Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones

This Sunday, in addition to observing the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, we will commemorate the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. Angels are a curious feature of Holy Scripture and the Church's tradition. The Greek word, angelos, means "messenger;" and indeed, the Bible usually depicts angels as holy couriers, bearing God's messages to humans. Angels are also described as doing God's bidding, such as fighting the Evil One, as St. Michael the Archangel is depicted here in a famous painting by Renaissance master, Guido Reni. But, of course, the angels' primary function, like ours, is to praise and worship God, "Holy, holy, holy Lord. God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest!"

Whether you think that angels are flesh-and-blood heavenly beings or simply a metaphor for God's divine communications, angels express human beings' frequent experience of God as distant, inaccessible, and unknowable. Remember, that Moses could not look upon God's face directly, because it would have been too mindblowing to behold, and so could only look upon God's hindquarters, so to speak, as he passed by. Even after that, Moses' face shone with the light of God, which was so overpowering that Moses had to wear a veil whenever he descended the mountain, so that the other Israelites would not be blinded by the light.

In a similar fashion, angels serve as a kind of opaque veil between the unknowable God and our limited human understanding. They represent our need for the message to be tempered in some way, the light dimmed and the content simplified, so that we can process it. That's probably a key reason why God speaks to patriarchs and prophets in their dreams or at night. There are so many more possibilities when we don't limit ourselves to logic and literalisms. Angels and dreams make the barrier between God and humans a bit thinner, so that enough of the light can shine through without blinding us completely.

I think that many of us imagine an embodied, real messenger delivering the divine message, because the messages at times feel so personal to us. Angels transmit not only God's message, but the feeling of God's presence and care. It is as if angels amplify for us the emotional, relational content of God's speaking, not just the words or images themselves. And that gives me a certain joy, knowing that God not only wants me to understand, but to feel in my heart his reaching out to me in love.

Abundant blessings,

Fr. Ethan+

Breaking the Law

In this Sunday's reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals a woman who has been crippled and bent over by an evil spirit for 18 years. The leader of the synagogue gets quite indignant with Jesus, because he heals the woman on the Sabbath, when the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch--literally, five books) specifies quite clearly that no work is to be done. This provides yet another opportunity for Jesus to call out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, who favor a legalistic reading of the Torah, rather than taking a common-sense or pastoral approach, as Jesus does. This story is meant to help us reflect on what it means to apply the rules of our faith to real life.

It is important to remember that the Torah that Jesus, the Pharisees, and ordinary Jewish people followed was not a legal code. We often translate that word, "Torah," as "Law," such as when we recite "the Summary of the Law" in the Book of Common Prayer, in which Jesus says that loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves are the greatest commandments, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets. Yet the word, "Torah," is more accurately translated as "teaching," "instruction," or "guidance." The longstanding practice of translating the word, "Torah," as "Law" in English is actually a translation of the Greek word, nomos, which was chosen when Jews first translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. This translation, which we know as the Septuagint, rendered "Torah" as "Law," and so have we.

Fortunately, we know better now; and incidentally, so did the learned Jews of Jesus's day. The Torah was not just the Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), "the Written Torah," but also the tradition of scholarly rabbinic interpretation of those five books that has been passed down through the generations and is now enshrined in the writings of the Talmud and Midrash, "the Oral Torah." Both the Written Torah and Oral Torah represent an attempt to apply holy wisdom to real-life situations. Jesus reminds the religious elite of his day that the Torah doesn't offer us a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to every situation. Real wisdom requires a person to apply the Torah's instruction and guidance creatively to each new situation, not just to offer a pat answer that will fly in the face of common sense and common decency.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

All Religion is Local

Vie de Jesus Mafa, The Transfiguration

If "all politics are local," as the old adage goes, it's probably equally true that "all religion is local." Or at least we tend to behave as if that were true.  The day-in and day-out of parish life persuades us that the way we do things in our parish is normative for others in our tribe, such as the Episcopal Church.  The way we worship, the language we use, the hymns and music we sing, the way we run our meetings.  Now, even if we don't assent intellectually to this idea, we can often act unconsciously as if OUR way is THE way. We assume quite innocently that this is just how Episcopalians (or Lutherans, or Baptists) do things.  But religion is, at its heart, deeply contextual.

Bishop Lee installs the new vicar.  Photo from Br. Ron Fox.

Which is why I'm really grateful to gather on occasion with other Episcopalians to be reminded that I am part of a community much larger than what I know and do.  Over the last four days, I've been to three different Episcopal congregations to either lead or participate in worship. What is remarkable to me is the way that each of these communities of faith--as unique as they are--embodies the concept of the Church, with a capital "C."  As member congregations of the Diocese of Chicago, all three are firmly rooted in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, despite the great variety and diversity of worship styles and cultural contexts.  It can be a wonderful experience to be thrown off kilter, pushed out of our comfort zones, and be invited into something unexpected.

On Thursday evening, I participated in the installation of my dear friend, Fr. Robert Cristobal, as vicar of St. George and St. Matthias Episcopal Church, an historically African American and Afro-Caribbean congregation on the south side of Chicago.  Much of the music was unfamiliar to me, and I noticed several visitors surprised by the exuberant engagement of the congregation with the preacher during his sermon.  And yet, here was the fullness of the Anglican tradition: the bishop, the Eucharist, the Book of Common Prayer, clergy and people of the Diocese worshipping together as one.  It was beautiful and joyous, compelling and powerful.

Chicago Chapter-in-Formation of the Society of Catholic Priests

On Saturday morning, I gathered with other members of the Chicago Chapter-in-Formation of the Society of Catholic Priests at the Church of the Atonement, Chicago for a Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, followed by the chapter meeting.  The service was a solid Rite II Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer with the usual Atonement embellishments. We shared our latest news over brown-bag lunches, talked about the contributions we could make to the life of the Diocese, and engaged in a theological reflection based on the words of the new Presiding Bishop-Elect, Michael Curry.  On Sunday, I drove out into rural/suburban Kane County to celebrate Mass with St. James Episcopal Church in West Dundee, IL, which, as a rural parish, was preparing for its upcoming Rogation celebration.  It had been several years since I had done a Rite I Eucharist, and so I tripped over the King James English, which had at one time been so familiar.  Of course, their customs for celebrating the Eucharist differed a bit from mine, and we laughed over the imperfections and miscommunications we committed, such as when the server failed to do the ablutions after communion, and I forgot to return to the chancel following the dismissal for the announcements. We are all a product of our patterns, our routines, our contexts.

St. James window in West Dundee

I picture for myself the scene at Jesus's Transfiguration.  Matthew 17 records that right after Jesus appears transfigured in dazzling white, flanked by Moses and Elijah, "Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’"  One cannot help but wonder what Peter would have come up with if he had been allowed to build those dwellings.  Would they have all been identical?  Would Jesus, Moses, or Elijah have had any say in what their dwellings looked liked, how they were laid out, or how they were decorated?  Would James and John have been included in the design and building?  Would the three apostles have divided up the work and each taken responsibility for one of these dwellings?  Would they have fought for creative control or would they have collaborated harmoniously?

As it happens, each of them is credited with building a version of the Church in various places, all of which look very different from each other.  These apostles too understood that the Church is contextual, shaped by the unique identities, experiences and situations of the people in a particular time and place.  The lesson for us is to embrace the possibility that the Church can look and behave differently than we are used to, and yet we can find a place for ourselves in this new and unfamiliar incarnation of the Body of Christ.

Peace and blessings,
Fr. Ethan.+



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