The Chronicles

The books of I and II Chronicles are entirely absent from the Revised Common Lectionary. Only a few disconnected bits appear in the Daily Office Lectionary, interspersed into the narrative of I and II Kings that we have recently completed. I submit that this is a grievous error, akin to using only one Gospel account for public worship (perhaps St. Luke, as it is the most elegantly written), entirely ignoring St. Matthew and Mark, and taking only a few stray bits from St. John. We have four accounts of the Messiah’s ministry for very good reasons, not least to emphasize the centrality of these events. It is for similar reasons that Genesis contains two creation stories, and other passages where it appears that two or more parallel oral histories have been stitched together. Exodus contains but the one account of the deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, but it is revisited several times in the Psalter (especially Psalms 105 and 106, but also Psalm 78 and others), and is never far from the heart of the prophets.

It has been my custom for decades to read the Chronicles at this point in the two-year Daily cycle, after the completion of II Kings, alongside the bits from Jeremiah and Lamentations that have occupied us for the last week or so and the reading of Ezra and Nehemiah that begins tomorrow. I commend this practice to you, especially the reading of the Chronicles as a connected narrative in one swoop.

I will admit that I do not read the genealogies closely, and skim lightly over some of the other passages. But they are not to be entirely skipped. Some observations:

Adam, Sheth, Enosh
Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered (I Chron. 1:1-2)

Thus begins the nine chapter genealogy. It profits from being read aloud, for it then becomes clear that the names are grouped for ease of memorization. It boggles my mind to consider such a task, but it is equally clear that some people did exactly that – they memorized these lists of names so that they could retain them as a part of their history, long before such things were committed to writing. It is also striking how little bits of family lore slip into the lists, just as they would when an old person is recounting her memories to the youngsters. There are many such examples in I Chronicles; here is one.

Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife; and she bare him Attai. And Attai begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Zabad… (I Chron. 2:34-36)

As a child, I sat for hours in utter boredom in my grandfather’s sitting room, the flies buzzing in the windows, as he and his sisters spoke of relatives and ancestors long dead, slipping in stories in exactly this manner. I wish that I had listened.

It is worthy of note also that there are no dates. Just the names, in their order, with an occasional reference to the wider events of the kingdom, such as “in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah” (4:41).

And these are they whom David set over the service of song

And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of the LORD, after that the ark had rest. And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem: and then they waited on their office according to their order… (6:31-32)

It is a delight to read these names, “they that waited, with their children” (v. 33). As the commentaries observe, these musicians, these Levites (and the porters, the equivalent of modern-day church sextons and ushers) are elsewhere nameless. It is only the priests who are considered worthy of mention by name.

This parallels current practice. In the church hallway upstairs, one may find photographs of the Bishops of Iowa and the Rectors and other clergy of this parish. No musicians. No Christian educators. And especially, no sextons or vergers, no ladies and gentlemen of the Altar Guild.

It is well to know by evidence of Holy Scripture that these persons are not unknown to God.

So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt sacrifices and praise offerings before God… And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel: Asaph the chief, and next to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth… (16:1, 4-5a)

Then on that day David delivered this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make know his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works (v. 7-9)

The following passage (v. 8-36) is an anthology drawn from several of the Psalms, which the commentary assures us are all “post-exilic.” I would not be so sure, not in the face of a direct statement in Scripture that they came from the hand of David at the very time that the ark came to Jerusalem.

After the psalms, the passage continues:

So he left there before the ark of the covenant of the LORD Asaph and his brethren to minister before the ark continually, as every day’s work required (16:37)

To any church musician, that last part has resonance. Three thousand years later, the ministry continues “as every day’s work requires.”

Yet more names

Chapters 23 through 27 are an account of those who ministered at the time when David, “old and full of days, made Solomon his son king over Israel” (23:1). It is a treasure to know these names, even to the point of the ordering of the musicians into twenty-four bands (25:8-31), after “they cast lots, ward against ward, as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar (v. 8). We see in this passage that then as now the music involves not just the adults and the most accomplished, but the small as well as the great, the teacher and the scholar. The musicians learned their work from childhood by doing it alongside their parents, their uncles and grandparents, the others of the musical community. This is a model for modern church music, a model which is too often ignored by musicians and parishes who do not have the patience to include the children in anything meaningful or important.

Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals… (25:1)

The close relation of prophecy and music is a subject too large to address here; it is enough to note that one does not simply “play” at music; it must be a prophetic work, guided (as with all prophecy) by the Spirit of God. In this context, one may well consider St. Paul’s teachings in I Corinthians 12 through 14:

Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy… he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort (14:1,3)

And of course, this:

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also (14:15)

The conclusion of the matter: Holy Men and Holy Women

Time fails to delve further into these things, but I cannot pass II Chronicles without the mention of two passages, both of them with the essential details presented here and not in II Kings:

Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white line, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets: It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD… that the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God (II Chronicles 5:11-14)

Those who have been involved in the church’s music for very long have experienced such moments, when the musicians (including the congregation as they sing) are “as one,” and the Shekinah, the “cloud” that is the outward sign of the glory of the LORD, fills the house to the point that we are overcome and (at least for the moment) cannot continue.

This is not something of human manufacture. There is always the temptation to use music to manipulate, to achieve a desired effect or to implant an agenda. These are unworthy goals which stand in the way of music’s proper function, which is to help the people attain their unity in Christ (“as one”) and together to come into the divine Presence.
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Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem… and he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them… (II Chron. 29:1-3)

The reign of Hezekiah is one of the central passages of the Old Testament. Fittingly, it is recorded not once or twice, but three times (II Kings, here in II Chronicles, and Isaiah). It is only here that the account is given in detail of the cleansing of the House and the restoration of worship according to its ancient and proper pattern, including the musical work (29:25-28), and the great Passover, such as had not been since the time of Solomon (chapter 30).

The Sages say that there are four holy men who found God on their own, out of the darkness without human assistance (though not without Divine help and revelation): Abraham, Job, the Messiah – and Hezekiah. He had grown up in the wicked court of his father Ahaz, and somehow he found it in his heart to do as he did.

But he was not the last king worthy of his fathers, for as we read in the Chronicles, there was one more revival under Josiah (chapters 34 and 35). He too restored the passover, with the musical service (35:15), so that it was written

And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet (35:18).

When he died in battle at the age of thirty-nine,

… all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day… (35:24-25).

The end was now at hand. But it is not a small thing for one’s death to be lamented by Jeremiah the prophet – perhaps in musical form, as might be implied by the context. One might also note the “singing women” in this verse; until now, we have heard nothing of female musicians, and it is good to know that they were there. Unlike the men, we do not even have their names, nor anything about what they did (beyond “lamentations”). But like the men, they are known to God and their music is not forgotten; like all music that is true, it ever remains in the heart of God.

We live in time and can see and hear but the present moment, with memories of the past – our own memories, and those preserved in the genealogies and stories and writings passed from our ancestors. Music preeminently is the art of the Present – it exists in its only true form, its live sound in performance, only in the moment. But God stands above the circle of time and perceives it all, in its entirety, all at once and forever.

King David, and some loose ends

If the Daily Office Lectionary were to work straight through the Old Testament books, today would have been the second chapter of I Kings: chapter one was yesterday, chapter three is tomorrow. And chapter two is omitted, excepting the first four verses.

Longtime readers of the Music Box know that I love these untidy bits of Holy Scripture that the framers of the Lectionary thought it better to skip. Some of them would be boring as a spoken lesson in public liturgy (e.g., most of Leviticus, especially the details of the sacrifices and offerings, and the diagnosis of leprosy). Some of them would seem redundant, such as I and II Chronicles. I would submit that when the Scriptures see fit to repeat something, especially when there are differences in detail, it is not without reason (e.g., the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Some do not fit comfortably with modern liberal theology (e.g., Romans 1:26-27).

And some reflect badly on people, describing aspects of them that we would prefer to overlook. The second chapter of I Kings is one of these. “Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son, saying...” (v. 1). David tells Solomon to see to it that some old scores are settled, and in such a manner that David will be guiltless, or at least appear so. (Any parallel with the death of Uriah the Hittite is purely a coincidence.)

The most troubling to me is David's instructions to see that Joab the son of Zeruiah (v. 5-6, and 28-34), who has been the captain of David's host all these many years, through good times and bad, does "not go down to the grave in peace" (v.6). There were many occasions when Joab's plain-spoken wisdom bailed David out (e.g., II Samuel 19:1-8, following the death of Absalom). David lists some reasons why Joab should die, but it seems thoroughly ungrateful to treat his friend this way – and worse, to not do the deed himself, but to leave it to Solomon so that he himself can remain guiltless.

Uh... is this the same David who wrote Psalm 23? And Psalm 51?

Yes, it is. And I believe that is the point, or one of the points. It would have been easy for those who brought the Books of the Kings into the form in which we have them (much of it perhaps in the time of Hezekiah, and some of it doubtless during or after the Exile) to gloss over these bits, just as the lectionary people have done in our time. But, guided (I believe) by the Holy Spirit, they felt it necessary to tell the truth. David was indeed capable of singing Psalm 23. He was able to dance before the LORD with all his might in utter abandonment to praise and adoration (II Samuel 6:12-16). He had the insight to be one of the greatest of Prophets as well as King, by writing Psalm 22 and many others about the Messiah who was to come – and it was he to whom God first made that promise explicit (II Samuel 7:1-17). And this same David was capable of doing some thoroughly horrible things.

And so are we.

I finish with two thoughts. I honor Joab the son of Zeruiah, as I have said. He is one of the heroes of the story, a thoroughly brave and loyal man of valor. And he died well. Knowing that Solomon was out to get him, he went to the Altar of God and took hold of it. At first, Solomon's hit-man, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada – who had been one of David's forty men of might (II Samuel 23:20-23), fighting alongside Joab for all these years – refused to obey his orders; he went back to Solomon, who told him to go ahead, even with Joab holding on to the horns of the Altar.

The people of that time viewed the Altar and the Holy Place as safe spaces – as we hope our churches are to this day. But I think that Joab did this just as much out of faith – if he was to die, he was going to do so while hanging on to his Lord with all his might. “And he was buried in his own house in the wilderness” (v. 34). I like that – Joab was the sort of man who would have wanted a house in the wilderness. Not Jerusalem; the wilderness. Out there where he could be on his own, and at peace.

And the second thought: This same David, whom our Lord was not ashamed to claim as ancestor, was “a man after God's own heart” (I Samuel 13:14, cf 16:7-13). In the modern synagogues, one can find the inscription: Know before whom you stand. More than almost anyone who has ever lived, David knew. Even when (and perhaps especially when) he didn't get it right, he knew.

Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God [that is, I think, David knew that he had not always been just and how unworthy he was of the promises of God]; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire... (II Samuel 23:1-5, with my comment in italics, and emphasis at the end)

The Last Words of David, by Randall Thompson

There are many performances of this on YouTube; this one is very fine, and not viewed so many times as some of the others. By the Florida All-State Choir and Orchestra in 2011, it has the energy and commitment that high school singers can often bring to their work – and that us older musicians would do well to emulate.

Lamentations: the mystery of Providence

Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. (St. John 2:18-19)

In the Daily Office, we have been reading the first chapters of the Second Book of Moses, and for Holy Week we turn to the Lamentations of Jeremiah. In their different ways, both are examples of the Hand of God at work in the course of history. Indeed, much of the Old Testament can be read as an exploration of Divine Providence in the details of history.

I have heard clergy, including some whom I respect, scoff at the idea of God “micro-managing” the universe. They scoff at the simple folk who often attribute the small doings and events of their lives to God's direct intervention (as I do, though I have learned to keep such thoughts to myself in the place where I work). They apply this especially to circumstances where (for example) someone has suffered an accident or tragedy, or a natural disaster has struck. The clergy of whom I am thinking would say that the idea of God “willing” suffering or injustice or tragedy on someone is preposterous.

I am not so sure.

Jeremiah struggles with this in the Lamentations. He describes what has happened to the Daughter of Zion, and cries out to God: “Why????”, even though he knows very well why. He has delivered the word of the LORD to the people from his youth and they have steadfastly refused to listen, in the end throwing him into a pit to die. He concludes with these verses (5:19-22), leaving the question open:

Thou,O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned;
renew our days as of old.
But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

I am inclined to side with Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, of blessed memory. Staunch Calvinist that he was, he attributed his successes on the battlefields of Virginia to the “gracious hand of Divine Providence.” But he also freely acknowledged the hand of Providence when it was seemingly against him – most of all in his friendly-fire injury at Chancellorsville, which resulted in his death. At the distance of almost one hundred fifty years, one can to a small extent guess at the workings of Providence: had Jackson been on the field at Gettysburg later that summer, his army corps would almost certainly have driven the Federals from Cemetery Hill behind the town on the first day of the battle before they could dig in, sealing a victory. At that moment, there sat on Lord Palmerston's desk at Ten Downing Street a bill that would formally recognize the Confederate States of America. Palmerston was sympathetic to the Southern cause and had expressed the opinion that an independent Confederacy “would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures.” He was awaiting news from Gettysburg. Should the Confederates win a victory, he would proceed, and Great Britain would enter the war on the Southern side.

But Jackson was not at Gettysburg. Was his injury and death a random chance of war, or was it in some manner Divine Providence, or “God's will?”

The most obvious and central example of Divine Providence stands before us in the next week, and is indeed at the center of the universe: the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The liberal theologians teach that (a) the Passion accounts as recorded in the Four Gospels are pious fictions with no relationship to what actually happened, and (b) “Rabbi” Jesus died on the cross, crushed by the Romans, and that was that. They delight in pointing to the short ending of Mark's Gospel, wherein (as they emphasize) there are no encounters with a risen Lord. None. Just a handful of women, running in terror from an imagined vision of angels. Naturally, they view this as the most authentic account of the so-called “resurrection.”

This fits nicely with the notion that our Lord's betrayal and death were, in essence, unfortunate accidents. It does not, however, fit at all with his teachings:

And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. (St. Mark 8:31-32)

Divine Providence immediately raises the related question of Free Will. This, too, has its clearest answer in the events of the Passion: “Not my will, but thine be done.” The workings of Providence are most fully evident when our wills are fully aligned with God's. Very often, our wills are not so aligned; we insist on having it our own way. But the hand of Providence cannot be thwarted. If we refuse to do our part in furthering the Lord's will, he will get it done in another way.

Jeremiah weeps and we weep with him, because—if we are thoughtful and perceptive—we can see all of Jewish history in the dirges of Eichah [Lamentations]. This is the challenge of Tishah B'Av: [the day on which both the First and Second Temples were destroyed, also the day when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492] Can we realize that it is not merely a day of tears, but of challenge and hope? [from the Artscroll Chumash, footnote on p. 1274]

Returning to the example of the War Between the States, it seems clear that it was no more God's will that a whole race of people be enslaved than it was that (for example) Jerusalem be levelled to the ground, with its children within it (St. Luke 19:41-44), or Jerusalem's children of a later generation be slaughtered in the camps of the Holocaust. Both are cases where a great many people persisted over long spans of time in insisting on their own way, leading to vast suffering. And yet... in the end, God's will cannot be thwarted. Chattel slavery in the U.S. came to an end as one of the results of that war; the demonic regime of Nazi Germany likewise came to an end, and Hitler's goal of a “final solution” failed. Another hand was at work in this, beyond the workings of Churchill and Stalin and Roosevelt and their armies.

Unless we are to abandon the conception of Providence altogether.... all events are equally providential. If God directs the course of events at all then he directs the movement of every atom at every moment; “not one sparrow falls to the ground” without that direction... This may sound excessive, but in reality we are attributing to the Omniscient only an infinitely superior degree of the same kind of skill which a mere human novelist exercises daily in constructing his plot... (C. S. Lewis: “Miracles,” pp. 174-5, quoted in “The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind 'The Lord of the Rings'”, by Peter J. Kreeft, pp. 60-61)

Providence extends well beyond the “important” events of the wide sweep of history, as described by Lewis in the extract above, and as one sees fictionally in Tolkien's novel, the most beautiful depiction of the workings of Providence that I know. If we accept the concept of Providence at all, it must extend to all events, down to the tiniest. Does this overturn the laws of Nature? Of course not; it is by the very laws of Nature that Divine Providence normally works. Without Providence, there would be no laws of Nature.

One of the great Names of God is El Shaddai, generally translated as “Almighty God.” “All-sufficient God” would be another rendering. Or “the God who can and will do whatever it takes.” When He first revealed Himself by this Name “when Abram was ninety years old and nine,” he said:

I am the Almighty God [El Shaddai]; walk before me, and be thou perfect. (Genesis 17:1)

It is in this way, by walking before God (that is, in awareness of God's presence with us and in constant companionship with him in prayer, song, life, and work – and the bearing of one's cross) and thus being “perfect,” that we align ourselves with the Divine Providence. Jesus expressed it very simply: he said “Come, follow me.” And when we do so, we find with St. Paul that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). We find as well that what had seemed chance was not that at all, but was part of the Story from the beginning: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (8:29)

This is the God of Divine Providence, the Author whose Story is most decidedly going to come to the eucatastrophe, the “happy ending,” that he foresaw before the foundation of the world.

St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

I do not have time to write at length about St. Matthew, whose feast is today. Instead, I will but mention my favorite passages from his Gospel:

Chapter 1: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The wording of this first verse echoes the great histories and lineages of the First Book of Moses: Gen. 5:1 - “This is the book of the generations of Adam...”; 10:1 - “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah...”; 25:19 - “And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham begat Isaac.” [What a remarkable “book of generations” that is: just that one verse, that one son of promise]; 36:1 - “Now these are the generations of Easu, who is Edom...”; 37:2 - “These are the generations of Jacob.” As if it were not enough to establish Jesus Christ as “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” heir to the promises given to these two friends of God, and legal heir of the throne of David (by the royal lineage, unlike St. Luke's genealogy), we have the second half of the chapter: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise...” It is brief, only seven verses (plus the subsequent action in Chapter 2), and magnificent.

The Sermon on the Mount (Chapters 5-7): This is, perhaps, the “stump speech” of our Lord, reflective of his teachings in village after village. There is nothing better to say about it than what St. Matthew writes at the end: “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these saying, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (7:28-29)

The Parables (Chapter 13): When I was twelve years old, my neighbor friends Keith and Darrell drug me along to the Vacation Bible School at their church. The school that week was based on the parables (these, plus the Good Samaritan from St. Luke). I had never heard anything like this, and by the grace of God these parables brought me to repentance and conversion, with baptism following a few weeks later. “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” As the years have passed, these little stories have taken on increasingly great meaning for me, and are windows into the kingdom, awakening the holy desire for its fulfillment. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

More Parables (Chapter 25): These are more frightening, in their warnings to “Watch... for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (v. 13). I have special affection for the first of these parables because of the hymn Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.

The end of the Sabbath (Chapter 28): This passage is appointed as the Gospel for the Great Vigil of Easter. I look forward each year to its majesty as the fitting climax to that greatest of all liturgies, as well as the final word of promise:

“... and lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

The Collect of the Day:

We thank thee, heavenly Father, for the witness of thine apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of thy Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Afterword:

I would be remiss were I to overlook the St. Matthew Passion setting by J. S. Bach. As I grow older, I have more of a love for the St. John Passion, especially its final sections, but my astonishment at the St. Matthew Passion is greater, especially in the use of the Passion Chorale and other chorales, always at precisely the right moment in the story, and most of all in the opening, Kommt, ihr Töchter, for triple chorus. Even by Bach's standards, it would be hard to name any passage more astonishing than this.

Preaching, and the "Quartet for the End of Time"

Our church has hosted a Chamber Music Festival this weekend: three days, three concerts. I wish I could write at length about them, but (for once) I am speechless.

The best I can do is one tangential thought, stemming from their performance of the Quartet for the End of Time (O. Messiaen). It is based on a passage from the Revelation of St. John the Divine:

And I saw another mighty angel, come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was at it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heave, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer... (10:1-6)

The Quartet is about an hour's music on this vision, with movement titles such as “Liturgy of crystal,” and “Abyss of birds,” and “Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets,” and “Praise to the immortality of Jesus.”

Those who preach tend to avoid the Revelation of St. John. Many in the liberal denominations such as my own seem embarrassed by it. At best, they dismiss it, as one liberal preacher did in my hearing, as a text that used the medium of apocalypse to give hope to communities oppressed by persecution, with the subtext that it has no meaning whatsoever for us, two thousand years later. The judgmental aspects are, of course, to be ignored, for “God is love” and would never pour out his wrath on the world in the manner described at length in the book.

Preaching fails with this book because it is, at its heart, mystical vision. Words, other than the direct and plain words of the text itself, fail to convey what is of significance. It may be that Music is the best form for exegesis of this great and wonderful document. Three examples come to mind, beginning with the Messiaen Quartet:

-- The final choruses of Messiah, from “Worthy is the Lamb” through the Amen (G. F. Handel: Revelation 5:12-14)
-- Quartet for the End of Time (Revelation 10:1-6)
-- “And I saw a new heaven” (Edgar Bainton: Revelation 21:1-4)

What better exegesis of these passages could there be?

The Book of Ruth

This Book appears in the Daily Office Lectionary in Year One during the week of Epiphany VII in which we currently stand. Epiphany VII (and VIII) occur only when Easter is quite late; this is the first time since 2006 that we have gone so deep into the Sundays after Epiphany. But that was Year Two of the Lectionary, wherein we would be reading from the Book of Proverbs this week. For Year One, the most recent time when Easter was this late was 2003 (BCP p. 879 and following, “Tables for Finding Holy Days,” mostly p. 882-3).

When Easter is early, the Lectionary uses more of the low-numbered Propers (BCP p. 966). The Book of Ruth is here also in Year One at Proper 2 (the Sunday closest to May 18). To get to this, Easter can be no later than April 2. In Year One, that last happened in 2005, and we will get it again in the next cycle, when Easter Day of 2013 falls on March 31. After that, it is another six years – until 2019 - before we get the Book of Ruth either after Epiphany or after Pentecost.

(Getting to the weekdays of Epiphany VIII, as we will this year, is even more unlikely; in Year One, that last happened in 1905. But I digress.)

All this is to say that we are not often granted the privilege of reading the Book of Ruth in the Daily Office. It indicates that the framers of the Lectionary considered this book to be filler, something to be relegated to a little-used corner of the calendar. It is a beautiful story, in its way important to the larger Story, and deserves better.

In the old days, I occasionally accompanied wedding soloists in various settings of Ruth 1:16. I always found it strange to have this text, addressed to one's mother-in-law, sung at a wedding. But it is, nonetheless, as beautiful as any verse in the Old Testament:

“Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

It is because of the stubborn devotion of “Ruth the Moabitess” (2:2) to her mother-in-law Naomi, expressed in this text, that she becomes part of the Story, ultimately an ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David her grandson.

Ruth's response, once she realizes that this is so, is a reminder to all of us Gentile Christians – like Ruth, “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). We have no claim upon God, and it is only by grace that we are saved:

“Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto [Boaz], Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?” (2:10)

And it was a reminder to the Children of Israel that the promises of God extended beyond them to the uttermost ends of the earth, including even their enemies (as the Book of Jonah makes abundantly clear).

May it be a reminder to us as well. There are more sheep in the care of our Shepherd than we might think (St. John 10:16). When we are finally brought home into the fold, all of us from every corner of God's creation, I am certain that we will be surprised at the extent of God's grace and mercy. Not least, I am and will always be surprised that it has extended even to me.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
the Rose I have in mind,
with Mary we behold it,
the Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love aright,
she bore to us a Savior,
when half-spent was the night.

By long tradition, Holy Mother Church has read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah during Advent and Christmas. St. Thomas Cranmer refers to this in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), noting that in the pre-reformation liturgy “the book of Isaiah was begun in Advent,” but “never read through.” Neither do we still read it through, though we do a better job of it with the three-year Eucharistic Lectionary and the Daily Office Lectionary than we used to. In this last, we have encountered passages from the first part of Isaiah during Advent and the days following Christmas Day, and will go straight through from Chapter 40 to the end over a six-week period after the Epiphany.

It is well that we read from Isaiah when we want to learn about the Incarnation. Of all the prophets, he (along with the Psalmist) foresaw most clearly the coming of the Messiah, as “God-with-us” and as the Suffering Servant.

The Book of Isaiah is long and complex. Scholars have suspected for a long time that not all of it was written by Isaiah, son of Amoz, writing from slightly before “the year that King Uzziah died” (6:1) on through the reign of Hezekiah. There is a tradition, perhaps alluded to in Hebrews 11:37, that he was sawn asunder by order of Manasseh.

For once, I agree with the scholars: there is a definite stylistic shift at Chapter 40, to say nothing of the shift in focus from Assyria to Babylon. But Jewish and Christian tradition before the nineteenth century assert that the whole book is the work of Isaiah son of Amoz, and it could well be so.

“First Isaiah,” so to speak, is brought to a fitting conclusion by Chapter 35: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them: and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. . . .” There follows an account of the siege of Jerusalem by the army of Sennacherib king of Assyria, Isaiah's role in this, and subsequent events concerning Hezekiah (Chapters 36-39). The link to “Second Isaiah” comes with the visit of emissaries from Babylon in Chapter 39, and Isaiah's prophecy that all that the King had shown them would be carried away to Babylon (39:5-8). I believe that all of this through the end of Chapter 39 was from the hand of the son of Amoz, and there the book ended for several generations.

It seems logical to me that a later writer during the Exile would note Isaiah's prophecy and consider it appropriate to append what we now have as Chapters 40 through 66 as a fleshing-out of what Isaiah foretold. Many (though not all) scholars further divide the book, calling 56-66 “Third Isaiah” and placing it after the Exile.

More than any of the other Prophets, Isaiah offers passages of astounding beauty that can be taken out of their context – as we do in liturgy and song. Many of these passages have been fruitful ground for composers, and some are so thoroughly wedded to their musical settings that we can hardly read them without inwardly singing them -- “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” (40:1), “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed” (40:5), “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd” (40:11) -- to name but three from a single chapter.

One more hymn text, this one from the modern writer Jaroslav J. Vajda, a stanza from a magnificent Christmas hymn, “Where shepherds lately knelt”:

How should I not have known
Isaiah would be there,
his prophecies fulfilled?
With pounding heart, I stare:
a Child, a Son,
the Prince of Peace --
for me.

(copyright 1986 by Jaroslav J. Vajda)

In spirit, we stand at the manger alongside shepherds and magi, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and all that will ever call upon the name of the LORD – indeed, all of creation, for the oxen and asses were there at his side from the beginning and the angels sang in the sky. “Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the LORD when he comes. . . .”

But more than most, Isaiah has given us words to sing to and about this Child.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

St. John, Apostle and Evangelist

This is from the archives of my old LiveJournal, drawn (and slightly adapted) from two postings in December 2008 that mostly dealt with other matters:

The Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John is appointed for the third set of Eucharistic lessons for Christmas, and for the First Sunday after Christmas Day. It is how Christmas appears after long reflection – not the surprise of hearing the song of Angels, or running to the manger, or the darker tales soon to be heard from St. Matthew, but an attempt, long after the fact, to put into words what it all means.

I can imagine St. John, now far advanced in years, struggling to catch in words what the Spirit has shown him as the proper way to begin his account, so unlike the other Gospels that he surely knew: words about the Word, the Logos, the “brightness of (God's) glory, and the express image of his person” as the writer of Hebrews says (1:3), and the manifestation of God's love, as in the Matins lesson for Christmas Day from First John (4:7-16). “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. . . . full of grace and truth.”

It is too good to be true. But it is, nonetheless, true. It, or rather He, is Himself the Truth, come among us.

Since today is his feast day, here is my uneducated layman's theory about the origins of the Gospel according to St. John. I presume that the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles (and, less certainly, the Apocalypse) are by John, son of Zebedee, the “beloved disciple,” and that the Gospel faithfully recounts the historical deeds, “signs,” and teachings of Jesus, as do the synoptic Gospels. Differences in detail between John and the Synoptics do not strike me as problematic; I think the differences are the point of the whole enterprise. I do not see any reason to suppose a different author of the Fourth Gospel, other than the perversity of the modern liberal Biblical scholars (nineteenth century and onwards) who must find a way to deconstruct everything.

St. John was, by tradition, young during the ministry of Jesus. Again by tradition, he lived to a very old age, perhaps in Ephesus. By his last years, the synoptic Gospels were in circulation. I can imagine him reading them, and thinking “Yes. This is all well and good. But what about. . . .” What about the miracle at Cana? The discussion with Nicodemus? That day by the well in Samaria? The raising of Lazarus? Or the Last Supper – they recorded the bare facts, but what about all the things that Jesus said that night? How could they leave that out? And Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning? And that morning when he was on the shore, and said to Peter “Feed my sheep?”

I can imagine all of this nagging at John, year after year, in the way that the Spirit often does with us when we resist doing something that we should. “Maybe I ought to write some of this down,” he thinks. And so, finally, he does. He sees little need to cover the ground that the Synoptics covered, and when he does, he goes out of his way to give it the way he remembers it, especially when it differs from the way they wrote it; he assumes that readers of his account will have theirs at hand, and will gain a fuller understanding of what happened, and what it meant, from the differences in the accounts. He is presenting only enough to help people believe (20:30-31). He is not attempting to tell the complete story; it cannot be done. For, as he says, “there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” (21:25)

An aside: I take the absence of a Johannine account of the Nativity as a support for Luke's account. According to tradition, John shared his household with the one person who knew more about these events than any other, one who had "kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart"(Luke 2:19). If John had reason to think that Luke (or for that matter Matthew) were wrong, he would have probably given his own version, or rather, a version that was more concerned with detail than John 1:1-18. As it stands, his silence on this implies agreement. [If St. John the Divine is the same as the Apostle and Evangelist, one might take Revelation 12 as an account of the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt, as well as a comment on the woman whom he had taken into his household as his mother: "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Verse 4 can easily be compared with Matthew 2:13-18]

As to how all of this results in divinely inspired Holy Scripture, and (apart from its other virtues) a masterpiece of the world's literature from the hand of an uneducated fisher-of-men, I do not know, understand, or dare to conjecture, beyond noting Acts 4:13:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.


I cannot imagine life without the Gospel according to St. John. I can easier imagine life without sun or moon.

Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee. (BCP p. 53)

Today is the final day of the two-year Daily Office Lectionary cycle. Fittingly, we have been reading the final books of the Old Testament: Malachi last week and Zechariah this week. Were it my choice, I would have reversed the two in order to end with the final verses of Malachi:

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:4-6)

Was Malachi moved to write such words, perhaps sensing that this was the end -- there would be no more prophetic writings? They make a stirring conclusion to the Old Testament, and look forward to “Elias, which was for to come” (Matthew 11:14), as well as the “Sun of righteousness, aris[ing] with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2), both of them hundreds of years in the future.

How is one to take the prophetic writings? Our Lord took them seriously, repeatedly applying them to himself. The long tradition of Christian thought from St. Paul and the other apostles right through into the nineteenth century did the same. Modern scholarship is more likely to discount the possibility of any mystical meanings. Everything refers to the contemporary circumstances in which the prophets wrote, whether addressed directly or veiled in symbolic language. Such value as the old prophecies might have is limited to the prophets’ perception of the spiritual issues at stake in their time and place, and potential resonance with later times and places. All supposed references to a future Messiah are, of course, wishful thinking. Or they are propaganda to give hope to an oppressed people, much like (in this view) the Revelation of St. John the Divine. It is all comfortably removed from any serious application to our lives in the twenty-first century, cut asunder from the Gospels, the life of Christ, and the ongoing life of the Church.

Following this approach, our Lord must have been delusional to apply these ancient prophecies to himself -- if he ever did in the first place. Perhaps they were pasted in by the “early Christian communities” who supposedly created the Gospel accounts, choosing fragments of the sayings and actions of “Rabbi Jesus” that suited their immediate purposes and larding them over with pious fabrication.


In the Lectionary, we are given a full reading of Malachi, but only get about half of Zechariah. We spend a week -- this week now concluding -- reading from chapter nine to the end. The first eight chapters are represented by one fragment, Zechariah 1:7-17, appointed for Monday of the week closest to October 26 (Proper 25, Year One). His contemporary Haggai -- whose book is admittedly short -- gets just one day: Sunday of the week just mentioned, 1:1--2:9. [The word of the LORD came to both prophets in the second year of Darius (Haggai 1:1 and Zechariah 1:1). Malachi is probably about two generations later, contemporary with Nehemiah.]

All three of these prophets do indeed speak of their own time. Their pressing concerns are the post-exilic rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, the re-establishment of Levitical and priestly ministry, the support thereof through tithes and offerings, and the spiritual condition of the community: people, priest and Levites all.

But intermingled with all this are statements that must have leaped out to John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus, as they leap out to us two millennia later:

Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. (Zechariah 9:9)

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered... (Zechariah 12:7)

... and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of his covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 3:1)

And there is the recurring image, here in Zechariah as well as the latter part of Ezekiel, and most of all at the end of the Revelation:

And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. (Zechariah 14:8 -- c.f. Ezekiel 47, Revelation 22:1-2)

Doubtless the liberals would say that St. John the Divine’s overactive imagination dredged up these Old Testament passages from his subconscious. I prefer to think that the Author considered it important enough to say three times, in the hand of three different witnesses.

It seems to me that a passage such as Zechariah 9:9 is paradigmatic of how prophecies are fulfilled. When the time is right, something happens in the plain light of day, and those who know the prophecy see it with sudden awareness, an awareness that most often overturns their world: “So that is what he was talking about!”


The book of the prophet Zechariah, especially its first eight chapters, is as much of a mixture of straightforward ethical teaching alongside wild and often incomprehensible visions as one can find in all of Scripture. I love the vision of the angel with the horses “among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom” (1:7-21); the measuring line (chapter 2); Joshua the high priest, who foreshadows the greater High Priest who is to come: “my servant the BRANCH” (3:8); the two olive trees, their branches emptying golden oil directly into the candlestick (chapter 4; c.f. Revelation 11:4); the “flying roll” and two women with “wings like the wings of a stork” in chapter 5, and the four chariots and mountains of brass in chapter 6.

Whew!!!!

I believe that the genuine prophets (for there have ever been many false prophets), the ones whose writings we have in the Old Testament, faithfully presented the word of the LORD as it came to them. It was not simply their imagination, or their clever political and social commentary; it was exactly what they claimed -- the “word of the LORD.” I suspect that some of it was as strange to them as it sometimes seems to us. And I suspect that they knew that there was more to it than what they could comprehend, even as they wrote it, words and visions that would not be clear until some future generation.

And I heard, but understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. (Daniel 12:8-9)

"Ha! Ha!" among the trumpets

[from a sermon by Martin H. Franzmann, preached at Zion Lutheran Church, St. Louis, June 4, 1956. A more complete text can be found in the book Come to the Feast, the collected hymns of Martin Franzmann, edited by Robin A. Leaver: MorningStar Music Publishers, 1994. It is an excellent little book, not least for the four sermons appended to the main text, from which the following quotation is drawn:]

-------

"Nowhere in that jubilant and exuberant book, the Old Testament, is there such an expression of joyful wonder at the creation of God as in the latter chapters of the Book of Job . . . . And in all these chapters, in all these pictures of beings fearfully and wonderfully made, there is nothing quite like the picture of the horse in his strength [Job 39:19-15], the horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, who mocketh at fear, who swalloweth the ground with fear and rage -- 'He saith among the trumpets, 'Ha! Ha!''

"God has made him a horse, a steed of war. He delights in being a horse; he is glad to work like a horse and to fight like a steed of war. He hears the trumpets of war, and he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet; that trumpet is God's call to him to be what God has made him. And he greets that call with an equine Alleluia! He snuffs the air, and stamps the ground, and 'saith among the trumpets, 'Ha! Ha!'"

----------------------------

For several weeks at Matins, we have been reading the Book of Job. I have written of it elsewhere: Some thoughts on the Book of Job. Like Dr. Franzmann, I delight in the latter chapters of the Book, wherein the LORD answers Job "out of the whirlwind" (Job 38:1).

The whirlwind, or tornado as we would call it, is a Force of Nature of the most immense power. That is, possibly, why the author depicted the LORD as speaking from it, calling his listeners (which include us, all these thousands of years later) to account. "Gird up now thy loins like a man: for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." (Job 38:3-4)

When we are tempted to make God into a cosmic teddy bear, all love, cuddly warmth, and forgiveness, which we can set on a shelf to gather dust, bringing Him out when we are feeling lonely or sad, we should remember the LORD speaking out of the whirlwind. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (St. John 3:8).

No hand can thwart the Spirit's intention. That divine intention has, from the foundation of the world, had at its center a Cross, and we are part of it, we who are of the Body of Christ. In our participation in His death upon the Cross, we find the gate of life. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20).

Franzmann again:
"Perhaps you have decided to work like a horse in your ministry. Do so by all means. But do not work like a drudging nag under the lash, or a weary bag of bones under the yoke. We are not under the yoke in our ministry. The necessity which is laid upon us is not that of the yoke and the lash but that of the irresistible call of God's own trumpet."

The Collect for Holy Cross Day, September 14:
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world unto himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

The Book of Judges: God's presence in history

The latter part of Judges, the five chapters from Chapter 17 to the end, is one of the grimmest passages in all of Scripture, containing tales of rape, dismemberment, idolatry, and genocide, and with no visible Hand of God at work.

And that, I think, is the point.

"In those days, there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25)

The implication is that by the time these tales were committed to writing in the form in which we have them, there was a king in Israel. Perhaps they were placed here at the end of the book, out of chronological order [chapters 19-21 are dated by 20:28, when "Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron" was high priest, thus very early in the period], as cautionary tales, describing how bad it can get when, in absence of a king, orderly teaching and enforcement of the law is lacking. The children of Israel in those days had the Law. But they did not follow it. As one learns in the books of the Kings and in the Prophets, the situation did not improve under the monarchy. Someone like Hezekiah would make reforms, and others, like Manasseh, would undo them, leading to ruin.

So, why are these stories here, a part of the larger Story, and (in their way) an important part?

The children of Israel learned that the Hand of God was manifest in history, in the life of families and nations -- in, ultimately, the little decisions, moment by moment, of every person for good or ill, and the ramifications thereof. Sometimes the work of God is blindingly obvious, as in the deliverance from Egypt. But very often, as in these final chapters of Judges, God seems to be absent. Where was God when the children of Dan put the city of Laish to the sword and took it as their own (Chapter 18)? Where was God when the concubine out of Bethlehem-Judah was shoved out the door into a night of horror, and when, as day dawned, she crawled with her last strength to the threshold of the door and died (Chapter 19)?

Where was God during the Armenian Massacre? Or the Holocaust? Or the Soviet Union in the days of Josef Stalin? Or the killing fields of Cambodia? Or Rwanda? Or the Congo and the Sudan? The definitive answer came on a day when it seemed, even to the Son of Man, that God was absent:

"And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him. . . ." (St. Luke 27:33-35a)


In the distant age when "there was no king in Israel," God was manifest in the likes of Ehud, and Deborah, and Jael, and Gideon, and Jephthah, and Samson, and many others, who "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens . . . . They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins: being destitute, afflicted, tormented. . . ." (Hebrews 11:33-34, 37)

It was in the context of chapters 17 through 21 that these women and men of faith lived their lives and did what was right in the sight of the LORD. They were joined by Naomi and Ruth and Boaz, and by Hannah and Samuel, and (perhaps) by righteous Job and his friends. It was a time of anarchy and much violence, but that did not prevent them from living as lights of the world in their generations. It did not prevent God, through them, from influencing the course of history.

Where is God in this Year of Our Lord 2010, when it seems that God is absent from the affairs of men and nations?

"Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now but yours."
(St. Teresa of Avila)

The Proverbs

The Lectionary gave us a taste of the Proverbs last week before moving on to Ecclesiastes. Both are attributed (more or less) to Solomon, son of David, to whom I Kings 4:32 attributes three thousand proverbs. Linguistic reasons make it virtually certain that both books received their final form centuries later. Prov. 25:1, while specifically referring to only a portion of the book, is a likely indicator of how most or all of these two books were written: "These are also proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out." Some of Solomon is likely in the background of the Proverbs, and perhaps much more that got attached to his name in the same way as did the "Psalms of David," or the repertoire of "Gregorian Chant." Many of the proverbs are far too earthy for someone who spent his life in royal luxury. I suspect that they were the folk wisdom, the "old wives' sayings" of the people. It could well be that Solomon had enough sense to recognize this wisdom and collect such sayings, to which collection other sayings accreted in succeeding generations and later editors assembled into what we have; if so, he is to be blessed for it. In any event, both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are treasures.

It is hard to imagine these two books coming from the same person. As if that is not enough, there is the Song of Solomon as well, which seems utterly unlikely for the polygamous king -- more likely is that the first verse "The song of songs, which is Solomon's" is in the sense that it is written/sung for Solomon, not by him. But making the assumption for a moment that Solomon is the source of all three books, what a complex person he must have been! No wonder he fascinated the Queen of Sheba (I Kings 10:1-10, c.f. Matt. 12:42). It is out of fashion to do so, but I readily accept the idea of Solomon as a wise, subtle, complex, and very great individual. And flawed, as Scripture makes abundantly clear.

I wrote elsewhere about Ecclesiastes, in the context of local events of two years ago. As I said there, my personal theory of authorship, completely unsupported by any scholarship, is Hezekiah, also a "son of David, king in Jerusalem" (Eccles. 1:1).

But for now, Proverbs:

The first time that I dipped into the Analects of Confucius, I said to myself "This is like Proverbs!" It is not especially religious; it is much more interested in practical life. It seems to be a jumbled mass of unconnected sayings. And both the Analects and the Proverbs remind us that these little kernals of wisdom are gifts from God, and an indispensable part of the foundation of civil society.

As with the rest of Scripture, application is fraught with peril. How many children have been physically abused because of 23:13-14? "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." On another front, the Proverbs have much that is negative to say about women -- these passages are fascinating if one tries to imagine Solomon writing them. But the "loud and stubborn" woman (7:11), and the "strange" woman (5:3), and the "contentious and angry" woman (21:19) must be balanced against Hagia Sophia: "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars..." (chapter 9). The contrast of the two is doubtless intentional in chapters seven through nine. Finally, there is the crowning glory and conclusion of the book, 31:10-31.

I do not often speak of my wife in these pages, for she would not have it so, but I must record here that when I read of this "virtuous woman" whose "price is far above rubies," I think of my wife, who is all of the things described in this passage. "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all" (31:29).

Lessons from Leviticus: Atonement and Hope

In the Daily Offices, we spent about nine weeks with Genesis. Exodus took about five weeks. Leviticus? Ten days and we are done.

The preacher at Sunday's Evensong addressed this well; she said that Leviticus is probably not anyone's favorite book, and even her Hebrew Study Bible slights it. It is no wonder that the Daily Office gives it scant notice. I understand the reasoning of the framers of the Lectionary; a month or two of the fine points of the Law, read orally in public worship, would be daunting.

As I said recently, everything in Scripture is part of the Story, and none of it can be entirely overlooked without peril. I would compare Leviticus to the Appendices of Lord of the Rings. Many Tolkien fans read the book as far as Sam's return to Bag End and his family, and stop there. They turn the page and see the annals, the tale of years, page after page of family trees from the Shire, calendars, linguistic notes; they move on. A longtime fan who had read the book (but not the appendices) numerous times over several decades once argued with me that the story of Arwen and Aragorn in the movie version was constructed out of whole cloth, right up to her arrival with Elrond at Minas Tirith near the end. "No, it's not," I insisted, and finally dug out my book and showed her the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen in Appendix A.

The story contained in LOTR is comprehensible without the appendices, but much is contained therein that underlies the larger story, and there are moments of surpassing beauty among the mass of detail that reward the reader. So it is with Leviticus in its relation to the Torah, the remainder of the Old Testament, and the larger story of God's mighty acts continued in the New Testament and beyond, into church history, theology, and tradition. It contains much that underlies the rest of the story, and its own moments of surpassing beauty.

The first part of the book is, in essence, a Liturgical Customary. Precisely how were the various offerings to be made? Such details are as much the delight of some as the details of Sindarin are to a certain portion of Tolkien fandom. For a modern equivalent, visit the Customary of one of the great parishes of our denomination, the Church of the Advent in Boston. It outlines their customary procedures for Sundays and major feasts, the duties of each liturgical minister, the work of the Altar Guild, as well as the procedures for extraordinary services such as those of Holy Week. I am adding it to the list in the sidebar of the Music Box as one of the "places I like on the Net" because it is a delight to see how "it ought to be done," at least in that place. But as with much of Leviticus, it is enough to make one's eyes glaze, if such details are not one's interest:
The Customary of the Church of the Advent

"And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying . . ." (Lev. 1:1)

The lasting significance of these opening chapters of Leviticus is that all of it, down to the most minute details of liturgical observance, is the direct word of God. It is not the work of a committee, or an amalgam of what we want as a congregation or larger polity. The clergy and the Levites, right up to Aaron himself, had no say in its composition.

Liturgy -- that is, the manner in which we worship the LORD -- is not something we create. It is a gift. We accept what has come to us through the tradition, or we ought to. One of the evil fruits of the 1960's and 1970's was the wholesale rejection of tradition, in liturgy as in all other areas. Liturgical "creativity" is dangerous, as Nadab and Abihu learned in Chapter Ten. More generally, the priesthood is dangerous, and the Levitical ministry as well. There are times when it all goes horribly wrong, as it did for Aaron and his family in this chapter. But the gifts and call of God are without repentance. There is no turning back from the responsibilities of the priesthood, or the Levitical ministry, including that of church organists and choirmasters, and for that matter choristers, deacons, acolytes, members of the Altar Guild, and others connected with the sacred mysteries. No matter how bad it gets, we must go on.

This is not to say that the liturgy is fixed for all time. It cannot be static if it is to continue as a living thing. The children of Israel had to learn this when the whole system outlined so carefully in Leviticus was swept away:

"Your adversaries roared in your holy place;
they set up their banners as tokens of victory.
They were like men coming up with axes to a grove of trees;
they broke down all your carved work with hatchets and hammers.
They set fire to your holy place;
they defiled the dwelling-place of your Name
and razed it to the ground.
They said to themselves, 'Let us destroy them altogether.'
They burned down all the meeting-places of God in the land." (Psalm 74:4-7)

In Psalm 137, we hear the Levitical musicians. They tried to lay aside their ministry and calling, because they could not see how to continue in it:

"As for our harps, we hung them up
on the trees in the midst of that land.
For those who led us away captive asked us for a song,
and our oppressors called for mirth:
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
How shall we sing the LORD's song
upon an alien soil?"

Yet, they learned that the LORD's song could -- and must -- continue even "by the waters of Babylon," without the proper ministry of priests, without sacrifices and offerings, without any external support. It was there, in exile, that Judaism became something entirely new, a world religion implicitly (and, in Christ, explicitly) open to everyone, of every time and place. By necessity, their manner of worship changed, and this eventually changed their manner of belief. One can see this in the latter part of Isaiah (chapter 40 and onward), and some of the other Prophets.

Liturgy is a living thing, an ancient and gnarled tree. It is not static, but neither is it uprooted by every transient wind of secular culture. As soon as it becomes "free" -- that is, cut off from its roots in the tradition -- it degenerates into the gathered community's worship of itself and its own creativity. Examples abound, then and now. "The people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses . . . we wot not what is become of him." (Exodus 32:1)

In the Anglican tradition, and even more so in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, changes to the liturgy are not entered into lightly, and are never left to the whim of a local priest, congregation, or diocesan bishop, though (in our tradition) he or she is the arbiter, within the limits circumscribed by the mind of the wider church as delineated in the Prayerbook. Unfortunately, I have never heard of an Episcopal clergyperson being disciplined for departure from authorized liturgical forms, and sometimes the bishops are the worst offenders. I wish we were more careful of this.

From the Preface to the First Book of Common Prayer (BCP p. 867):

"[in case of question about liturgical practice] the parties that so doubt, or diversely take any thing, shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same; so that the same order be not contrary to any thing contained in this book." [my emphasis]

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The great theme of Leviticus is Atonement. It is introduced in the first verses; it underlies all that follows.

"And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him." (Lev. 1:4)

The sermon at Evensong mentioned Atonement, as did our Anthem. It is a large word.

I continue to nibble away at the Hebrew tongue. More and more, I am drawn to the "large" words; it seems that Hebrew is filled with them: words that contain realms of thought and idea and passion in concentrated form -- words like "Shalom." To say that it means "peace" is insufficient; it is much more. "Kippur," or "Atonement," is such a word. So is "Kodesh," "Holy." The concordance indicates that both of these words appear more frequently in Leviticus than in any other book of the Old Testament.

From Wikipedia s.v. "Atonement in Christianity" (and other sources, including the Evensong sermon):
"The word 'atonement' was invented in the sixteenth century by William Tyndale who recognized that there was not a direct English translation of the biblical Hebraic concept [Kippur]. The word is composed of two parts 'at' and 'onement' in order to reflect the dual aspect of Christ's sacrifice: the remission of sin and reconciliation of man to God. Tyndale's concept overcomes the limitations of the word 'reconciliation' whilst incorporating aspects of propitiation and forgiveness."

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Not much happens in Leviticus. There are only two bits of narrative: Chapter Ten (already mentioned), and 24:10-23, which is the first example of putting the Law into practice. Both of these are ugly stories. If I were writing the book, I would leave them out; when I read the book, they are parts that I would prefer to skip. But there they are, and they (especially Chapter Ten) are the keys to the book. [Edit: see the first comment]

The story of Nadab and Abihu in Chapter Ten and what ensues, especially 10:10-11 ("And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between clean and unclean. . . ."), is the gate into the remainder of Leviticus, wherein these matters are expounded at length. Hidden among the dietary laws, additional details of liturgical customary, a calendar of the liturgical year (Chapter 23), the regulations concerning leprosy, an equivalent in Chapter 18 to the 1662 Prayerbook's "Table of Kindred and Affinity", and many other matters are passages whose place in the Story was not to be fully comprehensible until much later. Among my favorites:

Chapter 12: concerning what in our tradition would be called the "Churching of Women," wherein the Father makes specific provision for his own Son and his Mother, thousands of years in the future, along with all others who share their poverty: "And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons. . . ." (12:8, and St. Luke 2:22-39)

Chapter 16: the Customary for the Day of Atonement, filled with foreshadowings of the Cross, and the basis underlying much of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This chapter is perhaps the most important of the book. The two narrative passages of Leviticus both point to the need for it, and in one way or another all of the various "statutes and judgments and laws" (26:46) work at this problem. God says "Ye shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (19:2), and our Lord reiterates it in the Sermon on the Mount: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" (St. Matt. 5:48), but we are unable to live up to it. Leviticus leaves us the question: how then can we be saved?

"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts 2:37-38)

Chapter 25: the Seventh Year, and the Year of Jubilee, which have provided eschatological hope to oppressed and suffering people through all of time. It is significant that the trumpet -- a foreshadowing of what St. Paul describes in I Thess. 4:16-18 -- is blown to "proclaim liberty throughout all the land" (25:10) on the Day of Atonement, for our only hope, our only deliverance, is through the Cross. O Crux, ave, spes unica. It is significant also that these provision of the Law were disregarded more than they were observed; they remain a hope yet to be fulfilled. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Hebr. 4:9). Charles Wesley wrote a good hymn about this: "Blow ye the trumpet, blow!"

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This brings us to the Eucharist, the sign of Hope and the ultimate End of the Sabbath, that which every earthly Sabbath and Jubilee foreshadows. Last Sunday morning, we sang Edgar Bainton's magnificent setting of Rev. 21:1-4, appointed as the Second Lesson of the Eucharist:

"And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

It is the peculiar province of Music to remind us of these things, and the higher province still of Baptism and the Blessed Sacrament to be sign and seal of these things. Tolkien again -- from the Appendices, no less -- "Behold! we are not bound to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory." The day will come when at last we shall be the "holy city, new Jerusalem," even now through our tears and struggles and faltering efforts being "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

Torah, American government, and me

In the Daily Offices, we began the Torah on the First Sunday after the Epiphany: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. . . ." By design, we came to the first part of Exodus in the final weeks of Lent, with the plagues upon Egypt. On Easter Day, the first lesson at Matins was Exodus 12:1-14: "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. . . ."

This week, we have come to Sinai. Yesterday, we read of one of the pivotal moments in all of human history: "And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. . . ." After this most exalted chapter, the twentieth of Exodus, the Lectionary skips ahead to chapter 24. By doing so, something important is missed.

I have voiced my opinion of the omission of parts of the Story in other places. It all matters, even the parts that do not apply directly to us who live not by law, but by grace. I make it a point to read all that is skipped, mostly on the bus commuting to and from work.

Why does it matter that God goes straight from the Ten Commandments to all this business about oxen, and pierced ears, and what happens if your sheep gets into your neighbor's field and eats his wheat? It matters because the Law of God must immediately lead to very specific acts of righteousness in the most ordinary affairs of daily life, personally and as a community. If it does not, we have missed the point of it.

This does not mean that we should enact a Judeo-Christian version of Sharia Law, wherein a statement such as "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (22:18) leads to women being judicially executed by a Christian community simply because they are eccentric. Many would argue that "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (21:24) is not the best way for a modern community to administer justice. Many other judgments, and many of the dietary regulations that soon follow, are more suitable to an ancient agricultural community than to ours.

But these matters must not be entirely glossed over. The community must somehow administer justice if it is to survive -- and, I think, it must do so in order to be pleasing to God. The Law of God as expressed in the Torah is one of the foundations making possible any community that amounts to more than "might makes right." The Torah ought to remain the standard by which any other system of jurisprudence or ethical teaching is evaluated.

In the United States, and especially in the South, activists periodically try to erect the Ten Commandments on courthouse lawns, where they used to be in many cases before "godless liberal judges" ordered their removal on grounds of separation of church and state. In this matter, I stand with the right-wing activists, adding that if the non-Christians of the community want to erect statements of their moral values beside the Commandments, that would be all the more excellent. I would love for our county courthouse to have a granite monument on its lawn graven with the Ten Commandments, another with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, another with an appropriate passage from the Koran, others with principles from Confucius and from the long wisdom of the Hindus, others offered by every branch of our community. We need such reminders that Law is more than just Expediency.

And we need reminders that Law must always protect the weak from the strong. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child" (22:21-22).

It is manifest that American jurisprudence and government do not measure up very well to these standards. It is not so much "might makes right" these days as it is that "money talks." When the big banks can spend $1 million a day to influence about five hundred people in Congress to ensure that they can continue to cheat the poor out of their retirement savings, when there is a straight path from Wall Street to the Cabinet and other positions among the president's close advisors, when Big Pharma and Blue Cross-Blue Shield managed to get more from the health care reform than common people, we are falling short.

But the Law of God does not leave room for righteous indignation, for it is equally manifest that I, personally, do not measure up to these standards, nor does any son of Eve or daughter of Adam, save one. This is one of the key lessons that must be learned from the Torah: we cannot live up to it. It is a clear teaching of St. Paul, but it is equally clear in the Psalms and Prophets:

"Every one has proved faithless;
all alike have turned bad;
there is none who does good; no, not one." (Psalm 14:3)

The answer to this dilemma is stated in today's Epistle, among many other places, where St. Paul writes:

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." (Colossians 2:13-14).