The Grain of Wheat 2018

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 Jewish Festival of Purim begins at sunset Worship: Noon , soup meal follows; 7 pm , soup meal at 6 PM. Reading: Psalm 25:5 "Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long."             Over the centuries it has been a practice in the church to veil crosses and icons during the season of Lent. The oldest written evidence of this symbolic custom is from 7th century France, then, in Italy about the year 1000. It is intended as a fast for the eyes, a part of the discipline we consciously take on during the days of Lent's austerity. In a few cathedrals and monasteries, Freiburg and Millstadt Abbey, to name two, a large Lenten veil was hung between the congregation and the altar, sometimes painted with scenes of the Passion. In the Sarum rite, a Lenten array of white linen covered the altar during Lent. In the Orthodox Church, the royal do...

Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Commemoration of George Herbert, priest and poet, 1633 "…Hard it is, very hard,             To travel up the slow and stony road             To Calvary, to redeem mankind; far better             To make but one sceptered miracle,             Lean through the cloud, lift the right hand of power             And with a sudden lightning smite the world perfect.             Yet this was not God's way, who had the power,             But set it by, choosing the cross, the thorn,             The sorrowful wound...

Monday, February 26, 2018 Commemoration of Saint Photina (Orthodox), The Woman at the Well Reading: Mark 8:31-38 "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."  Mark 8:35             Paradox offers the dominant, logical left brain a task that it cannot complete, and so it reluctantly relents and lets the right intuitive brain take a try at it. That is oversimplified, of course, but in essence, close enough. Our western educational system trains and rewards the left brain - logic, sequential thinking, causal thinking, standardized tests. The right brain deals in symbols and patterns and is the realm of imagination, and thus, of faith ("the conviction of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1). Jesus' parables and teachings are rife with paradox, which prods us out of our usual way of approaching reality. It reminds us that we c...

Sunday, February 25, 2018 SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT Commemoration of Elizabeth Fedde 1921 Worship: 8 & 10:45 am Gen. 17:1-7, 15-16; Ps.22:23-31; Rom. 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38 May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. Gospel acclamation for the second Sunday in Lent (Gal. 6:14) Exalted be your Name, O God of All, Protector on the path Of great and small; Great God of Wonders, hear Our grateful call; How blesséd are your deeds, O God of All. Beneath the desert stars, A vision fair: To Sarah, Abraham, A promised heir, A blessing to all lands You promise there, O God of Covenant, O God of Care. Exalted be your Name, O God Most High, Who hears sad Hagar's call, Her thirsting cry; Who saves young Ishmael From desert dry, And leads them to the spring, O Adonai. To land of fig and vine, From desert flight, The people Israel...

Saturday, February 24, 2018 Saint Matthias, Apostle Reading: Romans 4:13-25 “For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith."    Romans 4:13             Righteousness. We are told that Abraham was given a promise by God. Abraham trusted, left his land, his ancestors, his culture. Trusted that God would give heirs, in spite of his and Sarah's old age. Righteousness.              Martin Luther wrote in Two Kinds of Righteousness , that the first righteousness is a gift of God “instilled in us without our works by grace alone,” from which develops our “proper” righteousness, a life lived “soberly with self, justly with neighbor, devoutly toward God.… Therefore, through the first righteousness arises the voice of the bridegroom who says to the soul, ‘I am y...

Friday, February 23, 2018 Commemoration of Polycarp, bishop and martyr 156 Reading: Psalm 22:23-31 Antiphon: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him."   Psalm 22:27 On the second Sunday in Lent, we chant together the same psalm that we hear during the stripping of the altar at the conclusion of the Maundy Thursday liturgy: Psalm 22. But the psalm antiphon for this Sunday illumines the psalm's poetry with a different light. This antiphon, from verse 27, highlights the praise of God going out to all nations, the Hamon-Goyyim of Genesis 17. We often think of Psalm 22 as a song of lament, but praise is interwoven through-out. Perhaps this is a wise model for us to follow in our own prayer: interweave with praise and gratitude. Gratitude changes the heart; it changes the way we approach each day. Even the Jewish Mourner's Kaddish is essentially a prayer of praise. The basic Je...

Thursday, February 22, 2018 Reading: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 “YHWH said : No longer shall your name be called Avram, rather shall your name be Avraham, for I will make you Av Hamon Goyyim/ Father of a Throng of Nations!"   Genesis 17:5( Schocken Bible, Everett Fox, tr.)             In this covenantal discourse between God and Avram, God changes Avram's name in verse 5 and Sarai's in verse 15. Changing one's name is an act of changing one's destiny, one's role in the world. God declares that Avram is no longer Av-Aram, Father of the Aram people of Mesopotamia, but rather Av-Hamon-Goyyim , Father of a Throng of Nations. The word for throng here actually depicts the sound of a large crowd of people. Sarah is the only woman in the Bible to have her name changed by God. In the covenant illumination in the Saint John's Bible we can see her praised in gold among the stars. Both Avraham's and Sarah's names are at the...

Wednesday, February 21, 2018 worship: Noon , soup meal follows; 7 pm , soup meal at 6 pm . Reading:   Isaiah 58:5 "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?"             Jesus fasted for forty days, and the tempter tried to entice him to turn stones into bread.   Fasting is one of the church's traditional disciplines of Lent, along with prayer and acts of love. Late winter is a natural time of austerity. We might not notice it as much as our ancestors did, but all foodstuffs that they had dried, preserved, or stored in a root cellar would be running out at this time of year. New plant growth was not yet possible (Fiddlehead ferns! What a treat!) Spring lambs were not yet born. It was a wise time to ritualize scarcity and intentionally make do with less food.      ...

Tuesday, February 20, 2018 Is this a fast, to keep    The larder leane?             And cleane From fat of veales and sheep? Is it to quit the dish    Of flesh, yet still             To fill The platter high with fish? Is it to fast an houre,    Or ragg'd to go             Or show A downcast look, and sowre? No: 'tis a fast, to dole    Thy sheaf of wheat             And meat Unto the hungry soule. It is to fast from strife,    From old debate,             And hate; To circumcise thy life. To shew a heart grief-rent;    To starve thy sin,           ...

Monday, February 19, 2018 Orthodox Great Lent begins Reading: Mark 1:9-15 "[Jesus] was in the desert forty days, tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him."    Mark 1:13             Hebrew scholar Everett Fox notes that when one encounters the desert, wind, or fire in the Hebrew scriptures, one is about to encounter change, transformation. Mark the Evangelist, gives the tersest account of Jesus' baptism and - immediately!, Mark says - Jesus was driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, into the desert, which, for Mediterranean people, was a place of spirits. Mark, unlike Matthew, does not elucidate what tests Jesus underwent in that place of spirits. The Book of Kells shows a black humanlike figure, with wings, testing Jesus; a 1360 manuscript from Köln portrays the tester as a young blonde man; in a 15th century illustration, the tester is a seemingly human man - ...

Sunday, February 18, 2018 FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT Commemoration of Martin Luther 1546 worship: 8 & 10:45 am gen. 9:8-17; ps. 25:1-10; 1 peter 3:18-22; mark 1:9-15 One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. gospel acclamation, First sunday in lent (Matt. 6:4) Lord Jesus, think on me, And purge away my sin; From earthborn passions set me free, And make me pure within. Lord Jesus, think on me, Nor let me go astray, Through darkness and perplexity Point thou the Heav'nly way. Lord Jesus, think on me, When flows the tempest high: When on doth rush the enemy, O Saviour, be thou nigh. Lord Jesus, think on me, That when the flood is past, I may eternal brightness see, And share thy joy at last.               Synesius of Cyrene, 370-430, tr. Allen Wm. Chatfield, 1808-1896 ·        invite friends...

Saturday, February 17, 2018 1 Peter 3:18-22 "And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Christ Jesus." ( 1 Peter 3:21)             By sometime in the 4th century, Lent had also become established as a final forty-day period of preparation and catechesis for those desiring to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. This preparation involved examination and confession, time for amendment of life, and fasting, all moving toward the threefold immersion in the waters of the baptistery. We might assume that the three immersions represented the Trinity, but they also signified the three days Christ spent in the earth, to be raised up anew at the Easter dawn. "Baptism is both a burial and a resurrection," spoke Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures. Open our hearts to your word, O God, and give us un...

Friday, February 16, 2018 Reading: Psalm 25:1-10 Antiphon: "All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees."    (Psalm 25:10)             The psalmist reminds us that there are many paths of God. But all of them exist within a reciprocal relationship: God's steadfast love and our response - a promise to live in the world as images of that love. This is the narrow way of Christ. Just as God self-limits power out of love for creation, so we self-limit our freedom out of love for God and all of God's creation. In Ursula LeGuin's fantasy book The Wizard of Earthsea, a young Ged, mage-in-training, learns of self-limitation:             The Master Summoner spoke softly and his eyes were somber as he looked at Ged. "You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. S...

Thursday, February 15, 2018 new moon partial solar eclipse, southern hemisphere Reading: Genesis 9:8-17 "I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh…"   (Genesis 9:13)             In Benjamin Britten's settting of the Chester mystery play Noye's Fludde , the animals enter the ark singing "Kyrie eleison" - Lord, have mercy - and, after forty days of floating above the flooded earth, they joyfully walk out onto the dry earth singing, "Alleluia!" Now, for forty days (minus Sundays), we will undertake a journey singing "Kyrie eleison" in the Great Litany, while moving toward that day of springtime newness, when we can again sing "God be praised!" - Alleluia!             Balthasar Fischer writes: "…even so brief a prayer as Kyrie eleison follows the general rule that praise and thanksgiving come first and that p...

Wednesday, February 14, 2018   ASH WEDNESDAY    worship: noon & 7 pm joel 2:1-2, 12-17; ps. 51:1-17; 2 cor. 5:20b-6:10; matt. 6:1-6, 16-21 Return to the LORD, your God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love . (gospel acclamation for ash wednesday, Joel 2:13)             Lent begins with the rite of Confession and Forgiveness and the smudging with ashes, a visible sign of repentance, compunction, and humility, among other meanings. But the reading from the prophet Joel reminds us that all external ceremonies are as nothing unless they are accompanied by a new heart, a heart of compassion and concern for others, lived out in the actual, physical world. "Rend your hearts and not your garments," Joel calls out to us over the millenia. May it be so. Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us. Amen ·     ...

Lent 2018 - Year of Mark Friday-Tuesday, Feb. 9 - Feb. 13, 2018 – SHROVETIDE ·        Have a party. Make doughnuts (see recipe below). (Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday” referring to the custom of using up all fat before Lent). Shrovetide: Sour Cream Doughnuts       375° oil        Makes 18 Beat together until pale and thick: 2 large eggs ¾ c. sugar 1 t. vanilla 1 c. sour cream ½ t. ground cardamom Sift together: 3 cups flour 1 t. baking soda 1 t. baking powder ½ t. salt Add flour mixture to egg mixture. Stir only until combined. Roll dough out on floured wax paper until 5/8” thick. Cut into 3” rounds. Cut out ½” holes. Fry in 375° oil – in batches, about 1-1/2 minutes on each side. Remove doughnuts from oil, drain on paper bags or paper towels.  Shake in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar while still warm.  Makes about 18 (plus holes!). Tuesday, February 13, 2018– SHR...