Faith Works 4-25-20

Faith Works 4-25-20

Jeff Gill

 

Gathering, assembly, ecclesia

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In the New Testament, where we English speakers see the word "church" what's behind it in the Greek is the term "ekklesia."

 

Transliterated into English, an ecclesia is literally an assembly, and in Greek literature it can be a group in the public forum called together for political purposes, an ecclesia which comes together, and is dismissed when the public things, the "res publica" (Latin) of the republic have been dealt with by the people, the "demos" (Greek again) ruling themselves, or "kratos" together making our English word democracy.

 

A Christian gathering, or assembly of believers, is also a form of "ecclesia," which does not require or even imply a building. Some of my Restoration Movement fellows dislike the term "church" for that very reason -- it derives from a tradition before English through Old English & Saxon languages which can be see in the German of "kirche" (reframed in Scotland as "kirk"), which indicates quite specifically a place, even refers etymologically to a building: the kirk o' the heather, and so on.

They're correct in that particular: ecclesia is not church in the sense that an assembly is not the building it meets in. Ecclesia very clearly, in Greek generally and the Apostolic Writings in particular, is talking about the gathered Christians as a group doing the work of Christ's commandments together. And in Acts and the pastoral epistles, that's almost always a house, once in a while a rented hall and specifically referred to as such. But generally a private residence, in which the ecclesia meets.

 

Our references in the New Testament to "church" also includes some places where there's not even a word in Greek, but an implication such as in Acts 2:47, "adding those who were being saved every day to..." The Greek implies something like "to their number," and some translations say "to their fellowship" which is fair, but implied, and King James' merry crew just wedged in "and the Lord added to the church every day..."

 

But church is, in the writings which give us our Christian starting point, and our lasting model, the gathered believers as they did the work of discipleship -- prayers, apostolic teaching, fellowship, and the breaking of bread.

 

Except for the last item (depending on your eucharistic theology, your church rules for communion) the work of discipleship of the gathered assembly, the ecclesia, can be done in many ways without having to have a specific, set-aside building. To break and share bread with your companions -- "panis" being bread, "com" being with (both in Latin), so companions are literally those you are "with bread" together -- that feels like the clearest call to come together in one place.

 

And where we don't have in Greek the word "ekklesia," when the gathered Christians are discussed, we do have one other model to keep in mind. The Body. To be as the Christian community in a particular place "the Body of Christ."

 

Which we both bring together at the communion table, but we also break and scatter, every time. "This is my body, given for you" which must be as a loaf broken for us to share, for us to be companions. So it is only right that we deeply desire to be brought back together as Christians, somewhere, in some fashion. It is also only right that we understand that to be the living Body of Christ at work, we have to also accept being broken and scattered, so that others might eat, and live.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he misses the ease and comfort of having a building to work with, but wonders if there's a message here. Tell him what tools you miss having for your calling at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 4-18-20

Faith Works 4-18-20

Jeff Gill

 

Pray for those with responsibilities

___

 

I'm going out on a limb here. But it needs to be said. Not for any political reasons whatsoever, other than for the common good, but as a pastor.

 

Please pray for our president.

 

Look, I really do get it. Regular readers of this column know I have friends and correspondents across the spectrum, from Marxists to theo-monarchists (Democrats & Republicans cluster together in the middle of the range I'm proud to communicate with). And for a large chunk of you, some things are true that I'm not even trying to argue with. Donald Trump is upsetting because:

 

a) he's rich.

b) he's a bad Harvey Comics parody of a rich person. No, it's true, look at the shots of his penthouse in Trump Tower.

c) he's a Republican (okay, about as much a one as Bernie was a Democrat, but that's how he ran).

d) he has done little to communicate any sense of a wider understanding of the world outside of his immediate bubble of wealth & privilege (exhibit A: Mar-a-Lago).

e) he displays a frightening level of arrogance in areas where humility would be reasonable (his treatment of military advisers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff level is unnerving even to many of his supporters).

f) his treatment of women in his personal & public life, just sticking to what's incontrovertibly documented, is appalling.

 

Yes, I know some of you would like to add to that list. I only stopped because I think the point is made: he's not a nice or even a good person.

He is also the president of the country, and at least to us Americans, I think we would be well advised for our own peace of mind to pause a moment and pray for the man.

 

Because he is a man, and he is flawed, and he may not be who I wanted to see in the Oval Office, but I've been disappointed before. I watched in the flurry of online services last week heading into Easter a liturgy for Holy Week from an Episcopal church in Massachusetts, where a friend online is rector. I don't know his politics at all, but I do know the Book of Common Prayer a bit, and I was both startled and reminded in hearing online the phrase "pray for our president, Donald" in the petitions, including the name of their governor and mayor and presiding bishop and others in authority. And that traditional prayer is in the Anglican prayer book not because of politics, but because in the Bible, Paul says to Timothy:

"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way."

Paul goes on to make it clear he doesn't have any concern for monarchy per se, it's just that those whose job it is to provide the possibility for a peaceful and quiet life warrant at least a little of our prayer time.

And yes, I watched briefings this week that left me concerned. But I also have to add to the anger and frustration and fury that's all over social media -- I saw a man under great pressure. Whether I think he's handling it well is a separate issue -- I saw a man under great pressure. And he holds the office. He's already been impeached, and was not removed from office. You can rant and rail all you want about how and why you think he got there, and why Congress won't remove him, but he holds the office. And holds no small part of our future in his hands.

 

So pray for our president. Both for him, if you believe such spiritual actions can have an action at a distance on some level, mystical or quantum or however you understand that, but also for YOU. We need to pray, not to change God, but to transform our own awareness and attitudes.

 

Pray for Gov. Mike DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton (I know many of us have found that an easier spiritual discipline to remember), and for your mayors and health departments and other officials stuck in so many impossible positions. But we don't pray for any such people, or "for all people" because they're good people. We pray that they might become good, that all people might find the path to become holy, even.

 

Between those Holy Week liturgies, and my own personal prayer this week, I found myself confronted with how much I needed to pray for the president. I pray that he find peace, that he counsels with wisdom, and that he is open to discernment. Some of the next few decisions he will make are as unprecedented and fraught with error on either hand as anything a president has faced since Harry S. Truman. I think praying for the ones making some of these decisions is good for them, and for me, and for us all.

Elections are another matter altogether. But my prayers are and must be bipartisan and impartial . . . except as Jesus said, "It is not those who are well who need a physician . . . I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (Luke 5:31-32)

Sinners. Which includes me. Let's pray for each other, too.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he knows he's standing in the need of prayer. Tell him whom you pray for at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 4-16-20

Notes from my Knapsack 4-16-20

Jeff Gill

 

Fool myself twice, no thank you

___

 

Cynicism is not, truly, my default mode.

 

But I can still recall the column I wrote in late September of 2001, and how I was certain that after the events of 9-11, everything . . . or at least much would change.

 

So certain.

 

Now, there were things that did change. Airline travel, for instance (oh my). Metal detectors, already going up everywhere, got to everywhere even more quickly. Security culture in many ways ratcheted up for both businesses and household life.

 

But there was a spirit of community and coming together that, for a moment, seemed lasting. The first anniversary of what became "Patriot Day" was a widely participated-in communal work project day (in Hebron, we painted fire hydrants and pedestrian bridges all over town), but it faded quickly.

 

And we can rehearse wearily the debates over the how and why of invading first Afghanistan, and then Iraq, but even before the final decision to go in was made, the political unity was already well eroded. The Patriot Act left behind forms and civil liberty disputes and divisions in its wake (I still don't understand a form asking me "are you a terrorist?"), then of course the war which now looks even more of a piece of many previous American foreign policy stumbles.

 

In other words, very little changed for the good, anyhow, after 9-11. I can sift my memories for particular, personal bright spots, flecks of gold in the mounds of gravel, but it's mostly grey and more of the same.

 

Which nearly two decades later has me very hesitant to proclaim "the Great Hiatus will change us all, for the better!" Odds are excellent that by the time you read this, we will still be under a "stay-at-home" order from the governor and director of the state health department, and Ohio will still be asking people coming into the state from elsewhere to self-quarantine for fourteen days. The end of the orders, if not the restrictions, is set for May 1; if we see the far side of the peak in deaths and hospital resource use before then, we're all too likely to be asked to maintain some level of caution and care and social distancing into the month of May, a kind of multi-stage relaxation of interaction and association.

 

But I'm not talking about those restrictions not changing. They will, even if more slowly than some business owners understandably would like. As Dr. Fauci has said, "getting back to normal won't be just like flipping a switch."

 

What I fear won't change is that most of us will slide right back into our previous patterns and preferences and assumptions. I'd love to say (again) that this difficult period which has brought us "#AloneTogether" will teach us lasting lessons about the value of family, the joys of cooking at home, and the importance of working together as a community.

 

Except with or without a "Great Hiatus" I don't think any of those changes take place without mindful, intentional work, even if we are forced for months, let alone weeks, into the form of such a change. We can spring back out of such a form all too easily.

 

If there's anything we've found to be of value during this long Lent, our extended time-out, it will require us to put some time and attention to preserving them once we get to whatever our new normal will be. Very little other than eating and sleeping comes automatically to us human creatures, and sometimes not even that.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not sure how long his coffee supply will hold out, but he has plenty of filters. Tell him how the confinement is going for you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 4-11-20

Faith Works 4-11-20

Jeff Gill

 

Silence in the streets

___

 

It is the night after the crucifixion of Jesus, or maybe the next night. It's hard to tell.

 

There had been a vast darkness over Jerusalem, whether an eclipse as some said, a storm front suddenly overwhelming the city shrouding the sun, a rumbling that might have been a huge thunderstorm, or some felt as an earthquake.

 

Whatever shook the city, it threw everyone off, from Romans right down to the stones. Pilate suddenly was throwing clemency to petitioners, Passover being a few hours away, the Temple in chaos with strange rumors leaving the courtyards and echoing around the slowly stilling city, and the dark and rain and rumbles deep beneath the earth settling into their old familiar places, after a day of upheaval.

 

You know that the Sanhedrin and the procurator's staff in the praetorium had to like the stillness. Many still remembered the chaos of rioting and revolt that was so brutally put down by Pontius Pilate on a Passover week just a few years earlier. Doubtless this was why he was so harsh at the first signs of popular unrest, why Jesus and a few other usual suspects were rounded up and executed. A few must die, so the crowd may live, and life might get back to what we're all used to, Hebrews and Romans alike.

 

So quiet, now. Cats, perhaps, silently slinking along the gutters in search of prey, and always the mice and rats. The occasional cooing of a dove perched on a stone wall or cornice.

 

Everyone is inside. Safe, if there is such a place. Doors barred, windows latched. As night falls, the end of Sabbath would not be greeted with strolling families in the streets. Tomorrow, the first day of the week would dawn cautiously, fearfully, anxiously. Few would venture out early, and none would challenge the soldiers guarding everything from the Mount of Olives in the east to the cemeteries west of the city gates.

 

Dark, and silent, but the stars were coming out. The storms and earthquakes had passed, and the cooling pavement stretched out below, empty. But if you were staying in a rented room, up above the family quarters at street level, you could look out more safely than they. You could crane your neck around to see the last light on the rear of the Temple, reflecting the setting sun, the rosy glow of Jerusalem limestone.

 

Above, the deep blue of twilight spread from east to west, and the first two or three stars twinkled into view. Beyond them, God, who had done nothing to interfere with the sorrows of . . . yesterday? The day before? When the power of empire and the connivance of the religious authorities had intersected at the cross itself, two timbers hauled into place so a victim could be nailed and held up for public display and be seen to die. This the fate of any opponent of Rome, this the hazard of any resistance, even without weapons. A cruel death, and no one, nothing would stop it.

 

So you look back out across the still damp, silent, aching streets. All around the edges of shuttered windows show a faint yellow line of light within, but outside is darkness growing, and the chill light of stars. It seems as if the darkness will overcome all light, all hope, all freedom to seek God in any way other than what's officially approved. A darkness and silence that Rome surely will find satisfactory.

 

For you, looking out across the city, a question. Where does your hope, your help come from? You know the teaching of the psalm book. It is hard, though, in the present moment. But you recall and whisper the words of the one that tells you "My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth," and the one after that: pray for the peace of Jerusalem. You whisper the psalms you can remember as prayers, until you fall asleep, to greet the next day.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he knows he should have more psalms memorized than he does. They can come in handy. Tell him what passages of scripture you have committed to memory at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.