me as a gay man and as someone who struggles even more with social communications because of Asperger's Syndrome.
God is not asking of us to get it perfect. Salvation is not a matter of doing everything for the purpose of gaining something. It is a matter of trusting and faithfully putting one foot in front of the other, doing the best we can, and letting God do the rest. Should we trip up and fall, God asks that we get up and begin again. In Christ, God is with us when we fail and start a new.
The point is all of us are connected to each other. Whether we like it or not
St. Benedict's Rule reminds us as does the Gospel that all of us; regardless of where we are in our faith journey are all beginners; and are told to never give up on God who never gives up on us.
Prayers
Genesis 26: 26-31 (NRSV)
Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army. Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?’ They said, ‘We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we say, let there be an oath between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you so that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.’ So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths; and Isaac set them on their way, and they departed from him in peace.
John 15: 5-8, 14-16 (NRSV)
Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
"You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name."
Blog Reflection
As an Episcopalian and an Oblate of St. Benedict, I am delighted to be commemorating today one our Benedictine Monks who went on to be an outstanding Bishop.
Wulfstan was educated in the Benedictine Abbeys of Evesham and Peterborough. He spent most of his life in the Cathedral Monastery of Worcester as monk, prior and then as Bishop of the see from 1062 until his death on January 18, 1095. (See Holy Women, Holy Men; p. 176).
The times that Wulfstan lived in the time of the Norman Conquest of Berkhamstead, and though he was sympathetic to King Harold of Wessex, he submitted to the wishes of William the Conqueror. He was one of the few Anglo-Saxon bishops to keep his see as the Conquest of the Normans in England over threw the typical way of life in 1066.
It must have been very difficult for Wulfstan to submit to those who had caused his country and the Church so much pain. However, Wulfstan did what the Rule of St. Benedict and the Gospel asked of him. He avoided the "self-seeking" attitudes that can be very problematic during such a period of time.
This commemoration and the Scripture Readings that accompany it are both wonderful and challenging.
In the Reading from Hebrew Scripture we see a very rare event. Individuals who are suspicious of each other sitting down and learning about the other and coming to a place of friendship and peace.
How wonderful it would be if Governments, churches, and groups with opposing views could sit down together; peacefully and with interest in each other to learn about one another.
Do you think if that those who target Muslims suspecting all of them as terrorists would actually let go of their suspicions long enough to sit down and learn about the goods of the Islamic faith and stop all their violent language?
Do you think people who insist on taking away a woman's rights to chose what reproductive health care is best for them, could sit down with people who are faced with their "choices" without using the extreme language of "killing" and "murder" long enough to hear about the tragedies of women who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted? Do you think those of us who do support a woman's right to chose would actually be able to talk about how damaging the loss of health care, education funding, job creation programs, funding for day care centers are to women who want to chose to give birth to a child?
Can those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer (LGBTQ) sit down with those who want to take away our rights for job discrimination, marriage equality and the like and actually feel like we have accomplished something?
If your answer to these questions includes: "Yes, I would love to, but the other side just won't listen" that is my response too. LOL
The only way we will be able to constructively converse with our opponents is for us to tell our stories through how we live as well as through whatever means help us to tell that story best. We will not be able to tell our stories if we respond to violent rhetoric with returned violence. Call them out for what they say and suggest doing, but do so in a way that we respect both them and ourselves; and we will "heap coals on the devil's forehead."
Our Gospel reading; one of my favorites; reminds us that those of us who call ourselves Christians are held together by a Person who's Name is Jesus Christ. Jesus is our connection to God and the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, all of us are connected to each other. By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; which we participate in through our Baptism; we become one with Christ and each other as we join Christ on the Cross and meet him at the empty tomb. In participating in Holy Communion we continue to be nourished by the Presence of God and recommit ourselves to reverencing God's Presence in others as well as ourselves.
Jesus in this Gospel is reminding us that he is the one by which we are bound to each other and that includes those that we struggle with in our relationships. Jesus tells us that we cannot accomplish living out the Gospel and loving one another in a holy and life-giving way, unless we root ourselves in him.
It is most interesting that in addition to commemorating Wulfstan, that today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict is the following.
Your way of acting should be different form the world's way; the love of Christ must come before all else. You are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge. Rid your heart of all deceit. Never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away from someone who needs your love. Bind yourself to no oath lest it prove false, but speak the truth with heart and tongue.
Do not repay one bad turn with another (1 Thess 5: 15; 1 Pet 3:9). Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently. Love your enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27). If people curse you, do not curse back but bless them instead. Endure persecution for the sake of justice (Matt 5: 10). (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 4. Tools of Good Works, verses 20-33).
"A peacemaker's paragraph," writes Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, "this is one who confronts us with the Gospel stripped and unadorned. Nonviolence, it says is the center of the monastic life. It doesn't talk about conflict resolution; it says don't begin the conflict. It doesn't talk about communication barriers; it says, stay gentle even with those who are not gentle with you. It doesn't talk about winning; it talks about loving" (The Rule of Benedict, p. 58).
You must not be proud, nor be given to wine (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3). Refrain from too much eating or sleeping and from laziness (Rom 12:11). Do not grumble or speak ill of others. (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 4, The Tools for Good Works, v 34-40).
"Benedict reminds us, too, that physical control and spiritual perspective are linked: pride and gluttony and laziness are of a piece. We expect too much, we consume too much, and we contribute too little. We give ourselves over to ourselves. We become engorged with ourselves and, as a result, there is no room left for the stripped-down, stark, and simple furniture of the soul" (Sr. Joan Chittester, The Rule of Benedict, p. 60.61).
I am going to add the next verse which is not part of today's reading. "Place your hope in God." (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 4, The Tools for Good Works, vs 41).
As soon as I read all of this I realize I stink at what God and St. Benedict are asking me to do. When I read about some Christianist who suggests that I am really a pedophile for wanting to marry my husband, I want to and sometimes do say every nasty word I can think of. I eat too much. I get tired of people treating me as a door mat. I get confused and discouraged.
Wait a minute! St. Benedict tells me to "Place my hope in God."
Jesus calls me; a guy who messes up time and again, Jesus' friend. Jesus wants me to be grafted into him so he can keep me connected to God in all of my disconnectedness. God invites me to a death of myself so that I can live in God. By giving up my life and my will, I live new life. I have to struggle to do this time and time again. Whether I succeed or fail; God still loves me. God loves me as a gay man and as someone who struggles even more with social communications because of Asperger's Syndrome.
God is not asking of us to get it perfect. Salvation is not a matter of doing everything for the purpose of gaining something. It is a matter of trusting and faithfully putting one foot in front of the other, doing the best we can, and letting God do the rest. Should we trip up and fall, God asks that we get up and begin again. In Christ, God is with us when we fail and start a new.
The point is all of us are connected to each other. Whether we like it or not
St. Benedict's Rule reminds us as does the Gospel that all of us; regardless of where we are in our faith journey are all beginners; and are told to never give up on God who never gives up on us.
Prayers
Almighty God, your only-begotten Son led captivity captive and gave gifts to your people: Multiply among us faithful pastors, who, like your holy bishop Wulfstan, will give courage to those who are oppressed and held in bondage: and bring us all, we pray, into the true freedom of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, p. 177)
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light
of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word
and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's
glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the
ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with
you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and
for ever. Amen. (Collect for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Book of Common Prayer, p. 215).
Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the
world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among
them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they
may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen. (Prayer for Peace Among the Nations, Book of Common Prayer, p. 816).
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love
our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth:
deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in
your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for Our Enemies, Book of Common Prayer, p. 816).
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