Wednesday, March 01, 2006
From AscensionNYC
Ash Wednesday
Psalm 103
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
2 Cor. 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion!" says the prophet. Although this passage is a call to repentance, to fasting and prayer, its kinetic urgency engenders joy. What an opportunity for a choreographer! The old language of the Authorized Version propels this surging poetic energy more powerfully, in my opinion, than subsequent translations. Most of us do have to rely on translations for our Scripture. But isn't Scripture itself, even in the original tongues, a translation of mysterious and ineffable matters into the human medium of language. Why not translate it into movement also?
Dance, literature, music, the visual arts -- these are all outward expressions of inward grace, and in that sense sacramental. In all of today's readings there is an inward/outward play. "Rend your heart, and not your garments." And yet St. Paul speaks of being "ambassadors" of Christ and seems rather stern in insisting that we "give no offence in any thing," a statement that sounds rather insincerely outward. And all this stuff about suffering -- afflictions, stripes, imprisonments -- this arouses both guilt and anger. Haven't we all been told not to think of our own problems but to "remember poor somebody or other, who" blah, blah, blah? And the longsuffering and pureness bit makes things even worse. Although the balanced prose of the Authorized Version is stately and rhythmic -- even kinetic -- it is difficult to handle, and the contrasts often seem like contradictions. In other translations, such as J.B. Phillips' Letters to Young Churches, although less "poetic," more colloquial, the inward/outward motif becomes clearer. Whatever our outward difficulties -- no self-pity here -- we cultivate the inward grace. These troubles, as Phillips translates, "we want to meet with sincerity, insight and patience; with genuine love, speaking the plain truth, and living by the power of God." When the Holy Spirit dwells within us, then "never far from death, yet here we are alive."
This inward/outward contrast is even clearer in the Gospel. The term usually rendered as "hypocrites" originally referred to one engaged in dialogue, an actor or stage performer, later an orator or declaimer, also one who feigns or pretends. But feigning, at least on the stage, is an outward method of presenting inner truth. Those who use the trumpet to announce themselves rather than community prayer do not practice the inwardness to which Our Lord exhorts us.
"Thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." If we take the "closet" passage literally, even if we don't pray while sitting on the shoes, with clothes hanging in our faces, we may be tempted to try to bargain with God. Oh yes, like the hypocrites, we will have our reward. But the "reward" may be a surprise, even a rude shock. We really don't know what we're getting into.
Maybe we never will. Again and again, we need to enter the enclosed garden of contemplation, to mount the steps of the interior castle. Now is the time. "Welcome deare feast of Lent...The Scriptures bid us fast," wrote the seventeenth century poet George Herbert. "The Church sayes 'now'."
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
2 Cor. 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion!" says the prophet. Although this passage is a call to repentance, to fasting and prayer, its kinetic urgency engenders joy. What an opportunity for a choreographer! The old language of the Authorized Version propels this surging poetic energy more powerfully, in my opinion, than subsequent translations. Most of us do have to rely on translations for our Scripture. But isn't Scripture itself, even in the original tongues, a translation of mysterious and ineffable matters into the human medium of language. Why not translate it into movement also?
Dance, literature, music, the visual arts -- these are all outward expressions of inward grace, and in that sense sacramental. In all of today's readings there is an inward/outward play. "Rend your heart, and not your garments." And yet St. Paul speaks of being "ambassadors" of Christ and seems rather stern in insisting that we "give no offence in any thing," a statement that sounds rather insincerely outward. And all this stuff about suffering -- afflictions, stripes, imprisonments -- this arouses both guilt and anger. Haven't we all been told not to think of our own problems but to "remember poor somebody or other, who" blah, blah, blah? And the longsuffering and pureness bit makes things even worse. Although the balanced prose of the Authorized Version is stately and rhythmic -- even kinetic -- it is difficult to handle, and the contrasts often seem like contradictions. In other translations, such as J.B. Phillips' Letters to Young Churches, although less "poetic," more colloquial, the inward/outward motif becomes clearer. Whatever our outward difficulties -- no self-pity here -- we cultivate the inward grace. These troubles, as Phillips translates, "we want to meet with sincerity, insight and patience; with genuine love, speaking the plain truth, and living by the power of God." When the Holy Spirit dwells within us, then "never far from death, yet here we are alive."
This inward/outward contrast is even clearer in the Gospel. The term usually rendered as "hypocrites" originally referred to one engaged in dialogue, an actor or stage performer, later an orator or declaimer, also one who feigns or pretends. But feigning, at least on the stage, is an outward method of presenting inner truth. Those who use the trumpet to announce themselves rather than community prayer do not practice the inwardness to which Our Lord exhorts us.
"Thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." If we take the "closet" passage literally, even if we don't pray while sitting on the shoes, with clothes hanging in our faces, we may be tempted to try to bargain with God. Oh yes, like the hypocrites, we will have our reward. But the "reward" may be a surprise, even a rude shock. We really don't know what we're getting into.
Maybe we never will. Again and again, we need to enter the enclosed garden of contemplation, to mount the steps of the interior castle. Now is the time. "Welcome deare feast of Lent...The Scriptures bid us fast," wrote the seventeenth century poet George Herbert. "The Church sayes 'now'."
Liz Hill
