Author: Craig A. Phillips, Ph.D.

The Reverend Craig A. Phillips, Ph.D. is an Independent Scholar and Interim Minister. From 2002 to 2021 he served as the rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia, USA. He serves as adjunct faculty at Virginia Theological Seminary. Craig is a former Assistant Professor at Temple University. He has taught at Georgetown, Duke, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Rosemont College. Craig completed his doctoral work in Theology and Ethics at Duke University. He holds a M.Div. from Harvard University and an A.B. in Religious Studies and Classics from Brown University. His academic research focuses on the intersections of literary theory, philosophy, critical social theory, and contemporary theology.
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RETIRED AGAIN?

Photo by Craig A. Phillips

I’m fully retired again. In August, I agreed to fill in for two persons who were going on sabbatical, one a parish priest and the other a college professor.  As a result, the rhythms of life in retirement changed for both me and my wife. I began working on Sunday morning preaching and celebrating at a parish about 40 miles from home and teaching two classes of “Biblical Theology” from Monday to Thursday at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH, about 20 miles from home. Both of my classes began at 4:00 PM or after, so I spent most of the day prior to class preparing for the next class, grading, and corresponding with students and faculty. All of this had an impact on my wife as well, as she was around while I worked and stressed on my preparations. Our ability to do things together during the day and our ability to travel, visit our children and grandchildren, and other family members was limited by my new work schedule.  

Throughout these somewhat hectic four months, I asked myself, “have I failed retirement?” The answer for me was “no.” After all, I had not returned to full time work. Both positions were part-time. But as anyone who has ever worked part-time knows, part-time often feels just the same as full-time. There was never any question that this was not work.  It certainly was. At the same time, however, retirement gave me the opportunity to do the things I love. Isn’t retirement a time in which one has the chance to do the things you want to do, but do not have to do?  

In a previous blogpost, “Getting the Hang of Retirement,” I wrote, “More than one of my retired friends has told me that it took them the better part of three years to get used to it. So, I am just a beginner. … In three years, I’ll let you know if I’ve finally gotten the hang of it.” 

It has now been exactly two and a half years since I retired from full-time work. According to this self-imposed schedule, I only have six months left to figure it out. I can honestly say that this is a process, much as preparing for retirement is.  It changes from day to day, week to week, and month to month. In six months I doubt I will fully get the hang of it — but I’m on my way. This is a time of life in which there are seemingly endless possibilities and only limited time in which to choose from them. 

For now, we have begun to travel again to see family members we have not seen in a while.  We have two to three trips planned for this year. I also am re-engaging with my academic writing and research in rare books and maps from the early 17th century with an end to publishing a journal article or perhaps a scholarly monograph. I am used to using the pressure of a deadline to focus my writing, but I am trying not to make this another task that feels like work, so I must figure out how to have fun doing it, without the feeling of compulsion that I must write so many pages a week. I often feel that if I am not working on my research and writing that I have somehow failed. Much as with retirement in general, it will take time to figure out how to engage in something that is fun for me to do, without feeling that it is one more task that must be accomplished as it would were it related to my employment. 

There are only so many years when we will be able to travel and so many years left to write what I hope to write. How will I make the best use of that time? That question is important for all of us, no matter our stage of life. How will we best use the time that is given to us? That is a question to ponder again and again. Asking this question in retirement is different only because it comes after years of working, when we did many things that we did not really enjoy doing, but nonetheless had to do. Now we who are retired must answer that question anew in light of our circumstances. 

I know that I must be retired again when I can’t remember what day it is, and everyday seems to feel like Saturday. Now there is time to do the things I love to do. Let’s go and see what happens!  

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TO SOJOURN AND NOT TO DWELL

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (one of a set of 12 scenes from The Life of Christ) Maker: Jan Rombouts (South Netherlandish (Duchy of Brabant), 1475–1535). From the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In Mt. 25: 1-13, we find Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids which concerns their preparedness at the parousia, the return of the Jesus the bridegroom at his second coming: five were ready when the bridegroom returned at an unannounced time, but five were not. The five who were prepared with oil in their lamps could not share what they had because, readiness is not something you can share. It is something you have to cultivate within..

This story of the bridesmaids allows me to do something I rarely do in the pulpit and that is to connect what I have been writing on as an academic with what I preach. In the past ten years I have published numerous articles and chapters on the work of Giorgio Agamben. (You can find the bibliographic information on the page of this blog listing my academic publications.)

Giorgio Agamben is one of the most prominent continental philosophers alive today. He is a former student of Martin Heidegger, and even though he could be described as an atheist and somewhat of a philosophical anarchist, his work is based primarily on religious and theological texts, including a commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and a book on St. Francis and monastic rules. I became interested in him because he was the Italian editor of the writings of Walter Benjamin on whom I wrote one half of my doctoral dissertation and because of his use of theological texts in his non-religious philosophy. Agamben, I might add, is not easy to read or to understand.

In March 2009, Agamben was invited to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to give a lecture on his critique from his own philosophical perspective on the Roman Catholic Church. This address was subsequently published as The Church and the Kingdom. [1]

The earliest Christians, as is evident in the parable of the wise and the foolish bridesmaids in the Gospel of Matthew and in St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians expected that the crucified and resurrected Jesus might return at any moment. St. Paul told Christians in his early writings that they should make no drastic changes to their life because Jesus was going to return any moment. If they were not married, for example, they should hold off marrying because the Lord might return at any moment. The present form of the world, he said more or less, is passing away, so don’t get too attached to it. (1 Cor. 7:31).

In his address in Paris, Agamben observed that “the Christian church has ceased…to sojourn as a foreigner,” and begun to dwell in the world and “live as a citizen in the world and thus function like any other worldly institution.” As the years went on and Christ did not return, the church began to settle in the world and put down roots. It ceased to sojourn and began to dwell. This for Agamben is the root of his critique of the church. [2]

The difference between sojourning and dwelling is something like the difference between being nomadic and settling down and building permanent dwellings. When you begin to dwell you get tied down to your own possessions and lose the ability to move quickly when needed, or adapt to changes.

St. Paul proclaimed freedom from the law. He urged Christians to live in the Holy Spirit in joyous freedom from the law. When the church began to dwell in the world, it became like other worldly institutions and set up legal structures that effectively replaced the law from which they, in Christ, had been freed. Agamben investigates St. Francis and other monastic rules, which in Latin are called regula (from which we derive our English word regular) to see if he could provide an alternative today for law (Latin, lex), investigating how one might free oneself from servitude to law in all of its contemporary manifestations.

To address this, Agamben does something quite interesting. He turns to St. Francis of Assisi and the first Franciscans. Francis wanted to live his life according to one rule only, namely that he live as Jesus Christ lived. He, therefore, renounced all his possessions so that he would be free from them and thus able to respond to Jesus in every area of his life. Francis became a kind of nomad. He gave up the idolatry of his possessions and found freedom. In his poverty he found exhilaration and joy. In subsequent centuries after Francis, Franciscans tried to figure out how, if they were going to live a life of perfect poverty, they could “use” things without owning them. Agamben turns to these texts and discussions to glean what he can for his own philosophical and political work.[3]

Returning to the story of the bridesmaids, five of them were ready but five were not. Why were the other five not ready? The story doesn’t tell us. Without reading too much into the parable we could surmise that they had been busy. They put off getting oil because they had other things to do, which at the time seemed more important.

Could it be that they had ceased to sojourn, and begun to dwell?  They had become so attached to the things of this world and to the care of them, that they were not ready and prepared when the bridegroom (who in this story is clearly the person of Jesus Christ) returned. They had been claimed by what they owned and not by the person who owned them, Jesus Christ. This idolatry of things and possessions prevented them from the freedom to follow Jesus wherever he led.

The parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids ends with these words, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” We know neither the day nor the hour of the Lord’s return. So, prepare yourselves. Begin by examining the things that hold you back—that tie you down—that enslave you— that keep you from responding to Jesus and his call to you. Can you begin to use things without owning them? Can you begin let go of the things that hold you back that keep you tied down? You can only be prepared for yourself. You cannot be prepared for someone else. “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour when the bridegroom will return.” The question for you is, “when he does return, will you be ready?”

 

 

 

[1]Agamben, Giorgio, Leland De la Durantaye, and Alice Attie. The Church and the Kingdom. (London ; New York: Seagull Books, 2012).

[2] “…The Christian church has ceased to paroikein, to sojourn as a foreigner, so as to begin to katoiken, to live as a citizen and thus function like any other worldly institution. See Agamben, The Church and the Kingdom, p. 4.

[3] Agamben, The Highest Poverty. Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life. (Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 2013.

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3D PRINTING: ANOTHER WAY TO SEE THE WORLD

RADCLIFFE CAMERA, OXFORD UNIVERSITY
3D PRINT OF THE RADCLIFFE CAMERA.
3D MODEL BY PHC DESIGN

I’ve found a new hobby—3D printing. It’s a fun way to make something from nothing. It starts with a 3D computer model that has been designed in a CAD program. Thousands of free models are available on the internet on sites such as Thingverse and Printables. Once the file you want to print is downloaded, you have to convert it in a program that tells the printer how to slice the model so that it can be printed. The 3D printer lays down one thin layer at a time on a heated platform until it builds up the entire model. I am printing with PLA filament. PLA (Polylactic Acid) is made from renewable, organic sources such as corn starch and sugar cane.

3D PRINT IN PROGRESS

A few years ago, 3D printing was out of reach for me. The cost of entry was just too high. Now, with new 3D printers on sale for less than $200, the hobby is much more accessible for persons like me who just wanted to try it out for fun. 

So far I have made a number of really useful parts and gizmos for things around the house. I make a tamping stand to hold the portafilter of my expresso machine and a funnel that fits to it for dosing ground coffee into the portafilter, a bracket to hold a drafting lamp (I lost the original part who knows where.) I have made cases for the Arduino motherboards for my small-scale electronic projects, a model of the Radcliffe Camera, the domed library at the center of the campus of Oxford University where I have done some academic research, a small model of the Library of Congress, a Lord of the Rings bookmark, a small Tardis from the Dr. Who television series, and any number of other gizmos and chotskies.

Along the way I have also had to become somewhat of an expert in modifying, repairing, and upgrading my machine, including connecting and disconnecting various wires to the motherboard. Instructions on how to do these things are difficult to find. One a recent repair, I reordered a new “hotend” with cables attached. I had damaged the original hotend when I made a mistake replacing the brass printer nozzle. The new part arrived with no instructions whatsoever on how to install it—just the part attached to numerous wires. While installing it, I foolishly disconnected more wires than I had intended. Fortunately I had the foresight to take a picture of the motherboard so that I could correct my mistake. On repairs and upgrades like this, YouTube videos and other Internet chat groups can help, but often you just have to figure out how to correct the mistakes you have made on your own. 

How to manually level the printer bed and how to get the print to stick to the printer bed are also things you have to learn on an entry level printer. While there are numerous upgrades one can get to make these things easier, it is good first to learn how to do these things manually, as that helps troubleshoot printing issues you might have later on even with upgraded printers. In spite of all the issues I have named above, I find that I get a great deal of satisfaction from using my printer and seeing what it can produce. 

Learning the ins and outs of 3D printing has expanded my horizons. It has allowed me to look at the world in a different way. When I look at objects in the world I realize that the whole I see in these objects is layered of many parts. I can imagine how a flower petal or a the leaf of a plant is layer upon layer of cells of different shapes and sizes. When I get ready to 3D print an object, whatever it is, after carefully setting everything up, I feel that I am able to make something that did not exist before. It is like making something out of thin air. It’s magic. 

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SNOW

Snow now blankets the ground in New Hampshire. The maple and birch trees are bare of leaves but full of snow. The air is crisp and cold. When it’s snowing, the air has a kind of sound that is difficult to describe. It’s got a texture to it as if someone were brushing the air with a stiff brush. Other sounds seem to recede into the background, and I’m left to listen to the snowflakes as they fall. It’s amazing how peaceful and tranquil it can be.

It has snowed twice this past week, accumulating in total around ten inches of snow. Snow banks along the road are now two to three feet high. I have been busy with my self-pushing electric snowblower, clearing our driveway, which runs up hill from the street towards our house.

More snow is expected today, so I’ll be busy. I don’t mind the work. In fact, I enjoy it. Some people curse the snow and can’t wait to be rid of it. Not me, I love it. 

Now that I’m retired, I don’t have to worry about getting to work on time. Even so, people in New Hampshire are used to dealing with snow and for the most part are nonchalant about it. What I like most about snow on the ground and in the trees, apart from its beauty, is its contrast with the heat of the summer months. The change of the seasons, each with its own characteristics, adds variation in the passage of the year such that each day does not pass with relentless uniformity. Each day has its special treasures for us to discover. Weather comes and goes, and if we can move with the flow, we can enjoy the riches that each day has to offer. 

I’m getting ready for a walk outside later today and I’m looking forward to hearing the bristling sound of snow falling, the sound of peace and calm. Then I’ll be back going up and down the driveway with my snowblower.

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GETTING THE HANG OF RETIREMENT

Photo by Craig A. Phillips

I now have been retired for a little over nine months and I am still trying to get the hang of it. More than one of my retired friends has told me that it took them the better part of three years to get used to it. So I am just a beginner.

All kinds of resources exist for retirement planning but most of them, apart from an occasional nod to the familiar advice to follow your dreams, focus on its financial dimensions. That is due for the most part to the fact that no two people are alike and retirement means different things to different people. Some will quit work altogether and others will continue to work full or part-time in retirement, but perhaps in a different area from the work from which they retired. No matter the circumstances, retirement means change and change always comes with some loss in the hope of gain. 

The best advice I got on the first day or two of my retirement was from a woman who told me not to try to do all my errands on the same day. Save something, she said, to do tomorrow. I have taken that into account and no longer try to cram ten errands into the same day. I save something to do tomorrow.  

The other problem — and it really is a problem, although not an earth-shattering one — is that every day seems like a Saturday. I lived a life for forty plus years that focused on Sundays. Saturday for me was always a day for errands and by the evening,  a time to brace myself and prepare for the busyness of Sunday morning. So, I suppose it was more like most people’s Sundays before work resumed on Mondays. Now there are times when I can’t remember what day it is. While it’s a wonderful feeling, it can also be a bit disorienting.

When we retired, we moved far from where we had been living. More than one person has asked me why we moved north to cold New Hampshire instead of chasing the warmer southern climes. As with many people our age, we moved to be nearer to family. We wanted to move to a place that was new and familiar at the same time. Growing up, I spent my family vacations in New Hampshire. We also lived there and commuted into Cambridge when I was a Divinity Student. And when my father died in 1983, my mother moved to New Hampshire where she lived for many years. And so we retired in a part of the state unfamiliar to us but in many ways familiar to us as well. 

When we moved into a new town, we knew no one here. After a couple of months, I knew that I needed to make connections in the community and I wanted to be of service to it. So, I sought out and joined the local Rotary Club that meets every Wednesday for lunch. They have already put me to work on their many service and charity fund-raising projects. In a few months I have gotten to know people from towns all around and I feel more connected to the community.

At home, we are busy every day trying to repair and update a house that had suffered some neglect. We hired professionals to do some of the big jobs, but we are chipping away slowly at the smaller tasks. In February, we set up a portable heated greenhouse in our backyard, That allowed us to get a head start on our gardens this year. Now that spring is here, we have been busy every day working to reclaim and improve the plantings on our property which is over an acre in size. It’s a mix of lawns and garden beds, with ground vegetation and woodlands on its edges. We have planted fruit trees, fruit bushes, roses, shrubs, Japanese maples, fifteen garden beds, with dozens and dozens of plants and seedlings still needing a home.

In retirement we are not really doing anything that is completely new to us, but what we are doing we are doing in a different way and sometimes for different purposes. So, it’s an adventure yet to be continued. In three years, I’ll let you know if I’ve finally gotten the hang of it. 

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CRITIQUE AND EDIFICATION

Photo by Wendy Wei on Pexels.com

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4: 11-13).

St. Paul describes the church as the body of Christ in which those within it are given gifts to use to build up that body so that every person is brought to Christian maturity. 

May 1, 2022, marks the 41st anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. When I graduated from seminary in 1979, I felt called to ordained pastoral ministry and to a ministry of teaching. I have not always found it easy to combine these mutual vocations. After graduation, I spent one year in clinical training as a hospital chaplain. Following that, I was placed in charge of two congregations in rural Oklahoma as a lay vicar. Five months later, and four days after our first child was born, I was ordained to the diaconate. During this time, I wrestled with the idea of a vocation that combined both ministry and teaching.   Six years later, after working in St. Louis for a couple of years, I decided to go back to graduate school to pursue a doctorate in theology and ethics at Duke University. Within a few months of my arrival in Durham, North Carolina, I began to serve as regular supply priest in rural congregations. Soon I was serving in part-time interim ministry, sometimes in more than one congregation at a time. My working life was divided between teaching at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill and work in interim parish ministry. I mention this because these experiences provided me with a perspective from which to see the church in a different light. 

The purpose of the church at its best is to build us up so that we become knitted together in the body of Christ. Its purpose, therefore, is to edify us, that is, to build us up, both personally and communally. Moving between these two environments in my career provided me with the insights I would like to share with you here. 

The purpose of the university at its best is to critique every idea or procedure and from that process to arrive at new understandings in every area of our lives, from the medicine we need to heal our bodies, to an understanding of our universe in all its complexity, to questions concerning the meaning of our lives.  

In the academic world a distinction is made between “criticism” and “critique.” Criticism points to minor errors and inconsistencies in the work under examination. Critique, on the other hand, seeks to find if and how the entire work under examination is inconsistent with its own principles, and whether as a result the work or project is flawed from the start. In graduate school, students are taught how to tear academic positions on any topic to shreds. They are taught, in other words, to critique everything they read or hear. Graduate education teaches students to categorize thought and quickly make suggestions as to the error, faults, and even the impossibility, or utter contradiction in the work under examination.  

I remember a particular graduate seminar I taught at Temple University in which we examined the work of the French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu.  I was trying to make a point using an idea suggested by Bourdieu.  My students rushed in to condemn the way in which Bourdieu constructed his argument. I tried to defend the usefulness of his position despite its inherent weaknesses, but my students would not hear of it. When I reflected later in the day on the feeling and emotion behind their arguments, I realized that they were only doing what they were being taught to do. They were demonstrating to me that they could engage in a vigorous philosophical critique of their assigned readings.  

This emphasis on critique is why university professors and other academics are often charged with being nihilists. If every position is equally flawed, then how can one ever endorse any position or idea? How then does one live her or his life? That is one of the dilemmas one faces in the university environment.

The life of the university thrives on critique, that is, on the process of challenging dominant assumptions and formulating in their place different and oftentimes unpopular ways of looking at things. This is an important task and I by no means want to belittle it. New ideas and approaches to more ancient problems, more often than not, are enriching and enlivening.  

In contrast to the university, the central task of the church is neither critique nor criticism, although that is how life within it often feels for lay and clergy alike. At its worst the church is a critical and unsupportive place. Because we all are imperfect people, it is not surprising that we often see the fault in others, before we see that same fault in ourselves.  Jesus recognized this when he asked his hearers, “why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” 

At its best, the task of the church is not to tear us down but to edify and to build us up. If we want the church to become a supportive place, we must pay attention to the ways in which we respond positively to the needs and desires of others.  If we ourselves want to be supported, we first must learn to become supportive of others. Together, and only together, can we grow “to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”

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“RIPENED TO THE FALL”

Photo by Craig A. Phillips

“OCTOBER”

Robert Frost — 1874-1963

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

In mid-September, my wife and I moved to New Hampshire following my retirement as Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia. We arrived shortly before the foliage began to change and the leaves began to fall.

As I watched the changing October foliage all around me, I was reminded of the poem “October” by Robert Frost. I thought of it for two reasons. First, the poem expresses a desire for the slowing of time to allow time for the appreciation of the present season and present moment. Winter in the poem is a metaphor for death and so the poet in the season when the days get shorter and shorter asks for the retarding of time and a delay in the onset of winter. This delay is also good for the grapes who will have more time to ripen on the vine before it is destroyed by frost.

The window behind our kitchen sink looks out to an old wooden fence on which grows a vine of Concord grapes. From that one vine, I have harvested 10 pounds of grapes. With the first five-pound harvest, we made delicious grape jelly. The second five-pound harvest now is in the freezer for later cooking and canning. At the second harvest, the vine was beginning to wither and brown. “For the grape’s sake,” I left them on the vine for as long as I could so that they would ripen as much as possible. At the end of October, the vine is now spent.

In the middle of the poem, the poet asks that October, “Enchant the land with amethyst.” In Greek amethyst means “not intoxicated.” The Greek myth describing the origin of the amethyst stone relates to the Greek god Dionysus (Roman, Bacchus), the god of wine and intoxication, who fell in love with the beautiful maiden Amethyst, who as her name suggests was “not intoxicated.” She rebuffed Dionysius driving him in his rage to seek to kill her. To protect Amethyst, the goddess, Artemis, changed the maiden into a clear quartz stone. As Dionysius lamented her new state, he spilled wine over her turning her into a beautiful purple stone. Grapes ripening on the vine are transformed in the fall from green berries into a wonderful purple, as rich as any amethyst.

Second, the poem speaks to me in my current situation. I have worked for over 40 years and now have decided to retire from full-time work. I don’t want to think that I am in the fall of my life with winter coming soon on its heels. I would like to think that I am in the spring of my life with new possibilities, new hopes, and new dreams to fulfill. Of course, I am not getting any younger, so I too long that the time be slowed and that in each of my remaining days I may be beguiled and filled with wonder at the beauty of life around me. Like grapes on the vine, I want to ripen and flourish before my time comes to an end. And on top of that, with its bright foliage, fall in New Hampshire is stunning — even enchanting.

From 1900 to 1911 Robert Frost lived on a Farm in Derry, New Hampshire in two-story, clapboard house on an eighteen-acre farm that had been built in 1884. Frost’s farm (now a State Park) is less than 20 miles from our new home in New Hampshire as the crow flies. Frost moved to England in 1912 only to return to the states at the end of 1914. The poem, “October” was first published in England in 1913 in the book, A Boy’s Will. I feel certain from reading it —but I don’t’ know for sure — that he must have written it while he was living in New Hampshire.

It is my hope that as you read this, in whatever time of life you find yourself, that you will take time to let your heart be beguiled by the beauty of the sunlight, the change of the seasons, and the beauty of creation all around you.

 

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THE LOAF-KEEPER OF ALL CREATION

Photo by Craig A. Phillips

I have always been fascinated by the etymology of words. Perhaps this interest explains why I studied so many languages in school or perhaps this interest arose from my studies of these languages.

English is one of the many languages that comprise the Germanic language family within the larger Indo-European family of languages. The Germanic family includes modern German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.

For a time, Britain was part of the Roman Empire and Latin was spoken there. In 122 A.D., the Emperor Hadrian began building a wall to mark the northernmost boundary of the Roman Britain and to serve to keep the “barbarians” out. Later, because of numerous raids by the Norse and other barbarian tribes across the Northern boundaries of the empire, the Celtic languages native to the place were changed or influenced by a variety of Germanic linguistic influences. After the Norman invasion in 1066 A.D., French was spoken by the nobility in England and English remained the “vulgar” tongue, the language of the common people.

Words contain in themselves not only a history of meaning but also a cultural history. Some words meant one thing in an earlier time and place and mean something entirely different today.

Several years ago I was asked to give a talk at a church gathering on the Lord’s Prayer. As I prepared my talk—and especially as I reflected on the meaning of the phrase “give us this day our daily bread”— I discovered the etymology of the English word “lord.”

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “lord” is derived from the Old English word hláford, once hláfweard, which means “loaf-ward,” that is the “keeper of the loaf.” A lord, then, is the bread-keeper for the family. He was the head of the household in relation to all who ate his bread.

The making of a loaf of bread does not happen overnight. First the wheat has to be grown, tended, harvested, and ground into flour. Then the flour has to be mixed with other ingredients and baked. Because most of us today buy our bread from a store, we forget how time consuming the making of bread from start to finish really is. In the ancient world bread was a valuable commodity. It needed, therefore, someone to protect it from anything that might harm, unlawfully take, or destroy it.

As everyone on a low carbohydrate diet today knows, bread is a source of sustained energy for the human body. Where there is enough bread, there is life.

In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God, who is “Lord” —the “loaf-keeper”—of all creation, to give us the “bread” we need each day to live. We do not ask the Lord for more than we need, but only for what we need to survive and flourish.

In God’s economy there is always enough bread for all. In human economies, there often is not abundance, but scarcity. There is scarcity because the resources of the planet are limited and God calls on us to shepherd them wisely, but we fail in that duty when some have more than they need for human flourishing while others have nothing. The stories of the feeding of the four thousand and five thousand in the gospels remind us of the abundance of God’s creation— a creation in which there is always enough bread to sustain life for all.

The Eucharist we celebrate and share together is a sign of the abundance of God’s creation and an invitation to all to eat and share in the abundance that God has given us. It is a sign of the economy of God by which the hungry and thirsty are invited into the Lord’s table. We see this in the gospel of John when Jesus tells the disciples that, “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, Lord give us this bread always” (John 6:33-4).

When we ask God to give us our daily bread, we recognize that God is the “Lord,” the “keeper of the loaf.” In the Old English sense of the word, God  truly is the “Lord” of all creation.

 

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“THE LORD LIKES BLUE CHEESE”

Photo by Michele Blackwell on Unsplash

Many people are committed to working for God in the church. As they go about the tasks at hand, they hope that they are doing what they call “God’s will.” In my experience, persons on Vestries and other committees of the church facing difficult decisions don’t often stop their meetings to ask aloud what “God’s will” might be for their church in the decision at hand. And so, they figure that if they just proceed as they normally would, God will bless all their endeavors done in God’s name with success.

If you find yourself having to make decisions like this, I would like you to ask yourself this question: are you doing “works for God” or are you doing “God’s work”? There is a difference. Works done for God may be performed merely out of self-interest. Doing God’s work means that you have taken the time to discern with your sisters and brothers in Christ exactly what “God’s work” might be at a particular time and in a particular situation.

Thomas Green, a Roman Catholic priest who served in the Philippines, illustrates the difference between God’s work and works done for God. He develops his ideas in two inter-connected books, When the Well Runs Dry and Darkness in the Marketplace.1 Citing the story of Mary and Martha in the gospel of Luke, Green observes that Martha was busy doing works for Jesus while Mary was sitting at the Lord’s feet “listening to his teaching (Luke 10:38-42). While both of their labors were important, Martha, as Jesus reminded her, needed to stop her busy-ness and listen to the words of her Lord: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.”

Fr. Green remembers how, when friends travelled back to the United States for visits, they would often ask him if he would like them to bring anything back for him. He told them he would love some blue cheese, an item not easily found in the Philippines. Many of his friends who themselves did not like blue cheese would return with something “better” in place of the cheese he had requested. Fr. Green observes that he knew he had a true friend, that is, one who truly cared about him, when the friend who personally hated blue cheese nonetheless brought some back as a gift. Fr. Green concludes that God is like that. God often asks us for blue cheese but we feel the need to do something “better.” When we try to do something “better”, are we busy doing works for God or are we doing God’s work? Are we so “anxious and troubled about many things” that we do whatever we want, or are we doing what “is needful?, that is, what God may be asking us to do.

As you think about what God wants from us, take time to reflect on the difference between “God’s work” and “works for God.” Remember: “the Lord likes blue cheese!”

1Thomas H Green, S.J., When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1979); Darkness in the Marketplace: The Christian at Prayer in the World (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1981).

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A NEW PUBLICATION OF MINE

Martin Luther’s original grave marker in Jena, Germany. Photograph by Craig A. Phillips

This week my essay, “Freedom from the Law: From Luther to Agamben” was published in Ecumenical Perspectives Five Hundred Year after Luther’s Reformation. It was first presented at a conference of Ecclesiological Investigations international Research Network conference held in 2017 in Jena, Germany.

In the chapter, I examine how the Pauline concept of “freedom from the law” is interpreted by Italian philosopher and political theorist Giorgio Agamben and contrast his secular use of it with Martin Luther’s theological understanding of the same concept. I contrast the passive righteousness that Luther finds in Christian freedom with the freedom Agamben finds in law that has been made inoperative. For Luther and Agamben, I argue, the way to genuine freedom is accomplished not through action, but through inaction.

To date, I have published chapters in six separate books in the Palgrave Macmillan series, “Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue.” (The details of these publications can be found on the “Academic Publications” page of this blog.)

As I wrote in an earlier post, I don’t often write about my academic publications in this blogspace, but because these publications allow me to address both the academy and the church at the same time, they may be of interest to some of my readers.

Additional information about the book may be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68360-3