Proper 21     The Sunday closest to September 28 O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  At least one scholar says that the phrase “mercy and pity” literally translates “sparing and showing compassion,” which sounds like a very good God. Dating from the earliest centuries of the Church, the theology of this collect for today is that God’s almightiness shows not most powerfully in the magnificence of creation, but in lovingkindness. This sounds like a very good God indeed. TW+

Yesterday’s readings were from the Gospel according to John, of course, as always at a funeral; but the epistle was from 1 Corinthians 15, which always stirs to mind the significant differences between Saint Paul and the gospel writers. Not that Mark, Matthew, Luke and John themselves agree, there are interesting differences among them also. But a funeral, like Sundays, is the Day of the Resurrection all over again. It’s Easter, and nowhere in all his writings does Paul mention the empty tomb that is meant to be so startling in all four gospels -- and also in some cultures, notably England, where decorated empty tombs are seen everywhere on Easter morning.  So, why doesn’t Paul mention the empty tomb? The answer, at least partially from a historical critical point of view, might be that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 a generation before the gospels were written; and in the case of John, perhaps two generations before: Paul hadn’t heard about an empty tomb, that story came along la...

Motor Trend for October 2012 reports the death of Walt Woron (1921-2012). Walt was my first and all-time favorite automobile test driver.  Summer 1950, the Greyhound or Trailways bus was taking me, age 14, from Panama City to Pensacola for my appointment with Dr. Bell, the only orthodontist in the area. On arriving in Fort Walton the bus turned left down an alley and halted beside a drugstore, their bus stop in the little town, for a ten or fifteen minute rest stop and to let off and pick up passengers. Inside the drugstore was a magazine rack, and on the rack was a Motor Trend magazine, my first knowledge of such a publication.  On the magazine cover stood Walt Woron beside a 1950 Chrysler New Yorker sedan that he had road tested and reported on. One picture inside had the car leaning heavily into a high speed turn. It was the start of a lifelong addiction. That magazine is in my car trunk here in Joe’s room.  Because of two Walts, ...

Gospel Safety Touchback Touchdown It would have been hilarious in elementary school touch football.  It would have brought outraged parents storming onto the field at the end of a high school game. If this had been the final play in an Alabama-LSU game, there would have been hell to pay. Professional football? Even President Obama said it was stupid.  There’s got to be a sermon in there. The ref on the right as a Christ figure saving the receiver doesn’t work for the defensive player who clearly (?) intercepted the pass. But it could work anyway if Tim had been QB. Or if it had been the Lions and the Saints.  Thursday’s gospel is that referees and NFL have reached a deal to get the pros back on the field tonight. All for now. Bubba has a homily and a sermon to write before the sun comes up! TomBo

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 20-22 Good News Translation (GNT) 7 ... the king and Haman went to eat with Esther 2 for a second time. Over the wine the king asked her again, “Now, Queen Esther, what do you want? Tell me and you shall have it. I'll even give you half the empire.” 3 Queen Esther answered, “If it please Your Majesty to grant my humble request, my wish is that I may live and that my people may live. 4 My people and I have been sold for slaughter. If it were nothing more serious than being sold into slavery, I would have kept quiet and not bothered you about it; but we are about to be destroyed—exterminated!” 5 Then King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who dares to do such a thing? Where is this man?” 6 Esther answered, “Our enemy, our persecutor, is this evil man Haman!” Haman faced the king and queen with terror. 9 Then one of them, who was named Harbonah, said, “Haman even went so far as to build a gallows at his house so that he could...

This moment always has me wondering what it’s like, though I’ll find out soon enough for myself. Alone, it’s always and only alone, there’s no other way. Though I suppose it could be like Rushdie’s plane explosion in The Satanic Verses , two men floating down and talking together. After tests and heart catheterization on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 cardiologists told us my heart issues were inoperable and gave me two to five months to live. My thought while still in hospital that evening was exactly as above -- what’s it like, what will it be like, it happens to each one of us and there’s no way around it, what’s it like? As a priest I’ve been through dying many times with other people and always wondered what it was like. Now I’m about to find out for myself, I’ll keep a journal to log the experience and observe myself, have myself as my own object. My journal was started that evening. Within a day or so, at a friend’s pressing, it became my daily CaringBridge posting, then, upo...

Addicted Upon becoming school chaplain the end of 2002 and looking around at what was going on, it was immediately obvious to me that our students were less than enthusiastic about coming to religion classes; and small wonder. For one thing, the priest who had been teaching previously had unusual views of Scripture for an Episcopalian such that, teaching from Genesis for example, she had taught the children that God had required circumcision because of His displeasure with the male body. Further, in observing the classes, what came to my mind was my own excruciatingly boring Sunday School classes as a child growing up, forty-five minutes to an hour of sheer agony every Sunday morning. Something had to be done, but what? Working with the Head of School, we hired several religion teachers in succession, then finally when a successful one resigned to move to Texas, the role fell on me, who had never taught children. During my search for ideas, Time magazine had a cover piece ab...

Sunday, September 23, 2012 Proper 20     The Sunday closest to September 21 Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. James 3:13-4:3, 7-8 King James Version (KJV) Two Kinds of Wisdom 13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. 14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full...

Any Dream Will Do and Wandering “Any Dream Will Do” is a moving song in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , which our beloved Junior Choir presented one Sunday morning at Mount Calvary Episcopal Church, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, under choir director Dianne Morningstar. My sadness about that Sunday was then and always will be that I missed it. Tass was in the Junior Choir, and missing her performance was difficult and painful for me, and required a heart-stretching choice. We were in the “call process” and had just received a call to be rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, that we were looking forward to, and that I was scheduled to accept the following week. But that week in the Spring of 1984 I was teaching a graduate course in Defense Weapons Systems Acquisition Management at the University of North Florida. The day before class, I had called on Bishop Duvall at his office in Mobile, Alabama to discuss the vacan...

A state of the art Apple IIe was my first computer, purchased in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1983 for business and personal use. Together with the Apple printer and double floppy drives, it cost $3,200 in an era when $16,000 was an outrageous price for a new Cadillac. That Apple computer came to Florida when we moved to Apalachicola the summer of 1984, and served as the church computer as well. Until we arrived, they were using a typewriter and a mimeograph machine to prepare and copy Sunday bulletins; the typewriter may have been an IBM Selectronic with the changeable ball, not sure. We went through several Apple IIe computers at Trinity Church, which I bought because such luxuries and frills were not compatible with the parish budget or vestry frugality. In time we switched to PCs, first with DOS with which you learned a bunch of commands such as control-P for print, which is still good, then with Windows and scroll-down menus and pictures to click on. When we moved home to Pan...

OK, so here’s from ABC news yesterday http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/jesus-married-old-papyrus-mentions-wife-000319173--abc-news-topstories.html Was Jesus Married? Old Papyrus Mentions ‘Wife’ We’ve seen Islamic right-wingers streaming and screaming into the streets, rioting and burning and murdering over perceived offenses, let’s see if the XnRt go ballistic about this, Jesus married? Bearing in mind that the Nicene Creed, which like it or not is the central statement of Christian orthodoxy, says that Jesus “was made man,” or as the new restored version has it, “became truly human.” Being made man, becoming truly human, would include all of it, no?, puberty, adolescence, youthful maturing, eh? With all the implications that are unthinkable for the Great Unthinking. “Otherwise” is not truly human, is it. A wife? Can’t hardly get no more manly and truly human than having a girlfriend and desiring to -- marry her. Comes to mind Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, C...

Psalm 1 King James Version (KJV) 1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Appointed for next Sunday, Psalm 1 is one of several my mother encouraged me to memorize as a child. Psalm 1, the 23rd Psalm, Psalm 121, and there were others. Mama grew up Southern Baptist, in a home where church was a regular ...

It’s early morning, but not too early. Thundering over the Bay out front, maybe there’ll be rain, this summer -- which officially fades into fall this week -- has been wet, which has been good, but also humid, too muggy to have doors and windows open. In fact, the windows don’t open any longer, or haven’t been in years. Having a cuppa, Fortnum & Mason tea that Kate sent from England, and that TJC1C2 brought back for me. F&M’s Piccadilly Blend, with a splash of milk, delicious, perfect. Email reminded me of a couple of birthday e-cards, so opening those was birthday all over again. One included a view of the Sydney Opera House and brought back exciting memories of very early mornings, window seat, QANTAS flight circling in light clouds, over homes, their red tile roofs obviously wet from early showers, over the Opera House and magnificent Sydney Harbor. That was a common experience for me in the late 70s and early 80s, when either the Australian Department of Defence o...

MADness Soon after 9/11 we saw some discussion and articles about how to reach peaceful accommodation with the extremists. One response, from the other side, said that hatred of us is so vehement that the only possible peaceful solution would be our moving to another planet. World affairs since then, and recent, current, have rather borne that out. In the News. Seven to ten billion dollars for updating 400 B61 nuclear bombs, more to figure out how to mount the B61 on the F-35. At least another five billion to modernize our W78 and W88 warheads. Top of the News, with an estimated 75 to 400 weapons in his own nuclear arsenal, Israeli PM Netanyahu harasses the American president to define the point after which the U.S. will take military action against Iran’s nuclear program.  Military analysis generally focuses on capability not intent, but a state that denies the Holocaust and calls for the death of another nation makes intent also a factor. Two nuclear weapons, at...