May 5, 2020
Good Morning Friends of South Bay and Picton United Churches!
It is a lovely spring morning – with just a touch of frost – which may keep the blackflies and mosquitos quiet for a bit longer!
I know that, as we are staying home, and as our regular routines are disrupted, it is sometimes difficult to tell one day from the next! But I do realize that today is Tuesday. The “Today’s Post” you are receiving this morning should have been delivered to you yesterday, since my schedule has been Monday/Wednesday/Friday.
My Monday was spent in consulting with those involved (Lay Readers, Musicians and Camera Operators) and putting together the Order of Service for next Sunday, May 10th – which is Mothers’ Day. We will record the Service tomorrow at both South Bay and Picton. (It will be broadcast on YouTube on Sunday Morning). This schedule of preparation and recording does tend to telescope my work week – thus the delay.
May you all be blessed by the Service Broadcast, and by these thrice-weekly “Posts”.
Grace and peace with pastoral love and concern,
Rev. Phil
This morning I am going to continue to mine the depths and riches of Psalm 23, as there are phrases that I was not able to include in previous posts and in the Sermon on Sunday May 3rd.
In the second half of verse five of this six verse Psalm, we have the phrase:
“. . .thou anointest my head with oil.,”
No doubt those who first sang this song in worship, our ancient Jewish sisters and brothers in-the-faith, had a clear understanding of the meaning of this phrase and of its implications. For those of us reading and/or singing it in the twenty-first century of the Common Era, it needs some unpacking.
Many of us, of a certain age, will remember the hair tonics advertised to and used by men in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The names still evoke the jingles from the commercials we saw again and again, none more so than a certain white product that came in a tube:
“Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya! Brylcreem, you look so debonair! Brylcreem the girls’ll all pursue ya! They love to get their fingers in your hair!”
And of course, there were other products produced by competitors whose names also ring bells for us. Vitalis. V.A.M. and Score to name but three.
For us the phrase “anoint my head with oil” might bring these products to mind.
A very few of us might have recollections of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on the second of June, 1953. As part of that ceremony the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, anointed the Queen Elizabeth with holy oil. That event, almost 67 years ago, may have been the last time that any of us witness such anointing.
Anointing with oil, as practiced in that coronation, and as alluded to in the Psalm, had to do with designation of the anointed one as “the chosen one”. (In the case of Queen Elizabeth II, the inference is that she was chosen to be Queen by God.) The implication in the Psalm is that the one anointed with oil is a special person – recognized as such by God.
One of the most important words for Jews and Christians is the word “Messiah”. This Hebrew word means literally “God’s anointed one”. In ancient writings it was used to designate the King who was chosen by God and anointed in recognition of his having been chosen. (See the story of the anointing of David in First Samuel 16.)
We are known as Christians, because the word ‘Christ’ is the Greek (the language of the New Testament) equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. From the first century the Church identified Jesus as God’s chosen Christ.
The Psalmist, in using the metaphor of anointing, is proclaiming that each person is chosen of God and special. Rabbi Harold Kushner, whose book The Lord Is My Shepherd I have referred to previously, shares a passage from the Talmud – the central scripture of Judaism:
“The royal mint stamps out thousands of coins, each one bearing the likeness of the emperor, and each one is identical. But God fashions millions of people, each one in His image, and no two are alike. Every one of them is unique.” (Page 137, Kushner)
In the 16th century, Jewish mysticism began to interpret messianic theology differently. These Rabbi’s taught that the problems of the world were too complex and persistent to be solved by one person. Instead every person was chosen (anointed) to do their own small part “to repair and redeem the world”.
You may recall the words of Mother Theresa (now Saint Theresa) of Calcutta:
“Few of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love.”
When we sing or say the phrase from Psalm 23: “. . .thou anointest my head with oil,” may it be a reminder to each one of us that we are chosen and gifted by God for a special purpose – to fulfill the Ministry & Mission of Jesus – to love the world in Jesus’ name.
“We are the hands of Christ reaching out to those in need, to face of God for all to see. We are the spirit of hope; we are the voice of peace. Go make a diff’rence in the world.” (More Voices #209, verse two)
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