in your abundance

"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made the deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image above are galaxies that formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. No galaxies have been seen before at such early times. The new deep view also provides insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the universe's history."

Here's our cosmic collect for next Sunday, Proper 27, as we anticipate Advent:

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.

Hero to many who studied under him in seminary, liturgics Professor the Rev Dr Marion Hatchett ("Commentary on the American Prayer Book" page 195, 1981 Third Printing, Seabury, NY) says "This collect was composed for the 1662 revision for use on the sixth Sunday after the Epiphany which, prior to that time, had no proper of its own. Bishop John Cosin is believed to be the author. The prayer has for its scriptural base the Epistle provided for that Sunday. The present revision places the collect on the third Sunday before Advent when the lections begin to focus our attention on the second advent, the time of Christ's coming again with power and glory."

Sure enough, the collect does indeed go well with Proper 27A Sunday's End Time readings from Amos, Paul's 1st Thessalonians, and Matthew 25's strongly apocalyptic parable of Jesus telling how it'll be when God establishes his new kingdom on Earth. Which, sternly warning about being ready or you'll get the door slammed in your face and be locked out, does not sound like the hospitable Lord of love and mercy we preach; but okay, "the gospel of the Lord" anyway.

BTW, don't make me keep reminding you, NEITHER the gospel parable NOR Paul (nor indeed Amos) is about being "saved" into modern Christians' notions about life after death - - Jerry Falwell saying don't take the chance of dying on your way home from church today and going to Hell: pray the sinners' prayer right now, accept Christ as your personal savior, and you're "as sure for heaven as if you were already there" - - in my Episcopal ears not comic but outrageous beyond ludicrous notwithstanding Augustine supposedly praying "grant me chastity and continence, but not yet" so as to continue a life of sinning until his deathbed conversion and salvation (examples of manipulating God to save oneself, bootstrap salvation at one's own convenience). The collect and the lections are not about heaven in the sky, not heaven in the clouds, but heaven on earth, the reign of God here on the sandy beach enjoying sea and sun forever: will there still be hurricanes? Sir, you are the one who knows.

Out on what is now Alt 98 the other side of Bay Harbor and just around the curve, on the right side of the highway heading toward Tyndall AFB, right beside the road, stand two Baptist churches - - competing? IDK - - one's name is Bible Believers Baptist Church (are they a breakaway group, Keillor's last surviving remnant of the One True Church contrasting with apostates in the church next door? IDK, but their odd proximity and the in your face name makes me wonder). Episcopalian, I was raised a bible believing Christian (Scripture, Tradition & Reason, with Scripture as first, foremost and prime) though perhaps not in the sense that nonEpiscopalians may have been; and as a bible student, I like to check into what bible writers meant to say as compared to what I'd always been taught and thought, and contemplate their credibility today as compared to what and why of a religious nature would have been credible two thousand years ago.

Part of it is sheer observation ability based on progressing technology. No NASA or telescopes two thousand years ago when flat-earthers looked up and saw the firmament, the dome holding back the waters above, that in the daytime is blue with fluffy clouds and yellow sun and at night is velvety black with white moon and imbedded with tiny points of light. Nowadays there's Multiverse, Universe, in our own universe of some 200,000,000,000 (two hundred billion) galaxies, of which our Milky Way is one in a local (!!) cluster of some 100,000 galaxies named Laniakea - -

"Galaxy clusters are vast families of galaxies bound and grouped by the ties of gravity. Our own Milky Way (red dot) resides in a small galaxy group, called the Local Group, which itself is on the periphery of the vast Laniakea supercluster of 100,000 galaxies. (Laniakea is Hawaiian for 'immeasurable heaven')" (NASA) which lends our own universe unimaginable size implications that boggle the mind.

If our Laniakea is average size with 100,000 galaxies, there must be

200,000,000,000 ÷ 100,000 = 2,000,000

some two million such galaxy clusters in our Universe alone. If we do not fathom the immensities, our conception of y'hVah the One True God of Creation is surely too small.`

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר

way-yo-mer Elohim y'hi oor

And God said Let there be light

And look what burst forth! The immensity staggers the imagination, and yet, Church of England evangelist Bryan Green (1901-1993) used to preach, I heard him preach in our diocese in Pennsylvania in 1980, that "God loves you, even you, speck on a speck".

Here again is that Collect that Hatchett traces back to 1662:

How important does it make you feel to be valued and personally loved by God the Creator of such imponderable enormity? Did such a One really come here? Is it credible doctrine to say S/He's Coming Again? - - and I'd better be ready lest I get locked out?

Here's an alternate collect for the day from TEC's little book "Prayers for an Inclusive Church" - -

Holy God,

whose fire of love

never goes out:

free us from

the fear of scarcity

that keeps us out

of love's own feast;

renew our trust

in your abundance

which knows no death

and keeps no count;

through Jesus Christ the oil of gladness.

Amen.

BLM&PTL

T+