postID: 7031; title: The Annunciation
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Annunciation
We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts, that we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Array
(
[date] => 2018-03-25 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1454
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2018-03-25 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2018-03-25postID: 7031 (The Annunciation)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7031; date_type: fixed; year: 2018
fixed_date_str: March 25
fixed_date_str (mod): March 25 2018
formattedFixedDateStr: 2018-03-25
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2024-04-08 (2024)
yearAssigned (2024) does NOT match year (2018)
displayDates for postID: 7031/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-03-25
)
postPriority: 1postID: 7074 (Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7074; date_type: variable; year: 2018
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7074
displayDates for postID: 7074/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-03-25
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2018-03-25 with ID: 7031 (The Annunciation)
The Annunciation
Array
(
[date] => 2018-03-25 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1454
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2018-03-25 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2018-03-25postID: 7031 (The Annunciation)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7031; date_type: fixed; year: 2018
fixed_date_str: March 25
fixed_date_str (mod): March 25 2018
formattedFixedDateStr: 2018-03-25
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2024-04-08 (2024)
yearAssigned (2024) does NOT match year (2018)
displayDates for postID: 7031/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-03-25
)
postPriority: 1postID: 7074 (Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7074; date_type: variable; year: 2018
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7074
displayDates for postID: 7074/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-03-25
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2018-03-25 with ID: 7031 (The Annunciation)
The reading_id [310274] is already in the array.
reading found matching title 'Luke 19:41-48' with ID: 153412
The reading_id [153412] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): Zechariah 12:9-11, 13:1, 7-9; Luke 19:41-48
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
Zechariah 12:9-11, 13:1, 7-9; Luke 19:41-48
✛
In the City of David
Array
(
[0] => 60740
[1] => 60757
)
book: [60740] (reading_id: 310274)bbook_id: 60740
The bbook_id [60740] is already in the array.
book: [Array ( [0] => 60757 ) ] (reading_id: 153412)
bbook_id: 60757
The bbook_id [60757] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
When you see pictures of, or hear stories about, New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, they are hard to square with the New York City most of us experience today. One sees images of graffiti-covered subway cars and hears stories about how Bryant Park—now the well-maintained site of professionals watching movies, and each other—was full of drug deals and other illicit activity. “Lawless” is a word some use to describe it. A relative of mine tells a story about moving from Atlanta to New York in the late 1980s. She parked her moving van outside the apartment she was to share with a friend, then went into her new building and up the stairs to see her new place. Once inside, she was first shocked by how small it was, and then shocked when she looked out her new window and saw someone driving her van away. You may have heard, or told, stories like that, too.
You hear fewer stories like that today, at least I do, and there is no doubt that the city is a cleaner and safer place than it has been in many years. All the same, many of its problems have moved underground: homelessness remains a chronic difficulty, with some measures indicating that it has become significantly worse in the last decade. For some New Yorkers, life continues to be a daily struggle.
The idea of the city—of all cities—as places of danger and injustice and inequity is one that was held by many of the early writers in the Hebrew Bible. Whether it was Babel or Sodom and Gomorrah, the early parts of the Old Testament show a significant antipathy toward what we would call urban life. The story of Noah, for example, seems to be one way of emphasizing the moral risks of what we call civilization, perhaps with some primitive memories (perhaps romantic ones) of pre-domestic life.
There is a transition of sorts with the establishment of Jerusalem. Formerly the possession of the Canaanites, it became King David’s city, the Lord’s city, where the Lord was pleased to dwell with his people. Jerusalem, the city that is a symbol of God’s covenant with Israel; Jerusalem, both a prosaic municipality and a cosmic reality. But even ancient Jerusalem retained an aspect of ambivalence in the Jewish memory. Jerusalem is holy in the Old Testament, but its people were sometimes holy and sometimes not, David himself being but one example. Reading the Bible, it seems like at any point the ancient experience of lawlessness, blasphemy, and chaos seem ready to break out, with dire consequences for those who call it home.
Perhaps this is why one of the promises of the prophet Zechariah is the resolution of this back-and-forth in Jerusalem’s relationship with God and one another. In our first reading, we hear the Lord saying, “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications.” Grace and supplications to the city of Jerusalem: grace, the free gift of the covenant, made with Abraham, with Moses, and, yes, with David. And supplications: the spirit of the desire of God, of reconciliation with God.
This would be an everlasting thanksgiving, an eternal chorus of praise, perhaps in a repetition of tonight’s psalm, traditionally ascribed to David: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise his holy Name.” “Forget not … his benefits,” O my soul: his forgiveness, his healing, his justice, his compassion and mercy. Praise the Lord, O my soul.
But David’s song would not be sung uninterrupted. The ambivalence of Jerusalem was constant. It was this Jerusalem that Jesus saw, from some distance, on the day we remember as Palm Sunday, as he approached it for the last time, riding the colt procured for this purpose, fulfilling another prophecy of Zechariah (9:9). This promised Messiah, this son of David, he sees Jerusalem and he weeps. Even as they shout, “Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord,” he weeps nonetheless over the city that chooses chaos over order, darkness over light. He weeps because he is there to save them, but their praise of him will soon grow faint, and then turn to anger. “Praise the Lord, O my soul … and forget not … his benefits,” but Jesus weeps because they have forgotten him. And now those good things that bring peace are hidden. And now there is no peace. There is no glory to be seen.
It is the Christ who wept over the city who goes, we must imagine, crashing into the Temple, casting out the moneychangers, the fulfillment of another prophecy of Zechariah (14:21) “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that therein is”—David sang that, too (Psalm 24). The Temple is the Lord’s, and Jesus is the Lord. It is his Temple, so it must be pure as he is pure. Out the thieves go into the streets of the holy city.
The expulsion of injustice is to an orderly purpose. Having cleansed the Temple, Jesus then sanctifies it with his presence. The voice of God, incarnate, is heard in God’s Temple, and he sits with his people and teaches: teaches wisdom, rather than ignorance; reason, rather than sentimentality; scripture’s promises, rather than human fantasies. For a little while, he sits with those who love him and shares himself with them, in harmony with God and one another. His words are true, and good, and beautiful. In the middle of this story of a fickle public prone to violence, there is a brief respite, a reminder of what life with God is like. Christ teaches in the Temple, and there he brings light and peace.
But in the darkness of men’s hearts, inside and outside the Temple walls, lawlessness, blasphemy, and chaos churn like a gathering storm as Jerusalem and its religious leaders begin to prepare for the crucifixion of the prince of peace. Their laws are a mockery of justice; their piety is profanity; their superficial stability is disordered. The city over which Jesus wept prepares for its newest victim, as with one united voice they will cry, “Crucify him, crucify him.” But in the Temple, for a brief while, gathered around Jesus, they read the Scriptures and, no doubt, chant the psalms of David. “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise his holy name.”
They did so then, and we do so today, this Palm Sunday, the Sunday of the Passion. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem. Praise the Lord, New York. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Forget not his benefits. He will not deal with us after our sins, nor reward us according to our wickedness, not if we gather around him, around the one who is the new Temple, the one who is our hearts’ desire, the one who brings light and peace, the one who is full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, and of great goodness.
The voice of God spoke in the Temple, when Jesus was there, and he speaks still in the pages of his scriptures. In the prophecy of Zechariah, he promises that in the last day he will say, “You are my people.” With one united voice, may we respond, “The Lord is my God.”
