Sermon- On The Two Great Commandments

Sermon- On The Two Great Commandments
Proper 25 10-26-08

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today, as we approach the Gospel message about love and the person of the messiah, I can only imagine the context from which Christ spoke those words. The loneliness he must have felt and the violence and hatred that surrounded him. Israel was then a State under Martial Law, Roman soldiers keeping guard or marching patrol everywhere you went. Then there were the religious anc civil leaders, such as the Pharisees, Saducees, and Herodians, vying for position; or posturing themselves for political power plays. And the people were afraid but trying to stir up feeble hopes that the prophesied Messiah, the deliver would come and start a revolution, overthrow Rome, and re-establish the ancient Throne of King David.

And when the fullness of time came, God sent his son into the world. The teaching ministry of Jesus was set on the stage of political unrest. He came preaching a news of hope and love, and that now the kingdom of God was within reach.

But the political and religious leaders of Israel were terrified that Christ's teaching would stir up the people to revolt and bring the wrath of Rome down upon them all; or worse yet, would interfere with their own political agendas for power and position within the allowances of Rome.
As we've seen, they had been conspiring together to set Jesus up, to attack his popularity with the people, to find incriminating evidence in his teachings that were at contradiction to the Mosaic Law, and even conspiring to have him murdered.

The Pharisees had been watching him, as to how he handled the Saducees in the passage before our todays reading; and now, gather a small army, a crowd, to challenge Jesus. Isn't that just like our sinful human nature, when we feel wronged, we need the justification of all who would listen to us. We want everyone on our side and we seek to gather as many as we can who will side with our perspective, our version of the truth. Then we gang up on the one who is opposed to our opinons and agendas.

As they approach him, they send out their Emissary to speak in their behalf, to question him, seeking to twist his words and discredit him before the people. The designated speaker, a lawyer, begins by calling him, "Teacher- "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law of Moses?" The term "teacher" here is different from what we might think of today, as a school teacher or even a professor. Anyone, whether they are endeared to a particular school instructor or professor, could properly address someone with such a title. But in the context of this passage, Teacher or Rabbi or Master, was not merely a title of position but a term of endearment to those men and women who were faithful devotees of such a Master. But here the lawyer, was not devoted to Jesus but quite the otherwise and so approached him with disdain and disrespect, giving the false pretension of discipleship. As Origen, an early church father once said,

"All who say Our Father who art in heaven ought not to have the spirit of slavery in fear but a spirit of the adoption of sons. However, whoever does not have the adoption of sons and yet says, Our Father, is lying, since he is not a son of God, while calling God his father."

Now which is the greatest commandment in the law? The law dealt with many things, some more important than others. It dealt with issues of common life, such as women's menstruation; or such moral dilemmas as human sexuality in marriage, or violations such as adultery, homosexuality, or fornication. But the religious leaders had distorted the law; or rather, had moved away from the spirit of the law to the letter; and had compounded the complexity of the regulations for living life.

"The scribes declared that there were 248 affirmative precepts, as many as the members of the human body; and 365 negative precepts, as many as the days in the year, the total being 613, the number of letters in the Decalogue."

Out of all these nuances of the law, which is the greatest, O great teacher? Perhaps, they thought Jesus might give a new interpretation or amendment of Mosaic Law that they could crucify him with. They certainly sought to twist his words and bring his ruin.

But Christ pierces through their darkness and refocuses the issues at stake. He honors the law by redirecting them back to the heart and spirit of the law; and states that upn his two answers, the entire law code was established.

"You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like unto it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two commandments, depend all the law and the prophets."
In other words, you've missed the point with all your convoluted interpretation and additions to the Law. My law is simple, to love. In English we don't always catch the finer nuances of ancient word meanings. We have really only one word for love, were Greek had several. There is eros or sexual love and passion. This can be a beautiful kind of love between a husband and his wife; but is so often distorted and perverted into something shameful. Then there is phileo or brotherly love. This is not merely the love for members of one's family but a certain kind of "Espirit de Corps"- the spirit and love for comrades in arms, for members of a group or fraternity. Just think of when you hear on a police scanner that an officer is down, every armed law enforcement officer who hears that call will rush to the scene and lay is life down in order to save a fallen officer. That is a special kind of love as well. But Jesus is here speaking of Agape love- is pure love that involves every faculty of the human person- love which stems from our soul and strength, from every fiber of our being, without conditions. It brings all the other kinds of love together, focuses them like a laser, and projects the pure light of divine love. St Paul eloquently desribes this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13:

"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;* but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages* and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.* All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."

It is this kind of Agape love, divine love, which we are called to render to God, to ourselves for we were created in his image, and to others.

The question we must ask ourselves, if we truly call Jesus our Teacher, our Master, and Our Lord, as one of his disciples, and not with the false pretensions and lip service of the lawyer in this Gospel story, is do we truly love God? Is Christ our God first in our life? Or do other things take precedence?

Perhaps it is only a type of eros we feel toward God- the feelings of ecstacy or excitement in worship, which can be a kind of sensual experience of God.

Perhaps it is only Phileo or brotherly love we have for God. Hey, I'm a believer! I'm part of the Jesus Group. I'm a Jesus Freak. And so we love God because we are part of his fraternity, the church; and so we love each other, in a brotherly fashion as comrades in the Lords Army.
But Jesus is directing us toward something much deeper, more mystical, more spiritual, more true, more real, and more genuine than these other kinds of love. It isn;t that these other kinds of love are disregarded. No, in Christ all these kinds of love- sensual, brotherly, and divine love, are brought together, are combinded and summed up and extended further.
Does our love for God come with conditions that we've placed on it? I'll love you if- whatever our conditions are, are met. What about each other.

Jesus said, in John 15:13, that "There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." It is not a love about getting our agendas or conditions met. It is not a love based on feelings or being part of a group. It is a self-giving, self-sacrificing love which is all about the other person. Its a total giving of oneself for the sole benefit of another.

It is only when our lives are focused first on God that we can give and recieve divine agape love. It is only when we are sharing and experiencing the love of God and his presence that we can in turn share this agape love with another. But simultaneously, if we do not love each other, then we are really not loving God. And if we don't have a healthy love for ourselves, then we can not love God or others as ourselves.

This is a deep mystery; but it is upon these two laws that everything else God has designed for our lives depends on. In Marks version of this Gospel story, it says that even the Lawyer was moved to acknowledge the truth in what Christ said. In reply, Jesus said he was not far from the kingdom of God.

Jesus spoke these words in a violent and turbulent situation and out of great personal loneliness; and he lived them all the way to the cross for you and I. His commandment for us is to love,
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other... Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples...If you love me, obey my commandments."

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love." Let us go therefore into the world to love and serve the Lord. Amen.

Rosary of the Heart

Jesus once asked his disciples if they could not pray with him for one hour. Part of the spiritual struggle has always been to make time for God in our daily lives and to establish a consistent discipline of prayer.

The ancients didn't have modern clocks and watches to keep track of their prayer time, so they would count count beads or sometimes even pebbles being placed in a bowl, as they mentally or verbally recited prayers, or as they breathed, or in accordance with the rythm of their heart beat. Thus, they were able to set aside time for prayer and devotion to God.

One of the early Christian bishops, I believe it was St Augustine, once said that the first or primary language of God was silence; and the Psalmist says that we must be still and silent to know God. Jesus, even speaks of turning into the closet of the heart and shutting to door to worldly distractions and there praying to God in secret or in our secret place- the cave of the heart.

In 1 Kings 19.11-13, there is the story of God speaking to Elijah in the cave where he was hiding. "Go out and stand before me on the mountain," the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave."

Experiencing the word and presence of God does not come in the thunder and blast, nor earthquake and fire, but in the depths of the cave and in a still, quiet, voice. Do we take the time to enter our inner cave of the heart, our secret closet, to be still and enter the silence of God's presence? Although rituals, symbols and liturgies of worship and prayer can be wonderful aids in devotion and spiritual growth, the fuller experience of God comes when we go beyond these forms and words into silent attentiveness to God.

This is the way of quiet, wordless and formless prayer, where we simply rest and abide in His Presence. It is here, in the inner court of our bodily temple- St Paul says we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit- where we offer to the Lord the most basic and primal sacrifice and act of worship we can make- the beat of our heart and rythm of our breath. In Genesis 2, it says, "7And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (neshemet ruach chayim- "the breath of the spirit of life" ); and man became a living soul." When we came forth from the womb, we took our first breath; and when we die, we will exhale, letting go of the breath of the spirit of life. Offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to God can be no more real and fundamental than offering our pulsing blood and breath.

Silent attentiveness to God in rythm to our heart and breath, is our rosary- the Rosary of the Heart.

Camping with the Boys June 2008

Although my wife was unable to go this year, our Family Vacation was a Camping Trip to the Stanislaus National Forest. We camped in the Meadow View Campground near Pinecrest Lake, from Friday morning June 12 thru Wednesday June 18th.

We spent our time hiking, fishing, and swimming during the day; and talking around the Campfire at night- we even did some guided Lectio Divina meditations on different Biblical passages, including the Lord's Transfiguration and His muliplication of the loaves of bread and fish.

Fishing- Kennedy Meadows and various branches of the Stanislaus River.
Hiking/Walking trips- The Columns of the Giants, around Pinecrest Lake, and the Miwok Trail, and Calaveres Big Trees, etc.
Moaning Caverns- we also went on a guided tour of the Moaning Caverns
Swimming- we swam in the Stanislaus River near Kennedy Meadows- it was ice cold!- and in Pinecrest Lakes.

Please see the photos links for photos of the trip.

Sorcery & Science

Sorcery & Science, Magic & Manipulation,
and Christian Charismata & Charismania

June 1, 2008, Proper 4, Yr A
Fr Aidan Jerry Hix, OSC
St Aidans Anglican Mission, Antioch, CA

Text: Matt 7.21-27
21"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
24"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
26"But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."

Opening-

• Elijah & Prophets of Baal
• Not All Shall Enter into the Kingdom of Heaven
  
  A. Works of Spiritual Power
  
• Charismata- gifts, ministries & genuine spirituality rooted in Christ
• Charismania- manipulation, magic
• Ex: Elijah & Children of Baal- 1Kg 18.14-39
• Spirit- ruach, pneuma- inspiration & creativity, sub-creation
• Magic- manipulation
• Doctrine & Works (Jews Dogma & Christians works of service & mercy)
• Blessing & Curse- obedience or disobedience

(following notes taken from Ralph Woods "The Gospel According to Tolkien"):

B. Notes on Magic Only in the work of those who are good is there providential assurance that the world is morally ordered, and only there lies a way beyond the despair that is likely to be prompted by the hard realities of both the human and natural realms.

• malign magic- the product of a panicked despair
• offers a quick fix for the complexities of & confusions of the good creation (slow & gradual)
• Magic & divination practices condemned in the Bible
  Examples: Dt 18.9-12, Ep 3.10, Ep 6.12, Act 13.10-11
  

C. Modern sorcery gets its impetus from modern science

• serious magical endeavor began with serious scientific projects of 16th and 17th centuries
  "its desire is power in this world, domination of things and wills"
• CS Lewis, Abolition of Man- "The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the 16th century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the 16th & 17th centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavor and the serious scientific endeavor are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they are twins. They were born of the same impulse."
• magic seeks to alter the primary world- to control and master the natural world
• magic is never an art but always a technique for manipulation

D. Modern Science

• gradually replaced the chief aim of ancient philosophy & religions- to conform human life to ultimate reality by the way of wisdom, virtue, knowledge and self-control
• CS Lewis- "There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of the old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men- the solution is a technique....It seems to me there’s something nobler in the wisdom of earlier ages than in that of our own. Again, I don’t mean to denigrate science: science is true and it works, whereas magic isn’t and doesn’t. My point is that, by itself, scientific knowledge does not lead to a full life. We need to supplement it with knowledge from another source."
• Descartes said- "the aim of modern science is to render us masters and possessors of nature

E. Modern Technology- (a disguised form of magic)-

• seeks to put nature under its command
• speeding up its deliberate processes
• the attempt to accomplish grand ends by instant means
• Immediacy- machines & magic- to speed up, reduce labor, and reduce the gap between an idea/desire & the result or effect
• Magic of machine age- for those in a hurry, who lack patience, who cannot wait
• Winston Churchill- ours is a "dark age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science."
• scientific researh resulting in malign by-products
• Perverted science not a Luddite- who damns & dismisses modern technology as evil & godless
• the abuse of a thing does not take away its proper use
  

F. The Means & the Ends

• the means as important as the ends
• technology must be good in themselves not merely of good ends

C. S. Lewis on Myth

from a letter of September 5, 1931

About his recent viewing of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale: "[the play] is merely the scaffolding whereby Shakespeare (probably unconsciously) is able to give us an image of the whole idea of resurrection, [and] I was simply overwhelmed. You will say that I am here doing to Shakespeare just what I did to Macdonald . . . Perhaps I am. I must confess that more and more the value of plays and novels becomes for me dependent on the moments when, by whatever artifice, they succeed in expressing the great myths."

from a letter of October 18, 1931

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn't mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself . . . I like it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho' I could not say in cold prose 'what it meant'.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myth: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a 'description' of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myths are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of the wh. God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Does this amount to a belief in Christianity? At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approach the other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also nearly certain that it really happened.

from The Pilgrim's Regress (1933) See Book 8, Chapter 8 from the essay "Myth Became Fact" (1944)

The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens--at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myth. The one is hardly more necessary than the other.

from the "Preface" to George Macdonald: An Anthology (1946)

[Myth] may even be one of the greatest arts; for it produces works which give . . . as much delight . . . as much wisdom and strength as the works of the greatest poets. . . . It goes beyond the expression of things we have already felt. It arouses in us sensations we have never had before, never anticipated having, as though we had broken out of our normal mode of consciousness and 'possessed joys not promised to our birth!' It gets under our skin, hits us at a level deeper than our thoughts or even our passions, troubles oldest certainties till all questions are reopened, and in general shocks us more fully awake than we are for most of our lives.

from Miracles (1947) From a footnote to Chapter 15:

"My present view--which is tentative and liable to any amount of correction--would be that just as, on the factual side, a long preparation culminates in God's becoming incarnate as Man so, on the documentary side, the truth first appears in mythical form and then by a long process of condensing or focusing finally becomes incarnate as History. This involves the belief that Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history . . . nor diabolical illusion . . . nor priestly lying . . . but, at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination. The Hebrews, like other people, had mythology: but as they were the chosen people so their mythology was the chosen mythology--the mythology chosen by God to be the vehicle of the earliest sacred truths, the first step in that process which ends in the New Testament where truth has become completely historical. . . .

It should be noted that on this view

(a) Just as God, in becoming Man, is 'emptied' of His glory, so the truth, when it comes down from the 'heaven' of myth to the 'earth' of history, undergoes a certain humiliation. Hence the New Testament is, and ought to be, more prosaic, in some ways less splendid, than the Old; just as the Old Testament is and ought to be less rich in many kinds of imaginative beauty than the Pagan mythologies.

(b) Just as God is none the less God by being Man, so the Myth remains Myth even when it becomes Fact. The story of Christ demands from us, and repays, not only a religious and historical but also an imaginative response. It is directed to the child, the poet, and the savage in us as well as to the conscience and to the intellect. One of its functions is break down dividing walls.

from "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952)

[When a little boy reads of an enchanted wood] it stirs and troubles him. . . with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.

from a letter of September 22, 1956 . . .

a good myth (i.e. a story out of which ever varying meanings will grow for different readers and in different ages) is a higher thing than an allegory (into which one meaning has been put). Into an allegory a man can put only what he already knows; in a myth he puts what he does not yet know and cd. not come by in any other way.

from An Experiment in Criticism (1961)

1. Myths "always have a very simple narrative shape."
2. Myths are "extra-literary."
3. "The pleasure of myth depends hardly at all on . . . suspense or surprise. Even at a first reading it is felt to be inevitable."
4. We do not project ourselves into the characters of a myth.
5. Myth is always "fantastic."
6. The experience of myth may be "sad or joyful but it is always grave. . . . [and] awe-inspiring. . . numinous. It is as if something of great moment had been communicated to us."

Myth & Christianity

from posts on my old blogger account:

Mythology and Christ.

Several years ago I read an article written by C.S. Lews, "Myth Became Fact." Lewi's article struck a chord, a melody, in my heart that I have not been able silence. It has set me on a path of discovery, self-discovery, and spiritual growth, which to modern conservative Christian appearance might seem at first glance to far afield from historic Christian roots; but is one, that I believe may actually be closer, upon more careful examination, to the mystical and contemplative Christian roots of the early Church.

Specifically, I've been drawn to reading and study of mythology, dream analysis and symbolism, the writings of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Morton T. Kelsey, John A. Sanford,(the latter two were Christian Priests who were also licensed Clinical Jungian Analysts), etc.

The path or chord struck is a meditation on mythology, dreams, and transcendence, albeit in Christ, which sheds light on the shadow side of our Self. Lewis said,

"Now as myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens- at a particular date, in a particualr place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth; that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed...A man who disbelieved the Christian story as fact but continually fed on it as myth would, perhaps, be more spiritully alive than the one who assented and did not think much about it."

Most of us assume that Myth refers to something which is not true or real; whereas, Myth deals with reality on a much higher or intuitive plain than so much of our theoligical diatribe and formulations. Myth is the Canon of Archetypal Symbols and Images of Man's Psychic (Gr: Psyche= soul) Content shared through the power of Story, Enactment, and Ritual. The fact that we Moderns and Modern Christians have lost through our scholastic, academic and theological De-Mythologizing the power of story, enactment, symbols, imagery, and ritual, is symptomatic of the fat that we have largely lost our soul.

The story of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (whether read or watched) or Mel Gibson's rendition of the Passion of Christ strikes a chord in the heart, the psychic depths, which allows for participation and association with the myth through identification with the characters or a katharis experience, that a mere reading of St. Paul's theological diatribe does not. Why? Because we have been cut off from the mythical, cultic (refers to worship practices), ritualistic, sacramental, and Eucharistic practises of Early Christian mysticism, of which Paul particpated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Measure of a Man

I had lunch today with my friend, Fr Jeff Olkie. During the course of our conversation, he made the comment, that "The Measure of a Man is what he does when he is Alone."

There is much that could be said about that statment but to do so would only mar a perfectly sufficient statement. Let each man examine his own heart and consider this for himself. I know I will.

A Noble Contradiction

A Noble Contradiction

I went to see the movie, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, with my family a few days ago. One phrase struck my heart. The Professor, Doctor Cornelius, speaking to Prince Caspian, a Talmarin, said that he could be the "most noble contradiction in history- the Talmarine who saved Narnia. "

Narnia has been largely conquered by the Spaniard-like Talmarines and pushed almost to extinction; the Narnian's became outlawed myths and legends. Caspian is the Prince of the Talmarines and heir to the throne. However, his uncle, Miraz, after having son, tries to have Caspian murdered so that he might become King and his son the next rightful heir. Caspian escapes into the world of Narnia and discovers a world of myth become fact, the Deep Magic of Aslan; and aided by the Pevensie's, who return to Narnia from our world as High King Peter, King Edmund, Queens Susan and Lucy, fights in the Narnian Civil War to overthrow his wicked uncle and the opportunity to show his quality by returning the freedom of Narnia. In a letter C.S. Lewis, refers to such courage and chivalry as "restoration of the true religion after corruption".

But what does it mean to be Noble? One definition is the possion of "hereditary rank in a political system or social class derived from a feudalistic stage of a country's development." Certainly, Prince Caspian had heridtary rank, social position and affluence but there is more to being Noble than rank, wealth, or social status.

Being Noble is more akin to a statement from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Faramir, a Lord of Gondor, captures the two Hobbits, Frodo and Sam, who are in possession of a Ring of Power. They seek to unmake the ring in the fires of Mount Doom, thus destroying the power of the Dark Lord Sauron. Faramir has the opportunity to take for himself, Gondor and Denethor, his father and The Steward of Gondor, a "kingly gift." Faramir has to make a choice, a "noble contradiction," when he says it is "an opportunity for Faramir to show his quality," and releases the Hobbits to continue their mission.

Nobility has less to do with status or power than it does with manifesting the Quality of High Moral Character and Virtue. These qualities might include, courage, generosity, honor, and even faith. These are some of the themes of Prince Caspian.

These "Noble Contradictions" are the stuff of our Christian Faith- to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, to love even our enemies, to rather suffer wrong for the sake of Christ than to seek our own self-justiifcation, that the greatest love is when a man lays down his life for a friend.

Faith, faith in Aslan-the Christ figure of Narnia, is a strong theme in Prince Caspian. "Who believes in Aslan nowadays?" asks Trumpkin when he first meets Caspian. Those who "hold on", like the badgers, are to be praised.

There are many times and places in our daily lives when we have the opportunity to show our Quality and make such Noble Contradictions. Therefore, Let us go forth into the world to love and serve the Lord!

THE GOOD NEWS Evangelism 101 Workshop

Dear Friends,On Sat June 21st St. Edward's is hosting a most excellent workshop. The cost is $20 a participant to cover expenses. Please take a look at the attached brochure and let me know if you have any questions. This is a great opportunity to learn from an expert. Carrie Boren is amazing.

THE GOOD NEWS - Evangelism 101
A one-day workshop for individuals and churches
Saturday June 21, 2008 , 9am – 4pm
St. Edward’s Episcopal Church,
15040 Union Ave, San Jose, CA 95124
408-377-0158
goodnews@stedwards.org

Tools for sharing the good news
• As individuals in our daily lives
• As a parish in our communities

Evangelism 101 will explore
• What is the Good News?
• What is evangelism? Why do we do it?
• How to share our faith without being afraid
• How to tell the Gospel story
• How to tell our own story
• How to practice evangelism as a parish
• Ideas for parish outreach/mission

The Church is apostolic because it continues in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles and is sent to carry out Christ’s mission to all people. BCP, p. 854

Come join us for a day of equipping the church! Statistics indicate that 77 percent of people come to church and make a commitment to Jesus Christ through a personal contact with a Christian.
We can have the most incredible parish community, but, too often, it remains a secret.
This course will provide tools for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ through word and deed.

About Carrie Boren :
University and an MA in education (with a focus in urban poverty policy) from Harvard University. She graduated from Oxford University with a graduate degree in theology, evangelism, and apologetics. Carrie has been a missionary in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Urban Project, has worked in public policy for the state of Texas, and is a former actor (acting on stage, television, and film). Carrie has been a part of missions in the United States, United Kingdom, and Uganda and has been a speaker in numerous parishes and other settings, such as Lambeth Palace and Oxford University.

Contact: Ed McNeill
http://www.stedwards.org/www.stedwards.org/Edsblog

Photos from St. Aidan's annual Hike in April at the Black Diamond Mines Regional Park

The View

The Picnic
The Snake
King of the Mountain

Me & the Boys

Just me & the boys. This is the only pics I have on the computer- I'm still learning how to use the digital camera and dowload them. They've been serving as accolytes since they were quite young. (Brian, me, Tre).

Brian & the University of California Berkley

My youngest son, Brian, was recently accepted to the Young Entrepreneurs Business Academy (YEAH) Program at the Haas School of Business! The program includes a Summer Business Camp and monthly weekend classes throughout the year. It will be a great experience and help him establish a solid start to his future Resume and academic preparation for college.

Please keep him in your prayers as he begins this next chapter in his journey.

Trinity Sunday- The Doctrine & Worship of the Holy Trinity

The Doctrine & Worship of the Holy Trinity
Trinity Sunday, Yr A
Sermon Notes by Fr Aidan Jerry Hix, OSC/Priest
St Aidan’s Anglican Mission in Antioch, CA

Readings:
Genesis1:1—2:3
Ps 150 or Canticle 2
2 Corinthians 13:(5-10)11-14
or 13 Matthew 28:16-20

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee that thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see thee in thy one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

• The Doctrine of the Trinity
• The Worship of the Holy Trinity
• The Test of Steadfastness in the Faith
  

As a child I loved and was drawn to the awe of mystery. Whether it was the romance between fire and darkness (I have always loved the dance of candlelight and shadows casting silhouettes on the wall) or reading a good mystery novel, such as the Hardy Boys, I was greatly affected by the numinous. Taking old appliances apart to see how they worked enthralled me- how all those gears and wheels turned! I was rarely able to put such things back together but I little cared for that anyway. The joy was in taking things apart and in discovery of something new, the finding out of a secret.

I was fascinated with the hidden symbols of the mind, dreams and the unconscious realms of the soul. My heroes were the prophets, priests and mystics- the shamans who lived at once in two worlds- upon earth and the realm of the spirit. Qui Chang Cain of the TV series, Kung Fu, is one example of the wielder of the mysterious realms- a martial artist and a priest trained in the Shaolin Temple and Monastery. I took these flights of fancy and awe and adapted them to my faith, for I felt the call of the Deep calling unto deep. It was such deep stirrings of the heart that finally led me to the catholic faith and the world of mystery and sacraments where the Real Presence of God was made manifest through earthly realities- truly living between both worlds, where heaven and earth overlap.

I have spent most of my life exploring the mysteries of the faith and taking spiritual things apart seeking the numinous things of God. I am no scholar but I have grasped many of the cardinal doctrines of our religion but there is one mystery which has alluded me- the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. It is a cardinal doctrine of our faith but one I have little understood or been able to find relevance in or apply to my life, until recently. It is a mystery beyond mortal understanding and we are not meant to grasp fully the nature and essence of God. But God has not left us comfortless and has made himself known to us as three divine persons- of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Today is Trinity Sunday and the time during the liturgical year when we commemorate the doctrine and especially render our worship to the most Holy Trinity. Vernon Staley summarizes this doctrine in these words:

"There is one God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three persons are co-equal in all things. " The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and yet they are not three Gods, but one God." x This is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, taught by the Church, and proved by the Scriptures. Whilst the Holy Scriptures teach that there is but one God, they speak of each of the three persons as divine, and thus prove to us their co-equal Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity in Unity is a great mystery. A mystery is a truth revealed by God which we are therefore bound to believe, but which we are unable fully to understand. Though the doctrine of the Trinity is above the understanding, it is not contrary to it. It is reasonable that there should be mysteries in religion, and above all that there should be mystery about the Being of God. If we could grasp the doctrine of the Trinity, we should ourselves be God. The fly on the ceiling cannot understand the nature of man, because man is so much beyond a fly in the scale of creation. But there is less interval between a fly and a man, than there is between man and God; for man is a creature, and God is the infinite Creator."
Although the doctrine of the Trinity is a great mystery about the very essence and being of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Lord has left us clues in the story of salvation to assist us in our worship of the Trinity and manifesting this mystery in our lives!

First, we must go back to the beginning of the Story. 26Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply."


The Trinity is a divine and spiritual mystery but in the economy of God spiritual reality is made manifest in the and through the physical realm.

• Let us make man and women in our image
• Our humanity itself was designed to reflect the mystery of the internal relationship of the Holy Trinity.
• Our common daily life not merely the times we set apart for the special ceremonies and rites of the church- baptisms, weddings, funerals, and Sunday worship
• Not divided into the Sacred & profane
• Gnosticism: Spirit (good) vs the physical/body (bad)
• The Mystery of the Trinity is Sacramental/Incarnational
• Kenosis- Jesus emptied himself/ poured himself into an earthly tabernacle
  suffered bodily/ raised bodily
• Eucharist- took himself in his own hands and offered himself to his disciples as real food and real drink
• Our own bodily resurrection
• Examples
  Lembas bread
  Ring- anti-sacrament
  Worship
  Imagination/story/mythology
  Lewis- Great Divorce ºspiritual = more heavy, more real
  Gandalf (angel)
  Contrast with evil
  Wraiths/ wraith process
  Orcs- captured, tormented, twisted, corrupted
  evolving downward
  fading- less real
  
  The mystery of the Trinity is a relationship
  
• Father, Son, Holy Spirit
• Ex: Christ’s Baptism: Jesus, Voice of God, HS as a Dove
• Our call to be fruitful and multiply
• Family
• Helpmate
• companionship
• Ex: Frodo & Sam
• Merry & Pippin
• Legolas & Gimli
• Contrast with the self-seeking & destructiveness of evil
• Saruman & Grima
  Individualism
  Isolationism
  arrogance & pride
• Called to be part of the Church & Kingdom
  Call of Abraham & Family
  The Tribes & Nation of Israel
  The church
  Kingdom of God
  community
  Family Church
  
  
  Conclusion: The Mystery of the Holy Trinity.
  It is said that on a certain occasion a preacher named Alanus, promised to make plain to his hearers on the next Sunday, the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. Whilst considering the matter by the sea shore, he saw a child with a spoon in his hand walking to and fro between the sea and a hole which he had made in the sand. Alanus asked the child what he was doing. He replied, I am trying to empty the sea into this hole. Alanus said, Why dost thou waste thy time in attempting an impossibility ? The child again replied, I am not more wasting my time than thou art, for thou wilt no sooner get all the knowledge of the Holy Trinity into thy small mind, than I shall empty the great sea into this hole in the sand.1 Though a philosopher cannot explain the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, a child can believe it. This great truth is not one about which we are to puzzle our minds. We are simply to believe it, because God has revealed it to the Church, and the Church teaches it. Reason becomes lost in wonder, and gives place to adoring faith.
• 
  "The Catholic Faith is this; that we WORSHIP one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. . . . In all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity is to be WORSHIPPED."
  +

Free Classic Anglican Books

Free Classic Anglican Books!

Catholic Principles as Illustrated in the Doctrines, History, and Organization of the American Catholic Church Commonly Called the Protestant Episcopal Church (1902) by Frank N. Westcott

http://books.google.com/books?id=6Rfo9Qp_hSkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=frank+westcott+catholic+principles

The Catholic religion : a manual of instruction for members of the Anglican Church (1917) Author: Staley, Vernon, 1852-1933
http://www.archive.org/details/catholicreligio00staluoft

The body of Christ : an enquiry into the institution and doctrine of Holy Communion (1901) Author: Gore, Charles, 1853-1932
http://www.archive.org/details/thebodyofchrist00goreuoft

The Ministry of Absolution : An appeal for its more general use with due regard to the liberty of the individual by Cyril Bickersteth, M.A. of the Community of the Resurrection http://www.archive.org/details/ministryabsoluti00bickuoft