First Blessings

Albert Einstein was well known for his use of the gedankenexperiment, an imaginative exploration of a scenario beyond his direct experience — a scientific game of “what if.” What if I could ride along on a beam of light? was a childhood question that never left him and that prompted an adult gedankenexperiment that led finally to his development of the general theory of relativity.

I have been grappling with a spiritual gedankenexperiment of my own for the past few days. What if I were the rector of an ACNA parish in Minneapolis, a parish that included law enforcement agents and immigrants, Republicans and Democrats, and a host of people struggling to be faithful to Jesus in the midst of a tense, difficult, and deadly situation? What pastoral counsel would I give them?

This is strictly hypothetical, a true gedankenexperiment. First, I doubt that such a parish exists. I do not know that the spirit of Antioch is alive and well in American churches: Jew and gentile, slave and free, rich and poor all made one by Jesus and feasting at the same Table. It seems to me that we are more nearly like the churches in Galatia or in Corinth. Second, I am not a rector, and I cannot imagine the stress of that calling. Third, I do not live in Minneapolis, so I have no primary source material with which to frame my answers, only the secondary and highly biased reports of media, political pundits, and the various administration spokespeople at both the city, state, and national levels. All these difficulties notwithstanding, what might I say to the parish?

It would be important to avoid my own biases by grounding my counsel firmly in Scripture and the Tradition. I might start here:

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed (Rom 13:1-7, ESV throughout).

God is not the author of chaos, but of order; thus anarchy — the open disobedience to, defiance of, and interference with the exercise of just law — is simply not an option for Christians. If an officer — or an ICE agent — is properly executing a legal mandate, no Christian citizen should interfere with that officer or hamper him/her in the exercise of his/her duty.

But, I would lay alongside that text another one from St. Paul.

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him (Eph 6:1-9).

Though this is couched in terms of fathers/children and masters/bondservants (slaves), the greater dynamic at play is authority/power and subservience/weakness. Those, like children or bondservants, who are under the care and authority of others — parents and masters — should honor those in authority. But — and this is essential — the responsibilities are not unidirectional. The ones in authority must exercise Godly discipline, must not provoke those under them to anger, must act in accordance with the will of God, and must not threaten. So, Christian officers of the law, while exercising valid enforcement measures, must do so in a Godly manner, without provocation, without threatening. In modern parlance, an officer must attempt to de-escalate tense situations and resort to force only as an unavoidable last resort and to the least effective extent.

I would add to these texts the image of a righteous king from the Psalms.

1 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!

2 May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!

3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!

4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the children of the needy,
and crush the oppressor!

12 For he delivers the needy when he calls,
the poor and him who has no helper.

13 He has pity on the weak and the needy,
and saves the lives of the needy.

14 From oppression and violence he redeems their life,
and precious is their blood in his sight (Ps 72:1-4, 12-14).

Every Christian politician at every level is accountable to this: justice and mercy and deliverance for the poor, the weak, the needy. I might also add this Psalm, though I could as easily appeal to the Torah (see Deut 10:17-19, for example).

5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,

6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;

7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;

8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.

9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin (Ps 146:5-9).

God watches over the sojourners and expects those who govern in his name to do the same. Vying for political advantage at the expense of the governed is “the way of the wicked” which the Lord will bring to ruin.

Above all — and to all my parishioners — I would point to the words of Jesus.

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mk 12:28-31).

Every Christian, regardless of civic role or social conviction, is accountable to God for love of neighbor. And, please, no quibbling over who is your neighbor. Jesus disallowed that question. The immigrant — with our without papers — the citizen, the protestor, the law enforcement officer, the politician, the pundit — yes, all neighbors. What is the standard of love? Let’s start here, again with Jesus: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12).

Perhaps I would add one more text, if there were anyone left in the pews to hear it. It is long, but must be read in full.

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt 25:31-46).

Reading this, some of the Christians in my hypothetical parish might be compelled to work behind the scenes to provide assistance to those immigrants who are, for example, afraid to leave their houses to go work or to school or to the grocery store. This seems fully in keeping with the Gospel: aid to the least of the brothers of Christ — to Christ himself in their person — while still honoring the rightful execution of justice by the authorities. More directly, it seems consonant with the Gospel for a Christian to feed and clothe and visit an immigrant, legal or illegal, and to stand aside when a law enforcement agent executes a legal arrest warrant. It is also consonant with the Gospel — mandatory, in fact — for the agent to treat the immigrant with the love he himself would desire.

This is the way of the cross: hard, costly. Some concerned citizens with strong social convictions might have to change their public behavior with respect to law enforcement officials, might have to stand down and stop the harassment of those officials who are performing their sworn duty in accordance with law and with love. Some officers and agents might have to stand down from harsh enforcement tactics that provoke anger and present threats, that fail to treat the other as they wish to be treated. Some politicians might have to turn toward the way of righteousness and justice and mercy, and repent of currying the favor of their bases and of stoking division instead of promoting healing. Some media personalities and pundits might have to recommit to truth, or at least to truth-seeking, and forsware the cheap, quick, “gotcha” soundbites. This is the way of the cross: hard, costly.

In this gedankenexperiment, this is what I might say to my hypothetical parish. It is good that I am not a rector.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Feast of St. Agnes, Virgin Martyr
(Song of Songs 2:10-13, Psalm 45, 2 Cor 6:16-18, Matt 18:1-6)

Collect
Almighty and everliving God, who chose what is weak in the world to confound the strong: mercifully grant that we, who celebrate the heavenly birthday of your Martyr Saint Agnes, may follow her constancy in the faith; through Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is the feast day of the Virgin Martyr St. Agnes of Rome, the anniversary of the day on which she was martyred. That statement alone shows how counterintuitive our faith is, if we just recognize that and practice it. A feast on the anniversary of someone’s execution seems a bit odd, doesn’t it? I don’t throw a party each year on the date of my mother’s or father’s death, and people might think it, and me, strange if I did. But each year when 21 January rolls around, the Church has a feast in remembrance of St. Agnes. Of course, the feast is not a party, but the feast of the Eucharist; we feast on the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for whom Agnes — or any of the other martyrs — was willing to die. That is why feasts and martyrs belong together, even though the pairing initially sounds strange.

Today I will tell you the story of St. Agnes in part because it has become like a pebble in my shoe: not something that will cripple me, but an irritant, something uncomfortable. If I can’t get it out, at least I can put that same pebble in your shoes so that we can all limp along together.

Agnes was born in 291, give or take a year, into a wealthy and prominent Roman family. They were Christians and they raised Agnes in the faith, even though it was a difficult and dangerous time to be Christian. Diocletian was the Roman emperor, and his persecution of Christians was the last official one in the empire and the bloodiest of them all. It seemed to escalate around 303 and lasted through 312. Agnes was martyred near the beginning of this purge of Christians, 21 January 304. If you do the math, you will see that Agnes was twelve or thirteen years old when she was executed under the edict of Diocletian. What led to that?

From a young age — remember Agnes died when she was but 12 or 13 — she had determined to devote herself entirely to Jesus, body and soul. She had begun to think of and speak of Jesus as her spouse and was determined to have none other — determined to refuse marriage and to remain a consecrated virgin. That was hardly a viable option for a young girl in her situation; I can’t think of her as a young woman even though the legal minimum age for a Roman female to marry was twelve — fourteen for boys. Marriage had little to do with love or romance and everything to do with social structure: with family and political alliances, with the consolidation of wealth, with producing legitimate heirs. For Agnes, there were many would-be suitors of rank, but she declined them all citing her devotion to Christ. Likely with the attitude of “if I can’t have her nobody will” some of the spurned young men reported Agnes to the authorities as a Christian. One in particular — Procop — brought Agnes before his father, the local governor. The governor gave Agnes the opportunity to deny Christ and encouraged her to do so, but she remained steadfast. She was then taken before the prefect Simpronius who sentenced her to a punishment particularly designed to make her recant; I’ll spare you the details. This is the part of the account where the miracle stories of God’s protection for her begin: glowing radiance, the blinding of enemies, the death of Simpronius’s son and his resurrection following Agnes’s prayer for him. Make of all that what you will. Her story stands with our without the miracles.

Eventually, when these attempted tortures proved ineffective, Agnes was condemned to death. She was to be burned at the stake but, as the story goes in different versions, either the fire would not kindle or else the flames parted around her. Finally, a soldier pierced her throat with a sword and she died: 21 January 304. A few days later, Agnes’s foster sister Emerentiana was found praying at her tomb. After refusing to leave and after reprimanding the officials for executing Agnes, Emerentiana was stoned to death, another martyr in the family story.

I find this tale troublesome on many levels. It stirs uncomfortable questions, not least this one: What could a twelve or thirteen year old girl possibly do that could be seen as so threatening and disruptive to society that the only proper course of action was to coerce her by torture to relent and when that didn’t work, to publicly and brutally execute her? Now, I know that this still goes on; Malala Yousafzai is a modern day example, as are girls around the world who refuse to wear a hijab or who pursue education or who flaunt some other religio-social convention and who pay a high price for doing so. But the question remains. Why is the behavior of a child so threatening?

When I first started teaching over three decades ago, an administrator told me to “catch” a student misbehaving near the beginning of the school year and to really come down hard on that student, to make a harsh example of him/her as a deterrent to other student misbehavior. I never did that and I doubt it would be advised today. But the notion of deterrence is a possible reason for the brutal response to Agnes. One “defiant” young girl is no problem. But what if she serves as an example for others? Soon there are two of them, then four, eight, sixteen; it could get out of hand quickly and marriage and gender roles — pillars of the society — could come toppling down. You dare not let questioning of and opposition to the social norms go unchecked. As Deputy Barney Fife used to say to Sheriff Andy Taylor, “Nip it, Anj. Nip it in the bud.”

I can think of another reason for the city’s response to Agnes, and this one is both religious and political. We in the United States are unusual in our conviction that church and state must be — can be — kept separate. That notion would have been nonsensical in fourth century Rome or in most any other time in any other place. Religion permeated every aspect of life and social order. The gods were everywhere and involved in everything and always ready to take offense. To flaunt the social order then was to disrespect and disregard the gods. And with gods such as Rome had, that was not a good idea: plague, pestilence, famine, natural disasters, war — all these might result when the social mores are challenged, when the gods are ignored. Not only was Agnes a Christian — which meant she refused to worship the traditional gods — now she was refusing the social order that they had ordained. For the safety of the city, for the welfare of the entire populace, she must be brought into line or else eliminated.

I’m sure there are other sociological and psychological reasons for Agnes’s martyrdom, but these two are troublesome enough. They are troublesome not least because they challenge the Church in our culture, in our time.

What cultural norms are we challenging today that make us a perceived threat to the culture, so much a threat that the culture takes action against us? Surely, there are some norms that we Christians must challenge? Our culture isn’t so thoroughly Christian that we can say Amen! to everything it does or stands for? Unbridled capitalism makes the concentration of obscene wealth in the hands of the few not only possible but nearly inevitable. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and a few others have wealth exceeding the GDP of many nations in the world. Surely, the Church can’t give its blessing to an economy that concentrates wealth like that when many in our country struggle to afford basic necessities?

Unrestrained socialism — and its cousin communism — on the other hand makes the concentration of power and control in the hands of the few not only possible but necessary. This resulted in more mass deaths in the twentieth century than in all previous centuries combined. Amen to that? Hardly. One of our political parties wants to give women the choice to kill their babies. The other party wants to treat immigrants as sub-human and are willing to tear families apart to rid the country of the “wrong sort of people.” Are either of those acceptable to Christians?

Social media addicts and poisons our children. Are we going to hand them the newest iPhone? When, where, how, and about what do we, like Agnes, say no to the culture for the sake of our devotion to Christ and to the way of the Kingdom of God? That’s a pebble in my shoe.

And, as for the Roman gods, is our culture really thoroughly Christian or do we perhaps have pagan gods of our own — ancient ones repackaged for modern worship? Is our culture more ordered around Mars, the god of war and violence, than we like to admit? Listen to a recent comment by an influential Washington political insider:

“We live in a world in which, you can talk about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world…that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time” (Stephen Miller, interviewed on CNN by Jake Tapper).

That’s Mars’ talk; we are being called to bow at the altar of Mars. That ancient god is alive and well and thriving in America.

Aphrodite, the goddess of lust and sex? According to the Journal of Sex Research around 7% of U.S. adult internet users report addiction to pornography. Anecdotal evidence and the pervasiveness of pornography suggest to me a higher percentage. The United States is the top country for the viewing of pornography. The average age of first online exposure to pornography is eleven. Agnes was twelve when she gave her life for the sake of her purity. Our children begin viewing pornography one year younger. Aphrodite is alive and well and receiving our worship. When, where, how, and about what do we, like Agnes, say no to the culture for the sake of our devotion to Christ and to the way of the Kingdom of God? That’s a pebble in my shoe.

Do I need to say anything more about Mammon, the God of rapacious greed and obscene wealth? When, where, how, and about what do we, like Agnes, say no to the culture for the sake of our devotion to Christ and to the way of the Kingdom of God? That’s a pebble in my shoe.

One more question, this one perhaps the most troublesome of all.

Are we — is the Church — raising children who, at the tender age of twelve, are so devoted to the Lord Jesus that they would rather die than waver in their devotion to him? Are we — is the Church — raising a generation of potential martyrs? If not, why not? And maybe even more pointed, are we — their parents and grandparents — generations who would rather die than waver in our devotion? There’s the pebble again.

Well, those are my questions — some of them anyway — that are stirred up on this feast day. I would like to close with words by the Doctor of the Church Saint Ambrose (c. 339-4 April 397). This great theologian, Bishop of Milan, and mentor of St. Augustine, wrote this reflection on the martyrdom of Agnes. Note that he speaks of this day as Agnes’s birthday, as did our collect, meaning, of course, the day of her heavenly birth.

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness.

There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.

A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valour despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself. Executioner, why do you delay? If eyes that I do not want can desire this body, then let it perish.” She stood still, she prayed, she offered her neck.

You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity, and gained a martyr’s crown (St. Ambrose, On Virgins).

Amen.

1 Corinthians, Part 1: Challenges to Unity

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

1 Corinthians, Part 1 (Chapters 1 thorough 6): Challenges to Unity

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the grave dangers we are in through our many divisions. Deliver your Church from all enmity and prejudice, and everything that hinders us from godly union. As there is one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so make us all to be of one heart and of one mind, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and love, that with one voice we may give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in everlasting glory (BCP 2019, pp. 646-647).

Introduction and Background

When you think of first century Corinth, think of Los Angeles, Chicago or New York with a healthy — or unhealthy — dose of San Francisco, Las Vegas, or New Orleans thrown in the mix: prominent, prosperous, diverse, and morally decadent. But those very traits made it attractive to St. Paul as a field white for Gospel harvest and as a staging ground for forays into the surrounding region.

St. Paul arrived in Corinth as the last major stop on his second missionary journey. Things had not been going particularly well for him. Earlier he had been arrested, beaten and run out of town in Philippi. Just down the road in Thessalonica, a mob drove him from the city. When he went for safety to Berea, the Jews from Thessalonica followed him, agitating the crowds there until the brothers insisted that Paul leave there, too. So, leaving behind his traveling companions Silas and Timothy — they would catch up with him later — Paul boarded ship heading for Athens, the heart of Greece.

Paul fell to form in Athens, preaching first in the synagogue, to the Jews and God-fearers. He also frequented the market place, preaching to anyone who would listen. There he engaged the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers — lovers of wisdom — with the Gospel word of Jesus and resurrection. The philosophers seemed not to understand the message beyond this: Paul was preaching strange things about foreign divinities. And so a report about him came to the attention of the Areopagus, the main council — judicial body — authorized to reach judgments about homicide, injury, and religious offenses. The Areopagus was not a polite philosophical debating society; it was a court, and Paul was on trial; once again, his life was in jeopardy.

He made his defense before the council and even couched some of his apology in terms of their own poetry and philosophy with which he was apparently well versed. But, when he got to the crux of the Gospel — the resurrection — the council mocked and dismissed him. It was hard for the wise, the philosophers, to take such babbling seriously; only a few responded in faith. It is not difficult to imagine the cumulative effect of persecution and ridicule and threat and worry in town after town. Paul was anxious especially about the church in Thessalonica and was awaiting news from Silas and Timothy about that church. So, in what I imagine St. Ignatius of Loyola might describe as desolation, Paul left Athens for Corinth.

For awhile, things look up. Paul finds two kindred spirits in the city, Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They share the tent making trade with Paul; more importantly they are followers of Jesus. So, Paul stays with them and works with them, both in trade and in ministry. And, perhaps best of all, Silas and Timothy return from Macedonia with good news about the Thessalonians: they are remaining faithful even in the midst of persecution. They are confused about a few points of doctrine, but a letter — well, two letters — can straighten that out, as we saw in our previous class.

So, buoyed up by all this, Paul starts teaching in the synagogue, as usual. Paul going to the synagogues in city after city is much like Tonto going into town Saturday after Saturday on The Lone Ranger television show of my youth; you knew it wasn’t going to end well. In fact, it ended with open opposition by the Jews and with Paul denouncing them: “Your blood be on your own heads!” Once again he turned to the Gentiles, and worked among them for about eighteen months, encouraged by a night vision from the Lord: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9-10).

That doesn’t mean that the opposition immediately ceased. Instead, the Jews launched a coordinated attack on Paul and brought him before Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia. Gallio listened long enough to see that this was a religious matter and not a civil one, and he dismissed all charges against Paul. The vision was right.

Paul stayed many days after this vindication and then, taking Aquila and Priscilla with him, he traveled through Ephesus on his way home to Antioch in Syria. He dropped Aquila and Priscilla in Ephesus and they began a ministry there in Paul’s absence. While Aquila and Priscilla were in Ephesus,

24 [Now] a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 27 And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus (Acts 18:24-28).

Apollos wanted to cross to Achaia; that is, he went to Corinth, to the church that Paul — along with Aquila and Priscilla — had founded. He was brilliant, charismatic, and skilled in reasoning and speaking. He was, in short, everything that Paul was not. Trouble is brewing.

Shortly after that, Paul began his third journey journey and made his way to Ephesus. He stayed there for some three years, his longest tenure in a single place, interrupted by some short-term mission trips. It was while in Ephesus that he received troubling news from Corinth. It occasioned at least one brief visit, which apparently ended in disaster, and a series of letters back and forth between the Apostle and the church, only two of which we have. What were the problems? Here, we enter the text.

1 Corinthians

Paul is not a linear thinker or writer, at least not here in 1 Corinthians. He spirals around topics, coming back to them again at greater depth, until he finally arrives at the center of his concern. So, while in our thinking we typically might start with the most important thing and then work outward exploring its implications, Paul starts on the periphery and works inward to the heart of things. You will see that as we go.

1 Corinthians 1:1-9
You may well know that the Church in Corinth is a mess, and Paul will get to that soon enough. But he starts by greeting the people individually and corporately as saints — holy ones — and he expresses thanksgiving for them. Better messy saints in the hands of a faithful God than non-believers in the midst of a pagan world!

1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor 1:1-9).

Now, having assured them of their true identity — saints — and having expressed his thankfulness for them and his confidence in God’s work in them, Paul moves to one of his concerns about them. This is a symptom of a more fundamental, deeper illness, but it is a symptom that must be addressed: divisions in the church.

1 Corinthians 1:10-17; 3:1-23
10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul (1 Cor 1:10-13)?

“I hear Fr. Sam is preaching this Sunday. I don’t think I’ll go; he’s not very good in the pulpit.”

“I never go to confession with Fr. Frank. I wait for Fr. Gary; he’s much easier to talk to.”

“I always sign up for Dcn. Richard’s classes; he’s brilliant. Our other teachers, not so much.”

Can you imagine attitudes like that in a local congregation? If so, you can imagine the situation in Corinth.

“I follow Paul; after all, he founded the church here. It’s a matter of loyalty.”

“Not, me; I follow Peter. He was one of the Twelve, the leader of the Twelve. He’s the real deal.”

“Yeah, but have you listened to Apollos? That man is brilliant and eloquent; he’s everything a preacher and leader should be.”

“Me? I don’t listen to any of them. I just follow Jesus.”

The church is divided into personality cults; that is one of the symptoms of a deeper problem at Corinth, and one that Paul is going to tackle head on. But first, he takes a brief but very important detour — an excursus on wisdom — on why when he first preached the Gospel to them it was not with eloquent and wise-sounding words like Apollos might use, for example.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16
Remember Paul’s arrival in Corinth. He had come there because he had been hounded and run out of most every town on his itinerary. He came there after being deemed too foolish for the Athenian philosophers to even bother with further. And so Paul describes his arrival in Corinth:

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Cor 2:1-5).

No lofty rhetoric for Paul, no philosophical reasoning: just Jesus Christ and him crucified. Even if Paul might convince them by such means, then their faith would lie in his cleverness and not in the power of God. And it is power that Paul is interested in, not his own, but God’s:

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).

As for those who demand something other than the crucified Christ, Paul says:

22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor 1:22-25).

Here, and throughout chapter 2, Paul makes clear that he actually does preach wisdom. It is, however, a spiritual wisdom that looks like foolishness to those devoid of the Spirit of God. It must be discerned spiritually, so the philosophers, the “wise” of this world will never understand it. That is why the low, the despised, the foolish in the world’s wisdom are the ones to embrace the crucified Christ, while the high, the esteemed, the philosophers of the world mock him and boast in their own wisdom.

Now, why all this talk about wisdom? Remember that Paul began to talk about divisions in the church before taking this detour. I think it is purposeful. In Paul’s absence from Corinth, Apollos had arrived and apparently made quite an impact in the church with his knowledge and his eloquence. This seems to have become a fault line for division: the contrast of Paul’s weakness, fear, trembling — his avoidance of lofty speech and worldly wisdom — with Apollos’s charismatic eloquence and brilliance. So, this excursus on wisdom is part of Paul’s defense of his own ministry among them, a way of saying that he is not less than Apollos, outward appearances notwithstanding. He really begins to develop this more in chapter 3 when he returns to the problems of divisions.

1 Corinthians 3-4
Here, Paul gets to the point, and it seems pointedly about himself and Apollos, and about the Corinthians dividing over fellow servants of Christ.

3b For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:b-15).

This is really pretty direct writing that points out the primacy of Paul’s work among them: he planted and Apollos watered, he laid the foundation and Apollos built on his work. And then he notes that the foundation he laid was not changed, could not be changed and that whatever building was done on it would be tested with fire. It might stand and it might well not. Both he and Apollos are merely servants; what is required of each is that he be faithful (1 Cor 4:1-2). Again, to emphasize the primacy of his work among them Paul closes out this section by writing:

14 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18 Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21 What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness (1 Cor 4:14-21)?

Notice the relationship that Paul highlights: you may have many guides, but I am your father in Christ. Imitate me. Now, one other important clarification before we move on: Paul had no problem with Apollos, and Paul’s writing was not directed against him. At the end of the letter, Paul tells the Corinthians:

12 Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity (1 Cor 16:12).

Paul’s concern is not with Apollos but rather with the Corinthians who are pitting he and Apollos against one another in terms of apostolic ministry and authority. There are some people who have infiltrated the church and with whom Paul does have some serious grievances — he ironically calls them “super apostles” as he takes them to task — but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Apollos. We’ll talk about them later. Before we move on to some of the other problems plaguing the church, I want to mention a matter of little or no real importance, but one which comes up from time to time.

There are those Christians, most often evangelical Protestants or free-church folk, who object to calling a priest “father.” The typically quote Jesus:

1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. 11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matt 23:1-12).

And yet, in this text in 1 Corinthians, Paul claims that he is uniquely their “father in Christ through the gospel” (1 Cor 4:15). That is simply because he first preached the Gospel to them and through his message they were born again. It is also because he cared for them like a father cares for his children. That is ideally what a priest does: births some in the Gospel, cares for all in the Gospel. Whatever Jesus was talking about, it wasn’t this bond of affection and the language of fatherhood that goes with it. So, we need have no qualms about that.

Sexual Immorality
Corinth was known as a center of sexual immorality. The city was on a trade route and money flowed freely. There was portage of ships across the isthmus at Corinth, so there were many sailors passing through the region and the city. And there was the temple of Aphrodite which is said to have employed around a thousand priestesses who were essentially cult prostitutes who plied their “ministry/trade” in the temple and in the city. Prostitution was big business; it was the hospitality industry of Corinth. So, Corinthian sexual morals, such as they were at all, were quite lax and tolerant. The Gentiles coming into the church brought this baggage with them, so it is no wonder Paul would have to deal with sexual matters.

He begins with a particularly egregious transgression: a man living in incest with this stepmother (1 Cor 5:1-8). Paul pronounces judgment and passes sentence: excommunication — not for the purpose of condemnation, but as impetus to repentance. And the excommunication was to be complete and enforced by the entire community as Paul had written them in a previous letter:

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you” (1 Cor 5:9-13).

With this, Paul introduces another important matter: judgment and discipline within the church. While the church has no authority to judge and discipline those outside its community, it absolutely can and must judge those inside: to provide a proper witness of holiness to the surrounding culture, to protect the community from the spread of immorality, and to bring sinners to repentance. And the function of judgment in the church extends to what we might consider civil matters, as well: lawsuits between believers — which should never occur in the first place — must be resolved in the church and not in secular law courts. The church is an outpost of the kingdom of God, and that Kingdom has its own law and its own wise judges; that is the way it is supposed to work.

One last note about judgment and the world: the church does not exercise discipline over the world, but that does not mean we approve the ways of the world uncritically. We must judge in the sense of calling the world to repentance, of holding its leaders accountable to righteousness, and of refusing to participate in its evil. Our very lives are, in some sense, acts of judgment. But, again, as with excommunication, it is not judgment for condemnation, but for repentance. And that call for repentance can work as Paul notes; it had worked for many of them:

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9-11).

The Temple of the Body
In the midst of some detailed instructions, Paul expresses a general principle that will cover all these issues and many more that might emerge. The Corinthians, either in the earlier visit or earlier letter, have expressed some notions that Paul has to refute. Essentially they have said: (1) since we are free in Christ, all things are permitted for us (1 Cor 6:12) and (2) whatever is “natural” for the body (food, drink, sex) is permissible for us (1 Cor 6:13). You see the import of this. If all these things are permissible, then so is gluttony, drunkenness, prostitution and sexual immorality of all kinds. This is a proto-gnostic idea that the body doesn’t matter; it is the immortal soul trapped within it that is essential. We don’t have time to discuss this in detail, but you see that notion permeating our society today in everything from abortion to transgenderism and even the movement toward transhumanism. Contrary to this, Paul insists that the body matters, and that it is not a playground but a temple, that it is not yours, but God’s.

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20).

If the body is a temple, then what we do with it is either an act of worship or an act of blasphemy. If we keep that in mind, it is relatively straightforward to navigate many of our own culture’s moral issues. Ours is an incarnational faith. That Jesus came in the flesh, that he lived and died in a body, that he now has a resurrection body — all this embodiment matters now and in the age to come. How we honor or dishonor our own bodies and the bodies of others matters now and in the age to come.

Next week we will follow Paul around the spiral of some more specific problems as he approaches the real heart of the matter.

I rose a bit earlier than usual this morning which gave me the opportunity to pray the Office of Vigils from the St Bernard Breviary in the still and dark of a house at rest. The selection of Psalms for the day, 110-118, was rich, indeed. Among others, this passage stood out:

1 Not unto us, O Lᴏʀᴅ, not unto us, but unto your Name give the praise,*
for your loving mercy and for your truth’s sake.

2 Why shall the nations say, *
“Where now is their God?”

3 As for our God, he is in heaven; *
he has done whatsoever pleased him.

4 Their idols are silver and gold, *
even the work of human hands.

5 They have mouths, but they speak not; *
eyes have they, but they see not.

6 They have ears, but they hear not; *
noses have they, but they smell not.

7 They have hands, but they feel not; feet have they, but they walk not;*
neither is there any sound in their throat.

8 Those who make them are like them, *
and so are all who put their trust in them.

9 But you, O house of Israel, trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ; *
he is their helper and defender.

10 You house of Aaron, put your trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ; *
he is their helper and defender.

11 You who fear the Lᴏʀᴅ, put your trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ; *
he is their helper and defender (Ps115:1-11, BCP 2019, pp. 422-423).

Idols, the statues of silver and gold, are nothing at all, the work of human hands: mute, deaf, blind, impotent, immobile — useless. And here is the Psalmist’s solemn judgement: those who make them and those who worship them are like them — useless, nothing at all. There is a sober truth here: we become like that which we worship. Worship idols and lose those human powers and properties which you falsely attributed to the idols and hoped to gain in expansive measure from them.

St. Paul goes further in his assessment than did the Psalmist. In considering the issue of eating meat offered to idols and participating in the sacrifices, the Apostle writes:

19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he (1 Cor 10:19-22)?

Standing behind the nothing-at-all silver and gold idols are the demons, receiving the worship offered to the idols. Again comes the caution: we become like that which we worship — not just nothing-at-all, but less than human and, God forbid!, a partner with the demons.

The names of the idol-demons change throughout time and vary with cultures. In the Ancient Near East we read of Ashtoreth, Baal, Chemosh, Dagon, Milcom, and others. Jesus spoke of Mammon. The Greeks and the Romans had gods seemingly without number, even an unknown god just to cover all their bases. And, we have our own gods, those which have persisted across time and cultures: Mammon, Mars, Aphrodite, and Fama. We do not call them by those names, but the gods and the demons behind them are the same: Wealth, Power/Violence, Lust, and Fame (also Rumor and Gossip). Everyday we see them elevated and worshiped and — Lord, have mercy! —we are becoming like them. Obscene wealth is concentrated in the grasping hands of the few while the many are struggling to afford housing, health care and groceries: Mammon. Violence is common in our schools and on our streets and power/might is celebrated as the right standard of behavior: Mars. The pornography industry thrives and the powerful (Mars, again) sexually abuse the weak and innocent with apparent impunity: Aphrodite. The insatiable quest for fame and honor is on clear display at every level of society and is supported by rumor and gossip and mockery targeted against any who might vie for a share of the spotlight: Fama.

And again the biblical warning comes: we become like that which we worship — sub-human and finally nothing at all if we worship the gods who are no gods.

9 But you, O house of Israel, [you, O Church] trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ; *
he is their helper and defender.

10 You house of Aaron [you the Royal Priesthood of the baptized], put your trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ; *
he is their helper and defender.

11 You who fear the Lᴏʀᴅ, put your trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ; *
he is their helper and defender.

1, 2 Thessalonians: The Day of the Lord

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

How To Read the Pauline Epistles
1, 2 Thessalonians: The Day of the Lord and Life in the Meantime

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen (BCP 2019, p. 598).

Introduction: A Bishop’s Dilemma

I remember where I was in the early evening of 29 January 2025, sometime between 6:00 and 6:30. I was pulling out of the KFC parking lot onto Kingston Pike; I was heading home. I remember this because of what I heard on the radio: a brief interview with Anglican Bishop Martin Gordon on All Things Considered, a program on National Public Radio. Bishop Gordon was and is the Bishop of Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). For years, there has been armed conflict between Rwanda and the DRC. In days just prior to the NPR interview, Rwandan soldiers had taken much of Goma and a nearby city, and the situation was dire. Bishop Gordon and his family fled the city to safety across the border. Here is the part of the interview that gripped me. I’m reading Bishop Gordon’s words from a transcript of the interview. The whole transcript and the audio recording is linked following.

GORDON: We left on Saturday lunchtime. It was eerily quiet. Some of our friends and others had been leaving from Thursday. But the city of Sake to the west of Goma, which was a red line for many NGOs that had fallen, and our government had already suggested that all its citizens left. So we had some time. We had some time to pack. We drove over the border in relative calm. And as we crossed the border, we saw many of our friends and colleagues, particularly those with children, also seeking to leave.

I mean, ironically, one of the challenge – the main challenge we had leaving that day was to get our car papers in order. But we know that we’re some of the few with the possibility and the means to escape. Most of the clergy and all of the believers, the Anglican believers, and all of our other colleagues are still in Goma. And they’re the ones who have been suffering. Goma has had no power since Friday. Internet’s been patchy. There’s little water in some of the city. Hospitals are overflowing.

And with the battle that then took to the streets of Goma, many civilians were caught in the crossfire. There’s eyewitness accounts of bodies in the streets, and food prices have doubled. So there seems to be chaos on the ground, and fighting is still in pockets of the town (https://www.npr.org/2025/01/29/nx-s1-5277018/martin-gordon-anglican-bishop-of-goma-calls-for-peace-in-the-drc).

What so vexed me about that statement is the vision of a bishop fleeing his diocese and leaving his clergy and his people trapped there. It is not my place to judge the bishop, and I dare not. Lord, have mercy upon him. The situation was much more complex than I could imagine from the safety of a car filled with the smell of the Colonel’s Original Recipe chicken. I suspect that the clergy and people left behind, those who simply could not get out, encouraged their bishop to escape to safety. I think I would do so for my bishop in a similar circumstance. And, I suspect the bishop left with a conflicted heart: to stay or to leave must have been a gut-wrenching decision. And, while separated from his people, I am certain that he prayed diligently for them, longed for news from them, longed to return to them. Keep the bishop’s story in mind as we consider the background of the Thessalonian correspondence.

Historical Background: Acts

The historical reconstruction of Paul’s engagement with the Thessalonians is based on the texts in Acts 16-18 and 1 Thessalonians 1-3. As with all reconstructions, some of the details are uncertain, but, in this case, the general overview is pretty clear.

Paul set out on his second missionary journey late in AD 49. It would last for three years and take Paul and the Gospel to a new continent and to some of the most prominent cities in the Roman Empire.

After visiting the churches he and Barnabas had founded just a few years earlier (AD 44-46) Paul seemed lost for a bit, trying to go first to this region and then to that one, but being forbidden by the Holy Spirit to do so. He eventually arrived at Troas where God finally gave him his itinerary in a vision: cross over to Europe, go to Macedonia, and preach the Gospel there. And so, Paul and Silas, with their companion Timothy — and perhaps Luke, as well — did just that, sailing a short distance across the Aegean to Samothrace and the next day to Neapolis. From there the company went overland to Philippi, a leading city of Macedonia.

You likely remember the events in Philippi: the conversion of Lydia, the first Christian convert in Europe; the exorcism of the slave girl with the subsequent arrest and beating of Paul and Silas; the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his family and Paul’s hasty exit from the city the next morning at the request — and urging — of the authorities. And then, passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, it was on to Thessalonica.

Thessalonica was, in many ways, the principal city of Macedonia, the capital of the region. It was a “free city,” which meant is was governed by its own elected officials and not by Roman governors and was also free from having Roman soldiers garrisoned there. It was financially prosperous. While it was a Gentile city, it also had a sizeable Jewish population, so, on arriving, Paul reasoned in the synagogue for three weeks and, when not preaching, worked his tent making trade to support the ministry. He had some success: a few Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah as did apparently many more of the Gentile God-fearers and the prominent women of the city. As usual, though, he met with some opposition in the synagogue, and though the text in Acts 17 doesn’t mention it explicitly, it seems likely, based on 1 Thessalonians, that Paul turned to the Gentiles for some brief time. Perhaps it was that move that caused even greater opposition by the Jewish leaders, ending with a mob; with Paul’s host, Jason, being dragged before the city authorities; with the payment of security money — apparently some kind of financial guarantee that Paul would leave the city — and with Paul and company’s exit from Thessalonica. Here is the resonance with Bishop Gordon’s story. In the city, in Thessalonica, there is violent opposition to this nascent Christian movement, and in the midst of that, the Apostle flees the city, leaving the church and its local leaders to face the persecution alone. There may be good, practical reasons for this: with Paul out of sight and mind the trouble might fizzle out. But, from our vantage point of safety nearly two millennia later, the optics are bad, like a captain abandoning a sinking ship, leaving the crew behind to try to keep it afloat.

Paul and his companions traveled a few miles to Berea and once again had some success at the synagogue there: so much success, in fact, that the Jews back in Thessalonica heard of it and sent agitators to Berea, forcing Paul out once again. Though “on the run” again, Paul’s heart was still in Thessalonica, and he desperately wanted to know how the church there was faring in the face of the opposition that had driven him out of two cities now. It seems that Silas remained at Berea to “finish up” the work as best he could. Timothy was dispatched back to Thessalonica to get the report on their condition that Paul wanted, while other brothers accompanied Paul to Athens. It was in Athens that Paul — alone now — offered his apology for the faith before the Areopagus— really, defended himself before this council against serious charges that might have resulted in his death. After that trial, Paul left Athens for Corinth.

It was in Corinth that Timothy and Silas reconnected with Paul and gave the report from Macedonia generally, and from Thessalonica specifically. The news was good; the church, even in the midst of trouble, was sound. That good report and Timothy’s report of some doctrinal confusion and questions in the church was the occasion for Paul’s letters back to the Thessalonians, written likely in AD 51 with the first and second letters probably separated only by a matter of several weeks or perhaps a few months.

1 Thessalonians

The first three chapters of 1 Thessalonians rehearse the history of St. Paul’s relationship with the church — the background that we have discussed — from Paul’s perspective. They are filled with encouragement — particularly important for a church facing persecution — and with praise, thanksgiving, and love. This passage is typical:

2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. 9 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thess 1:2-10).

Notice what Paul thanks God for: their work of faith (an interesting pairing of words!), labor of love (this is all seeming very active), and steadfastness of hope. Paul is convinced about the authenticity of their faith and calling because the Gospel worked in them powerfully as evidenced by the Holy Spirit, not least by turning them from idols to the true God. Verse 10 is nod toward one of the doctrinal issues bothering the church, and one that Paul addresses in both letters: to wait for his Son from heaven. The second coming of Jesus is at issue for them, apparently in the forefront of their thought. More about this later.

It is in chapters 4 and 5 that St. Paul turns to orthopraxis, to the right living that comes from their faith, and to clearing up a matter of confusion that is troubling the church.

Sexual Morality and Brotherly Love

First, Paul speaks to sexual immorality. Given the depths of sexual license and perversity plaguing our culture, we may be forgiven, perhaps, for thinking that this is a modern problem. But any reading of Scripture and history will disabuse us of that false notion. Sex is one of the strongest drives of our fallen human nature, and, because of that, it is a passion that must be carefully and closely circumscribed. Paul writes:

4 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you (1 Thess 4:1-8).

First, note God’s will for each of us: sanctification — not just being declared holy (set apart) in our adoption as children of God, but actually becoming holy in our manner of life, by what we do and by what we refrain from doing. You’ll note this same dual emphasis in our prayer of confession from the Daily Office: we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done (BCP 2019, p. 12).

In this instance, the Thessalonians — and we — are to refrain/abstain from sexual immorality. Sexual sin is a violation of brotherly love — a transgression of and a wrong done to a Christian brother/sister. It is important that St. Paul couches this in terms of a violation of brotherly love, because sexual immorality seems to be a blind spot in lives otherwise characterized by brotherly love:

9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one (1 Thess 4:9-12).

It is ironic that a church known throughout the whole region of Macedonia for its brotherly love cannot see that sexual immorality is itself a gross violation of brotherly love. This is a blind spot that Paul has to correct.

Also, here Paul introduces another matter of right living that he will explore more in his second letter. It stems from confusion about last things. Paul tells the Thessalonians to work with their hands, to provide for their own needs, and not to be dependent on — not to “mooch off” of — anyone else. That, too, is a matter of brotherly love.

I’m impressed with the very practical, commonsense nature of Paul’s instruction: keep your heads down, mind your own business, work and mange you affairs well. Remember that the Christians in Thessalonica are under suspicion. This behavior would show the surrounding pagan community that Christians are good citizens and good neighbors. With this, Paul turns to the point of confusion: the last things.

The Coming of the Lord

This brief teaching from Paul on the coming of the Lord is important not just for the Thessalonians, but for all of us. And it is a point of confusion, still, and a matter of some contention. Let’s consider it in it’s original context. Apparently, in Paul’s absence, some members of the church have died or perhaps some are afraid of dying in the persecution. So questions have risen: We thought Christ would have come by now. Have we missed it? What should we be looking for? What about those who die before Christ returns? Do they simply lose out on the kingdom? In partial answer — there is more in 2 Thessalonians — Paul writes this:

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thess 4:13-18).

There are several important points to mention, though we can only do so briefly.

First, the model in all this is Jesus and his resurrection. As Jesus rose bodily, our dead — and we, if the Lord tarries — will rise bodily; the notion of disembodied souls dwelling somewhere beyond this world is Platonic, not Christian. As for the dead, specifically, they are not disadvantaged or disenfranchised by having died, but rather prioritized. They will rise first, then the living will follow. Then all of us will be caught up in the cloud to meet the Lord and finally to live with him for ever. So, they could be at peace about their beloved dead. This matter of being caught up in the air is a point of confusion not least because we miss the first century cultural references. Suppose an important Roman official were to visit a city like Thessalonica. It is a significant event in the life of the city, one requiring the bestowing of proper honor upon the visitor. And that required a proper escort. The high ranking citizens of the city, and perhaps a significant portion of the populace, would meet the official visitor outside the city to escort him into the city with proper honor. At that point, he might take up his residence with them.

You see this same scenario in the Triumphal Entry, when people went outside the city of Jerusalem to meet Jesus and to escort him into the city. You see the same at the end of Acts when St. Paul finally arrives at Rome:

14b And so we came to Rome. 15 And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. 16 And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him (Acts 28:14b-16).

So, to put the picture together: upon the Lord’s return, the dead in Christ will rise first and then together with those who are alive — all of them in their resurrection bodies — they will go out (up?) to meet Christ and to escort him to earth where his kingdom will be finally established. The image isn’t of souls going to heaven but of resurrected bodies welcoming Jesus to earth.

What do the Thessalonians do — what do we do — in the meantime as we await the coming of the Lord.? That is the subject of the fifth and final chapter.

The Day of the Lord

First, the world is going to continue just as it always has until the continuity of history is interrupted suddenly by the arrival of Christ — like a thief coming at night — and the wicked, those living in darkness, will not escape the coming destruction. But, we are to be awake and sober. God has not prepared us for destruction, but for salvation. And the key for us in the meantime is to cultivate the virtues of faith, hope, and love. That is how we will be ready. How we live in the meantime matters, not least how we live together in the Christian community, in the fellowship of the church.

Final Instructions

Here is what Paul says about the fellowship.

12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil (1 Thess 5:12-22).

This is the nature of life in the Christian community. It is a community ordered by faithful servant leaders who admonish, encourage, and help the people with patience, and who, in return are respected, esteemed, and loved. It is a life characterized by love — by willing and acting for the good of the other — and by joy, prayer, thanksgiving, the charisms of the Spirit, by discernment, perseverance, and purity.

And with this we will leave 1 Thessalonians and look very briefly at St. Paul’s second letter.

2 Thessalonians

We will focus on a single issue in Paul’s second letter because it seems to be the issue that occasioned the letter: the timing and signs of Christ’s return. Paul knew and taught that the return of Christ was/is imminent; there is nothing standing in its way, nothing that must happen first. In previous classes, we have presented the drama of redemption as a play in several acts, and that analogy is helpful here. The play looks like this:

ACT I: Creation

ACT II: Fall

ACT III: Israel

ACT IV: Jesus

ACT V: Church

We are currently in Act V. There is no Act VI before the return of Jesus. His return ends Act V and ends this particular play. In that sense, his return is imminent, the next thing in the play. But, there are some signs during Act V that point toward the end of the play approaching soon. That is the issue that Paul addresses in 2 Thessalonians 2. What he writes to the Thessalonians is a clarification for them of things he had told them earlier, in person. For us, it is a point of confusion, because we lack that background. We don’t know what they knew, what Paul had told them in person. Frankly, the Church for nearly two millennia has not known what to make of this except very generally. Certainly, I can do no better. But, we can sketch out the general outlines of the signs pointing toward Christ’s return.

3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess 2:3-12).

Near the end of Act V — The Church, just prior to the coming of the Lord, there will be a rebellion of sorts, perhaps a total disruption of the social order, and out of that there will arise a “pseudo-savior,” one with such power that he appears god-like; the power that he has is satanic. And, he — the lawless one — will deceive many; he will demand and receive worship and will exalt himself as God. Apparently, many will be happy to worship him because of his power and the signs he works. About further details, we have no information; Paul had told the Thessalonians more about this in person, but he seems reticent to write more here; so, we have only this — bare bones. But, at some point, the true nature of the lawless one will be revealed, Christ will return and destroy him, blowing him away with his breath like so much chaff.

Of course, we want to know more, and some build enormous castles based on this “grain” of a foundation. This is my conviction: while the Church does not understand this fully now, we will know what we need to know when we need to know it. In the meantime, we hold fast to what we have received, we press on toward the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus, and we accept as our own this blessing, which Paul offered to the Thessalonians:

16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word (2 Thess 2:16-17).

Amen.

An Epiphany Meditation on Matthew 2:1-12

I like astronomy, or rather I would do if it were not for having to wander outside after dark for it. Not for me, this sentiment of poet Sarah Williams:

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night (Sarah Williams, From The Old Astronomer (To His Pupil)).

It is not fear of the night that keeps me from the stars, but love of soft bed, warm blanket, and dear wife dreaming beside me. These have I loved too fondly to be gazing idly at the night sky.

I am no magi. I would not have marked the rising of his star in the east nor forsaken comforts of hearth and home for an uncomfortable journey to who knows where, at “just the worst time of the year / For a journey, and such a long journey” (T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi).

I would not have arrived at Jerusalem — confounded, foolish — searching for a new king in the old king’s palace — and such an old king — showing the gaps in my wisdom and depending on foreign priests with their foreign books to point the way. And the way to where? To a town — to a hamlet — of little note, to the house of bread. To a house, just one ordinary house among a handful of other ordinary houses, not even postcard worthy: Having Fun. Wish you were here. Not much, not really.

I would not have entered the house — rude to drop in unexpectedly! — would not have seen the mother and child — wouldn’t want to disturb family time — would not have been driven to my knees in worship and with offering — old age and arthritic knees, you know.

I am no magi.

But, what if I were? What wonders, what signs — what stars — might I see if I were to venture outside in the dark and look upward?

[In this post I mention the T. S. Eliot poem “Journey of the Magi.” I commend it to you. Following is a link to an audio recording of Hugh Laurie reading the poem: https://youtu.be/qyas4QpWM-E?si=WPAuyCf1l8U_inaa .]

Galatians: Who’s in, who’s out, who gets to say?

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Galatians: Who’s in, who’s out, who gets to say?

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Class
Over the next several weeks we will be flying over several of St. Paul’s letters at 20,000 feet — not a detailed exploration of everything in each letter, but a broad overview of background and themes to help you in your own reading and study of these letters as they are coming up in the Daily Office readings. You can see the syllabus/schedule in the handout and the Daily Office reading schedule either in the service bulletin or on page 739 in the BCP 2019 in the Second Lesson column.

Identity and Inclusion
Our parish is named Apostles Anglican Church, a name that our founding members attribute to answered prayer. Right there in the middle of the name is the claim that we are Anglicans: Apostles Anglican Church. Now, if someone wanted to be contentious — or maybe just curious — he might ask, “What makes you Anglican? By what virtue or criteria do you identify as Anglican?”

Well, there are many ways to answer our friend, but the simplest might be this: our parish belongs to the Anglican Diocese of the South (ADOTS); since the diocese is Anglican, so are all its constituent parishes. But, if our friend were “pushy” — and let’s assume he is — he might repeat his challenge: “Well, what makes the diocese Anglican?” At the risk of being accused of just kicking the can down the road, we might answer, “The diocese is part of the Anglican Province in North America (ACNA), so all dioceses belonging to the ACNA are Anglican.”

You see by now our friend’s next move. “But surely that just begs the question. By what virtue is the province, the ACNA, Anglican?” We have no choice now; we’ve started down this path, so we answer: “The ACNA belongs to GAFCON, the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, comprising the majority of Anglicans worldwide. We are recognized by and in full communion with GAFCON and thus with the majority of the other Anglicans in the world. They say we are Anglican, as Anglican as anybody, as Anglican as it’s possible to be! Surely, that’s good enough for you.”

It seems like we’ve finally backed our friend into a corner, that he must relent in his challenge. But then comes the sound of a clearing throat and a voice that says — in a British accent — “Not so fast. I object. Only those provinces in full communion with the Church of England — with the Archbishop of Canterbury — are authentically Anglican. Since we (note the royal “we”) as Archbishop of Canterbury do not acknowledge your province, you are not officially a member of the Anglican Communion and thus are not authentically Anglican.” Hmmm.

Well, there are good answers to this objection. And, it is not my intent to plant doubts in any minds about our Anglican bona fides. We are, indeed, as Anglican as any other Anglicans, and I can mount a good defense for that assertion, I think. My point is this: as long as religious groups have existed, there have been questions about and controversies around who’s is and who’s out. If you are Orthodox, everyone is out but you. If you are Roman Catholic, you and the Orthodox are in, but no others. If you are Anglican, the Orthodox and Roman Catholics are in as are many of our Protestant cousins, but the Mormons are out as are any groups who deny the authority of Scripture, the efficacy and necessity of the two dominical Sacraments, and the Creeds.

The issues of Christian identity and inclusion are as fresh as today’s newspapers and as old as the Church. They lie at the heart of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians and are never far from his mind in his other epistles. If we miss this as the presenting issue and governing theme of Galatians we will misunderstand the entire epistle. St. Paul is not — as many of the Reformers assumed — talking about how individuals “are saved” — faith versus works — but rather about who’s in and who’s out, about the criteria for inclusion, and about who gets to say. Let’s see how St. Paul deals with these issues.

Context of Galatians
Galatians may well be St. Paul’s earliest epistle; it is, at least, very early in his corpus — probably written around 48/49 — which means that the problem of inclusion arose early in the life of the Church and has dogged it ever since. Paul wrote Galatians either shortly before or shortly after the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) which was precisely about the ethnic identity of the Church and the inclusion of the Gentiles.

The epistle was written to the churches in Galatia, a region in central Turkey. The ethnic Galatians, settlers from Gaul (modern day France) lived in the northern part of the region, but the entire region, north and south, was called Galatia by the Romans. Paul and Barnabas visited the southern cities on their first missionary journey and certainly established some churches in those cities: Perga, Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia. He and Silas revisited these cities and ventured north and west in Galatia on their second and third journeys. It isn’t clear to which of these churches the epistle to the Galatians was addressed; you will read about the “northern hypothesis” versus the “southern hypothesis.” This debate is largely concerned with dating the letter. For our purposes it matters little; we can consider it a circular letter to be shared throughout the region to whatever churches existed when it was written. But, importantly, it was not written to a single church; it was a circular letter of general importance to all Paul’s churches in the region, indicating the pervasiveness of the problem that Paul is addressing.

Nature of the Problems
Before we can tackle the Who’s In – Who’s Out problem we have to take one step back and ask, “In or out of what?” What is the group whose membership we are questioning? And to get that straight, we have to ask an even more basic question of identity: Who is Jesus?

Suppose we had asked the Jewish Christians in the Jerusalem Church that question: Who is Jesus? Note that I chose the Jerusalem Church because of its position as the “Mother Church” in which the pillars of the movement — Peter, James, and John — resided. In terms of the growing Church, Jerusalem was at least the first among equals and probably more in most people’s minds. I don’t know what these three pillars might have answered if asked to speak to the question — Who is Jesus? — formally by the Church. We can get some insight into their understanding by reading their letters. Still, they issued no creedal-type statement on the matter. But, from Paul we know what one group in Jerusalem thought, a prominent group at least in terms of the trouble they caused. These Jewish Christians, rightly or wrongly called Judaizers, considered Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah. Jesus is the one foretold by the prophets, the one to fully end the exile of Judah, the Davidic King who would usher in the Kingdom of God and sort out the nations under Israel. This was a thoroughly Judeo-centric understanding of Jesus. And it clearly answers our earlier question: In or out of what?

What is the group whose membership we are questioning? For the Judaizers the group is Israel so that the question is this: Who’s in or who’s out of Israel? And that is not a difficult question to answer. Israel is not a people constituted solely by ethnicity — biological descendants of Abraham — but also by covenant and Law. Even those who are not ethnically Jewish can become part of Israel through the covenant by submission to the Law. If you want to be part of the Messiah’s present and coming kingdom (renewed Israel), part of his righteous rule, you must become part of Israel through covenant (circumcision) and Law (Sabbath, Passover, keeping kosher, etc.). The Church, in this view, comprised those Jews and Gentile converts who recognized Jesus as Messiah. That’s who’s in. Everyone else is out. For the Judaizers, Jesus has come to Israel, for Israel and for all those who “become” Israel through embracing the covenant and keeping the Law.

There is a second part to this which is crucial for understanding the pressure campaign that the Judaizers wage upon Paul’s congregations. The work of the Messiah has begun, but it is not complete. And it will not progress toward completion until Israel — and all those claiming to follow the Jewish Messiah — demonstrate covenant faithfulness in part through fidelity to the Law. If you are a Jesus follower — or claim to be — but are not keeping the Law, then you are letting the side down and keeping the Kingdom at bay. This is important; it’s a matter of eschatology. The renewal of all things, the end of exile and the exaltation of Israel cannot be realized apart from covenant and Law.

Now, put yourself in the place of these Judaizers when they learn that Paul is going all around the Mediterranean basin starting mixed churches of Jews and Gentiles — Jesus followers all — and telling the Gentiles that they need not be circumcised or keep Sabbath or foreswear bacon. He is insisting that they are grafted into Israel — that they become the sons and daughters of Abraham — not by covenant and Law, but solely by faith in Jesus. And he is telling the Jewish Christians that in Christ there is no longer any distinction between the two groups, no Jews or Greeks, just one body in Christ. So, the Jews can associate freely with the Gentiles, eat with them, share Communion with them. The Gentiles are no longer unclean, they are no longer Gentile sinners.

What is Paul thinking? Why would he do such a thing? How would you answer this as a Judaizer? Well, there are a few possibilities. Paul was not one of the twelve. He hadn’t spent three years tramping around Galilee and Judea with Jesus, hadn’t heard the parables or the Sermon on the Mount, hadn’t learned from the source. Perhaps he was just confused; perhaps he had just misunderstood the Gospel. That is the most innocent explanation. But, the more suspicious among the Judaizers saw something more nefarious. Paul is a self-promoter, a self-appointed Apostle, who is out to build a following for himself, and so he is soft-pedaling the requirements of the faith to suck the Gentiles in. Don’t want to be circumcised? No problem — no need to. Don’t want to keep Sabbath? No problem — all days are the same. Don’t want to keep kosher? No problem — you can eat anything you like, even meat offered to idols, if you give thanks first. All that matters is faith in Christ. Of course a false apostle would water down the teaching in order to please men and to create a name and a following for himself.

So, the Judaizers begin to dog Paul’s missionary footsteps, coming in when he moved on, questioning the authenticity of his apostolate, questioning his motives, sowing doubts about his grasp of the Gospel, “correcting” his false doctrine by insisting that the Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the Law to be true followers of the Jewish Messiah and to be “in” the coming Kingdom. And, many of the churches in Galatia have begun to waver; the Judaizers are making inroads. That is the problem that St. Paul’s Epistle To the Galatians addresses: matters of identity and inclusion.

The Text: A Survey
If you were Paul, where would you start in making your defense? I might start with what I think to be a common sense principle of propaganda: If the messenger is not trusted, the message is not believed. The Judaizers have attacked Paul’s credibility, his authority to speak as an Apostle. Until that is defended, what he has to say is suspect. So he begins with an apology/defense of himself and his ministry.

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me…

He fires the opening shot: (1) I am an apostle, and (2) my apostolate does not depend upon authorization by other men, buts rest entirely upon Jesus Christ and God the Father. He will come back to this self-defense later, but he breaks off momentarily to discuss the seriousness of the problem that the Judaizers have caused.

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

There are some matters in the Church that we call adiaphora, indifferent; we can agree to disagree on them because they don’t cut to the core of the faith. I like chant, you like contemporary worship music: adiaphora, unless the difference creates a barrier to fellowship.

You use the KJV Bible, I use the ESV translation: adiaphora.

You do not recognize the Sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion, I recognize both: adiaphora? No, because the Sacraments cut to the core of the faith.

You believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the authoritative standard for faith and practice, I believe it is a human record of people’s best ideas about God that has some good insights but which is not binding on us today: adiaphora? No, not all all. So, what about this matter of Gentiles needing to convert to Judaism and to keep the Law if they are to be Christ followers: adiaphora or not? Well, Paul minces no words; this is not a matter on which we can agree to disagree. The Judaizers are preaching a false Gospel that is no Gospel at all. They are anathema; they are cursed. And Paul strengthens his denunciation. If an angel should preach a different Gospel, then let the angel be anathema. The mention of an angel might have some particular significance here. The Law was mediated/delivered to Moses through angels (Gal 3:19-20). Paul may be hinting at this: if even an angel tried to deliver the Law to you and you to Law now that the Gospel has come — which is exactly what the Judaizers are doing — then even the angel would be anathema.

Having completed this judgment, Paul returns to the defense of his ministry in Gal 1:11-2:14. It is a many-sided defense and time won’t allow us to explore it in detail, but we can summarize the charges against Paul and his responses.

Charge: You were not part of the Twelve. You didn’t hear the Gospel from Jesus, and you’ve muddled it either from ignorance or intent.

Defense: I received the Gospel directly through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal 1:12). No muddled human teaching or misunderstanding was involved.

Charge: You are teaching a different Gospel than the pillars of the Jerusalem Church — Peter, James, and John.

Defense: To the contrary, I submitted my understanding of the Gospel to those “pillars” of the Church and they added nothing to it; that is, they did not add circumcision and the Law to what I was teaching. Rather, they acknowledged that I had been entrusted with the Gospel to the Gentiles just as Peter had been for the Jews. They gave me — and those with me — the right hand of fellowship, full endorsement. And later, when Peter tried to backtrack on this at Antioch and please the Judaizers, I publicly rebuked him to his face; he was in the wrong and I was in the right (Gal 2:1-11).

Charge: You are just trying to please men, to make things easy for them and to make things easy for yourself.

Defense: If I were trying to make things easy on myself, I would just go along with the Judaizers since they are the ones making life hard for me. But that would be unfaithful to the cross of Christ (Gal 5:7-12).

There are more charges and defenses in the text — you can locate those — but these give you a good sense of how Paul views his own ministry vis-à-vis the Twelve and the Judaizers.

Now, we can move to the heart of Paul’s arguments against adding the Law to the Gospel as a requirement for Gentile inclusion. Here is his summary statement:

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified (Gal 2:15-16).

Here Paul is saying something along these lines. The Judaizers, those “Jews by birth,” are telling you that you can be justified — made right with God and brought into the covenant community — only by keeping the Law. That’s a good one! It never worked for them or for any of their forebears. The whole history of Israel testifies to the fact that the Law justifies no one — and those Judaizers know it. That is why — if they would just admit it — they, too, have come to believe in Jesus, because only faith in him, and not the works of the Law, justifies anyone.

And now Paul offers some tangible evidence to back up his contention. It is based on this observation: some — perhaps all — of Paul’s churches were what we might call charismatic; gifts of the Spirit were present and active. So, Paul challenges the Galatians with this question:

3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh (Gal 3:1-3)?

Paul’s logic goes like this. It is the Spirit that unites you to God in Christ and makes you part of the covenant community. And you received the Spirit through faith. What can the Law add to that? Now, here, not realizing this is a rhetorical question, some of those persuaded by the Judaizers might dare to respond: The Law unites us to Abraham and makes us part of God’s people. Not so, Paul replies. Abraham and his descendants were God’s people before — without — the Law. They were his people by faith, which is precisely how you become his people in Christ. It’s all right there in the Scriptures:

5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (Gal 3:5-9).

Paul argues that the covenant was prior to the Law and is, in fact, primary over the Law. The Law, which was given four centuries after the covenant, did not abolish or even amend the covenant. Faith, by which Abraham entered into the covenant, is still what is required today — not the Law. Now, you can probably understand why the Gentiles might be getting confused by all this. If it’s all about the covenant and faith, what was the Law for? Paul anticipates this confusion and this question and has his response ready. It comes in a pretty dense passage in Gal 3:19-29, a passage you should read prayerfully and work out on your own. But here are the key points.

The Law was added because of transgressions (Gal 3:19). In other words, the Law was a sin management system. It revealed what was right for God’s people, both in their relationships to God and to one another; it ordered their society; it gave them a way to purify themselves and the whole people from sin — through the sacrificial system — so that God might live among them; and it served as a guardian to teach and to unite them until the coming of Christ “so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal 3:22b). The Law was never an end unto itself, but was always at the service of the covenants (Old and New), always pointing toward Christ. And that is why the Law is no longer needed: not that it was bad and must be done away with, but rather that it was good and has now completed its purpose in bringing people to Jesus.

24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise (Gal 3:24-29).

Now, there’s always one student in every class that intentionally takes the instruction in the wrong direction, who just pushes every boundary. “Oh, Paul, so if the Law doesn’t matter, then, as long as we believe in Jesus, you are saying that we can behave anyway we want to?” After the facepalm, Paul responds:

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:16-24).

How you live matters very much; in fact, it is the evidence of whether your faith is authentic and whether you actually belong to Jesus. If your life exhibits none of the fruit of the Spirit, but rather the passions of the flesh, take care; do not presume that by a mere statement of belief you are justified. Real faith produces real fruit. This is not just a caution for the Galatians, but for all of us.

So What?
I hope this class has given you some background and a better context with which to read and understand St. Paul’s letter. But, frankly, while interesting, this can all seem a bit far removed from us, can’t it? We are not in danger of being pressured into keeping the Jewish Law, are we? So, how might God speak to us through the text.

There is a danger in every time of someone or some group insisting on a Jesus-And Gospel: Jesus-And a particular political party or agenda, Jesus-And a particular social justice movement or cause, Jesus-And a particular church affiliation. I’ve even seen – far too often — Jesus-And a particular style of vestments or the renunciation of vestments entirely. Unless you are a Christian [fill in the blank] you are not a Christian at all. But, Paul keeps bringing his churches — and those churches we belong to today — back to Jesus, back to real faith in Jesus as the necessary and sufficient means criterion for inclusion in the people of God: a good lesson for us all.

And, with that, we’ll give St. Paul the final word:

14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen (Gal 6:14, 18).

A Reflection on the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Opening Lines: A Reflection on the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel
(Isa 61:10-62:5, Ps 147:12-20, Gal 3:23-4:7, John 1:1-18)

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Charles Dickens was a master of opening lines, perhaps not the master, but certainly a contender for the title as these examples show.

From A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on it being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities).

From A Christmas Carol:

Marley was dead, to begin with, there is no doubt whatever about that (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol).

From David Copperfield:

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show (Charles Dickens, David Copperfield).

I envy Dickens’ gift for beginnings, because I struggle with starting a story, a lesson, a sermon myself, because I know that the whole course of what follows is set by that first line, by that first thought. Imagine if A Tale of Two Cities had opened with this:

Life was pretty much then as it is now, only more so.

Would anyone have bothered to read the second line? And to borrow from another author, “Hi — How are ya? — my name’s Bob,” would be a poor alternative indeed for “Call me Ishmael.” Opening lines matter.

Now, if I am intimidated by the empty page, I can scarcely imagine the trepidation of the four evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — as they sat before a fresh parchment or spoke first words into the silence for a scribe to record. The Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ: Where do we begin? What words are adequate for the task?

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt 1:1).

St. Matthew begins with a genealogy. St. Matthew begins with Abraham and David because he wants to root his story in the ancient story of Israel, to show Jesus as the fulfillment, the climax of that story: not a bad opening.

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet… (Mark 1:1-2a).

St. Mark begins with a particular prophecy from Isaiah, a prophecy about a messenger who will come to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight, a prophecy fulfilled in John the Baptist. That is a catchy introduction.

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth (Luke 1:5).

St. Luke, after explaining how and why he came to write the story at all, begins the tale proper with Zechariah and Elizabeth, the old and barren couple who miraculously will birth John the baptist, reminiscent of Abram and Sarai and their son Isaac. Well, you can’t go wrong with a little historical and symbolic context like that.

These three evangelists, each in his own way, each with his own opening line, root the Gospel in the story of Israel: calling, covenant, kingdom, prophets. That is the three. But what of St. John, the fourth evangelist? What of St. John the Theologian?

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

Before calling and covenant, before kingdom and prophets, even before the beginning of all things there was God, and it is with God that St. John starts his story, with God and with the Word. But, what is this Word of which the evangelist speaks? Perhaps, as in some Jewish thought, the Word may be identified with Wisdom as we find in Proverbs?

As Wisdom speaks:

22 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.

23 Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.

25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,

26 before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world.

27 When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

28 when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,

29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

30 then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,

31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man” (Prov 8:22-31).

Or perhaps, as in Greek thought, the Word might be identified with the rational principle inherent in creation, with the reason we have cosmos/order and not chaos? This notion might even be implied in the original language where Word is λογος (logos). Mathematics is rational; it is logical (logos). Nature is amenable to scientific discovery and explanation because it is rational; it is logical (logos). Perhaps the Word is that abstract principle of logic which permeates all of creation.

But no, neither of these descriptions — neither Wisdom nor Logic — encompasses nor exhausts St. John’s meaning:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

The very last conviction St. John expresses in that opening line is the one that makes all the difference, the one that makes St. John’s opening line distinct from all others: and the Word was God — not just the wisdom of God, not merely the logic of God, but fully God. If that does not startle us and confound us, then we are not paying attention. Before anything at all was brought into being, there was God and there was the Word — pre-existent, in some sense beyond existence itself, not things like other things that will come to be. And the relationship between God and the Word is not rendered transparent by St. John’s language; it is rendered mysterious. If the Word is with God, how is the Word God? This statement made about humans would be nonsense, mere gibberish. And John was there at the start. And John was with Bob, and John was Bob. Spoken about men, this is the opposite of logos; it is mere babbling. Yes, precisely. It cannot be said about men. But, it can be said about God and must be said about the Word; it is a mystery, but it is not nonsense. In some sense yet to be worked out by St. John — in some sense yet to be worked out by the Church for generations — between God and the Word there is both differentiation (the Word was with God) and perfect identification (the Word was God).

The Word was with God and the Word was God from before the beginning. And again, with these opening words, St. John plunges us into mystery: In the time before there was time? In the place before there was place? This is obscure to us; for us there is only darkness in that time of no time and disorientation in that place of no place. But for God, for the Word? No, they precede time; they encompass space.

So, St. John moves on:

2 He [the Word] was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:2-5).

The Word, who was with God and who was God from before the beginning, became the beginning of all things. The late Carl Sagan, astronomer and popularizer of science not least through his book and television series Cosmos wrote:

The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries (Carl Sagan, Cosmos).

That is a lovely piece of writing, even reminiscent of St. John’s Prologue, but it is not science and it is not true. The Cosmos is not all that is or was or ever will be. The cosmos was spoken into being by the Word who from before the beginning of all things was with God and who was God and through whom all things — this cosmos and even, if there be others — were made. All created things that you see, all created things that you do not see, all these things exist. But the Word, the Word in the language of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Word being God is ipsum esse subsistens, the very act of “to be,” the ground of being, the One who cannot not be, the One in whom and through whom and for whom all things exist and have their contingent being. This is a great mystery, and even our feeblest contemplations of it stir us not just with a tingling in the spine or a catch in the voice, but with life itself, with light shining in the darkness, with a light that penetrates and illumines the darkness and which cannot be overcome by the darkness.

Though we are already awash in mysteries, there is yet more, always more. This Word who from before the beginning was with God and who was God, this Word who is beyond existence and who called into being everything that does exist, this Creator Word, entered his creation as creature. And the Word did so without ceasing to be the Word, without ceasing to be with God and to be God. And that reality is so mysterious, so luminous, so holy that we usually kneel in worship when we read its description by St. John:

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us +, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

The mystery of the Cosmos pales in comparison to this. This Word is…well:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col 1:15-20).

This Word who was in the form of God — who was with God and who was God — this Word:

7 emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men (Phil 2:7).

And though the Word emptied himself of all his divine prerogatives, he did not and could not empty himself of himself; he did not and could not cease to be what he is from all eternity: the Word who is with God and who is God. And so, when the Word became flesh to dwell among us, we saw glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. We saw God with skin on, not skin as a suit to be donned and doffed at will, but humanity as assumed into the divine nature unto the ages of ages, as human nature drawn into the divine life and united with the divine nature in One Person, in the Word made Flesh, in the God-man Jesus Christ. The Word became flesh. God descended to earth and humanity ascended into heaven. He is the perfect image, the perfect icon, of the invisible God because he is God himself. All that we know of God, we know through him, because “no one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18).

Now, for two final mysteries in this great Prologue of St. John’s Gospel, these great opening lines.

The Word became flesh and dwelt — pitched his tent — among us, the Word who is life and light. And the world preferred death, the world chose darkness instead.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him (John 1:10-11).

Even when a man was sent from God — John the Forerunner — who came as a witness to the Light that all might believe through him, they did not recognize, they did not receive the Word made flesh: not all of them, not the people prepared through covenant, through Law, through Kings and prophets. But, here and there, in fits and starts, now and then a few did receive him, did hear the Word, did see the light, did find life in him. And,

12 [But] to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13).

Here we are getting near one of the deepest mysteries of all. Why did the Word who was with God and who was God become flesh to dwell among us as one of us? In the words of St. Irenaeus of Lyon:

For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God (Irenaeus, Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 19.1)).

In paraphrase, He, the Word, became what we are so that we might become what he is: not divine by nature, but a participant in the divine nature, and thus the sons and daughters of God by the grace of adoption — not by a legal fiction, but by the indwelling Holy Spirit who unites us to the Word and transforms us into the likeness of the Son.

Is there a deeper mystery than this, that from before the foundations of the world the foreknowledge and will of God included the creation of human beings who would one day bear his own image and be called — be made — his own sons/daughters, and that through the incarnation of the Word?

This theme is close to the heart of St. John. In his first epistle he wrote:

1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure (1 John 3:1-3).

Through the incarnation of the Word; through his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and with the descent of the Holy Spirit; through faith and baptism; through word and sacrament and prayer and repentance; through the grace of God we are not only called children of God, but so we are. And while now we bear that image so incompletely, so imperfectly, when the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, appears yet again among us, when we see him truly as he is, we will be like him.

Opening lines matter, and, for my money, St. John — not Dickens — was the master.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Amen.

An Advent Homily on Isaiah 60

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Waiting Well and Faithfully: A Homily on Isaiah 60
(Isaiah 60, Psalm 119:25-48, Luke 18:1-30)

Collect of the Third Sunday in Advent
O Lord Jesus Christ, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise make ready your way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient toward the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world, we may be found a people acceptable in your sight; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Our King and Savior now draws near:
O come, let us adore him.

We are now past the midpoint of Advent; we can almost see the bright radiance of the angels over a pasture outside Bethlehem and almost hear them tuning up their Glorias — the light at the end of the tunnel of Advent, so to speak. Our waiting for the celebration of Jesus’ first Advent is nearly over, and we know it from the calendar. But, we are still waiting for his second Advent, and we have no idea where we are in that timeline; there is no human calendar for that. So far, it has been two thousand years and counting. It may be two thousand years more. It may be before our next breath. I may live to see it, I may not. Robert Benson, one of my favorite authors and a man I only half-jokingly say ruined my life, wrote an Honest-to-God memoir titled “Between the Dreaming and the Coming True.” And that is precisely where we are as we await the second Advent: somewhere — and God only knows where — between the dreaming and the coming true.

We might as well be honest. Some have given up waiting and just put that second Advent out of mind. These assume they will live and die and the world will go right along until it doesn’t. Maybe Jesus will return, maybe humans will destroy themselves before that, or maybe the whole thing will just drag on interminably. Or, as Christians, they believe — with conviction — that Jesus will return. But they are Christians formed unwittingly and unknowingly by Bayesian statistics: the probability of something happening today or tomorrow that hasn’t happened in the prior two thousand years is vanishingly near zero. So, those folk do not wake up every morning thinking, “Today could be the day!”

Then there are others who do wake up each morning thinking of and even longing for Jesus’ immediate return: that this day might be the day is their greatest hope. I find this to be true especially for those who are advanced in years and perhaps a bit life-weary and also for those who are suffering or grieving various losses. Come, Lord Jesus is a real and heart-felt prayer for these dear souls.

Many of us — honestly, I suspect most Christians — fall somewhere in-between. We think about Jesus’ second Advent not daily but from time to time: maybe during Advent as we are doing now, maybe when the lectionary guides us into 1 Corinthians or 1 Thessalonians or Revelation, maybe when we attend a funeral. But all of us, whether consciously and expectantly or unconsciously and dimly are waiting; we are in the “not yet” of the Christian story. The issue for us is how to wait well. What do we need in order to wait well?

To begin answering this question — and there is much more to it than I’ll be able to say — I want to draw a few lessons from Isaiah 60, one of our readings for Evening Prayer today. To see the text as a passage on waiting, we must understanding that the people who heard it were likely in exile in Babylon. Jerusalem had been destroyed, the temple had been razed, and the Judeans had been carried away to a foreign land. Surely, in that dire situation, at least from time to time, someone told the story of Egypt and the Exodus, keeping some hope alive that what God had done before he might just do again. And, just as surely, someone rehearsed the covenants that God had made with Abraham and David — covenants that don’t end with the people in exile. So, at least some of the people are waiting, waiting for God to do something, anything. We have to hear Isaiah in that context. What is needed for the people to wait well, to wait faithfully?

First, the people need a prophet and a vision. It is easy in the midst of waiting, especially when the waiting is prolonged, to get so accustomed to the ordinary, to the mundane state of affairs, that we lose the vision of what is possible; for us as Christians, we might even lose the vision of what is promised. That is where the prophets come in, the Biblical prophets and those with prophetic gifts among us, gifts of speaking the word of God in powerful new ways, gifts of painting a vision, in word and image, of what God has promised. When our African-American brothers and sisters were waiting in the exile of justice denied, of a Constitutional covenant unfulfilled, a prophet arose to speak a vision, a dream:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

A prophet and a vision. And though it did not come true in Martin Luther King’s lifetime, and though it still has not come true in its fulness, it is this vision that proclaims what is possible, what is promised. It is this vision that keeps people waiting and working faithfully. If we are going to wait well, we need prophets with a vision. Listen to this vision from Isaiah given to a people in exile:

Arise, shine, for your light has ‘come,*
and the glory of the LORD has dawned up’on you.

For behold, darkness covers the ‘land;*
deep gloom enshrouds the ‘peoples.

But over you the LORD will ‘rise,*
and his glory will appear up’on you.

Nations will stream to your ‘light,*
and kings to the brightness of your ‘dawning.

Your gates will always be ‘open;*
by day or night they will never be ‘shut

They will call you, The City of the ‘Lord,*
the Zion of the Holy One of ‘Israel.

Violence will no more be heard in your ‘land,*
ruin or destruction within your ‘borders.

You will call your walls, Sal’vation,*
and all your portals, ‘Praise.

The sun will no more by your light by ‘day;*
by night you will not need the brightness of the ‘moon.

The LORD will be your everlasting ‘light,*
and your God will be your ‘glory (Surge, Illuminare. BCP 2019, p. 80).

This is the prophetic vision the people need in order to wait faithfully and well: the sunrise of the glory of God upon his people, a new Jerusalem with walls of Salvation and portals or Praise, the nations streaming to the light streaming from Zion, the LORD in their midst as their everlasting light and glory. Yes, this is what the people long for. But, when, Lord? And the answer comes from another prophet, from Habakkuk:

“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.

3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay” (Hab 2:2-3).

Wait for it; it will come. In its appointed time, it will surely come. To wait faithfully and well, we must have a prophetic vision.

To wait well we also need songs. Earlier I quoted a bit of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” But the Civil Rights Movement of which he was the prophetic heart also had songs, anthems like “We Shall Overcome,” by Pete Seeger:

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome someday

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We’ll overcome someday

We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace someday

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We’ll live in peace someday

There are other verses, but these will do for now. This is the prophetic vision turned to prayer, for, as the saints know, he who sings prays twice. We saw this during the 1960s anti-war movement with Peter, Paul, and Mary’s singing of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In the Wind.”

We saw this during the aftermath of 9/11 and the pursuit of the Global War on Terror; you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the U.S.A.” Songs turn vision to prayer. Songs rouse us from our stupor. Songs help us wait, watch, and work. The Psalmists knew this. Paul and Silas knew this as they waited in prison at midnight for the dawn to come singing hymns and spiritual songs. St. John knew this as he wrote the visions he saw on Patmos, visions filled with songs and hymns so that his seven churches — some of them under persecution — could turn the visions into prayer as they waited well and faithfully for the visions to come true.

Make of this what you will. Many Muslims believe that the Qur’an prohibits prohibits music, both instrumental and vocal. In some hadith, the oral tradition of Islam, singing is prohibited by teaching such as this (see “Islam and music” in Wikipedia):

“Singing sprouts hypocrisy in the heart as rain sprouts plants”

And,

“There will be among my Ummah [Islamic community] people who will regard as permissible adultery, silk, alcohol and musical instruments.”

I don’t intend to make a straw man of Islam, here, but I would like to contrast this near prohibition of song with the opening verses of Psalms 95 and 96:

O come, let us sing unto the LORD;
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving
and show ourselves glad in him with psalm (Ps 95:1-2, BCP 2019, p. 394).

And,

O sing unto the LORD a new song;
sing unto the LORD, all the whole earth.
Sing unto the LORD and praise his Name;
tell of his salvation from day to day (Ps 96:1-2, BCP 2019, p. 395).

We Christians are a singing people, not least because singing turns vision into prayer and enables us to wait faithfully and well.

Before we draw a line under this and move on, I want to note that the Church has felt so strongly about turning prophetic vision into song and song into prayer that selections from this passage in Isaiah have been sung for generations in the canticle we know as the Third Song of Isaiah. It is included in the Book of Common Prayer for singing/praying in Morning and Evening Prayer. It is one of many prophetic visions turned into song and prayer: the Song of Zechariah (Benedictus), the Song of Mary (Magnificat), the Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis). If we are to wait well and faithfully, we need songs.

Prophetic vision becomes song, song becomes prayer, and prayer become hope. If we are to wait well and faithfully we must have hope. Biblical hope is not mere wishful thinking — what we’d like to have happen but are pretty sure won’t. No. Biblical hope is rock solid certainty based on God’s word and character. St. Paul is an Apostle of hope and Romans is an epistle of hope. Listen to him:

5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:1-5).

We can be at peace in our suffering — we can even rejoice — because we have hope that does not put us to shame. And that hope is a gift of God’s love made real to us by the Holy Spirit. Because of hope we can endure; read that “hope makes it possible to wait well and faithfully.”

Now, let’s tie this up and put a bow on it by considering a portion of the glorious eighth chapter of Romans. How do we wait, even in the midst of suffering?

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:18-25).

This text, you see, is speaking of waiting for the second Advent of Christ; it speaks to us, because that is where we live between the dreaming and the coming true. And in the between time, we suffer; all of creation groans because it is out of join and winding down. What make our waiting possible? We are waiting for the grand consummation of all things, the renewal of creation and our full inheritance as sons and daughters of God, our full bodily redemption. This is our hope. Because this hope is a gift of the Spirit, even though we don’t see it yet, we can wait for the fullness of our salvation in the certainty of hope. If we are to wait well and faithfully, we need hope.

So, there you have some thoughts from Isaiah — and others — about how to wait well and faithfully for the second Advent of our Lord. To wait we need a prophetic vision. We need that vision turned into song and prayed as we sing. And we need those songs and prayers to stoke our hope for the good things to come.

Our King and Savior now draws near.
O come, let us adore him.

Amen.

Between the Dreaming and the Coming True: https://www.amazon.com/Between-Dreaming-Coming-True-Road/dp/1585420883/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26LULAF9V07GX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.m1Nn6F2q_eMTHgms5X7evGTXviPiYtz-Qo1BEy3OT-V5lnCpMEK8zgOPNcQTlX7HiHsaRfFr2x_cNuTsJz_5jeCpetfkiA6is76yt1BPDBihUaU6CI9G98Vt9Ik6HqlO.J5_qmq39bB_7AEdyeJcuUBBI6V3BcN72K7-uFYobLsA&dib_tag=se&keywords=Between+the+dreaming+and+the+coming+true&qid=1766010293&sprefix=between+the+dreaming+and+the+coming+true%2Caps%2C304&sr=8-1

Session 4: Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Advent with Isaiah: Session 4 — Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign
(Isaiah 7:1-17)

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and as we are sorely hindered by our sins from running the race that is set before us, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

To begin this last session, let’s think through an unlikely scenario — unlikely here at Apostles, but not necessarily so in many churches with a more prominent charismatic character. After service someone approaches you and says, “During prayer this morning, the Lord gave me a word for you. The Spirit told me that in six months [x, y, and z] will happen to you and you should do [this, that, and the other] in preparation and response.” Now suppose that what is “prophesied” to happen and what you are to do about it are not trivial matters, but rather ones of great important and meaning. This raises significant questions — important ones. What would your response be to this brother or sister and to his/her word? Would you accept this as a word from the Lord and follow the guidance given? What criteria would/could you use to determine the true origin of the “prophetic” word? [Have the class discuss this at their tables.]

Well, there are several “tests” that might be useful.

First, you certainly should/would compare the word of the prophet to the Word of God. Is this word in keeping with Scripture? If not, it must be disregarded. But, this test might well be ambiguous. A specific word might be generally in accordance with Scripture but not be a word of God for you. For example, suppose your friend had said, “The Spirit told me that you are to sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus into Gospel ministry.” Well, we have seen that in Scripture; it was something that the Lord required of someone, so it is not opposed to Scripture. But, is God requiring it of you here and now? This test doesn’t answer that question. Not everything present in Scripture is taught by Scripture as a normative mandate for all.

Second, you might enter into a period of discernment — prayer (likely with fasting) and spiritual direction with trusted spiritual mentors and guides. St. Ignatius gives good guidance on this process and you might refer to his rules for the discernment of spirits.

Third, you might consider— you almost certainly would consider — the human source of the word. Is this a person through whom the Lord has spoken before, a person with a “track record” of listening well to the Spirit? Has he/she spoken such prophetic words to people before? Have they come to pass? This gets us at the ultimate test from Deuteronomy:

15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him” (Deut 18:15-22).

This is a foolproof test: if the prophecy did not come true, it was not from the Lord. But, there is a major problem with that test: it is a post hoc, “after-the-fact,” test. You can never know the truth of the prophecy in real time — now — but only later, sometimes too late to respond properly. It’s like having someone give you, in advance, the winning lottery numbers, and then waiting until after the drawing to see if the numbers were right. You need to know the quality of the prophecy before the fact, before its fulfillment or nullification. How does Scripture deal with that?

The tradition arose in Israel of asking the prophet for a sign that would vouch for the prophecy beforehand. If the sign came true, the assumption was that the prophecy would likewise come true. Let’s consider a couple of examples.

Early in the book of Judges, Israel is under the thumb of Midian. The angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and promises to deliver Israel through his military leadership. This is a life-or-death prophecy. If Gideon rises up rashly, if he has not truly heard a word from God, then he and those who follow him will perish and the situation will get even worse for Israel. So, Gideon asks for a sign — two signs, in fact — that the prophecy will come true.

36 Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, 37 behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” 38 And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” 40 And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew (Judges 7:36-40).

Based on this twofold sign, Gideon trusted the prophecy and acted accordingly, to the salvation of Israel.

We see this testing of prophecy again in the ministry of Isaiah.

1 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’ ” 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, 3 “Now, O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: 5 “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, 6 and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.” 7 And Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that he may recover.”

8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” 9 And Isaiah said, “This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?” 10 And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps.” 11 And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord, and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz (2 Kings 20:1-11).

Again, the sign gave credence to the prophecy. The fulfillment of the sign pointed toward the fulfillment of the prophecy.

There are New Testament examples, as well. Here is one appropriate for the coming season of Christmastide. It is from St. Luke’s gospel.

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:8-12).

The prophecy is the coming of a Savior, of the Messiah. The sign is a baby, one swaddled and lying in a manger.

Lastly, I’ll just note that we see the demand for a sign as a recurring theme in Jesus’ own ministry. “What sign will you give us?” the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees asked Jesus probably often. Jesus’ most notable response was, “No sign will be given you other than the sign of Jonah,” pointing toward his own death and resurrection.

So, in Scripture, signs accompany prophecies and serve as an earnest of the fulfillment to come.

And that brings us to the text for today. I have extended it a bit beyond the lectionary to provide the context for the pertinent passage. Here is the context.

1 In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. 2 When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

3 And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field. 4 And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, 6 “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” 7 thus says the Lord God:

“ ‘It shall not stand,
and it shall not come to pass.

8 For the head of Syria is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
And within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.

9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you are not firm in faith,
you will not be firm at all’ ” (Isaiah 7:1-9).

If you want to read about the fulfillment of this prophecy, about the fall of Rezin, head of Damascus, head of Syria and about the fall of Israel to the Assyrians, look to 2 Kings 16 and 17. The prophecy came true, but Ahaz, in the moment, had no way of knowing it would do. So, what might you expect him to have done? He might have asked Isaiah for a sign; in fact, it seems that Isaiah expected him to do. It is what he should have done. We pick up the story in Isaiah 7:10-17.

10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: 11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” 13 And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. 17 The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria” (Isaiah 7:10-17)!

Ahaz should have asked for a sign. When he didn’t, the Lord told him to ask. Again, Ahaz did not, hiding under the mask of false piety. If you read the texts again you get a different picture of Ahaz, not as pious, but as cowardly and faithless. So, the Lord takes the initiative and offers a sign himself. A virgin will conceive and bear a son. By the time the child is weaned to solid food — curds and honey — Syria and Israel will no longer be a threat to Judah.

So, how can we summarize the prophecy and the sign? What are the key elements?

1. It is the prophecy of divine deliverance, of God himself coming to be with his people for their salvation. The salvation, in this immediate context, is rescue from Syria and Ephraim/Israel.

2. The sign of the prophecy is the conception and birth of a son in whom and through whom God will dwell with his people for their salvation, hence the son’s name Immanuel, God with us.

3. The deliverance will not look as might be expected; it will be a time of judgment for the people.

Before we move on to the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy, I should address one controversial translation issue in Isaiah 7:14b. The ESV reads:

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

The word in the Hebrew text that is translated “virgin” — the word that Isaiah would have used — is almah. It is the word for a young woman who has reached puberty and sexual maturity and is thus of marriageable status. There is nothing in the word that specifically mandates virginity, though virginity would have been a reasonable assumption for such young women in that culture.

Now, let’s move forward about five centuries, to the Jewish translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, a translation we call the Septuagint. Note that this translation is still some two-hundred fifty years before Jesus. It would have been the translation that many of the early Christians used. It is common for the New Testament authors to use the Septuagint when quoting the Old Testament.

When the translators rendered almah from Hebrew into Greek, they chose the Greek word parthenos — not merely young woman, but specifically “virgin.” Since this was before the conception and birth of Jesus, there was no collusion to give a particular Christian emphasis to Isaiah. The reasonable explanation of the choice of parthenos is simply that “virgin” was the common reading and understanding of Isaiah’s prophecy: when he said almah everyone understood he was speaking of a virgin and not just of a young woman. So, it was proper for the Greek translators to use “virgin” and for our English translations to say “virgin.” And it is clearly the tradition and understanding that Saints Matthew and Luke drew from in their Gospels. Let’s turn now to their use of Isaiah’s prophecy.

St. Matthew: The Birth of Jesus Christ

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus (Matt 1:18-25).

The angel tells Joseph that he is being caught up into the further fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, that whatever God did to rescue Judah during and after the reign of Ahaz, there is more to come. Ahaz and Judah were being saved from a military threat. But what about God’s people in Joseph’s time? What are they being saved from? Jesus (savior) will save the people from their sins. The one to be born of a virgin will be Immanuel — God with us — because only God can save from sin.

There are some interesting dynamics at play in this story. For Isaiah, the conception and birth of a son from a virgin is the sign of something more important — a military rescue. For Matthew, Mary’s virginal conception and birth is the most important thing; the angelic vision in his dream is the sign. The baby is center stage, because he will be Jesus (savior) and Immanuel (God with us.)

Now, let’s consider Luke’s account.

St. Luke: The Annunciation

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her (Luke 1:26-38).

Two observations about this encounter:

First, Mary is quite clear that παρθενος (virgin) is the right word to describe her. She, better than anyone else, knew the proper translation.

Second, the reason that her virginity is central to the story is that the identity of the child is central to the story: He will be called the Son of the Most High; he will be called holy — the Son of God. We don’t have time to delve into incarnational theology; it is enough to know that that is precisely what is occurring here. God himself is taking on flesh so that he might dwell among us. The Holy Spirit facilitates — I have no better word — the incarnation of the Logos; that is the divine aspect. Mary offers her humanity; that is the human aspect. These two natures are united as a single person, the God-man Jesus of Nazareth, not only God with us, but also God as us. As glorious as human birth is, it cannot accomplish this union. So, no human male can be involved. And the only way to ensure that, is for a virgin to conceive by the Holy Spirit.

And with that, Isaiah has now led us through Advent and has brought us to Bethlehem, to the manger, to the fulfillment of all his prophecies about God’s rescue of his people, about the renewal of all creation, about the inclusion of all people, about God with us. All that went awry in the Garden, all the history of Israel, all the Law and the Prophets, were pointing to this moment, to the one. So, let’s close these lessons — and soon this Advent season — with the Advent antiphon from Morning Prayer:

Our King and Savior Now Draws Near.
O, come, let us adore him.

Amen.