postID: 6965; title: The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
no collect_text found
groupKey: secondary
postID: 282272; title: The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude
groupKey: other
The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude
Array
(
[date] => 2013-10-27 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 878
[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] => 2013-10-27 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2013-10-27postID: 282272 (The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 282272; date_type: fixed; year: 2013
fixed_date_str: October 27
fixed_date_str (mod): October 27 2013
formattedFixedDateStr: 2013-10-27
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 282272
displayDates for postID: 282272/year: 2013
Array
(
[0] => 2013-10-27
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2013
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2013
Array
(
[0] => 2013-10-27
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2013-10-27 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
secondaryPost found with ID: 282272 (The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude)
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude
Array
(
[date] => 2013-10-27 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 878
[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] => 2013-10-27 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2013-10-27postID: 282272 (The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 282272; date_type: fixed; year: 2013
fixed_date_str: October 27
fixed_date_str (mod): October 27 2013
formattedFixedDateStr: 2013-10-27
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 282272
displayDates for postID: 282272/year: 2013
Array
(
[0] => 2013-10-27
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2013
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2013
Array
(
[0] => 2013-10-27
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2013-10-27 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
secondaryPost found with ID: 282272 (The Eve of Saint Simon and Saint Jude)
The reading_id [152663] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): Ecclesiasticus 18:19-33
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
Ecclesiasticus 18:19-33
✛
Ecclesiasticus
Array
(
[0] => 60747
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60747
)
] (reading_id: 152663)bbook_id: 60747
The bbook_id [60747] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
Early one weekday morning, many years ago, when I was a lay reader at one of the chantry services we have daily at St. Thomas, one of my responsibilities was to mark the particular places in the Bible where the lessons for the day were. This particular day, however, was proving difficult. I wrote down the citation on a piece of paper while in the vesting room, as I had been instructed, went out to the chapel, and returned a few minutes later. “There is no eighteenth chapter in the book of Ecclesiastes!” I said to the day’s officiant. “There must be a mistake.” And indeed, there was a mistake, but it was mine. The priest looked at the lectionary, and said, “You’ve written down ‘Ecclesiastes,’ but the reading today is from ‘Ecclesiasticus.’” Oh. So I went back to the chapel, but I returned a few minutes later. “There is no book called Ecclesiasticus!” I said. “There must be a mistake.” There was a mistake; it was mine. The priest said, “You’re looking in the wrong Bible; that one doesn’t have Ecclesiasticus. Here, use this Bible instead.” I took this other Bible; out to the chapel; then back. “Ecclesiasticus is not in this bible!” I said. “There must be a mistake.” My mistake, again. The priest said, “Ecclesiasticus is also called ‘Sirach.’” Oh, of course.
I take heart in the fact that my confusion is based on a disagreement that is about five hundred years old. Ecclesiastes is one book; Ecclesiasticus is another. Ecclesiastes is in all the bibles that you will come across; Ecclesiasticus is only in some of them, and many fewer. When the Protestant reformers of the 16th century were deciding which books belonged in the Bible they rejected those that they termed apocryphal, because the only extant texts that were available were in Greek, not Hebrew, and thus, they reasoned, didn’t contain the inspired word of God. The rest of the Hebrew scriptures were in the Hebrew language, obviously; the fact that these other writings were in Greek showed that didn’t have a place in the official scriptures. The language of the covenant was Hebrew; these writings were not in Hebrew; therefore they didn’t belong.
In addition, the canon of Jewish scripture was inconsistent concerning the Apocrypha, too. So, in most Protestant bibles, though not in Roman Catholic or Anglican versions, out went the Apocrypha, including Ecclesiasticus, in spite of the fact that it had been used for devotions and edifying reading for centuries, including by the early church and even St. Augustine. (The Rector has written on this subject before in his Rector’s Chronicle)
So the reason I got so confused that weekday morning is that most Bibles still don’t include these apocryphal books; you won’t find them in the Bibles in the pews there, for example, and when we read from these books from the lectern, we have to switch out our usual Bible for another. We do that, however, because, while the Reformation was raging in Europe those many years ago, the Anglicans were drawing on both catholic tradition and protestant reforms, and that included the optional use of the Apocrypha for devotions, though not for the purposes of establishing doctrine.
Thus, our first lesson this evening.
The Latin word ecclesia means “church” or “assembly,” so “Ecclesiasticus” means what is “used in the church,” and Ecclesiasticus certainly was used in the Church, both Eastern and Western, for well over a thousand years. Ecclesiasticus is a very long book, designed to be a guide to every detail of individual life in community, and filled with the kinds of sage advice and ethical admonitions that we heard today. Instead of concerning himself with abstract theology, Sirach, the author of Ecclesiasticus, focuses on teachings about self-control, gossip, friendship, prudence, and faithfulness. Learn what you’re talking about before you speak, Sirach says, and take care of yourself so you don’t get sick. When you’re doing well with material things, remember that days of hunger may come, so prepare yourself carefully. Say your prayers, and don’t forget to ask God for mercy.
If this sounds like some of the other wisdom literature in the Old Testament, that is on purpose. Sirach was proud of the Hebrew wisdom tradition and, in the second century BC, when Greek philosophy was the reigning star, Sirach wanted to show how the Hebrew tradition had all the wisdom one could need, and then some. Sirach, who was a well-traveled man, saw that all over the diaspora, Jews were abandoning their own tradition and chasing after Greek wisdom; Sirach was trying to call them home. It may be edifying to read Plato and Aristotle, Sirach said, but there’s also plenty of wisdom right here. So he started a school in Jerusalem, and the text of Ecclesiasticus is his classroom lecture notes.
Wisdom is the theme of what he wrote but, unlike the Greeks, though in line with the Psalms and Proverbs, he identified that wisdom with “the fear of the Lord”; “fear,” in this case, meaning something along the lines of a knowledgeable humility in the face of God’s majesty and graciousness. This fear of the Lord isn’t something abstract; it’s a manner of living within the bounds of a covenant relationship with God. That covenant was something that the Greeks didn’t have, but the children of Abraham did. They—and only they—were the chosen people. But they were forgetting about it; they were letting that beautiful, ancient tradition slip through their fingers, and Sirach set out to change that.
It’s a kind of lesson that isn’t irrelevant today. Somewhat like the Church today, Sirach found himself an outsider in a culture that was rapidly moving in another direction. The idea that home-town Judaism had anything to offer the world—Judaism, the religion of a small Mediterranean sect that lived only by the graciousness of imperial rulers—the idea that the old-timey faith of their grandparents was worthwhile was starting to seem incredible to a generation raised on cosmopolitan Hellenism. So Sirach traveled and taught, working to preserve their tradition against the potentially destructive forces of Hellenic paganism; working to show both the wisdom and the beauty, the profundity and the relationship with God, that is part of Judaism.
Sirach did so, and with no small amount of success. As I said, Ecclesiasticus fell in and out of the canon for various reasons, but the idea that the people called Israel had a tradition that had stood the test of time, and that could be as enriching as anything else—containing within it not only the humanist wisdom of the ages, but, more importantly, knowledge of the divine relationship that led to salvation—that lesson was learned in spades. And, eventually, it would be learned by both Jews and Gentiles. Maybe it is a lesson that has to be re-learned periodically, every few generations, when a need for a person like Sirach arises. If you want to know what traditions are worthwhile, look for wisdom, look for beauty, look for God.
Incidentally, in 1896 scholars working in Egypt did find original Hebrew texts of Ecclesiasticus—you can see them online, if you’d like—and, in the 1960s, more fragments were found by Biblical archaeologists. After all the contentiousness of the Reformation, the anathemas and the excommunications, we now do have many of the originals, in Hebrew, the language of inspiration.
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
