At its core we see that biblical worship has always been about eating with God. That idea is not a merely “New Testament” invention. God put Adam and Eve in a world of food their worshiping life was inextricably bound up in their transformation and consumption of the meal God had set before them. Their Fall was concerned with rejecting the Feast and feasting instead with the Serpent. Outside the Garden Israel worshiped Yahweh at the feat prepared by the fire of the altar after coming through the atoning work of the first sacrifice. Now, after the death and resurrection of Christ, we draw near to God to feast at his Table, but now there is no fiery sword, no burning altar. Hear we freely confess and hear the gospel proclamation that Christ has once and for all made atonement for sin. Then, we gladly give gifts to God and feast freely at the Table.
Read moreHow knowing the Bible is like walking the neighborhood
For the past couple of weeks we’ve begun walking through the bible in our midweek studies aiming to “be at home in the scriptures”. During this time we’ve looked at pop culture artefacts (jokes, memes, GIFs, music) to understand the way in which meaning functions. Here’s another: consider your neighborhood or a neighborhood that you know well –a place in which you are at home. Imagine if you were to ask me for directions from my house to Liliha Bakery. I’d tell you something like this:
Read moreReflections on a world of living things
When God breathes into the dead clay of Adam, he (Adam) becomes a nephesh khay, a “living creature” (Gen. 2.7). God places Adam, this living creature, into a world that is teeming with life —he’s a living creature in a living world. This same phrase is used later (in 2.19) when Adam names “every living creature” —every nephesh khay. While distinct from all creation because he is the image of God, Adam is not the only living creature in God’s world. Rather he is the chief of a world composed and filled by living things. This is not just connotatively true (i.e. Fr. Mark is making a good observation about how these things are analogically related), but true by the very verbiage of the text. God uses the same word to describe what Adam is and what the creatures of the world are.
Read moreFigments of control
here is a hemorrhaging wound in the human person that longs to achieve a sense of total god-like control over circumstances, primarily death. Adam and Eve were moved by the smooth words of the Serpent casting a vision of godlike autocracy —liberation from creaturehood. We want a to be sovereign not in the way God created us to be sovereign (governing our own lives, exercising servant-lordship over creation, etc.), but instead of him.
The cutting irony is that often, almost always, the very mechanisms by which we seek liberation from God’s supremacy, the very mechanisms by which we seek control, ensure our downfall.
Read moreSome reflections on the concept of "deception"
Jonathan’s homily on Sunday focused on James 1.16-21, in which James exhorts us not to be deceived, but to hear the word faithfully, having “put away all filthiness” from our ears (the Greek word used here for filthiness has to do with earwax). I want in the short space below to offer the following reflections on deception and hearing from the Biblical framework:
Read moreReflections on the armor of God
I find it often the case that, when donning gear for cultural combat, many in the church arm only in part: just grabbing, for example, the sword of the spirit, or only the belt of truth, just the shield of faith. We forget, or we were never instructed that, these things work in harmony; that is armor latches of a piece, buckling together; with each piece sustaining the proper incorporation of the other.
Read moreThe Feast of Mary Magdalene
Wednesday is the Feast of Mary Magdalene. It is a day in which we celebrate a woman whose own story is woven into the fabric of Christ’s life and ministry. While some people identify Mary Magdalene with the woman caught in sin in John 8 (the “casting the first stone” story) and with the “sinful woman” who washes Jesus’ feet in Luke 7, neither of those stories explicitly name Mary Magdalene.
I am personally convinced of the identification, and yet even without these parts of Mary’s story it remains one which stands as a picture of the overcoming love of the Gospel.
For even working only with those passages in which Mary Magdalene is called by name, a very moving narrative of redemption takes shape:
Mary Magdalene is named in Luke 8 among the women who had been “healed of evil spirits and infirmities” by Jesus. Luke makes further note that from Mary Magdalene in particular, “seven demons had been cast out”. After her redemption she is among the company who follows Jesus, and is among the women who provide financial support to his ministry.
Mary Magdalene is named again among those at the Crucifixion who remain to the bitter end (Jn. 19). In artistic depictions of the Crucifixion she is typically the one with uncovered hair near to or holding the feet of her Lord.
Mary Magdalene is, finally, among the first of those who early hasten to the tomb of Christ to discover the stone removed and the Body gone. It is Mary Magdalene who alerts the apostles. It is Mary Magdalene who remains at the empty sepulcher weeping (Jn. 20.11), and to whom the angels speak (the first instance of Angelic communication to a daughter of Eve since the Annunciation).
There the Risen Lord appears to Mary, and she becomes the first witness of the Resurrection.
In sum, Mary is a woman who was not only sick and sinful, she was oppressed by darkness and bound in the thrall of evil. Jesus beholds her in her shame and does not leave her there. He brought her from death to life. At the crucifixion, we witness the reciprocation of this love: she beholds her Lord in the shame of the Cross and does not leave him there.
In the book of Genesis there is a garden. It is a place created for life. In it Adam calls Eve by name. Sin and death enter the world in a garden in this garden by this man and woman. A place of life becomes a fountain of death.
At the end of John’s gospel, we are again in a garden. It is a place reserved for the bodies of the dead. In it a “second Adam” calls a daughter of Eve by name: “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (Jn. 20.16). This New Adam proclaims to the woman that sin and death have been defeated. A place of death becomes a fountain of life.
As I wrote for the blog post for last year’s feast, the story of Mary Magdalene “…is the Church’s Story. It is also archetypal of each of our smaller little stories.”
On the day of her feast we gather to feast and celebrate that we have been washed and that our shame has been put away. Not because it never existed, not because we really aren’t as bad as we thought we were, not because ‘sin’ is just a social construct. Rather, we celebrate because something stronger than shame has laid claim to us. Sin has not been excused, it’s been forgiven. For love is stronger than death, and deeper than the grave (cf. Songs 8).
Podcast S2E2: Introduction to Reading the Bible
In this episode Fr. Mark, Fr. Heath, and Dcn. Ben begin our Season 2 journey by discussing how to read the Bible faithfully and imaginatively. Also in this episode: Mark praises The Mandalorian and condemns J.J. Abrams, while Heath reviews A Tale of Two Cities and briefly mentions the Mike Vick ESPN documentary; Dcn. Ben waxes eloquent about the Hornblower series; they discuss the structure (or anti-structure) of the Quran; and they run out of time just as things we’re getting good.
Grace and Peace
Podcast S2E1: Easter Reflection
Fr. Heath, Dcn. Ben, and Fr. Mark sit down to reflect on Easter, how it is a whole season of feasting and rejoicing, and how the scriptures make sense of the call of the Gospel to the Table of the Lord.
Also, this one has bad audio. We apologize. We’re still amateurs at this thing and are working to improve the quality of our recordings. We thank you for your grace as we learn.
Chanting the Psalms
This past Fall we preached through the Psalms. During that time we explored the ways in which the Psalms are “the songs of God for the People of God.” They are special songs that we sing with Christ. As St. Augustine of Hippo explains, in the Psalms Christ “prays for us, as our Priest; He prays in us, as our Head; He is prayed to by us, as our God. Let us therefore recognize in Him our words, and His words in us” (86.1). God meets us in the Psalter. There, Christ takes up our weakness into Himself and turns it into a song (ex. Ps. 46); in the Psalms also we are gathered into His righteousness and that too becomes in us a song (ex. Ps. 45).
We pray a Psalm each day in the Daily Office. In the coming days we will be putting-out resources to lead and equip families in singing the Psalms. May they be for us the kind of songs that dwell deeply in us, reminding us of who we are when we forget, giving us words when we don’t know what to say, filling us with hope when we feel we can hope no longer.
In the short video below Jonathan, walks us through the basics of Psalm chanting using simple tones. After watching the video, try to sing along at home.
We’ll be sending-out more resources as we go along and will be incorporating more of this into our worship. Contact Fr. Mark or Jonathan with any questions.