My Quasi-Long-Winded Response to Andrew Sullivan’s Christianism

Posted on August 27, 2010 by barryweber

Once upon a time, during those almost 300 years between Jesus and Constantine, Christianity, aka “The Way”, was a movement. After Constantine marched his army through the river in the year 312 and declared them defenders of the now HOLY Roman Empire, Christianity began its long slow, sometimes horrifying move into institutionalism.

The journey from movement to institution meant Christianity was done evolving- the spiritual revolution was over, and rules and buildings would begin to define it. What had been a threat to the State, now became, and would continue becoming, a guardian of the State, a Defender of the King and of the status quo. The stories of hell and fear and eternal punishment took on new urgency- they kept those unhappy peasants in line!

Of course all of that sounds familiar because we are so intimately familiar with the post-Constantinian Christian institution. We are not so familiar with the Jesus movement, and not even with Jesus himself. I say that, because few of us follow Jesus all the way into the sacrificial depths of his central statement- the Sermon on the Mount. But we try, and sometimes – oftentimes?- that trying produces stunningly wonderful results.

It’s when we get near the wounded, sick, demon-crazed, poor, lonely, homeless Jesus and accept his two-fold invitation to both help him and follow him, that we become great. We become great because the Kingdom of God in us is made evident. We forget ourselves for awhile and are possessed by the Other- the Other in need, the Other who needs the love and grace of Jesus that Jesus entrusted to us to spread around. Where we end and Jesus begins, and where the person in need begins and Jesus ends- all of that gets muddled and confusing- as it should! We realize there is no difference between us; the kingdom of God inside us is the same Kingdom of God inside the addict, the whore, the prisoner, and Jesus himself.

I once was blind but now I see- it’s a song we have to sing because we cannot keep quiet anymore, with our voices, hearts, or minds!

But the institution of Christianity cannot let any of the above paragraph’s realities happen. When the Jesus Movement comes round, rules and dogma and bank statements become of no importance. The building begins to be in need of repair and people start seeing the Bible not as a chain, but as a chain cutter. And that’s dangerous- to the Church itself, but also to the status quo, to governments, to the financially privileged.

Thus, the Church has had to be turned into something not found in the Bible, and certainly not in the gospels. It’s why the Bible is hard to read and confusing for many- it doesn’t seem to line up with the presidents who shout “Bomb them!” or the preachers who say “Damn them!” People need teachers and preachers to tell them what the Bible says- to lead them through the thick forest of difficult-to-understand histories and strange orthodoxies. Where do you find Weapons of Mass Destruction or slavery or border patrols in the gospels? It doesn’t make sense, so there are the TV guys and local self-ordained preachers to lead the unwashed through the darkness and into the holy light of FOX News.

Christianism is synonymous with the status quo, the need for continuous growth in the gross national product, and unchecked capitalism, in such a system. And it is entirely correct to ask in a time such as this, “Where the hell is Jesus?” It is correct to ask that question because the answers can only lead us to the edges of hell which is exactly where Jesus said we would find him: in need of clothes, food, water, medicine, and a friend.

Which is why churches with food courts, and gospel gatherings on the Mall, or anywhere that is entertaining rather than heart-provoking or heart-breaking, are such inviting, pleasant places to be. (“I hear they’ve got a new gift shop in Fellowship hall!”) They are not places where your hands will get dirty, where your nose will get bloodied, or where your wallet will be emptied.

And it’s why the remnant will always be going the other way in church. It is the remnant which has kept Jesus alive through the Crusades and the Inquisition and the crazy American “Spiritual Awakenings.” It is the remnant like Paul, Francis, Clare, Catherine of Siena, the Desert Mothers and Fathers, Galileo, Therese of Liveaux, John of the Cross, and so many others who dropped out and dropped away from the Institution and found again the movement and the heart of Jesus.

Christ is not Jesus’ last name. It is our identity. Jesus the Christ is the one we follow. The message is universal, it is not separating, it is about love. It is about the children, the women, the little men, the cripples, the former jerks, and the Jews, Gentiles, slaves, and freemen. It is about soldiers- even the ones with the hammers and nails. It is about the donkeys, the lilies of the field, and the birds of the air. It is about the rocks, for God’s sake, which are crying out when we do not.

It’s not about rules, or institutional bullshit. At all.

“Follow me,” he said.

When Religion Becomes Evil

Posted on May 25, 2010 by barryweber

When Religion Becomes Evil, Charles Kimball, Harper-Collins, 2002

This is a very brief summary of the book which highlights the five common characteristics of many religions throughout history which have descended into evil- coercing, treacherous, murderous evil. Kimball does not focus on a particular religion, but includes examples of many. He does suggest that evil can first be spotted by, and the andidotes to evil can best be offered by the Mystery, or Wisdom traditions within each religion.

I’m listing the five characteristics here as food for constructive thought. Were someone to use the single religion they are most familiar with as their only example of evil (or good), or exclude the religion they might be most comfortable with or least comfortable with, as the characteristics are discussed, it would be to perpetuate another brand of chauvinistic evil which elevates the merits or demerits of any religion above (or below) those of another.

Interestingly, just as the characteristics are similar in every religion descending into evil, so are the solutions. It appears that evils within Islam, for instance, could readily be identified and respectfully helped to change by the Zen Buddhist. The evils that manifest within some organized Christian groups, again- for instance, would be able to be perceived by Sufi Muslims, and solutions to that waywardness could also be offered by those same Sufis (or Jewish kabbalists, or Christians of the Mystical traditions, or Zen Buddhists, etc.).

Kimball’s five evil-indicating characteristics are:

1. The religion makes claims of absolute truth. When a religion stops “seeking truth” because it has “found truth,” all there is left to do is build real and metaphorical fortresses around that truth to defend it. Because that truth, they know, will be attacked literally- with drones or suicide bombers, or with laws, doctrines, and rewritten history. Or it will be subverted by “un-truths” like those perpetuated by Galileo, Darwin, or Nietzsche.

2. The religion demands blind obedience (to a charismatic leader or a set of doctrines).

3. It establishes an Ideal Time. Beware any religion that speaks of ‘glory days’ that can be ‘brought back’ if only enough people can be made to believe our way. The reign of King David, or A Christian America, or the days of Shan-gri-la, or that time before The Great Satan appeared: all are ideal fantasies which are loaded with contradictions to that ideal time’s claimed perfections.

4. The ends justify any means. From ricin gas let loose in a Japanese subway, to Zyklon B gas blown into Nazi extermination chambers, to invocation of gods with the removed and bleeding hearts of virgins, the ends (good crops, democracy, the Kingdom of God on earth, etc.) are much more important than the means used to achieve them.

5. Religions descending into evil tend to declare Holy War, often. They declare it on aboriginal settlers like Native Americans, Palestinians, or African tribesmen. They declare war (after war) on the Great Satan, the evils of ________ (pick one), or racial impurity. A religion that is both in denial about its true nature, but has political power, is one of history’s most dangerous entities.

And a religion which is on its course toward evil, will almost always identify and kill those prophets who try to point that out. Isaiah, Amos, Jesus, Gandhi, King: the prophets, the good-inspired finger pointers, rarely make it to the end of their intended days.

Sea Shell Sin

Posted on April 30, 2010 by barryweber

I saw an author’s self-written blurb on the back of a recent book of his, and was struck (read: aghast!) at what it said. Read it, then I’ll tell you why I’m writing this.

The author (a well-known Christian preacher/teacher) wrote:

“I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader’s Digest: A couple ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells..’ Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy.”

The author, a second generation preacher, continues:

This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, read this, learn to live for Christ, and don’t waste your life.”

To have the audacity to be able to claim what constitutes a life “that counts for nothing” reveals a very large ego. I personally find that the larger a person’s ego is, the greater the chances are that it is also misshapen. Perhaps that audacity arises from the fact that the author is a preacher, and that his dad also was a preacher is not insignificant. Many preachers believe they are role models for how people should live their lives (just don’t come poking around in the cupboard under the sink: you might find some shells there, or other things).

They believe and teach, just like the main speaker at any pyramid sales event, that “Everyone is a prospect! Everyone needs what you have! Walk the walk, don’t take ‘No’ for an answer.” To be a real Christian, a true Christian, an on-your-way-to-heaven Christian, according to those listen-to-me preachers, you’ve got to tell everyone about Jesus. Everyone! Don’t miss an opportunity anywhere – at the bus stop, the restaurant, on an airplane, or at home! Hand out tracts, carry your biggest Bible, and wear necklaces, tie-tacs, lapel pins, tattoos, bumper stickers, or t-shirts that will let the world know that-

You. Are. A. Christian.

Christianity, after all, is about words- spoken, written, and memorized- right? It’s about getting that person at the bus stop (if you’re way lucky) to say a prayer, your prayer, the one printed right here on this tract, repeat after me: The Sinner’s Prayer, “God, I am a piece of worthless trash…” Etc.

Once you’ve said The Sinner’s Prayer, you’re in! Now you’ve got to tell other people the Good News, and to find what the Good News is, go to a church, maybe even our church. And don’t collect shells. They are a waste of time. As is everything except the speaking, writing, and memorizing of Bible words. Softball? End that nonsense, too! And a 30-foot trawler??? That needs to be sold, right now, and the money- a tithe at least- given to a church, maybe even our church, almost certainly our church! (We did get you into heaven, right? And away from that sordid shell addiction? Also, we’re upgrading the air-conditioning at the parsonage, too, so we could use some extra help. God will bless you for that, indeed he will).

Feeling obligated to “save” the soul of every person you see, to tell your version of God’s love as revealed in Jesus Christ, and to try to keep up with the people who are running from you or turning a deaf ear toward you, is an exhausting process. It’s exhausting because you either are doing it, or not doing it, and when you’re not doing it you feel guilty or ashamed because you think you should be doing it. People will burn in hell just because you wanted to watch the Mavericks and the Spurs on TV tonight!

Here’s my opinion about what is revealed in that back-page blurb above. And do be aware, in fairness, that the author is also very adept and anxious to point out who is going to hell and why; he would no doubt include me, with glee, in the great majority army who will burn, baby, burn. C’est la vie. Or, rather, c’est la mort.

The author believes in beliefs. He is not alone. Believing in beliefs it is a plague, particularly in the U.S. Belief in belief reduces the majesty, grandeur, and mystery of God to a series of codified rules which are enforced by spiritual superiors, uncritically swallowed because of the fear of not swallowing, and which completely deny the Truths taught and lived by Jesus the Christ.

Belief is about knowledge- what you know- what you read, write, listen to, and memorize. In belief, you learn what to think, how to say it properly, and then are able to consider yourself to be special (elected, chosen, better) for having learned, memorized, and regurgitated the right beliefs- the orthodoxies of others. Faith, the faith lived by Jesus, plays only a very small role.

Faith is about not-knowing. It is about moving forward without knowing the right words, or the consequences. It is about stepping into the Mystery of God, and looking around. The chances are excellent that when you do that, you will feel the desire to learn more about the depth and width and timelessness of that Mystery and that is when you will hear- or, more likely- feel the words, “Follow me.”

When that happens, you might be led to a Jesus-attending dinner party of tax-collectors and sinners, or to a wedding party with more wine than you’ve ever seen in one place. You may be led to break the religious laws again and again because they were turned into legalities by tight-lipped, judgmental preachers. If Jesus is your companion on this journey you will be a revolutionary for real, unearned and unqualified Love; you will fall in love with the revealed Grace and Love of God, and then you’ll realize that the God that fit inside of your imagination for so long wanted you to experience the explosion of God’s continuing Creation. You’ll realize that Truth, real Truth, always leads to more questions. You’ll see the idols that people can make of their beliefs, the forts they build around them, and the defenses they will use to mask their fears.

There’s nothing wrong with belief; but it must be ready to bend, even ready to be thrown out when it no longer is valid- when a newer “truer” Truth takes its place. We can believe in God or have faith in God. The former tends to make God small, while latter tends to make us larger. It may cause us to want to be part of a community which plays..oh, I don’t know..maybe, softball? Or it may cause us to bend over, in increasing awe and always-growing Mystery, and see God’s perfect, evolving and creating Beauty..in a seashell.

Decoration Day

Posted on April 17, 2010 by barryweber

It rained last night, so the road up to the church is muddy this morning.
Bro. Carter made it up, I see, so let’s give it a try.

Goddammit.
Now, Bill, it’s Sunday.
Shit.

Watch your feet when you get out.
I’m going over to have a cigarette. Be right there.

He walks a ways then kicks the mud off on the side of a tombstone:

Pfc. Walter Prescott
Arkansas Volunteers
1842-1864

Bill remembers standing there fifty years ago-
Has it really been that long?-
when Bro. Hubbard buried his Daddy
down by that magnolia tree that the kids climbed in
when they were little.
He remembered his Daddy dragging on Camels
in the kitchen after breakfast and coughing ‘til his face
was as red as the plum jelly smeared over toast on the
plate in front of him..

And then one day his Momma came to the schoolhouse
and said, C’mon, Daddy’s gone to be with Jesus
And Bill thought Jesus had finally come back the way
Bro. Hubbard shouted he would be coming back soon.
But Daddy was in the living room under a sheet
and men came and took him to the church
and then Momma cried
and then Momma cried
and then Bill ran to where he was standing now
beside Pfc. Walter Prescott.

Other cars had made it up the hill now and
pretty soon there was some feedback
screeching through the windows of the church
which meant Bro. Carter’s wife was fixin to sing
and
I guess I better get up there in case Jesus comes today

Bill looked down at the magnolia tree one more time
as he ground his cigarette out and got mud on his shoe
again. Goddammit, anyway.

David B. Weber, 2006

The Jesus Holy Name Three-Point Baptist Church

Posted on April 15, 2010 by barryweber

It smells of wood floor planks cut from the catalpa trees
nearby a hundred years ago.
That, and the aging paper
of hymnals, Bibles,
and the old theatre seats
which were added when the show hall in town
went out of business
right after the town got electricity in the 50s
and everybody started staying
at home to watch Milton Berle.

Sister Carol’s Gibson guitar is lying
up on top of the piano.
She knows three chords:
A, B, and G7
and forces all the hymns into various combinations of them
while she sings along in unknown chords of her own.
She is past 70 now,
but no one would think of asking her to retire
anymore than they would suggest
setting the pulpit on fire.

Bro. Carter drives in two Sundays each month from Dardanelle
to bring the message, but it is almost always the same:
a reading from John 3 ("Ye must be born again!"),
a story or two about persons who met with an untimely death
without having paid attention to John 3,
and a reading of the poem "Footprints",
whether it fits with the message or not,
which it rarely does.

Bro. Carter had presented the church with a
framed copy of the poem, in fact,
and it hangs right beside the wooden sign
in which white numbers on black squares
announce the attendance last week- 17-
and the amount of the collection- $58.97.

Years ago there was a coal stove
about halfway down the east side of the building
which someone would volunteer for a month at a time
to come early and get lit.
Since the early 60s there are
five strategically placed electric resistance heaters
around the room which hum metallically
through the service on winter days.

On the west side of the building there is a cemetery,
begun there back when the church was a log cabin.
Some of the Arkansas Volunteers were buried there
after their bodies were hauled down from Pennsylvania
wrapped in muslin and salt
after the War.
Down at the bottom of the cemetery are some magnolia trees
and azalea bushes (red) and a mimosa tree
that was planted there by a missionary from Japan
who had come through sometime in the 30s.

In a little while the familiar sounds of the wooden floorboards
will be heard as people make their way to
the seats their grandparents sat in.
It rained last night so there probably won’t be many here this morning
and someone will have to come up later in the week
and sweep the dried mud out.

Good Morning, Sister Brown, Bill with you this morning?
Oh, sure, he’s parking the car. He’ll be in shortly, I expect.
The rain was a real blessing, wasn’t it?
I swear, my garden was about to burn up!
Well, God is good.
Oh, He is, that’s a fact, it surely is.

by David B.Weber 2006

Passion Week Ponderings of the Obsessive Compulsive kind that can lead (and do, too often) to situational depression.

Posted on March 30, 2010 by barryweber

I read this, a BBC report on Modern Slavery
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/slavery/default.stm

And I watch this, a dramatization of Bonhoeffer on "Religionless Christianity"

It could be pictures and words about something else, almost anything else. The possibilities and juxtapositions of tragic realities are, in every sense of the word which follows, legion:

animal abuse, child abuse, planet abuse. Priestly denial, political denial, corporate denial. The celebration of ignorance; the championing of stupidity; the congenital co-dependence with anger.

And, instead of doing the hard work that needs to be done, the crowds scream, "Give us Barrabus."

Somewhere within those thoughts there runs a red thread of congruity, and it leads to the reasons I do what I do. I can no longer verbalize it or them. I can’t. But the acceptance of that inability keeps me anchored to Life.

It is about the Other; that’s the best I can say.

Please Call by My True Names

Posted on February 5, 2010 by barryweber

(This is one of the first pieces by Thich Nhat Hanh that I copied and saved. I wondered at the time (about 10 years ago) if this was a poem Jesus could have written. Now I know the answer. I probably knew the answer then, too.- David)

Please Call Me by My True Names

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

1989

A Tiny Story about Oral Roberts

Posted on December 16, 2009 by barryweber

This really has little to do with Oral Roberts himself, who died today at the age of 91. The story has much more to do with my Grandpa who was a fan of Oral’s, and of my Grandma who (to my admiration) wasn’t.

My grandparents lived in rural Pennsylvania, on top of an Allegheny mountain. The context of this set of memories is the late 1950s, and the mountaintop is relevant because that meant black and white television signals from Dubois would make it weakly to the tinfoil-enhanced rabbit ear antenna on the brown Philco in my grandparent’s front room.

It was enough of a signal for Grandpa, in his early 70s and slowed down by a stroke, to have become a big fan of two made-for-the-new-television-medium phenomena: professional arena wrestling and televangelists. Dick the Bruiser and Gorgeous George shared grandpa’s imagination with the two earliest TV preachers, Rex Humbard and Oral Roberts.

I was about 8 or 9 when I became aware of Oral Roberts through grandpa’s receiving of Robert’s monthly magazine, which he received for sending money to the Roberts ministry. It was a magazine which, in my memory, more resembled a comic book. The one I remember specifically chronicled a miracle healing which occurred during one of the Oral Robert’s crusades. One panel depicted a man sitting in the audience while a healing was happening on the platform many rows in front of him. He was healed while someone else was being “HEALed” by Roberts. And you knew this had happened because yellow lightning was shown going into (or coming out of) the man’s knee!

I don’t know why this fascinated me, but it did. In fact, I think I can say this little Oral Robert’s comic book was the beginning of a life-long fascination with the marketing of Jesus on television in America and my own attempts to follow Jesus in spite of that marketing. I don’t know for sure if that was the starting point or not, but I do know I was spooked/ fascinated/ curious as hell about those lightning bolts.

And so, apparently, was Grandpa in his own way. He would kneel in front of the TV with his hand on the screen when Roberts prayed. Sometimes, several cousins would sneak peeks around the corners of the room with me while this was happening. It was not an occasion for giggling, though- not at all! I really did wonder if we would see lightning bolts on grandpa, because I knew he was praying about his stroke-slowed body. We didn’t see any lightning. Neither, I guess, did Grandpa.

But Grandpa continued to send Oral Roberts money. It wasn’t much, maybe 50 cents every couple months. I found this out years later from my mom and one of her sisters, though, that Grandma often intercepted this miracle money on the way to the mailbox and slipped it into her apron pocket! She had never had much extra money (in fact, NO extra money much of the time), and she just decided that those quarters would be as appreciated by her at least as much as they were appreciated by Oral.

I love the example set by Grandpa. And I love the example set by Grandma, too. I appreciate the faith Grandpa lived, but- like Grandma was- I am no fan of those who stand between the faithful and God with promises of super-conductivity.

Dick the Bruiser

The Manger. A Christmas Journey..

Posted on December 8, 2009 by barryweber

We think we know the story of Jesus’ birth. Some of us were drawing pictures of what we were told had happened on Christmas Eve when we were in grade school, and almost everyone has seen creche displays in peoples’ homes or painted on store windows with 3″ brushes and poster paint (with optional blown foam snow). We could all, regardless of our personal faith traditions or non-traditions, recite the components of those nativity scenes: Mary, Joseph, Jesus-in-a-manger, wise men (3), shepherds (several, one of which is grizzled, one of which is a young boy), angels, various camels, sheep, donkeys, and cows, and a partridge in a pear tree. No, nix that last one- what is imperative and universally a part of such memorials is a stage, a stable. Here’s an old Christmas card that captures some of those elements:

That was one of those Christmas cards from when Jesus was Norwegian. Here’s another representation of that collection of holy artifacts, a a 50% life size crèche assembled in a church::

^{The trouble is, even for those who believe every word of the New Testament, ever jot and tittle of every verse, every comma and capital letter and space where none appeared in original Greek, even for those, this conglomeration of texts, imaginations, and cutesy Hallmark artists, is a lie. It is not true. The one thing we can absolutely, positively, 100% KNOW about the birth of Jesus is that none of it looked like anything like any of the above! Here’s what we DO know- literally, from the gospel of Luke, chapter 2, about the place Jesus’ birth:}

5 He went there [Bethlehem]to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

There is no stable, cave, barn or other outside shelter mentioned- only a manger and that could be anywhere: under a tent, in a courtyard, under an overhanging roof, in a grove of trees, or in a stable. Shepherds will show up in a few verses, in response to the sound of angelic singing. And, in the gospel of Matthew, some magi (or wise men or astrologers or scholars, depending on your translation, will follow a star and find Jesus in a house. A house, really. That’s all it says and it doesn’t say when. (Later in the chapter, there will be evidence that the wise magi astrologizing scholars visited when Jesus was about two years old.)

Almost everything we carry around in our mind’s and imagination about the birth of Jesus has been placed there by seeing old paintings, which gave birth in the late 1800s to Christmas cards. Which spawned Christian book stores. Which led to the selling of Christmas cards with glitter, and the selling of stuff like this:

The 2009 Thomas Kinkade Christmas Pocket Planner

As fanciful and silly as are the paintings of Kinkade, which feature darling thatched-roof cottages with blazing-fireplace light pouring out of every window and built (almost always) on the flood plain of a creek or river, so are the images we have of Jesus’ birth also fanciful and sometimes, just as silly.

It leads me to wonder two things:

Why are so many people not aware of the very synthetic Christmas story they have come to believe is true? and,

Why is there the need by many to embellish, romanticize and ‘make pretty’ the story of Jesus’ birth?

I have opinions (of course), but I think both of those are questions which serve best as jumping off places for your thoughts. Really, whenever we ponder questions, we are led closer to the Truth. And, as I’ve said before, you’ll know when you’re getting near Truth, when you start seeing more questions. It’s a never-ending cycle- a conundrum some might call it. Maybe we’ll run into some of those wise men along the way..

Zachariah’s Song. A Christmas Journey..

Posted on December 4, 2009 by barryweber

Zachariah was a priest. Married to Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin. They were childless until they, like Mary, had one of those – (pregnant pause)- visits from the angel Gabriel. Then, Elizabeth and Zachariah, at the ages of 60 or 70 or so, became the proud, however old, parents of John. John who would grow up and become known as John the Baptist.

When Mary felt Jesus kick from within, she sang a song. When Zachariah saw his son, he sang a song, too. (Which may be a lesson for new mothers: remember, you’ve been feeling that little kicker and somersaulter for months now; daddy’s just feeling/experiencing him/her for the first time. Forgive dad his initial blubbering.) Anyway, here is Zach’s song (remember to put a tune behind it!).

Luke 1

⁷⁶And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
      for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
⁷⁷to give his people the knowledge of salvation
      through the forgiveness of their sins,
⁷⁸because of the tender mercy of our God,
      by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
⁷⁹to shine on those living in darkness
      and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

St.Zachariah, as depicted on an Orthodox icon, a subject worth a whole blog’s worth of discussion some day..(but here’s a preview: that is gold leaf behind St. Zach, and it has been hammered into position. Each stroke of the hammer was accompanied by a prayer, a specific prayer. Literally, sometimes prayers are the sounds of a hammer.)

Note that Zachariah, as written about by Luke, is associating the story here to the ancient and known Hebrew story. Just as Mary sang of her being used to continue the covenant between Abraham and YHWH, Zachariah’s song establishes his son John as a continuation of the prophetic tradition in Israel- a tradition that has been silent, since the days of Malachi, for 600 years!

As all prophets do, John will be preparing the way, clearing the path, establishing a route for another who will follow- in this case, Jesus. And as all prophets also seem to do, John will die for having done a good job. John will, about 1900 years after his birth, play a prominent role in the opera, Salome, by Richard Strauss, where he was represented, in a final shocking scene, as a severed head.

Zachariah, though, the real subject of this piece, did his job and did it well. He would have died a happy man, having had an offspring. Thus, he fulfilled the roles of husband, father, and priest very well. We are, after all, talking about him even at this moment, some 1980 years after Salome danced with his son for real!

The First Morning

Category Archives: Christianity