Evensong Pentecost XXIV

When I was growing up, the Duffords, Mace and Clara, lived across our fence -- well, they lived in the house whose yard bordered our. They were like an aunt and uncle to me.. It helped that I grew up and went to school with their grandchildren. Their yard! Oh, was like something out of Best Gardeners of the World magazine. I wish I had a photo to post of the way it looked.

Clara always called me "my boy." Both have been members of the Church Triumphant for a very long time -- about twenty years or so. I sang for each of their funerals (old Lutheran family).

Tonight as I came home and drove into the drive way, there was a light on in the Dufford's kitchen; only it's not their kitchen any more. For one split second I was a kid again,. And then I realized that I'm not a kid any more, and I missed my Clara.

Clara's favourite hymn (indeed, favourite song) is This is My Father's World. Tonight, as I remember then, TTLS's Even song is for Clara.

Evensong from the BBC -- Peterborough Cathedral, is here. Peterborough Cathedral is very special to me for it was in it that God called me home to the Episcopal Church.

Pentecost XXIV

Proper 24 - Year A

Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99 or 96:1-9 (10-13); 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

What is in an image?

Reading Scripture is part of our faith walk and as such it means that we have to be willing to actively engage in its meaning. When we do engage in the meaning a door opens for us to be greeted by God through the experience of another. It helps us to keep the stories alive and meaningful. These are also times when we must be willing to listen for clues that lead us to an even better understanding of ourselves and of our relationship with God and each other.

The Gospel today opens up discussions about the separation between church and state. At least that is what seems obvious since officials from the church (temple) and state are identified in this account as asking about taxes. This Gospel is also one that recounts an attempt to trap Jesus into saying something that could be identified as a clear-cut crime. There is also something else present in this account that might have caught your attention. Jesus never really answers the question he is asked, and the response he gives has a bit more information in it than he was asked.

Let’s go over the reading again and see if there might be other information we may want to consider. Matthew tells us that the Pharisees and the Herodians have banded together to ask about paying taxes. The Pharisees were the officials of the temple and would not profit from taxes. But the Herodians were state officials and would have something to gain from taxes. So why would they come together to ask Jesus unless the state officials were conspiring with the temple officials to trap Jesus? This particular challenge would result in someone being unhappy no matter what Jesus answered. And Jesus risked being accused of treason if he elected to deny that taxes should be paid to the emperor. Jesus never really answers the question but he adds an important point we may want to consider.

After the officials affirm that Jesus is sincere and teaches in accordance with God’s truth without partiality to anyone, they ask, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Jesus scolds them for testing him and asks them to show him the coin used for the tax. They give him a denarius. He continues in answering their question with a question. “Whose head is this; and whose title?” They responded that the emperor’s head appeared on the denarius. So, Jesus answered, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

According to other translations of this Gospel, Jesus did not ask whose “head” appears on the coin but rather, “whose image”. But the officials remained on track with their desire to catch Jesus in a treasonous response. They answered that the emperor’s image appears on the coin. They missed completely the possibility that Jesus might have been asking them for a less superficial or obvious answer—particularly since his response included the idea that they should give to God what is God’s. They did not ask him to make that distinction, so why would he have done it?

Since Jesus asked about “image,” let’s think about that a bit. We are made in the image of God. That means everyone is made in the image of God—even the emperor. Might it have been important for them to notice that when Jesus asked them the question? No matter whether we are functioning socially, economically, politically, or religiously we are first and foremost children of God made in God’s image and therefore belong to God.

Now Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy have seen that image of God in the people of Thessalonia. In fact, they are quite moved by their experience of evangelizing the Thessalonians. They are moved and transformed by the experience, are changed and evangelized by Thessalonians. Certainly, this is not the way we usually understand evangelism. It seems safe to say that evangelization usually involves a giver and a taker but in this instance both parties gave and both received. They each saw that the other was made in the image of God and this brought them together as the body of Christ.

This moving experience is documented in Paul’s letter and is one of the earliest records of Christianity. Paul indicates that it is not just the preaching of the Gospel but the power of the Holy Spirit that they shared. Paul and the others may have gone to Thessalonica with the intention of bringing something to them that they did not have before, and the Gospel message may have been exactly that. But what Paul and the others did not expect was that they would encounter God in the midst of the Thessalonians. The Holy Spirit moved them all to be for and to each other a reflection of God.

At the intersection of the Gospel of Matthew and Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians we discover how important it is to remember that we are children of God. When we are aware that we are made in God’s image and that everyone we encounter is made in God’s image we are closer to understanding that Jesus modeled this for us throughout his life. We may also feel less inclined to separate ourselves from each other. It is equally important that we retain our identity as children of God whether we are functioning as members of our household, our workplace, our neighborhood, or our city.

As committed Christians we are also obliged to look into the faces of our neighbors and see God, especially when we are tempted to relegate those neighbors into a category that would put them at odds with us. Imagine how powerfully the Holy Spirit can work with us and through us when we do not separate ourselves from that image. We might experience what the Thessalonians felt and what Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy felt as they evangelized each other.

The Rev. Debbie Royals, Pascua Yaqui from Arizona, is a student at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in a concurrent M.Div/MA program. She leads the Four Winds congregation in Sacramento, California, and is active in Native Ministry in the Episcopal Church, including involvement in the work of the Episcopal Council for Indigenous Ministry (ECIM). E-mail: debbieroyals@sbcglobal.net

Prayers for JCF

Our brother, JCF has a job interview Monday. Please pray for a result that will best benefit and meet his needs, spiritual, economically, and psychologically. Awra best, my brother.

And while you're praying, I have a job prospect with the State of California. I would appreciate a random prayer or two.

Response to inhibitions in Schofieldland

David has released a stunningly brilliant reply that will send chills through 815 and will make the ABC run, not walk, to the local pub where he will have to knock back several pints before he can even breath again. Oh, the humanity.

Fresno, California
October 17, 2008

Anglican Holy Orders Valid in California and World Wide

On December 8, 2007, the Diocese of San Joaquin, by overwhelming majority vote (90%), became affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone, a constituent national church in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The vast majority of the priests and deacons serving in the Diocese of San Joaquin, representing over 40 churches, chose to remain with Bishop John-David Schofield and the Diocese of San Joaquin and their Holy Orders were officially recognized by the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Province of the Southern Cone. Accordingly, those priests and deacons have been accepted as ordained Anglican Clergy across the world wide Anglican Communion.

The Episcopal Church no longer has any jurisdiction over the Anglican Clergy of the Diocese of San Joaquin, and any actions taken by The Episcopal Church concerning their ecclesiastical status within the worldwide Anglican Communion is of no force or effect.

Bishop Jerry Lamb publicly acknowledges this fact in his October 10th Friday Reflection by stating that his purported inhibition of Anglican Clergy in San Joaquin “implies no moral judgment of an individual clergy person. It speaks only about the person’s relationship to the Episcopal Church.

The person can of course function in another church that may recognize their ordination.”

+John-David Schofield
Anglican Bishop of San Joaquin

Well, first, that percentage that he loves so well is only ninety percent of the five - ten percent of the diocese that were delegates at that convention. They voted themselves into schism. Ninety percent of the people in the pews didn't vote to leave.

Notice that those who stayed, didn't stay loyal to the gospel as they understand it, but "to John-David Schofield." Schofield is right about that, it is a cult following. I believe it is called the Stockholm Syndrome.

And of course, they didn't stay loyal to the Diocese of San Joaquin because that stayed with TEC. But facts have never been part of David's equations. Facts only lead to the wrong conclusions -- and that would be anything that he doesn't want to hear or deal with.

Also, the clergy cannot have been recognized or accepted by the Southern Cone. The SC constitution and canons make no provision for doing so. David and Venebales, and those "accepted" clergy are delusional about that (there is that "fact" problem again).

It's interesting, and very revealing, that not only do Veneables and Schofield have no respect for the C&C of TEC or Anglican polity, they have absolutely no respect for the C&C of the Southern Cone.

As for the clergy being recognized by the whole AC, I want one of them to go to any province not presided over by a schismatic bishop and ask for a license. Again, David is deep in delusion.

The Anglican tradition is that inhibitions in one province are respected in all provinces. But, the fundamentalists (Roundheads) aren't Anglican. They are Calvinistic Puritans who subscribe to a counterfeit version of Anglicanism.

I wonder who David is trying to assure: the clergy who are being deposed or himself. I vote for "it's David." Why? Because David doesn't care about the clergy -- they were just a means to get what he wanted. In Schofieldland, people are expendable.

Thirty years ago, I jokingly said I should register the word Anglican. I should have done so.

Varus, Varus, give me back my eagles. :)