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Pentecost 14 - Proper 20B - Sept 21 2003
H
o m i l y G r i t s
The
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Year B
Proper 20 - September 21, 2003
17 Sept 1981 John David
Troyer, Mennonite Missionary, Martyr in Guatemala
El dictador Anastasio Somoa
muere a manos de Rigoberto López Pérez en Leon, Nicaragua in 1956
(© 2003 by Grant Gallup -
permission given for free distribution in fair use or quotation )
¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary:
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love
things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are
passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Wisdom 1:16-2:1 (6-11) 12-22
Psalm 54 Deus, in nomine - Save me, O God, by your Name
James 3:16-4:6 The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits.
Mark 9: 30-37 He set a child in front of them.
¶ Revised Common Lectionary
Proverbs 31:10-31 She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her
hands to the needy
and Psalm 1 Beatus vir - Their delight is in the law of the Lord
or Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22 They did not know the secret
purposes of God
or Jeremiah 11:18-20 To you I have committed my cause
and Psalm 54 Save me O God by your Name
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a as above BCP
Mark 9:30-37 "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all, and servant
of all".
¶ Lutheran Book of Worship
O God, we thank you for your Son who chose the path of suffering for the
sake of the world. Humble us by his example, point us to the path of
obedience, and give us strength to follow his commands; through your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jeremiah 11:18-20 (or Wisdom of Solomon 1:16--2:1, 12-22) as above, RCL
Psalm 54 as above, BCP
God is my helper; it is the Lord who sustains my life. (Ps. 54:4)
James 3:13--4:3, 7-8a as above BCP and RCL
Mark 9:30-37 as above BCP and RCL
¶ Roman Catholic Lectionary - (25th Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Wisdom 2:12-17, 20 Let us lie in wait for the righteous one
Psalm 53 (Vulgate) Psalm 54 Jerusalem Bible - An appeal to the God of
justice
James 3:16-4:3 as above
Mark 9:29-36 as above
¶ A Reading from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Childhood deeds of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
When this boy, Jesus, was five years old, he was playing at the ford of a
rushing stream. He was collecting the flowing water into ponds and made
the water instantly pure. He did this with a single command. He then
made soft clay and shaped it into twelve sparrows. He did this on the
sabbath day, and many other boys were playing with him. But when a
Judean saw what Jesus was doing while playing on the sabbath day, he
immediately went off and told Joseph, Jesus' father: "See here, your boy
is at the ford and has taken mud and fashioned twelve birds with it, and
so has violated the sabbath." So Joseph went there, and as soon as he
spotted him he shouted, "Why are you doing what's not permitted on the
sabbath?" But Jesus simply clapped his hands and shouted to the
sparrows: "Be off, fly away, and remember me, you who are now alive!"
And the sparrows took off and flew away noisily." [From The Complete
Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version, Robert J. Miller, editor. HarperSan
Francisco, Polebridge Press, 1992, 1994. Copyright.]
¶ Lollard Sermon for Christmas Day (early 15th century) -- (A comment on
"He set a child in front of them".)
And Joseph and Mary, though they were of high character, they were poor
in regard to worldly goods, and of such worldly men took little notice. .
. It was in a crib, between the animals, this blessed maid laid her child
when he was born. Here men may see, who look closely, great poverty
[revealed] in the attire at this lord's birth. Both poor and rich must
learn a lesson from this . . . Instead of the royal castle with rich
clothes, she had a stinking stable in the highway. . . In the face of
this must wicked hypocrites be ashamed who say that they follow Christ in
his poverty mostly nearly of all men on earth, and say that the Christ
was born in so poor a place while they dwell in such regal places, [with]
halls, chambers, pantries, store rooms, kitchens, stables and all other
houses of office, regal enough for the households of a king, prince or
duke. That this child was born in a house open on every side betokens
that God will be shut off from no one who will come to his mercy, but is
ever open to all who will appeal to him for mercy and grace. [from
Radical Christian Writings, edited by Andrew Bradstock and Christopher
Rowland; Oxford, Blackwell 2002.]
A Reading from the Prophet José Marti (Letter from Prison, to his
Mother, 10 November 1869)
"The prosecutor was here yesterday, and he seemed quite interested in
asking about my case and how it was coming. I told him what he knew; but
it's quite strange that the person who will be trying me should be asking
me why I'm in jail. I've been told that somebody spoke to him about me.
. . Prison doesn't frighten me very much, but I can't stand being in
prison for a long time. This is the only thing I ask: act quickly,
because nothing should be done to one who hasn't done anything. At
least, they can't make any accusations that I am unable to disprove. I
am very sorry to be behind bars, but I'm getting a lot out of prison. It
has taught me many lessons that will be useful in my life--which I
predict will be short--and I won't fail to make use of them. I am 16,
yet many old people have told me I seem old. And they're right, in a
way, because while I have all the recklessness and excitement of youth, I
also have a small--and wounded --heart. Really, you suffer a lot, but I
suffer more. God grant that, someday when I am happy, I may tell you of
the problems in my life! "
[José Martí was born in La Habana, Cuba in 1853; imprisoned as a youth at
age 17 by the Spaniards on a charge of treason. Wandered the rest of his
life in the Americas, and lived in New York City for 14 years in exile
before returning to Cuba, where he was killed in the War of Independence
against Spain in 1895 at age 42. Best known perhaps for his wonderful
song, "Yo soy un hombre sencillo" -- or "Guantanamera", made famous by
Pete Seeger's rendition in the sixties -- he gave his childhood, his
youth, his life and death for Cuba and for the Great Homeland of Latin
America. (These selections from: José Martí Reader, Writings on the
Americas, ed. by Deborah Shnookal & Mirta Muñiz. Melbourne & New York:
Ocean Press. 1999. )
A sincere man am I
Grom the land where palm tees grow,
And I want before I die
My soul's verses to bestow.
I'm a traveller to all parts,
And a newcomer to none;
I am art among the arts,
With the mountains I am one.
I know the strange names of willows,
And can tell flowers with skill:
I know of lies that can kill,
And I know of sublime sorrows.
I have seen through dead of night
Upon my head softly fall,
Rays formed of the purest light
> From beauty celestial.
I know the world is weak
And must soon fall to the ground
And then, midst the quiet profound
The gentle brook will speak.
While trembling with joy and dread,
I have touched with hand so bold
A once-bright star that fell dead
> From heaven at my threshold.
I have hid in my brave heart
The most terrible of pains,
The son of a land in chains
Lives for it and dies apart.
All is beautiful and right,
All is music and reason;
And as diamonds 'ere their season,
All is coal before it's light.
In 1982 I heard on WFMT radio in Chicago a lecture by Leonard Bernstein
on the music of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) who said that Mahler's music
was permeated with the theme of Death, that back there, at the turn of
the century, Mahler foresaw that the twentieth century's theme was to be
that of a covenant with death. He foresaw three deaths, his own, in his
forties, of an incurable disease, and the death of music in this century
(listen to a hard rock concert, or the cacaphony of John Cage), the death
of tonality, of all that goes to make music a reflection of order and
beauty and proportion and humanity. And Bernstein said that the third
way in which Mahler foresaw death in the twentieth century was in the
death of society itself, the death of the human community, even the death
of the planet itself.
The first reading from the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon told us of the
ungodly, who "by their words and deeds summoned death; considering him a
friend, they pined away, and they made a covenant with him." A covenant
with death.
In the succession of the Apostles of Death from Harry Truman down
through Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, the United States has
maintained its right to first strike and preemptive strike capability in
the use of weapons of mass destruction, and is the only nation to have
committed war crimes on so massive a scale as Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
its rape, robbery and laying waste of the Americas, and now the rape,
pillage, and marauding of its latest victim, Iraq. The U.S. taxpayers
have all agreed to and signed this covenant with death by their tax
returns. They have agreed to risk the destruction of the planet and the
end of human life itself for their own insular "national security
state." Tom Lehrer used to sing of the covenant of death back in the
sixties; one of his songs went, "We will all go together when we go."
In Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" the colonizers of the Red Planet,
recently showing itself off to us in our new century dedicated to the God
of War, are all ordered to return to their own planet, Earth, because
every hand will be needed here for the waging of a global war. Only two
people stay behind on Mars: country-and-western caricatures with cowboy
boots and ten gallon Texas hats, and spangled chaps, and they run a fast
food grill at the side of the road. Through a telescope they watch for
signs that the war on earth is over, and that the spaceships will start
back to Mars with the colonizers, who will have new life and new
opportunities on Mars. But they see through the telescope instead the
transformation, in a few seconds, of the planet Earth, from its radiant
cool blue into a brilliant orange ball, bubbling, then white, then. . .
an explosion in the universe which ends in a cloud where the planet had
been. The war has destroyed our island home, and the country-and-western
couple, the new cracker barrel Adam and Eve, are left upon the windswept
and barren planet Mars with a freezer full of hot dogs and a jukebox full
of Noise. They are visited by a Martian, whom they shoot and kill. St.
James asks in today's second lesson, "What causes wars and what causes
fighting amongst you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your
members?" Isn't it the war within each of you?
Death is the marauding theme of our newborn century, too. The Prophet
William Stringfellow, a closeted Gay man for most of his life, which
must have been a living death to him, wrote a little book for young
people back in the sixties, called "Instead of Death." It was a shocking
title, and almost a pornographic one to present to young people. Death
is still not a polite subject, even at funerals, and liturgical reforms
have perhaps contributed to the Grim Reaper being told to stay away from
our obsequies. We can't even call them "Burials" anymore, except in the
Episcopal Church, and black vestments are out, along with the orange
unbleached candles that gave us our spooky Hallowe'en colors. Even the
Dead are frequently told to stay away from their own last rites. A note
is inserted in the service folder, "Interment private."
But human death nevertheless permeates our culture: try some evening to
count the actual number of deaths that are enacted and portrayed in an
evening's entertainment on the TV. Look at the real deaths told of
sensationally on the evening news. Our wars of aggression now are kept
track of like scorecards at athletic events: Iraqis, 10,000 dead; USers
and Brits, 150. Sex was the taboo topic of the 19th century, so that
even the legs of pianos were covered with skirts, and the legs of
chickens were called "dark meat"and the breasts were called "white meat"
to avoid naming of body parts. How risqué it was when Grace Kelly in a
movie with Cary Grant offered him a breast or a thigh, over a plate of
fried chicken. Now sex is common as pigs' tracks and it is Death which
is taboo, yet everywhere evident amongst us. Picasso's "Guernica", on
permanent display at the United Nations headquarters in New York, had to
be veiled like a nude statue when Colin Powell addressed the Security
Council, for its shocking representation of the dive-bombed Spanish city,
its reminder of the consequences of Powell's policies was so
titillating. We thought the death camps of Nazi Germany were the
culmination of it all, but then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear
arms race, 9/11 and other atrocities, and the crimes of Bush and Blair.
The pious, preachers and poets, can only respond, with W.H.Auden:
"All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die." (1)
The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon speaks: "The ungodly say, 'Come, since
death is our friend, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make
use of the creation to full as in youth. . . Let us oppress the righteous
poor. . . let us not spare the widow nor regard the grey hairs of the
aged. . . but let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves
itself to be useless." Thus our strutting dictator on the deck of a
battle ship in the flight suit of an air marauder.
James suggests that if we ask God for what God has to give we will get
it. In the Managua mornings, I rise to ask God for large helpings of
beauty and truth before breakfast and suddenly the mango tree is full of
the rising sun, its leaves quivering like excited children in the
breeze. The vendors' cries in the street, shouting "Tortillas!" and
"Cosas de Horno!" announce the abundance of Creation, the truth of God's
bread for the world. But our friendships with the world's false values
is enmity with God. Our translation says that those who try to be
friends with both are "unfaithful creatures". The Greek words are not so
theological, but mean "adulterers and adulteresses". Those who are
unfaithful to the Lover, the Divine Spouse. In our Scriptures, it is our
God who is the Spouse of the People of God, the husband and wife and
lover, and to get into the world's bed instead, with its love of status
and power and death, is to be unfaithful, to be a traitor to the One who
loves us. James says it is to be guilty of adultery.
Jesus and his disciples went on and passed through Galilee, and Jesus was
telling them of the coming disaster--of his "delivery"into the Empire's
hands, and of his death, and of his resurrection. They came to
Capernaum, where he had his residence, and he asked them what they were
discussing on the way, and they were silent. For they had not been
talking about how they would save him, nor about how they would avoid
disaster, or the destruction of his life and their hopes, but they were
discussing instead which of them was the most important, who was
greatest among them. They were talking about their own chances. " Let
us sit," said James and John, "one of us on your right hand, one on your
left, when you get to be a celebrity. Let us have Table #1 at the
Inauguration Banquet." But Jesus sat down and called the twelve and took
a child and set the child in their midst. The Aramaic word for child
and servant is the same, "Talya". As Black folk were both "boy" and
"slave", "girl" and "servant." Jesus said then, "Whoever receives such
a one receives me. This is what the
citizen of the Kingdom looks like." In our time, children are still
enslaved, and put to early work and early graves.
In the USA we don't force children to work on treadmills as in Dickens's
England, but our industrialists own captive nations like Nicaragua, where
it is still true that "the golf links lie so near the mill that almost
every day the laboring children can look out and see the men at play."
We do have child labor in Latin America, out of our sight. We do have
child abuse in the USA, out of our supermacho rage. We have abortion
used freely as a method of birth control, where children are a nuisance.
(Abortion except to save the woman's life has always been forbidden
amongst believers.) The Church found in the first centuries the infants
who had been abandoned on the banks of the Tiber in Rome, exposed to the
elements to die, of to be taken away and raised as slaves, and our Mother
(thus, for she earned the title) established the first orphanages.
The Church has always looked upon children as looking upon our Lord
himself, for he said "whoever receives one such in my name receives me."
Mother Theresa of Calcutta made herself the butt of jokes amongst the
bourgeoisie, for her begging from the rich without rebuking them for
their riches, that she might serve among the poor, without rebuking them
for their poverty.
While in Iraq in early March, before the US-Brit Blitz Krieg, some of us
met with the UNICEF representative there, Carel de Rooy, who warned us of
the disastrous plight of Iraqi children because of the decade-long US
embargo of Iraq, which deprived them of medicine and left them with
unexploded munitions from the first attacks on Iraq by Big Bush, before
the attacks by Boy Bush. Children below fifteen years of age are nearly
12 millions, some 44 percent, of the 27 million Iraqi population. (In the
seventies, the US made war on Nicaragua, also a nation of children and
young people.) There were over 1700 sites with unexploded munitions
in Baghdad alone. In two weeks in April, 260 civilians were injured or
killed in Kirkuk alone. "This is terrible, indeed," de Rooy said, "But
many more children are dying of diarrhea. These silent deaths are much,
much worse and they do not attract much media attention." About 4.2
million children under five years old are vulnerable to diseases such as
polio, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, measles and tuberculosis. All of
Iraq's vaccine stocks were destroyed by US missiles that hit the Vaccine
& Serum Institute in Baghdad and cut electricity to the refrigerated
storage. Before the war, Iraq was polio-free, maternal and neonatal
tetanus had been eliminated. Now street children are a growing problem
in "liberated" Iraq, and UNICEF's de Rooy says that "Prior to the 1991
Gulf War, the problem simply did not exist. There was a very high rate of
children in the schools, and no child labor. The international economic
blockage enforced that year to put pressure on Saddam Hussein took
children out from school into the labor market." The U.S. imposed mayhem
and poverty have pushed these beautiful children into the streets to beg
and live off the scraps of society.
"And Jesus took a little Iraqi child and had her stand in front of them
all, and folding the child in his arms, he said, "Whosoever shall welcome
one of such children in my name, welcomes me, and is welcoming not only
me but the One who sent me!"
Iraqi Children
by Ifti Nasim
you wanted a villain
so you got him
you wanted to create a monster
so you did
life is not a Hollywood movie
and the desert was not a backdrop
of a studio
Armed forces were not the extras
They are now suffering from the desert storm syndrome)
there were no props and cuts
Baghdad was not a movie set
Where the real bombs were dropped
Did you ever go back to see if the splinter
Of a bomb had licked he life of a civilian
or a chid.
What do you care you just wanted to show
Your military superiority
So you did.
A little country smaller than your toe has
Kicked you so hard that you have to invite the whole world
To attack her.
Was it an experiment of a new weapon?
Baghdad is not a laboratory. Baghdad is a history.
The economic embargo is the biggest racist notion
I have ever seen in the modern history.
Iraqi children are drinking milk and eating food
Laced with your arsenic.
You have sown a crop of hatred and I am afraid
When it is going to be the harvest time. (3)
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
GRITS 3rd series now on-line:
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits
(1) W.H.Auden, "September 1, 1939" from Chief Modern Poets of Britain
and America, ed. Gerald DeWitt Sanders, John Herbert Nelson, M.L.
Rosenthal. New York and London: Macmillan & Collier Macmillan. 5th ed.
1970.
(2) Interview with Carel de Rooy, reported by the Beijing news service,
http://www.jang.com.pk. Now several members of the Christian Peacemaker
Team with which I went to Iraq in early March have been notified by the
US gummint of its intention to prosecute and punish them for having
obeyed God rather than men, and gone to Iraq as peacemakers instead of as
marauders and murderers in the employ of the US gummint.. The technical
charge is trading with the enemy, since we gave money to beggars in
Baghdad. No government has any such right, indeed no government has any
rights whatsoever, but only duties to its people and the peoples of the
planet to preserve them in peace. The Bill of Rights is for citizens,
not for governments or their minions.
(3) Poems from Iraq, posted on the Media Monitors
Network.http://www.mediamonitors.net/Ifti Nasim. Permission
to reprint requested.