Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:8)
"The unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." It is a sad commentary that church is not exactly where one reliably expects sincerity and truth. Rumors and slanders, misdirection and misleading show up all too often.
It is easy to gloss over the scandal of this, but we shouldn't. Denial is unhealthy. It is also easy to make too much over it. Churches, like all other human communities, are comprised solely of fallible, limited, and incomplete people. We do good things. We do bad things. Anyone who cannot recognize both needs to grow up.
All of this can apply anywhere, though what I had in mind when this verse leapt out at me was the current unpleasantness in the Anglican Communion. The manipulation, slander, and deceit involved in church piracy has been stunning. It is amazing what well-funded and oft-repeated lies can accomplish. Truth seems often to lie bleeding in the gutter. As for sincerity:
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!Even sincerity can be misleading as any of us can be sincerely wrong. That may be why St Paul writes "sincerity and truth," holding the two together.
My tables,—meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain....
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
And so, in search of happier thoughts, I turn to the Gospel lesson for today.And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. (Mark 3:14-15)Ever since I did some major independent study on the Gospel of Mark almost thirty years ago, I have been struck by the wording in Mark. Jesus chose the twelve, first of all, to be with him.
To be with him.
We who are called in our own day are called first to be with Jesus. Being before doing. Being informing doing. Being first and foremost.
As we spend time with Jesus we learn not only more of who he is, but of who we are, and how to be ourselves more fully. In the process we become ourselves-for-others, just as Jesus shows us not only God-with-us but God-for-us.
May God deliver us from insincerity and falsehood and guide us into sincerity and truth. May Christ be lifted up and draw us to himself. May our hearts be turned toward unity, constancy, and peace. May we learn to walk in a sacred manner.
O God, you willed to redeem us from all iniquity by your Son: Deliver us when we are tempted to regard sin without abhorrence, and let the virtue of his passion come between us and our mortal enemy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
--the BB
4 comments:
Paul, you have a beautiful website.
Have you seen the recitation of Mark's Gospel by the British actor, Alec McCowen? We watched the video at church several years ago. I loved it, but some in our group hated it.
Thank you, Paul. That "to be with him" phrase had passed me by all those years, or rather, I had passed by it and not noticed its placement.
Just shows how we need to keep doing the read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest thing, over and over and over again. :-)
Thank you again.
Thanks, Mimi. I love beauty (can't you tell?) so I try to create and/or share it here.
I don't know if it was the same actor, but I have seen a one-man dramatic recitation of Mark's Gospel. That is the way it should be experienced, IMHO.
Oh my- this is really a balm for my spirit Paul. Thank you.
"May God deliver us from insincerity and falsehood and guide us into sincerity and truth. May Christ be lifted up and draw us to himself. May our hearts be turned toward unity, constancy, and peace. May we learn to walk in a sacred manner."
Amen, Amen.
On a side note, I was driving and my thoughts/ prayers came back to the words of Sister Joan that you posted about...
It occurred to me that they could be expanded easily to say that the same God who works miracles has the power to work through women, through LGBT and through whomever He/She chooses.
We know that, but it bears repeating and it bears our commitment to it.
I am always aware that this is not a problem in my church only because we have chosen to just not even allow for it. In that way, problems though you may have you are ahead of us.
I am tempted to write a post about the homily (great) that we heard yesterday about what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was... Much to the shock and perhaps dismay of some of our daily communicants, our great priest made it clear that sodomy had nothing to do with it.
Sorry to go on so long-
peace to you.
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