The holly hitherto did sway ;
Let box now domineer
Until the dancing Easter day,
Or Easter’s eve appear.

Then youthful box which now hath grace
Your houses to renew ;
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.

When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside ;
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin
To honour Whitsuntide.

Green rushes, then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments
To re-adorn the house.

Thus times do shift ; each thing his turn does hold ;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.

–Robert Herrick

Not exactly how it happened

Surely it must have been a hot, bright day: it is hard to imagine it being cloudy and drizzly.  From the sound of the story, it was just the twelve of them and Him.  They had been travelling through the hills north of Capernaum and were now coming “into the district of Caesarea Phillipi,” which all good Jews had recognized as a nest of idolatry since it had been a center of Baal worship in the Northern Kingdom and which now had taken up the cult of the god Pan.

So, on one hand, it was not the most propitious place to ask The Question.  As Matthew recounts it, Jesus begins by asking, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  It’s clear from the answers that he is in effect asking them, “who do the people of Israel think is going to be sent by God to rescue them from their distress?”  The answers turn out to be one of the prophets, come back again to—maybe this time—actually get the people of Israel to listen to him and restore them to their glory.

Then came The Question:  “Who do you say that I am?”

What Peter said, according to Mark’s account, was what all the apostles wanted to say.  So Peter said it for them, filling in that awkward, shuffling pause, in which everyone waits for someone else to say what they want to say, but can’t make their lips say.  And what Peter said he not only says for the apostles who were there, he says for us.  That is also our confession being said by the Galilean fisherman.

When we celebrate the Confession of St. Peter, we don’t celebrate or remember Peter’s life—we have his own feast day on which to do that—but the words he spoke.  More importantly, we celebrate again He who asked The Question, and who is the Answer.

In the church year, it’s very appropriate that we celebrate the Confession of St. Peter at this point, in the season of Epiphany.  We have all sorts of questions, to most of which we want to provide our own answers.  In Jesus we find a Lord who ia both Question and Answer at one and the same time.

Rock on!

This is one of those heady, doctrinal feast days of the church that does not seem to have attracted much in the way of bodily feasting—perhaps because it was the Anglicans who first celebrated it after the Middle Ages had passed.  Lest we make this some sort of heady, nerdy, intellectualoid commemoration, let us attach food to it. Given its Anglican origins, and that Simon (“Sandy”) is for his confession rechristened Peter (“Rocky”), it seems very appropriate to whip up a batch of English rock cakes.  Enjoy them with tea, conversation, and perhaps some confession.

Three strange men, well-dressed, well-spoken, two shy of handsome and one savagely beautiful at my door.

I live in the middle of nowhere in the house of my parents, my inheritance and holder of my memories. Each memory is enclosed in a part of the house or in a thing given to me, like an insect in amber, preserved in the slowly hardening leak of sticky time, polished to a high luster, preserved though the life is long dead.

I invited them in of course though the floor had just been scrubbed and there was camel dung on their shoes. The laws of hospitality are clear even if I was in the middle of washing the walls of the never-occupied spare room.

Still, it was nice to have someone to eat my baking.  So often I make something, wishing to share the yeasty knowledge and love I received through my mother’s bread and cakes, but there is no one to eat these offerings but me. So they mold or harden, growing stale and inedible; life yet again wasted.

They were travelers with such a strange end.  Not business as I first thought or marriage or even politics, but a star.  “Had I not seen it?” the youngest asked with youth’s unwitting condescension.  Are there not hundreds of stars in the sky?  Who has the time to study them all when there is churning to be done? Of course, a wealthy young man like he would have many servants; a luxury denied me.

(And does he not know the terror of starting at those stars and realizing how small and alone one is in the face of a vast universe? I cannot look at the stars; far better to tend to the things controlled, the fire on the hearth, the mending in the basket.)

The old one smiled at youth, “It is not the star that we seek, but he whom the star serves.”

How can a star serve anyone? It cannot make beds or the pluck the chickens.  “Who is that? “I asked politely. Hospitality is clear: we must humor the insane.

“A King!” cried the youth.

“A Sacrifice, “ said the old.

“Love, “ said the dark. As I bustled toward the kitchen (surely that was the pot boiling over.) he caught my cracked, calloused hand in his long-fingered, soft one, “Come with us.”

“For love? “ I said stupidly, an old woman whom love has long passed by.

“For love.”

My heart moved.

Then the pot boiled over.

 
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed,refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
                    -TS Eliot

Ah well no regrets: Mr. Herrick would not approve.  May you all find a bean or a pea in your plum cakes and be free from offense in this glad new year!

The Bean King and Other Revelers in David Teniers the Younger's "On Twelfth Night"

Twelfth Night: Or, King and Queen

Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean’s the king of the sport here ;
Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.

Begin then to choose,
This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.

Which known, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake ;
And let not a man then be seen here,
Who unurg’d will not drink
To the base from the brink
A health to the king and queen here.

Next crown a bowl full
With gentle lamb’s wool :
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too ;
And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.

Give then to the king
And queen wassailing :
And though with ale ye be whet here,
Yet part from hence
As free from offence
As when ye innocent met here.

-Robert Herrick

I often imagine attending the Council of Nicea.  Don’t you?  Well, not often, but I have, once or twice.  It would be a splendid occasion, I’m sure. Everyone there from the Emperor Constantine on down looking just like their own Byzantine icon…all gold leaf with serene expressions, mitres, robes, and requisite accessories.  And there in the midst of them their confrere–the patron of Greece, Switzerland, various bits of Italy, Belgium, Germany, and divers other countries, as well as sailors, coopers, children, apothecaries, shoeshine men and pretty much most of the population– small Bishop Nicholas of Myra:  a right jolly old elf, with twinkling blue eyes, a tummy that wiggled like a bowl full of jelly, white beard, red wool suit trimmed with ermine, and a glowing pipe that he rapped against the side of his long black boots after a lengthy session on the filioquequestion, before stepping outside to check on his reindeer.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he was at the Council of Nicea.

What he did, or said, is lost to us.  He was almost certainly Trinitarian; Arians, those who followed the teaching of Arius, Bishop of Alexandria, that Christ was a divinely anointed human, not God–certainly had their saints, but those were removed from the calendar after the Trinitarians prevailed.  If Nicholas had been one of those Arians, we wouldn’t be celebrating his feast day.

It’s tempting to invent stories….Hey, did you know that Santa Claus had the whip before the reindeer?  Yep, that’s right;  Nicholas, Scourge of the Arians, always shown with a whip due to the way he beat up on heretics.  The reindeer got grandfathered in later on to explain the whip, dontcha know.  (See how easy that was?  A story designed to explain a story, and it’s even based on a legend that Nicholas once slapped Arius in the face for his blasphemy. Don’t do this kind of thing at home, kids!)

But,  to return the question at hand, no, Virginia, don’t know anything of Nicholas’ trinitarian views, or whether he delivered a stemwinder of a speech at the Council, or anything.  But it’s good to emphasize that Nicholas was an actual, historical figure, who did incredibly boring things like (probably) attending church conferences. Even though this was one of the most important church conferences of two thousand years, I am sure Nicholas wished that Coca-Cola had been invented before 325.  And tobacco, come to that.

Despite, or perhaps because of Nicholas’s presence in Nicea, he became one of the most popular saints on the calendar.  As his generosity and love of children were both legendary, his holiday is celebrated with great vim and vigor by many children, even the very small.

Woot! Check out my St. Nick's loot!

Hubert was the eldest son of the Duke of Aquitaine, which is to say that he was one of the most powerful nobles in early medieval Europe.  He liked to drink.  He liked to hunt.  He was agreeable and gracious, so much so that he seems to have easily insinuated himself into the royal households of Francia, circa 675-680.  Naturally he married well.  Success, medieval-style, was not just assured, but attained.  Then he went and ruined everything by getting religion.

Out hunting on Good Friday, he pursued a stag—a buck  for American hunters.  As he did, it stopped and turned toward him, unusual behavior then and now amongst the family Cervidae.  In its antlers there was a crucifix, and Hubert heard a voice say to him, “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell.”  Apparently a quick study, Hubert made an umimpeachable response:  “Lord, what wouldst thou have me do?”

What the Lord had Hubert do was not turn to vegetarianism or non-violence, but go and find a spiritual director, Bishop Lambert of Maastricht.  As wives tend to do in the lives of medieval saints, Hubert’s conveniently died, allowing him to become a priest, make a pilgrimage to Rome, and on his return become bishop in Lambert’s place. (Lambert had been murdered by some of Hubert’s old cronies.)

Hubert’s greatest efforts during his bishopric seem to have been devoted to the conversion of those pagans remaining in the forest of Ardenne and perhaps this and the deer explain a little something of Hubert’s appeal to medieval people.  Medievals were not sentimental about the forest.  It was not something to be preserved, but defeated, as it was always attempting to defeat them. They lost animals and children in the darkness of the woods; cf., if you would, any of Grimm’s fairy tales.

Hubert’s encounter with the miraculous stag seemed on this side of the probable for anyone who spent much time in the medieval woods.  His mission to the pagans still residing within the Ardennes, then a forest considerably larger than it is today, shows Hubert was a fighting saint, someone who was willing to sally into the dark places and overcome the strange and evil things that were there.

Hubert’s popularity caused many to choose him as a patron. His fighting spirit, and his noble lineage, explains why Hubert was the namesake of several military orders in the Middle Ages.  No prizes for figuring out or why he was the patron saint of hunters, huntsmen, trappers, dogs, forest workers, and hunting and why there are so many splendid recipes of game dedicated to celebrating his feast day.  What exactly smelters found in him is a mystery to me, unless it is that medieval metalworking tended to be located out where the iron was found and charcoal could be made, which meant that it was done out on the edge of the wilderness.

But why Hubert became the patron saint of mathematicians stumps me completely.  Not the sort of chap, I would have thought, whose homework you wanted to copy when you were struggling with geometry.

The Church Triumphant

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Completing the Halloween run up and then decrescendoing tomorrow into the commemoration of All Souls is the feast of All Saints. In the medieval  church, All Saints’ Day  was a significant festival celebrating the faithful who had attained heaven, the Church Triumphant.  The next day, All Souls’ Day was the commemoration of…well…every other Christian who had died, the Church Penitent.  All Saints’ was festive, and All Souls’ tended to be a grimmer with requiem masses and much repenting and worrying about where a relative was in Purgatory. In the secular culture, though, All Souls seems to have had a stronger pull. That makes sense. Hey, Francis and Ambrose, to name a couple of awesome saints, were lovely guys and great examples of faith, but when it comes down to celebrating someone you never met or thinking about how much you miss your father/mother/daughter/son/ grandmother/uncle, etc. and wondering where they are on the salvation spectrum…where do you think you are going to focus your time, energy, and attention?

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

In the Lutheran church, however, most Protestant ones when it comes to that, all baptized and believing Christians are saints. Apart from high, high churches, like the Anglo-Catholics,  Protestants don’t celebrate  All Souls. Commemorations of the dead are held on All Saints and are held in the sure and certain faith that these saints have received the gift of redemption through grace and will not have to work off time served in Purgatory.  All Saints is then a jolly affair focusing as it does on the salvation given to the great Church triumphant.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Or at least  I think so, but that could be because the hymn sung on that day is so splendid. ”For All the Saints” was written by William Walsham How, then a rural dean in Shropshire, England, in the 1860s.  How eventually became a suffragan bishop in London and then the Bishop of Wakefield, and apparently he was quite good at what he did, but had he been half as competent as Bishop Proudie, this hymn would have made up the difference.  The tune is actually relatively modern too, having been written by Ralph Vaughn Williams, and the combined effect is electrifying. How wrote it as a processional hymn– hence the 11 verses that allow even the Anglo-Catholics to get around the whole church in procession–but verses 3-5 are typically omitted in most hymnals.  Apparently even modern Lutherans find 11 verses daunting. (And I shall wax eloquent on THAT topic of shame around Christmas.) Let the Methodists, remembering their heritage of terrorizing people with close harmony singing and getting their tonality on, take it away ! (The hymn starts @ the :17 mark and wraps up around 5:03.)  May you, dear saint, sing along and celebrate the foretaste of the feast to come.

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

In fact, that is not so very different from what happened, though there are a great many party-poopers—who professionally work as historians—that question whether Martin nailed anything to a bulletin board, or anywhere else.  But, to be sure, a number of questions were proposed for academic disputation, and things steamrollered on from that point.

From this you could take any number of lessons, I suppose.  You could observe, piously, that there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.  You might say, thoughtfully, that an honest question has tremendous potential to disturb everybody’s peace and quiet.  Or, angrily, that he should have kept his damn mouth shut.

That last was never going to happen, ever.  But for the rest of his life, Luther remained amazed that so much should have happened from such a small beginning, and from such a man as he.  By the side of his deathbed, decades later, was a paper on which he had scratched, “Wir sind bettler, das ist wahr.”  “We are beggars, this is true.”  One of the great proofs of the power of God for Luther was that He had taken the voice of a beggar, and made it loud enough to shake Popes and Emperors.

In the process, he took young man Luther—gaunt, ascetic, burning, driven—and transformed him into fat Doctor Luther—eyes placid, fat now padding those ascetic bones, belly full of beer and home-cooking.  You can see no greater reversal of medieval values than the transformation of the monk Luther, anxious for God’s grace, into Doctor Luther, Katie’s husband, content now to live a simple life within the hands of a gracious God.