FLOWER POWER

 

the lilies of the field (Avalanche lilies)

²⁴No one can serve two lords. For either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be loyal to one and think ill of the other. You cannot serve God and money. So I tell you: do not worry your heart about what to eat or what to drink, nor your body about what to wear. Isn’t the heart more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the sky: they do not sow or reap or store up into barns, and your heavenly father looks after them. Are you not better than they? Which of you can by worrying add even a smidgen to his age? And is anyone worried about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow. I tell you that not Solomon in all his glory could overgo even one of them. And if God so dresses the fodder of the field, that is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the bread-oven, how much more you, you of little faith? So do not worry, saying what shall we eat, or drink, or put on to wear? that is what the goyim seek; for your heavenly father sees that you need all those things. Seek first the reign of God and his justice/righteousness, and all those things will be given you as well. ³⁴So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow can worry about itself. The day is enough, and its uglies.

This, of course, is a famous and much-loved passage of the Sermon, often cited by critics of capitalism. Yet it does have its difficulties. The whole middle chunk of it sounds very Sixties-ish, as if Yeshua were a hippie guru, telling us all to be La Fontaine’s grasshoppers and stop worrying about stuff. The Ant would know what to reply to that: Kid, you are not a bird in the sky; in any case, the birds in the sky do nothing but search for food; sorry, petal, you are not a flower: the flower may be pretty but it cannot move about or think, and if there is a drought it will swiftly die.   So is that what he is, and is that what he is saying? Only if you slice out that part and look at nothing else. So let’s add the beginning and the end.

            First, no one can serve two lords at the same time. We moderns should not think of this as having two jobs, because lots of people do, and manage fairly well. Think feudal society. Think real service. In feudal terms, serving a lord means being completely loyal to him, preferring him to everyone else, wearing his  badge, being “his man” as they used to say. You cannot, says Yeshua, be that for two lords: such commitment can only be to one. So, if that premise is granted, you cannot serve God and money (mamōn is not a god, just “money”). Therefore – because of that, I am telling you not to worry about all the humdrumlies of daily life.

            This doesn’t mean that you should go swanning about playing your guitar and waiting for someone else to feed and clothe you. It means that you do, responsibly, everything that’s necessary, but that you don‘t let it fill your horizon. As so often, he gives a couple of illustrative images: the birds and the lilies, which are maintained by God – as, in a different way appropriate to being human, are you. What you, as a human and a Jew, should do is understand and follow that difference. What makes you, as a human, different from the bird and the lily is consciousness, both intelligent and religious. What makes you, as a Jew, different from the goyim, the Gentiles, is that you know that you have a heavenly Father who looks after you. And the reason you know this is the Torah. And what does the Torah tell you to do? It tells you – I tell you, because this is what the completed Torah means – to make looking for, seeking, working for, the reign of God on earth, God and His justice, your first and absolute priority.

            And if you do that, if you have your priorities right, then your life has shalom: the order of peace, the peace of due order. And since you have a heavenly Father who loves and cares for you, all those other things will be sorted also. Of course, to seek first the reign of God you have to believe in it: you must not be (and I love this Greek term) oligopistoi, “littletrusters”. As Paul Tillich wrote in Dynamics of Faith, this has to be the basket you put all your eggs in. 

            Finally, in what way does this fit into the pattern of a completed Torah that Yeshua has been establishing? The recurring element has been a converting of outward action to inwardness, from required deeds to the spontaneous doings of a converted heart. In this passage, the argument moves to our capacity for fides, faith and trust both. Only a heart that fully accepts the new Torah can give up on hedging its bets, on being an oligopistos who thinks of God only when all his worldly security has been taken care of. Only such a heart can make the basileia, the reign, of God and of his dikaiosunè, his justice and his righteousness both, its first priority. And then, as the Collect says, "His service is perfect freedom."

 

DON'T TRIP, STUMBLE AND FALL: TRINITY 13

Joss Naylor, shepherd and fell-runner

Latin original (in both Leonine and Gelasian Sacramentaries)

OMNIPOTENS et misericors Deus, a cujus beneficentia profiscitur ut tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur, tribue quæsumus nobis, ut ad promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus. Per Jesum Christum Do. &c.

1549 

ALMYGHTIE and mercyfull God, of whose onely gifte it cometh that thy faythfull people doe unto thee true and laudable service; graunte we beseche thee, that we may so runne to thy heavenly promises, that we faile not finally to attayne the same; through Jesus Christe our Lorde.

1662

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service; Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Cranmer’s translation is fairly tight, but deftly underlines a few points he sees in the Latin. He translates God’s beneficentia as his “onely gift” with an Elizabethanly-displaced adjective: it is not God’s only gift, it is only by His gift that we can serve him truly and well. To his credit, he keeps our running (remembering the Collect of a couple of weeks ago)to God’s promises, but he wants to stress that they are heavenly; and he dodges the complexity of the Latin offensiones, which are both physical stumbling-blocks, things that one trips over when running, and bad things one may commit or undergo. Instead, he translates the sense, neutrally hoping that in running to the promises we may not, in the end, fail to reach them.

At first this seems like a much less rich and dramatic Collect than Trinity 12. Yet it is worth looking at with real care and discernment. First, the choice of the Invocation. It’s a common one – God both almighty and merciful – but here it explains the beneficentia that earns our gratitude: God is both mighty enough to give us the capacity to serve him and merciful enough to be ready and willing to do so, recognizing our need. 

Then, the Acknowledgement. God’s fideli, His faithful people, serve him in ways that are both true (faithful and efficacious) and laudable (well enough to be praiseworthy); and they recognize, because they are fideli, that they can do this only because it is itself already His gift. We, faithful as we may be, can still do no true and praiseworthy thing for God on our own initiative and behalf. 

Now for the Petition. The sentence turns from the third person plural, the general category of the fideli and their actions, to the first person plural: we who are here in prayer. What do we realize we need, what do we want, what can we ask for? Well, first of all, to run to His heavenly promises. To recognize that they are there, that they are infinitely desirable, to desire them urgently enough to drop our parcels and run.

And secondly (this is really the Aspiration), as we run, panting, we hope and pray that we may not trip over an unseen obstacle, some sleeping policeman, some banana skin, that will leave us flat on our face with two broken ribs; or, to put it another way (Trop., say Lewis and Short), that in running toward heavenly promises, we may not do something unforgivable, like elbowing a neighbouring runner out of the way, that will ban us from receiving them.

Once again, the 1662 revisers do not like the image of running and suppress it, replacing it by the dutiful serving which, if it is dutiful enough,  will let us attain the promises,though only by the merits of Christ. One may think, as I do, that this change is a weakening; but whatever one’s opinion, it is clear that even what we may at first think a humdrum sort of Collect is a wonderfully compact commentary on the life of both fides, faith, and re-ligio, the restoring of the bond between the human race and its long-suffering Deity.

PREMS

Brother Lawrence 1614-1691

We become creatures of habit: night-owls, smokers, maniacal hikers, workaholics. Any action repeated a dozen times, at the same time of day, becomes a habit. Over the past few months I’ve found that I wake at around 6:30, and spend 45 minutes or so supine and relaxed before going down to make what Alan Clark called EMT – Early Morning Tea. Those 45 minutes have become extremely precious, because in a semi-awake but entirely lucid state I use them for prayer and meditation. I begin with the Our Father, then say (mostly in my mind, as I don’t sleep alone) the second Collect for Morning Prayer:

O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord,

in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life,

whose service is perfect freedom,

Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies,

That we, surely trusting in thy defence,

may not fear the power of any adversaries,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And the third, which is one to recommend to anyone:

O Lord our Heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God,

Who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day,

Defend us in the same with thy mighty power,

and grant that this day we fall into no sin

neither run into any kind of danger,

but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance,

to do always that is righteous in thy sight,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

After that, I open myself up to anything God may want to say to me – about the coming day, for instance, but not necessarily. Or I ponder what I have been reading, which currently is a re-reading of Pope Benedict XVI’s magnificent Jesus of Nazareth, one of the most thoughtful and intelligent discussions it’s been my pleasure to encounter. (More about this soon.) And then, EMT. Creature of habit, as I said.

In order to help improve and order habits, I’ve lately been using the acronym PREMS. The French laugh at this, because it’s the French child’s cry when something desirable is on offer, meaning “Me first!” But for me it represents the things I should like to include in every day: Prayer, Reading, Exercise, Moderation, and Service. Prayer, not just formal or at specific times, but intermittently constant, so to speak (see the 17^th-century Brother Lawrence’s delicious The Practiceof the Presence of God). Reading, which I frequently do in the loo (or john, if you’re North American) – currently Benedict – and which harnesses the brain to the faith: something many, alas, ignore. Exercise, because I am a bulky sedentary bear by nature, not given to rapid motion, and my doctor tells me half an hour’s walk a day is a damn good idea. Moderation, because I tend to excess and, while I hate killjoys, a little touch of sobriety is salutary and not always unpleasant. And service, because doing things for others – even in a domestic context – has a beauty it would be a shame to deprive oneself of.

Why the acronym? Because it helps one remember the bits one has perhaps not yet included in this particular day.

Why mention all this here? Because you never know if it might help someone. Pass it on.

CUI SERVIRE REGNARE EST

King's Messenger badge

I've been thinking about the Anglican Second Collect at Morning Prayer, which begins: 'O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom . . .' And especially, today, about that last clause. In the Collect's original Latin, it is more absolute: "cui servire regnare est', i.e. 'to serve whom is to reign'. It's the sort of saying that, in the course of Matins or private prayers, one tends -- not to ignore, but to incorporate more or less without thinking. And yet it is challenging and deserves attention.

The first thing that strikes one is, of course, the paradox, extreme in Latin but still present in the English version. What the two have in common is the word 'serve/service', and a concept opposed to it: reigning/ruling, and freedom. Let's begin with serving. It's a concept that once was universal, then was challenged, then despised, and eventually, by many, ignored.

The feudal concept of society, never completely realised, was in the Middle Ages an ideal that structured the social imagination. It was based entirely on two complementary ideas, now yoked together on police vehicles: 'To Serve and Protect'. The structure's verticality implied that whoever one was, there was someone above one and someone below one; and that one owed service to the former and protection to the latter. The knight owed service to his King, and protection to his community; the community owed him service in return. The tenant farmer owed service to his landlord, who owed him protection, whether from brigands or neighbouring land-grabbers.

What, then, was 'service'? In one sense, it was and remained the opposite of freedom. A servant is subject to the commands, to the will, and sometimes to the whim, of his master. As the Centurion in the Gospel said, 'I am a man under authority, and I have soldiers under me. I say to a man, "Go," and he goes; I say to another, "Come," and he comes; and I say to my servant "Do this," and he does it.'(Mt 8:9) He reminds us that the complement of service is authority, i.e. legitimate power.

It is not slavery. A servant may be part of a structure; but within certain rules and limits, he is free to go, whereas a slave is not. As long as the servant is engaged, though, he is bound to do his master's bidding. A soldier also is constrained to obedience, though even a conscript is not a slave. And all service, let us not forget, has certain freedoms attached, which are sometimes the reason the servant, or the soldier, chose it. They are freed from the burden of frequent choice, from the weight of responsibility, from the anguish of individual decision.

What, on the other hand, is the 'perfect freedom' attached to the service of God? (I prefer this phrase to 'regnare', which seems to me too easy: a mere exchange or flipping of the authority/obedience relation.) In the simplest sense, it is the freedom of the King's Messenger who, by right of his master's supremacy, has priority over all other servants.

For the early Christians, this freedom meant that they had not merely a right but a duty to deny service to competing authority when its demands contradicted God's. Martyrdom was often a result; on other occasions, their very public testimony to their higher service convinced their audience. This version of the 'perfect freedom' was not confined to their era: it was still present, and evident, in the WW II concentration camps, incarnated by persons like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

For most of us, who have the privilege of living in an environment not of direct service but of semi-freedom, the case is different. Unless we are clerics, our service of God is not a direct and visible uniform, nor an evident full-time occupation. Our service, even if permanent, is necessarily diffuse and fluctuating; what, then, is our perfect freedom? It is, I believe, a freedom from less visible tyrannies that otherwise tie us down. From the leaden weight of lesser authorities and their reign over our minds and hearts, whether superiors in the workplace or joyless functionaries of government. From the fetters of depression, gloom, and fear; from the bonds of obsession, anorexia or alcoholism; from the hypnosis of media and distraction; from the seductions of politics and self-righteousness. Serving God, in prayer and simple cherishing, is a vast lifting of weights that affects every part of our humdrumlies: it is the bearable, the joyous, the glorious lightness of being.

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