Shortages

Zacchaeus was a wee little man
And a wee little man was he
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see

And when the Savior passed that way
He looked up in the tree
[SPOKEN] And said, 'Zacchaeus, you come down!
For I'm coming to your house today!
For I'm coming to your house today!' --  Unknown

Every now and then, I get an earworm, and the only recourse I have for it is to let it roll around in my head until something else replaces it, or I physically sing or write about it. I have no idea how this one got in my brain a day or so ago. Still, it's become annoying and long past its welcome, as much as I enjoyed singing it in Sunday School, Children's Choir, and Vacation Bible School.

Granted, the story of Zaccheus comes in the gospel of Luke, chapter 19:1-10, which won't be in our Daily Office Lectionary until fall. Yet somehow, I need to think it through before it stays yet another day.

Zaccheus was a short man, probably not the only one in town. Somehow, he was called out for individuality because of: (a) his being a tax collector and therefore having at least two strikes against him, (b) his stature, and (c) his accidental but very fortunate encounter with Jesus, who was passing through. He was desperate to see this wonder-worker and teacher, but he knew he'd never get through the crowd to get close enough so that taller people would not be blocking his view.

If nothing else, Zacch was resourceful and fortunate to be standing near a sycamore tree. He climbed up, perched on a branch, and could see over everyone else's head. His visibility allowed Jesus to stop, look up, acknowledge Zacch's presence, and announce that he, Jesus, was going to visit Zacch in his own home. I don't know how many skid marks Zacch gained on his rush down the tree's trunk to the ground, but any pain would have been worth it.

We often think of short as lacking something, much as Zaccheus's lack of inches in height was to him. Shortages in our bank accounts make us anxious, while being short-changed, whether in money or goods, usually makes us angry. Our stores are experiencing shortages in many material and edible products we need to live, just as many workers show their dissatisfaction with what they consider poverty-level wages. Shortages make prices go up, just as people struggle to get by as best they can and without many things they previously took for granted.

    Something I have been considering today is that there are two things, at least, that we can count on as never being in short supply: God's love and God's grace. God, being so much greater than we can even begin to imagine, can love infinitely and spread grace the same way. Granted, some cannot conceive of, much less accept, such gifts since they are invisible and incomprehensible. They are only perceived by those who have experienced them – much, I bet, as Zaccheus experienced them from his perch on the tree branch.

I think it behooves me to think about with what I am gifted instead of what I lack – in inches or anything else. I will be reminded of Zaccheus again this fall, so I have time to practice climbing my personal sycamore tree in anticipation and wait for the gift to come into my house.

There. The earworm is gone, but the memories of happy times singing the tune and making the gestures that go with it linger. Still, I will be grateful for the memories but will pray for a new tune to start running through my head soon. Maybe "Christ Is Made A Sure Foundation" or "Cwm Rhondda," please?

 

PS: For some interesting information on liturgical practices involving this gospel reading in Eastern Orthodox, Slavic tradition Greek Catholic, and Byzantine/Greek churches of the Eastern churches, please see Liturgical Practices under the heading Zaccheus, Wikipedia. Great Lent begins March 7, 2022.

Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café, Saturday, February 26, 2022.

True Martyrs

 

Martyr –

1: a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion

2: a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle

a martyr to the cause of freedom. . .

                                                                      ------------------- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The word martyr comes from the Greek word for “Witness.” Many apostles, disciples, and members of the early followers of “The Way” were persecuted and executed for their proclamations of their beliefs and steadfast refusal to renounce those beliefs. For early followers of “The Way,” Jesus himself was a martyr, one who witnessed to his faith in God and his continual teachings of a belief that did not include emperor worship, which the Romans demanded, and failure to follow all the purity rules to which the Pharisees and high temple officials judged the purity of the people.

Martyrdom has been like rogue and tidal waves in the history of religion and then political and social/cultural practices. Things will go fairly normally and quietly for a time; then, suddenly, a vast and menacing wave will rise and roll along, damaging anything in its way. In its wake, it leaves not only physical destruction but the loss of life, fear, anxiety, and years of the expensive and expansive rebuilding of structures, economies, and senses of any kind of normalcy.

We are used to using the term “martyr” for people who have given their lives for causes they believed in and devoted their lives to. Martin Luther King Jr is a strong example, but how many other African-Americans have died because they stood up for equal rights for themselves and all people? We don’t know all their names, but we gradually hear of more and more of them. The African-American people are not the only ones we recognize. Other cultural groups have come forward, naming their martyrs and the reasons for their martyrdoms. We are learning almost daily that the ones who have contributed most heavily to the martyrdoms of others have actively pursued privilege and power in the name of history and cultural origin.

Today we look further abroad to learn about the martyrdoms of three Chinese laywomen who not only stood for their faith but taught it and preached it until Christianity became the subject of rogue waves of anti-Christianity in various parts of China in the nineteenth century. Agnes Tsao Kou Ying (1821-1856), Agatha Lin Zhao (1817-1858), and Lucy Yi Zhenmei (1817-1862) were devout Roman Catholics who studied, prayed, and taught local people, especially the children, the faith in which they believed so fervently. The provincial administrator of Guizhou Province, where all three lived and worked, hated the Christian faith, although the local magistrate supported it. The result was that the administrator had Christian groups rounded up and tortured, ultimately causing the deaths of the three women. Agnes was locked in a cage so small she could only stand up. After constant prayers to God, Agnes died three days later. Agatha was beheaded two years later for her refusal to reject her faith. Yi Zhenmei was rounded up with others, hauled off for a speedy trial and death sentence for failing to renounce her faith. She was beheaded the next day. Pope John Paul II canonized all three of them in 2000 as testimonies to their faith and their examples of steadfast trust in God.

Today, we often hear people being labeled “martyrs” without any real cause other than believing they were entitled to something others disagree with. True, they claimed to be standing up for the rights of others who believed as they did, but they weren’t being persecuted for that belief, nor did they face possible death for it either. There are plenty of people around the world today who face death simply because of their skin color or distinctive clothing that marks their religion. Many of these walk in fear every day, never knowing when they might be targets of those who fail to understand that the right to bear arms does not include the right to shoot other people because of their color or clothing.

I wish Jesus would somehow tweet or post or take over all the media and tell people to “STOP IT!” The way we are behaving is not what Jesus had in mind, despite claims by others. Many genuine Christians march in solidarity with the oppressed and support the causes that favor those whom Jesus claimed as the Children of God: the needy, the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the ones falsely imprisoned, and the hopeless.  

The Chinese martyrs were women doing what they were convinced God wanted them to do and, with strong faith, faced death without cringing or wavering. Most of us will never face such persecution or death for our beliefs. Still, Jesus won’t let us simply skate along, acting as part-time or even pretend-to-be-Christians. Every day, we are expected to work to strengthen our faith as surely as we go to the gym regularly to strengthen our muscles.

I am glad to learn about the Chinese martyrs. Their faith reminds me how much work I need to do to follow their example if and when I am called to do so.

Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café, Saturday, February 19, 2022.

A Basic Lesson from Paul

Romans 14:1-23

Paul has been considered the architect of the Christian church. Of course, Jesus was and is the foundation of it and who gave it substance, but Paul was the first to give it shape. There are many arguments about whether or not the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) came first or whether Paul’s epistles preceded them, but most scholars acknowledge that the earliest of the epistles came first. 

Paul never spoke of the birth narratives or the parables and miracles of the ministry portion of Jesus’s life, but he was aware of them, having heard of them from the disciples and other followers. We can probably attribute this to the nature of Paul’s epistles, which were letters and responses to new and existing groups of Christians, sometimes Gentile. Most of these letters were responses to questions or problems. Since we don’t have copies of the letters he responded to, we are somewhat in the dark at times as to what he was answering. Still, much of the content has been used as a basis for Christian theology for millennia. 

Paul often drives me nuts. There are many times I wish he had an editor who had taken the letters in hand and simplified them; however, Paul didn’t have an editor as good and with as generous an understanding of what I am trying to say as mine is. I assume Paul wrote in the style of the time, attempting to cover all possible permutations of his statements so that nobody could misunderstand. 

There are times when he is crystal clear, though. He is pretty solid on the belief that we are all brothers and sisters and that none of us should pass judgment on each other. The first scream we usually hear when this statement comes up is that of course, we have to judge; we can’t let criminals, terrorists, and thugs get away with their crimes! Those TEAPOT (terrible, evil, awful people over there) are out to steal what we have, and that can’t be allowed! 

Many often neglect to remember that much of what certain groups of us have passed judgment on others simply because we are somehow different than they are. Even if our skins are different in tint, all our blood is red, and our organs function in the same way as theirs. We are all children of God, even if we worship in different ways, call God by different names, and have different customs and languages. The fight during Paul’s time was that the Jews wanted to exclude the Gentiles because they had other traditions, beliefs, and diets. Paul argued that stumbling blocks such as the Jews put up were contrary to Jesus’s teaching about loving one another, doing kindness towards others, and helping those who needed aid of any kind. 

Paul takes many verses to spell it out, but in short, “Love God and your neighbor as yourself” covers a large block of what Jesus taught. “…(F)or we will all stand before the judgment of God…”, “So then, each of us will be accountable to God (Rom. 14:10d, 12).”

Paul may drive me nuts periodically, but there are times he seems to have hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. It’s simple. And it is probably why so many flocked to become members of the group that practiced this radical form of life. Not everybody did, and many today don’t do it, but it is a reminder of the fundamental teaching of Jesus for those of us who do follow Jesus. Don’t put blocks in front of those who can’t step on or over them. It wouldn’t be good to do that to an older person or a small child. It wouldn’t even be suitable for anyone to have a block put in their way when all they are trying to do is live life from day to day, safely, securely, and happily. 

I’ll be considering this section of the epistle for some days yet. I’ll try to write more clearly and concisely than Paul, but with the same sort of answer to an unknown question. It’s the Christian thing to do.

Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café, Saturday, February 12, 2022.

A Dream of a Feather

I’m sure I dream like most people, but I seldom remember a dream at all, much less in detail or with clarity. I have to note the dream when it happens.

In this dream, I was at a big church that reminded me of the General Convention that was held here in 1991.  Everybody and everything were a-buzz preparing. There was more, but all I recall now is that a single eagle feather was to be carried in the procession.

The feather came from a bird taken illegally by a caucasian man on Native American land. The man had intended to use the feather as the centerpiece for a banquet. The poor bird had been nailed to a tree. Once the bird was discovered, it was decided that a single feather would be given to the Native Americans in charge of the safeguarding the nature represented by the feather, to be used for purification and rededication of the people.

Like with most dreams, I have no clue where this story comes from. Did I make it up? Was it something I had heard elsewhere? I do not know, but it was vivid and got me thinking.

The most obvious thought the parallel between something precious the man took and despoiled with something that had been borne out repeatedly over the past centuries where the two cultures have collided. Land, tradition, language, symbolism, way of life — those things have been lost to the Native Americans to whom they belonged and for what?  Greed and the overbearing sense of entitlement. The Native Americans in the US weren’t the only ones who were victims of such colonialism, imperialism, even domination from the outside, conquerors from a completely different world who sought to make new lands and peoples over in their own image. When human beings usurp the powers of God, even on the limited scale of which humankind is capable, the results are not usually good – or beneficial (or even merciful).

The bird seemed to me to be a symbol of nature at its most beautiful when in its ultimate freedom as it was intended to be. As for being nailed to a tree, in my dream, I saw the eagle with wings outstretched, pierced through the heart with a large nail, like a crucifixion of sorts. Perhaps that is why one of its feathers was brought to the opening Eucharist of convention, to bear witness to the death of the bird to which it had belonged. In addition, it represented a call to repentance the people who had not only committed this murder and so many others and who had damaged and destroyed all that nature represented — the order, the beauty, the very cycles by which nature moves. Someone sacrificed a beautiful creature of God and nature to satisfy a need for power and a desire to be like God, whether or not they admitted it. 

Dreams can be alarming, but this one – well, it had so many levels. There was dismay about the bird, certainly. Still, there was also a sense of something else, a sense of possibility, maybe. Or perhaps it was a sense of flickering hope that there could be a return to Tikkun Olam, a healing of the world.

What would it take for that to happen, replanting forests, eliminating pollution and greed, caring for one another as brothers and sisters rather than potential (and imaginary) enemies? 

I can still visualize that beautiful bird, covered in blood, nailed to a tree with its wings outstretched, as clearly as I can see Jesus on the cross. I see the eagle as representative of peoples and cultures who treat nature with respect and only seek to live in harmony with the land and with each other. I wonder – will the land and the people ever be cleansed, purified, and redeemed? That was part of Jesus’s message to us. 

When are we going to pay attention and do something about it?  

Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café, Saturday, February 5, 2022.