Bartholomew

Today is a major feast, a red letter day. We should be planning a solemn mass with full choir and a festive dinner, for this the Feast of St. Bartholomew. He is a saint about whom we know almost nothing. His name is listed only in three of the gospels (not in John). And even more, legends abound about what happened to Bartholomew. Some say he ended up in India, others suggest Armenia where evidently he was skinned alive. 

In the Hymnal 1982 there is only one hymn for this day (#280), written by John Ellerton, a 19th century hymn writer. The third stanza captures it, I think:

All his faith and prayer and patience, all his toiling and his strife, all are veiled from us, but written in the Lamb’s great book of life. 

The point here is that whatever happened in Bartholomew’s life it’s not written down for us here. We can’t turn to early Christian history books to read about Bartholomew, certainly not in the way we can about Thomas, or John of Patmos, or even Mary Magdalene. All is veiled. 

Except for one thing, which is not veiled, one thing we know “for sure” about St. Bartholomew. And that one thing is very significant. We know that he was a follower of Jesus. That’s enough, in many ways, because whether we die with a great deal of fame and recognition, or whether we die entirely unknown, each of us is known by God. And for those of us who are baptized into the great fellowship of Christ our life’s work is to remain faithful. What does that mean? For me, it means to keep walking in and toward the light of the good news which Jesus proclaimed and lived. Though let’s be clear also to state there are many ways to walk this walk. How I do it is different from how another travels it. The point is to be a disciple...whether we’re known by name is secondary. 

Mary Anne Evans was born in 1819, and died in 1880, but she isn’t known for being Mary Anne, but for her pen name, George Eliot. Her novels depict 19th century England with piercing reality, and perhaps the most well-known is Middlemarch. In that book George Eliot might have had Bartholomew in her mind when she wrote:

“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs” (Middlemarch).

Let us pray. 

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Give us Grace

Yesterday Tom and I were at lunch with friends. The conversation turned to answering the question, “what do you most look forward to about being in the Thousand Islands?”One of our companions, a retired Episcopal priest who is quite erudite, and even a bit enigmatic at times, said, “I love to read. I try to do it all day.”

There are many great things about life at Thousand Island Park. The porch is one, the re-connection with neighbors and friends is another. Long walks and river breezes are two more. Swimming is definitely a great thing here. The list could go on and on.

But maybe our luncheon guest is on to something about reading. It’s as if there’s more time...and I admit that I return to books I’ve read before, and read them as if they’re absolutely new. I suppose in a way they are. Give us Grace is an anthology of Anglican prayers compiled by Christopher L. Webber (Morehouse, 2004), and it’s a book I know quite well, but I never noticed the section of prayers from the Anglican Church in Kenya, until early this morning. Here’s a prayer from Kenya, a postcommunion prayer which leapt off the page. Maybe it will be for you a kind of grace today. Maybe today you’ll read something that’s old as if it’s completely new. I hope so:

Let us pray. 

O God of our ancestors, God of our people, before whose face the human generations pass away: We thank you that in you we are kept safe for ever, and that the broken fragments of our history are gathered up in the redeeming act of your dear Son, remembered in this holy sacrament of bread and wine. Help us to walk daily in the Communion of saints, declaring our faith in the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the body. Now send us out in the power of your Holy Spirit to live and work for your praise and glory. Amen. 

Our desire...for the bread that lasts

Today's reading is from St. John's gospel, beginning at the first verse of the sixth chapter.

The Daily Office readings are about to repeat most of what we’ve been reading every Sunday this summer: bread, bread, bread! 

Last Sunday at the Epiphany Father Pitt preached, following four weeks of my preaching on Ephesians, which meant that we finally, thanks to Louis, heard a sermon on the gospel’s weeks-long emphasis on bread. Of course it was an excellent sermon, and at its end Louis asked us, “when you pray ‘give us this day our daily bread’ what are you praying for? What bread?” 

I think God cares about our answer, about our hunger, about our desire. That for which we’re longing and hoping...God cares about it. This story of the feeding of the 5,000 is told in all four gospels. There’s something about our hunger, our desire, that’s key to Christian discipleship. And, that’s what I think Louis was saying on Sunday. The way St. John tells this story--with important differences from the other versions--Jesus is the one who can end hunger. In this story, Jesus is the host; he distributes the food.

Because in St. John’s teaching it's Jesus himself who will become the real food; Jesus who will say to us just a few verses later, "I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will never hunger." Jesus is saying, "I am the real food. The most important food. Don't spend your lives on food that spoils, or stock the cupboards with things that will perish. Make me the staple, because it’s food that will last.” Jesus is ready, right now and always, to fill us with his love, with his call toward justice and right relationship, and with his peace. 

Let us pray.

O Lord, our Father, which art in heaven, grant unto us thy grace; as the children of thy kingdom, that we labor not only for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life. Give us the true bread from heaven, even the flesh of thy dear Son, for he is our spiritual food and sustenance, without which we can have no life in us. 

(The prayer is from Fr. Richard Meux Benson, 1824-1915, the founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist) 

Pascal & the decision for Christ

Today the church commemorates Blaise Pascal, born in France in 1623, and who died there in 1662. He was home-schooled by his father, but with connections to Mersenne, Fermat, and Descrates, it wasn’t fluff. He was a physicist, a mathematician, a Christian apologist, and a defender of the idea that salvation is a free gift from God, which was something only Protestants believed. Much of Pascal’s life was spent writing in defense of this idea, engaging it so mightily that scholars estimate that over a million people read his underground letters which not only defended the theological premise that salvation is a free gift, but also attacked the Jesuits, who were utterly opposed to what they believed was heresy. In one of his letters Pascal wrote that oft-quoted line, “this letter is longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.” 

In his later writings Pascal underscored two things: first, was the hopelessness of humanity without God (the need for a savior), and the second was the statement that to receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, all we need do is ask.

A few weeks ago I was at the Monastery in Cambridge for their Tuesday evening Eucharist. The brother who preached (about Mary Magdalene, the resurrection, and being a follower of Jesus) made an explicit invitation to his congregation, a bold invitation. Bear in mind that Brother Robert knew some of us well, including of course his brothers and the many people who make the Monastery their primary faith community, while others of us he knew not at all, having never met the visitors there that night, or the person on retreat for whom he might have only been able to recognize a face, without so much knowledge of her or his name. So in that context Brother Robert said (and I paraphrase), “if you have not invited Jesus into your heart do so this evening. The truth of the resurrection is yours for the asking.”

Maybe Brother Robert had been reading Pascal. Or, maybe he himself once asked Jesus to be the center of his life.

I wonder how many followers Jesu can have? Can he have me? Can he have you? The decision is ours.

Almighty God, who gave your servant Blaise Pascal a great intellect, that he might explore the mysteries of your creation, and who kindled in his heart a love for you and a devotion to your service: Mercifully give us grace to see in you, and in your Son, Jesus Christ, the truth of how we might live. Give us courage to never fail to reach out to him, for he is the one who reaches out to us always. All this we pray in his name, and to his glory. Amen.

Sources:

Lesser Feasts & Fasts, 2006 (Church Publishing); www.missionstclare.org (a daily office resource), and Longer than usual: a biography of Blaise Pascal (Alfred Knopf, 1979).