unworthily

Staying outside alone, at 7H with Father Nature, away from the news. The shame of how we shamelessly treat each other. Life goes on as long as Earth endures us, appalled but patient, Time and Eternity aware, assured and confident that humans are our own mass extinction event, Genesis 6:5-7.

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As no sermon for three weeks, Saturday with no preps to do for tomorrow, 74F and sunny out here on 7H porch, 85%, a late summer morning on the NW Florida Gulf Coast. A plate with a couple types of wild game sausage, German mustard & Hellmann's mayo, whole wheat saltine cracker to nibble with each bite*. To wash it down, a cup of hot and black from my gift coffee club's latest offering, which arrived this week.

* foregoing my preference for a hot dog bun in favor of a cracker so as to reduce prospects/severity of postprandial hypotension brought on by carbs with breakfast; a common visitation of age and other factors - -

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Yellow boats zipping back and forth, test facility for the Mercury outboard motor facility in Millville. Driving one of those boat as a test driver seems to me an ideal job for a retired priest or naval officer. The last Time I had such feelings was when we were stationed in Mayport (1959-1962) and, visiting the Jacksonville Zoo, I think it was, on the other side of the river, I coveted the job of the engineer who drove the tiny train that circled the grounds, and we rode on it with Malinda and Joe. He was Jody then, and I spied the perfect retirement career for myself. Didn't do it, did other things instead.

All manner of labor is honorable.

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Can't shed my mind of the picture of migrants being shuffled to Martha's Vineyard, where they were helped by the local Episcopal parish. The Gospel is not about what you claim to believe thinking you are saving yourself from going to Hell when you die; the Gospel is what you do, how you live in the one life you have, as a BCP prayer has it, "the way of the cross is the way of life."

I'm remembering our old prayerbook's wording of The Exhortations, cautioning people who were of a mind to come to the Altar to receive Holy Communion. It went like this:

DEARLY beloved in the Lord, ye who mind to come to the holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, must consider how Saint Paul exhorteth all persons diligently to try and examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread, and drink of that Cup. For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; so is the danger great, if we receive the same unworthily.

and was based on St Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 11:

23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he tookthe cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,

It would form the basis for Roman Catholic bishops withholding the Sacrament from those who do not subscribe to church teaching; and, though it does not, because our church has backed away from disciplinary actions, could warrant exclusion from the Altar rail of anyone whose words and actions go against the Gospel's clear teaching and commandment of agape, love, which is not how we feel but how we treat others, notably how we treat those who are different from us.

With the particular theological, pastoral, and political slant of The Episcopal Church in mind, I am thinking of those who are using innocent immigrants as political pawns; and specifically of those in the pews who approve of such depravity.

Many have said that politics does not belong in the pulpit; but the fact is that politics concerns people and everything Jesus said and taught and did was about people and our treatment of each other; nothing was about what we have to say we believe.

Feeling especially vulnerable under heaven on this lovely morning.

RSF&PTL