Psalm 142:3a__________________________
When
my
spirit
languishes
within me, you know my path.
Today, in a culture of celebrity star power, & individualism, we commemorate
* Bartholomew,
“Son of Tolmai,”
known to us only
by name (& he may be syn-onymous with Nathaniel, named among the 12 in John’s Gospel) & by the company he kept- meaning the other apostles & Jesus himself. By tra-dition he visited India & was martyred in Armenia,- one version being that he was flayed alive, hence the flaying knife.
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I was pursuing pictures of Bartholomew and was taken by his halo in this one, which led me to a website and to this Part of a reflection written for St Bart ilast year by Skip Adams, the Episcopal Bishop of South Carolin: I really liked it and wanted to share it. Read if you are interested and have the time.
…..Notice that Jesus is not preparing the way for institutional preservation. In this last will and testament, he is saying to the disciples, and therefore to us, that the kingdom for which he is preparing is one for which we must be preparing. We do so by living in a manner that creates the greatest possibility for it to break in and break through: “I assign to you, as my Father has assigned to me, a kingdom…” (Luke 22:29).
The only reason for the Church to exist, and I would add the only reason for a Christian faith community to exist, is so that through our worship of God we might find the reality of the reign of God taking shape in the lives of the people who gather, in the Church we love, and then in our mission whereby we seek to establish God’s reign of peace and justice in the world. A bishop friend says very clearly that the Church does not have a mission. God has a mission and a Church through which to carry out that mission. He does, I believe, have a point. Our purpose is God’s mission as presented by Jesus.
Today’s celebration of the person of Bartholomew, in his historical role and witness, calls us once again to ask the question of ourselves and of the faith communities of which we are a part – why do we exist? What is our purpose of being? Along the way, may we find that we, in the words of the collect for the day, ”…love what he believed and preach what he taught.”
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