Bad News Gospel

I know better than to talk like this.

Everyone who knows me knows this about me. The Gospel, in my mind, is not in the slightest teeniest least about believing that I save myself and make myself “as sure for heaven as if I were already there,” to quote one late preacher, by walking down the aisle and accepting Christ as my personal Savior; 

nor is the Gospel in the scantiest piddling measure about standing and reciting creeds of ancient doctrine. The Gospel is neither about “saving myself” nor about my personal piety. 

The Gospel is singularly and specifically found on the lips of a wandering first-century Galilean sage, evangelist, healer who said, "The first commandment is this ... you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: you are to love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31). And who said, “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another. As I have loved you, you are to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples -- that you love one another.” (John 13:34-35). This is the entirety of the Gospel; all else is skybalon at bottom selfish worst, and commentary at top eloquent best. 

This comes to mind this morning as I rather self-indulgently (a) think about the incomparably delicious wine I sipped last night, (b) check the online menu for the dockside restaurant where I plan to take a beloved friend for a tasty lunch, but then (c) open this morning’s news and read of vicious attacks on humanitarian missions that are trying to get food through to Syrian families who are eating weeds and grass in order to survive, people who while I feast are actually living unrescued in a post-apocalyptic dystopia about which I can only read in popular fiction. Why me?

This is the Gospel: not what I passively, vacantly believe (whatever the heliotrope "believe" means) but how it impels me to live in regard to other human beings. All other “gospels” are false, and there is a non-optional eucharistic imperative in this Gospel. As I take upon my tongue the Bread which is offered to me as the Body of Christ, I become literally -- homousianische -- the Christ whose substance I consume, the God of the same substance. As long as the elements of that substance are within me and part of me, I AM, and I cannot be other. If I do not love neighbor, I blaspheme both my Lord my God and my personal I-AM-ness. If there is a hungry, naked, unsheltered, untended person in the world, I AM on call.  Until that person is fed, clothed, housed, medically and humanely tended, my very being is at risk.

The Gospel, inconvenient to say the least, not good news, nevertheless is laid indelibly upon the baptized. (BCP304 will you? will you? will you? will you? will you?)

All because of what’s in the news, this dandelion nasturcium nonsensical musing supplants my intent to write about the superb Italian red wine from nerello mascalese grapes planted in volcanic soil 800 meters above sea Ievel, the best wine I've ever tasted,

that I sipped with a bite of shepherd’s pie for supper last evening. The moral of the story? Don’t read the news before writing my blog post. 

Sunflower. 

TW+