"Pass the Light"

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

(Invocavit)

Readings:

2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10

Matthew 4:1-11

Key Verses (using the World English Bible):

2 Cor. 6:2b-4a: “Behold, now is the acceptable time.  Behold, now is the day of salvation.  We give no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our service may not be blamed, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God.”

Matt. 4:8-9: “The devil… showed [Jesus] all the kingdoms of the world, and… said to him, ‘I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.’”

Reflection

Last week, an article on my Facebook feed caught my eye.  It was entitled simply, “Why we refused to cut a gay character from our Christian film”, and began with the words, “Hear ye, hear ye: God’s love is for everyone!”  Naturally, I read on.

“Pass the Light is about Steve Bellafiore, a high school student who runs for Congress to be a voice in opposition to the hate-mongering candidate Franklin Baumann.”

Franklin rallies his supporters by preaching against the sexual immoral, including homosexuals.  Steve counters by advocating love and understanding for everyone in order to create one community of action.  Though neither one of them is gay, the film features an African-American gay and Christian male named Trevor.  Portraying such a character is risky business in the Christian family-friendly film industry.  The filmmakers knew this, but nonetheless felt compelled to enter into the discussion. (See the trailer here.)

Most of the popular reaction to the film was actually positive.  But when it came time to find a distributor for the film, “we were asked flat-out to cut the character Trevor and his entire storyline… because he was gay, [and] the core Christian audience will not accept a gay character.”  The discussion was over.

For the filmmakers, this was unacceptable, and for one of them, Victor Hawks, it was especially personal.  From his days in musical theater, he had come to appreciate the talent, passion and com-passion of the gay community, where he felt joy, laughter, and, yes, even God’s presence.  But the distributors were adamant that Trevor needed to go.  For us on the outside, it may be a no-brainer: forget them and figure something else out!  But can one afford to act hastily when others have invested money, time, and work into your film?  Getting a big-name distributor ensures that you can pay them back.  But cutting Trevor would mean cutting a major part of the film, one which they truly believed in.  Victor writes, “we were at a standstill.”

It’s the First Sunday in Lent, and traditionally we read about Jesus’ fasting in the wilderness, where the devil tempts him with food, glory, and power.  It’s a dramatic passage, but maybe a little too simple and superficial to us lay-folk.  After all, did you really think the Son of God was going to give in to Satan?  Would you really side with the “guy with horns and a pitchfork” (so to speak)?  But at the same time, the story behind “Pass the Light” shows us that temptations are still very much alive.  And when they don’t involve situations of life and death, when its main characters aren’t obviously larger-than-life figures like Christ or the devil, it’s much harder to know what to do.  After all, what’s the harm in cutting Trevor?  They would be avoiding offense, division, and they’d at least still have Steve’s message of universal welcome and joint collaboration.  That’s still something, whereas, if they kept Trevor, they’d lose everything!

But what about all the members of the LGBTQ community, especially the youth, who need to see a Trevor?  What about the gay teen living in an unsupportive, even hostile, town with no one to turn to?  What about the lesbian couple searching for God, only to find one closed door after another?  What about transgendered persons, looking for someone who will recognize their identities, and minister to their needs?  In the heat of the moment, a seemingly small decision like deleting a fictitious character can have very big and very real consequences.

Ultimately, the filmmakers decided that:

“We believe that God’s love is for everyone.  Everyone.  If we were to cut this character just because he was gay, we would be saying, ‘It is OK that you are erased.  We’re more comfortable if you don’t exist.  And you can’t be Christian if you are gay.”

Powerful words in a powerful statement of affirmation!  By a stroke of luck—or, we might call it, the grace of God—a small distributor has picked up the film.  There is also an online campaign (“See the Light”) to promote the film further, and I encourage you to visit and contribute if you’re so inclined.  In the end, the filmmakers didn’t have to compromise their work, those who didn’t want Trevor could move on without incident, and people will get to hear about God’s unconditional love, a very needed message for everyone—especially, one might argue, in the queer community.

Lent ushers us directly into the trials and hardships awaiting the Christian faithful during this season of repentance and self-examination.  We’re fortunate that, in most cases, they won’t be as epic as those that Jesus or Paul faced.  But we have to pay attention nonetheless, for they are still genuine tests of our character, showing whose side we’re on.

Prayer of the Day

O Lord,

for our sake you fasted forty days and forty nights.

Give us grace to use such abstinence,

so that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit,

we may ever obey your godly motions

in righteousness and true holiness

to your honor and glory;

for you live and reign with the Father and Holy Spirit,

one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

—Collect for the First Sunday in Lent, Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Grant, almighty God,

that, through the yearly practice of Lenten devotion,

we may advance towards a mystical understanding of Christ,

eagerly following the disposition of his character

by worthy association;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

—Collect 1 for the First Sunday in Lent, Gelasian Sacramentary, 5^th century; translation from Latin by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015

Hymn: “Forty days and forty nights”

(Words: George Hunt Smyttan, 1822-1870; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015

Tune: ‘Aus der Tiefe rufe ich’ ('Heinlein'), melody attributed to Martin Herbst, 1654-1681, harmony by William Henry Monk, 1823-1889)

Forty days and forty nights,

You were fasting in the wild;

Forty days and forty nights,

Tempted and yet undefiled.

Should not we your sorrow share,

And from worldly joys abstain,

Fasting with unceasing prayer,

Strong with you to suffer pain?

Then if Satan on us press,

Jesus, Savior, hear our call!

Victor in the wilderness,

Grant we may not faint nor fall!

So shall we have peace divine,

Holier gladness ours shall be.

Round us, too, shall angels shine

Such as served you faithfully.

Keep, O keep us, Savior dear

Ever constant by your side,

That with you we may appear

At your endless Eastertide.

True love

SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

(Quinquagesima)

Readings:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Luke 18:31-43

Key Verses (using the World English Bible):

1 Cor. 13:4a, 7-8a: “Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy… [it] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”

Luke 18:31a, 32-33a: Jesus said, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and [the Son of Man] will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on.  They will scourge and kill him.”

Reflection

Thanks to a fortuitous synchrony between Sun and Moon, our first reading for this Valentine’s Day weekend is Paul’s famous “ode to love”.  I can’t think of a better passage.  Most of us have probably heard this at a Christian wedding.  A discourse extolling the attributes of love is especially appropriate when two people come together (ideally) in that kind of love.  But to fully understand the significance of this “ode”, and apply it to our lives today, we need to examine its two major historical contexts: that is, first, the reason Paul wrote it, and, second, how the Church came to understand it.

Paul was writing to the dysfunctional Church of Corinth, which we touched on last week.  He’s in the middle of discussing various spiritual gifts in a way that suggests that these were creating strife and envy among the Corinthians.  He argues that, though their God-given gifts may differ, they are all still one in the body of Christ.  But it’s more than just “unity in diversity”.  They all need each other, just as, in a whole body, the eye needs the hand, or the head needs the feet.  They can’t all be an eye, or a hand, or a foot.  Therefore, they must resolve their division and jealousy with the “most excellent way” of love.  And if they still don’t understand the ultimate plan, that’s okay; when Christ returns, everything will be made clear, “for now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then [we will see] face to face.  Now I know in part, but then I will know fully.”

About 500 years later, the Church consistently began to pair Paul’s “ode to love” with today’s Gospel passage, placing both of these on the Sunday before Lent.  Their intent is clear.  These two readings together set the tone for the fasting season to come.  In the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that they are going up to Jerusalem, where he will suffer and be executed.  Despite his detailed prediction, “this saying was hidden from them, and they didn’t understand the things that were said.”  Immediately following this, a blind man realizes Jesus is passing by.  Undaunted and unrestrained, he shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Jesus comes near and asks the blind man what he wants, and he asks for his sight, which Jesus restores, saying, “Your faith has healed you.”

Side by side, these two readings weave together a new and complementary narrative, one which I don’t think even the original authors would’ve foreseen, but with which they likely would’ve agreed.  The love that Paul describes, the one that “bears all things… endures all things… never fails” is the same love that Jesus showed with his life, and is about to show fully with his death on the cross in Jerusalem.  The disciples couldn’t understand the idea of an executed Messiah.  With all the turmoil in Judea under Roman oppression, they needed salvation—deliverance—now!  They couldn’t see that Jesus came to save people, not from this life, but for this life, and for the life to come.  Of course we know that they eventually get it, but this happens only when Jesus comes near, and gives them the eyes, the sight, to see the divine plan.

My friends, Lent starts on Wednesday and, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem.  We already know what will happen there, but like his twelve disciples, we know only in part.  Without firsthand experience, we won’t completely understand the rhyme or reason behind suffering and selfless love—unless Jesus lets us see it; unless he comes to us, like he did to the blind man, and causes us to receive our spiritual sight.  In fact, that’s all that Lent really is.  The season’s disciplines, rituals, and liturgy are just the Church’s collective way of crying out, “Jesus, you Son of David, have mercy on me!”, collectively because we can’t do it alone; we need each other.  Only God’s mercy can let us see, face to face, to the kind of love that is patient, kind, and never-failing.  And only God’s grace can let us know it fully.

Thanks be to God, alleluia, alleluia!

Prayer of the Day

O Lord,

you have taught us that all our doings

are worth nothing without love.

Send us your Holy Spirit,

and pour into our hearts

that most excellent gift of love,

the very bond of peace and of all virtues,

without which whoever is alive

is counted as dead before you.

Grant this for the sake of your only Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

—Collect for the Sunday before Lent (Quinquagesima), Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Hymn: “Songs of thankfulness and praise”

(Words: Christopher Wordsworth, 1807-1885, with stanza 4 by Bland Tucker, 1895-1984; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015 

Tune: ‘Salzburg’, melody by Jakob Hintze, 1622-1702; harmony by Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750)

Songs of thankfulness and praise,

Jesus, Lord, to you we raise,

Manifested by the star

To the sages from afar.

Branch of royal David’s stem

In your birth at Bethlehem,

Anthems be to you addressed,

God-With-Us made manifest.*

Manifest at Jordan’s stream,

Prophet, Priest, and King supreme,

And at Cana, wedding-guest,

In your Godhead manifest;

Manifest in power divine,

Changing water into wine,

Anthems be to you addressed,

God-With-Us made manifest.*

Manifest in making whole

Palsied limbs and fainting soul;

Manifest in valiant fight,

Quelling all the devil’s might;

Manifest in gracious will,

Ever bringing good from ill;

Anthems be to you addressed,

God-With-Us made manifest.*

Manifest on mountain height,

Shining in resplendent light,

Where disciples, filled with awe,

Your transfigured glory saw;

From the mountain you led them

Steadfast to Jerusalem,

Cross and Easter Day attest

God-With-Us made manifest.*

Grant us grace to see you, Lord,

Mirrored in your holy word.

May we follow now your ways,

Pure and holy all our days,

That like you we all may be

At your great epiphany,

Praising you, forever blest,

God-With-Us made manifest.*

*Or, “God in man made manifest.”

Battles with "super-apostles"

SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

(Sexagesima Sunday)

Readings:

2 Corinthians 11:19-31

Luke 8:4-15

Key Verses (using the New Revised Standard Version):

2 Cor: 11:19: “For you gladly put up with fools, being wise yourselves!  For you put up with it when someone makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or gives you a slap in the face.”

Luke 8:15: “But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.”

Reflection

Paul’s relationship with the Church of Corinth was so volatile that he had to write to them (at least) twice!  Yes, he also wrote the Thessalonians twice, but, at a mere eight chapters, those letters are just half of the 16 chapters he wrote to the Corinthians.  Clearly, they had issues, and clearly there was much they needed to hear.

So what was all the fuss about?  The root of the problem appears to have been their divisiveness, which then cascaded into a litany of behavior that, even to this day, seems shocking to us: a man’s adultery with his own stepmother, drunken celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, disorderly worship, the list goes on.  Today’s excerpt from Second Corinthians throws us into the middle of yet another dispute: the arrival of some “false apostles”.  Paul, most likely with sarcasm, calls them “super-apostles”, and for those who would follow them, Paul’s got a litany of his own.

In one of his angriest tirades, Paul presents us his curriculum vitae—his resume—the implication being that those qualities alone are enough to put him on par with other apostles.  He’s giving in to emotion and anger, “speaking as a fool” as he puts it, but at this point he doesn’t care anymore.  If they want a fool, he’ll give them a “madman” because now he’s going to prove that he’s “better” than they are!  You can almost hear the cinematic swelling of an epic film score.  And just what makes him better than the “super-apostles”?  For the sake of the gospel, Paul has been imprisoned, flogged, beaten, and punished with stoning.  He’s gone sleepless, hungry, thirsty, cold, and naked.  His list of dangers deserves quoting at length:

“on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers…” (2 Cor. 11:26, NRSV)

I find these to be the most poignant and candid of all.  For me, they paint a sad picture of a man who feels threatened and completely abandoned by everything imaginable—nature, civilization, humanity, even the trust of a friend.  Does that sound to you like somebody else?

Evidently, the “super-apostles” experienced none of this hardship, or else Paul would be arguing in vain.  So what did they do?  We can glean from Paul’s writings that, as New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “their notion [was] that life in Christ was already an exalted, glorified existence…”1  So since we’re saved in Christ already, “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”  This appealed to the Corinthians’ already famous reputation for social excesses, and Paul was quick to call them out on their smug superiority, their idea of “being wise”.  Elsewhere in his correspondence, Paul writes, almost mockingly: “Already you have all you want!  Already you have become rich!  Quite apart from us you have become kings!”

The road to follow Jesus is an arduous path of selflessness, which ends only when you lose yourself, just as Jesus’ own walk ended at the cross.  I think that’s why Paul got so angry.  He knew the harsh truth, knew it firsthand, and when the Corinthians began to realize it for themselves, Paul didn’t want them to end up like the lost seeds of Jesus’ parable.  He wanted them to hold the gospel “in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.”  We run the same risk today.  And so, as we approach Lent, the Church’s solemn season of repentance, reflection, and renewal, we must ask ourselves: what modern super-apostles, and their “gospels”, have we fallen prey to?  The “gospel” of prosperity?  Of selfishness?  Of hopelessness?  What “gospels” have we become slaves to?  The “gospel” of materialism?  Of image? Of prejudice? 

The promise of the gospel of Jesus, however, is that when we answer these questions truthfully to ourselves, we are one step closer to the kind of riches, which no “super-apostle” can give us.

1(The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, Bart Ehrman, p. 301)

Prayer of the Day

O Lord, we pray you, protect your people;

be ever near us with your heavenly grace

during the coming holy time of remembrance,

so that the help of your visible comforts

may promptly spur us on

toward invisible good things;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

—Collect for “Sexagesima Sunday” in the Gelasian Sacramentary, 5^th century; translation by Joseph A. Soltero

O Lord God,

you see that we do not put our trust

in any thing that we do.

Mercifully grant that, by your power,

we may be defended against all adversity;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

—Collect for the Second Sunday before Lent, Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Hymn: “Alleluia, song of gladness”

(Words: “Alleluia, dulce carmen”, Latin, unknown, 11^th century; English translation by John M. Neale, 1851; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015

Tune: ‘Tantum Ergo’, Samuel Webbe, 1792)

Alleluia, song of gladness,

Voice of joy that cannot die;

Alleluia is the anthem

Ever dear to choirs on high;

In the house of God abiding,

Thus they sing as times go by.

Alleluia, you resound in

True Jerusalem and free;

Alleluia, joyful mother,

Sing your children cheerfully,

But by Babylon’s sad waters,

Mourning exiles now are we.

Alleluia, we deserve not

Here to chant for evermore;

Alleluia, our transgressions

Make us for a while give o’er,

For the holy time is coming,

Bidding us our sins deplore.

Therefore, in our hymns we pray you,

Grant us, blessèd Trinity,

At the last to keep your Easter

In our mansions heavenly,

There to you forever singing

Alleluia joyfully.

Back to the beginning

THIRD SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

(Septuagesima Sunday)

Readings:

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Matthew 20:1-16

Key Verses (using the World English Bible):

1 Cor. 9:24: “Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize?  Run like that, that you may win.”

Matt. 20:14-15a: “Take that which is yours, and go your way.  It is my desire to give to this last [laborer] just as much as to you.  Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own?”

Reflection

We’ve always lived with multiple beginnings.  Ancient peoples have observed one or more of the four turning points of the year—the equinoxes and solstices—as a “new beginning”.  Down to the present day, we start our New Year in winter, our tax year in April, and our (U.S.) school year towards the fall—incidentally, near Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

The Church, too, has lived with multiple beginnings, like September 1^st in the East, or Advent Sunday in the West.  But today, as the traditional church year formally puts Christmas behind, and begins to look ahead to Easter, we get the opportunity to go back to where it all started—the Creation of the world.

Yes, it’s rather strange to begin the Easter countdown already when Jesus’ liturgical birth was barely a month ago.  But the first Full Moon of spring is not concerned with liturgy.  The ancient Church had concerns of her own, and in the weeks before Easter, these were the proper education of newcomers into the faith.  Before they could celebrate their first Easter, new Christians had to understand why Easter happened in the first place.  And the most natural starting point to answer that was Genesis.  We don’t know what readings from Genesis they officially used in this period that eventually became the “Time before Lent”.  But we can get a sense of this early “catechism” from the surviving New Testament readings today.

The well-known Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard tells the story of a “master of a household” who, at the end of the work day, surprises his hired hands by paying them all equally one day’s wage—regardless of how long they had worked for him.  Naturally, those who had toiled since daybreak were upset about getting paid the same as those who had worked for only one hour.  But the master asks them: “Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?… Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own?”

Now, while this business model would fail miserably in the corporate world, the story isn’t about earthly economy; it’s about God’s “economy”, or how God wishes to run the world.  And God has always wished to run the world like the master of the household.  We learn from the Creation story in Genesis that, from the luminaries in the heavens, to the creeping things on earth, even to humankind—God equally called them all “good”; equally gave them all life, existence, and even a purpose, regardless of what day he made them on.  So is it fair that I’m just as “good” as, say, an ant, or an amoeba?  No, it’s not fair—it’s love.  And more specifically, it’s God’s unconditional love, which, by definition, there can’t be “more” or “less” of.  It just is—like a parent’s love for multiple children.

The fact that we, as one human race, have never been able to figure out how to run this world with such equality shows how far we’ve wandered away from the original plan.  But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying and give up.  Paul asks us: “Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize?”  What prize is that?  Well, we know it’s not God’s love; we’ve always had that from the beginning.  I think the prize, the “incorruptible crown” we’re running towards, is the ability to love like God, realizing that such love really can change our world.  It’s that moment when we know that our lives are fully aligned with God’s “economy”, in which we, with God, labor to provide everyone with their basic, daily needs; when we feel our hearts transformed into vessels for God’s unconditional love towards others and ourselves; and when we see in our very being that God has made us worthy to fulfill his original purpose. 

“Run like that, that you may win.”  In God’s race, we are all winners—and no one can take away our crown.

Prayer of the Day

O Lord, we pray you,

favorably hear the prayers of your people,

that we, who are justly punished for our offenses,

may be mercifully delivered by your goodness,

for the glory of your Name;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

—Collect for the Third Sunday before Lent, Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Or,

Almighty God,

you have created the heavens and the earth,

and made us in your image.

Teach us to discern your hand in all your works,

and your likeness in all your children;

through Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord,

who with you and the Holy Spirit

reigns supreme over all things,

now and for ever.

Amen.

—Collect for the Second Sunday before Lent, Common Worship: Daily Prayer, 2005

Hymn: “O Master, let me walk with you”

(Words: Washington Gladden, 1836-1918, adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015

Tune: ‘Maryton’, Henry Percy Smith, 1825-1898)

O Master, let me walk with you

In lowly paths of service true.

Tell me your secret; help me to bear

The strain of toil, the fret of care.

Help me the slow of heart to move

By some clear, winning word of love.

Teach me the wayward feet to stay,

And guide them in the homeward way.

Teach me your patience; stay with me

In closer, dearer company,

In work that keeps faith sweet and strong,

In trust that triumphs over wrong;

In hope that sends a shining ray

Far down the future’s broadening way,

In peace that only you can give,

With you, O Master, let me live.