Immediate Word

One of the distinguishing features of these first few years of the 21st century has been how much increasing globalization has reordered our world. While our attention is usually focused on changes in such areas as commerce, communications, transportation, and employment patterns, the looming threat of an avian flu pandemic is yet another powerful clue that we live in one world -- a world in which the national and ethnic boundaries we often think are significant actually matter little in God's eyes. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Steve McCutchan examines some of the implications for Christians, using the lectionary texts for May 21 (the Sixth Sunday of Easter) as a basis.

In addition, the movie version of The DaVinci Code, starring Tom Hanks, will premiere this coming Friday -- and that's certain to bring to a whole new level of cultural consciousness some of its controversial assertions about Jesus' life and church history. This week's material also includes extensive resources from team member Carter Shelley relating to The DaVinci Code, as well as illustrations, worship aids, and a children's sermon.


Listening To God Through Bird Flu
by Stephen McCutchan

THE WORLD

Back in the early days of the Mercury astronauts, one of them commented that when he was viewing the earth from space he could not find any of the lines by which we divide nation from nation. His observation reinforces a central theme in our story of faith. Our scriptures begin with stories that declare that all humanity emerged from a single source. Both in God's eyes and in experiential reality we are one people in one world, and it is merely an illusion to think otherwise. Yet the history of humanity is one of constant division and contention. We continue to draw lines that separate and live in an illusion that denies our essential oneness.

If neither our faith nor our reason can convince us that we are one people in one world, then we have recently received a potent reminder in the form of avian flu. Like God, birds do not pay attention to the borders that we have created. The intricate network of humanity cannot be avoided. Our nation can debate the appropriate response to protecting our borders from terrorists, but there is no way to build fences or increase border guards to protect us from migratory birds. In addition, 1.1 million people legally enter this country each day. Even if we could afford to screen that number of people upon entry, the fact is that a human can spread the flu for a full day before any symptoms are shown. That fact alone demonstrates the impossibility of stopping the human conveyance of this disease.

While this particular strain apparently began in Asia, already it has spread to Africa and Europe. It appears to be only a matter of time before we detect it in the United States. In 1957 Asian flu killed 70,000 people in the USA, and between one and four million people worldwide. The 1968-1969 Hong Kong flu resulted in 34,000 deaths in the United States. While health officials claim that the bird flu cannot easily spread among humans, the fear of such a possibility is rising among our citizens. The television movie Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America dramatically portrays the worst-case scenario. It depicts dump trucks hauling bodies away and the use of barbed-wire fences to keep neighborhoods quarantined.

The government has released an initial plan concerning how it will respond if such a pandemic occurs -- but a major theme of their plan is that there would be no way that federal actions could contain such an event, and that each community should therefore make their own preparations. Among the plan's suggestions are that people should maintain a distance of at least three feet from their co-workers and avoid shaking hands.

The lectionary passages for the Sixth Sunday of Easter can help us reflect on some of the challenges this emerging reality raises for Christians.


THE WORD

Psalm 98
In Psalm 98, the psalmist provides a picture of nature joining the entire human race in singing praises to God. Once again we are reminded of the intricate web of relationships within God's creation. It serves as an antidote to the human temptation to think that the rest of the world, both animate and inanimate, is simply the neutral stage on which we operate.

Paul also reminds us in Romans 8:19-21 of the fact that the whole world is part of the intricate network of God's creation: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." The bird flu is a potent reminder of the bondage of decay in which we participate.

With poetic grace we see in the psalmist's words the victory celebration of God over all that has frustrated God's purpose. The intimacy of the Garden of Eden is again re-established, and the liberated creation joins humanity in singing God's victory song. The ecological crisis that now confronts our world is as much a reflection of the sin of the world as the wars and violence that threaten the relationship that God intends for all people: "He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity" (Psalm 98:9b). For those who seek to discern signs of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, it will require a new humility and a new appreciation of the importance of all of nature to the fulfilling of God's purpose. We are all part of an intricate web of God's creation. If any part of that creation is touched by sin, the whole web reacts.

Acts 10:44-48
Next, let us look at the Acts passage. Our lectionary has been providing successive readings from Acts since Easter Sunday. Sometimes it is helpful to provide the congregation with a brief review of the passages that have led up to this passage. Against the temptation to withdraw within our boundaries, Acts has been relentlessly pushing against the boundaries of the community of faith by telling in rapid succession stories of how those who previously were considered unacceptable have received the Holy Spirit. It began with the Pentecost experience, which we will be reading again in a couple of weeks. Following the Pentecost experience of the Spirit drawing the people of all nations together and filling the disciples with boldness, this same Spirit gets out ahead of the disciples. Through a series of incidents, the Holy Spirit relentlessly finds the unacceptable as acceptable. First there was the man with physical deformities, who some people saw a scriptural basis for excluding from the temple. He had been forced to be a beggar outside the gate, dependent on the charity of others. Peter demonstrated how faith operated to make one whose physical condition separated him from the temple acceptable to God. Then there was the Ethiopian eunuch, who was also viewed as unacceptable because of his sexual orientation and national origin. Yet Philip discovered a faith already growing in one who either by nature or environment had been in a lifestyle that was unacceptable. Now in this week's pericope there is a group of Gentiles who are filled with the Spirit. Like today, there were plenty of people who could quote Scripture to justify their exclusion -- but the Spirit was not listening. These stories of the early church flesh out Jesus' words in the Gospel of John: "The wind (spirit) blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes" (John 3:8).

The conclusion one can draw is that the Holy Spirit does not understand religious propriety. In all these examples, it becomes obvious that only the most hard of heart could deny that God was doing a new thing. In Christ, the unacceptable was being made acceptable and the outsider was being made the insider: "The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles" (Acts 10:45). If we refuse to listen to the Spirit, then God can use even such maladies as the bird flu to remind us that what happens to our neighbors affects us.

1 John 5:1-6
Because of the growing specter of fear created by this possible pandemic, it may be important to recall that the passage from 1 John which immediately preceded this (and was read last Sunday) contains the statement: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18a). In what way does the Christian command to love enable Christians to respond in a distinct way to this situation?

"This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood" (1 John 5:6). While these words may seem strange at first, they carry a curious relevance to our modern age. The early Christians were locked in a theological battle with the Gnostics. The Gnostics thought that the physical world was evil and that the key to salvation was to escape the world. Christian Gnostics saw Jesus as the savior from this evil world -- but since the material world was evil, the savior could not be part of this evil world. They therefore believed that the spirit of Christ had entered into the body of Jesus but was in fact separate from his material body. In a sense, Christ was masquerading as a human but in fact was purely spirit.

In response to this, John insisted that Jesus came not only by water, which was indicated by baptism, but also by blood, which was indicated by his physical birth. To believe that Jesus was the Son of God was to believe in both his spiritual and physical dimensions. The power of our faith is proclaimed when it is seen in our lives in light of the conditions of our time. Historians have suggested that one of the reasons why the Christian faith spread so quickly was the refusal of believers to isolate themselves from the needy in this world. While many in the Roman world sought to protect themselves by closing their doors to the sick and the needy, Christians went out into the streets and tended to their needs. More recently, Mother Teresa demonstrated this same power of compassion in her work among the needy of the world. "Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" (1 John 5:5).

As an aside, and as Carter points out in her piece on The DaVinci Code, we can note that we have a strange sort of Gnosticism in our own time. There are multitudes of people who proclaim that they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, but like the Gnostics of old they want nothing to do with the physical manifestation of Christ in the church, the Body of Christ. We can see this clearly in the popularity of the Left Behind series, in which the dominant theme is how Christ can provide us an escape from this evil world. But it is also seen in The DaVinci Code, which suggests that the physical church is corrupt and has repressed the truth -- and that only those in the know have the true secret of the faith. This reinforces people's desire to escape the messy experience of faith lived out among real live people with their foibles. They want to accept the spirit of Christ because that seems to be a safe abstraction. The physical reality of the church seems to be too filled with "evil" to be acceptable to them. The DaVinci Code makes for good escapism, but with the church we finally have to return to the real world and its mixture of fears and hopes.

John would not let the church off so easily: "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child" (1 John 5:1). But lest we become too abstract in that love, he continues: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments" (v. 2). To love the child of God is to love the children of God. Jesus' disciples, with full recognition of all their weaknesses and shortcomings, became the foundation of the church. The commandments of God, as 1 John makes clear, cannot be obeyed in the abstract while ignoring the concrete realities of the human species. The church, as reflected in the first disciples but continued on with the rest of us, is a necessary physical reality of living our response to Christ as Lord and Savior.

John 15:9-17
Finally we turn to the Gospel Lesson for the day. Are you struck with the contrast between Jesus' words and the attitude of the world? "I have said these things that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11). Notice the contrast between this phrase and the attitude of our frightened, lonely, loveless society. We yearn for relationships and view them in selfish terms. Underneath our behavior is almost a mirror opposite of Jesus' statement. Our desire is to protect ourselves even at the expense of our neighbor, so that "your joy may be in me and that my joy (and safety) may be complete."

Our insecurity and loneliness causes us to seek relationships to fill our void. Jesus says: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love" (v. 9). Jesus does not act from a position of starvation for love. Rather, his void was filled by God's love, so he did not need to fill his void by conquering another. Since he was already filled with God's love, he was free to seek to fill others.

In contrast to the fear that causes us to want to stay three feet from our co-workers and not shake people's hands, Christ's love for others was made visible in his ability to sacrifice on their behalf. Imagine the freedom that we would have as people if we had no need to protect ourselves. "I do not call you servants... but I have called you friends." One can obey one's master out of fear or even self-interest. But to do something for a friend requires a different attitude. Jesus asks us to love one another as friend to friend. You ask a friend to do something because you believe they will benefit from it. Jesus has found a deep inner joy in loving us and wants us to experience that joy as well. Your joy is experienced as you see your freely given love enabling another to heal of their woundedness and out of their overflowing love share with another.


CRAFTING THE SERMON

There are so many directions that one could go with a sermon on these texts. One could begin by using a combination of verses from Psalm 98 and Romans 8 to remind people of the intricate network of God's creation. This could be reinforced with the image of a spider web. Wherever you touch a part of the web, the rest of the web vibrates. The specter of the possible flu pandemic just reinforces the reality that our world is like that spider web. One could also craft a litany using verses from this psalm and singing verses from "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" to make the same point while celebrating the transcendent presence of God that gives us courage.

Having set that context, one could then utilize the survey of the opening passages of Acts to reveal the pressure of the Holy Spirit to include all creation in God's care. This could be contrasted with the fearful response of people who want to isolate themselves until the storms pass by.

The image of the early church going out into the streets to help the needy and the more contemporary image of Mother Teresa and people like her who exercise that same compassion could also fill in the thrust of 1 John and the command to obey God's commandment to love. Another approach might be to quote the earlier passage from 1 John that perfect love casts out fear and then raise the challenge for the congregation of how we are to counter the fearful response being created in relation to this threat. Explore with them how the love of God can cast out our fear and liberate us to respond to the fears of others around us.

As Christians we are challenged by the gospel statement from Jesus: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." It would not be wrong to confess to your congregation that the gospel is scary. Jesus' command that we love God and our neighbor, and the various ways that Jesus demonstrates, and the Holy Spirit reinforces, that the neighbor is anyone in need regardless of background, national origin, or physical condition strips us of all the excuses by which we seek to justify hiding behind closed doors. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you." Being a friend of Jesus is not easy.

In order to keep the sermon from being lost in abstractions, it would be important to reflect on your particular context and conclude with some very practical and specific ways that your congregation can demonstrate that "perfect love casts out fear." It is by living the faith that we discover the power of the faith.


AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH
by Carter Shelley

Material relating to The DaVinci Code

We ministers owe Dan Brown a debt of thanks for the questions his book The DaVinci Code raised among Christian bibliophiles when it was published three years ago. With the release of the film version on May 19, those individuals who did not read the novel but will see the movie staring Tom Hanks will be asking similar questions about Jesus' personal life, the nature of his relationship with Mary Magdalene, and (if we're lucky) about the origins of the biblical canon. The plot of The DaVinci Code is not heresy; it is fiction. The questions both the book and the film pose offer ministers and Sunday school teachers a great opportunity to expand the knowledge of congregations about the formation of the canon and the variety of interpretive methods we use to read the Bible, while also addressing the Code's more sensational aspects that state Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and together had a child whose ancestors continue into the current century.

As many of you already know, the number of resources on Christianity and The DaVinci Code are legion. There are several books that I consider to be excellent resources:

Cox, Simon. Cracking the DaVinci Code: The Unauthorzed Guide to the Facts Behind Dan Brown's Bestselling Novel (Barnes & Noble, 2004).

Serves like a dictionary, with various terms, characters, and organizations real and imagined alphabetized for quick and easy information.

Ehrman, Bart D. Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci Code (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Subtitle says it all: "A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine by the author of Misquoting Jesus." Actually, Ehrman is a New Testament scholar, one of the best writing today. His book is straightforward and easy to read.

Gilvin, Brandon. Solving the DaVinci Code Mystery (Chalice Press, 2004).

Written by an ordained Disciples of Christ minister. It covers the same territory as the other two texts, but includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter and can be used as Christian Education curriculum or as a resource for preachers.

The DaVinci Code was also previously addressed in the February 29, 2004 edition of The Immediate Word . George Murphy wrote an excellent piece; my contribution for that installment focused primarily on Mary Magdalene as portrayed in scripture and church tradition. (Some of that material appears below.) This time around I am doing several things.

1) I shall be preaching a sermon about Mary Magdalene based upon the materials I prepared for the February 29, 2004 The Immediate Word edition.

Mary Magdalene: Wife, Whore, Witness

Material on Mary Magdalene has served as a source of interest and curiosity since the early centuries of the church. More recently, she's also been a popular subject for feminist biblical and theological scholarship. Her ministry and person continue to offer rich material for inspiration and research. Existing scholarship and debate concerning Mary Magdalene are legion. Ministers wishing to preach or teach a series on Mary Magdalene will find the biggest challenge to be deciding which resources to use. In order to provide concrete material, I am limiting my own contribution to the following information:

A) A list of actual gospel text citations in which Mary Magdalene appears;
B) Christian traditional understandings of who Mary Magdalene was (hence the title "wife, whore, witness"); and
C) a brief bibliography of some, but far from all, academic books that include discussion about Mary Magdalene.

A) Gospel references to Mary the Magdalene appear in Matthew 27:56 (present at Jesus' crucifixion), 27:61 (as one of the women sitting outside Jesus' tomb), and 28:1 (as one of the first witnesses to Jesus' resurrection). Mark mentions Mary Magdalene in 15:40-47, telling of her presence at the cross and at Jesus' burial. He goes on to mention her visit to Jesus' tomb along with Mary the mother of James and Salome, where they intended to anoint his dead body with oil -- only to discover that the tomb was empty. In the longer Mark ending, Jesus appears to her in 16:9, supporting the empty tomb evidence that he is risen. Luke refers to Mary Magdalene in 8:2 (as a woman possessed with seven demons which Jesus cures through exorcism) and in 24:1-10 (where Mary Magdalene along with other women discovers the empty tomb and "two men in dazzling clothes," who ask the women why they seek the living among the dead). Luke 24:10 notes that Mary Magdalene and the other women report this amazing news to the apostles. John does not mention Mary Magdalene until 19:25 and 20:11-18. Again, she is present at the crucifixion. More importantly she is the first person to discover the empty tomb, and after Peter and "the other disciple whom Jesus loved" have also seen that Jesus' body is not there, Mary Magdalene is the first person to actually speak to Jesus after his resurrection.

Several important features should be noted about these gospel references. Mary Magdalene is identified as a follower of Jesus, one devoted enough to endure the pain and grief of watching him suffer and die. She is also present as one of the first, if not the first, person to see the risen Christ in every gospel account.

B) This knowledge of who Mary Magdalene was and the role she played in early Christianity as a follower of Jesus gets confused by the ancient church when other gospel accounts get identified as being Mary Magdalene when she is not so identified in the text. A central example is Luke's account of the woman who washes Jesus' feet with her tears and anoints Jesus' feet with oil before drying them with her hair. Simon the Pharisee's aside that if Jesus knew what sort of woman this was Jesus would not let her touch him leads most interpreters to conclude this woman was a prostitute. No name is given for this woman. It is possible that Mary Magdalene's intention to anoint Jesus' dead body with oil was the source of the initial linking of the two stories, but there is no scriptural evidence to suggest the women are one and the same. Another misidentification made concerning Mary Magdalene is the assumption that she was Martha's and Lazarus' sister Mary. Thus Mary Magdalene gains notoriety not only for her former sinfulness but later on for her thoughtful, contemplative conduct sitting at Jesus' feet to hear his teachings while Martha toils away preparing the meal.

From this assumption that Mary Magdalene was a former prostitute and also the sister of Martha came post-Council of Nicaea assumptions that Mary Magdalene's primary role was as a model of penitence and ascetic piety. While her witness to Jesus' resurrection was recognized by the medieval church, it was not viewed as anywhere near as important as her conversion from sinner to saint. Thus, Mary was not only identified by some (including Dan Brown) as a woman important for her sexuality, the Roman Catholic church chose to stress that aspect of her rather than recognizing her role as "apostle to the apostles," since she was the first to see the risen Christ and one of the women who went to tell the disciples the good news.

Mary Magdalene has been a popular source of inspiration for artists. Portraits of her include particular symbols: a jar of oil, a cross, and a skull. In The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown builds upon the long-standing assumption that Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute who becomes Jesus' wife and the mother of his offspring -- offspring whose very existence refutes the church's claims of divinity and eternity for Jesus Christ. It is this conundrum that provides the central conflict at the heart of the novel: the modern-day Roman Catholic church's efforts to refute and suppress such heretical material irrespective of its truth or falseness. The claim Brown makes for Mary Magdalene being present at the Last Supper as one of the twelve disciples portrayed in Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting also celebrates the notion of the Holy Grail, the chalice used by Jesus at his final meal with his followers.

Since Vatican II, the Roman Catholic church has clarified its understanding of Mary Magdalene's role. In so doing they have celebrated her place as one of the first people to see the resurrected Jesus and of her faithfulness to him both as a follower and during his final suffering. No longer is her role identified as that of sexual sinner whose excised seven demons represent the seven deadly sins: pride, avarice, gluttony, lust, laziness, jealously, and anger.

In Mary Magdalene: Beyond the Myth, Esther De Boer provides an excellent introduction and thorough examination of Mary Magdalene's place in scripture, scholarship, and Christian religion. De Boer also gives a passing nod to biblical scholars who maintain that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and ascribe the biblical silence about this marriage to a desire to protect Mary Magdalene and child from dangers and persecutions suffered by Jesus and his followers:

"Researchers like Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, and Margaret Starbird think that the silence about Mary Magdalene is deliberate. They speak of secret oral traditions which relate that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife and was expecting his child. To protect her and the fruit of her womb, it was necessary to keep quiet about her existence to the Roman occupying forces." (p. 20)

While the majority of biblical scholars who currently are engaged in the study of Mary Magdalene's significance begin with the Gospel texts mentioned earlier, they now have an additional resource from the Nag Hammadi texts discovered in 1945 near Phou, Egypt. Among the Gnostic books uncovered there were two more traditionally Christian works, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. While it has not been possible to establish an exact date for these non-canonical texts, it is believed the Gospel of Mary Magdalene was recorded around the middle of the second century. Much effort and time have been expended in translating this text and determining its value as a resource about early Christianity and Mary Magdalene. First translated into French, this material is now available in English along with a commentary upon its contents. (LeLoup, Jean-Yves. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, translated by Joseph Rowe, Inner Traditions, 2002) While some other Gnostic writings suggest an "intimate" relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, that subject does not appear in the gospel that bears her name.

C) Other resources on Mary Magdalene or "the sacred feminine," which is another important subject discussed in The DaVinci Code, include:

An A to Z of Feminist Theology. Edited by Lisa Isherwood and Dorothea McEwan (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996)

Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (HarperCollins, 1988)

Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Fawcett Columbine, 1992)

King, Karen L. "The Gospel Mary Magdalene" in Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary. Edited by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (Crossroad, 1994)

Schottroff, Luise, Silvia Schroer, and Marie-Theres Wacker. Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women's Perspective. Translated by Martin and Barbara Rumscheidt (Fortress Press, 1998)

Torjesen, Karen Jo. When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (HarperCollins, 1993)

Tucker, Ruth A. and Walter Liefeld. Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from New Testament Times to the Present (Zondervan, 1987)

2) I am teaching a six-session Sunday School class on "Christian Questions and Answers about The DaVinci Code." The following topics could also be preached as a special series:

How was the biblical canon formed and how was it determined which books would be included?

Who were the Gnostics and what are the Gnostic gospels?
Was Mary Magdalene once a prostitute and were she and Jesus married?
What representations of Catholicism and Opus Dei in The DaVinci Code are accurate or inaccurate?
The religious art of Leonardo DaVinci
But is it literature? A closer look at the plot and content of Dan Brown's novel.

My congregation will also present a one-night program on The DaVinci Code for the larger community on May 31 and will be advertising it in the newspaper and on the radio in the hope of attracting people who are not church members but who may have started to ask questions after seeing the movie.

************************

If it's been a while since you've read the book, the following might refresh you and other church members' memories of important characters and events.

How much do you remember from The DaVinci Code? A Matching Exercise

Match the names of characters and concepts discussed in the book with descriptions, organizations, etc. More than one item may apply to each character or object, so feel free to use a name more than once.

Jacques Sauniere
Robert Langdon
Sophie Neveu
Leigh Teabing
"Marie" De St. Clair
Hieros Gamos
Holy Grail
Merovingians
Heresy
Manual Aringarosa
Silas
Priory of Sion
Opus Dei
Mona Lisa
The Last Supper

___________ Cilice belt used to inflict physical pain for self-mortification

___________ curator of The Louvre

___________ cardinal of Opus Dei

___________ organization that guards the sacred lineage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene

___________ Sophie's grandmother

___________ historian and expert on The Grail

___________ sacred marriage, divinity only achieved through merging of male & female

___________ metaphor for the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene

___________ holds a view contradictory to orthodoxy in religion

___________ member of Opus Dei murdering people out of faithfulness to cardinal

___________ organization that guards the sacred lineage, DaVinci and Newton members

___________ self-portrait of Leonardo DaVinci

___________ Mary Magdalene appears in this portrait

___________ Harvard professor and symbology expert

___________ descendant of Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth

___________ means "God's Work"; have huge headquarters in New York City

___________ Greek word that translates to English as "wisdom"

___________ devout Catholic official appalled when discovers deceived about Grail

___________ used at The Last Supper and also caught blood from body of dying Christ

___________ former kings of France, believed to be offspring of the "vine" of Christ

*****

Dan Brown's primary sources for The DaVinci Code, none of which have academic credibility:

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (Arrow, 1996)

The Templer Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince (Corgi, 1998)

The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail by Margaret Starbird (Bear & Co., 1993)

*****

Strengths of The DaVinci Code:

* Suspenseful, entertaining, easy to read so non-readers are reading it
* Its statements about Christianity and primary Christian beliefs stimulate curiosity and questions worth asking
* May lead Christians to seek more understanding of the Bible, Christian beliefs, etc.

Weaknesses of The DaVinci Code:

* No true character development or insight; characters are black and white in depictions of hero, evil villain, etc.
* A little knowledge is a dangerous thing! Creates great confusion and misunderstanding for those who sort of know about Christianity
* Begins with statement that everything in book is "factual" when almost everything is fiction
* Abominable scholarship; Brown gets known facts wrong, ex. the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, Brown says early 1950s. Many of his errors could have been "Googled away"
* Teabing is presented as a reputable historian, but he generalizes and makes outlandish statements at every turn, especially about the origins of the New Testament and the canon
* Brown knows almost nothing about the origin and composition of the Bible
* Brown has almost no knowledge of feminist biblical scholarship or the sacred feminine, doing more harm than good for such insights


ILLUSTRATIONS

Accompanying Mother Teresa, as we did, to these different activities for the purpose of filming them -- to the Home for the Dying, to the lepers and unwanted children, I found I went through three phases. The first was horror mixed with pity, the second compassion pure and simple, and the third, reaching far beyond compassion, something I had never experienced before -- an awareness that these dying and derelict men and women, these lepers with stumps instead of hands, these unwanted children, were not pitiable, repulsive, or forlorn, but rather dear and delightful; as it might be, friends of long standing, brothers and sisters. How is it to be explained -- the very heart and mystery of the Christian faith? To soothe those battered old heads, to grasp those poor stumps, to take in one's arms those children consigned to dustbins, because it is his head, as they were his stumps and his children, of whom he said that whosoever received one such child in his name received him.
-- Malcom Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God

***

Humanity is one. We are all part of the same human race. However different we may be through culture, race, or disabilities, we are all human beings; we are all brothers and sisters.

I remember once when I was in Papua New Guinea. I went up into the mountains. There I met tribal people. The womenfolk wore few clothes, so did the men for that matter! I spoke to them about people with a mental handicap and about l'Arche. Then there was a time for questions. They spoke about their lives and sickness and death, about joys and difficulties in relationships in their families and between families, about the menfolk drinking too much and about violence -- all the same questions that could have come up in London or New York. Yes, we are truly of the same race.
-- Jean Vanier, Community and Growth

***

The threats do not wane,
The dangers are not imagined,
The power to undo is on the loose . . .
And in the midst, you speak your word.
It is your word that cuts the threat,
that siphons off the danger,
that tames the powers.
You speak and all is made new.
You speak your true self of abiding faithfulness,
of durable presence,
of long-standing reliability.
You give yourself in the utterance of "fear not"
and we do not fear.
We do not fear,
because you are with us,
with us, and so safe,
with us, and so free,
with us, and so joyous.
We diminish our lives in our feeble anxiety . . .
and you veto our anxiety;
We cheapen our neighbor with our frantic greed . . .
and you nullify our greed with your satiation;
We pollute the world in our lust for safety . . .
and you detoxify our mess.
Now come here and in Kosovo,
here and in Littleton,
here and in East Lake,
here and in Louisville,
here . . . and here . . . and there . . . and there.
Override the fickleness of it all,
and give us faith commensurate with your true, abiding self.
Amen.
-- Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

***

A man is on a boat. He is not alone, but acts as if he were. One night, without warning, he suddenly begins to cut a hole under his seat.

The other people on the boat shout and shriek at him: "What on earth are you doing? Have you gone mad? Do you want to sink us all? Are you trying to destroy us?"

Calmly, the man answers: "I don't understand what you want. What I'm doing is none of your business. I paid my way. I'm not cutting under your seat. Leave me alone!" What the fanatic (and the egotist) will not accept, but what you and I cannot forget, is that all of us are in the same boat.
-- Elie Wiesel, Parade Magazine

***

A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. And yet we experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.
-- Albert Einstein

***

There is an African story about a village that had a tradition of communal feasting. On special occasions, all the villagers would contribute food for the celebration. After it had been prepared, the people would all sit in a circle on the ground and the village elders would pass out the food to everyone. Always there was more than enough.

There was a young man from the village named Jacob who traveled to far-off America, where he studied in one of the great universities. After many years he returned home. It just so happened that he arrived on the same day as one of the village's feasts.

But Jacob had forgotten the traditions of his village. He had come to value the ways of America. "My family," he said, "I mean no disrespect, but why are you eating your food on the ground?"

"How would you expect us to eat: standing up or sitting in a tree?" asked a village elder.

"No. Don't be ridiculous," said Jacob. "Civilized people sit at a table."

The villagers had never heard of such a thing. Yet they also knew that Jacob had gone off to study in a far country that was known for its wealth and power. The village elders decided to send away for a table for their village.

At long last, the table arrived. But it was only large enough to seat eight people. Whenever there was a feast, the villagers quarreled over who those eight should be. Some said it should be the young men, for they had carried the table into the square. The women insisted they should sit at the table, for it was they who prepared the food. For their part, the elders thought they should sit at the table, as befitted their position and privilege.

Finally, Jacob's father called him aside, saying, "Look what you have done. You have brought civilization to our village, but around the table of civilization, there is no unity, no community."

Later that night, under the sliver of a moon, Jacob took his ax and chopped the table into many pieces. He picked up the pieces and laid at the door of every villager a remnant of the table. In the morning he went to the village elders and explained what he had done. "I want to see unity and harmony in my village once again," he declared penitently. And that very day there was a feast to celebrate the end of the table -- with all the villagers sitting in a circle on the ground, as before.
-- adapted from a story by Dorothy Winbush Riley, "Shango Oba," in The Complete Kwanzaa: Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest (HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 214-216

***

I once heard a story from an old African-American man in mid-south. He came out of an alley as I was sitting amidst the graffiti of the inner-city "park." Some people would call him crazy, for he spoke to anyone and no one. He shuffled along with one fin held out as though to test the wind's direction. Cuentistas recognize such persons as having been touched by the gods. In our tradition, we'd call such a man El Bulto, The Bundle, for souls such as he carry a certain kind of ware and show it to any who will look, one who has the eyes to see it and the sense to shelter it.

This particular kindly El Bulto gave me this story. It is about a certain kind of ancestral transmission. He called the story "One Stick Two Stick." "This is the way of the old African kings," he whispered.

In the story, an old man is dying, and calls his people to his side. He gives a short, sturdy stick to each of his many offspring and relatives. "Break the stick," he instructs them. With some effort, they all snap their sticks in half.

"This is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily broken."

The old man next gives each of his kin another stick, and says, "This is how I would like you to live after I pass. Put your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. Now, break these bundles in half."

No one can break the sticks when there are two or more in a bundle. The old man smiles. "We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken."
-- Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in Women Who Run with the Wolves; cited in Spiritual Literacy, ed. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat (Touchstone, 1996), p. 476

***

[Mandi Caruso, a cancer survivor and a medical professional, writes about how she overcame her breast cancer, largely by overcoming fear...]

Before my own diagnosis, I spent most of my working life in intensive care and emergency rooms, at the bedsides of critically ill and dying people. Decade after decade, I watched as men and women crumpled in fear as they realized that they were truly going to cease to exist in their bodies. Night after long, sleepless night, I listened to people as all their definitions of themselves -- job, home, family, possessions -- were ruthlessly stripped away by their fear of death. Some nights I heard whole corridors of agonized people screaming, "Why me?"

From these, the dying, I learned that fear of death rules our lives far more than passion for living. In The Balance Within, Esther Sternberg, M.D., cites many scientific studies demonstrating the hormonal and neurochemical damage to bodies stressed by constant fear. Night after night, year after year, I watched fearful minds kill ailing bodies faster than any drug or disease.

Almost everything in modern culture creates fear of death. Almost everything that is bought and sold is marketed as a ticket to eternal youth; if only we spend enough money, buy the right treatment or drug, we will never age, never die. Death is the enemy, the villain, the gray-cloaked, grinning skull -- the symbol of our destruction. When we buy into this manipulation, we prime ourselves to become our own worst enemies when we're sick.

When we deny the unavoidable normality of illness, aging, pain, and death, the amygdala, the fear center of our brain, sends out stress hormones and neurochemicals that over time undermine and weaken the already stressed body. We literally create our very own, highly personalized, physical and mental hells.
-- SpiritualityAndHealth.com; http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/blank/item_10243.html

***

We live in a small community of nations. When one nation coughs, others cannot sleep. When the people of one nation are crushed by destitution, disaster from revolutions or plagues are inevitable.... Devastating diseases breed in the cesspools of poverty.... We must graduate from judgment and neglect to realistic actions, and we must encourage the handful of men and women now struggling against monumental odds in countries all but abandoned by the west.
-- William T. Close, M.D., writing about the Ebola epidemic in Africa


WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman

Call To Worship
One: We gather to worship the One who crafted creation out of chaos:
All: Our cries of joy join with the choirs of the universe.
One: We gather to lift our praises to the God who gives us voice:
All: We bring the songs which have echoed in our hearts all week long.
One: We gather as the children of God, our joy unbroken in God's love:
All: Young and old, tone-deaf and perfect-pitched, lift the new, new songs of faith.

Prayer Of The Day
You raise your hand and gently begin the concerto of creation:
birds carry the melody while stars keep the beat;
mountains dance in merriment and little children clap their hands with joy.
Love's Composer, our new songs are lifted to you.

The old, old song is made new in our hearts:
Christ is Risen!
Sing Alleluia!
And you invite us to sing it to a world
deafened by despair and haunted by the tunes of terror.
Lord of the Dance, our new songs are lifted to you.

Believing we cannot carry a tune,
we hesitate to join in the chorus of praise sung by all creation.
So you softly and gently hum the melody in our hearts until they burst with joy,
raising a rousing chorus of "Amazing Grace."
Music-making Spirit, our new songs are lifted to you.

Every song, old and new, is offered to you,
God in Community, Holy in One,
even as we lift the prayer Jesus taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .

Call To Reconciliation
Beautiful music, every note perfect, joining together in graceful harmony --
this is what we imagine our lives to be.
Yet our love is flat, our anger sharp.
Let us confess how we struggle to keep the measured beat
of God's life-giving melody in our lives, even as we pray together . . .

(Unison) Prayer Of Confession
Joy-giving God, we know who we are:
people who hear the harmony of your grace and love in our souls,
but who sing off-key to others.
We want to learn new songs,
but those haunting tunes of the past run through our heads.
We long to make a joyful noise to you,
But the hurts inflicted on us, and the pain we have caused others,
silence our voices.

Sing to us, Conductor of Grace:
sing to us of your forgiveness, of your hope, of your love for us.
Strike a chord of humility in our hearts,
that our eyes would see all you have done for us;
and in seeing, we might believe how much you love us;
and in believing, we would echo that new song of hope and life
in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

(silent prayers may be offered)

Assurance Of Pardon
One: Listen to the melody of the good news:
Christ is risen, bringing joy into the world.
The One who was dead now lives,
and wraps us in the delight of life forever with our God.
All: Now, our dirge has turned to joy;
our requiem has been rewritten as a hymn of hope;
our lament is lost in a cantata of praise.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Amen.


CHILDREN'S SERMON

Children of God

Object: bring an older member of the congregation to the front

Good morning, boys and girls. I brought (name the person) with me this morning. (address your guest with the next two questions) Tell us how old you are. How long have you attended our church?

(now ask the children and let them answer) How many of you believe that (name the older member) is a child? The truth is that (name the older member) is a child. This morning's lesson tells us that she/he is a child of God. I want you children to meet some more children, who you never thought were children. I would like everyone in the congregation who is 70 or older (choose a number to fit your congregation's situation) to please stand. Everyone standing is also a child -- a child of God. Thank you, you may sit down. In fact, everyone here today is a child of God.

Our lesson this morning tells us that we are all God's creatures. But not everyone is a child of God. To be a child of God we must believe that Jesus is our Lord. Children of God love their Father and their brothers and sisters in Christ. Proof of this love of God is in our following of God's commandments. That means that we must do what God tells us. To be God's children we must, as Jesus taught us, be spiritually born again. This second birth comes when we believe Jesus is our Lord. After church today I want you to remember all of the persons here who are older than you. Even though some of them are very much older than you they are still children -- just like you. They are children of God because they have faith in God. They follow what God tells them to do. When you follow what God tells you -- when you love one another -- you are a child of God also.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Immediate Word, May 21, 2006, issue.

Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.