Shrove Tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday in the Christian calendar.  Some people refer to the day as Mardi Gras (literally “Fat Tuesday”) – especially as they refer to the carnivals of New Orleans and elsewhere.  It marks the last day before the beginning of Lent.  Since the date for the beginning of Lent depends on the timing of Easter, Shrove Tuesday also moves around the calendar and it can take place anywhere between February 3 and March 9 inclusive.

Shrove is a form of the verb shrive, which means “to obtain absolution for sins by way of confession and penitence.”  The day has a long history in the church.  Going back into the Middle Ages penitents would go to their confessors on this day in preparation for Lent.

It is a day in which households consumed fat – and all pleasant or indulgent foods in the house – as families made ready for the self-denial of Lent.  The tradition of eating pancakes on this day goes back to at least the seventeenth century.

It is a global holiday with a multitude of regional celebrations.  Christians observe the day in one form or another in almost all areas of the world.  Most area festivities carry a sense of a great party or fete prior to entering into the spirit of Lent. 

THE FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD

Today is the observance of The Transfiguration of Jesus.  That is true for United Methodists and some other Methodist groups; it is also the day on which the several Lutheran groups in the United States mark the event.  American Presbyterians have also included the celebration in their liturgical calendars since their acceptance of the Consultation on Church Union lectionary (now the “New Revised Common Lectionary”) which COCU first published in 1974. In the liturgical calendar of these groups the feast occurs on the last Sunday after The Epiphany.  To put it another way, the Transfiguration takes place on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.

Most of the rest of the Christian Church observes The Transfiguration on August 6.  Through the ages the church looked upon this event as a minor feast, when it raised it up at all.

Much of the Eastern Church counts The Transfiguration as a Trinitarian Feast, as it recognizes all three persons of the Holy Trinity as taking part (the Son experiences transfiguration; the Father speaks; and the Holy Spirit is present in the form of the cloud).

The Anglican and Episcopal Churches have had a sort of love/hate relationship with the feast.  At times in the churches’ history these communions omitted the recognition altogether.  Recent Books of Common Prayer include the day and locate it on August 6.

The August 6 date that many worldwide denominations select for this recognition usually marks a relationship to an important occurrence in the secular calendar.  For instance, it was on August 6,1456 that news that the Kingdom of Hungary had repulsed an Ottoman invasion of the Balkans by breaking the Siege of Belgrade. In thanksgiving the Pope declared that the minor observance of The Transfiguration on that date become a major feast.

In placing the feast at the end of the Season After The Epiphany, churches that observe this date bookend Ordinary Time with two theophanies: The Baptism of the Lord and The Transfiguration.  Placing these two events in these spots provides emphasis to the revelatory nature of this season.

A Common Thread

This Sunday (the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany) the Revised New Common Lectionary (NRCL) has one of those Sundays when there is a common thread though the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel readings.  There are those who maintain that this is the case every week.  This is in contrast to the design of the NRCL except on certain Feast Days.  Each reading is a text that stands on its own bottom (except for the Psalter Reading, which is usually a commentary on the OT lesson).  An artificial thematization of all the readings does a great disservice to the individual lections and to the day’s pattern as a whole.

Even so, once in a while it occurs anyway.  This week the OT reading is from Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13) and includes verse 5:

And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" 

The Epistle is 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.  In the course of this reading we find verse 9:

For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 

Finally, the Gospel Lesson is Luke 5:1-11.  In verse 8 we read:

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

The theme of unworthiness appears clearly in all of these texts.  One could argue that human unworthiness is a doctrine that underlies every verse of scripture.  Unworthiness means something slightly different in each of these passages.  But, when we take them collectively, they certainly capture our attention.  A believer doesn’t have to kick themselves in the head repeatedly in order to appreciate the idea.  However, in a time of pride and arrogance a little humility would not be misplaced. 

An enduring text in my own journey is the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14).  The declaration of the Publican, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!) carries a lot of spiritual freight.

I don’t believe that we like to think about our relative worthiness much.  Maybe we need to get over that.

Another hill far away...

Brow of the Hill Near Nazareth
by James Jacques Joseph Tissot

This past Sunday’s gospel lesson from The New Revised Common Lectionary (NRCL) is from Luke 4:21-30.  Verse 29 reads, They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.

That line has always been a peculiar one as I considered it.  Intellectually it is not puzzling at all.  Jesus’ words in the preceding verses border on blasphemy.  Although as the text progresses it is not Jesus' proclamation that he fulfills the words of Isaiah the Prophet that anger the crowd at the Nazareth synagogue.  When he speaks these words, folks seem to be impressed.  It is when Jesus as much as says that he will heal no illness or exorcise no demon in his home town that people get riled up.

It is as if they say, “We don’t mind a little borderline blasphemy, but we won’t be ignored or discounted.”  The reaction is human enough.  It is fraught with resentment and rage.  The mob mentality takes over and the people chivvy Jesus to the edge of town and to “the brow of the hill.”  Their intent is to toss him over the side.  However, with little fanfare apparently, Jesus halts their murderous progress and goes back the way he came.

In studying the passage, I came across this painting by Tissot.  I was somehow taken by it.  It is not particularly detailed.  In fact, it is difficult to single out Jesus in the picture at all.  But it has a kind of scope that draws me into it.  It depicts the commotion and chaos that must have been present in the moment.  There are other depictions of the story that seem to have Jesus in charge the entire time.  He stands heroically facing his fellow Nazarenes and appears to be facing them down.  Tissot puts Jesus in a bit of a defensive posture and places Jesus within the panoramic frame of all Nazareth.  It is as if, for a moment, we are not sure who is going to win here.

I still have a lot of questions about this passage.  But I find the picture has helped me focus a bit, and perhaps helps me to ask some of the correct questions.  

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Tissot, James Jacques Joseph, 1836-1902. Brow of the Hill Near Nazareth, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55366 [retrieved February 6, 2019]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Brow_of_the_Hill_near_Nazareth_(L%27escarpement_de_Nazareth)_-_James_Tissot.jpg.