Category: General Interest

Items of General Interest about liturgy, the liturgical calendar, church customs and culture, our unique “Episcopal vocabulary,” the intersection of faith and culture, and all other items not fitting into the other categories (or fitting into multiple categories).

An archeological find to share

Magdala Bimah

As we seek to “keep learning” here is a report to note. Please notice that the scholars quoted do not always agree about how to interpret what they are seeing. With that in mind, let’s, as a group, see what else we can discover about this dig in (ancient and buried Magdala) current day Migdal.

In a city where Jesus’ companion Mary Magdalene lived and perhaps even met with Jesus, the discovery and excavation of a first-century synagogue is shedding new light on Judeo-Christian worship 2,000 years ago.

In 2009 a team of researchers in the town of Migdal on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel discovered an ancient synagogue, one of only a handful dating back to the time of Jesus, when the town was a small fishing village known as Magdala. An ongoing excavation at the Magdala synagogue has since turned up valuable artifacts including a rosette mosaic and a special table that may once have displayed Torah scrolls with a stone relief of a seven-branched candelabrum, according to Haaretz.

What archaeologists know about the synagogue’s construction also suggests to some scholars that Jews and the earliest Judeo-Christians may have worshipped together at the holy site, per Haaretz.

Read the entire post (on Huffington Post Religion), and see more photos, too.

Remembering Saint Matthew

Updated June 9, 2023

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him.

Matthew 9:9

Note: This was originally posted on September 13, 2013. It is updated and reposted here. The call of Matthew is part of the Gospel reading for Proper 5A (June 11, 2023).

The Church remembers Saint Matthew every year on September 21. This year a new layer was added to this remembrance. In an interview with Pope Francis posted and printed on September 19th, the Pope talked about his own calling:

Pope Francis continues his reflection and says, jumping to another topic: “I do not know Rome well. I know a few things. These include the Basilica of St. Mary Major; I always used to go there. I know St. Mary Major, St. Peter’s…but when I had to come to Rome, I always stayed in [the neighborhood of] Via della Scrofa. From there I often visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of ‘The Calling of St. Matthew,’ by Caravaggio. “That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew.”

The Calling of Matthew by Caravaggio

Here the pope becomes determined, as if he had finally found the image he was looking for: “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.” Then the pope whispers in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”

Read A Big Heart Open to God, the interview with Pope Francis posted online by America Magazine.

Saint Matthew – Tax Man, Apostle, Evangelist, Martyr on the Blog Ad Imaginem Dei curated by Margaret M Duffy. This post from 2016 uses centuries of art to explore the life of Saint Matthew.

From the Web Gallery of Art:
Caravaggio: The Calling of Saint Matthew 1599-1600
Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cm
Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Kierkegaard | Music | Ordinary Time

Here is a fun post; a post to simply enjoy. In the midst of ‘ordinary time’ (in this case shopping for groceries) an extraordinary moment bursts forth. In our quest to “keep learning” here is an introduction from Søren Kierkegaard for your consideration:

Language addresses itself to the ear. No other medium does this. The ear is the most spiritually determined of the senses. That I believe most men will admit. Aside from language, music is the only medium that addresses itself to the ear. Herein is again an analogy and a testimony concerning the sense in which music is a language. … Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element.

… it is only in an unreal sense that music exists when it is read. It really exists only being performed

Music is the only other one that takes place in time. … Music exists only in the moment of its performance, for if one were ever so skillful in reading notes and had ever so lively an imagination, it cannot be denied that it is only in an unreal sense that music exists when it is read. It really exists only being performed. This might seem to be an imperfection in this art as compared with the others whose productions remain, because they have their existence in the sensuous. Yet this is not so. It is rather a proof of the fact that music is a higher, or more spiritual art.

Søren Kierkegaard Either/Or Part I, Swenson p. 66-67

Enjoy:

John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, 407

Today (Sep. 13) the church remembers John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, 407.St. John Chrysostom

In an influential, prosperous, and sophisticated city at the apex of international power, it is rarely popular to advocate restraint, self-control, and responsible living. When the leaders of mighty Constantinople elected John Chrysostom to be Patriarch of the city, they thought they had elected a holy man who would bless and affirm them in their way of living. They were only half right.

Read the entire post on Forward Movement

Are we witnessing a similar ministry in our own day? May the future of Pope Francis be more like his namesake of Assisi and less like Chrysostom’s.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A ‘sharp-edged’ poem

Parker J. Palmer posted this to his Facebook Page a few days ago. It’s message is timeless.

Let us (use Comments) know if you have trouble viewing this. Let us know your response to “The Sun,” a poem with “sharp edges” in the words of Parker Palmer.

A prayer for courage

As we considered the words of Jesus (Luke 14:25-33) on Sunday (9/8/13) about discipleship the discussion was lively. As our session concluded we each made a commitment to be more intentional about in following the Way of Jesus this week. And we prayed:

Give us the courage to follow the way of your cross, and to trust that though it confounds the logic of the world, your way interrupts the patterns of sin and death, both now and forever. Amen.

Claiborne, Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Enuma Okoro, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (p. 401). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Wind Chimes: 3 September 2013

candle001

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

I light my prayer candle today for those who seek to ‘wage peace.’ Join me in helping the peacemakers in this and every nation, especially in Syria, have the “courage to will and persevere” in their efforts and be acclaimed “blessed” by God and by their neighbors (you and me). ~daniel rondeau

DivLine360x12“Blessed are the peacemakers,” “they are children of God,”
this is the song of the chimes today.
What do you hear?

The prayer, “Attributed to St. Francis,” may be found in the (Episcopal) Book of Common Prayer on page 833.

Continuing Sunday’s Conversation

In light of our study of Hebrews, words spoken to persecuted and demoralized followers of the Way in the early years of Christianity, comes this 20th century assessment:

Too often the price exacted by society for security and respectability is that the Christian movement in its formal expression must be on the side of the strong against the weak. This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in modern life too often has been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to defenseless peoples.

—Howard Thurman quoted in Verse & Voice for 9/2/13 (Sojourners online)

Wind Chimes: 29 August 2013

divergent-paths

“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path,
but it’s another to think yours is the only path.”

A Facebook Post by
Spirituality & Practice

This quote reminded me to re-read a post made by a new desert friend, Paul Kowalewski, who posts regularly on The Desert Retreat House. Paul’s post Buddha Christ spoke about his journey on ‘the way.’ He tells people now that he is a “Christian Buddhist.”

“The disciple is to walk on a path leading to the discovery of one’s own ‘Buddha nature,’ one’s own ‘Christ nature'” according to Paul (and I agree).

And what does this “way” look like?

Do unto others as you would have them do to you. (Jesus)
Consider others as yourself. (Buddha)

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. (Jesus)
If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words. (Buddha)

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. (Jesus)
Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love. (Buddha)

Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me. (Jesus)
Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick. (Buddha)

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own. (Jesus)
The faults of others are easier to see than your own. (Buddha)

Go. Read Paul’s post, Buddha Christ. On your journey: who has walked with you? Who has taught you? Who has enkindled faith, hope, and love as you make your way home?

DivLine360x12No one owns the sounds of the chimes, they simply dance with the wind and play, delighting those who pause to listen.
What do you hear?

Wind Chimes: 27 August 2013

For us Christians, healing and liberation are inexorably tied together. For Jesus, healing is always an act of liberation. For his followers, liberation for some involves healing for all.

Gary Hall
Dean of the National Cathedral

In his sermon on Sunday, August 25, 2013, (The Very Rev.) Gary Hall addressed his congregation and everyone of goodwill who has ears to hear. Anticipating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington by those involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Gary not only asked us to take a closer look at our lukewarm response to civil rights but promised, as Dean of the Cathedral, to lead the way to more liberating/healing actions by and with the staff and people of the National Cathedral

…let us not delude ourselves. The Episcopal Church, as a denomination, participated in both overt and tacit segregation. Today 86.7% of American Episcopalians are white. The Washington National Cathedral staff, congregation, and chapter are overwhelmingly white. We are at once the cathedral church for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and the most visible faith community in the nation’s capital. Yet we have a largely non-existent record of involvement or investment in the other three quadrants of the District of Columbia. How can we, with integrity, presume to “speak truth to power” about racial justice when we are, in fact, implicated in the very structures of injustice? How can we call others into righteousness when we are ourselves caught in a web of sin?.

Weaving together the text from Jeremiah 1:4-10, the text from Luke 13:10-17, a text from Matthew (Mt 7:1-5) about judging, eyes, and specks, and logs, and the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1963, Gary summarized and then made a pledge:

Friends, what we have here is a very big log in our eyes. Our problem is not the racism of any one individual, because racism is not only personal. It is also interpersonal, institutional, and social. This fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s speech and the march that occasioned it demands that we take an inventory of ourselves yes personally, but also interpersonally, institutionally, and socially. What does it mean to belong to an 86% white denomination when, by 2040, there will be no one majority race or ethnic group in America? What does it mean to call ourselves the “National” Cathedral when we confine our ministry to the whitest and most privileged quadrant of the District of Columbia? How can we live into the dream articulated by Dr. King when the evils we face in 2013 are so much more insidious than they were in 1963? The enemy back then looked and acted like Lester Maddox and Bull Connor. The enemy today looks and acts very much like you and me.

We here can do little to nothing about the Supreme Court, the Florida legislature, our own Congress. We can, however, together look to ourselves. On behalf of Washington National Cathedral, I pledge today to initiate a process of cathedral self-examination, renewal, and reform, seeking to explore the racism inherent in our worship, ministry, staffing, and governance. Read Gary Hall’s Sermon of August 25, 2013

I invite you to read his sermon. Listen carefully for the Spirit, the same Spirit involved in the call of Jeremiah, the healing moment in the life of the unnamed woman healed by Jesus long ago, and the words and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Spirit is not done speaking and not done working with folks like you and me.

DivLine360x12“Healing, freedom, liberation” are the sounds ringing from the chimes today.
What do you hear?