oysters &c

Saturday morning Walt & Judy drove over from Pensacola, way too long since I'd seen my brother. We had a visit here in 7H then went down to Hunt's for noon dinner. Not crowded, just a few minutes waiting on the benches out front and then we were ushered in to a nice corner table with windows. It was a bit cool for me inside and I was glad to have worn a jacket shirt over one of my khaki-colored what L L Bean calls a hurricane shirt, though my hands were cold the entire time.

My dinner included two dozen of the most delicious oysters I remember ever having half-shell, nice large size, cold salty ones to slurp from the shell; and brought home enough of my fried oysters to have a couple for breakfast before church yesterday, and oysters, hushpuppies and an onion ring for breakfast just now. A fitting breakfast for a person of my ilk.

My pulpit next Sunday, so'll be devoting a bit of Time each day to contemplating what to say on this First Sunday of Advent to what will be small attendance both services because of it being Thanksgiving weekend.

No matter, they're gonna get the full load, and I think it'll be televised as usual.

After that, my next Time in the pulpit will be Sunday, December 25, Christmas Day: both 8 AM and 10:30 AM services will be "said" Eucharists with no music, just me and the Christmas Gospel from Luke 2, the King James Version. There may be one or two folks at each service; if nobody, I'll simply pack it in and come home.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner is to be Saturday, family coming over. So on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day itself, nothing special except that I plan to cook and eat my baked oyster dish that nobody will touch but me. This year though, instead of oyster dressing that I've usually made, I'm going to make Scalloped Oysters like Mama used to bake for us, with saltines and many, many oysters. I do have an excellent recipe that I tried once before.

If Linda doesn't have enough squash for the squash casserole, tomorrow we'll drive over to Tanya's Garden for another bag of yellow crookneck squash.

And if the appointment holds up, Wednesday I'm due back at Hunt's for more oysters.

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Before I get to work on next Sunday, I've still in mind yesterday's gospel reading from Luke (scroll down). It concludes with an intriguing line that opens a Faith issue. To the respectful criminal on the cross beside him, Jesus assures, promises, "Today you will be with me in Paradise."

There are several different sets of "Jesus' Last Words from the Cross," all of them different according to what each evangelist has in mind; which of course tosses them all up for speculation as to what, if anything memorable, Jesus really said. But of course, what Jesus really said is whatever the gospel writer says he said, it depends on whose story you are reading. Do Bible study with me sometime, and we'll explore this line of thought.

At any event, Luke is the only evangelist who has Jesus say this, the chat with both other criminals, a disrespectful one and a respectful one, to set up an event and give an assurance: today you will be with me in Paradise.

Luke wrote this, maybe 85 to 95 AD (?), sixty years or so after Good Friday and Easter: why did he have Jesus say this? Does Luke mean it as assurance to the faithful? Is Luke trying to convert Theophilus, for whom he is writing his stories?

It sets up a contrast. Paul, who had written forty years earlier, seems to have held the view that "afterlife" would happen at the End of Days with the Second Coming of Christ, when the dead would be resurrected, and all those living and all those raised from the dead would meet Jesus in the air, as the new kingdom of God on earth would be ushered in. Luke, at least in this reading, seems to hold that we slip directly from death into afterlife, for the "repentant thief" and the rest of us who repent and believe, immediate Paradise.

Below is yesterday's gospel reading. See what you think. Nobody knows, so what you think is as legitimate as what the most sophisticated theologian or Bible scholar may think.

After the gospel quotation are some comments I started last evening before I went off sleepy. I'm not going to delete or change whatever I wrote.

RSF&PTL

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke (23:33-43)

People Glory to you, Lord Christ.

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." The Gospel of the Lord.

This was our gospel reading at church this morning. We humans, throughout our history and prehistory afraid of death and its implications for the personal oblivion of each of us, have, throughout our existence from hunter gathers and cave dwellers to the modern day, taken comfort in various hypotheses that, beyond our last breath, save us into ongoingness, Life Eternal, and it's a central theology of Christianity. Father Nature, though, is interested in our preservation as a species and people, not in eternal life for each individual; and this also seems to be the concern of Israel in the OT, the salvation of the Nation, not of individuals. But, unwilling to see ourselves as simply another of the multitude of ants, bees, swarms of bats, schools of mullet, herds of sheep, communities of apes who did not eat the forbidden fruit that made us self-aware, we are different, even created last, in the image of God, knowing good and evil, panicking at the thought of oblivion at death.

Genesis is my favorite OT book (Mark my NT favorite, Mark and Revelation). In Genesis, nothing changes for us in the Garden but our self-consciousness, our ability for self-reflection. Compared to the obliviousness of other animals, it is a mixed blessing indeed, because we now have high anxiety about our own death, which is not a worry to other animals.

Today you will be with me in Paradise. Between Paul's resurrection at the Last Day and Luke's today in Paradise, and Jesus with the parable of Lazarus and Dives contrasting Poor Lazarus feasting at the table with Abraham versus rich, greedy, selfish and self-centered Dives parched with thirst in the fires of Hades, and the fact that we are simply further and differently evolved animals, mammals, I don't know what to think.

There's a line in the BCP that says at death life is not ended, but changed. What do you believe?

pics: sunrise this morning, breakfast today