September 4, 2011

An old legend relates that long ago God had a great many burdens which He wished to have carried from one place to another, so He asked the animals tolend a hand. But all of them began to make excuses for not helping: theelephant was too dignified; the lion, too proud; and so on. Finally thebirds came to God and said, “If you will tie the burdens into small bundles,we’ll be glad to carry them for you. We are small but we would like tohelp.” So God fastened upon the back of each one a small bundle, and theyall set out walking across the plain to their destination. They sang as theywent, and did not seem to feel the weight of their burdens at all. Every daytheir burdens seemed lighter and lighter, until the burdens seemed to belifting the birds, instead of the birds carrying the burdens. When theyarrived at their destination, they discovered that when they removed theirloads, there were wings in their place, wings which enabled them to fly tothe sky and the tree tops.

When God created men and women in His image, He gave them free will, which(unlike animals in the legend) really did give them the choice to carryGod’s burdens or not. The legend conveys a truth, but it is only a legend orparable to help us see God’s plan for us, because for men and women God’sburdens are the burdens they carry for others – the love they show forothers, which lift them into happiness such as they have never known. Cynicsof the Christian religion scoff at such ideas and say that Christians canonly be happy when they die and what they really mean is that they are likethe elephant or the lion; they are too proud and self-centered to carryGod’s burdens. If we look at human history and God’s Divine Providence, wecan see that God in both the Old Testament and the New has, over threethousand years plus been teaching men and women how to become happy bycarrying the burdens of their brothers and sisters.

The Epistle and the Gospel today profoundly link Divine Providence inChrist’s priesthood and Christ’s teaching. St. Paul tells us that Christdied for our inability to carry the burden of our brothers and sisters, butthat he rose from the dead for the purpose of instituting a kingdom of loveand specifically taking Paul of Tarsus who had persecuted the early Churchand turning him into an instrument of Christ’s teaching. And the Gospel isan illustration of that teaching and kingdom: a reminder that humility is adivine form of carrying the burdens of our brothers and sisters that leadsto salvation; happiness now in this life and happiness for eternity. ThoseChristians who do not cultivate humility cannot understand the legend of thebirds; how that by carrying the burdens of our brothers and sisters, whichare the burdens of God, we come nearer to God.

They key to the parable was the willing humility and servant hood of thebirds. How that teaching is echoed in the Gospel – for neither thelegend-parable nor the Gospel go out of date. My favorite version goes likethis: two Episcopalians went up to the altar to pray. The first, a threetime church warden and tither of twenty years, stood and prayed thus withhimself, “Lord, I thank thee, that I am not as other people are, uninvolvedin parish life, leading questionable moral lives or just too cheap to giveof their time, treasure and talent – or even as that lazy, sluggard in theback of the church. The other, who hadn’t seen the inside of the churchsince two years ago last Christmas but had just been diagnosed with cancer,now knelt in the back of the church. He was insecure and afraid. He wouldn’teven look up to heaven but smote upon his breast, saying, “God, be mercifulto me a sinner.”

My dear friends, let me finish by spelling out God’s burden. The sick,frightened sluggard – on the surface of things – was not as worthy as thestalwart of the Church. His illness, his fear had brought him back, and heprobably did not fully understand how God uses illness to bring his childrenhome. Yet he – in his humility – would be saved in spite of hisimperfections. But the loyal son of the Church, like the elder brother instory of the prodigal Son, was in deep spiritual trouble because he had nohumility and judged his weaker brother callously. His happiness was in hisimagined righteousness not in his compassion for his weaker brother. But weneed to understand that God works in mysterious ways to bring the sluggardshome and the proud to the happiness of humility: for every one that exaltethhimself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

This is my first (and I hope not my last) open letter or newsletter to you.

Two weeks ago, I thought it might be fun if we had a lunch together. I am not sure what is being planned about lunch but I want to have (after the Eucharist – in the church – in place of a sermon) an informal parish meeting to let you know the state of our parish and for us – as a church family – to answer questions, share our feelings and plan for the future. I sincerely hope that, even if you can’t make it to lunch, you will make a special effort to come to church this Sunday for our meeting.

Looking into the future, I hope you will all plan to come to All Saints’ Day Mass on November 1 at 7:00 p.m and be present to greet Archbishop Provence when he comes for his official visit on November 20th, the Sunday next before Advent. I would like to have lessons and carols this year and talk about planning a Christmas Mass most convenient for all – Christmas Day falls on Sunday which always causes scheduling problems even in a single parish.

Since I won’t be preaching on Sunday, I have sent a Trinity XI sermon for your perusal.

Yours faithfully in our Blessed Lord,

Donald M. Ashman+

I have a love/hate relationship with watches.  One the one hand, I love watches because they accurately tell the time.  On the other hand, I hate knowing the time because I find it oppressive, mainly because time reminds me of what I should have done, what I am supposed to be doing and what I need to do next.  Furthermore, time seems to be filled with chaos and tragedy.  Every second, minute and hour of the day we are reminded that of the tragedy and misery of life; that life is chaotically spinning out of control.  The timeless, eternal songs of triumph we sang on Easter, “Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!” has become a song of despondency:

I could hear the church bells ringing                                      
they pealed aloud your praise …
[But] I could not find you anywhere
could someone please tell me the story
of sinners ransomed from the fall
I still have never seen you, and some days
I don’t love you at all[1]

Where is hope of Easter on the morning after?  Where is the vitality of the resurrection?  What does Jesus’ resurrection mean for us who seem trapped by our watches, watches that remind us of the hour of sin, the minute of temptation and the second of death? 

What is the difference between a consultant, a lawyer and a theologian? A consultant borrows your watch and tells you the time. A lawyer borrows your watch, tells you the time, and keeps the watch as part payment of the fee. A theologian tells you the time, and suggests you adjust your watch.[2] It is my duty to tell you to adjust your watch because Jesus’ resurrection has stopped the ebb and flow of time.  Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the new world or as Scripture spoke of it, the Age to Come. The Age to Come, the age in which we live, has many different names in Scripture, some of which are: the last days, the reign of God (Isa 52:7), the new heavens and earth (Isa 65:17), the covenant of peace (Eze 34:25), and the new covenant (Jer. 31:31).  To understand the meaning of the Age to Come, the age in which we live, and these other terms, we must look at something called eschatology.  Eschatology is a fancy word meaning “the study of the last things.”  The Old Testament writers believed that there were two stages of history, the present age and the age to come.  They believed that they were living in the present age, an age dominated by Israel’s sin, rebellion and ultimately Israel’s exile.  Israel’s exile occurred in two stages.  The first stage occurred when the Assyrians defeated the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 bc and the second stage occurred when the Babylonians defeated the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 bc. Before and during Israel’s exile, God’s prophets spoke of the Age to Come, the age when God would restore Israel to her land and bestow upon Israel great blessings such as peace, prosperity and world domination.[3]  Furthermore, the prophets foretold that the Age to come would be inaugurated by the messiah.  Finally, the Age to Come would officially begin when God acted to resurrect his people.  Interestingly, belief in the resurrection was bound up with justice.  In the present age, justice is illusive thus for God to be just, He must resurrect all people to justly punish his enemies and reward His people.  The three things we should remember are 1) when the Age to Come arrived, Israel’s exile would be ended 2) by her Messiah 3) the sign indicated Messiah’s victory would the resurrection from the dead.  Jesus’ resurrection revealed that the Age to Come had arrived through him because he was Israel’s messiah as demonstrated through his resurrection. The world we imagine, the world we dream of, a world with no famine, no pestilence, no war, no persecution, no hunger, no poverty, no injustice, no earthquakes and no tsunamis is the world of the age to come and this age began when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.  Therefore, since Jesus’ resurrection, time has stopped and timeless eternity has begun. 

However as we know all too well, time has also continued, our watches keep ticking.  There is still famine, there are still wars, people still die of starvation while others die of gluttony, the earth trembles and shakes killing thousands of people and God’s beloved people experience great persecution.  While the Age to Come has arrived with Jesus’ resurrection, we still live in this present age.  This brings us to the eschatology of the New Testament, an eschatology that states we now live in both the present age and the Age to Come.  What God had promised to do at the end of time for all His people, He has done at the middle of time to Jesus.  Thus, as someone has rightly said, “[We live] between the End (Mark One) and the End (Mark two). …We are living in the first days after the great act of God within history to defeat sin and death and liberate the whole cosmos…[and] the last days before the great act of God which will bring to completion that which was begun in Christ.”[4]  We are living in an historical anomaly, a time unforeseen by any prophet, a time when we are both living in this present age and in the age to come, which is to say that we are simultaneously living in the present and the future.  Time has stopped, but our watches still keep ticking.   

What does this mean?  What does it mean to live with one foot in the present and one foot in the future?[5]  The resurrection of Jesus is God’s assurance that the world and our lives in the present are not the chaotic rumblings of chance.  Listen to what N.T. Wright said about Jesus resurrection: [God] has given assurance to all by raising [Jesus] from the dead. The facts about Jesus of Nazareth, and especially about his resurrection from the dead, are the foundation of the assurance that the world is not random. It is not ultimately a chaos; that when we do justice in the present we are not whistling in the dark, trying to shore up a building that will ultimately collapse,… When God raised Jesus from the dead, that was the microcosmic event in which the ultimate macrocosmic act of judgment was contained in a nutshell, as a seed, the seed, of the ultimate hope. God declared, in the most powerful way imaginable, that Jesus of Nazareth really was the Messiah, the shoot from the stump of Jesse, the one upon whom rested the spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord. In the greatest irony of history, he himself underwent cruel and unjust judgment, coming to the place which symbolized and drew together all the myriad cruelties and injustices of history, to bear that chaos, that darkness, that cruelty, that injustice, in himself, and to exhaust its power.”[6]  The powers of this world, the powers that rage around us, have been defeated by Jesus because he fought them till death on Good Friday, he exhausted their power on Holy Saturday and on Easter Sunday he permanently defeated them by rising from the dead.  The chaos, despair, cruelty and injustice we both experience and to often perpetuate, are the last desperate attacks of an enemy who has been caged and defeated.  That is why Peter (I Peter 1:6), James (James 1:1, 2) and Paul (Romans 5:1-5) exhort Christians to rejoice at their sufferings and trials and consider them joyful because they are not permanent, they are the last gasps of a dying dragon.  Jesus’ resurrection has inaugurated the Age to Come and all history is now purposely moving toward that end.  What God the Father began at Jesus’ resurrection he will one day accomplish not just in our bodies but also in the cosmos.  Therefore, time has indeed stopped and the hour, minute and second hand simultaneously point back to the Jesus’ resurrection and forward to what God will one day finish.  It is time for us to adjust our watches.

On November 1^st, All Saints Day, our parish will be moving to the chapel at Bishop Garcia Diego High School. Our service will now start in the morning at 10:30am. This move will be celebrated with bagpipe processional and recessional. There will also be a lunch afterwards.

The new location is just across the freeway from the old Modoc address, off the State Street / Highway 154 exit.

Directions and Map

From 101 south, take the State Street / 154 exit, go straight through the intersection across State Street, and then turn right on Pesetas Ln which ends with a T intersetion at Bishop Garcia Diego.

From 101 north, take the State Street / Highway 154 exit. Turn left onto State Street, then left again onto Highway 154 at the stoplight. Immediately after crossing the freeway, turn right onto Calle Real at the stoplight. Then turn left onto on Pesetas Ln which ends with a T intersetion at Bishop Garcia Diego.