anchovies and stuffed egg et al

 

Saturday morning. Breakfast: tin of anchovies, enjoyed eating them one at a Time from the open tin, and a stuffed egg topped with an anchovy, along with my mug of hot & black. 

Checked the osprey nest just now, looks like still just three hatchling chicks and an egg. That pics from yesterday. I watched and took one screensaver shot as the male bird feeds chick #3 while the mom bird feeds the other two.

Our POD for today included walking through the farmers market at Under the Oaks Park next door but it sort of slipped away, so I took my furoForty and settled in to enjoy the morning from here, looking out across the Bay, over Shell "Island" and into the Gulf of X while I contemplate one of tomorrow's Bible readings. 

All the farmers market vendors get their tomatoes from the same wholesalers who deliver tomatoes to the local grocery stories anyway. If you want a proper tomato you need to drive what my Weller grandparents called "up to Grand Ridge" to Jackson Farms, otherwise even at farmers market you're going to get hothouse tomatoes that are bright red on the outside, pinkish green on the inside, and grainy. 

Wandering again.

Maybe a holdover from parish priestly discipline, it's a longterm habit that my mind seems to cling to: checking out one or more of the lections from the Propers for the upcoming Sunday and commenting on it. 

"Commenting" these days instead of trying to wring a short and to the point homiletic endeavor out of it. BTDT and moved on with life and Time. 

Never of a piously spiritual Baptist Sunday school lesson nature, my Bible comments are for myself, noting my interests - - in my style that was taught and practiced at LTSG, my Lutheran theological seminary on the Gettysburg Battlefield - -

which, as I've said now and then over the soon fifteen years that I've been writing +Time blogposts, stunned more than simply surprised me at the Time. I entered LTSG as an innocent, thinking we'd be learning the Bible by committing to memory and discussing totally as a faith document. But I instantly found out that a liberal theological seminary followed what was called "modern Bible criticism" developed in the 19th century. If I'd thought to continue the memory verse approach my Baptist mother had taught me as a child, that was up to me; because at LTSG we were taught to study not only the text, but everything imaginable ABOUT the text.

For info and to clarify, here's what AI says about that approach to Bible study. AI pops up uninvited as first response these days, which is fine because sometimes it's okay, and if it's not okay I can always scroll past it if I wish. My observation is that whoever put in AI's perspective on Christian matters is some flavor of literalist inerrancy fundamentalist XNRT, which instantly converts its credibility to suspect (wandering now, Bubba). 

"AI: At a modern liberal theological seminary, the approach to the Bible is typically characterized by a focus on interpretation and analysis, rather than a rigid adherence to literal interpretations. Liberal seminaries often embrace modern hermeneutical tools and critical methods to understand the Bible's historical and literary context. This includes applying methods like lower criticism (evaluating text transmission) and higher criticism (examining authorship and dating). The Bible is viewed as a valuable literary source of human experience and religious insights, rather than solely as the divinely inspired word of God."

LTSG was where I learned to read the Bible aloud boldly instead of affecting the nonsense of quietly spoken awe and reverence. 

So, here's our first reading for tomorrow, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C:

Acts 16:16-34

16 One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a female slave who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. 17 While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you[d] the way of salvation.” 18 She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

19 But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. 20 When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city 21 and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23 After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. 34 He brought them up into the house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

35 When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” 36 And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.” 37 But Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison, and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans, 39 so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40 After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home, and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.

+++++++

For their own obscure but suspect reasons, our lectionary framers did their oft-trick of omitting a significant part of the story, here the end of Luke's story, verses 35-40. But that it's missing will jolt and distract not just me but any listener who knows the story. So I put it back in for comment even though it won't be read aloud in church Sunday morning.

At any event, here are a couple of quick observations about Luke's story.

-1- it's part of Acts that contains the "we" passages. "We" indicating that the man who wrote it was himself there in person traveling with Paul. Tradition has given him the name "Luke" and said that he must be "Luke the beloved physician" who is mentioned in Colossians and also in Philemon and 2nd Timothy. 

To insist that it was "Luke" is an absurd (Christian Wiman calls it "adolescent") need for answers to the unanswerable, but I'm okay with accepting that the anonymous author of Luke/Acts either did in fact travel with Paul, or fancied himself having traveled with Paul even though Luke/Acts was written decades after Paul's death (c.62 AD), which would have made "Luke" quite an ancient old man. Some scholars say the author of Luke/Acts uses "we" in order to enhance the credibility of his story, but IDK. 

Why does it matter? Because if he was indeed one of Paul's companions, it lends credence to things he writes about Paul that Paul himself never mentions in Paul's own letters. So I'll accept it with reservations, eh?

+++++++

-2- our Acts reading above is a great story. Paul was indeed mistreated at one place and another during his journeys. In this story Paul and company are in Philippi (Acts 16:12). Paul writes "Philippians" from prison and doesn't say specifically that he was beaten and mistreated in Philippi, but maybe so. This is "Luke's" story about Paul, not Paul's story about himself.

-3- in his own writings, Paul never claims to be a Roman citizen, so we don't know where "Luke" got that, but it's useful to his, "Luke's" story.

-4- the earthquake feature stretches the story's credence but no matter, it's poetic license, eh?! The story of the prisoners not escaping proves Paul's integrity as well as setting up the opportunity to convert and baptize the jail-keeper and his family of pagan Philippians. Luke tells a good story, first about Peter and now about Paul.

What else? Well, Paul is in Philippi to lead members of the Jewish community (which seems to be mainly women) to accept Jesus as Lord, and this story is an instance of going beyond that to convert local pagans to Christ. 

Anyway, too much rambling for today, I'm going for a walk now. POD for tomorrow is eight o'clock church followed by morning nap and maybe I'll open a jar of sardines for Sunday dinner, sardines and saltines. 

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition and we'll all be free. Remember that song? We sang it in our Cove School classroom during World War Two.

RSF&PTL

T89&c

typed but not edited, I'm tired of fooling with it - - started Thursday and abandoned as too wandering, picked up again this morning, Saturday