Feast of Saint Philip and James

What we see is often colored by what we think we should see. Sometimes we just can’t see what is there. And sometimes we think we saw something and others tell us, “That’s impossible!” so we give it up.

But the apostles announced to the world what they saw. Many people didn’t thank them for that. Some said, “It seemed to you like Jesus was raised from the dead.”

“No,” they replied, “He was raised from the dead. There was no seems about it!”

Then someone said, “He really wasn’t dead!”

“Oh, he was dead, alright. There was no doubt about that.”

“Okay, but he wasn’t a man in the first place. He was a god or an angel acting like a man.”

“No, he was a man, just like you or me. He ate, he slept, and when he worked hard he sweated and stank like a man.”

“But if he was a man, he couldn’t be God!”

“He was God. We saw his glory! And he explained it all to us, just as the scriptures foretold.”

“You misread the scriptures.”

“We read the scriptures as the Holy Spirit guides us, remembering Jesus as he was and as he is.”

Two thousand years later we honor the apostles – today is the feast of the Apostles Philip and James – because they did not change their story to fit what people wanted to hear. The Jews thought it was scandalous, as Saint Paul said, and the Greeks thought it was absurd, but to those who were being saved it was the holiness and the wisdom of God.

Today, in popular theology, some Christians like to say, “Jesus had it right but the early church lost it.” I read a recent book by Harvey Cox who expressed his gratitude that after so many centuries, we have finally got it right! He expresses contempt even for the professors who taught him in the 1950’s because they still didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to do. You have to wonder what kind of arrogance would declare, “In its long history the Church has never understood Jesus but I will explain him to you now!”

Other writers of today assure us that Jesus regarded men and women as equals; and, while he lived his disciples were an egalitarian band – in defiance of Jewish customs and Mediterranean culture. He intended his Church to be led by men and women equally; but the men – those awful men – suppressed the women after Jesus died. Clearly Jesus was ahead of his time, roughly 2000 years ahead of his time. But we know the truth at last.

Personally, I have no objection to women being ordained and I think it might happen someday, but please don’t insult my intelligence with specious arguments! I doubt that Jesus knew the earth is a ball, that water doesn’t run downhill but flows with the space/time continuum, or that a woman might someday be pope. If our traditions and institutions can change and develop with the march of history we don't have to rewrite the scriptures. 

I am sure the apostles were faithful to Jesus and they remain as a solid indispensable bridge to the Man. We are not bound to Jesus by ideas or opinions; that’s why he never wrote a book. Nor are we bound to him by some vaguely spiritual “love.” Rather his Church is a holy city of friends, family, spouses, neighbors, and authorities with laws, customs, liturgies and virtues built on the foundation of apostles. They kept the faith and passed it to their heirs. And our faithful ancestors -- twenty centuries of men and women under the impetus of the Holy Spirit -- have given it to us. 

The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Rev 21: 14