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Easter VII-B - June 1, 2003
H o m i l y G r i t s
The
Seventh Sunday of Easter:
The Sunday
after Ascension Day
Year B - June 1, 2003
(© 2003 by Grant Gallup
- permission given for free distribution in fair use or quotation )
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us
comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us
to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.
Amen.
¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary:
Acts 1:15-26 His bishoprick let another take. [episcopé]
or Exodus 28:1-4, 9-10, 29-30 You shall make holy garments, for glory
and for beauty
Psalm 68:1-20 or 47 Exsurgat Deus - Let God arise, and let his enemies be
scattered
1 John 5:9-15 Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in
their hearts.
or Acts 1:15-26 as above
John 17:11b-19 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong
to the world.
¶ Revised Common Lectionary
Seventh Sunday of Easter or Ascension Sunday
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 One of these must become a witness with us
Psalm 1 Beatus vir qui non abiit - Happy are they who have not walked in
the counsel of the wicked
1 John 5:9-13 as above
John 17:6-19 as above
Acts 1:1-11 I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught
Psalm 47 Omnes gentes, plaudite or Psalm 93 Dominus regnavit
Ephesians 1:15-23 God put this power to work in Christ. . . not only in
this age but also in the age to come.
Luke 24:44-53 So stay here in the city until you have been clothed with
power from on high.
¶ Roman Catholic Lectionary
Sunday of the Ascension
Acts 1:1-11 as above
Psalm 46 in RC numbering (i.e., Psalm 47, in the Authorized Version, as
above)
Ephesians 1:17-23 as above
Mark 16:15-20 Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the
whole creation
After a retreat for college students I once helped to tidy up the room
where we had met. . Amongst the paper cups and snack wrappers left
behind was a T-shirt with a slogan on it. Everything we really want to
say to others nowadays can be printed to order on a T-shirt, and this one
was no great shock amongst college students. It read simply, in small
letters, across the back, "It's better on top". But when I lifted it up
to call for its owner to come rescue it, I was while not shocked, at
least surprised, to see a pretty young woman raise her hand and come
forward to claim it. "I'll bet you thought it was my boyfriend's" she
saucily said. And I'm sure I did think so. The traditional and
inherited ideas of role playing, of who is to be "on top", came to us
from a patriarchal system which always puts someone on top, and someone
on the bottom. There's no mistaking it, that where there's a game,
there's got to be a winner; where there's a struggle, there's got to be a
victor and a loser. The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord is a way of
saying liturgically that after Jesus' own battle with oppression, after
his struggle for our liberation, Jesus apparently claims the sweat shirt
emblazoned, "It's better on top." Or, to sing it more acceptably, "The
head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now, a royal
diadem adorns the mighty victor's brow."
We suppose that a patriarchal religion cannot help but use such images as
Top and Bottom. Although in the Qur'an we find instead a horror that
Jesus could have suffered a defeat so disgraceful as the cross, and so
Surah 3:55, wherein God addresses him: "O Jesus, I am causing you to die
and will exalt you to Myself" is interpreted to mean that God rescued him
from this death and exalted him to heaven by a short circuit. Jesus
thus, in his inner will, remains faithful unto death, but the Christian
idea that the Cross was also "God's act", within "God's permissive
will", is disallowed. The Cross is instead solely Man's act, and
happens with Jesus' faithful and willing assent, but it is not God's act
nor within His permissive will. For Christians, the Rescue takes place
after the murder, but for Muslims God rescues Jesus before they can
murder him, and allows him instead an honorable death and exaltation.
Surah 4: 157-159 says: "They denied the truth and uttered a monstrous
falsehood against Mary. They declared, 'We have put to death the Messiah
Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah'. They did not kill him, nor
did they crucify him, but they thought they did.' Those that disagreed
about him were in doubt concerning his death, for what they knew about it
was sheer conjecture; they were not sure that they had slain him. Allah
lifted him up to His presence; He is mighty and wise." (1) So in the
Qur'an the Exaltation happens anyway, and with a death, but without the
crucifixion. Being vindicated, too, even in Qur'an, means coming out on
top. Our religions agree on that. As Joe Kennedy told all his sons, "If
the United States is going to have a President, then you'd damn well
better be the President." "President" has now become a name for the
Empire's top man over Church and State.
But the Ascension analogy at the end of Eastertide is wrongly read if we
go from the vindication of Jesus to the triumphalism of the Church, to
the outrage of a clergy-dominated Church, like an ayatollah-dominated
Ummah (for Islam has no distinction of clergy and laity), and to the
sexism of a Church dominated by patriarchal symbols, the classism of a
Church dominated by wealth and worldly power. The Ascension then becomes
a co-opting of all that Jesus was and is, to shore up a pyramidal class
system, with God (always a Patriarch) at the top, Jesus as his "right
hand man", his C.E.O., followed down the ladder by Pope, bishops,
archdeacons, monsignori, prothonotaries, canons to the ordinary, minor
canons, deans, rectors, curates, vestrymen, chief pastors, associate
pastors, assistant pastors, --all the way down to the little girl
acolyte, second in shift to the little boy acolyte. The better use of
the analogy of Ascension, of going up to a Throne, is not that of a
promotion within a triumphalist system, but instead the celebration of
Jesus' vindication by God, over such a system. The earliest creedal
testimony to this is that God raised Jesus, not that Jesus raised
himself, like an autogyro, and flew away like a featherless pterodactyl.
The Qur'an in its way is thus a testimony to this Act of God in exalting
the Messiah and is thus a Win/Win gospel, and not a Win/Lose tale.
It is the everlasting vindication of Jesus' life of humble service and of
friendship--solidarity unto death--which is held up and to be proclaimed
in Eastertide. What we humans, of whatever religion, have to show the
universe as it unrolls, is Jesus, our brother Human Being In a
churchfull of Black, or Gay and Lesbian, Latin American or any working
class people, one may safely assume that some of the group have also been
in a court-room; somewhere besides the Bench. . The word "court-room"
comes from the fact that the King or Queen of England moved about the
realm in a circuit with the royal court, to hear and decide local
disputes. There is always one important chair in a court room, and it as
close to a throne as most of us may ever get to see, outside our own
bathrooms, where another type of chair is slanged as "throne," for the
important office it has. The rubrics of the current Roman Catholic
ritual say that the priest's chair at the eucharist must be one that
"avoids all appearance of a throne" and that isn't directed at
plumbing. The judge's chair in a court room remains a surrogate
throne, and everyone is bidden to stand when Judge enters in robe (and
wigs, in England and her cultural colonies) and ascends the Seat from
which justice is dispensed.
The analogy that is to be held before us on Ascension Day is the aspect
of Eastertide that we elevate today: Jesus goes up to the bench to
preside at the trial of human history. He becomes thereby the Lord, that
is to say, the Judge of human history. In the Ascension, Jesus escapes
from history--from what humanity did to him--so that history, and
humanity, may not escape from him. He has put on the robes of Judge, as
the ancient Church put it, the robes of Emperor, he is now the carpenter
and teacher become Pantokrator. From now on it is his life, his
life-style, that sits in judgment of us all, and his teaching and healing
that are available to everyone for new life.
Even the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople have admitted
the history of their discrimination against women, 'though not so far as
to change their ways and admit women to the fullness of ministry. The
first reading from Exodus comes from a long time ago: Yahweh says to
Moses: "Get your brother and his sons to serve me as priests." This
post-exilic text, written long after an entrenched Aaronic priesthood
had found several other priesthoods "invalid", as Roman Catholics,
Orthodox, and some Anglicans still like to do, this after-the-fact
fabricated story even describes the fabric and cut of the vestments and
church hats and jewelry to be worn by the clergy, and outlines the
patriarchal order in which the names of the tribes of Israel are to be
etched in the jewels worn by the priests when they go to work. We see it
in the homily which Peter preaches in the Acts: the early church's
record of what it claimed went on in the Ten Days between the Ascension
Day and Pentecost: Ten Days That Shook the World, we might call them.
John Reed used that title for his book about the Russian Revolution, when
the Bolsheviks stole the Revolution and changed its direction towards
Leninism and inevitably Stalinism, betraying both Karl Marx and
socialism. Something similar happened in the days between Ascension and
Pentecost. Luke tells us the way by which a successor was chosen to
replace "Judas" the traitor. The rules for the choosing are given: it
must be someone who has been with the Jesus Movement from the time of
John the Baptist until the present time, that is, one who has witnessed
the Resurrection. Now in spite of the fact that he's talking to about
120 people (enough to legally organize a town) and that Paul says in one
place I Cor 15.6) that about five hundred people had witnessed the
Resurrection, perhaps they didn't fulfill the first requirement, that
they'd been around from the Baptist's time. Well, we know that there
had been a lot of women around: Luke tells us they had come up with
Jesus from Galilee, had financially supported the movement since its
beginning. We know that the first Apostles of the resurrection were
women: "Now when Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he
appeared first to Mary Magdalene,." Mark tells us. "She went out and
told those who had been with him." Something happened then, and the
Jesus revolution was betrayed early on. The boys-in-charge arrangement
of Moses & Aaron, with their hereditary priesthood, with the names of the
males engraved on the jewels of the breastplates, had slipped back
reorganized and extended. Jesus chose Mary as his first Apostle, one who
indeed was not believed by the males, who had deserted him (except for
John his beloved who stayed with the women at the Cross.) It's a long
way from Mary Magdalene as First Witness at the Tomb to Peter as First
Pope in Rome. It's probably closer to three hundred years of struggle in
the life of the post-apostolic church before women are again given
subordination, whereas Jesus had given them ordination. Our lectionary
tells it all however in one short reading from the Acts of the Apostles:
"Ten Days That Stole a Revolution." The Acts tells us that Judas betrayed
the revolution, and it also tells us how the male apostles stole the
revolution, from the Jesus of Nazareth who was Jesus the Feminist, Jesus
the Friend of all the Oppressed. It tells us how the leadership of the
church changed from that of apostles, witnesses, prophets, to that of
overseers and presbuteroi (old men) and cleros. The Urim and Thummin
mentioned in Exodus as apparel of the high priest, and the lots cast by
the brethren to chose a successor to Judas are alike in that they were
ancient ways of making decisions. Choose alternatives, name them, and
then cast dice to get a Yes or No. The ancients thought of it as a way
of being fair and just. But it's playing with a stacked deck, for you
limit options beforehand. The Greek word for the lots cast is cleros,
from which we get our word clergy. Jesus didn't choose any clergy,
clergymen or clergywomen or clergymammals. He chose witnesses, and
apostles, and named his disciples "friends". The church's various games
of chance to choose leadership have been a messy way of avoiding the
Resurrection Revolution. Even from the beginning there was however some
understanding that leadership should be representative, and even Aaron's
sons had to carry the names of all the tribes into the Holy Place,
emblazoned on their sweatshirts. .
The Church's ministry was from the beginning based on the community, a
"base" of discipleship, of self-help, of self-government, and the 120
were the Town Meeting. It was not indeed hierarchical, and the twelve
were to be founders of a revolutionary new community, directed by the
immediate presence of the risen Jesus. Luke's story of Pentecost quotes
the prophet Joel, "In the days to come I will pour out my spirit on all
humankind: their sons and daughters shall prophesy. . . even on my
slaves, men and women, in those days, I will pour out my Spirit." Jesus
prayed that his flock would not be organized the way the world, the
cosmos, is organized, against God, in pecking orders and ranks and files.
The time between Ascension and Pentecost was the only epoch when the
Church was without the guidance of Jesus himself or the guidance of the
Spirit bestowed on the Church at Pentecost. It can stand for the time of
the counter-revolution, when the all male cabal reasserted its hegemony
over the church, dismissed the witness of Mary Magdalene and
short-sheeted or short-shrifted the liberationist gospel of Jesus and
Mary. Verses 12 to 14 of the first chapter of Acts precede the lection
today, which begins at verse 15. The omitted verses tell of the Sabbath
day's walk from Olivet to Jerusalem, of the return to the cenacle where
the countryfolk lodged in Jerusalem: "All these joined in continuous
prayer, together with several women, including Mary the Mother of Jesus,
and with his brothers." Jesus'own Mother, along with the Magdalene,
certainly fit the requirement of apostles: those who had been with Jesus
from the beginning and had been with him up to his vindication. But all
of that was forgotten until our own era, when the Spirit moves powerfully
again to pour out prophecy in women and men, to rebuke popes and
prelates, to proclaim resurrection to disbelieving disciples and
reluctant clergymales and a Church Recumbent. Pentecost is coming soon,
and in this gospel Jesus says it's so we may have joy fulfilled in
ourselves. the gospel is not grim, it is joyful, it is Gay. Joy is what
is to be a mark of the Church--it is to be sure One, and Holy, and
Catholic, and Apostolic, but none of that matters if it's not Joyfiul.
"God has gone up with a merry noise" the Psalmist says. Let's have some
fun at Jesus' VictoryToiur.
The Ascension is the everlasting
vindication of the life and ministry of Jesus and of all the prophets of
God, including the vindication of all the truth of God, everywhere, the
exaltation of all that is redemptive everywhere in the galaxies, as Alice
Meynell wrote, in "Christ in the Universe": (this is one of my favorite
of all poems)
With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have ben told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, he human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.
But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How he administered this terrestrial ball,
Our race has kept their entrusted Word.
Of his earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.
No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.
Nor, in our little day
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way,
Or his bestowals there be manifest.
But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.
Oh, be prepared my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The million forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. (2)
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
GRITS 2nd series now on-line:
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits
(1) Jesus and the Muslim : An exploration. by Bishop Kenneth
Cragg.Oxford: One World Press. 1985.
and The Koran, translated with notes by N. J. Dawood, Penguin Books,
first published 1956.
(2) Prose and Poetry, Alice Meytnell., Introduction by V. Sackville-West.
London: Jonathan Cape 1947.
,