NEW>>>Mom in Germany From the Sublime to the Religulous
We are back at the regular Sunday lectionary again, and come to a time of transition in the Moses saga. We meet him on a high mountain, and observe his vision of the land that has been promised to the people whom he has led for some forty years. In a way Moses embodies all of Israel, even to the fate that he suffers of not being able to enter the land of promise, but to die having at least seen it. In this respect, the forty years of wandering served as a purgation of the sin of the Golden Calf; the law given and quickly broken. Moses, as a type of Christ, takes the responsibility for and punishment for the sin. We also meet the successor, Joshua, who will not only lead the people into a new land, but into a wholly new experience of life and of God. In the Epistle, Paul continues to introduce himself to the church at Thessalonica. Unlike other churches founded by Paul, this congregation was not Jewish, but largely Gentile. Paul, then, takes a different tack with them. He uses an interesting image to describe his work with them, taking the guise of a nurse who "tenderly car(es) for her children." In her book Women in the Acts of the Apostles, Ivoni Richter Reimer describes Paul's positive relationship with women, some of who served as leaders in the early Church. In spite of evidence to the contrary in Ephesians and elsewhere, this does give us a glimpse of a much more inclusive Paul. In the Gospel we meet a Jesus who is having fun arguing
with two very strong religious/political parties in first century Palestine.
The Sadducees were a wealthy priestly and political group founded in the
second century BCE. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees were conservative,
taking a negative view of any innovations in Judaism. As a matter of course,
they dismissed the notion of the resurrection of the dead (promoted by the
Pharisees) and were prone to a literal understanding of the Torah. The Pharisees
were known to take a more sympathetic and hermeneutic (interpretive) approach
to scripture. Jesus, of course, is something completely different, and sets
them both up in this passage from Matthew.
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The Cathedral at Aachen
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I hesitate to do this, because it seems a little self-serving, however friends have asked me when I am preaching next at Trinity Episcopal Church. Therefore I am providing those dates on the Rota when I am scheduled for preaching. Show up any Sunday, if you like, because the preaching there is usually pretty good. Here are the next dates on the Rota:
R.I.P. again! TORO YA I didn't mean for this to become a column of de functis restaurants, but it seems that it is. The ultimate in Japanese comfort food, onigiri, could be had at Toro Ya on Filmore Street in San Francisco. It is no more, unfortunately.
Onigiri, a snack that packs sushi rice around meat or vegetables, was a delightful repast at Toro Ya. Our favorites were onigiri unagi, the crunchy grilled rice framing a succulent piece of eel, or salmon. This little sushi restaurant also did robata, robata actually being the grill upon which these foods were done. Toro Ya did strips of beef with green onion, corn on the cob, eggplant and other delights. We'll miss this place. Right across the street from Arthur's gym, this place could be counted on for a quick, relatively inexpensive, delightful meal. The food was French, although according to the website, the original mission was French-Arab fusion. We must have come into it late in the game, for the fusion part had long gone. The staff, however was delightful, and accomodating. The best times were at the outdoor part, with Arthur having a crepe complete, and I having eggs en cocote with proscuito, a version of which I published here some time ago. That and a café with a chausson aux pommes would make for a wonderful Saturday morning. The last time we went, all was lost. The eggs in my cocote had been left unattending, boiling into a congealed mass in half and half, not the ususal cream. The yolk was not running, and the persil bread was missing. We had ordered their wonderful green beans (sauted in butter with chunks of garlic) which arrived at the table with precious little garlic, and swimming in butter water. It was most unappealing. The waiter that day was short and unfriendly. Something had happened. I know what happened, having read Inside Scoop in the Chronicle, which reported that the restaurant was closing to reopen as two different places. They're not going down in a blaze of glory!
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MTH - 8/14/08
