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It was humbling today to watch 630 people pass through our food line. People were gracious, though the "pickings were slim" -- to use a midwestern phrase. Food for America continues to generously share with us what they have, but one gets the impression that their receipts have lessened. A member of our congregation who had started driving a forklift for them in November has been laid off since Christmas. This indicates, quite possibly, a lessening of goods flowing into the food bank.

If the "Mid-City" economic indicator (the number of people through our line), an index that has successfully predicted upturns and downturns in the San Diego economy, reached an all-time low this week. Tuesday 480 passed through the line; Thursday morning, 370; this morning 630. Weeks total: 1480 -- about 15% the highest weeks total that we have had. Meanwhile persons in the multicongregation and the English congregation are losing jobs. The Samoan congregation has been especially hard hit with the drying up of skilled construction jobs that many work. Tuesday night at the Bread of Life downtown at the Salvation Army, I prayed for Promise, a four day old little girl that her mother brought to the meal. The poignancy of that moment and the mother's faith deeply moved me. My guess is that the City Heights micro-economy will continue to unwind until tourism picks up around Spring break. The wider economy is tied to the continual drop of housing prices.

Ironically, the shortfall in city incomes and the horrible economy seems to have improved in some ways the life of those on the street. Without concern of the city to lose tourist dollars, those sleeping outside seem to suffer less disruptions or ticketings. Businesses are closing downtown as people are not as plentiful in the new condos as anticipated and businesses fall back from sending persons to the hotels and conventions. More space comes open for the poor. Day labor is less available, but people here have long learned to live with sparse economic resources. The recession/depression is nothing new; they have the skills to survive in economic conditions that scare the rest of us.

The depth of the recession has humbled me. How does one engage in productive labor if no market exists to compensate you for your work? Does that mean we need first to build markets? What seems evident to me is that unless one builds a strong middle class within a society, one submits to a bubble economy of assets moving from the "latest great opportunity for high return" to the next after the bubble bursts. All I am certain is that Christians are called to engage in the works of mercy. Even this week the labor force from the congregation has been sparse. We always survive, but those present find themselves stretched or others step into the space to help the congregation to do its work even when it is absent. We serve a mysterious God, who is faithful.

Posted by johnwright at 7:25 PM

As Epiphany continues, we look at Jesus’ live on earth as spoken in the gospels – this year the Gospel of Mark. The readings connect with each other through the gospel which provides a hinge between the OT reading and the Epistle reading. Jesus’ actions as described in Mark receives the words from Deuteronomy and points toward the teaching of Paul in 1 Corinthians.

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Deuteronomy stands as a repetition of Moses’ teachings in a new setting – before Israel enters the land. Moses is not often called a prophet in Exodus through Numbers, so this passage comes as a bit of surprise. Part of what we must do is look back to these texts to understand how it is that Moses fulfills the role of a prophet. First, look through Exod 3:13-22. What does it mean for Moses to be a prophet? Read Exodus 19:1-6 and 16-24. What does this mean to be a prophet like Moses?

Mark 1:21-28

The Mark passage follows immediately upon the call of the four disciples. Capernaum is on the north end of the Sea of Galilee. What is the setting for the passage? Why might this be significant? There are basically three sets of characters in the passage that might help to unpack the passage: Jesus, “they” (the members of the synagogue), and the “man with an unclean spirit” – the disciples don’t play a role. In one way Jesus is the center around which everything operates. He is highlighted through the responses of the other two, the man with the unclean spirit in the middle of two responses by “them.” How does “their” response change as a result of the interaction between Jesus and the man? How is Jesus like Moses here?

1 Corinthians 8:1b-13

Here is a concrete implication of Jesus and his “new teaching.” At issue was the unity of the congregation, already a minority in a pagan society. Read v. 1b-3 and vv. 5-6 first. What is the basic principles and teaching that Paul give? Now read v. 4 and vv. 7-13. How does Paul see this case as a particular instance that lives out what he has said already? Why does this teaching have “authority”? How does one not end up walking on egg shells as a result of this teaching? What is Paul’s underlying goal for the Corinthians? How does this shape our lives?
How does the teaching and freeing of Jesus in the Gospel set the background to understand Paul’s teaching in Corinthians? Why is Jesus’ authority so important for our lives and witness?

Have a wonderful evening!

Posted by johnwright at 4:32 PM

Perhaps nothing could represent my attempt to return to regular blogging than including a
(w)rant. Rants are my specialty, a response to the stupidity and the hyperreality of the world around us. Rants, if they weren't about things that really mattered, can amuse.

I've gotten away from ranting. I thought, however, when I read the Israeli official response to the accusation that they used white phosphorous against a UN secure station in Gaza that it deserved a rant.

Lest you forgot, white phosphorous is a chemical weapon. It burns -- hot and deeply. When it touches human skin it disolves it right down to the bone. It is the heir of that wonderful Vietnam era weapon called "napalm." It stick to the skin and near impossible to put out.

It is my understanding that according to international weapons treaties, white phosophorous is permissible to use to create smoke; its use, however, upon human beings represents a war crime. The line between these two uses, of course, is very thin. Deniablity is all that is necessary -- or the claim that something on the ground "ignited" the phosphorous, rather than the intent of the military using the chemical.

The issue came to light last week as the UN has accused Israel of using white phosphorous on the ground in the invasion into Gaza that they had put under seige for months. It is no surprise that English newspapers cover what is neglected in the United States. The Times and The Guardian have "broken" the story (see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5526955.ece and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/17/israel-gaza-phosphorus-civilians).

In the response the IDS has claimed innocence, according to the Times: " Spokesmen for the IDF have repeatedly stated that Israel has used only weapons that meet international rules on warfare, and that it has not resorted to any system that other countries, including Nato members, have not deployed in past battles."

Interestingly, this so-called denial is not a denial at all. As mentioned above, "legal" military uses exist that can provide cover for illegal uses according to "international rules"; second "other countries, including Nato member" have used white phosphorous before."

Who? Where? Anyone want to guess?

How about the United States in Iraq, particularly in the same type of punitive mass punishment urban warfare that the Israeli's are conducting in Gaza that the US used in Falluja. So let's get this straight. After lying about its use, the US decided that their use was legal and therefore admitted that they used it because it was an "incidentary weapon" not a "chemical weapon".and used it only against "military tragets" not "civilians" in a densely populated urban area. This therefore sets the precedent to which the Israeli's can claim, "Who, me?" with a denial that is not a denial at all. It is merely dissemblance, a wonderful type of propaganda that obscures the reality of the situation. And remember in case you ever want to incinerate human flesh off of human bones that you can do so legally: you can claim that you were just trying to light your way with white phosphorous when someone unfortunately walked into it. After all, white phosphorous is a incidenary, not a chemical weapon.

The first casualty of war is truth. Even when those engaged in legitimating war are truthful, it still is spoken at the expense of the truth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm

US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said.

"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

The US had earlier said the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - had been used only for illumination. BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial is a public relations disaster for the US. Col Venable denied that white phosphorous constituted a banned chemical weapon.

White phosphorus is an incendiary weapon, not a chemical weapon

Col Barry Venable
Pentagon spokesman
US military interview

The US state department had earlier said white phosphorus had been used in Falluja very sparingly, for illumination purposes. Col Venable said that statement was based on "poor information".

'Incendiary'

The US-led assault on Falluja - a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency west of Baghdad - displaced most of the city's 300,000 population and left many of its buildings destroyed.
Col Venable told the BBC's PM radio programme that the US army used white phosphorus incendiary munitions "primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. "However it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants."

And he said it had been used in Falluja, but it was a "conventional munition", not a chemical weapon. It is not "outlawed or illegal", Col Venable said. He said US forces could use white phosphorus rounds to flush enemy troops out of covered positions. "The combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives," he said.
San Diego journalist Darrin Mortenson, who was embedded with US marines during the assault on Falluja, told the BBC's Today radio programme he had seen white phosphorous used "as an incendiary weapon" against insurgents. However, he "never saw anybody intentionally use any weapon against civilians", he said.

'Particularly nasty'

White phosphorus is highly flammable and ignites on contact with oxygen. If the substance hits someone's body, it will burn until deprived of oxygen. Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone." A spokesman at the UK Ministry of Defence said the use of white phosphorus was permitted in battle in cases where there were no civilians near the target area.
But Professor Paul Rogers, of the University of Bradford's department of peace studies, said white phosphorus could be considered a chemical weapon if deliberately aimed at civilians.
He told PM: "It is not counted under the chemical weapons convention in its normal use but, although it is a matter of legal niceties, it probably does fall into the category of chemical weapons if it is used for this kind of purpose directly against people." When an Italian TV documentary revealing the use of white phosphorus in Iraq was broadcast on 8 November it sparked fury among Italian anti-war protesters, who demonstrated outside the US embassy in Rome.

Posted by johnwright at 9:41 PM

The readings this Sunday are interesting because of the vagueness of their relationship. The OT and Gospel readings focus on the call of God, signed by Samuel, fulfilled by Christ’s call of disciples in the Gospel of John. It seems to me that the Epistle reading details the implications of that call. Perhaps it is best to take the readings in this order.

1 Samuel 3:1-20

It would be unfortunate to miss all the ironies in 1 Samuel 3, beginning in v. 1 and moving through the whole passage. We often can miss the real life humor of the biblical text. Maybe you could read through the text a first time to find all the ironies and their humor and the play on words throughout the passage (ie, v. 2 has Eli’s eyesight had begun to grow dim; v. 1 states that visions were not widespread).

In a second reading, focus on the Lord’s call of Samuel. Why is the process of the call so complicated and take so many times to “connect”? Why can Samuel not interpret the call himself? What does he need to hear appropriately? Why does the call finally “connect”?
What risk comes to Samuel in his response to the call? Why? How would you characterize Eli’s response? How does Samuel’s call and his initial responses relate to v.20? How is he known as a trustworthy prophet?

John 1:43-51

The gospel also has its ironies. What does Philip do when Jesus calls him to “Follow me”? What is ambiguous about his response? The next section (vv. 44-45) describes the brief interchange between Philip and Nathanael. How would you describe the two characters attitudes?

Note that Philip disappears from the passage! The story culminates in the interaction between Jesus and Nathanael (vv. 46-51), a passage as remarkable by all it excludes as much as it includes. Note what is absent from between the episodes? What is the effect? In light of Nathanael’s first response about Jesus, how does Jesus respond? Nathanael’s second response to Jesus seems a little “over-the-top.” What has prepared him to see Jesus as the “Son of God,” “the King of Israel”? What is the significance of the last saying of Jesus? How does it complete Nathanael’s call? How does Nathanael’s call compare to Philip’s?

1 Corinthians 6:11b-20

Read v. 11b and vv. 19-20 first. How does this frame the particular teachings in the middle? Note the order here: washing (baptism), sanctification, justification (being made righteous). Why this order?

It seems that Paul quotes and corrects certain teachings in Corinth in the middle that have a tremendously contemporary sound – “All things are lawful for me. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” What behavior is being justified by such teaching and how does Paul’s additions (“but not all things are beneficial”; “but I will not be dominated by anything” and “God will destroy both one and the other” seek to modify this justification? What is the difference between this self-justification and the justification that arises out of “being washed and sanctified”?

What is the end of the body? What does it mean to have our bodies “members of Christ”? How does this relate to Jesus’ body crucified, raised and ascended? To the Lord’s Supper? To the congregation? What happens in sexual practices outside of marriage? How does it effect? How? Whose body does the “fornicator” sin against (and it may be several and are distinct and related!)?

“You are not your own.” How do the OT and Gospel passages show that? How does this relate to the call? What is the call for? What does the call itself presuppose from the passages? How does this relate to the predominant ethic today? How does what we do with our bodies have to do with our sanctification?

Have a wonderful evening!

Posted by johnwright at 2:43 PM

We returned to Ohio at the end of the 12 days of Christmas. It was interesting to see and feel how things have stayed the same and also how they differ. Deep social and economic changes have occurred. We could tell the depth of the recession, the loss of population, and the aging of the population. From sight, all new economic activity in the Dayton activity seems to have come from health care in response to the aging of the population. There seemed a cultural Angst that sought its consolation in Ohio State football to compensate for the political disappointments of the past decade.

These were still my people and my institutions. I could discern the older strengths of the culture emerge in the people, particularly in the stability of the people in the church, even now that their Constantinian hopes have been shattered. The vestiges of these years still were around, and the right political and cultural conditions could re-enflame the embers. Yet we heard no celebration of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, no celebratory calls for vindication, only jeremiads for the coming moral, cultural disaster from the changes, but more deeply, evidence that some were trying to encounter older practices of the Christian tradition. A vitality remained in the congregations that comprised our past that exceeded the more dismal broader social setting.

In central Ohio we visited a congregation in which we could sense the on-going strength of the church, but also how deeply it had become culturally captured. What interested me most was the construction of a shrine at the front, right side of the sanctuary. The congregation had moved the altar, the communion table, to the side of the sanctuary, where it was nonetheless very visible. It had been carefully adorned – candles stood on both sides, a floral arrangement in the middles, and the offering plates were brought to it. Above the altar on the wall was a plaque, and above the plaque, a framed, triangular American flag. I thought that perhaps the congregation had suffered a death from an American soldier. I was close. Instead the flag was from an American platoon that had been part of the invasion of Iraq. The platoon had sent the flag to the congregation in response for their support. The congregation had transformed this into a shrine – idolatrous to be sure – but similar to a relic of a saint from a holy pilgrimage that one might find in Catholic circles. Such a transformation of sanctuary space would have been unthinkable thirty years ago when I first encountered this congregation – the pulpit was the first that I had preached behind.

In contrast Geordan Hammond’s work on Wesley shows his deep commitment to Eucharistically centered worship. Wesley wrote his essay “On the Duty of Constant Communion” before he went to Georgia in 1732; he published it in 1787 in The Arminian Magazine. It shows the stability of Wesley’s commitment to primitive Christian worship. As Hammond argues, “Wesley’s high regard for the Eucharist was a constant and unwavering aspect of his life and ministry” (p. 89). In this dimension Wesley both participated in common Anglican convictions of his day, but in intensity, as typical, he surpassed the norm to move towards the more rigorous, disciplined, and Christologically-intense form of these convictions. Hammond states, “During his last few years at Oxford and in Georgia, Wesley held to the minority view in the Church of England that espoused ‘Firstly, a belief in the Eucharistic sacrifice as a real, objective, and effectual God was pleading of Christ’s sacrificial offering of himself on Calvary (with which offering some would have wished to line the Last Supper). Secondly, a belief in a permanent and objective real presence, expressed by saying that by the action of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine become in power, virtue, and effect the body and blood of Christ. Thirdly, a doctrine of consecration that was quite specific in regarding the Holy Spirit as the agent of consecration, combined with a belief that the institution narrative-oblation-epiclesis sequence was the necessary and essential liturgical material by which consecration was effected’” (p. 79).

Posted by johnwright at 8:56 PM

Blogging has had basic starts without follow-up during the past year. I hope to remedy this now by more consistent writing again. We're just back from our "midwestern sojourn," a four day trip to Ohio to see family. The spring and summer await; I'm to work on larger projects now after a year writing 8 separate essays on diverse subject. I hope now to share some of the reading that I've done, as well as that of which I hope to accomplish.

I finished before our trip a wonderful unpublished dissertation by Geordan Hammond on John Wesley during his time in Georgia (1735-37): Restoring Primitive Christianity: John Wesley and Georgia, 1735-37 (PhD Dissertation, University of Manchester, 2008). Several points of the dissertation mention merit, and I hope to blog through the work over the week. I think that it is a very important work for a retrieval of Wesley outside the strictures of modernistic Protestant pietisms in their liberal and conservative forms that have come to dominate those who look to Wesley for guidance.

The main thesis, ably sustained, is "that the ideal of restoring primitive Christianity was at the forefront of Wesley’s thinking and is crucial to interpreting the Georgia mission" (p. 16). Three subthemes seem significant to me: "First, an aim of this study is to analyze Wesley in context as an Anglican clergyman rather than interpreting his Georgia sojourn as a ‘preface to victory’. Secondly, when possible, the connection between Wesley’s reading and practice of primitive Christianity will be illustrated. Thirdly, a fresh perspective on his interaction . . . will be given by interpreting these relationships within the context of Wesley’s goal of renewing primitive Chrsianity in the Georgia wilderness" (p. 16).

I think that hammond makes several points in the first chapter that persist throughout Wesley's life, and are crucial to repetitions within the Methodist tradition. Wesley's concern to return to primitive Christianity was to achieve a unity between academic study of Christianity and a purity of its practice with an ascetic discipline found characteristic of "primitive Christianity." An ecclesiology underlies Wesley's emerging practice: (1) the church exists independent of the state -- an emphasis, according to Hammond, that arises from second generation nonjuror emphasis, but could be called "non-Constantinian" at its core; (2) the primitive church witnesses to the norm of visible Christian unity that has been lost, but thereby also witnesses to its possibility through a "return" or "ressourcement" through adoption of its practices. Wesley's concern was always to recovery the visible unity of the church through a return to the pre-Constantinian church.

To this end, Hammond both quotes and summarizes from A Collection of Forms of Prayer for Every Day in the Week that Wesley published in 1733:

“May the Church, the Catholick Seminary of divine Love, be protected from all the Powers of Darkness.’ The desire for Christian unity is seen in the following prayer: ‘bless thy holy Catholick Church, and fill it with Truth and Grace; where it is corrupt, purge it; where it is in Error, rectify it; where it is right, confirm it; where it is divided and rent asunder, heal the Breaches thereof.’ In accordance with the High Church/Nonjuring tradition, Wesley called for unity through a return to the primitive church: “Lord, let it be they good Pleasure to restore to the Church Catholick, primitive Peace and Purity’; endow the clergy with ‘apostolical Graces’; and ‘restore to her her ancient Discipline.’ (pp. 43-44)

According to Hammond, "Wesley shared the view of contemporary High Churchmen that four steps were required to revive catholic unity. Dissenters must conform to the Church of England; Rome must be reformed from her corruptions; the German Protestant Churches must revive episcopacy; and the Church of England must re-impose her authority and discipline" (p. 44). It seems to me of these four requirements, only "Rome" has made any progress from the 18th century. Obviously Wesley's heirs have largely become more deeply embedded in dissent and moved deeply away from "primitive Christian" practices, and become more deeply embedded in mediating forms of "Protestantism"; the Church of England's authority and discipline have devolved remarkably; I can't say much about what he means by "German Protestant churches" as the phrase is too vague.

Here is a project worthy of retrieval and repetition. Hammond's work details specifics of Wesley as a High Church Anglican interested in the catholicity of pre-Constantinian Christianity as he was embedded in currents within the 18th century Church of England. Tomorrow I hope to blog on the Eucharistic implications of this that Hammond documents.

Posted by johnwright at 11:36 AM