Why I hate tithing, and what I recommend instead

You may recall that I posted a sermon a few weeks ago in which I get pretty shirty about tithing. Well, the brave folks at the Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa, invited me to contribute to their stewardship materials, thus putting their money where my mouth is. I hope I helped them!

Here's what I wrote.

***

I hate tithing. I don’t mean that I hate to do it; I mean that I think it’s a terrible way to determine giving. It’s so mechanical! So guilt-laden, too. But all my life, I’d heard people talk about the tithe as the Biblical basis of stewardship. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I thought, “Hey, wait a minute! People keep talking about tithing as Biblical, but I’ve never actually seen any of these texts!”

I was surprised by what I discovered. Did you know that tithing only refers to agricultural products? That’s why you hear Jesus talks about the Pharisees “tithing mint and rue and herbs of all kinds” (Luke 11:42) – they were keeping to the letter of the law down to the herbs in the kitchen garden.

But looking at the New Testament, what I see as the Biblical standard of giving is not tithing, or any sort of definitive rule. Instead, I see two traits that characterize faithful giving: generosity and mission.

Generosity: Unlike tithing, which is simply a math problem, generosity is a spiritual practice. I know many generous people who are tithers, but tithing on its own is simply about a transfer of goods or money from one entity to another. Generosity, on the other hand, is the attitude in which the tithing – or any giving – is undertaken. Tithing answers the question, “Have I done enough?” Generosity answers the question, “How can I contribute as much as possible?”

Mission: One of the things that most annoys me about tithing is that it is so disconnected to what happens to the money. But what I see over and over again in the New Testament is that giving is directed to some purpose: supporting Jesus’ ministry, helping one another in the church, caring for widows and orphans, or reaching out to the church in Jerusalem.

Mission is actually the question of generosity as it is answered by a community or organization: “How can we as a group contribute as much as possible?” When we are clear about our mission, it makes it clear why we are giving and what we are giving towards. Tithing eliminates any dialogue, expecting people to shut up and give because the Bible says so. But a call for giving based on mission opens the question of what it is we hope to do together and how can we get it done.

And so I would encourage the community of the Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa, to reflect on the mission of your congregation: how can we contribute? Talk about it with one another, and really come to grips with what it is you want to do together and how to accomplish that.

Then as individuals, take time to answer that same question: How can I contribute? If Incarnation has a mission that excites you that you want to support, what can you do to make that happen?

Paul, writing to the wealthy church in Corinth, challenged them to give to support the church in Jerusalem as the much poorer church in Macedonia had done. He summarized giving in a way that resonates with me, saying, “If the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has” (2 Corinthians 8:12).

I hope you are eager to see the great things you can do as the Church of the Incarnation, and I pray that you might be able to give generously to see that happen.

Trinity Sermon tidbits, but no sharks

Mom is going to be very disappointed.

I posted this picture on Facebook yesterday, which was Trinity Sunday, as you may know since I've been talking about it endlessly, it seems. This sweet young thing is displaying her Sunday School drawing which has pink sharks, hearts, and cherries. I noted on Facebook there were three of everything and said, "You should have heard the sermon!" But there were no sharks in the Trinity Sunday sermon. Maybe next year.

Instead, I reacted to a completely different piece of art in my sermon: the famous icon of the Holy Trinity by Rublev. Because I realized, as I thought about it, that it captured something I find troubling about -- not the Trinity, but the way we talk about the Trinity: as a completely enmeshed and encapsulated system, God looking only at God's own self.

Because the God I encountered in the Scripture for last Sunday is far more interested in people than in God's own self. "What is man that you should be mindful of him? The son of man that you should seek him out?" says the Psalmist. And in the Gospel, it isn't the "I and the Father are one" that I might have expected, but instead lots of talk about stuff being given to you, the "you" being the disciples.

And as I thought about it, what I saw was a Trinity not lost in contemplation of its own Godliness, but a Trinity that attempts through every avenue possible to reach us humans, and who doesn't really seem to care what form that takes. My sense is that God really doesn't care if we understand God, because God knows we won't be able to, but that the attempt to build that relationship is all that matters.

So I talked about that a bit. Something like that. It was probably heretical. I'm certain I have that icon all wrong. But there you go. Next year, I'm swimming with the sharks. It will probably be safer.

Happy Heresy Sunday!

Various & Sundry: Now with more random animal drama!

It's been a busy week work-wise as a deadline looooms for the ecumenical version (actually versions) of Confirm not Conform, which of course means I have more than the usual number of goofy links to share. I'm just going to go for the random, here. You sort out the themes.

My favorite grammar heresy, the Singular They, gets a thumbs up from the Grumpy Grammarian, asking, "are we really to heed [William Strunk's] aesthetic sensibilities over Shakespeare’s or Thackeray’s?" Let's just consider that a rhetorical question.

Here's a lead you don't read every day: "An English coroner is being asked to decide why a man was in the chimney of a law firm where he was found dead." Well, yes, that does raise some questions.

You also don't hear about pot-sniffing moose every time you turn around.

In other wild animal encounters, Nancy Kho describes How to Maximize the Drama Inherent in a Wild Turkey Encounter. That's a wild turkey as in an actual wild turkey, not Wild Turkey like glug-glug. Although Wild Turkey might indeed maximize the drama inherent in a wild turkey encounter. No mention of it, though.

OK, I do seem to be sensing a theme as we turn to glow in the dark sheep.

Scientists in Uruguay have announced the world's first genetically-modified phosphorescent sheep. 

Nine sheep were born in October of 2012 at Uruguay's Institute of Animal Reproduction, an experiment conducted in conjunction with the Institut Pasteur. 

The scientists used a gene from a jellyfish, allowing them to produce a green fluorescent protein.

The scientists say the sheep developed normally. They claim there are no differences to their non-modified peers.

Well. Good for them, then. But they are kind of creepy, aren't they?

On the more serious side, two pieces that made me go yay:

First, four teenagers in Wilcox County, Georgia, finally were able to offer the high school's first integrated prom. Yes, you read right. 2013. They had an integrated prom. So kudos to the four girls who finally broke through. It's still hard to wrap your brain around, though, isn't it?

Also kudos to the principal who fired security guards at his elementary school so that he could hire art teachers. He took a real risk, but it looks like it's paying huge dividends.

And for your own decision-making needs, take a look at the Disapproval Matrix, which is "one way to separate haterade from productive feedback." Very useful. Who are you listening to?

Unless you want my tomatoes, quit asking for my tithe!

Seeing Father Tim's great post asking for music to put on a Stewardship Soundtrack made me realize I'd better get in quick if I wanted to get this off my chest:

It is just as inaccurate to talk about the Biblical tithe as proof you should give 10 percent of your income to the church as it is to talk about selected passages in Leviticus as proof that homosexuality is a sin.

I ask you: how many times has your church talked about tithing as the Biblical standard of stewardship? And that tithing means you should give 10 percent of your income away? In all that time, has anyone actually ever even shown you the passages where it says that? It was only a couple of years ago that I realized I'd never actually looked at the texts, and since then each year I've only grown more peeved at how we have abused the Bible to, frankly, no good end.

Let's visit our old friend Leviticus, shall we? Here's Leviticus 27:30-32:

All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord's; they are holy to the Lord. If person wish to redeem any of their tithes, they must add one-fifth to them. All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd's staff, shall be holy to the Lord.

Now from Numbers 18:11-13, 21

[The Lord spoke to Aaron:] This also is yours: I have given to you, togther with your sons and daughters, as a perpetual due, whatever is set aside from the gifts of all the elevation offerings of the Israelites; everyone who is clean in your house may eat them. All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the choice produce that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. The first fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours; everyone who is clean in your house may eat of it...To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for a possession in return for the service that they perform, the service in the tent of meeting.

And Deuteronomy 14:22-27

Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if, when the Lord your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the Lord your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose; spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together. As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you.

Got that? Tithing applies to agricultural products. This is why Jesus talks to the Pharisees about tithing "mint and rue and herbs of all kinds." And if you preferred to do cash instead, well, it cost 20 percent more, according to the Leviticus reading above.

Seriously, can you take those passages above and make a case for saying "This means today that you should give 10 percent of your income to your local parish"? If we are serious about Biblical context for other Old Testament texts, it's rather sloppy of us to say there's an easy equivalence between these texts and the annual pledge drive.

Here's the context: Unless you owned land and had crops and flocks, tithing did not apply to you. What applied to you non-landowner types was offerings.

Take a look at Exodus as an example. In Exodus 25,

The Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to take for me an offering; from all whose hearts prompt them to give you shall receive the offering for me. This is the offering that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine linen, goats' hair, tanned rams' skins, fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and for the breastpiece. And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.

So here you see that gifts are asked of people--in no particular amount, but for the specific purpose of worship, "from all whose hearts prompt them."

But here's what's particularly interesting to me: in Exodus 36:2-6, we read

Moses then called Bezalel and Oholiab and every skillful one to whom the Lord had given skill, everyone whose heart was stirred to come do the work; and they received from Moses all the free-will offerings that the Israelites had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the artisans who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task being performed, and said to Moses, "The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do." So Moses gave the command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp: "No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary." So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.

So you've got two kinds of freewill offerings: the offerings of goods, and the offerings of services. And at a certain point, they had enough to do the work God wanted of them. It wasn't a set percentage based on income; it only had to do with the actual ministry and tasks to be performed!

Tithing is a quick and easy short-cut; 10 percent, done. You know you're set with God and the church for the year. But a) should we be bound by Old Testament law in the first place? and b) does setting the tithe as a standard do anything to help us examine either our hearts or understand our ministries? I would argue no, and no.

I feel that using the tithing short-cut actually damages our churches. Tithing sets up a disconnect between stewardship and mission, making giving all about "how much" and not what the gifts are supposed to do. In asking for a tithe, we ask church members to conform to an external standard rather than the more challenging work of coming to terms with God and one's own conscience.  It encourages guilty giving rather than joyful and generous giving. How can we be generous people if all we know is the demand of a certain dollar amount?

I really wish churches would think about stewardship in terms of getting the resources to do mission that stirs people's hearts to give rather than targeting people to commit a particular percentage amount of income to the church. The case for the Biblical tithe is flimsy at best, to begin with. Given that as Christians, we are no longer bound by the Law, it's irresponsible to use the tithe as our standard of giving, even if it weren't applicable to agricultural products.

On the other hand, I do have some zucchini to share.

Every wind of doctrine

Consider this your "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" Bible study post. But, hey, this passage will come up again:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:14-16

Here's the thing that struck me reading it this time. So. It seems to me that people toss around that phrase "every wind of doctrine" to mean "every newfangled thought that comes along." Is that how you've heard it used? But it occurred to me that at the time the letter was written, Christianity was the newfangled thought. And Paul was an innovator even within this newfangled sect of Christianity, welcoming the uncircumcised, calling a slave his brother (and his owner's brother), expecting a radical equality among genders and races and incomes. He was doing crazily new stuff, way out of the mainstream.

So it makes me wonder if doctrine here doesn't mean new doctrine, but what we usually think of when we think of doctrine: those beliefs that are settled and static and cast in stone.

What if this isn't saying, "Don't be blown about by the latest fad," but instead is saying, "Don't be blown about by 'the way we've always done it'"? Don't be blown about by those forces that wish to deny new truths that have been brought to light through Jesus Christ. 

Remember that grim hymn "Once to ev'ry man and nation"? It has this great couplet:

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

And of course let us not forget the great Thomas Cranmer's delightful introduction to the first Book of Common Prayer (1549, of course): "There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted."

Darn right.

So the next time someone throws that old "every wind of doctrine" line at you, I'd recommend you say, "That's exactly why we need to speak the truth in love, so that we are not continually battered by doctrines that no longer fit our understanding of God and of the world." The winds of doctrine isn't about new ways of thinking; the winds of doctrine are the ones that try to blow us backwards as we attempt to make progress, promoting the body's growth.

Sunday Funnies, July 15

Let's celebrate the opening of The Dark Knight Rises with the Dark Knight in religious art, shall we?

h/t Anglobaptist

Source: matthewpaulturner.net via Confirm on Pinterest

Don't know where I found this exactly.

This transparency for home or church use can be found here.

bonus image (because I cannot resist) found here:

Let us now say Amen.

Various & Sundry, July 13

Oh my goodness! A plethora of goodies has piled up over the past week. Let me see if I can place them in any coherent order...no. Can't. So here they are all jumbled for you to pick through at your leisure.

What would you name a SuperPAC? is one of the questions being asked by Andrew Sullivan's blog. Good luck finding any combination of "future" and "America" that isn't already claimed. Readers came up with some excellent suggestions, my favorite being the "I can't believe it's not coordinated PAC."

Jonathan Feldman scoffed at the World Domination Summit...until he went. He loved it. Then he wrote a very interesting article about the Corporate Drain Brain that happens as a result of (to use a word that should be used as frequently as possible) pettifogging. He calls it "the inflexible and unyielding thumb of corporate America." I say it's pettifogging. Pettifogging, pettifogging, pettifogging. Oh, and I think a lot of what he has to say can be applied to why people leave the church as well.

Is there anything Campbell Whalley didn't do? I mean, he showed Jane Goodall how chimps use tools; he witnessed the H-bomb test at Christmas Island; he showed Ernest Hemingway around big game preserves; he taught Australian Aboriginal students about their culture; he posed for a cricket manual. Oh, and

He was known for his affinity with the camels introduced to that region by 19th-century Afghan railway builders, for his storytelling and playful humour, and for teaching both his white and Aboriginal pupils to make teddy bears, more than 4,500 of which have now been given as a source of comfort to those in need, from cancer patients to impoverished children as far away as Haiti and Zimbabwe.

Anything else you forgot to mention?

But let's leave overachieving behind for a while. This Harvard student wrote a gorgeous essay on Effortless Perfection that I strongly encourage you to read in full. "My duty to the world isn't to be perfect," she says. Instead, looking at an imperfect report card,

As the sting of that first transcript faded, I looked back on what I had done with my semester, and I acknowledged its worth. Before, I had thought not working my hardest selfish. Now I saw it was the other way around. By taking away time from being perfect, I built in time for others.

How wonderful that she learned it now. I'm certain she has a much better life in store as a result.

In case you were wondering, here are 10 signs you shouldn't be getting married in a church.

Also in religious news, Bible-believing Christians should be concerned about the overwhelming conspiracy to undermine your faith with the heretical notion that the moon does not emit its own light. Can you believe that? As the writer of this satire notes, "Not only is it ridiculous to believe that a rock could reflect the light of a sun millions of miles away, but it’s also unbiblical!" Horrors! To think I have been led astray! Next you'll be saying it isn't made of cheese.

Which is a very bad segue into marking the untimely death of Daphne Zepos who is one of the people who made it possible for us to eat fabulous artisan cheeses today. Just last week I was eating a Cowgirl Creamery Mount Tam and thinking I owe this to you, Daphne. Thanks for the cheese. May you rest in peace.

Various & Sundry, May 18

Would it surprise you to find out your mother was a spy? I loved this article about the woman who left the CIA to become a children's book author.  Must have come as a shock to her daughter, though.

“When Hana turned 8, I took her to the International Spy Museum for a fun program they hold, called Operation Secret Slumber. I gave the keynote talk, telling the assembled kids about the real work of spies. Hana was in the back of the room, but I saw her hand shoot up into the air. Wonderment spread across her face, she blurted out ‘So you’re here because you’re the spy?’"

Surprise!

James Lipton offers advice to Mitt Romney on How to Act Human. It's quite specific: how to laugh, how to hold your arms, problems of casting. I thought it was a fascinating insight into how actors observe someone playing the role of a public figure.

If you want some inspiration, read this story about the Columbia University janitor who just graduated with a degree in Classics.  With Honors.  After 12 years. That's after the six years he spent learning English. Truly impressive.

As a classics major, I wonder if he would approve of Dante's Inferno in Lego form.  Or would he think it was a heresy.

Internet Monk offers a lost parable of Jesus: the Sugar of the Earth.

And Jesus spoke to them and said, “You are the powdered sugar of the earth. As sugar is sprinkled on cakes and cookies to make them attractive and exceedingly sweet, so you shall make my church the most delightful confection the world has known. For the children of this world have an insatiable sweet tooth, and you shall satisfy those who hunger and thirst for empty calories."

Yes, it's slightly bitter.  But oh so good.

Also deliciously bitter, this letter W.H. Auden sent to his priest at St. Mark's in the Bowery.  Liturgy geeks, enjoy. Everyone else, you may go about your day in a practical manner.

The singular they

"I'm a big fan of the singular they," I said on a phone call this morning.  As one does. Well, it was reasonable in the context.  I'm deep in the revisions and edits of Confirm not Conform and we're trying to get our style sheet straight.

And as I said, I'm a fan of the singular they: the grammatical construction that uses the pronoun "they" to refer to a singular subject.  This shows up in CnC in sentences like this: "Ask one of the youth if they will..."

Are you one of those people upon whose nerves this grates?  I understand. Truly I do. I was raised in the school of pronoun agreement.  And even though he/she became cumbersome, I tried--I truly did--to keep the faith.

But then, I started hearing rumors that there was nothing actually wrong with the singular they, that it used to be normal, that people have been doing it for years.  And not just lazy slobs, but writers I admire like Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare, and Mr. Elements of Style himself, E.B. White.

Observe:

"[A]lthough Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style preaches against singular they, when E. B. White got back to his own excellent writing he wrote lines like “But somebody taught you, didn’t they?” (that’s from Charlotte’s Web)."

If E.B. White can use the singular they, then why can't I? Tell me that.

So who is it who called the singular they grammar non grata?  It was, apparently, one Anne Fischer, 18th century grammarian and author of the 1745 blockbuster, A New Grammar.  It was she who suggested he should be paired with anyone.

And so we have been caught in the pronoun bind ever since: either renounce womanhood or accept awkwardness in the name of political grammatical correctness.

But I refuse! I claim the mantle of Austen and Chaucer.  I shall use the singular they with pride.  I shall wonder if someone is losing their mind.  I shall ask if anyone knows why they say things like that.  I shall fume that such a person doesn't know their elbow from their ear.  I shall use the singular they whenever I please. (Except in the case of Confirm not Conform, because we all understand that someone is going to throw a conniption when they see me use it.)

But to you, my friends, I preach the untrammeled grace of the singular they.  Use it with the comfort of knowing that it holds a long and noble pedigree, and with the hope that someday the singular they shall once again be accepted by one and by all.

Various & Sundry, May 4

It's the 10th anniversary of my ordination and I've been thinking about heresy all day. Not for me personally.  It's because I'm revising the Confirm not Conform curriculum.  To that end, I finally tracked down the source of the Helen Keller quote, "The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next." It's from her essay on Optimism, free on Google Books. She follows that thought up with the great caveat, "The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life." Love it.

Yesterday, while I was pondering the news for the World In Prayer prayers, I found this tidbit about the lost parakeet in Tokyo who told the police his address. "The bird's owner, a 64-year-old woman, said she taught the address to her pet after she bought him two years ago. She had lost another parakeet previously and wanted to ensure that did not happen again, police said." How very practical.

Lots of good obits this week, but how can I resist telling you about professional poker player Amarillo Slim? I've linked here to the obit in the London Telegraph for its very British recounting of a very American man.  It begins, "One of a cabal of rough and ready gamblers, mostly Texans, living on their wits in the days when the game was largely confined to dimly-lit, smoke-filled back rooms, Slim sprang from a Wild West tradition dating from the days of Billy The Kid. Many Americans frowned on poker, some even considering it a sin." Oh, tut tut.

Did you hear the one about the six logicians at a restaurant?

Daniela Papi has a sharp-ish post on Lessons I Learned entitled, So, you’re helping people with “no skills”…?!

I can picture these skill-less people you speak of as you stand there in your suit, I imagine they can grow food we only know how to pick off of a shelf, perhaps build their own home, and fix the limited electronic items they have...Drop me in a developing country, in a community without electricity, with no job, and many kids to feed, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the skills to survive. I bet the “villagers” (yep, I feel sick!) in that community would indeed describe me as having “no skills” at all… and in their world, they’d be right. 

Yep.

Finally, I  loved Dave Walker's blog post about a bricked up door.  As he says, "There is nothing worse than not knowing when a door was bricked up." The comments are awesome as well.

Enjoy.

The heresy of numbers

Let's talk about numbers for a second, shall we? Specifically church numbers, one of the great heresies of our time.

I'm not merely talking about the, shall we say, flourishes in the annual reports. I'm talking about the underlying heresy that numbers represent some eternal truth about a church's faithfulness. A church that is growing is doing something right; a church that is shrinking is doing something terribly wrong.

I hear that all the time, but all that's about is the bottom line; it might or might not have anything to do with faithfulness.

And I think, when I hear people make this correlation between success and faithfulness, have they read the gospels? Not just selected pieces, but the gospels straight through. Because you will notice if you read the gospels that Jesus' following grows and shrinks throughout his ministry. Unless they are saying that Jesus is less faithful when people turn away from him, then there's something else going on here. Most of the time what it seems to be is, is Jesus telling people what they want to hear or not?

Please, please, please, can we stop this? I understand the need to have viable and sustainable ministries, but please let's stop condemning people as somehow not being true to God if turnout is low.

Image by Dave Walker at http://www.cartoonchurch.com/content/cc/numbers-2/

Jan Hus

A year ago today, I was driving down to Anaheim for General Convention. Little did I know what disruption that would cause to my saint-watching practices. I'll have more to say later about the additional of all the new folks that happened last year, but my initial reaction after almost a year is, bleah. Not "bleah" as in "yuck," but "bleah" as in, "Why?" Or something. As I said, I'll have more about that reaction later.

There are notable exceptions, and today is one of them: Jan Hus, burned at the stake on this day in 1415 for doing things like, oh, saying that the church shouldn't sell indulgences to pay for wars. Heretical stuff like that.

"In 1412 his archbishop excommunicated him, not for heresy, but for insubordination." Eventually, insubordination was renamed heresy when Hus said he thought the papacy was an organizational strategy rather than a Divine Plan of God. "The Council, having just narrowly succeeded in uniting Western Christendom under a single pope after years of chaos, was not about to have its work undone. It accordingly found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake on 6 July 1415."

You know one thing I love about Hus? It's not that he is saying that the papacy is bad (from the little I read); just that he recognizes that this is a way of ordering the work of the church. Is it good or bad? Depends on whether it is doing what it is meant to do: caring for the church and all its people in a way that reflects the love of God and love of neighbor. When it does things like fleece the flock to support its wars and internecine strife, well, then...not so much.

Oh, how we love to dress up our systems and methods as divine plans! And then, once they have become divine, they cannot change or be challenged. It's a real shortcut, isn't it?, to say "but God established this way of doing things," when really it's more, "This used to work quite well in running things."

It is often so difficult to see the distinction between God and organization. I am so grateful for the witness of Jan Hus who had the clearsightedness to see what was truly human and what was truly divine.

Sunday Funnies

Happy Trinity Sunday to you, especially to all you folks preaching today.

Rogation days: Beating the Bounds

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (the three days before Ascension Day) are Rogation Days, from the Latin "rogare" which means to ask and during which people prayed to God for a good harvest and safety from natural disasters. In Elizabethan England (and beyond) people would also "beat the bounds," walking around the perimeter of the parish lands, "to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands."

I was going to be all reverent about this practice, but then I read this:

The priest of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually birch or willow, beat the parish boundary markers with them. Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The object of taking boys is supposed to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible.

Well, that's one way to do it, I suppose.

Strange Britain reports that

Curiously, certain stones, trees or other marker points around the boundary would also be beaten by literally bumping a boy (often a choirboy) against the mark. The boy would be suspended upside down and his head gently tapped against the stone or he would be taken by the feet and hands and swung against a tree!

Photographic evidence:

To be honest, doesn't that sound like something a lot of the boys at church would love? To be swung by your hands and feet by the boundaries of the church? Not violently, but, you know, for fun. If they wanted. I could see kids vying for the opportunity. OK, so it's strange and arcane, but goodness, it could be kind of fun.

Add that to the lovely prayers for the day, and you might have yourself quite the intergenerational event

I hope you're able to get out and about today to see what's going on in your neighborhood, to enjoy creation, and to discover ways we can be better stewards of God's good gifts. And if you see any choirboys, make sure to bop 'em on the head.

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Sunday funnies

Don't blame me, blame MadPriest who blames Janis.

**

After three weeks in the Garden of Eden, God came to visit Eve.

"So, how is everything going?" inquired God.

"It is all so beautiful, God," she replied. "The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, the smells, the sights, everything is wonderful, but I have just one problem. It's these breasts you have given me. The middle one pushes the other two out and I am constantly knocking them with my arms, catching them on branches and snagging them on bushes. They're a real pain."

And Eve went on to tell God that since many other parts of her body came in pairs, such as her limbs, eyes, ears, etc. She felt that having only two breasts might leave her body more "symmetrically balanced".

"That's a fair point," replied God, "But it was my first shot at this, you know. I gave the animals six breasts, so I figured that you needed only half of those, but I see that you are right. I will fix it up right away."

And God reached down, removed the middle breast and tossed it into the bushes.

Three weeks passed and God once again visited Eve in the Garden of Eden.

"Well, Eve, how is my favorite creation?"

"Just fantastic," she replied, "But for one oversight. You see, all the animals are paired off. The ewe has a ram and the cow has her bull. All the animals have a mate except me.. I feel so alone. "

God thought for a moment and said, "You know, Eve, you are right. How could I have overlooked this? You do need a mate and I will immediately create a man from a part of you. Let's see....where did I put that useless boob?"

St. Athanasius, formerly heretical father of orthodoxy

It’s the feast day of Athanasius, about whom I have written before. This morning, for kicks and giggles, I thought I’d read something he wrote and settled on his Defense of the Nicene Definition. As one does, you know.

Oh, his world is so familiar to me. Those who nowadays like to announce their orthodoxy might be interested to know the arguments used against the Nicene Creed by the Arians.

Athanasius wrote, “I marvelled at the effrontery which led the Arians, after all the past detection of unsoundness and futility in their arguments, …, still to complain…, ‘Why did the Fathers at Nicæa use terms not in Scripture.’”

Yes, indeedy. One of the big bugaboos for the Arians about the Nicene Creed was that it was unscriptural. Doesn’t that sound familiar? (If it doesn't, then you are blessedly free of the strife that comes from following too many Anglican blogs.)

And then when the supporters of the Nicene Creed made their arguments from Scriptures, “they invent excuses, ‘Why was this defined, and not that?’ Yet wonder not if now they practise thus; for in no long time they will turn to outrage, and next will threaten ‘the band and the captain.’” Yeah, that sounds way too familiar, too.

Tradition is, apparently, another big argument the Arians used: “But next that they did not invent them for themselves (since this is one of their excuses), but spoke what they had received from their predecessors.” Who knew Athanasius was such a revisionist?

And how many blogs have I seen that sounded like this: “And what is strange indeed, Eusebius of Cæsarea in Palestine…sent to his Church a letter, saying that this was the Church’s faith, and the tradition of the Fathers; and made a public profession that they were before in error, and were rashly contending against the truth.”

La plus ca change, eh? Oh, Athanasius. I bet you’re sighing in heaven. Keep us company, will you?, as we sort out this whole “orthodoxy” thing.

[The image is from the Daily Scriptorium which is far more geeky than I can aspire to be.]

Quote of the Day

"If you can't find common ground, that doesn't mean you're partisan," she said. "It just means you believe two different things."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, quoted in an editorial by E.J. Dionne. Substitute "heretical" for "partisan" and I think that helps explain the prior post in which I am labeled a heretic.