Wednesday meander
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down
from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world:
Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in
him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.
Preface of Lent
Lent
Through Jesus Christ our Lord; who was tempted in every
way as we are, yet did not sin. By his grace we are able to
triumph over every evil, and to live no longer for ourselves
alone, but for him who died for us and rose again.
or this
You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare
with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in
works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments,
they may come to the fullness of grace which you have
prepared for those who love you.
Let's open by being picky. The horrifying art above (well, for those of us who have a horror of poisonous snakes and huge desert spiders) is titled "Moses and the Brass Serpent". Some bible translations have brass serpent, some have bronze serpent, I may check later but not now to see if any translations have copper serpent, which נְחשֶׁת is what it is most likely that Moses would have used to fashion a serpent; copper, soft, malleable copper. Where would Moses (c.a. 1300 BC) have gotten bronze (c.a. 3500 BC) or brass (c.a. 500 BC) alloys, and how would he work them? Granted it's a story, and whoever came along ages and ages later and wrote down the ancient campfire story never thought about Moses dealing with metal alloys, melting and casting temperatures in the wilderness; so let's throw a monkey-wrench into the smoothly turning gears of Heilsgeschichte - - our most important human faculty may be our ability to notice asynchronisms.
Oh, I forgot: ignore Ephesians and the Psalm, here are the two remarkable lessons for Sunday that bring on the above art selection:
Numbers 21:4-9
From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
The Gospel
John 3:14-21
Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
Moses, Jesus, God, and the Serpents where one can only be saved by believing that is Faith - - well, Ephesians is relevant after all:
The Epistle
Ephesians 2:1-10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-- by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
one theme being salvation by Grace through Faith (Lutheran pastors should have a good time in the pulpit this coming Sunday).
But my beef with the Propers is the Collect for the Day, the idea of which is to collect our minds in common to focus on the theme for worship; and the collect about Jesus as Bread does not.
Looking around, I see that I left my copy of Hatchett (Marion, Commentary on the American Prayer Book, which, when careful and attentive, I never let out of my sight) in the library at church, otherwise I'd look up what he says about this Collect for Lent 4 and see the rationale for putting a Bread collect here when the Bread of Life discourse isn't scheduled until late summer. However, prizing relevance over sentimentality for historic writings, the Church does afford us a new book, Prayers for an Inclusive Church, that provides this more suitable collect for Lent 4B:
God, rich in mercy, whose light reveals the truth of things, the judgment we bring on ourselves: we thank you that you sent your Son to save and not condemn; in his self-giving love may life abundant reigh; through Jesus Christ, who wad lifted cup for us. Amen
Moses and the Brass Serpent, oil on oakwood, anonymous Flemish painter, 17th century
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This I do with hesitation lest the charge be false, though as the father of beloved girls I believe, not doubt, when girls claim to have been sexually abused.
From time to time I stop and google old teachers from Cove School and Bay High whom I enjoyed. Cove School all-time favorite was Virginia Parker, who picked back up in my life when I was in my sixties and she in her eighties. As reported here before, Miss Parker played the piano for St Thomas by the Sea Episcopal Church, Laguna Beach in the parish's founding years. We her Cove School Class of 1949 honored her during a class reunion half a century later, and I visited her in hospital and at home in her dying, then officiated her funeral at St Thomas, being the priest there at the time, and with her niece, I scattered her ashes on the surf early one morning at Laguna Beach.
Favorite at Bay High was our history teacher Bill Weeks, next most enjoyable was Orin Whitley, our band director, both of whose funerals I attended later, and both of whose obituaries I've found online over the past years. Also John M Johnston, who was school principal our years at Bay High 1949-53. Also found the obit for Gil Wilson, who taught me Algebra 2 and, though being a good student I received none of it, he was mean, a bully who publicly demeaned students who did not understand or gave wrong answers: "Bless your little pointed head" was one of his humiliating putdowns, another was "Use your head for something besides a block to keep your ears apart", which, thank God, these days would see a teacher bounced out on his BeeYouTeeTee.
One I thought to look up yesterday was Truby Shaw, who was new, I think in his first year at Bay High my senior year 1952-53 and he taught us physics. As with any number of teachers, including Bill Weeks and Gil Wilson, Shaw doubled as a coach, moved on to other Florida schools, eventually north to teach and coach in Alaska high schools, finally back to Florida after retirement.
Shaw was instantly recognizable, the picture looked like him when he was our teacher at age 26.
The devastating thing was when I glanced down his memorial page on Find A Grave and my eye caught the word "rape" in the latest comment. Online public record for the checking and reading, here's the link to what I read: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10043183/truby-shaw
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The last two things in mind as I write today are (1) that I'm trying various pepper sauces with my raw oysters.
My ongoing favorite is still Tabasco. Tabasco habanero may be second. Trappey's and Zatarain's cajun are not hot enough. Louisiana Hotter may edge out Tabasco's original before the contest ends.
And finally (2) the new tree carving art in Oaks by the Bay Park below, masterful, the artist's main, or at least starting tool is a chainsaw. There's a pelican and a mermaid.
