Today's Scripture Readings
From the Commemoration of St. Polycarp
Revelation 2:8-11 (NRSV)
Psalm 121 (Book of Common Prayer, p. 779)
Matthew 20:20-23 (NRSV)
From the Lectionary for Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Luke 9: 23-25 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
Today is one of those days where we have excellent choices from Holy Scripture for both the Thursday after Ash Wednesday and for today's commemoration of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. This is also one of those very rare occasions when the Gospel from both Lectionaries can easily speak to and/or about one another.
Polycarp was a pupil of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist. According to the short biography on page 238 of Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Polycarp was appointed a Bishop by "Apostles in Asia." He was very firm in his Faith in Jesus Christ. It is believed that he was executed by being burned at the stake on February 23, probably in the year 156 in the amphitheater at Smyrna. It was a day, when many Christians had been fed to the wild beasts at the request of many who found the Christians to be a nuisance. Polycarp went to his death saying a prayer of absolute faith in Jesus Christ, to the point of thanking God for having found him worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ.
The Gospel readings for his commemoration and on this Thursday after Ash Wednesday are an invitation to examine our own commitment to God's call on those who follow Jesus Christ. Both narratives can be summed up in the understanding that being a disciple of Jesus Christ will call upon us carry our cross through self-denial and the handing over of ourselves to be transformed by the power of God's redeeming grace.
What does this mean for us as we begin Lent 2012? How are we being called to "deny ourselves?" What is it that God might be calling us to "lose" for the sake of Jesus Christ?
I cannot answer these questions for every person. They have to be answered by each person, as God calls each of us to their own observances of Lent.
As for myself, this past week my eyes have been opened and my hardness of heart softened. Last weekend, while Jason and I were walking around the Mall of America, we wondered into Barnes & Noble. As we were looking through the Christian Inspiration section, I found a book entitled Jesus Was A Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All by Rev. Scotty McLennan. As I read through the contents and read little excerpts from a few places, I found myself seeing my own beliefs in a mirror, yet challenged in a way that I have ever so been needing. That in and of itself was an eye opener. However, when I started to a short description of the author on the outside back cover, I was stunned to be tied up and gagged. Rev. Scotty is a minister in the Unitarian Universalist Association. If a bolt of lightening had struck me then and there, I might not have felt a thing. As I have been reading into the book, I have found myself respectfully disagreeing with the position he has taken with regards to the Divinity of Christ. I also disagree with the denial of the centrality of God becoming human in Christ that Rev. McLennan has arrived at. However, what he has written about with regard the Person of Jesus Christ and the mission that Christians are called to by virtue of who Christ was; as those who are to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Jesus; there are Christians who say the Nicene Creed without error who could not have written about Christ as well as Rev. McLennan has.
I have been reading with great interest about Rev. Scotty's struggle with the Presbyterian faith that he was raised in. How by the time he graduated from high school he had become an Atheist. He later found what he learned during his college years at Yale University about science, mathematics, and various world religions, led him back to God. He recognized the amazing things the Infinite God did through a man named Jesus Christ. Before he arrived there, he tells his story while he uses quotations taken from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., examining the works of Darwin, Einstein and studying Mohandas Gandhi and the great Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr and many more, that he understood the importance of Jesus' example of seeking the marginalized and the exploited to restore to them that sense of dignity and integrity that comes from being a person created in the image and likeness of God. McLennan even recognizes that at the core of Jesus Christ, is the God who is Love.
After reading what I have from McLennan, and continuing with my devotion to The Rule of St. Benedict and the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer, and the Scripture readings, I think there are some things that Christians need to take a good hard look at during this Lent.
Among the many things we Christians need to "deny ourselves" of and "lose for the sake of the Gospel" is thinking that we are the center of the universe. Christians are an important part of the universe of God's creation and redemption, but we are not an end in and of ourselves. It is really most important that we get our own act together and not concentrate so much on trying to convert every person who thinks, believes and behaves differently than we do.
It is important for us as Christians to hang on to what we believe to be true. Among them, that God has revealed God's Self in the three distinct Persons known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Or if you prefer, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. The belief that God became one like us in the Word made Flesh in Jesus the Christ. The hope of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit to continue to "lead us into all truth." To hold to our hearts and minds, and show through our lives that God loves all people unconditionally and inclusively.
It is equally important for those of us who hold these central truths of what it means to be Christian for us, to allow God to transform us first and foremost.
During this time of Lent, we would do well to allow God to speak to those places where we push God out of the center, and make ourselves our own god. We need to recognize that one of the ways we do that is by insisting that everyone who claims to be Christian or a good person who seeks the common good of others, must think, act, dress, love, talk and be what we think they should be. As for me, I must accept that there are Christians who do not believe as I do. Who pray and think differently. I must learn to see God working in everyone, even those who are different from myself. I must leave them to God, and be sure I am being faithful and true to who God is to me, and doing what God asks of me. Yet, I also believe that God calls upon me to reverence the Presence of the Lord in all persons. Therefore, I cannot look at Jews, Unitarians, Atheists, Muslims, Native Americans and so forth, as being less than who they are.
It is important for Christians, including and especially me, to allow God the Holy Spirit to rip open those Pandora's Boxes that Bishop Gene Robinson refers to in his book In the Eye of the Storm: Pushed to the Center by God. This means, that Christians need to become informed by sources other than just our Bibles, and other than many of those things that are the product of traditionalism, rather than Tradition.
Rev. Scotty in Jesus Was A Liberal writes:
The Cross calls for us to defend the Gospel as Episcopalians through our Baptismal Covenant to "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. With God's help." (BCP, p. 305).
This means preserving and defending the dignity of women from the male privilege that seeks undermine and denigrate them through unjust laws that govern their bodies including their reproductive organs. This means calling Christians and others in the Church and society to discontinue the rhetoric and violence towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. To seek for just and appropriate laws that welcome immigrants, and protect Native Americans in their cultures and traditions. To provide health care for all citizens so that they can have an opportunity to be healed and pursue productive lives. We must serve the poor and the needy and seek economic equality for every person. To end the constant degradation and exploitation of those who are scraping to get by, by those who have more than their share in the first place.
It is so important for us to live out what the Cross means to us. Not by preaching it in inappropriate places where we become arrogant pests, just for the sake of being seen and heard for how many Bible verses we can memorize. When our own lives show a grace that is transforming so that we are at peace with God within ourselves, by denying ourselves for the good of others, the greatest Gospel story will have been told. Those who will have heard, will only come back wanting for more.
Prayers
Revelation 2:8-11 (NRSV)
John heard the voice say, "To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the first and the last, who was dead and came to life:
"I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death."
Psalm 121 (Book of Common Prayer, p. 779)
Matthew 20:20-23 (NRSV)
The mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom." But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They said to him, "We are able." He said to them, "You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father."
From the Lectionary for Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Then Jesus said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?
Blog Reflection
Today is one of those days where we have excellent choices from Holy Scripture for both the Thursday after Ash Wednesday and for today's commemoration of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. This is also one of those very rare occasions when the Gospel from both Lectionaries can easily speak to and/or about one another.
Polycarp was a pupil of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist. According to the short biography on page 238 of Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Polycarp was appointed a Bishop by "Apostles in Asia." He was very firm in his Faith in Jesus Christ. It is believed that he was executed by being burned at the stake on February 23, probably in the year 156 in the amphitheater at Smyrna. It was a day, when many Christians had been fed to the wild beasts at the request of many who found the Christians to be a nuisance. Polycarp went to his death saying a prayer of absolute faith in Jesus Christ, to the point of thanking God for having found him worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ.
The Gospel readings for his commemoration and on this Thursday after Ash Wednesday are an invitation to examine our own commitment to God's call on those who follow Jesus Christ. Both narratives can be summed up in the understanding that being a disciple of Jesus Christ will call upon us carry our cross through self-denial and the handing over of ourselves to be transformed by the power of God's redeeming grace.
What does this mean for us as we begin Lent 2012? How are we being called to "deny ourselves?" What is it that God might be calling us to "lose" for the sake of Jesus Christ?
I cannot answer these questions for every person. They have to be answered by each person, as God calls each of us to their own observances of Lent.
As for myself, this past week my eyes have been opened and my hardness of heart softened. Last weekend, while Jason and I were walking around the Mall of America, we wondered into Barnes & Noble. As we were looking through the Christian Inspiration section, I found a book entitled Jesus Was A Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All by Rev. Scotty McLennan. As I read through the contents and read little excerpts from a few places, I found myself seeing my own beliefs in a mirror, yet challenged in a way that I have ever so been needing. That in and of itself was an eye opener. However, when I started to a short description of the author on the outside back cover, I was stunned to be tied up and gagged. Rev. Scotty is a minister in the Unitarian Universalist Association. If a bolt of lightening had struck me then and there, I might not have felt a thing. As I have been reading into the book, I have found myself respectfully disagreeing with the position he has taken with regards to the Divinity of Christ. I also disagree with the denial of the centrality of God becoming human in Christ that Rev. McLennan has arrived at. However, what he has written about with regard the Person of Jesus Christ and the mission that Christians are called to by virtue of who Christ was; as those who are to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Jesus; there are Christians who say the Nicene Creed without error who could not have written about Christ as well as Rev. McLennan has.
I have been reading with great interest about Rev. Scotty's struggle with the Presbyterian faith that he was raised in. How by the time he graduated from high school he had become an Atheist. He later found what he learned during his college years at Yale University about science, mathematics, and various world religions, led him back to God. He recognized the amazing things the Infinite God did through a man named Jesus Christ. Before he arrived there, he tells his story while he uses quotations taken from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., examining the works of Darwin, Einstein and studying Mohandas Gandhi and the great Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr and many more, that he understood the importance of Jesus' example of seeking the marginalized and the exploited to restore to them that sense of dignity and integrity that comes from being a person created in the image and likeness of God. McLennan even recognizes that at the core of Jesus Christ, is the God who is Love.
After reading what I have from McLennan, and continuing with my devotion to The Rule of St. Benedict and the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer, and the Scripture readings, I think there are some things that Christians need to take a good hard look at during this Lent.
Among the many things we Christians need to "deny ourselves" of and "lose for the sake of the Gospel" is thinking that we are the center of the universe. Christians are an important part of the universe of God's creation and redemption, but we are not an end in and of ourselves. It is really most important that we get our own act together and not concentrate so much on trying to convert every person who thinks, believes and behaves differently than we do.
It is important for us as Christians to hang on to what we believe to be true. Among them, that God has revealed God's Self in the three distinct Persons known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Or if you prefer, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. The belief that God became one like us in the Word made Flesh in Jesus the Christ. The hope of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit to continue to "lead us into all truth." To hold to our hearts and minds, and show through our lives that God loves all people unconditionally and inclusively.
It is equally important for those of us who hold these central truths of what it means to be Christian for us, to allow God to transform us first and foremost.
During this time of Lent, we would do well to allow God to speak to those places where we push God out of the center, and make ourselves our own god. We need to recognize that one of the ways we do that is by insisting that everyone who claims to be Christian or a good person who seeks the common good of others, must think, act, dress, love, talk and be what we think they should be. As for me, I must accept that there are Christians who do not believe as I do. Who pray and think differently. I must learn to see God working in everyone, even those who are different from myself. I must leave them to God, and be sure I am being faithful and true to who God is to me, and doing what God asks of me. Yet, I also believe that God calls upon me to reverence the Presence of the Lord in all persons. Therefore, I cannot look at Jews, Unitarians, Atheists, Muslims, Native Americans and so forth, as being less than who they are.
It is important for Christians, including and especially me, to allow God the Holy Spirit to rip open those Pandora's Boxes that Bishop Gene Robinson refers to in his book In the Eye of the Storm: Pushed to the Center by God. This means, that Christians need to become informed by sources other than just our Bibles, and other than many of those things that are the product of traditionalism, rather than Tradition.
Rev. Scotty in Jesus Was A Liberal writes:
[The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.] repeatedly said that Descartes was mistaken when he said, "cognito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am"). Instead, he should have said, "amo ergo sum" ("I love therefore I am"). Coffin had nothing against thinking per se; he was a graduate of Yale College and the Yale Divinity School. He explained that the Christian preachers he most admired were those who sought to inform minds as much as to engage hearts: "They have tried to link learning with love, intellect with piety, knowing that aroused but uninformed Christians are as dangerous as quack physicians," as he later put in a 1982 book. (p.59. Here McLennan is quoting from two different sources, one is Courage to Love by Coffin, pages 1 and 35, and a biography by Warren Goldstein entitled William Sloane Coffin, Jr. A Holy Impatience).
The Cross calls for us to defend the Gospel as Episcopalians through our Baptismal Covenant to "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. With God's help." (BCP, p. 305).
It is so important for us to live out what the Cross means to us. Not by preaching it in inappropriate places where we become arrogant pests, just for the sake of being seen and heard for how many Bible verses we can memorize. When our own lives show a grace that is transforming so that we are at peace with God within ourselves, by denying ourselves for the good of others, the greatest Gospel story will have been told. Those who will have heard, will only come back wanting for more.
Prayers
Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor, and further with your continual help: that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reighs with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, p. 33).
O God, the maker of heaven and earth, you gave your venerable servant, the holy and gentle Polycarp, boldness to confess Jesus Christ as King and Savior, and steadfastness to die for his faith; Give us grace, following his example, to share the cup of Christ and rise to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Polycarp, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, p. 239).
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect from Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 217).
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. (Prayer for Social Justice, Book of Common Prayer, p. 823).
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