seventh day: Sabbath
Sean of the South has a really good essay this morning. Starting out about being at Lincoln's birthplace, it's about Sean himself as a storyteller; but it's really about being American and about himself as an American. I won't go there myself as I think this morning, because it'd ruin my day, and likely reduce me to tears. However, I'm hoping without the confidence that is faith, that the upcoming mid-term elections may tell a truth about Americans that is not evident at this moment: that we are not the welcoming, loving people I grew up knowing and believing in, but a merciless, pitiless serpent willing to prey even on little children whom we regard as detestable immigrants.
If it's not so - - that is to say, if we are really what I see as I look around in shame - - then I'm just as glad to be ninety-one instead of seventeen, because America is not what I always saw in my mind's eye when I sang "She's a grand old flag, she's a high-flying flag."
Long may our land be bright, with freedom's holy light.
O say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave - o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
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This isn't, never was, and never will be a political blog; but this morning Sean stirred what I try to let be and live quietly with because I can't change its new direction.
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My brief topic this morning was/is myself, specifically my feet, precisely my right foot. In hospital sixteen years ago this month, I was diagnosed with various heart issues, including CHF, severely damaged aortic valve, 15% ejection fraction, unstable angina, given a prognosis of two to five months to live, and told that surgery was not feasible, because I'd die on the operating table. Obviously, unless this is heaven, I'm still here, thanks to the help of dear friends and loved ones. But this morning, for the first Time in years I didn't count, my right foot is the same size as my left foot.
My weight is still way too high, but I'm trying to mind the doctor's order of low sodium, low fat in what I eat, sleep with my legs elevated, and when I sit, sit with my legs propped up: maybe I can force my weight farther down and keep it there, IDK.
Anyway, my right foot. Because of the edema associated with the CHF, along with my right leg and disappearing right ankle, my right foot had grown so big - - seemingly half again as large as my left leg, ankle, foot - - that I had to order larger shoes, and then order again, even larger. I'd thought it couldn't be helped, that it was inevitable. But this morning, for the first Time, in these sixteen years, I'm thinking that if I actually really stick to what the doctor says, maybe I can keep on keeping on for a bit, namesake?
No ninety-one year old pair of old man's feet are lovely, but at least I'm not publishing a picture of him in a bathing suit, eh?
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Per the lectionary, below (scroll down) are three of our bible readings for tomorrow, OT, Psalm, and Gospel. This could very well be the first Time that some folks have heard the Ten Commandments read in church, but in my growing up years, the decades of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the decalogue was required to be read one Sunday a month (which was, the first Sunday of each month, the only Sunday we had Holy Communion), and in my grandfather's years of an earlier BCP, the decalogue was required to be read with every liturgy of Holy Communion. Nowadays, the Ten Commandments have come to be more just something that the XNRT like to make a show of demanding it be posted in classrooms and courtrooms.
The psalm is the loveliest of all one hundred fifty psalms, and, when I was priest in charge, warranted our singing as our opening hymn, "The spacious firmament on high."
The gospel story, Jesus' parable of the tenants in the vineyard, Matthew has reworked from a simple parable, a metaphor with a gotcha, into a damning allegory. Its original telling was probably more the basic story that appears in sayings gospel of Thomas logia 65:
"He said: A good man had a vineyard; he leased it to tenants, that they might work in it (and) he receive the fruits from them. He sent his servant, that the tenants might give him the fruits of the vineyard. They seized his servant, beat him, (and) all but killed him. The servant went away (and) told his master. His master said: Perhaps <they> did not know <him>. He sent another servant; the tenants beat the other also. Then the master sent his son. He said: Perhaps they will have respect for my son. Those tenants, since they knew that he was the heir of the vineyard, they seized him and killed him. He who has ears, let him hear."
Jesus didn't tell allegories; with his parables he liked to tell a story and drop it hanging on his listeners, for them to work it out for themselves. Instead of telling it as Jesus most likely did, Matthew has combined the telling and all the figuring out, and made it pretty pointed, sharp, damning for Jesus' enemies and those whom Matthew was experiencing as enemies of Matthew's newly developing Jewish-Christian church. But, oh, okay.
Old Testament: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”
The Psalm: Psalm 19
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.
2 One day tells its tale to another, and one night imparts knowledge to another.
3 Although they have no words or language, and their voices are not heard,
4 Their sound has gone out into all lands, and their message to the ends of the world.
5 In the deep has he set a pavilion for the sun; it comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber; it rejoices like a champion to run its course.
6 It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens and runs about to the end of it again; nothing is hidden from its burning heat.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the innocent.
8 The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb.
11 By them also is your servant enlightened, and in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can tell how often he offends? cleanse me from my secret faults.
13 Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not get dominion over me; then shall I be whole and sound, and innocent of a great offense.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
The Gospel: Matthew 21:33-46
Jesus said, “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
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Praise to you, Lord Christ.
T91