A Saturday morning Reflection on Facebook.
Good Saturday morning good friends of the Autumnal Season. It was a difficult night of sleep last night so we're moving slowly around here this morning. Even our sweet puppies, Eliot and Olivia, are taking long naps.
By the grace and mercy of God or St. Michael or St. Gabriel or Peter Pan or Tinkerbell, or whoever is in charge of these sorts of things in the cosmos this weekend, I am not preaching on Sunday or have any liturgical duties or responsibilities.
Even so, I find that the story of Job - the first lesson in Track I of the lectionary - has been with me all week. It's the story in scripture - though not of real characters - of the epic battle between good and evil, God and Satan.
The richness of the story which lends its durability comes from its many layers of human behavior and deistic thought. It's a story about the problems of monotheism in a pluralistic culture, and the role of community - Job's "friends" - in the midst of great unmerited, inexplicable, and monstrous suffering.
The story raises more questions than provides answers:
Why do bad things happen to good people? How could a loving God be so casually cruel and use such unjustifiable tyranny? What is required of faith in the presence of Evil when we believe the source to be a 'test' from God?
What is to be done about the problem of Evil? Does it come about because God can be so easily seduced by Lucifer? Is it a real entity or a spirit that blows into the soul of a human being, wreaking havoc and mayhem, leading them to make impossible choices for good or ill?
I've been thinking back to when I was newly ordained and hearing the story of a man who had been ordained a deacon with the apostolate of prison ministry and was studying for the priesthood.
Here's the thing: the aspirant for holy orders was serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife and the attempted murder of his infant son.
In 1967, Vaughn Brooks, a 25-year old Black man and member of the historically Black Church, St. Thomas' Church in West Philadelphia, came home at 4 AM after a night of card playing and beer drinking "with the boys," and observed a man leaving his apartment.
When he confronted his wife, Annabelle, she told him that the man had been her lover and that the 15-month old male child asleep in the nursery - Vaughn, Jr. - was not his son but the child she had conceived with her lover.
Mr. Brooks left the room, retrieved his bow and arrow, returned to the bedroom, and let five arrows fly - two to her neck and two to her chest. They entered her body with such force that she was pinned to the mattress.
He said, "I think what was going through my mind was that I was going to kill my whole family."
He then went to the nursery and started to strangle the infant he had thought was his son but then "something made him stop" and he revived the child.
He claims no memory of the confession he scribbled on the kitchen wall -- a few short sentences distinguished by the fact that he corrected his spelling.
Crossing the street, he knocked on the door of his parents' home, told them what had happened, and telephoned the police.
He confessed to murder and was sentenced to life in prison at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution outside of Philadelphia. While there, Vaughn came to the attention of the Rev. Frederick F. Powers, an institutional chaplain with Episcopal Community Services of the Pennsylvania Diocese.
Chaplain Powers detected in Booker what the Bishop described as a “serious interest” in the church. The chaplain gave the prisoner some basic studies in the Bible and theology and endorsed him as a lay reader to assist in services at the prison.
At Chaplain Powers's urging, the Right Rev. Robert L. DeWitt, bishop of PA, visited the inmate in prison and reported that he had been impressed by Booker's “earnestness and intelligence.”
After the advice and counsel of the Commission on Ministry and with the approval of the Standing Committee, Bishop DeWitt approved Booker for postulancy.
After a two-year course of study supervised by four priests, he was ordained deacon and then priest.
Eventually, Booker was paroled and released from prison and was called to serve as rector of Meade Memorial Church in Alexandria, VA.
Booker - then 50 years old, three months ordained, nine years removed from the Pennsylvania penal system, a convicted murderer and a priest of God - preached his first sermon.
He offered no further details but disclosed his crime indirectly, preaching of Moses, who murdered an Egyptian and buried his body; David, who lusted for Bathsheba and gave the orders that led to her husband's slaughter; and Paul, who minded the cloaks at Stephen's stoning and "was consenting unto his death."
Each of these biblical heroes, Booker said, was stained by the gravest of sins. Each was redeemed through the extravagant forgiveness of God.
"Scripture tells us that there is great cheering and great celebration in heavenly skies when the sinner who was lost is found," he said.
Meade Memorial Church- which had not had a pastor for 18 years or a Black pastor for 25 years - erupted in cheers.
How does it happen? How does the man who pulled the bowstring rise to become an Episcopal priest, entrusted with the souls of an entire community? And why does his wife's ghastly murder endure, for some, as the first act in a parable of divine mercy rather than the last act in a parable of divine indifference?
I have those questions written down in the chapter of Job in the copy of the Bible I used for study while I was in seminary.
All these many years later, I still have the same answer:
I don't know.
I do know that, all these many years later, I still need to learn lessons about my vulnerability and weakness and the strength of the divine spark within me to claim those two human qualities as companions who know the pathway to God.
I still need to learn what the story of Job has to teach me about mutual interdependency, compromise, and what constitutes "help" before I take my leave.
I think there is a key to these lessons in what Jesus has to say in Mark's Gospel for Sunday:
"Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
And then, and THEN, scripture tells us, Jesus "took them (the little children) up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them."
I think the mystery of THAT love, the love that is a reflection of "love divine, all loves excelling" may well be the only answer we ever receive to Job's questions.
On this side of the veil, anyway.
Off I go into this day. My heart is filled with gratitude for the love of family and friends and all the lessons life brings us in all its peculiar and unexpected ways.
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia.
PS:
By the grace and mercy of God or St. Michael or St. Gabriel or Peter Pan or Tinkerbell, or whoever is in charge of these sorts of things in the cosmos this weekend, I am not preaching on Sunday or have any liturgical duties or responsibilities.
Even so, I find that the story of Job - the first lesson in Track I of the lectionary - has been with me all week. It's the story in scripture - though not of real characters - of the epic battle between good and evil, God and Satan.
The richness of the story which lends its durability comes from its many layers of human behavior and deistic thought. It's a story about the problems of monotheism in a pluralistic culture, and the role of community - Job's "friends" - in the midst of great unmerited, inexplicable, and monstrous suffering.
The story raises more questions than provides answers:
Why do bad things happen to good people? How could a loving God be so casually cruel and use such unjustifiable tyranny? What is required of faith in the presence of Evil when we believe the source to be a 'test' from God?
What is to be done about the problem of Evil? Does it come about because God can be so easily seduced by Lucifer? Is it a real entity or a spirit that blows into the soul of a human being, wreaking havoc and mayhem, leading them to make impossible choices for good or ill?
I've been thinking back to when I was newly ordained and hearing the story of a man who had been ordained a deacon with the apostolate of prison ministry and was studying for the priesthood.
Here's the thing: the aspirant for holy orders was serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife and the attempted murder of his infant son.
In 1967, Vaughn Brooks, a 25-year old Black man and member of the historically Black Church, St. Thomas' Church in West Philadelphia, came home at 4 AM after a night of card playing and beer drinking "with the boys," and observed a man leaving his apartment.
When he confronted his wife, Annabelle, she told him that the man had been her lover and that the 15-month old male child asleep in the nursery - Vaughn, Jr. - was not his son but the child she had conceived with her lover.
Mr. Brooks left the room, retrieved his bow and arrow, returned to the bedroom, and let five arrows fly - two to her neck and two to her chest. They entered her body with such force that she was pinned to the mattress.
He said, "I think what was going through my mind was that I was going to kill my whole family."
He then went to the nursery and started to strangle the infant he had thought was his son but then "something made him stop" and he revived the child.
He claims no memory of the confession he scribbled on the kitchen wall -- a few short sentences distinguished by the fact that he corrected his spelling.
Crossing the street, he knocked on the door of his parents' home, told them what had happened, and telephoned the police.
He confessed to murder and was sentenced to life in prison at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution outside of Philadelphia. While there, Vaughn came to the attention of the Rev. Frederick F. Powers, an institutional chaplain with Episcopal Community Services of the Pennsylvania Diocese.
Chaplain Powers detected in Booker what the Bishop described as a “serious interest” in the church. The chaplain gave the prisoner some basic studies in the Bible and theology and endorsed him as a lay reader to assist in services at the prison.
At Chaplain Powers's urging, the Right Rev. Robert L. DeWitt, bishop of PA, visited the inmate in prison and reported that he had been impressed by Booker's “earnestness and intelligence.”
After the advice and counsel of the Commission on Ministry and with the approval of the Standing Committee, Bishop DeWitt approved Booker for postulancy.
After a two-year course of study supervised by four priests, he was ordained deacon and then priest.
Eventually, Booker was paroled and released from prison and was called to serve as rector of Meade Memorial Church in Alexandria, VA.
Booker - then 50 years old, three months ordained, nine years removed from the Pennsylvania penal system, a convicted murderer and a priest of God - preached his first sermon.
He offered no further details but disclosed his crime indirectly, preaching of Moses, who murdered an Egyptian and buried his body; David, who lusted for Bathsheba and gave the orders that led to her husband's slaughter; and Paul, who minded the cloaks at Stephen's stoning and "was consenting unto his death."
Each of these biblical heroes, Booker said, was stained by the gravest of sins. Each was redeemed through the extravagant forgiveness of God.
"Scripture tells us that there is great cheering and great celebration in heavenly skies when the sinner who was lost is found," he said.
Meade Memorial Church- which had not had a pastor for 18 years or a Black pastor for 25 years - erupted in cheers.
How does it happen? How does the man who pulled the bowstring rise to become an Episcopal priest, entrusted with the souls of an entire community? And why does his wife's ghastly murder endure, for some, as the first act in a parable of divine mercy rather than the last act in a parable of divine indifference?
I have those questions written down in the chapter of Job in the copy of the Bible I used for study while I was in seminary.
All these many years later, I still have the same answer:
I don't know.
I do know that, all these many years later, I still need to learn lessons about my vulnerability and weakness and the strength of the divine spark within me to claim those two human qualities as companions who know the pathway to God.
I still need to learn what the story of Job has to teach me about mutual interdependency, compromise, and what constitutes "help" before I take my leave.
I think there is a key to these lessons in what Jesus has to say in Mark's Gospel for Sunday:
"Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
And then, and THEN, scripture tells us, Jesus "took them (the little children) up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them."
I think the mystery of THAT love, the love that is a reflection of "love divine, all loves excelling" may well be the only answer we ever receive to Job's questions.
On this side of the veil, anyway.
Off I go into this day. My heart is filled with gratitude for the love of family and friends and all the lessons life brings us in all its peculiar and unexpected ways.
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia.
PS:
Marcellus
Williams, recently put to death in a Missouri State Prison who was,
even by the prosecutor's tell, an innocent man, wrote this poem which was read by Helen Mirren. His final words before his death were "All
Praise Be to Allah in Every Situation!!!"
