August 29: The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

And when Jesus received [the news that John has been beheaded], he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where he and his disciples could be by themselves" (Matthew 14.13).

Matthew in Chapter 14 tells the story of the beheading of John the Baptist; it's a grisly tale that takes place during a birthday party--Herod's. Not unsurprisingly (if I have the details right), this is the Herod who is the son of the man who butchered the babies when Jesus was a toddler. Things do run in families. It must have been quite a good party: lots of booze, pole-dancing girls, loads of bawdy talk, a few salacious eye-winks, a table full of gifts, great food: in short, a blast of conspicuous consumption. And eventually John's head brought in with a lots of "O, look! Salome has got her wish!" Herod's wife smiled. John, telling truth to the Powers, had really irritated her.

You can imagine how saddened and depressed Jesus must have been upon getting the news. After all, John and Jesus were not only cousins; John had been been a "pastor" to Jesus. They knew each other well, so well that when Jesus comes over the horizon at the river and asks to be baptized, John, knowing Jesus from childhood on up, first wants nothing to do with such an apparently inappropriate baptism. Jesus insists, goes down into the soaking water, and comes up with the Father's blessing.

Now his pastor is dead: executed. Shocked, traumatized, in deep sadness, Our Lord wants to get away. Understandably. He heads by boat for the desert, the Silence of God. It doesn't work. Hoards of people are on his trail, eventually disrupting His solitude, forcing him to see them with pity, begging him to heal them. Whoever said grief was easy?

Then comes the great contrast: the other party, the party that begins with scraps of food and ends with baskets of leftovers. The contrast is startling: Herod at his night club, Jesus in the desert. A birthday party with John's unwrapped head as grisly gift. A picnic with thousands who receive bread and the Bread of Life.

I imagine that while Jesus was feeding those people, going around shaking hands, making sure that everyone got blessed and fed, that He did all of that in spite of the sadness in His heart. Jesus pressed on to bless in spite of knowing what happened to His pastor. Jesus fed everyone while the memory of His mentor's death went unabated.

Jesus still presses on today while knowingly bearing the suffering all martyrs. And when we made and make him a martyr, he surely loved, loves, and blesses us. As I wonder about all of this, I also ask myself, "Did the Man who asks us to love our enemies also love Herod and his family?" Did He pity and have compassion on those who killed His pastor?" Did he want to be alone to find out? Did the compassion and forgiveness He came to know for Herod's family find expression within his feeding of the thousands? Were the two compassions connected? I think so. When we love our enemies, it becomes inevitable that we love our neighbors, the thousands near to us.

Image: Carravagio, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

August 28: St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, d. 430

On Thursday we give thanks to God for Augustine, the great late fourth-century theologian, whose writings have influenced the western Church perhaps more than any other Christian. In my collection of books is one I especially treasure: Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzherald, O.S.A, with a forward by Jaroslav Pelikan, who says:

[Augustine] is . . . "the only church father who even today remains an intellectual power." The reason for this unique position is that "irrespective of school and denomination [Augustine] attracts pagans and Christians, philosophers and theologians alike by his writings and makes them come to terms with his intentions and his person" (xiii). That being said by this century's most famous Church historian, I too like Augustine, not so much because he's brilliant (he is!), but because he's also so deeply human as a Christian. On his memorial day, I always read Chapter 9 of his Confessions and began doing so early this morning. In Chapter 9 Augustine tells the story of his turning to God, his baptism, and development of his new life in Christ. I hope a sentence or two will give you a sense of his new-found joy as he prays his autobiography to God:

During the days that followed [my baptism], I could not get enough of the wonderful sweetness that filled me as I meditated upon Your deep ddesign for the salvation of the human race. How copiously I wept at your hymns and canticles, how intensely was I moved by the lovely harmonies ofyour singing Church! Those voices flooded my ears, and the truth was distilled into my hdeart until it overflowed in loving devotion; my tears ran down, and I was the better for them.

Today lots of voices are thanking God for Augustine, and one of the best is that of Padre Mickey, a Panamanian missionary/priest who a year ago on his blog, Dance Party, nicely introduces us to the best of Augustine. Admiting that at first he didn't warm up to Augustine, his posting for the feast day will help you appreciate Augustine as much as Padre Mickey does now. Once there, you find that the collect of the day is at the top of Padre's posting:

Lord God, the light of the minds that know you, the life of the souls that love you, and the strength of the hearts that serve you: Help us, following the example of your servant Augustine of Hippo, so to know you that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

August 27: St. Monica

On August 27 we remember St. Augustine’s mother, Monica. She was born at Thagaste in Africa of a Christian family. She was married young, to Patricius, and among her children was Augustine. He had a brilliant intellect and uncertain morals and his wayward spiritual career saw him at one time a Manichee and then a Neoplatonist. With many tears she prayed unceasingly to God for his conversion and her prayers were answered shortly before she died. She had a deep faith and outstanding virtue and is a wonderful example of a Christian mother.

I first met St. Monica fifty years ago and later renewed by acquaintance of her when I began teaching The Confessions of St. Augustine thirty years ago. The course was World Literature I, and our text had substantial excerpts from The Confessions, one of which was most of Book IX containing Monica’s story, their days at Ostia, her death, Augustine’s grief and his eventual coming to peace. The story is a good one, and I’ve often taken comfort in knowing that God hears my prayers for my children, like Monica’s for her son Auggie; though things often seem uncertain with the kids, I can be certain that God will bless my family. If you haven’t read The Confessions, you might well give it a try.

Here’s a prayer by which the Church gives thanks to God for the life of Monica:

God of mercy, comfort those in sorrow, the tears of Saint Monica moved you to convert her son Saint Augustine to the faith of Christ. By their example, help us to turn from our sins and to find your loving forgiveness. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Looking Ahead: Monica, Augustine, and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist

Most liturgical/church calendars this week urge us to remember the lives (and one death) of three witnesses to the Faith: On Wednesday, the 27th: Monica, the mother of Augustine, d. 387; on Thursday, the 28th, her son, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, d. 430; and on Friday, the 29th, the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. If your prayerbooks take note of these days, you may wish now to anticipate the readings and prayers. On the night before each day, I'll post reminders and additional helpful information about each of these Christians.

The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things

A quick reminder: at The Attentive Life we've set up a new blog for those who are interested in discussing Leighton Ford's new book. The new link on the right will take you there.

Pericopal Politics

Here's something interesting that came in from getreligion@getreligion.org this morning; I think you might enjoy it!

Pericopal politics

By: Mollie

Considering how many Christians follow the liturgical calendar, the media seem not to get it. In a news environment that seeks change and conflict, the liturgical calendar is a constant.

Each year, liturgical congregations — which include, Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran churches, work through every major part of the Holy Bible and the story of salvation accomplished through Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection. The church has, through tradition, assigned Old Testament, New Testament and Gospel readings that are to be read to the congregation. Each week also has its own Psalm and other liturgical elements unique to the day. The sermon is built around these readings.

Keep that in mind as you read this Los Angeles Times report of Barack Obama’s visit to a church yesterday:

Barack Obama began his campaign day in Eau Claire, Wis., surprising most of the congregation at the town’s First Lutheran Church by attending service there. But Pastor John Kerr had been tipped that his listeners might include the almost-official Democratic presidential nominee, and he was ready with an on-point message.

Obama brought his own Bible and settled into an aisle seat in the fourth row. Kerr’s then offered as his first reading Romans 12:1-8 — which preaches humility.

Indeed, according to pool reporter John Broder of the New York Times, Kerr summarized its thrust as counseling against cockiness because one is a good singer or public speaker. And the passage urges one “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.â€?

In his 13-minute sermon, Kerr refrained from any mention of Obama or politics.

Um, no, the pastor didn’t include Romans 12: 1-8 as his “first” (first?) reading because he’d been tipped off that Obama might attend. I’d be willing to wager that the pastor follows a three-year lectionary. Some congregations, like mine, follow a one-year calendar. Others use a three-year cycle so that you repeat the readings every three years. Anyway, it just so happens that the first year of the three-year lectionary lists the following readings for August 24, the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost:

Is. 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Rom. 11:33-12:8
Matt. 16:13-20

Liturgical calendars are created precisely to help pastors avoid preaching on whims or fancies that may detract from the overall message of Christ and his crucifixion. And while I’m sure any pastor and congregation would be excited to have Barack Obama or any other major political figure in their midst, sermons aren’t supposed to be composed for one individual. Lutherans believe that the Romans passage applies to everyone, not just high-profile members of the day’s congregation.

I know that reporters like to think that everything is about politics. But some things are more important than politics.

August 24: St. Bartholomew, Apostle

Today is one of those Sundays which can go in two directions. As the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, some parishes will keep time holy as does Daniel B. Clendenin at Journey with Jesus with his commentary on the appointed readings: Isaiah 51:1–6, Psalm 124 or Psalm 138, Romans 12:1–8, and Matthew 16:13–20. Many pastors will be preaching on the Gospel narrating Peter's confession that Jesus is "The Christ, the Son of the living God." Other pastors, however, may ask us to observe that today is also a time to remember St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles known to us only by his being listed among them in the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. What we know about Bartholomew, as the Lesser Feasts and Fasts tells us, is very little:

His name means "Son of Tolmai," and he is sometimes identified with Nathaniel, the friend of Philip, the "Israelite without guile" in John's Gospel, to whom Jesus promised the vision of angels ascending the descending on the Son of Man. Nothing more is heard of him in the four Gospels.

There are, not unsurprisingly, a good many legends about Bartholomew, one being that he was flayed alive at Albanopolis in Armenia. On the whole, however, there's really not much to say about him.

It seems to me, however, that "not much" says a lot, both about Bartholomew and about us. Not much will be said about most of us. We may get an inch or two in the local obituary listings after our deaths, but after a decade or two, "not much" will be about all that can or will be said of us. Who were you, Andy? Not much. Who were you, Bill, Mary, and Sam? Not much. Except, of course, in God's remembering and mercy. God will always remember us in Christ, and that is the great comfort of this Sunday for those who remember "not much" Old Bart, as a friend of mine once named him.

After all, it is always God who does the Great Remembering. He "re-members" us; that is, moment by moment He puts our "members" (the parts of us: body-parts, spirit-parts, soul-parts, mind-parts, heart-parts) together, especially by placing us in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. As the people of God gather for worship and Holy Communion this morning, God will again "re-member" us, turning Bartholomew's and our "not much" into the Body of Christ, partakers of His divine nature, the "muchness of Christ."

No wonder we want to pray one of this day's collects:

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to prach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

August 20: Remembering Bernard of Clairvaux

Tomorrow is one of my favorite days for remembering great Christians. Although I’ve only read one of his books (his commentary on the Song of Songs I, a collection of sermons), I fell in love with St. Bernard's wisdom and insights. Take this, for example, from Sermon 12, “The Grace of Loving Kindness”:

And you too, if you will permit us your companions to share in the gift you have received from above, if you are at all times courteous, friendly, gentle and humble, you will find men everywhere bearing witness to the perfumed influence you radiate. Everyone among you who not only patiently endures the bodily and mental weaknesses of his neighbors, but, if permissible and possible, even plies them with attention, inspires them with encouragement, helps them with advice, or, where the rule do not so permit, at least does not cease to assist them by fervent prayers—everyone, I repeat, who performs such deeds among you, gives foreth a good odor among the brethren like a rare and delicate perfume. (81)

An abbot in the Cistercian order, St. Bernard's puritan-esque biblical reliance and work ethic make plain the reasons why Calvin and Luther held him in high esteem. As a monastic forerunner of the Reformation, St. Bernard of Clairvaux stressed the love of God as central to any theological undertaking or Christian living. Theo M. M. A. C. Bell nicely summarizes Luther's relationship to Bernard:

On his road to the reformation Bernard was a true companion to Luther; but also in his later years Luther remembered Bernard as the greatest of all the fathers of the church after Augstine.Certainly Luther must have been aware also of several differences between himself and Bernard, but to Luther these were matters of minor importance. Their theologies circled around the same focal point of personal experience of the Holy Writ. William of St. Thieny states in his hagiography that Bernard often used to say, "It is better to drink from the source itself than from the many streams." Almost four hundred years later a doctor of Scripture at the University of Wittenberg would make this saying very much his own. ("Luther's Reception of Bernard of Clairvaux," CTQ, 59:4: 267)

St. Bernard's writing and numerous other contributions to the Church are chronicled in this info-saturated issue of Christian History & Biography.

If you like that sermonic excerpt and want to know more about St. Bernard, you can find out more about him here and then perhaps offer this prayer in thanksgiving to God for giving us such a Christian father in Christ:

O God, by whose grace your servant Bernard of Clairvaux, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Leighton Ford, The Attentive Life

Today I received my copy of Leighton Ford's The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008). This is the book Mason Smith has recommended for those of us in a small Sunday School class that meets in the undercroft of First United Methodist Church, Richmond, Kentucky.

Inasmuch as I'm not a typical evangelical (for me, the word evangelical is always hyphenated with the word catholic so as to describe one who is evangelical-catholic), I must confess that although I faintly knew that Leighton Ford is an evangelist, long associated with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, it came as something of a surprise (oh, heck, say "big surprise"!) to find out that Ford's Attentive Life is a wonderfully compelling invitation to a life of prayer he discovered at Mepkin Abbey by the Cooper River in South Carolina. With chapter subtitles like "ONE WHO PAID ATTENTION: Simone Weil on a Postage Stamp," one quickly intuites that Ford knows how to share the "hours" with witful intelligence, charm, and winsome conviction.

While I've only begun to dip into this delightfully well-written book (and will certainly plunge into it more fully tonight), I must tell you that I think nearly everyone will enjoy it, find it exceptionally helpful in encouraging an attentive prayer life, and provide any group with a host of insights, provocations, and layered viewpoints for discussion. I'm delighted that we're about to discuss the book at some length. Thanks, Mason, for suggesting that we read it.

August 11: Clare, Abbess at Assisi, 1253

In many church calendars today we are asked to remember and thank God for Clare of Assisi. In honor of her feast day, Paraclete Press provides us with these words from St. Clare:

Keep Doing What You Are Doing

What you are doing, may you keep on doing and do not stop. But with swiftness, agility, and unswerving feet, may you go forward with joy and security knowing that you are on the path of wisdom and happiness. Believe nothing, and agree with nothing that will turn you away from this commitment. Nothing should be allowed to prevent you from offering yourself to the Most High in the perfection to which the Spirit of God has called you. Amen.

--from The St. Clare Prayer Book: Listening for God's Leading.

The Collect

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Clare, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Looking forward to next Sunday, the Fourteenth after Pentecost

It's always good to wake up to Dan's Monday a.m. posting; here it is:

JwJ Readers,

Click here for our home page: http://www.journeywithjesus.net/.

"All the Ends of the Earth" is the title of this week's essay. What are the practical implications of the global nature of God's kingdom?

I review a book on Eastern Orthodoxy called Encountering the Mystery (2008) by Patriarch Bartholomew, and a crazy film that's well worth watching called What Would Jesus Buy? For poetry we've posted "A Nation" by the Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004).

Don't miss Dave Werther's new music review of the indie folk-rock group Southeast Engine and their CD "A Wheel within a Wheel."

For August 24: "Positively Maladjusted" (Romans 12:1-2)

Don't forget our comprehensive archives of more than 1,100 essays, reviews, and poems---all free, all the time. You can "Search our Site" by entering any key word, name, passage, etc.

--Dan

Daniel B. Clendenin, PhD
265 Cambridge Avenue, PO Box 60781
Palo Alto, California
https://www.journeywithjesus.net (a weekly webzine for the global church; 220 countries served)

More Words and Pictures from Haiti

On July 28, after visiting with Fr. Andre Augustine at St. Francis of Assisi parish, George Derval, the mayor of Ranquitte, asked us to drive out with him in his pickup to meet Harry Chel-Hilaire (known as "Capo") and his four-year-old son, Capito. Capo has been severely lame since birth. Capito's mother died several years ago. The two of them live in a small hut, about the size of a large dog-house; it's roof consists of large palm leaves. When it rains, as it had with torrential downpours during the week, Capo and Capito are resigned to living and sleeping on a mud floor.

"Surely this is intolerable," George quietly told us. "We must do something right away--perhaps now--to help Capo and Capito." Within a few minutes it was agreed that Capo and his son needed immediate temporary quarters, and arrangements were made for a temporary home of posts, tin roof, and wood siding be built within the week. Something much better, although admittedly temporary, could be built for 380 U.S. dollars. George promised to make sure that within a day or so, Capo and his son will sleep on a dry dirt floor.

And inasmuch as Capo was literally "squatting" on someone's else property, it was also decided that he should be provided with some property, the cost of which would be about 250 U.S. dollars. And in addition, because Capo and Capitoare depend entirely for food on the help of their neighbors, provisions for a month's store of rice and beans was made.

Capo makes his way around by sitting on a large palm branch, and by using two short poles, he is able to push himself along the ground (provided, of course, that it is not to rocky or rough). He scoots around rather quickly in his small dirt yard. And Capito follows along, his hand on the head of his father. The love between this father and son is wonderful to behold.

When our team goes back to Haiti in mid-January, we will build a more permanent home for Capo and Capito, a home with a concrete floor, concrete blocks (made on site), a tin roof, small rooms for cooking, sleeping, and storage--and a real door. All on a bit of land Capo may call his own.

Capo makes his meager living by weaving rope, and it is hoped that my moving him and his son closer to the village of Ranquitte that perhaps a way will be found to Capito to go to school in a year or so.

We are grateful to George Derval for introducing us to Capo and Capito, two of God's beloved poor. As we remember this father and son in our prayers, we ask you to join us in remembrance of their needs.