The Bible v Facebook

 The Bible v Facebook

When war broke out in the Ukraine this week, I wanted to pray but prayer alone seemed so inadequate. Then the Spirit moved within me and I heard the ancient cry of Scripture. The words of Psalm 2 came to my heart and I cried out with the millions more of faith throughout time and place;

“Why are the nations in an uproar; *
why do the peoples mutter empty threats?
Why do the Kings of the earth rise up to warfare

against God’s People?
The Holy One whose throne is in heaven holds them in derision.
And now, you Kings, be wise; *
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
Submit to God with fear, *
and with trembling bow before the Most High,
Lest God be angry and you perish, * 

For your time on earth is short and you will give and account for all that you have done.” 

I printed these words to my Facebook page thinking that the ancient words would help to express something deep within us all. But something in what I wrote was problematic.

Within moments my account was restricted. Apparently the words of Scripture give offense to one of Facebook’s algorithmic bots. I was astonished to think that the prayer of God’s people of faith down through the ages was met with rejection from this particular ubiquitous electronic medium.

Like many of you, I have been struggling with Facebook’s place in our culture of late and how it has occupied an outsized role in our national and international life. In fact I think Facebook has been used quite effectively to divide Americans and Europeans by a very clever and devious mind. The resulting weakness in the West gives the upper hand to anybody who may wish to launch a military campaign in Eastern Europe. 

It didn’t take long for me to finally draw the line. If my Facebook account can be restricted for quoting Scripture, then it has come time to delete my account and to declare a Solemn Fast for myself from Social Media.

What happened as a result of that action was a series of conversations with family and friends. And this I believe is what humankind needs more urgently than ever; the sacrament of human conversation. Whatever our point of view, let us at least find a way to speak to one another about it as if we were all children of the same God.

In today’s Scripture passages we do more than speak with one another. Moses and Jesus find themselves speaking directly with God. Imagine being in the Presence of the Living God!

When Moses held high converse in the Presence of the Holy One his face would shine and the people were afraid to come near him. So Moses put a veil over his face, until he went back again up the Mountain where the sacred conversation continued. Then he would remove the veil in the Presence and his face would shine yet again. 

Pay attention when you pray, something like that radiance begins to shine in your own heart and soul as you approach the Holy. Think about that for a moment or two…

In today’s Gospel the sacred conversation reaches a whole new level well beyond human understanding. Here the Disciples are confronted with Moses who represents our deliverance out of slavery and God’s gift of the Law. Elijah likewise appears representing the Prophets and God’s love of Justice especially on behalf of the poor. 

Jesus is there too and I can imagine what that might have been like. I’d be dumbstruck. And so they were for a while but Peter couldn’t help himself. “Let’s make three dwellings; one for you one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 

“Peter what are you talking about?” 

“I don’t know.”

How can anyone know what to say in the Presence of such an awesome experience of the Living Christ and his Transfiguration? How can anyone know what to say in the Presence of the Law and the Prophets and the Love of God made Flesh and Blood in Jesus?

You think you have something to say about that? Best you hold your tongue, listen and look.

Jesus is Transfigured. Moses and Elijah fade into the background and Jesus emerges from one Glory to another. His raiment is brighter than any fuller’s soap on earth could make. 

Moses at the Burning Bush asked God; “What is your Name”. Listen up and God will tell you.

Moses was summoned up to the Mountain of God and had nothing to say because God laid down the Law. 

After all it is God who asks the questions and we who give the answers. We learn that lesson time and again throughout history. No King or Queen, no Pharaoh, no dictator, no autocrat, no president on earth is god. Only God is God.

But Peter thought that somehow we could make three dwelling places; one for the Law, one for the Prophets and one for Jesus. But there is no way to put God in a box. God’s Glory shines in and trough and above and beyond anything our minds can fathom. Perhaps it is best for us to keep a holy silence in the Presence of the Living God.

But the Good News is not that God is beyond human knowing as Jesus reveals it. In fact it is all so simple. When Jesus died and rose again, the Love of God also came to life within each of us. As Jesus forgave us, so we forgive. As Jesus reconciled us to God, so we reconcile each to the other on earth. As Jesus stretched out his loving arms on the hard wood of the cross everyone comes within the reach of his saving embrace.

Which brings me back to the case of the Bible v Facebook. 

"Why are the nations in an uproar? 

Why do the kings of the earth imagine a vain thing. 

Do they not know that God is God?

We read in Scripture; “the fool has said in his heart; there is no God.” ~Psalm 14:1. 

Perhaps some algorithmic bot would take offense at that too. 

It is a tragic mistake for any King on earth to think there is no God.

Which is why I pray the prayer of Scripture. 

Today we all pray for those who suffer in the midst of warfare. For men, women and children whose homeland is under attack, and for refugees who have no home to go to.

May our hearts open to them as God’s heart opens to all humankind. 

In the Name of God the Most Holy Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

 

Below are the appointed readings for Transfiguration Sunday with words and sentences highlighted that speak to my heart. 

Transfiguration Sunday

The Collect:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Lesson: Exodus 34:29-35

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he

had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Psalm 99

The Lord is King;

let the people tremble; *

he is enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth shake.

 

The Lord is great in Zion; *

he is high above all peoples.

Let them confess his Name, which is great and awesome; * he is the Holy One.

“O mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; *

you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.”

Proclaim the greatness of the Lord our God

and fall down before his footstool; * he is the Holy One.

Moses and Aaron among his priests,

and Samuel among those who call upon his Name, *

they called upon the Lord, and he answered them.

He spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud; *

they kept his testimonies and the decree that he gave them.

“O Lord our God, you answered them indeed; *

you were a God who forgave them,

yet punished them for their evil deeds.”

Proclaim the greatness of the Lord our God

and worship him upon his holy hill; *

for the Lord our God is the Holy One.

Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.

Gospel: Luke 9:28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Climate Change and the Transfiguration

On the Mountaintop

I remember like it was yesterday the day we took a busload of kids to Mount Sinai. St. Catherine’s, one of the oldest Monasteries in Christendom stands at the foot of the mountain and encloses an example of what we have come to call “the burning bush”. When the wind plays through the leaves, they shimmer in the sunlight and appear to be ablaze with glory. The mountain reaches 7,497 feet toward heaven. The kids all arose at 2am to begin their climb. I begged off and allowed my son Michael to be my eyes for me. 

Upon his return Michael was a changed man. His countenance was transfigured, if you will, with a radiance that can only be explained by what it means to walk in the footsteps of the holy. He told me it was like he could feel Moses with him in his footsteps as he climbed the mountain. The silence he heard was deafening, only his breath and the breathing of strained lungs from his friends who also found their lives changed by this approach toward God.

Not long after they reached the summit, there was a magnificent sunrise...and the silence continued. The kids wrote in their journals of their contact with God there on the mountaintop.

When I was younger I climbed my beloved Mount Washington in New Hampshire...at least, I should say, more accurately and more honestly I climbed a lateral path with a group guided by the Appalachian Mountain Club and reached Bald Knob one October day. It was cold up on the mountain, but the sun was shining, and we were too young to notice any discomfort from either the weather or the exertion.

There we rested and looked out over the Presidential Range. How magnificent. It was as though you could hear the voice of God speaking in your heart. “Here is my creation. Take care of it. Take care of one another. Remember, this is holy”, the voice seemed say.

I can well imagine how it was the day that Peter, James and John went up on the mountain to pray with Jesus. Such is the awe with which one takes to the mountaintop that one can hardly help but pray. 

It would come as no surprise to me that one might see something like the images of Moses and Elijah. After all the Law and the Prophets were written into their hearts as the Law and the Prophets are written into our hearts. Woven into our lives from Sunday School on, the sense of right and wrong; and the desire for just dealings among each other, guides and governs the better angels of our nature.

It is in this spirit that we now come to the Last Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord. On this day we see Jesus transfigured before our very eyes. We see him along with Moses and Elijah, and as they fade away he becomes more and more vividly the imprint of the nature of God. The Law and the Prophets may now be fulfilled by a higher law and a deeper justice. A compassionate love and the courage of reconciliation makes Peace with God and humankind possible. They now complete the old dispensation, under which we lived for so long at the foot of Sinai’s mandate.

Now we live under the mandate of the Love of God made flesh and blood in the person of Jesus. We are changed now from glory to glory. This means for all our days. As it is in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, so too for us in all our joys and sorrows, all our triumphs and failures, all our righteousness and all our sin, God redeems us in our life and death through the life of our Advocate with the Father.

We cannot stay on the mountain, one must hasten to add. As much as we’d like to build lean to’s for the capturing of the moment as Peter suggested to Jesus, he found out all too soon that you cannot capture or box the holy into any kind of container. It is well known that there are these impressive bushes that one can weave into lean to’s in this part of the world. But the holy simply passes as soon as it comes. We come down from the mountain changed, but for us, the radiance of those moments fades as it did from the countenance of Moses when he came away from the tent of meeting. 

We return to the whoop and wharf of the ordinary round and that which seemed so vivid and real now becomes somewhat more diffuse and fading away into memory.

Allow me to recommend that we all spend some time practicing the presence of God as a regular discipline. In prayer and in acts of mercy, may we waken our spirits with the presence of God within us. I do hope some of you will attend our Lenten Classes between the 8 & 10:30 services. I’ve called this particular series of classes “Tracing the Image of God”.

I believe we can do that; I mean “trace God’s image”. You may remember that we are created in the image of God. I don’t mean that we are created to “look like” God. Neither does any serious theologian. It means something much more.

Our Catechism says;

Q.	What does it mean to be created in the image of God?
A.	It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to  create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation  and with God.  Catechism, Book of Common Prayer page 845

You see, to be created in the image of God means to be most genuinely human. In fact we theologians consider it to be an axiom that the more genuinely human we become the more God-like we are. Conversely, the more genuinely God-like God becomes the more human God really is. 

The two meet, we believe, in Jesus. The horizontal line of human experience and the vertical line of Godly love and redemption meet at the nexus of the heart of God and in the human heart.

In these recent months we’ve seen quite a spate of storms. It appears to me that nature is trying to get our attention. My son David recently published a table of charts for Boston Harbor sea levels as they were in the 1890’s, the 1950’s and the present. Guess what...yes Virginia, the sea levels are rising dramatically. And more than that, the glaciers are receding, the Polar Ice Caps are melting and yes if you want to see Glacier National Park, you better be quick about it.

Between Hurricane Sandy and the Blizzard of 2013, it is clear not just from these storms but from the collected evidence of all meteorological data, that there is a climatic change coming upon us caused at least in part by human activity. We will not be able to hide our heads in the sand over the fact for long. For the sand is being swamped by the water. You could drown hiding your head in the sand!

I confess that it has been fun the past few days to track the Blizzard of 2013. David and Joshua Bresnahan and all my friends in New England have been busily posting photographs and videos to help track and document the magnificent power of the storm. One of the videos I posted showed a bunch of young people tossing each other about in the snow like sacks of potatoes. At the shore, they looked out over the sea wall at King’s Beach near my home, and the scene they saw was breathtaking. The roiling and rollicking tempest unleashing its power upon the shore is nothing short of a magnificent and awe inspiring sight.

So then if we are created in the image of God we are created to love, to create, to reason and to live in harmony with creation, then it follows that we might perhaps consider our role in tending to what God has given us. That’s real stewardship. 

The Transfiguration of our personal spirituality is not an event that occurs in isolation but within the context of our relationship with God, one another and all of God’s creation.

Paul warns us that their minds were hardened and that the veil was drawn over their faces. They refused to see Jesus for who he is. Remembering that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, it begs the question. How can we deny the truth? Now we find ourselves climbing another mountain of God in our own historic moment. What we see as we reach the summit will change our lives. Clearly we stand in need of yet another Transfiguration of sorts.

Like my son Michael when he climbed Sinai yea these many years ago, we will find ourselves climbing with the holiness of God. That holiness is demanding that we care for God’s creation and one another. 

Thus I pray with the collect of the day that we may be strengthened to bear our cross and be changed from glory to glory as we encounter the living Christ in our own day.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Paul

Prayer is Being with God

Prayer

Prayer is being with God. 

Silent, centered, and still.

Prayer is being with persons in a way that leads to love, compassion and forgiveness.

It is the courage to be reconciled.

Prayer is feeding the 5000 and the countless poor.

And housing the least of these.

The visitation of those who are sick or in prison.

Prayer is Justice among nations and between brothers and sisters.

It is Shalom in Jerusalem, Salaam in the West Bank and Peace in Gaza.

Prayer is dangerous.

It may cost you your life.

Jesus is why this is so. He brings Love.

Moses is why this is so. He brings us freedom from slavery and a Law to live by.

Muhammed is why this is so peace be upon him.
He brings us to Allah, the All Merciful. 

Prayer is being with God.

Silent, centered, and perfectly still.

~Fr. Paul Bresnahan