Collect and 1 Thessalonians
Good FSU (31) - Boston College (24) game today, there appeared to be a lot of empty seats in the Massachusetts stadium, but FSU did well, we were proud. Same with the Clemson - Syracuse game, which we watched going on in the living room during noon dinner.
Noon dinner was okra & fresh tomatoes with onion, lobster meat, and the second package of very good lamb steaks. The lamb steaks are a tasty, reasonably priced alternative to beef steaks, and seeming even more special because we have lamb so seldom. I cooked the steaks medium, slightly pink. Oh, an ice cold Abita beer, which was on twofers at Publix. Then a wee slice of sweet potato pie. My weigh-in tomorrow morning will not see the slight daily drop that I've been nursing along in my "No Hospital for Mr B" project.
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Our lectionary for Sunday, Nov 8 is leading into Advent season with its anticipation of the Second Coming, a faith event that I'm not going up on a mountain to welcome as many disappointed believers have done. The nature of the Second Coming, as St Paul describes it in his confident letter of assurance to the Thessalonians, is compatible with the request in the Collect for 8 November:
O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Hatchett (p.195) says this collect was composed for the 1662 revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Its theology, both in the opening address and in the petition, reflect the religious worldview of the Church of England in the seventeenth century, when the science of astronomy was erupting while the Church continued steady in its unchanging faith that was/is taken for and zealously regarded as knowledge, which they are not - - doctrine/dogma are that set in concrete, even murderously in the history of the Christian church.
That the church blithely continues liturgically in its venerable archaicism lest auld acquaintance be forgot, while the world moves on leap by leap, could be a reason for the mainline churchs' decline over the past several generations. Me, I'm hanging in there for old Time's sake not only because it beats all the alternatives, even the "None" point of view, but because it's my heritage. I'm the eighth or ninth Episcopal priest in my branch of the Weller/Wäller family over the past more than two hundred years since Andreas Wäller and family arrived from what is now Germany, in the seventeen-hundreds. I'm not sure whether it's eight or nine because I think the genealogist might have unintentionally slipped in an extra George Wäller early on. At any event, I'm here to stay, creeds, hymns, and all.
Keeping on keeping on, my response to the address theology, "blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life," is that the blessed Son actually came into the world as Show and Tell, to show and tell us how to live into the image of God. As Genesis One reads, "26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (KJV)
Here's the One Thessalonians reading, with Paul's assurance to his followers. Again thinking back a week or two, I doubt that George Burns as God, who assured John Denver that he wasn't religious either, would foresee the eschaton as St Paul does. More likely he would have said, "It hasn't happened yet, how do I know?" and tapped the ash off his cigar.
If Genesis 1:26-27 has it right, God is more like us than we realize, imagine, or image. Including the view of Free Will that leaves the future open, filled with two roads diverging in yellow woods.
Here's the reading:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
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It's a fascinating scenario. I'll search the web for a suitable depiction, eh?
RSF&PTL
T91
Mr B