Category: Ordinary Time Year B

The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare’s playing company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
It was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613.

A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and stayed open until the London theatre closures of 1642. (On 2 September 1642, just after the first English Civil War had begun, the Long Parliament ordered the closure of all London theatres.)

A modern reconstruction of the Globe, opened in 1997 approximately 230m from the site of the original theatre.

At the time of Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre Lords Rooms were considered the best seats in the ‘house’. They were undoubtedly the most expensive seats, but why were they considered the best? The Lords Rooms were situated in the balconies, or galleries, at the back of the stage above the Tiring Rooms.

The seats cost 5d – five times more than the pit.

The Lords Rooms provided a poor view of the play and the backs of the actors. However, these seats were the closest to the actors, and therefore, these wealthy theatregoers were able to hear every word of the play, even though the sound quality in the Globe Theatre was poor.

These upper-class Elizabethans believed that they were better able to appreciate the finer points of dialogue – in fact plays produced in the enclosed and more expensive playhouses were deliberately text-heavy to suit the more intimate atmosphere and more exclusive clientele.  (The word ‘audience’ is derived from the Latin word audientia and the old French word ‘audre’ meaning to hear.)

In this Sunday ‘s Gospel (Mk 10:35 -45) James and John desire a seat in ‘The Lords Room’ “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” (v 37)

They wish to sit with the upper-class Elizabethans!

Jesus responds that it will cost you 5d, that is five times more, “Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (v 38)

Jesus accepts their 5d, “The cup that I drink, you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized” (v 39),

However, they need to remember that the place they have chosen to sit brings them closer to the actor(s), and the Globe Theatre has just moved from Southwark to Golgotha.

This Sunday’s first reading invites me, quite literally, to return to the “very beginning” as Julie Andrews invites me/us as she sings in the ‘Sound of Music’.

I am on the second page of my Bible, reading from the second chapter of the first book, the Book of Genesis.

It is worth quoting a portion of our reading (Gen. 2:18 – 24)

‘The Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone.


I will make a suitable partner for him.”


So the Lord God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
 whatever the man called each of them would be its name. 


The man gave names to all the cattle,
 all the birds of the air, and all wild animals;
 but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.’

Two things caught my attention: firstly, the partners formed for the human named Adam were formed from the same ‘dust of the ground’ as was the human Adam, “So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air.” (The name Adam comes from the Hebrew word adamah meaning “earth,” )

These first partners were ‘various wild animals and birds of the air.’

The second aspect that caught my attention was that the Creator brings these. to Adam to name and the name Adam gives them is accepted by the Creator, “whatever the man called each of them would be its name.”

We read in the Book of Job, Chapter 12: 7 – 10 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
  the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,
 and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
 Who among all these does not know
 that the hand of the Lord has done this?
 In his hand is the life of every living thing
 and the breath of every human being.

The importance of this narrative is not just about humans: it is also about the animal kingdom and the plants and the water and the sky and everything else.

Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical “Laudato Si” ‘“The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, God’s boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is a caress of God.” (Laudato Si’, 84).

The illustration is from the Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library, Univ Lib. MS 24) is a 12th-century English illuminated manuscript.

{A bestiary is a book from the medieval era with pictures and stories of animals. Bestiaries includes real animals as well as mythical animals such as unicorns.}

 

Walking among the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus (in Western Turkey) one is brought to a standstill by the site of the Library of Celsus.

Once a repository of over 12,000 scrolls and one of the most impressive buildings in the Roman Empire, today, only the library’s impressive facade remains of this once great building and is a silent witness to the city’s stature as a great centre of learning and early Christian scholarship during the Roman period.

As a part of the façade stood four statues.

Destroyed by fire in the 3rdC and by an earthquake in the 10thC, the facade was reassembled and then partially restored. The great statues of the building’s facade were taken to Vienna after their discovery and so today they have been replaced by faithful copies.

One of those statues is named Σοφία, Sophia.

Sophia, also spelled Sofia, is a feminine given name from the Greek for wisdom.

This word “ Σοφία” we encounter in our first reading this Sunday (Wis. 7:7 -11).
The reading contains the English word “her” no fewer than 10 times!
My dictionary describes “her” as ‘third person singular feminine dative pronoun’

For some reason we are fixated on the idea that God is essentially masculine, and we’ve tended to create our imagery around that fixation: God is Father, Warrior, or King.

However, our Scripture is filled with all sorts of imagery for God that is feminine: God is a mother bear, protecting her young; God is a mid-wife assisting in birth; God is a nursing mother giving sustenance; God is the Lady Wisdom, calling us to paths of justice and truth.

These images aren’t exclusive or exhaustive. They’re meant to engage our imaginations, to invite us into our own imagery, to help us find our own ways of experiencing God.

Wisdom offers an alternative. Wisdom calls us to consider a feminine posture. Wisdom calls us to bring compassion and generosity to our differences.
Wisdom invites us to see the world through feminine eyes rather than masculine, to allow our suffering to inform us.

For centuries the Church has talked about Trinity only with reference to the individuals who comprise it: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That’s a masculine concern.

However, a closer reading of the theology of the Trinity has the Father “begetting” the Son, and the Son and the Father “begetting” the Spirit.
In the Nicene Creed we pray, “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.

They are in a “begetting” relationship, which sounds very feminine to me.
“Born of the Father” has imagery of childbirth!

The illustration is of the statue of Sophia – Wisdom, Celsus Library, Ephesus, Turkey.

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

There once was an old woman who, every single day, would walk down to the river with two buckets attached to a long pole over her shoulders. One of the buckets was brand new, without a flaw, and the other one was very old with a large crack in it. Each time the woman returned home from her long walk with heavy buckets, the bucket with the crack in it was only half full of water.

This went on for many years, until finally the old bucket asked the woman why she still used him. “You work so hard every single day to carry water home, and each time I am only half full. I feel so inadequate and useless. Why don’t you just throw me out and get a new bucket?”

The old woman told the bucket to look at the path they walk each day. “You’ll notice one side of the path is bare and empty, and the other side is filled with beautiful flowers. I knew of your flaw, so purposely planted seeds on your side of the path, so that each time we walked home, the seeds would be watered. Without the crack in your side we would not have these beautiful flowers.” (Ancient Buddhist Story)

In today’s Gospel John is complaining “John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me”

John’s complaint, I suggest, has its origin in pride.

The question ought not be, “Who is feeding them?”

Rather, the question is, “Are they being fed?