Life in Christ and Getting a Job

Saint Peter Chrysologous was a bishop of the early church, a preacher so skilled in his presentation of the Truth that he is known as the “Doctor of Homilies.” He was born about 350 years after the resurrection of Jesus and lived about 70 years, finally as Bishop of Ravenna, a city in northern Italy and the capital of the Western Roman Empire. His preaching probably drew large crowds in that populous city. Maybe it was a mega-church.

But maybe his crowds were smaller because St. Peter Chrysologous spoke simple and direct Truth about what it means to be transformed rather than conformed to the ways of this world. This morning the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours included this paragraph from one of his homilies. (This screen shot is from the Universalis APP.)

Well, those are not personal qualities that we would tend to point out and brag about on our applications for employment in the 21st century are they? They are somewhat other worldly. It is fascinating to me that this comes on the heels of reading, just this week, an inspiring book about the Monks of Mepkin Abbey and the philosophy which guides their personal and business lives. And, yes, they are in business, formerly poultry and eggs and currently mushrooms. So, I suppose that if one wanted to join the Monks, to be employed, so to speak, at Mepkin Abbey, those qualities recommended by St. Peter Chrysologous are the ones that would offer a chance of success.
I’m keeping this post short like Father Peter’s famously short homilies. For better explanation and understanding of how it is not only possible but beneficial and even life-changing to follow his counter-cultural advice in the 21st century, buy and read Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks. Having visited them several times and having participated in service projects there, I can vouch for its truth. You can download it to your Kindle from Amazon for about $10 and read it in three or four hours. Then you may want to read it again. I certainly need and want to do so because I have a way to go to follow Father Peter’s sound advice.

 

Baptismal Sticking Points

Introduction

When I was received into the Catholic Church in 2011, it was after a few months of weekly meetings in a membership class on Catholic theology and practice, preparation for and reception of the sacrament of reconciliation (confession), and presentation of documentation of my April 15, 1951, baptism at the First Baptist Church, Maryville, TN. I had been eight years old and had “walked the aisle” on March 30, 1951, in response to the traditional Baptist end-of-service invitational hymn, probably on the first or second of the unknown number of verses of “Just as I Am,” and confessed faith in Jesus as my savior and asked to be baptized and received into the church. That simple process is a key element of Baptist “liturgy.”

To be asked to provide that ancient history was a bit surprising to me at the time because I knew that the baptismal practices of Catholics and Baptists were quite different, and that my former Baptist church would have required re-baptism of former Catholics wanting to become Baptist. Here are brief summaries of the key beliefs of the two.

Baptist Baptism

  1. Only for “believers” who have reached the “age of accountability” and “made a decision” for Christ
  2. By total immersion in water
  3. An act of obedience and testimony by the believer
  4. Symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and the believer’s death to sin, burial, and resurrection to new life in Christ.
  5. May be repeated if some new level of commitment or conversion is reached or if the baptized person feels his or her conversion at the initial baptism was not sincere (enough).

Catholic Baptism

  1. For any who have never been baptized and desire entry into the Church, the Body of Christ, following a period of instruction about the
    faith.
  2. For the children, even infants, of Baptized and Confirmed believers who promise, in faith, to instruct and raise those children and infants in the
    faith of the Church. Full membership in the Body of Christ requires Christian Education and the Sacrament of Confirmation at an accountable age.
  3. Immersion is fine but not required. Baptism must be by water, with right intent, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
  4. An act of Grace by the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through which the baptized are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God.
  5. Done once only since the effectiveness depends only on the Grace of God and not on the person baptized or the person doing the baptizing. To doubt is an expression of lack of faith. (Baptism done by force, with wrong intent, in some name other than that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in lemonade or beer instead of water, is not considered valid. Throughout Sacred Scripture, washing with water is always a symbol of cleaning and removal of sin.)
The bottom line is that Catholics take the act of Baptism, done properly and with proper intent, very seriously and will not re-baptize Christians who have been so baptized. Catholics do, however, welcome the chance to educate and Confirm such persons in the Catholic faith. The results of that process depend on The Holy Spirit at work in the lives of all involved.

Reconciling the Two

I have never doubted the validity or sincerity of that innocent and childlike “conversion” and baptism I experienced at age 8 in the Baptist Church, but I have learned that conversion is not a “once and done” thing but a life-long process of learning and serving, examining and confessing, and increasing commitment, a process that I have observed both Baptists and Catholics experiencing.

I remember an insightful statement by a Lutheran seminary professor: “Don’t be concerned about whether you have crossed some imaginary or subjective line. Just focus on making progress in the right direction.”

To oversimplify a bit, I would say that the line to be crossed is key in Baptist theology while Catholic theology focuses more on continually moving in the right direction toward the holiness commanded by Jesus. I suppose that is why Catholics are accused by the “faith alone” adherents of “works righteousness.” Well, anyone familiar with the New Testament will know of lots of uses of such imperatives as study, work, endure, persist, fight, finish, etc. as well as to instances of failure or falling away by believers. And all those “works” can be done in perfect (or even imperfect) faith.

At least two things we Catholics and Baptists can agree on are:
  1. Baptism is important
  2. We are saved by grace through faith and it is not from us but is a gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)

Catholics just see more complications and more divine mystery in the underlying processes and identify even whatever good works we may do as not of ourselves but as gifts of God.

What About Those Other “Denominations?”

And then there are the Orthodox, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of God, etc. understandings of Baptism. Below are some official statements from church websites. At most of the links there is much more explanation than the simple screen shots I have posted. Since the screen shots are difficult to read, I have typed the words between the names of the denominations and the screen shots. Clicking on the screen shots with make them a bit clearer not not clear enough!

Southern Baptist

“Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of th Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.”
 
Catholic
“CCC-1213 – Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua), and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: “Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.”
 
Episcopal
In the waters of baptism, we are lovingly adopted by God into God’s family, which we call the Church, and given God’s own life to share and reminded that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. Holy Baptism, which can be performed through pouring of water or immersion in it marks a formal entrance to the congregation and wider Church; the candidates for the sacrament make a series of vows, including an affirmation of the Baptismal Covenant, and are baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are marked as Christ’s own for ever, having “clothed [themselves] with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
All people of any age are welcome to be baptized; We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, as the “bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 298).

Orthodox
In the Christian Church the practice of baptism takes on a new and particular significance. It no longer remains merely a sign of moral change and spiritual rebirth. It becomes very specifically the act of a person’s death and resurrection in and with Jesus. Christian baptism is man’s participation in the event of Easter. It is a “new birth by water and the Holy Spirit” into the Kingdom of God (Jn 3.5).

Lutheran (ELCA)
Our baptism is a significant part of our faith journey as we come from the baptismal waters to live a new life as children of God. Marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Spirit, we receive a new identity as followers of Jesus, and the story of Jesus becomes our story, It is often said that we need to be attentive to the words we say, and this is especially true as we examine the words that are said at baptism. Together we hope and pray that those being baptized will be nurtured in the faith, grow into their baptism, learn to trust God, and live as disciples of Jesus.

Methodist
You have heard people say, “I was baptized Methodist,” or “I was baptized Presbyterian,” which could mean that in baptism they got their identity papers and that was the end of it. But baptism is not the end. It is the beginning of a lifelong journey of faith. It makes no difference whether you were baptized as an adult or as a child; we all start on that journey at baptism. For the child, the journey begins in the nurturing community of the church, where he or she learns what it means that God loves you. At the appropriate time, the child will make his or her first confession of faith in the ritual the church traditionally calls confirmation. Most often this is at adolescence or at the time when the person begins to take responsibility for his or her own decisions.
If you experienced God’s grace and were baptized as an adult or received baptism as a child and desire to reaffirm your baptismal vows, baptism still marks the beginning of a journey in the nurturing fellowship of the caring, learning, worshipping, serving congregation.
 
Presbyterian (PCUSA)
In baptism, we are called to a new way of life as Christ’s disciples, sharing the good news of the gospel with all the world.
Presbyterians describe baptism as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace made by God through Jesus and extended to us. In baptism, God claims us as beloved children and members of Christ’s body, the church, washing us clean from sin as we renounce the power of evil and seek the will and way of God.

 Summary

In spite of the varied understandings of the practice and meaning of the Sacrament of Baptism, we all agree that it is the entry point to the Christian Church, the Body of Christ. We can probably also agree that there is just one Truth. We just don’t agree exactly on what that one Truth about Baptism is.

The Gospel of John Movie (2003)

This dramatization of The Gospel According to St. John is a work of art, beautifully staged and acted, the words coming directly from Sacred Scripture, the American Bible Society’s Good News Bible, nothing omitted and nothing added. A viewer can read along with the movie. Simply summarized, it is a pure proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God incarnate. It begins with creation, placing Jesus, the Word, with God and actually being God, at the creation, and ends with his post resurrection, pre ascension, appearances to the disciples. Scottish actor Henry Cusick and Canadian actor Daniel Kash areexcellent as Jesus and Simon Peter. Christopher Plummer is the narrator.
I don’t remember when I first heard of the movie or watched it, but I found it very helpful a dozen or so years ago with Lutheran Confirmation classes of students around age 12. They were spellbound. And I found it to be a perfect aid and conversation stimulator in an Adult Bible Study of John’s Gospel.  The faintest praise I have read is an Associated Press quote on the DVD box: “Thought Provoking Entertainment.” I suggest it may also be, for some viewers, Life Changing Entertainment resulting from belated realization of who Jesus was and is and what He did and does, and what He asks of his followers.
This Wikipedia article gives details of backers, artists, cast, and musical score and points out the one controversial and sometimes questioned scene in the movie,
the silent presence of Mary Magdalene at the Last Supper. I would guess she was not present there, but the Gospel of John certainly considers her a prominent
member of the close followers of Jesus. And, in writings of the first century and earlier, it was not unusual to omit mention of women. The scene at the Wedding at Cana, Mary, Mother of Jesus, instructing the servers to “Do whatever he tells you,” the dialogue with the woman at the well and her resulting evangelization of her community, the interactions with Mary and Martha, and the important role of the women at his resurrection all speak to the importance and prominence of the women followers of Jesus.
Check out the movie. If you get through Jesus’s dialoguewith the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John Chapter 4, I predict you will behooked and will end up watching the movie more than once. And of course, it is no longer necessary to buy the DVD (photo above) since the movie is free on Amazon Prime (Average Rating of 4.5) and on YouTube as well.

Pentecost 2019 – Eight Years Catholic

Introduction

I was received into the Catholic Church at Pentecost 2011 and, in 2016 wrote a blog post titled Pentecost2016 – Five Years Catholic. Three years later, I wrote this one without first reading the earlier one. There are a couple of common themes and some new current thoughts, but I just enjoyed going back and reading the earlier one and
think it was better. I believe there is a lot of truth in the (approximate) words of Flannery O’Conner: “I don’t know what I think until I read what Iwrote.” But, here goes with the current thinking.

Becoming Catholic

It is common among Catholic Christians, and Christian Catholics, to share how and when and why we became Catholic. Some are so-called “cradle Catholics,” born to Catholic parents, baptized and confirmed in a Catholic church, perhaps educated in Catholic schools and married in a Catholic ceremony and sometimes with little knowledge about or interest in other Christian faiths.
Some are convicted, converted, and reborn former atheists or agnostics drawn into the Church by the Holy Spirit.
And many, like me, are “converts,” former Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist,
Episcopalian, Pentecostal, or whatever Christians who became convinced that the
Catholic Church, with all its warts and wounds and problematic history, really is the Church that Jesus established and left people in charge of when he returned to the Father and is the Church with which they want to be in full communion. They too  usually credit the Holy Spirit with motivating their move.

The Question of Authority

Many in that latter group had come to believe that the Catholic Church has divinely assigned authority, under Holy Spirit guidance, over theological issues and argue that the Church is not a democracy subject to the whims of its “members,” many of whom may be still more conformed to the world than transformed by the Holy Spirit. (And, yes, some Catholic leaders with that authority have been imperfectly transformed also, but they still bear the responsibility and are accountable for their actions.)
I have generally put myself in that “looking for authority” group, having been baptized Baptist and having served and worshiped in Baptist, Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, experiencing some discomfort with so-called Baptist Distinctives, Presbyterian Predestination, and Lutheran open discussion and votes on current theological issues such as  requirements for ordination and holy matrimony.
In my case, that search for authority was not based on belief that the Catholic Church majesterium is and always has been right all the time or to relieve me of responsibility for having a well-informed and well-formed conscience, but to acknowledge the authority and to say to those Catholic leader/servants, “It is your responsibility to open yourselves to The Holy Spirit and to understand, explain, and defend true theology. Get to work!”

Building Christian Unity

There is a second key issue I sometimes forget that increased my interest in the Catholic Church, and that is the fragmentation of and competitive squabbling among Christians and the resulting damage to the witness of the Church. I was reminded of it by the Daily Mass readings for June 6, 2019.
First was from Acts 23:6-11. The “Jews,” the Chief Priests and the whole Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Sadducees, had been assembled to confront Paul, recent Christian convert and troublemaker, and hopefully hasten his martyrdom. But Paul was a very smart guy, a Jewish Roman citizen, well-educated and familiar with the Hebrew scriptures and all the political and theological current issues.
Paul went right to the dividing issue, resurrection, which the Pharisees believed in and the Sadducees rejected: “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees; I am on trial for hope in the resurrection of the dead.” With that comment, the unity of the anti-Pauls was destroyed: “When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the group became divided. “Martyrdom delayed!
And then, in the Gospel reading, there was this from Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer,” part of his John 17 farewell to his disciples: Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.“
Note the last phrase, the evangelistic purpose of Christian unity: “…that the world may believe that you sent me.”
I first got interested in the idea of Christian unity while living in Japan (1992-1995), enjoying worship and service at St. Paul’s International Lutheran Church, and seeing the confusion, in a nation that was 2% Christian, caused by the multiplicity and diversity of mostly western groups claiming the name of Christ. I specifically remember a co-worker telling me that, yes, his relative is a Christian, a Mormon, and another co-worker, asking
me what is going on when he sees a Christian church in the USA on TV and someone is putting his hand on another’s forehead and the latter then falls to the floor unconscious. Well, how does one explain away those difficulties peopleface in believing that the Father sent the Son?
So, a second important reason for my interest in Catholicism, beyond the structure and authority, was that I wanted to cast a vote in favor of Christian unity by submitting to and being received by the Church that Jesus established and left someone in charge of, promising the Holy Spirit as guide.

Moving in the Right Direction

I have no expectation that all Christians are going to join together in the Catholic Church anytime soon, but I do have a reasonable expectation that all Christians, Catholics included, may eventually obey the two Greatest Commandments and replace criticism and competition with love for each other. After all, the key theologies expressed in the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, both recited at every Catholic Mass, must be of primary importance and must provide some common ground that can keep most of us from arguing more complicated issues which may not be resolved for hundreds of
years.

Resolving Complicated Issues

The primary complicated issue is differences in understanding of The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, Eucharist, that, as explained in John Chapter 6:52-71, has been a dividing issue since the very beginning. It may keep us from full communion but need not prevent cooperationin love and service. A key point for meaningful dialogue in the direction of Christian unity in Truth is that concerned Christians in all faith traditions
should be able to respectfully explain not only why they believe as they do but also why those in other faith traditions believe as they do. None of thebeliefs are without some, sometimes misunderstood or out-of-context, Biblicalfoundation.

The “Full Gospel” Church

I have some hope that more and more Christians will recognize that my occasional somewhat tongue-in-cheek description of the Catholic Church as the “full-gospel church” has some merit and will investigate. After all, we have The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the promises of salvation and resurrection, the Greatest Commandments and Great Commission, The Great Cloud of Witnesses, the saints, daily and frequent Sunday Masses, Church Fathers, Martyrs, seven Sacraments, The Real Presence, Mary the Mother of God whom “all nations will call blessed,” Women’s Sodality, Men’s Knights of Columbus. St. Vincent de Paul Society, abbeys and convents, monks and nuns, pilgrimages, and enough optional personal practices of piety to suit
any taste.
Since Vatican II, we even celebrate Mass in the language of the people as recommended 500 years ago by Father Martin Luther. And, we offer bingo to seniors for fellowship and entertainment, though I’m not sure where that came from. Finally, we have the 700+ page Catechism of the Catholic Church which explains the faith in four sections (Creeds, Sacraments, Christian Living, and Christian Prayer), topics that should sound quite reasonable to any Christian and to any agnostic or atheist interested in Christianity. At least the last two should sound reasonable, and those are good starting points.

Common Ground

Oh, and back to that first, perhaps confusing sentence containing the terms “Christian Catholics” and “Catholic Christians.” I intend the first to imply those cradle Catholics who are experiencing continuing conversion, spiritual growth, and perseverance and the second to imply Christians for whom reception into the Catholic Church has been one major event in their continuing conversion, spiritual growth, and perseverance. We all have something in common, wherever we are right now, the importance of sharing that continuing conversion, spiritual growth, and perseverance.

The Penitential Psalms & Lent

Morning Prayer seems most beneficial when it results in some searching beyond the provided texts and “learning” of some new things about Sacred Scripture, theology, or Church history. The quotes around that word in the previous sentence suggest that I don’t usually remember much from such searches and depend on some personally written summary I can refer to later. There is joy in organizing and summarizing information in a way that will be useful. So, here is one such simple summary.

Today (3/8/2019), one of the Morning Prayer readings is Psalm 51. I was inspired (or inclined) to look it up in the Catholic Study Bible, 2nd Edition (NABRE) and found this comment: “A lament, the most famous of the seven penitential Psalms…” The first word of Psalm 51 in Latin is Miserere (have mercy).For the record, here are the seven Penitential Psalms including a key phrase from each:

  • Psalm 6: Have pity on me Lord, for I am weak (vs. 3)
  • Psalm 32: Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide (vs. 5)
  • Psalm 38: I acknowledge my guilt and grieve over my sin (vs 19)
  • Psalm 51: Have mercy on me God, in accord with your merciful love (vs. 3)
  • Psalm 102: Lord, hear my prayer; let my cry come to you (vs. 1)
  • Psalm 130: But with you (Lord) is forgiveness and so you are revered (vs. 4)
  • Psalm 143: Show me the path I should walk, for I entrust my life to you (vs. 8b)
All seven have traditionally been identified as Psalms of King David, famous for his adultery, murder, disobedience, and love of and by God.  No wonder these Psalms are associated with and used during Lent!
I was aware of the Penitential Psalms but not of the first documentation of Christian recognition of them nor of recognizer Cassiodorus, sixth century monastery founder and author of Exposition of the Psalms. An interesting quote is in this link about the exposition: “Cassiodorus, like many patristic commentators, saw the psalms as the necessary starting point for Scriptural study: one should learn the psalms first, he suggests, and only then move on to the New Testament, for they serve as preparation for it.” Anybody out there who has “learned the Psalms?”
And according to this link, the seven were part of Jewish liturgy as early as the third century and have sometimes been associated with the Seven Deadly Sins.
And below is some penitential music, Miserere Mei.

THE Bible Story

Most of us raised in a Christian church know lots of Bible stories. We know about the sins of Adam and Eve, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, the leadership of Moses and Joshua, Samuel’s anointing of Saul and David, David’s killing of Goliath, the wisdom of King Solomon, the birth and ministry of Jesus, the resurrection story, Paul’s Damascus Road story, problems in the early church, etc.

But we may be unable to see the forest for the trees and not have a clear view from the 50,000 foot level of how all those stories comprise THE BIBLE STORY, the theology of the Christian faith, the narrative that begins with the creation stories of Genesis, continues with the choice of a people and promise and arrival of The Messiah, Jesus Christ, and ends with experiences of the early Church, the continuing “Body of Christ.” All that story can rightly be called The Gospel, the good news, focused on Jesus Christ, God in flesh, Savior of the world.

The reason for always keeping THE BIBLE STORY in mind when we read Sacred Scripture is that it keeps us from going off on tangents, from grabbing verses or stories out of that overall context and drawing misleading lessons from them. No matter how deeply we dig, we must always remember the big picture, the context, and make sure our conclusions and positions make sense in that overall context of theological truth.

The chart below is an attempt at visual presentation of THE BIBLE STORY, from the pre-creation chaos, through the revelation of God, to the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church, the continuing Body of Christ, into which we are invited today. Here is not just one verse out of context but thirty one, carefully chosen to illustrate the major parts of that important story.

 
The left side of the chart covers creation to the prophetic promises of the Messiah, the Anointed One, the King, Jesus Christ.
 
The theological truths taught in the ancient creation stories are that God created all, His creation was good, and that humankind messed it up. Then God chose a people out of the resulting chaos and revealed himself to them as not one of many gods (polytheism), not even the most important god of many (henotheism), but the one and only God (monotheism). And then prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah began to announce the promise of a Messiah and a new way of living, of being washed clean, of the end of war. These sixteen verses are chosen to illustrate that revelation of God resulting in realization by the people.

The right side of the chart covers the incarnation, God in flesh, the ideal King, fully God and fully human, coming and dwelling among us. He heals and teaches and gathers followers, disciples, some of whom become apostles. He teaches prayer, the greatest commandments, the Great Commission, and promises the Holy Spirit. He establishes and teaches the Sacraments. Then he returns to the Father and leaves his Apostles in charge. Under the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, they build, lead, and guide the early Church, dealing with issues as they arise, under the promised Holy Spirit.
 
And that is THE BIBLE STORY, admittedly over-simplified, illustrated by just thirty one verses. Anytime we take deeper dives into Sacred Scripture, it is helpful to remember where we are in this miraculous story and make sure we consider that context in our search for understanding.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Gospel According to St. John: Unique

I’m not very skilled at digging deeply into Sacred Scripture, finding new meaning and writing paragraphs about a verse or two. But I love looking at the Bible from a 50,000 foot view, so to speak, and detecting patterns, themes, characteristics, and differences. So, here are thoughts and observations about the Gospel According to St. John which St. Augustine apparently Tweeted was “shallow enough for a baby to wade and deep enough for an elephant to swim.”

 

The chart below is an illustration of a simple difference among the Gospels, what they say about the ancestry of Jesus.

Mark is the earliest and shortest and has a wonderful beginning: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” So, if we had any doubt about what the Gospel of Jesus is, Mark makes it clear. Mark doesn’t, however, say anything about the birth or ancestry of Jesus. He just gets right to what happened.

Matthew, generally viewed as a Gospel targeted at a Jewish community, has a beautiful birth story with wise men and flight to Egypt and traces Jesus’s ancestry back to the patriarch Abraham, who begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel.

And Luke, generally viewed as targeted to a community of Gentiles, relates the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Benedictus, and traces the ancestry all the way back to Adam, father of all.

The writer of John had more time to think about the theology of Jesus and a Trinitarian God and copied the first words of Genesis, placing Jesus “In the beginning,” with God, and the same as God, at the creation.

Word counting is a great way to identify major themes in books of the Bible, and it is truly wonderful if one has software such as Bible Works which will do all the counting. Here are some important words in John, in each case having as many or more appearances in that Gospel than in the other three combined. A good way to explore use of these words is to use an online searchable Bible to find the uses of the words and meditate on them.

The “I I am” (which looks like 11 AM) deserves special consideration because the double emphasis, use of the pronoun “ego” which translates “I” even with the inflected verb (eimi) which translates alone as “I am” is understood by scholars and theologians as a reference to God identifying himself, at the burning bush, to Moses as “I AM.” (Exodus 3:13-14) Every religious Jew hearing that phrase from Jesus as in, “I AM the way, the truth and the life,” heard it as a claim to divinity. Believers bowed in awe and unbelievers charged blasphemy.

It is worthy of note also that the word usually translated as testify or bear witness is the Greek word from which we get the English martyr. For the early Christians, bearing witness as Stephen did often resulted in martyrdom.

A review of the use of “believe” can increase understanding of the fact that belief in john goes far beyond mental or intellectual belief to “believing in” or conversion or a change in direction of ones life. Here is an easy link to the list of 83 occurrences of “believe” in John.

John was written around sixty years or so after the resurrection, probably to a well-grounded Christian community that knew well the stories of the birth, baptism, and transfiguration, and the parables and celebrated the Eucharist routinely. Therefore those stories were not told again, though we do have John’s remembrance of the baptism, the Last Supper with Foot Washing, and John 6 explaining the significance of the Eucharist.
We have already mentioned in the first diagram that only John begins the Gospel of Jesus at the creation. It is worthy of note that John includes no parables or exorcisms but is organized around Seven Signs usually followed by long discourses by Jesus about key principles of the faith. One thing we can be especially thankful for is that all four Gospels begin the resurrection story early in the morning or at dawn on the first day of the week, Sunday.
Below is an index of sorts of the content of John, chapter by chapter. The seven signs are in chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 11. The three extended dialogues, Jesus with Nicodemus, Jesus with the Samaritan Woman at the well, and Jesus with the woman caught in adultery, in chapters 3, 4, and 5, are very interesting and simple while being theologically deep. Major events are in the third column. For a good story that could be expanded into a movie, read the Chapter 9 full “Crime Scene Investigation” aimed at identifying the culprit in the Sabbath healing of the man born blind. Jesus only appears at the beginning and at the end of the story. And, finally, the discourses which are all familiar to us from Gospel readings at Mass.

Jesus and his followers spent a lot of time walking an area of around 900 square miles. In the Gospel of John, that includes three trips between Galilee and Jerusalem. No wonder Jesus instructed them, in Luke’s Gospel, to not carry anything with them. And no wonder that the writer of John declared that Jesus did many other signs not recorded in the Gospel.

The three trips “up to Jerusalem” are quite different from the single long journey in the other Gospels and are the basis for Church teaching that His ministry was three years. Note the two Bethany’s, one across the Jordan where John baptized Jesus, and one a suburb of Jerusalem.

Here are 24 key verses from the Gospel according to St. John including presence of Jesus at the creation, the incarnation, teachings about Mary, use of “believe,” and importance of the “I AM.”

John – A Few Key Verses
1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1:14  And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
1:29  The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
2:5  His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.”
2:11  Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.
2:19  Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
4:13-14  Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;  14 but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
5:24  Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.
6:35  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
6:56  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
8:12  Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
10:14  I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me,
12:44-45  Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me,  45 and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me.
14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
15:1   “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
17:20-22  “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,  21 so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.  And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
19:26-27  When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
20:30-31  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book.  But these are written that you may (come to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

Read the Gospel According to St. John at one sitting. It won’t take that long (without all the footnotes and references.)

 

Reading the Bible, Cover to Cover

In a recent morning prayer group discussion, the difficulty of cover-to-cover reading of the Bible was mentioned. The problem is that after the stimulating stories of Genesis and Exodus, it is easy to get bogged down in the legal details of Leviticus and lose interest. Even if an ambitious reader survives Leviticus, Deuteronomy looms ahead.
It reminded me of an exhibit I created a decade or so ago outlining where in the Old Testament to find stories of various events and including a suggested order of reading if one just wants to get the narrative without the digressions into legal issues or side stories. Please excuse my exclusion of the Deuterocanonical Books since this chart was created during my Lutheran years.The chart features a little segment across the bottom just above the timeline suggesting an order of reading of books for one who just wants to get the story from creation through the patriarchs and favorite son Joseph, enslavement in Egypt, deliverance from slavery by Moses, wilderness wandering, entrance into Canaan led by Joshua, the period of judges including Deborah, Samson, and Samuel, the first three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon, division of the kingdom, civil war, defeat, exile, return, and rebuilding by Ezra and Nehemiah. The books that are not key to that narrative are above this segment on the chart. It’s a great story. Here is a clip of that suggested order of books.
 
 
For Christians, it is important to remember to look for Jesus even in the Old Testament. To quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ.”  And there is the famous quote attributed to St. Augustine: “The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed; the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed.” (My apologies to our Jewish friends who have an entirely different view of the Hebrew Scriptures which we have co-opted and renamed.)
 
Anyway, here is the chart. If it helps, use it. If not, ignore it. And, yes, I am sure it can stand some improvements and fine tuning. I think Leviticus is probably misplaced.
 
 
 
 
 

Reformation Lamentation

I just finished reading A Column of Fire, the third of Ken Follett’s volumes of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages. This one portrays life in the 1500’s in the wake of Catholic Priest Father Martin Luther’s October 31, 1517, courageous attempt to inspire reform of his church.
Follett’s novel and all the current celebration of the 500th anniversary of Father Martin’s action inspired me to review the Reformation years as described in my Lutheran Seminary textbook, The Story of Christianity by Justo L. Gonzalez. Follett’s thousand or so pages are an elaboration of probably a dozen or so in the textbook, mostly focused on the people driving and caught up in the competition between Catholic “Bloody Mary” Tudor, Protestant Elizabeth I, and Catholic Mary “Queen of Scots” Stuart, potential successor put to death on orders of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth and Mary Tudor were half-sisters and Elizabeth and Mary Stuart were cousins so I suppose one could say it was just a murderous family squabble. A summary statement from Gonzalez: “The total number of those executed for religious reasons during Elizabeth’s reign was approximately the same as those who died under her half sister Mary Tudor though it should be remembered that Elizabeth’s reign was almost ten times as long as Mary’s.” The heroes of Follett’s story are those suffering the persecution and fighting for religious freedom.
The Gonzalez text relates the burning at the stake, in Calvin’s Geneva, with Calvin’s consent, of Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician condemned by both Protestants and Catholics for heresy. Servetus is credited with having argued “that the union of church and state after Constantine’s conversion was in truth a great apostasy.” I think Servetus was exactly right and that it was that union, entangling the Church, the Body of Christ, in political intrigue and granting it political and temporal power, even the power to identify, label, and condemn to death heretics, which nurtured corruption and finally triggered the destructive reformation of the sixteenth century. Well, at least Calvin is reported to have argued for beheading rather than burning Servetus because it involved less suffering.
So, I find little to celebrate about the Reformation but much to lament.
I lament that union of Church and State which actually was finalized under the Emperor Theodosius I who decreed that all citizens of the Roman Empire were to be Christian. That, of course, led to lots of mass baptisms without the benefit of catechesis, either before or after the event, never a good idea.
I lament the Church corruption that was nurtured and grew in that atmosphere of temporal power and motivated Martin Luther’s posting of a formal list of grievances. Lord Acton spoke the truth: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…”
I lament Henry VIII’s “Dissolution of the Monasteries” of England, Wales, and Ireland. It was worse than it sounds.
I lament the torture and killing, by Protestants and Catholics, of thousands of Catholics and Protestants, for heresy. At least during the early years of persecution of the Church, Christians were being killed and burned by pagan rulers and not by “professing” Christians.
I lament the killing of those poor folks who were not “Protestants” because they followed neither Luther, nor Calvin, nor Zwingli, nor Knox, but who decided that baptism was valid only if by total immersion of professing believers, received such a baptism, and then suffered death by “the third baptism,” drowned at the hands of “Protestant Christians.”

I lament the Thirty Years War, fought over enforced geographic religious divisions based only on political and personal considerations, “Christians” fighting “Christians,” which resulted in the death of approximately 20% of the population of Germany. I lament that even a hundred years after the Thirty Years War, thousands of Protestants were expelled from Catholic Austria and became refugees, some settling in Georgia and South Carolina and founding a bank. Google it if you want the details.

But that is all ancient history. Most of all I lament the current fragmentation of The Church, The Body of Christ, that is the residue of that violent reformation. I lament the existence of hundreds, some say thousands of “denominations” differing and sometimes arguing, criticizing, or condemning each other over theological fine points.

I lament the consumer market that has developed for faith seekers. Now I can seek, or even organize, a church that suits me rather than seeking to be part of a global Body of Christ with a common universal statement of belief and common resources and worship practices. It becomes all about me if I do that.

I lament that even within “denominations,” we are fragmented into thousands of little churches sprinkled around the country, sometimes within blocks of each other, many struggling to pay their bills and their pastors, if they have pastors, many with little Christian Education or outreach, sometimes clinging to the past and serving as hospices for their declining memberships.There is power in unity and in numbers and in working together in ministry in highly visible churches sitting on high ground and attracting curious multitudes just as Jesus attracted the multitudes. The early Middle Ages “powers that were” had the right idea, huge cathedrals as the centerpieces of the towns, though Father Martin certainly had valid complaints about the fund raising methods used at the time to finance some of those cathedrals.

I do, however, celebrate the religious freedom that gradually evolved over the past five hundred years and that most of the world enjoys today. Now most Christians can just focus on Jesus and not worry about political power and persecution even as we lament that part of the world is still trapped in a Middle Ages mindset, willing to imprison and kill people over theological issues. Unfortunately, the world still needs heroes fighting for religious freedom.I just look forward to the day that freedom brings us together rather than further separating and dividing us.

Isaiah 2:2-4  In days to come, The mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say: “Come, let us climb the LORD’S mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.

John 17:20-23  “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. 

Ephesians 2:19-22  So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. 

 

 

Like Mother, Like Son: Growing Up and Growing Old Together

My Mother, Wilma Irene Shelley (Brownie) Williams was born January 9, 1921 and died September 20, 2017. This is a remembrance and tribute I read at her funeral.
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When I think of growing up with my mother, both of us young but I younger, I am very thankful for the sometimes unjustified trust she placed in me, the somewhat dangerous freedom she allowed, and the self-confidence she always exhibited and encouraged. She was a strong, empowering mother, a woman who knew what she wanted. She couldn’t have paid a better compliment to my fiancé, Karen, in the summer of 1964 when, after going through the planning and activities leading up to our September wedding, she said to me, “Karen is a young woman who knows what she wants.”
One thing I learned from Mother, and Daddy, in my childhood and adolescent years was that a life like theirs, centered on work and home and family and church, is a good life. Thanks to her and the example she and Daddy set, my goal, what I wanted, from adolescence, was to live such a life. I was blessed with the appearance of Karen, who seemed to have a similar goal, and we got an early start, getting our family well under way while Mother was still working on raising hers.
Through all the middle years Mother and I had a good but also somewhat distant relationship. I was always interested in what she and Daddy were up to, and they were always interested in what we were doing. I don’t recall getting any advice or guidance from her and Daddy in those years, nor do I recall feeling any need to offer them any. We didn’t phone or write often or spend a lot of time together, just visiting three or four times a year and always enjoying each other’s company, but not a lot of deep or serious discussion.
I’ve often wondered what life would have been like if I had spent it all in Maryville in pretty much constant contact with Mother and Daddy, maybe even running a little furniture business. I believe that, as independent as Mother and I both were, we were better off with some distance. I might have driven her into an early grave had we been closely monitoring and commenting on, and perhaps hearing gossip, or just opinions, about each other’s activities all those years.
Then, over the last ten or fifteen years, there was a change, both of us old, but she older. I am again very thankful for the trust she placed in me and freedom she gave me to take care of her financial and property and legal issues. I never was able to mow the lawn to her complete satisfaction, and she was a very tough sell on moving to an assisted living environment, but she always trusted me to handle the money and pay the bills and would sign whatever I put in front of her. That made my job easy, and I am thankful for that.
Mother didn’t want to live this long. (Yes, I might have helped her die younger, as I mentioned, by staying in Maryville.) Her dream was to die peacefully in her sleep just before losing control and becoming dependent on others. When Daddy died in 2003, she told some of us that she would be following right behind him. When, ten years later, she moved to assisted living at Sterling House, I said something about the upcoming Christmas, and she informed me she wouldn’t be around at that time. I always told her I had her on a ten year plan and that she needed to find something to do.
I remember in her middle years one of Mother’s favorite things was to visit elderly folks and take them some beautiful item she had made at her speedy sewing machine or something delicious  grown in her very productive garden or made in her efficient kitchen from her extensive recipe collection. I think she must have decided during those years that she did not want to be one of those people, sitting or lying and waiting for visits and gifts. I believe that feeling was strongly reinforced when she saw Daddy move to a “memory care” facility and saw her younger sister die in nursing and hospice care. So, in her last years, Mother had to learn patience, a very tough lesson for an impatient woman.
If you didn’t know her, you might think Mother was lacking in faith and optimism, but that would be wrong. She was very optimistic about going to Heaven soon, and, note taker and list maker that she was, I suspect she had written and memorized a list of things to go over with Clyde Williams as soon as she got there and was looking forward to doing so.
Through all her declining years, my prayer for her was always for peace and comfort, if not joy, and hopefully a little joy mixed in along the way. I believe those prayers were answered partially as she lived and now they are answered in full.
Thanks be to God.
Her obituary can be found here.