CONVERSATION

I have long wanted to say this here, and now seems a good moment. One of the bloggers I most admire (yes, Michael G, you know who you are) has resolutely turned off any comment facility on his site, presumably to stave off robocomments and the purely asinine. It had occurred to me to do the same, but I decided not to. Nevertheless, I have found that few people do in fact leave comments, and when I share a blog post to a Facebook link, those who get to it from there usually comment on Facebook itself.

So this is where I crawl out of my usual shell and invite comments. Why? Because the kind of topics I deal with on this blog, I think, invite conversations. And since comments are legible to all, others can then join in – something else I invite. The beauty of the Internet is that it temporarily and partially annihilates vastnesses of Time and Space. This strikes me as a genuinely religious effect. I am in the South of France. You may be in Oregon, in Yemen, in Moscow, in Pretoria, in Buenos Aires or in Wellington. Yet we can talk about prayer, about the gifts of God, as if we were leaning on a bistrot counter over a glass of wine.

Obviously, those who are gratuitously rude will be deleted: the usual rules apply. But on the basis of respect and affection, conversations may commence and proceed. Not on Facebook (much as we love it): right here.

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                                                                    V

LIFT-OFF, LONELINESS AND LOVE

"The Ascension" by Giotto (1266--1337)

“O GOD the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.” This is the Collect for the Sunday After Ascension Day, and there is great pathos is the “leave us not comfortless”.

            Before I write about that, I wanted to say something about the Ascension, a feast Thomas Cranmer intended to be major but which is much neglected today, probably because of vague embarrassment about its verticality.

1) "And when he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." (Acts 1:9)

2) "And he led them out until [they were] over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven." (Luke 24:50-1)

3) "[Jesus,] after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God." (Mark 16:19)

I’ve put the three accounts of the Ascension in this order because of the point of view. In Acts, we are seeing it through the disciples’ eyes: they are looking at him, he rises and disappears into a cloud. That’s all they see and know. Luke goes further and says where he went, though still implicitly seeing it from below: he is “carried up into heaven”. And Mark goes right to the end, as if he was present in Heaven at Jesus’ arrival: he was “received up into Heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”

We, in our modern knowledge, however imperfect, of what is “up there”, could of course sneer at that vertical take-off into the cloud. And yet, does knowing that “up there” is really “out there” change anything, really? We know there was what they saw as some kind of lift-off, and that he went from them into what we might call another dimension. Each generation describes it in terms in understands. He sits at the right hand of the Father. We need not inquire upon what kind of armchair. We know what is meant. If we pretend otherwise, we are being disingenuous.

More or less from the start of his resurrected period, he had warned them that it was going to be limited. He had, after all, come from Heaven; he had walked on earth, he had died, been buried, and risen again; but back to Heaven at some point he had to go. And in these passages, the moment has come. Notice their reaction: they do not mourn. As Luke says, they worshipped him, and went back to Jerusalem with great joy.

Nevertheless, as the days went by, it must have been hard. They’d had him back, eating grilled fish and honeycomb with them, joking with Thomas, explaining to them the infinite goodness that had overcome death; and now he’d gone away for good.

It’s out of that feeling that today’s Collect comes. “Leave us not comfortless.” Yes, he had said something about sending someone else to help them; but it had never been very clear and was now perfectly fuzzy in their minds. There was still a lot of hostility about; they were still the weirdos who maintained that Yeshuah Ben-Yousuf, a provincial carpenter, born suspiciously early in his parents’ marriage and eventually executed as a troublemaker, had been the centuries-long-awaited Meschiach; and now they were starting to feel exceedingly alone.

The rest of the Collect refers to Whitsun, which happens next week. For the moment, let’s think about his departure and the ensuing loneliness. The Catholic Church,  nowadays, places into today’s Gospel reading the High-Priestly Prayer from John 17; and I find that both entirely right and deeply moving. This text, which my parents loved above almost all Bible texts, is Jesus’ testament before his crucifixion. It can stand also as his prayer just before being “received up into Heaven”. So I will end with it, in the KJV.

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.  I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.  And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;  that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.  O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

AT OUR TABLE?

John 14:23: Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him."

     This is staggering. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit will come and live with you or me?  Is this even thinkable in any other religion? Is it ever thought about in Christianity? I've never heard it discussed. Extraordinary intimacy! The most ordinary believer can become Abraham, and more than Abraham: not only a 'friend of God', but (the) one God lives with. Not of any of the greatest patriarchs in the Old Testament was this said.
     What would it be like, to live with the Trinity? Quite literally, Heaven on earth. Thinking about it forces you to imagine Heaven, something we don't often do. In the old paintings of the Last Judgement, the painters clearly enjoyed portraying Hell a great deal more than Heaven: the latter is usually populated with rather po-faced saints standing in serried ranks with prayer-books or their official iconographic attributes in their hands, looking pious. But if you imagine it on earth, and you are old enough to resist the Big Rock Candy Mountain image, it can be easier.
     You begin with Clopas and his chum walking to Emmaus in the company of one-third of the Trinity and feeling their hearts burn within them -- burn with excitement, with brand-new understanding, and with joy. Now think of the rare moments you have felt the presence of the Holy Ghost (I make no apology for using the old term: not even my unconscious connects it with ghosts, and I dislike double disyllables.) He is the Comforter, the Helper, the Advocate, the one on, and by, your side. You may have felt his Presence during some particularly remarkable church service, or standing on a high hill surveying the "coloured counties" with the wind in your hair; at an important or emotional moment of private prayer; or bringing about a totally unexpected solution to a deeply painful situation. It's almost as if there is an extra lung breathing inside you. There is a sense of things falling into place and somehow becoming bigger. You instinctively give thanks.
     Praying "through" the Son and receiving gifts from the Spiritus Sanctus already happens on earth. What about the Father? He always seems more remote; and yet it is to him that the Son tells us to address the most famous and universal of prayers. He is the Creator of the Universe, yet we are encouraged to call him "abba" -- "baba", "papa", what small children call their father. I doubt if many of us do: the awe is too great. Yet perhaps we should: the Son said the disciples were no longer servants but sons.
     Little by little, we are perhaps getting a sense of this Heaven on earth that loving the Son and doing what he tells us to do will bring about for us. It will have something of a family. There is a Father, our Father; his Son, and therefore our brother. Irving Layton, the Canadian Jewish poet and roisterer, once said to me "Roger, Jesus is my brother. I like him; I love him; but how can you call him God? My brother farts: does God fart?" "Yup," I said. I suspect that in that family we are invited to, there is Mother Mary as well. The Holy Ghost is probably sexless, though a person. He "proceeds from the Father and the Son", says the Creed. But he is not just the love between them: he is a fully-fledged Person of the Trinity. In the family, he might be She: if Jesus is our brother, the Hagion Pneuma might be our sister, though in a shadowy sort of way.
     How to convey such stupendous intimacy without sounding cosy and ridiculous? If we love him and keep his commandments, (T)HE(Y) will come "and make our dwellling" with us. I don't think this is intended to signify a reward, but rather a consequence. Such a way of life, if and when it becomes habitual, will bring it about completely naturally. If you put your hand in the fire, you will burn; if you jump off a building you will break your neck; if you sin against God's love, you will be miserable; if you love Him and keep His commandments, you will live as part of the family, in the family house. Heaven on earth. Shit may still happen, but Heaven on earth nevertheless.

ANYTHING BUT TEMPTATION

 

In November of last year, I wrote about the expression in the Lord's Prayer that had always worried me, and that clearly worries the committees who keep updating the translations: "Lead us not into temptation". The thought of the Father leading us deliberately into temptation, then punishing us for having given in, is repellent; so the modern French version has "Do not let us enter into temptation." But taking a look at the Greek helps. To put it a little colloquially, "Do not put us to the test, but deliver us from bad stuff" is essentially what Jesus said when he taught the disciples to pray. The link of the "but" makes most sense when one stresses "deliver". Peirasmos is a trial, une épreuve as the French say, as in "the times that try men's souls". The implication, as I said back then, seems to be that we ask not to be put to the really hairy tests, like Abraham with Isaac, or Job, or Jacob who wrestled all night long with an angel. We aren't up to that sort of thing. We pray to the Father to deliver us from the ponèron, bad things, the real horror, the evil: that is not something we can do for ourselves.

It is a kindness in Jesus to propose this sentence in the exemplary Prayer: he recognises that we are ordinary folk, and that perhaps the Father may need to be reminded of this before, as in Job, giving in to the provocation of Shaitan, the Adversary.

It is in any case worth while to forget "temptation", a word that, encouraged by Oscar Wilde, needs a long rest. This is serious stuff: it is not the "temptation" of chocolate, or even of perfumed silks, of the "temptress" or the péché mignon: it is the knife at Isaac's throat, it is Exodus 4:24 "in a lodging-place by the way, the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him", it is the Lord wagering with Lucifer that Job will stand the test. Ouch. Do not, Father, make us go there. Save us from the Horror. Phew. By the skin of our teeth.

 

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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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QUICK WORD

Words that sprang into my head upon waking, and that I share because they seem truly fruitful:

O Lord Holy Spirit, be close to me today,
that wherever I am may be Thy temple,
and whatever I do may be Thy liturgy.

SOMETHING FISHY

Extraordinary. In the three readings of the last few days, the three first occasions where Jesus appears outside the burial garden, the common denominator is food. Fish, to be precise. Grilled fish. OK, most of the inner circle seem to have been fishermen, and it’s all happening in Galilee, that Israeli Lake District where unsophisticated people talk funny and go night-fishing on the Sea of Galilee, alias Lake Tiberias, alias Lake Kinneret. But it still strikes me as unexpected in the story of a resurrected Man-God, mysteriously risen from the tomb during the night. Almost bathos, really. Look at the stories:

     1. The two blokes walking to Warm Springs. We don’t know what they were served at the inn when they got there with their new friend, but fish is not out of the question. In any case, it’s a meal, and it’s at the (very workaday) blessing over the bread that they recognize Him.

   2.Then, when they tell all that to the gang in Jerusalem, suddenly there He is again, among them in an ordinary way. Stupefaction all round. “Oh, come on,” He says, “It’s just me – not a ghost, the real me. Look at my hands and feet: touch them!” The hands and feet are both thoroughly solid and not a pretty sight, after those nails. And then, when they go on havering, he says, “Got anything to eat?” And guess what? Yup, grilled fish again. Oh, and honeycomb. An interesting combination, but it seems that that was what they were having for lunch. (Luke 24:33-47).

  3. Next appearance, up North. (Remember, he told the women that he would meet everyone up in Galilee?)  Simon and the boys have been night fishing and have had a rotten night. Zip. They weren’t biting. At dawn they get to the shore, tired and irritable, and there’s someone standing there who says “Hey! Try one more time, over to starboard, I bet they’ll bite there.” So, with a sigh, they chuck the net over one more time, and bingo! There’s a whole school in there, they can hardly land it. John, always quick on the uptake, says to Peter, “It’s Him!” And Peter, never one to dawdle, jumps overboard and swims to shore with a mighty splashing. And what does he find, and the others when they get there? A little fire of thornbushes and branches, and Jesus, peacefully grilling fish and saying “Come and have some breakfast!”

That image of the little beach-fire at dawn and the smell of grilling fish has stayed in my mind since the first time I heard it. So this is the Mighty Resurrection! Ayup. It could be a story from Vermont or Maine. It’s not grand, it’s not “divine”, it’s not especially moralizing, it’s not Spiritual. It’s food. It’s real.

Nothing is realer than grilled fish and bread, with maybe a bit of honeycomb for dessert. And I think that is probably the point. (The Gospels are rarely pointless.) The Risen Meshiach, Who has just changed history forever, is not a ghost. He is not a pure spirit. There is something very, very slightly strange about Him, as Rembrandt sensed (see below); He is not totally the man He had been; but man He is, real He is, flesh and blood He is. And He eats fish. Bon appétit!