Being Good Stewards
11 Mar 2011 4 Comments
in Faith, God, Lent, Social Justice, Spiritual Growth, St. Francis Tags: creation, environment, God, Lent, St. Francis, stewardship
Most High, glorious God,
Enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me true faith, certain hope and perfect charity,
sense and knowledge, Lord,
that I may carry out Your holy and true command.
AMEN. ~~Saint Francis of Assisi
Too often we forget that knowledge and good sense are not the same. A firm hold on the true reality of the world is essential to make proper use of knowledge.
Knowledge without works is merely self-indulgence. Of course learning can be a goal in itself as our hobby or our entertainment, but we should always look for ways to use our knowledge for the benefit of others.
Others should always include those creatures that we share this planet with. St. Francis is noted for his care of the natural world that is given us. We should remember that it is not given to us for consumption only but to conserve in all it’s splendor. All creatures are in symbiotic relationship, and our careless spoiling of the environment, either through actual consumption, wanton destruction, or disregard will impact all in ways that we are not yet wise enough to even discern.
Awakening to the fact that we are not the center of creation, but only the stewards, we live out our faith in protecting all God has so graciously given to us.
Amen.
Related Articles
- St. Francis of Assisi on the Practice of the Kingdom of God (practicalcatholic.wordpress.com)
- Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi (franciscanprayers.wordpress.com)
(Repost) The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
28 Feb 2011 1 Comment
in Book Reviews, Early Christianity, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Spiritual Growth, Theology Tags: apostle, book reviews, Jesus, Mary Magdalene
My sincere thanks to Jennifer Campaniolo at Shambhala Publishing for sending me a copy of The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity.
First let me start out by saying, that this was not quite what I expected. I assumed it would be a scholarly biography of one of Christianity’s most enigmatic women. It certainly is that. But I expected it to be along the lines of a general work using the accepted tools of hermeneutics in examining the texts of the Gospel accounts of the New Testament.
That it was not quite, though it certainly examined all the pertinent texts thoroughly. However, much of Cynthia Bourgeault’s work delves into the so-called “Gnostic Gospels” of Mary, Thomas, Peter and Philip. These were more or less known to the powers that decided the canon, but were omitted largely because they spoke of a more transcendent and ephemeral Jesus and his teachings. They were “gnostic” and heretical, having lost the battle to the growing “orthodoxy” of the Roman Church.
Rev. Bourgeault crafts with great care and precision her hypothesis that Jesus and Mary were “soul mates,” certainly lovers, although she doesn’t claim they were physical lovers, although she finds no reason why they may not have been.
She finds in Jesus a Nazarite, much like John the Baptist, but one who gave up the ascetic life, the life of denial, to move to the path of “singleness” where kenotic love became the center of his being. This self-giving or self-emptying attitude was one that he taught Mary and it is what allowed them to transcend his death on the cross. Their unitive love, whether physical or celibate, enabled them to reach the fullness of being human. It is this towards what his teachings point.
It is this message that Jesus sought to teach his disciples. It is what Mary learned, making her the foremost of all the disciples.
It is Bourgeault’s contention that the Gospel of John in the canon is perhaps the most clear about understanding Jesus truest teaching. She argues that the Mary of Bethany is in fact Mary Magdalene, or at least created to expouse upon some of her qualities. She would claim that many of the Marys in the Gospel accounts, or I should say many of the women (the woman at the well for instance) are also created composites of Magdalene qualities.
The reason why the Magdalene is so “hidden” in this way is simply because it became increasingly impossible for a patriarchial and male dominated church to accept that a woman had been the closed companion of Christ. It was unseemly to a church that slowly but surely hide sex behind a heavy door, and made chastity the only possible “pure” expression of “the Way.”
If you have ever read the gnostics, as I have, you undoubtedly were quite puzzled. They read more like Eastern mystical works. We are unfamiliar with the words and their meanings.
Cynthia Bourgeault, with patience and deep care, unravels the intracacies of these passages, explaining their meaning, joining them to the Semitic eastern mysticism of the time of Jesus. She has devoted more than forty years to Mary, and has traveled to parts of France where there is a very old tradition of the Magdalene’s later years there and the mystical veils that surround her.
It will, no doubt be hard for a first time reader, to digest all this “new thinking” about this mysterious woman that we know so little about, yet are still so utterly fascinated with. Bourgeault is both Episcopal priest and part-time hermit. She has studied with many who have lived their lives in these traditions of mysticism. So, her claims are not to be dismissed easily, yet, they remain, reasonable conclusions based on often quite slim evidence.
Even if you are not prepared to “buy” all the conclusions, you will I promise you come away with a vision of both Mary and Jesus that are profoundly different than before. As never before, they become fully human to us, who so desperately need human models to emulate. Bourgeault brings the scriptures alive, and quite frankly, through her interpretation, once difficult or puzzling passages suddenly ring with clarity.
All the Gospels recall Mary as the first to receive the “good news” of the resurrection. Her voice, since stifled, was so powerful to the infant church that this truth could not be denied. Although each writer in some way minimized her importance, she could not be denied her place in the narratives. It is she, Bourgeault contends, who was the source of the “annointing” ministry that she may well have shared with Jesus, and which comes down to us today as a sacrament.
What I came away with, is a deeper appreciate of Mary Magdalene. I have for some time considered her to be an ignored apostle, but I believe now she was much more than that. She was the only one who truly “got it.” As such, she does so much for us as women in the church. She restores us to our rightful place, as integral to the church. She gives us something that a virgin mother never can. She gives us a model of real humanness, fully expressed, fully embodied.
I can’t wait to read more of Bourgeault’s work. I believe she has much to teach me about my journey. After reading this book, I believe you will feel the same way.
Love, It’s Just About Love
20 Feb 2011 6 Comments
in Bible Essays, Biblical Study, Corinthians, Faith, Fundamentalism, God, Jesus, Leviticus, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, Spiritual Growth, Theology Tags: bible essays, biblical studies, God, Jesus, Kingdom, Love, Mary Magdalene, theology
I’ve been mulling over something I read on a blog all week long. I knew I wanted to write a reply of sorts, but wasn’t sure exactly what I should say.
I’m still not sure.
But today’s readings and something else I’ve been working on, all, as God perhaps intends, come together to suggest answers, or at least a profitable way of looking at it.
I will give the quote in full:
…For most of us, our religious community seems far more important than our religious community’s theology. That is, people attend church largely to socialize with their friends and acquaintances in the congregation; somewhat less to worship their god; much less to learn about their god; and almost never to think critically about their god. Yet, many proselytizing atheists focus on critical thinking. That might be like trying to use a carpenter’s pencil to lever a house off its foundation. On the other hand, if I ever want to convert people to atheism, I’ll first hold a social.
Painful statement, yet there is truth in it. Yet, I feel no need to defend against it. Much. I’m aware of polling that suggests that atheists know more about the contents of the bible than do believers. And I have no reason to quarrel with it. Yet, I know that that should not be very comforting, to atheists, because what most atheists “know” about the bible is seen through the lens of fundamentalism. The point out all the errors, the contradictions, but they really don’t understand anything about how it was gathered together into the distinctive writings that eventually found their way into a canon. Much of their error finding is irrelevant to scholars, and explainable.
I’m a good deal less troubled by the idea that going to church is mostly a social event. You hear that a lot from atheists. But that’s not something to defend against, but rather something to embrace.
We do socialize in church, and that’s a good thing. For in that action, we enlarge our circle of “neighbor” if indeed it is not limitless to begin with. For practical reasons we only have time for so many neighbors, those to whom we are beholden to offer our help even when it is awfully inconvenient. Church socializing forms those new friendships and ties. It brings into the circle those we care for and about. It helps us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s a good thing.
The rest? About critical thinking arguments being wasted on the believer. Well that’s just plain mean, untrue and not worth further comment.
Today’s readings are:
Lev 19:1-2, 17-18 1Cor 3:16-23 Mt 5:38-48In Leviticus, Moses listens to God who tells him to tell the people to be holy as I am holy. You must love your neighbor as yourself.
Similarly, Paul reminds us that we are God’s temple, and that we must respect God’s temple, both ourselves and others.
Jesus speaks in Matthew and he tells us that we must not hate, we must love our neighbor, even when our neighbor is unkind, hurtful, or worse to us. We must give to whomever asks (something extreme right-wing religious might make note of as they argue that universe health care is wrong since it gives to some who are not worthy to receive).
Jesus reminds us that God makes the rain fall on the righteous and the wicked equally. Again, perhaps we might remember that before we are so quick to claim that hell awaits those whom we find evil.
But the over-riding point Jesus attempts to make is one of love. Love conquers all, hate never can. It but creates more hate, distrust, fear. All negative. All cutting against the neighbor concept.
I’m reading a wonderful book about Mary Magdalene. It draws heavily on the so-called gnostic gospels of Thomas, Mary, Peter, and the Gospel of John. It requires a lot of reading between the lines, a fair amount of reordering one’s thinking. It suggests that Jesus, along “his way” diverted from the Nazarite path, the aesthetic path he began, and ended in a more Eastern approach. More Buddhist, yet not.
His was the way of self-emptying. A concept well-known to anyone who is a believer. Paul talks of this in Philippians 2:9-16. He understood Jesus, perhaps better than did the writers of Mark, Matthew or Luke.
It’s all about kenosis, self giving. Similar to the Buddhist way, of letting be, giving up, but not, the denial of all as transitory. Rather it’s the giving all, and in that very process, receiving all, being all, being totally, wholly human.
Having never been an inerrantist, I have difficulty understanding the former fundamentalist. They accept that the bible is not inerrant, but they now have trouble seeing it as having any value. It is no longer trustworthy as conveyor of God’s “WORD.”
The bible, remains to me, (as other sacred texts do as well) as repositors of man’s highest achievement in enlightenment. We are able, as we progress, to tease out sometimes those things that point to a greater truth, one they didn’t even realize they spoke of.
Everything I read and study, helps me to see Jesus, and God more clearly. It all, to me resolves itself into love. Love was the vehicle Jesus pointed to as the means to the Kingdom. As Cynthia Bourgeault suggests, it is the vertical axis connecting ourselves to the infinite. It is what, she theorizes forever connected Mary Magdalene to Jesus in a way far superior to any of the other apostles.
She got it, and many others have followed in her footsteps and His. It’s just about love.
Like this:
And What of Joseph?
19 Dec 2010 4 Comments
in Advent, Bible Essays, Faith, Jesus, Matthew, St. Joseph Tags: annunciation, bible essays, Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, Joseph, Matthew
Today’s Gospel is from Matthew and relates the story of Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph’s determination to divorce her, and the appearance of the angel who explains to Joseph from whence came the child in Mary’s womb. (MT 1:18-24)
Poor Joseph is given little attention in the Gospels. The event described in Matthew is not mentioned in Luke, Mark or John. In fact Mark and John ignore the entire birthing scenario altogether.
Given that Matthew and Luke both rely on at least some of the same sources, there is no explanation as to why Luke makes no mention of this extraordinary occurrence. Indeed, Luke moves from the annunciation to the visitation, and then to the birth sequence in Bethlehem.
It is hard to know what to make of this section in Matthew. Matthew entirely skips the annunciation and we aren’t sure if he is unaware of it, or if quite possibly it originated in the creative head of Luke and was not historical. This makes the textual understanding problematic.
If we conflate the two renditions we come up with this scenario. Luke describes the annunciation, followed by the visitation to Elizabeth, followed by Matthew’s explanation of how Joseph came to accept this pregnancy, and then the actual birth, recorded by both.
Again, we must proceed with caution because of the errors that conflation can bring about. Still, we have some interesting possibilities.
Matthew reports that “Mary is ‘found’ with child. (Both the NRSV and NJB use this word as does the interlinear translation. Does this mean that Mary kept her pregnancy quiet until she was showing? This would be possible under the conflation that she went immediately to Elizabeth, for she “sat out at that time.” She stayed three months. But few women show a pregnancy at 3-4 months.
The alternative possibility it seems to me is that she told Joseph and apparently he did not believe her, and thus determined to put her “quietly away.” The NJB renders this “divorce her informally”, the NRSV says “dismiss her quietly.”
In both cases Joseph is adjudged “righteous” or “just”. My understanding of righteousness is one adjudged to be following God according to Torah. In other words, Joseph was a faithful Jew, abiding by the standards laid out in the Torah. We can be bolstered in this claim since the infant was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem for “presentation” and Jesus apparently from very early on with comfortable and at home in the synagogue. We can assume that both Mary and Joseph were pious in so far as this was possible being amme ha-arets, or country folk.
Being just, or righteous would mean that it would be appropriate for Joseph to divorce Mary in the manner laid out in Jewish tradition. Yet, he determines to act “not justly” but rather out of deep compassion. Perhaps here we have a clue as to why Mary or Joseph were chosen for such an enormous task and honor.
In Joseph we see a man perhaps not persuaded that the Law is always meeting its objectives and so on occasion needs to be set aside. On the other hand, how this could be done quietly is anyone’s guess. These were exceedingly small communities, Nazareth perhaps having about 300 people. Everyone knows everyone’s business.
What comes next is truly interesting. In the Greek, the words are “while he was thinking” an angel comes to him “in a dream.” Similarly, the NRSV uses the phrase, “just when he had resolved to do this,” the angel “appears in a dream.” Even more oddly, the NJB says, “He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly. . .” the angel appears in a dream.
What is odd here, is this sounds less like a dream than a vision. In none of the cases does it appear that Joseph had retired to his bed, or fallen asleep at table. He is “thinking, deciding, resolving,” when out of nowhere, he is in a dream.
I conclude that it was more vision than actual dream. But in any case, something extraordinary is occurring here. Joseph, like Mary is asked to make a leap of faith, and each, independent of the other, does so. God has chosen well it seems.
Of course we are treated to many such occurrences in the Hebrew Testament as well as the New Testament. In each case, a person is asked to accept beyond the knowable world they inhabit. They are asked to accept what they cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell. Faith is required, and a good deal of it.
Why? Because in all such instances, there will be those who will question. Certainly in this event of Mary and Joseph and the mysterious pregnancy, people in their town could count. They knew when Joseph and Mary began co-habiting. They knew when she was clearly pregnant. Both of these people knew they would be required to stand by their faith, in the face of petty gossip.
And both did so quite willingly.
To be fair, they lived in a time, when the break between the touchable world and the transcendent was much more blurred. People without question believed in miracles, prophets and that God directed events and intervened in their lives with clear regularity.
Today, we find this all much harder to swallow. We are inclined to search for “answers” explicable by our senses. We forego demons for “epilepsy” and, we deny walking on water for tricks of the eye. We need natural explanations in order not to appear foolish to modern-day skeptics.
So our leaps of faith are tiny and ordinary, not risking much most of the time. Would we respond to such a leap of faith as God called both Mary and Joseph to? Would I? Would you?
Related Articles
- Maybe it is what it is, or maybe there’s more (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- The Scandal (Part 1) (j4man.wordpress.com)
The Unbelief of the Baptist
12 Dec 2010 6 Comments
in Bible Essays, Biblical Study, Faith, God, Jesus, John the Baptist, Matthew Tags: biblical essays, Faith, Jesus, John the Baptist, Kingdom of God, Matthew, Religion and Spirituality
As an amateur biblical scholar, I know that you aren’t ever to conflate the various Gospels for a “whole” picture. Yet, as a believer, one does end up trying to reconcile that which appears to be in conflict.
Thus, I have always wondered about John the Baptist. We are told that his sensitivity to the Messiah was so strong that he “left in his mother’s womb” when he sensed Jesus in the womb of his mother Mary. (Luke 1: 39-45)
We are told in Mark that after baptizing Jesus, he was presumably present to see the “heavens torn apart” and a “Spirit like a dove descending upon him.” (Mark 1:9-11) In Matthew, John protests that it is Jesus who should be baptizing him. (Mt 3: 13-17)
But in Matthew, (11:2-11) our gospel for today, we learn a curious thing: John sends his disciples to inquire of Jesus if in fact he was the Messiah, the chosen one. Jesus lauds John, calling him the highest of all the prophets and then says, ”the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
This all is quite confusing to me. How could John ever doubt that Jesus was the One when he leapt for joy in Elizabeth’s womb when Jesus appeared still unborn? Why would he, after hearing of the healings Jesus had done, still doubt? When he saw the heavens rent, and saw the dove descend?
The message, I think should give us all much hope. For we doubt too. We all do. We must. For we cannot and do not KNOW. That is why we have faith. We BELIEVE.
John undoubtedly was aware that Jesus’ so-called miracles were not such things. In fact Mark never calls them miracles at all. Such actions, were not in that day, so fantastic as to be declared miracles. People in that time lived closer shall we say to the dividing line between seen and unseen. All things were from God, so what can be miraculous.
Still, Jesus’ healings were wondrous, and people exclaimed about them, and they can to him to be healed. That did not make him, however, the Messiah necessarily.
Still, we return to that leaping in the womb and we must conclude that John must have seen that as unusual, and predictive. He spoke during his ministry of ”one coming after me” one he was “unworthy to untie the sandals of.”
This was a bigger statement than I realized. Rabbis were heard to claim that their disciples owed them every thing, except to untie their sandals. That was taking discipleship too far. Yet John, not only claims that this was not too much to ask from the Anointed One, but that he was unworthy to the task.
Yet John struggled with faith. Imprisoned, he questioned his own eyes and ears, his own instincts.
We, you and me, we who are “modern” have generally speaking no event to recall, of tearing heavens and doves descending. We, most of us, have no shuddering certainty that we are in the presence of something beyond mere human making. Is it any wonder we fail in faith?
And thus we can have hope that our failings will be forgiven, for John’s surely was. Jesus acclaims him the greatest of all the prophets. He is Elijah, and more. And with all that, Jesus can still acknowledge with generosity and tenderness, that even with all that, John is the least of those in the kingdom.
For, Jesus has told us as well, that children come to him with perfect faith. They are prepared to believe in what they cannot see or know. They are willing to suspend human questions, the ones I struggle with. They don’t ask to understand. They simply believe.
And Jesus tells us that if we can come to him in that way, then our faith is perfect. And that will place us before John. Blessed are they who have not heard or seen, but still believe. Blessed is the centurion, who is a pagan, yet believes with perfect faith that Jesus can heal. These are our role models, the ones that Jesus reminds us to look to as we journey to God.
**
I am indebted to The Word Among Us, December 12, and Mark: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, by William C. Placher (which I will be reviewing here in a few days), for some of the insights here.
Related Articles
- Jesus’ Answer to the Disciples of John & the Dead Sea Scrolls (Sunday’s Reading) (thesacredpage.com)
My Yoke is Easy, My Burden Light
19 Sep 2010 6 Comments
in Catholicism, Conversion, Saints, St. Augustine, Theology Tags: Catholicism, conversion., discernment, Paul Tillich, Religion and Spirituality, Saint Augustine, theology, transition
People have become aware generally of my decision to return to Catholicism. I can say all have been supportive, or at least quiet. That is not to say all understand, and, well I understand that. I’m not sure I understand it well myself.
When I mentioned to my husband, known at A Feather Adrift, as the Contrarian, he started to speak, and then said, “never mind.” I encouraged him to continue, and when he wouldn’t I surmised his response:
“You were going to say, why not keep quiet, for in six months you may change you mind, . . .again. Is that about right?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
Another friend wished me well most sincerely but suggested she too didn’t understand.
What follows is my best attempt to explain, and well, as I said, understand myself.
I’ve been reading a lot of Tillich lately. He has a couple of books that are really collections of his sermons given in the late 40′s. Surprisingly, they speak as effectively today as then.
I read something in one that caught me. I cannot find it after spending some minutes searching, and think that it was more of an impression, one I created from a number of thoughts of his. Credit where credit is due, but I don’t want to blame him either.
He was speaking I recall about religion and how it gets in the way of the message, and that that is what Jesus means about his yoke being easy and his burden light. He meant it in regards to a comparison of the onerous burden of the Law. No one could be obedient to the Law fully. It was an impossibility, but Jesus saw that it, as practiced in Second Temple Judea, was particularly so for the poor.
All the purity laws, all the rules, all were impossible for the average peasant to comply with. He was always “unclean” and rejected, although his Temple tax was always accepted.
From that, one might conclude that onerous religious ritual and dogma might be held in similar disdain, obscuring the “Way” as Jesus taught.
Leave it to me, to see something quite different. Again, I think it had something to do with something else Tillich said, about faith. In essence, when it became easy, then we were in trouble. We become complacent, sure we are right, no longer studying, no longer meditating, no longer moving on the path. We think in our arrogance that we have reached the end of the road. We are there.
I conflate the two, and find that when religion is easy for me, I become complacent. I start to become arrogant and sure of what is truth. And that is simply wrong. Augustine is a dear favorite of mine, mostly because he prayed to have his “concupiscence taken from him, but not quite yet.” I liked that bit of honesty, that humanness.
Anyway, Augustine is quoted generally as saying something along the lines of “whatever we think we have learned about God only adds to what we don’t know,” or words to that effect. I believe it. The more I learn, the more I suspect I’m wrong in other words, yet I also suspect I might be more right than some others. Meaning I guess that I increase in knowledge in minuscule amounts, ninety percent of “new learning” is probably wrong.
To be in a church that agrees with me, or gives me total license (more or less) to construct my own theology, allows me to do that and dust off my hands at my creation, my God. My idol, the thing I worship as work of my own hands.
The Roman Catholic Church on the other hand, keeps me in severe tension. We are in some holy disagreements on a host of things. But, in humility, I know that I must learn as best I can the full force and reasoning of the Church, and then I must carefully examine all other evidence. Only then do I have a right to disagree. If my heart leads me against Mother Church on any issue, I remain in that tension, always seeking.
And in seeking, comes that minute new kernel of knowing I believe. And so the tension, for me, is essential. I am, without it, too prone to rest on my laurels.
In saying this, I want to make it most clear that others, who are happily ensconced with the Episcopal Church, or any other for that matter, are not wrong. That would be arrogant indeed. I mean quite something else.
I believe that we are utterly unique in our personal connection with God. We are meant to be, as I see it. God has created a perfectly perfect, yet supremely special one-of-a-kind way of union for each of us. And thus, it means that each path is unique.
Each of us is a different pattern of genes, personality, and life experiences. We, each of us, then, as I see it, must negotiate the world in a way different from each other.
My inability to stay honorably focused on truth without the crutch of “tension” need not, and no doubt is not everyone else’s. It is mine. I say no more.
If as Augustine suggests, I’m more wrong than right, well, I can but hope that some kernel of new truth has emerged for me. And that kernel has led me to this place and time, and this decision.
Or as my husband suggests, six months from now? But for now, I feel content and at peace. That seems good enough now.
