next to last Monday in August
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
In its years, +Time turns out to be something of a cross among a weblog and a journal, a diary, a mind dump, a place for food experiences, a bible study: with political viewpoint largely, deliberately, avoided because I know a lot of folks on all sides, most of whom are way smarter than I am.
But a trade war with import tariffs, waged among allies and adjacent neighbors, is inarguably Stupidity.
So, and I note as a military person, a naval officer long retired but still one, is the border and immigrant war policy and practice that arrests law abiding loved ones of military members, destroying morale and loyalty: not the first time, but in this morning's news, arresting the dad of a sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln. One sailor matters and his dad matters. It is so incredibly, inarguably stupid, and so mind-bendingly enraging, that I really don't need to know, love, have a relationship with, be friends with, or in touch with, or respect anyone on that side, who favors that extreme of immigrant control; I'm overly vehement perhaps but nevertheless: there's my line of contempt in my sandbox.
One sailor matters, and his dad matters.
All government is all ways, always, all bad: a house fighting against itself. A nation divided by hatred of its own.
History will have something to say about this Time. What's said and taught as the historic Truth (seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will), will be written by the winning side, their AI robots, in a war that can have no winners.
Near grief at what we are doing to America, including that fear and hatred are purposefully being fanned as the inciting weapon, including that I find myself becoming One Too, I am so sad and disappointed.
If it weren't for Huck Finn, I'd prefer to have lived in my grandfathers' Time.
++++++++++
HUCK FINN
Speaking of, there is an article about Huck Finn in this morning's online NYT, discussing Mark Twain's book as mandatory reading in schools and its affect with students. Many students were embarrassed, many deeply offended, many ashamed; sadly, sad to say, the book felt perfectly normal in my Time and Place of reading it, but it does not any longer. Was his "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Mark Twain's way of castigating and shaming the American way of life in his Time? Was it comedy or tragedy?
+++++++++
There's my introductory welcome to my Monday.
++++++++
EUGENE O'NEILL
Unable to gather my mind to contemplate anything in writing last week, I spent (invested? wasted?) some Time finding and watching films that were free on Youtube. Two of them were film settings of plays by Eugene O'Neill. First "The Ice Man Cometh," and then "A Long Day's Journey into Night." Both later acclaimed as masterpieces, both were dark beyond imagining. If you know the stage plays, "The Ice Man Cometh" is a trip into what turns out to be evil, challenging to no avail, the hopelessness of a tavern-full of drunken lives of empty pipe dreams.
"A Long Day's Journey into Night" is about a family of four, five counting the maid, six counting the cook whom we never see - - James the father, Mary the mother, Jamie the older son, Edmund the younger son. It is again a story of hopelessness: James is destroyed by his stingy penury and his alcoholism; Jamie is destroyed by his father's constant degradation and his meaningless life of drunken carousing; brother Edmund is destroyed by a diagnosis of tuberculosis, the assurance of worthless treatment and death in a state asylum as his wealthy father is too stingy to pay for better treatment. Surprise toward the end, Mary the wife and mother, who has just returned from treatment, is destroyed by the drugs she is addicted to, prescribed after the death of her second son, worsened by the birth of Edmund, who was a mistake: Mary again becomes "a ghost" who drifts in drugged stupor, around the house-not-home musing about the past.
Both plays, film adaptations, are for folk who love film noir. As for me, my favorite movies are "The Blues Brothers" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "National Lampoon's Animal House." My favorite television is reruns of Carol Burnett and The Honeymooners.
++++++
BUT WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
With days of a week in shambles of sorts, last week I lost track of my intention to make a habit of commenting on the upcoming Sunday's gospel at some point, and I missed a favorite.
Oh, WTH, most bible stories are my favorites, especially Mark's version when Mark's version is Matthew's or Luke's source. So I'm looking back and commenting briefly on it anyway.
Here's yesterday's gospel reading:
Matthew 16:13-20
When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
+++++++
From what Mark wrote that Jesus asked, Matthew changes what Jesus asks in a way that creates ambiguity. Mark (below, scroll down) has Jesus ask, "Who do people say that I am?," which makes Jesus' second question, "But who do you say that I am?" clear. Matthew, though, creates ambiguity that I'm seen and heard show up in sermons as far back as a seminarian preaching in chapel in theological seminary.
Mark 8:27-30 (NRSVUE)
Peter’s Declaration about Jesus
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do YOU say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
++++
With Mark, it's all perfectly clear.
Matthew changes Jesus' words to have Jesus ask, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" It's arguable: is Jesus referring to himself as the Son of Man? Or is Jesus asking about the cosmic Son of Man in Daniel 7, a different person? Or is Matthew, in his agenda for his Jewish Christian readers, having Jesus cast himself as the cosmic Son of Man in Daniel 7 coming as the Messiah at the End of Days?
I mean, the question and problem is not about Jesus, it's about Matthew - - what Matthew the author with license to write what he will - - means for the reader to hear and understand. Just so, I heard a theological seminary student take the position that by changing what Mark says Jesus said, Matthew intentionally creates tension in the situation. Daniel 7's Son of Man is known to Jews, here Matthew's intended hearers, readers, as the One whom God will send to overturn earthly powers and authorities and to rule on earth as God's regent. That's more specifically true with Matthew's readers than with Mark's readers. With Matthew's readers, if Jesus is the Son of Man in Daniel 7, then THAT'S IT. Proving this is Matthew's agenda.
So Matthew has Jesus first ask
"Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
and then, unlike in Mark in contrast or comparison not to what others say, but to who the Son of Man is
not "Who do YOU say that I am?"
but, over against the Son of Man, "Who do you say that "I" am?"
In Mark, Peter's answer is that Jesus is the long expected Messiah.
In Matthew, Peter's answer is more: not only is Jesus the Messiah, Jesus is the Son of the living God.
In Matthew, Peter's expanded and unequivocal answer, and Jesus' strong affirmation, are driven by Matthew's agenda vis a vis Matthew's intended audience/readership.
When there are significant differences where Matthew has significantly changed Mark his source, I like to explore and try to figure out why Matthew changed and enhanced Mark's text.
A bible study sermon of that focus is fine in theological seminary, but out in the real world,
preachers usually go another way and confront the congregation with the assignment of each person working out who Jesus is for himself/herself; and being challenged to discover whether he/she is living into the answer to that question, "Who is Jesus to me, and am I living into that?"
My answer this morning, to "Who?" is the same as ever, but "am I living into it?" not so sure, now that I'm facing my feelings about anyone who isn't angered by the treatment of that sailor and his dad. My fury is certainly not godly, christly, eh? I have to confront that in myself, nomesane?, and deal with it because the most important thing in life, even more important than Time, is other people, those we know, those we love, those we neither know nor love, where LOVE is not a feeling but how we treat other people. I don't want to make myself an anti-Christ by hating anyone.
++++++++++
FELLOWSHIP
My last thing this morning gets down to my usual practice of printing here in +Time, anything I speak publicly. By invitation, last Saturday I spoke briefly at the lunch meeting of our parish Men's Fellowship, about "Fellowship." It was a cordial Time that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Here's the text of what I said, or meant to say:
Fellowship is where you feel welcome, accepted, included, and that you belong, because that’s how the people there make each other feel.
In Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor writes about the Sanctified Brethren. After numerous church splits, they are down to a strict group of about a dozen people, related and in-laws, who are certain that they are the last surviving remnant of the one true church. They meet at Uncle Al and Aunt Flo’s house, in the living room cleared of furniture, with dining room chairs arranged in a circle. The men rule, the wives/women do not speak during Meeting, and visitors are not welcome because they’d bring in worldly impurities.
One Sunday, Uncle Mel brings a guest, his wife Rita, who is a Lutheran. The Sanctified Brethren are horrified, and it goes downhill. When Al stands up to read Scripture, Rita asks, “Pardon me: which chapter did you say?” The room is shocked into stunned silence.
Later, in The Lord’s Supper, the loaf of bread is passed around for everyone to break off a chunk and eat it as The Body of Christ. As Rita takes the bread, Grandpa leaps up, snatches the bread from her, and shouts, “You ain’t in fellowship.”
+++++++++++
When he invited me, Chris Tucker said a brief talk. For this morning I made a list of a dozen or so fellowships that are happy memories to me, and selected three to tell you about. I have notes to use so I don’t wander off topic. I’ll finish each story saying what that fellowship meant to me.
As I talk, I invite you to let your mind wander and recall fellowships in your life. When I’m done, please share, tell us about your own experiences.
MY FIRST FELLOWSHIP to tell you about was the Men and Boys Corporate Communion and Breakfast at the Early Service one Sunday morning a month at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, PC, where I grew up. I went with my father, and when my brother Walt was old enough he went with us. After Communion, (in those days, no music, no sermon at the Early Service), we went to the parish hall and had breakfast that a couple of the men had prepared for us. Warm and friendly, a way to get to know others in the parish, it started me out inside the church knowing I belonged.
MY SECOND FELLOWSHIP to tell you about was the wardroom of a U S Navy destroyer, my first ship. There were about a dozen officers: one CDR (ship’s commanding officer), one LCDR (ship’s XO), one LT (ship’s Ops Officer). The rest, we ensigns and LTJGs, were a close knit group. Saturdays when the ship was in homeport, those of us who were aboard and not on duty would drive to a new car dealership in downtown Norfolk, admire the cars in the showroom, and ask if we could drive a demonstrator. There were enough of us to crowd into the demonstrator with no room for the salesman, who probably expected us to drive around the block and return. But we’d drive out to Virginia Beach for the day, enjoy the car, get it back to the dealership at closing Time. By then, the salesman was in a frantic rage, but we’d thank him graciously and tell him we loved the car, which we had.
Saturdays the Jan & Feb 1959, when the weather in Norfolk was bitter cold rainy sleet, but our ship was in GTMO for two months refresher training after shipyard overhaul, we’d check out sailboats at the rec center, load each boat with two officers and an iced down washtub of Heineken, race all day on Guantanamo Bay in the Cuban sunshine.
The fellowship in that destroyer made me feel so welcome, accepted, included and belonging that I changed from Naval Reserve to Regular Navy and stayed for a twenty-year career.
MY THIRD FELLOWSHIP to tell you about was our parish in Harrisburg PA, where I was ordained priest and served my apprentice Time. With the rector’s okay, I organized the parish in neighborhood “shepherd groups” of eight people, each group with a leadership couple.
Monday evenings each group met at their leadership couple’s house for an hour of Bible study that I’d organized in detail. I was available by phone for any questions or problems.
Tuesday mornings the leadership couples gathered at the church for a 15-minute Communion service, then I’d fix their breakfast, and everyone would tell how their group had done the evening before.
That program brought the entire parish together in fun and fellowship.
If I may have a suggestion for your Men’s Fellowship - - Saturday is family and sports day and if you find that you have trouble getting people to come - - my suggestion is to be flexible, to make sure it’s easy and convenient for men to come, maybe meet during the week for breakfast or lunch?