Take Shelter - Walter Brueggemann

I try to keep my eyes open, not just for words that can a change person, but for images.  This certainly is an apocalyptic image –which I found  here  -  but we don't know where it's from.  (If anyone recognizes this please let me know and I will place it and give credit.)  This pic says that  something big is going to happen.  It reminds me of the film Take Shelter with Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain.  The Bible is no different.  We  hear the readings from the Gospels week after week, and if we are tired we yawn.  That's a shame, because something big is happening in the Gospels.

More and more I see that we can't fully recognize  the the shock of Jesus' entry into the world without study of the OT.  That's why I'm doing a slow and careful  reading of  Walter Brueggemann's 1982 commentary on  Genesis.   It is the best OT commentary that I have ever read. A slow reading means I read the chapter from Genesis, then read two or three pages from Brueggemann's book, and think about it.  After that,  I look up all of the Bible verses he cites and which he quotes from, first from the Genesis text, and then from other parts of the Bible.  And I am having a great time taking notes in a paper (not computer) notebook.    Brueggemann's main theme for me is:  The Lord is passionate about accomplishing his purposes, even if his ways are mysterious and surprising.  I will have several more posts about Brueggemann's book.

Jesus' Word of Warning - John Chapter 6

Christians talk often about "spiritual food" for spiritual  growth.  I know that this means more than the Eucharist.  The church cites St. Augustine who said that the believer's "food  from  heaven"  is the Eucharist, but this daily spiritual  bread is also: "the readings you hear each day in church, and the hymns you hear and sing. All these are necessities of our pilgrimage."  Catechism of the Catholic Church sec. 1389 (citing St. Augustine Sermo 57,7).

We all need spiritual food, and that  is a broad subject.  But in this post I am looking at the Eucharist alone.  What can  happen if a person turns away from it?  John 6:53 quoted and highlighted  below becomes a word of warning.  

The Sunday lectionary has just finished a series of Gospel readings in the Gospel of John chapter 6.  Yesterday at Mass in his homily  87 year old Fr. Berghammer mentioned something profound.  He reminded the congregation  that taking the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist is spiritual nourishment.  But that can only happen at Mass with the gathered assembly of believers, except that the sick may receive Jesus at home.  The point is that for almost all of us, we have to go to Mass to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.  Stop going to Mass and we stop receiving him.  (I'm not saying that the Eucharist is the only way to approach Jesus, or for him to approach us.)   Gradually over time people who stop going to Mass may lose their faith as a result.   Fr. Berghammer said that he has seen this many times over his long career.

I would never apply Father's thoughts on loss of faith  to any individual person whom I might know.  Judgments of this kind are up to God.   I have enough trouble dealing with my own pilgrimage.   How any of us come to faith is a great mystery.  The same can be said about how people lose their faith.

Last Supper - Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret 19th Century

People may say that  they have lost their faith because of this or that problem with the church, and that may be the case.  But here is another possibility for the origin of unbelief:    What really may have happened with this "former believer"  is that  he or she for no particular reason  stopped going to church.  That means that week after week the   person  was not receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.  The person was left to go through the grind of daily life  without the bread of life (Jn. 6:35), and after many months or years of this kind of neglect of the Eucharist  a total  loss of faith became  the end result.   The practical point here is not to speculate about the "lost faith"  of people we know, but to apply Fr. Berghammer's  idea to each one of us in a positive way.  If you make it to church and worthily receive his body and blood, you are not going down this dangerous path which can lead to a ruined spiritual life.   The bread of life keeps you on the right path, the narrow way leading to eternal life.

They say ideas have consequences.  The same goes for acts and omissions: "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you' ...." (Jn 6:53 RSV).

The sacrament alone does not prevent a person from falling away from God.  Anyone who has read 1 Cor. knows that. Yes,  there is more to the Christian life than the Eucharist.  There are the commandments, the tenets of our faith (the creed), the study of the hold Scriptures, and the duty to love God and our neighbor.  And we have the duty to confess our sins, daily and also in the sacrament of reconciliation, in order to take the Eucharist worthily. My only point here is that it is a dangerous thing to neglect the Eucharist.

John chapter 6 also speaks to anyone who wants to come back to the bread of life, after being away.  Jesus says, "he who comes to me I will not cast out"  (Jn. 6:37 RSV).

Great Worship Music

At taintedcanvas.com you will find these excellent "10 Worship Songs You Should Hear."

If I'm drifting a bit, as I have been in the last week, worship music helps me to re-center.  It is not a fix for what ails you, but St. Paul does recommend "psalms and ... spiritual songs"  (Eph 5:19).  Yes, I know that Paul is referring there to singing in the assembly of believers.  But as a supplement to (not a substitute for!)   corporate worship there is nothing wrong with  singing in the car to help bring back  a heart that might otherwise be subject to drifting.

 I like the Vineyard UK music.  I just bought this  tremendous 2006 album ("Hungry - Falling on My Knees")  on itunes.

Attitude Adjustment - Josef Pieper

Fish Creek, Wisconsin is a bustling place on the shores of Green Bay, Door County, Wisconsin.  August is peak tourist season, but at the end of the day, on a nice day,  things slow down a little and you see a procession of  people coming out of the stores and restaurants to walk down to the shore on the west end of town, to watch the sun go down.

Gathering at Fish Creek, on Green Bay,
Door County,  Wisconsin August 2012 

On this night last week a young guy played jazz standards on his trombone, and when he finished everyone gave him a nice hand.

This impromptu gathering brought to mind Josef Pieper's book, Leisure as a Basis for Culture     (Pantheon 1952 trans. Random House 1963, Ignatius Press 2009).  In that book Pieper describes leisure not as "time off work," but as a quiet and grateful attitude of the mind: "In  leisure man, too, celebrates the end of his work by allowing his inner eye to dwell for a while upon the reality of Creation.  He looks and he affirms: it is good.”   (p. 49). 

The gathering to watch the sun go down  becomes what Pieper might call a "celebration"  for those who have the attitude to receive it.   What does Pieper mean by celebration?  As just quoted, we  celebrate by allowing the mind to "dwell for awhile" on these things which are not the product of work.  For Pieper celebration is the core of  leisure:   "The soul of leisure, it can be said, lies in 'celebration.' Celebration is the point at which the three elements of leisure come to a focus: relaxation, effortlessness, and superiority of 'active leisure' to all functions. But if celebration is the core of leisure, then leisure can only be made possible and justifiable on the same basis as the celebration of a festival. That basis is divine worship." (p. 65)

Now, you can't press Pieper's use of the word "worship" here too far, as if worship might have something to do with nature itself independent of God.  Pieper was an orthodox Christian believer with a solid  Catholic ideas on nature as God's creation.   But for Pieper it all has to start with this receptive and grateful attitude.  Leisure as a Basis for Culture is not easy reading, but any time spent in this book is well worth it, because Pieper  offers the reader (and our culture)  this reality which is outside the self.  Before I can benefit from reading the Gospels, I need this message which I have received from reading Pieper:  Life is not all about me.

Jesus' Power to Save

Tim coming out of the rough water - Garrett Bay, Door County, Wisconsin
 August, 2012  (I'm  the "speck" in the pic about to get hit with a whitecap)
Photo by Carrie Schuessler

Mark 4:41 Wind and Sea Obey Him

When I'm taking in the beauty of nature, my thoughts occasionally  turn to God. That happened  yesterday in Door County, swimming in the rough waters of Garrett Bay, when I thought of this verse:

And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?"
Mark 4:41 (RSV)

The water in Garrett Bay (Lake Michigan) was shallow enough that we were not crazy to be swimming.  Tim (age 10)  and I were trying to get out to our usual destination spot which was a big rock about 50 yards from the shore, but we couldn't do it.  With gusts of over 40 knots we couldn't fight the wind and the waves.  I got knocked down into some sharp rocks and  banged up my knee a little bit.   Tim gave up after about 15 minutes, and I hung in there a little longer, but then I had to head in early as well.  It all reminded me of the storm out on the Sea of Galilee described in Mark 4.  Fighting the wind and the waves out in the boat, which was filling up with water (Mark 4:37) can't be compared to our misadventure trying to swim, of course.  The storm on the Sea of Galilee was life threatening, although Jesus was not alarmed.  (He was "asleep on the cushion"! Mark 4:38)   The disciples  were cold and they were afraid - and they were upset that Jesus was asleep.  And then to see Jesus wake up  and  rebuke the storm and stop it  right in front of their eyes had to be a shock.

The storm displays the power of nature. Jesus shows that he has power over nature.   The disciples  had seen the demons obey Jesus, and now they see the wind and the sea obey him.  But they did not just witness a "nature" miracle.  They were in trouble out on the water, and Jesus saved them.   Sometimes getting to know and understand the mercy and power of  Jesus is not about the study of doctrine, themes or teaching.  It is about placing yourself into a Gospel scene.  Here my own experience with the wind and the waves helped me to picture the sights and sounds of this demonstration of the saving power of God described in Mark chapter 4.  

In the Greek  - a Violent Furious Storm

Bible verses are like songs.  Today when I hear a song from my teen years I associate it with places and events  from those years.  There are passages from the NT that remind me of when and where I was when I first studied them closely.  Mark 4:41 is special to me because I learned it in the original  Greek when I was 21 and in college, taking a Greek class at University of Wisconsin - Madison.  It was a classical Greek class which means our texts came from classical Greek writers like Plato, not from the Bible.  But our teacher gave us a break one day and she helped us translate Mark 4:41 (quoted above) which in Greek  looked like this: καὶ ἐφοβήθησαν φόβον μέγαν, καὶ ἔλεγον πρὸς ἀλλήλους, Τίς ἄρα οὗτός ἐστιν ὅτι καὶ ὁ ἄνεμος καὶ ἡ θάλασσα ὑπακούει αὐτῷ.   (I realize that these words and this script will be meaningless to almost anyone who reads this.)  This became  the first  Bible verse that I learned from  the original Greek.

After taking this class in college I went out and bought some Greek study tools, a word study  book and an interlinear NT with the Greek, and stuck with it for awhile.  How did it help with Bible study?  Greek has many loaded words which convey meanings in the original that get watered down in translation.  A good example is right here in Mark chapter 4 where at verse 37 in the RSV  we have "a great storm of wind arose."  The adjective "great" (Greek megale) means "violent."   M.R. Vincent says that  "storm"  (Greek lailaps) means "furious storm" and is close to the word "hurricane."  If Vincent is right, it was a violent and furious storm.

Word Study 

I'm sorry to say that after three or four years,  with the "press of business" (work, family and distractions) I dropped the Greek.   But in recent months I have come back to it, mainly  for word study purposes,  and I am enjoying it greatly. I find that if I take a few extra minutes to look up a keyword from the verse in the original language, the message of the verse stays with me.  An excellent book for beginners is Learn New Testament Greek   (Baker 1993) by John H. Dobson.  For word study and to see the history of the use of a word  I use Word Studies in the New Testament (2012 reprint of 1886 publication)  by M.R. Vincent.  I also use this online resource from biblos.com which has a menu option for text analysis going word for word through the verse,  with Greek, Greek transliteration and English, and it includes a column from Strong's Concordance which explains the use of the word.

What if you want to get serious about this kind of language study?   For that we have colleges,  seminaries and theological schools.  I am not suggesting that people can do this on their own.

Tenth Avenue North - Strong Enough to Save You

My daughter, Carrie, who took the pic shown above, read this and directed me to the popular  song by Tenth Avenue North titled "Strong Enough to Save" which has these lyrics:  "The one the wind and waves obey is strong enough to save you."

Jesus in Ephraim

This week I have been in the beautiful little harbor town of Ephraim, Wisconsin, and that of course made me think of NT Ephraim, a place which was good to Jesus: "When a group of non-believers heard that Jesus brought a man (Lazarus) back to life, they plotted to kill Jesus. They apparently feared that Jesus was becoming too popular and that he might try to lead a rebellion against the Romans. Jesus then took refuge in the quiet town of Ephraim (John 11:54) near the wilderness and stayed there for a while with his disciples. John 11:1-57." http://www.about-jesus.org/town-of-ephraim.htm

Gospel Events Become Present - Jewish Thought

This is the last of three short posts on the subject of remembrance (Greek anamnesis). Anamnesis “is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them” (Catechism of the Catholic Church,sec. 1363). Dave Armstrong has done a great job finding OT authority and Jewish sources which confirm that Jewish thought has this liturgical idea of making past events present and real. See http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2009/07/passover-in-judaism-past-events-become.html?m=1