“Beware the 8th day before the Ides of June,” or some thoughts on Christian faithfulness and the Calendar.

The “8th day before the Ides of June” is written 06/06 in current common reckoning. Thus, the date for tomorrow is 06/06/06, or, simply, 6/6/6.

Some people are in quite a stir over all of this.

We shall see what we shall see, shall we not?

Nevertheless:

I have been meaning to write on Christ and the Calendar for some time. Now seems as appropriate a time as any to do so, especially since it has already been 6/6/6 for most of the world for up to the last 16 hours.

Time is, to a certain extent, an arbitrary thing. Our years take 52 weeks + 1 day (except in leap years, where they are 52 weeks + 2 days). Our months are approximately 30 days apiece, while our moon orbits every 29.5 days. We fix times and dates for remembrance based upon a system of years that actually miscalculated the birth of Christ by around 5 years – as far as we know.

Few people question the use of time in the context of church, except at the time when the sermon “runs long.” Nevertheless, time shapes the People of God more than we tend to admit.

Beginning, in large part, with my connections to St. Barnabas Episcipal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL, I began to listen to the Lectionary as a time-shaper.

I have now participated in the lectionary cycles for nearly five years. I have discovered how much it begins to shape time and life. Seasons have new meaning. Cycles of rest and activity are different. Celebration and abstinance are different.

The year begins with Advent, four Sundays prior to 25 December. While most of our society is doing a lot of extreme partying and making very merry, Advent reminds us that this is a time of expectation of the coming of the Lord. In that regard, it emphasizes both his first coming and his second coming. In Advent, we make ready for both. This season is capped by the Feast of the Incarnation/Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord on the evening of 24 December.

The following 12 days are days of great celebration: God has come to Earth in Jesus Christ; the Lord has been born; there are great feasts for Saints and Apostles.

On 6 January, the scene changes. This is the Epiphany, when we see the manifestation of God to all Nations. During the following 6 – 8 weeks, we emphasize the manifestation of the Life and Power of God for salvation through the life and miracles of Christ.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, we begin 40 days and 7 weeks of travelling with Jesus to his Cross. This is a time of penitence, where we know the price of our salvation and choose to identify with our Suffering Savior.

At the end of Lent there is the Great Triduum – the Great Three Days: Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. These events begin with the Maundy Thursday evening and wrap up in great celebration on Resurrection Sunday. These are the Great Days of our Salvation, the biggest days of the whole calendar.

Following Easter are 8 weeks in which we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We seek to understand the power of Christ’s Resurrection for our lives, day in, and day out.

At the end of the Easter Season are three Sundays right in a row that are the cause of great celebration: Ascension (7 weeks out from Easter), Pentecost (8th week), and Trinity (1st Sunday after Pentecost). Ascension emphasizes the Kingship of Christ; Pentecost invokes the Holy Spirit; Trinity connects the Three Persons in one service.

After Pentecost is the time we call “Ordinary Time.” This is the time when we walk through the rest of the Gospel story that hasn’t been covered previously. It is the time that merely connects to daily life with no major special occasions. Not all of life is celebration or fasting. This is the day-in, day-out time of year.

Through all of this, the life of Christ himself begins to shape our cycles of celebration and penitence, and the days we choose to emphasize. We shape ourselves according to his life. Through the double cycle of anticipation/penitence, celebration, and manifestation, we see our own lives taking shape according to the shape of Christ’s life.

Now, some may say that this makes a calendrical mountain out of a temporal molehill. But look at the contrasting calendar we have:

Beginning on 1 November, we begin the Holiday Season. Most of November is spent preparing for Thanksgiving. On the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday), we begin the Holiday Season in earnest, ramping up to the great celebration of Christmas Day, now separated from most religious connection. One week after Christmas, we have New Year’s Day. Two weeks (or so) later, we have Presidents’ Day. Then Super Bowl Sunday. This marks the end of the Holiday Season. Basically 3 or 3 1/2 months.

Then we have Valentine’s Day, mid-February. Of increasing popularity is St. Patrick’s Day, at least for the GDQ crowd (Get Drunk Quick). Easter is next, although it moves around. Then comes Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and Father’s Day. Following that, we have the Fourth of July.

There is a bit of a lull between 4th July and the Back To School emphasis. Back to School and Labor Day signal the end of Summer. By the beginning of October, we’re looking at Halloween. Then, as soon as that is over, we cycle back around.

Now, there’s nothing really wrong with all of those holidays. However, at least in the USA, these seem driven primarily by advertizing. A consumer culture mandates approximately one serious holiday per month – or at least one significant advertizing push – to maintain the bottom line. And our civil calendar largely does just that.

Instead of being shaped by the civic and civil holidays, why not be shaped by the life of Christ? One can still celebrate the others, but just in their proper place. It takes the pressure off. We don’t feel compelled to buy (whatever) for whichever holiday. We don’t have to party as intensely. And we can take certain times of the year to say, “we’re not partying at all.” The civil/civic/traditional holidays find their place subordinate to Christ.

So when people want to celebrate, let’s place our celebrations in the context of Christ. Let’s let our time be shaped by Jesus Christ, and let consumerism take a back seat. I think we’ll find ourselves more sane if we do.

So when some big day shows up, see how Christ shapes that day – even if it is 6/6/6.

Sermon 4 June 2006
Pentecost, Year B
Ezekiel 37:1 – 14

“�

[Intro connecting to Pentecost and Baptism]

Ezekiel is a prophet living in exile with the people of Israel in Babylon. Ezekiel and the exiles were dragged away from an embattled Kingdom of Judah while the capital city, Jerusalem, was still under siege. As they were marched from Judah to what is near modern-day Baghdad, they passed deserted village after deserted village, destroyed city after destroyed city. The dead former residents’ bones lay baking in the sun, where they had fallen at Babylon’s hand months or years before. Babylon had been through here, and death was everywhere. Emptiness was everywhere. The land was full of “ghost towns.�

The exiles watched the panorama of their own destruction and desolation pass by them as they stumbled their way to the area of the Chebar River in what is now central Iraq. There the Babylonians forced them to settle, far from home, far from the life they had known.

For a time, this people held out hope that Jerusalem would remain standing, a settlement would be reached, and they would be able to return home. But one day, they received the inevitable bad news: Jerusalem has fallen. The King and the entire city will be joining us in exile – those who were not killed on the spot. The city was burned to the ground.

While Jeremiah was composing Lamentations over in Palestine, Ezekiel strikes a different tune. While Jeremiah speaks of the political and physical destruction of Jerusalem, Ezekiel examines its spiritual cause. God gave them The Land, and instead of living according to God’s ways in it, they “defiled it with their ways and their deeds;� he says, “their conduct in my sight was like a woman’s monthly uncleanliness.� Thus, Ezekiel continues, “I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood they had shed… for the idols with which they had defiled [the land;] I scattered them among the nations… [and they still] profaned [the Lord’s] holy name.� (That’s Ezekiel 36:14 – 21)
(more…)

They happen every once in a while…

Today was one…

But you know, God is good and doing what he needs to do. And I am learning to do his will even in the rough stuff.

Which makes “ugh” transform into “ahh…”

Thanks be to God!