Some thoughts on an early Christian witness

During The Great Fifty Days of Easter, it has been the custom of the church to repolace the Old Testament Reading in its various lectionaries with a reading from The Acts of the Apostles.  The Revised Common Lectionary's reading for the Second Sunday of Easter comes from chapter 5, verses 27-32.  That passage reads:

When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, ‘We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.’ But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Saviour, so that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.’  (NRSV)

This is a rich mine from which we can extract a multitude of truths and lessons.  But one thing that caught my attention for the living of these days is Peter’s response to the high priest.  He (and “the apostles”) replies, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”  That is easy to latch upon.  People can (and have) used this quote from Peter to justify just about any behavior or idea.  It is the perfect all-purpose rejoinder to religious authority.

On the other hand, sometimes religious authority becomes so restricting (or constricting) that a person of faith has no choice but to reject that authority.  One can argue that Jesus spent much of his teaching in trying to sort out authority for authority’s sake from genuine godliness.

We also remember that Peter himself would later on take the role of authority in the church, and I suspect that there were occasions when Peter said something like, “Look, Jesus Himself gave me the keys to the Kingdom of God.  He told me that whatever I bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and that whatever I loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven.  I think I have a right to some say-so in this matter!”

It is easy to challenge authority when we don’t have any.  It is difficult to let go of authority when we have achieved or grabbed a little.

The Book of Acts is making a specific point, and I understand that.  But such things are to be handled delicately.  Or we end up on a slippery slope awfully quickly.

An Unofficial Feast Day

I wrote a little bit yesterday about “The Second Sunday of Easter.”  I remarked that it is statistically the lowest-attended worship service day in the entire year.  This holds true across regional, denominational and size-of-church lines.  There are numerous studies performed by both religious and secular institutions that bear this out.

On a much less-studied note I offer a comment based on personal experience and observation.  That reflection is that many of us refer to the Sunday after Easter as one of three guaranteed “Associate Ministers’ Preaching Days.”   In congregations that have multiple staff (and especially multiple pastoral staff members) the preaching load of the Associate or Assistant or Co-pastor (the position goes by a lot of different names) varies widely.  Some preach regularly and do so every three or four weeks.  In other situations, the “second” pastor may preach irregularly if at all.  But, take it to the bank, the alternate preacher will take the pulpit the Sunday after Easter, the Sunday after Christmas and (in my United Methodist tradition) the Sunday of the convening of Annual Conference (when the Senior Pastor often wants to make a quick getaway, perhaps even leaving for the conference site the day before).

In my own experience, I was in one situation where I preached every Sunday.  I preached one Sunday morning and three/four Sunday evenings each month.  Our evening service had attendance in the high eighties (which was more than I would usually have in attendance in any one of the circuit churches I had pastored previously).  In another Associate Minister’s appointment, I did not have a regular schedule, but was assigned a preaching date about every five weeks.  Later in that same church I again did not have a regularly-scheduled preaching date, but my rather arbitrary time came around on the average of every eight to nine weeks.

But, no matter what the arrangement, one of those magical days when I took the pulpit was the Sunday after Easter.  So, that point on the calendar has a bit of sentimental significance for me.  It was one of those – sometimes few – times in the year when I could act out my “call to preach” in its fullness.  As an Associate Pastor, I was not alone.

Thanks be to God for the Sunday after Easter!

The Second Sunday of Easter

Today is The Second Sunday of Easter.  That is its liturgical designation.  A lot of people look at it as “the Sunday after Easter.”  Statistically, it is the lowest-attended Sunday for worship services and other church gatherings of the entire year.  That has always messed with my mind.  I mean, EASTER -- The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, the defining moment in our Christian faith -- was one week ago.  Now, everybody’s gone.  Even those marginal, usually-there to frequently-there church attenders take the day off.  It is the day for the hard-core church participant.

People believe that it’s over.  They have found the eggs.  They have eaten the candy.  They no longer view their Easter outfits as “new.”  It is back to business as usual.  That has always messed with my mind.

Liturgically of course we are barely underway.  The church recognizes the “Season of Easter” as working itself out over the course of about seven weeks.  Indeed, “Easter Season” or “Eastertide” are terms that non-liturgical communions tend to employ.  It is not unheard-of for more formal denominations to use these terms, but that is usually to avoid repetition.  Liturgical churches will usually choose the title “The Great Fifty Days.”  The celebration itself runs from the Easter Vigil on the night of Holy Saturday/Easter Sunday and runs through Evening Prayer on the Day of Pentecost.  It is a good, long draught out of the year that the church dedicates to the celebration of the Resurrection. 

As for today itself, it is the end of the Octave of Easter and much of the church observes these eight days as a solemnity (feast of the highest rank).  That in itself would cause some folks to embrace the day and not abandon it.  In the history of the church – especially in the English-speaking world – there was a time when the church called today “Low Sunday,” I can only imagine that it was because of some of the thoughts I mentioned above.  Mercifully, the church has all but abandoned such a label.

So, go to church.  Enjoy the elbow room.  Pray that folks don’t forget worship until next Easter.

Subsequent readings for Easter

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) has suggestions for Easter Evening, after having provided readings for Easter Vigil and the Main Service of Easter.  It contains this note regarding these lessons:

The following readings are for occasions when the main (eucharistic) Easter service must be late in the day. They are not intended for Vespers (Evening Prayer) on Easter Evening.

It is an interesting note.  I assume that the lectionary compilers believe that a congregation has already conducted some earlier service – either a vigil or sunrise service – before a worship time containing these readings come around.

The Gospel Reading for this grouping is Luke 24:13-49, which is the somewhat lengthy account of the walk to Emmaus.   That event takes place over in the day on the first day of the week, but it is certainly not at daybreak.  The empty tomb scenario is narratively in the past.  This is not to quibble, but I merely observe that this is a story that the contemporary reader has trouble assigning to Easter Day.  The storytelling is there, and there is no doubt.  But I think that we are so accustomed to hearing this on the week after Easter, or the week after that, that we double-take at the thought of rehearsing these events Easter Day.  I don’t know that I have ever been a part of “occasions when the main (eucharistic) Easter service must be late in the day.”  Even in churches that usually conducted evening worship, we always took Easter night off.

In considering this, I think that it is too bad that I have never been in a situation that allowed for this time-line.  It is a powerful story, but when I consider the possibilities of concluding the Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord with this tale I boggle at the possibilities.

So, I am a day (three, actually) late and a dollar short.  But, I intend to live with the Emmaus passage a while before too much time passes.

The Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist

The Badge of St. Mark the Evangelist

Today is the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist.  Although the Second Gospel is anonymous, the church has associated Mark’s name with that work since the early days of Christianity.  Scholars recognize his account as the earliest of the four canonical gospels.  Indeed, history credits Mark with the invention of the gospel genre of literature.  While other biographies had existed since the development of writing, those works were in single-strand narrative form.  Mark takes small vignettes and sayings and weaves them together not so much for historical continuity, but to serve his theological purposes.

Mark’s gospel is the shortest of the four biblical gospels.  It includes no Infancy Narrative.  His work moves at an almost breathless pace, as he introduces individual accounts with the phrase “and immediately” over fifty times.  His Resurrection account (excluding the “longer endings” that were almost assuredly later additions) is inconclusive.

Yet, this work is a foundational source for the other Synoptic Gospels (Matthew and Luke).  There are only a handful of verses in Mark that one or the other (or both) of the Synoptists does not employ.  Some scholars support the tradition that Mark bases his writing on the preaching of Peter.  That view, however, does not meet with universal acceptance.

Be that as it may, the church’s debt to St. Mark is incalculable.  We particularly give thanks for his witness today.

Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley

It was on April 25 in 1735 that Samuel Wesley, father of John, Charles and other siblings, died.  He was rector of Epworth Parish in Britain.  His father was a nonconformist minister, but Samuel came into the Church of England after he graduated from Exeter College, Oxford.  The church ordained him priest in 1689.  He married Susannah Annesley during his time as a London parish curate.  The couple had 19 children, ten of whom survived their infancy.  He was a High Churchman who recommended the monthly celebration of the Eucharist rather than quarterly.  He urged that parishioners offer their children for baptism publicly rather than privately.  He supported the use of contemporary hymns rather than the “Old Version” Psalter that congregations commonly used in those days.

He was a poet of some note in his day, and he wrote a widely-acclaimed scholarly work on the Book of Job.

While rector of Epworth he ran into continual frustrations.   Parishioners were suspects in the starting of a rectory fire in 1709.  Onlookers spotted John in an upstairs window after everyone else had evacuated the house.  There was no point of entry, and so people formed a human pyramid in order to rescue the child.

Samuel’s response after the delivering of the child, “Let us give thanks to God!  He has given me all my eight children; Let the house go, I am rich enough.” 

Captain Marvel

I saw the movie Captain Marvel a couple of days ago.  My main interest was to try to stay current because I am led to believe that the character plays a major part in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, and I am very interested in that.  More in a moment.

Captain Marvel -- c. 1939

The Captain Marvel franchise has a bit of a checkered history.  The “original” appeared in 1939 in Whiz Comics, published by Fawcett.  Almost from the get-go there was tension between Fawcett and DC, which claimed that Captain Marvel was a rip-off of Superman (a charge not easily disputed).  The lawsuits and countersuits continued until Fawcett ceased publishing its character in 1959.  In 1972 Fawcett sold the rights to Captain Marvel to DC, and by 1992 Fawcett had sold rights to the entire Marvel family, which was quite large.  DC began publishing its own blander version of Captain Marvel in ‘72, but it was never a high-profile title.  There was a kid’s TV show (Shazam) that lasted a couple of years (There had been a Captain Marvel serial in 1941). and had multiple actors who portrayed the lead character.  I have read that the character in the series always went by “Shazam,” and never by “Captain Marvel,” but I can’t document that. (Shazam was the name of the character who endowed young Billy Batson with the Captain Marvel powers and persona.  Shazam is an acrostic for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury, all of whose powers the newly-christened Marvel received.)

Captain Marvel -- c. 1071

While the DC character was in a kind of limbo, Marvel introduced its Captain Marvel in 1971.  The character never caught on in a big way, but Marvel continued to publish the character intermittently in order to maintain its copyright and force DC to publish its hero under the Shazam title.

A new Captain Marvel debuted in 1977, originally as Ms. Marvel.  Her story intertwined with the Captain Marvel character in the Marvel stable until that hero died.  Ms. Marvel inherited the Captain Marvel mantle at that time.  Her titles too have a sporadic publication history.  And, sadly, many of her stories, and the covers of her magazines in particular, have a pin-up quality that emphasizes her appearance rather than her power.

Captain Marvel -- 2019 film

That brings us to the recent film.  I want to say on the outset that I know little about the various incarnations of the Captain Marvel figures and virtually nothing about their story arcs.  But, having a nearly clean slate means that I went into the viewing with few expectations.  The movie is a lot of fun, moving well and only being a tad too long.

I want to commend it for two things in particular.  First, I applaud a strong female character, particularly in a lead or title role.  In this piece, she takes a back seat to no one.  Secondly – and this is a real biggie for me – there is no part of the story line that distracts Captain Marvel with a love interest, or in the mourning or regret of a love lost.  We get backstory, and it is interesting.  She is a very human character as she moves through this narrative.  But the obligatory guy with the chiseled chin is completely absent.  That puts this at such a step above other efforts that it is not even funny.

There are flaws, both in the character and in the plot.  But they are not major, and I can overlook them easily in light of the film’s strength.

I’m ready for Avengers: Endgame.