lab+oratoryhttps://jasonawells.org/2021-09-09T10:18:02-04:00lab+oratoryWhich Side Are You On?2021-09-09T10:18:02-04:002021-09-09T10:18:02-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2021-09-09:/which-side-are-you-on.html<p>The <a href="https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=219">Revised Common Lectionary for Proper 19B</a>
assigns the reading Mark 8:27-38, referred to as the Confession of Peter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi;
and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I
am?” And they answered …</p></blockquote><p>The <a href="https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=219">Revised Common Lectionary for Proper 19B</a>
assigns the reading Mark 8:27-38, referred to as the Confession of Peter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi;
and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I
am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah;
and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do
you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+8%3A27-38&version=NRSV">See the full reading here</a>.</p>
<p>Both Matthew 16:13 and Mark 8:37 name Caesarea Philippi as the location
of Peter's confession. The naming of the place is more than just an
establishing shot. The story of the city itself provides a setting that
lifts up Peter's confession about Jesus to a radical place.</p>
<p>Amy-Jill Levine notes in <em>The Jewish Annotated New Testament</em> that
Caesarea Philippi was "originally Panion after the god Pan, to whom there
was an important cult site, was re-founded under Herod's son Philip,
who renamed it in honor of the emperor and himself. A major temple,
probably dedicated to the emperor, has been discovered nearby" (p. 77).</p>
<p>This is the same Philip the Tetrarch named in Luke 3:1, often read
at Christmas. The name Caesarea Philippi is Latin, meaning "Philip's
Caesarea." This distinguishes it from Caesarea Maritima, build by Philip's
father, Herod the Great, on Israel's Mediterranean coast. Caesarea
Maritima, as one might expect from a place named after Caesar, was the
seat of Roman control after Judea became a province in 6 AD.</p>
<p>Naming a city after Caesar is clear indicator of loyalty to one's imperial
occupiers. Further naming it "Philip's Caesarea" indicated that the
Tetrarch wanted to make himself known as a quisling, ready personally
to collaborate with the colonial power. After all, he ensured the building
of an imperial temple so that Caesar could be literally worshiped.</p>
<p>All of this happened around 14 AD, during the teenage years of Jesus and
his followers.</p>
<p>Further, Caesarea Philippi was the seat of power for a tetrarch. The city
itself was able to mint coins for the region. By 30 AD, near the time of
the Mark 8 story, Philip was bold enough to put his own image on the coins:</p>
<p><img alt="Coin minted by Philip the Tetrarch" src="images/philipcoin.jpg">
*Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodian_coinage#/media/File:Tiberius_of_a_coin_by_Herod_Philip.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></p>
<p>The coins on one side name "August Caesar" and the other "Philip the Tetrarch."
In a first for Jewish rulers, Philip put his personal image on the coin. Of course
this would be a scandal to the Jewish people using the coins. Again the image
of Caesar and Philip together demonstrates the strength of the pact between
colonizer and colonized.</p>
<p>This is the place where Jesus brought up the question of his identity to his
followers. Many preachers urge their listeners to identify with Peter in a
personal faith statement. Jesus asks, "Who do you (individually) say that I
am?" The right answer is that Jesus is the Messiah who saves and redeems.
Peter's personal answer should be our personal answer and commitment to Jesus too.</p>
<p>I've preached this myself and won't argue against this use of the passage.</p>
<p>Jesus asks this question in the seat of power of Philip, the imperial quisling
anxious to show his Roman bona fides. The disciples are in the city and region
passing around coins with Philip's face on them, showing his betrayal of his
people, religion and culture. Perhaps Jesus knows that Philip is among those
who would lose his soul to gain the world (or at least a tetrarchy).</p>
<p>Jesus asks this question not in the singular, but in the plural, "Who
do y'all say that I am?" Aimed at the body of followers, Mark uses
the term Messiah or Christ for the first time since 1:1. Coming from
Peter and all of Jesus' followers, "You are the Messiah." And not only
a Messiah who can save our souls but the Messiah who can save the very
real world around them.</p>
<p>In Philip's city of imperial collaboration Jesus' question takes on the
tone of the labor union and civil rights song, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyaliQP-x0">Which side are you on</a>?</p>
<p>In the words of Ched Myers in <em>Binding the Strong Man</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Peter's answer is far more momentous: it introduces into the story world for
the first time the politically loaded term "Messiah" (<em>Christos</em>). Jesus is
not simply a great prophet; he is a royal figure who will restore the political
fortunes of Israel. The revolution, Peter is saying, is at hand (p. 242).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The question of personal faith in Jesus is an important one but the setting of
Caesarea Philippi opens up new dimensions of the radical work of Jesus that
can bring salvation not only for the next world but for this one too.</p>Worship that Harms2020-05-16T17:07:49-04:002020-05-16T17:07:49-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-05-16:/worship-that-harms.html<p>Today protestors will gather at the NH State House for a Christian
service and demand to return to large, in-person worship gatherings in
their churches. Churches that closed too slowly or opened too quickly
soon showed new COVID cases.</p>
<p>If your worship service is harming people, then God does not …</p><p>Today protestors will gather at the NH State House for a Christian
service and demand to return to large, in-person worship gatherings in
their churches. Churches that closed too slowly or opened too quickly
soon showed new COVID cases.</p>
<p>If your worship service is harming people, then God does not want that
worship. The Bible, from Torah to Prophets to Gospels to the Apostles,
repeats the refrain: if your actions harm the weak (widows, orphans,
foreigners, and so on), then God does not want your worship. This goes
all the more is the worship gathering itself is harmful to the weakest.</p>
<p>Here it is in Amos 5:21-24 (but you can find it in Isaiah 1, James 1
and plenty of other Bible verses): "I take no delight in your solemn
assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain
offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of
your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of
your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice
roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream."</p>Tracking COVID-19 with Gnuplot2020-04-11T08:05:43-04:002020-04-11T08:05:43-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-04-11:/covid.html<p><a href="https://github.com/revjawells/covid">See this on GitHub with data updates!</a></p>
<p>I've been wanting to visualize how cases of COVID-19 in New Hampshire
are progressing. The State of New Hampshire puts out a daily updates
with this information, but it's in narrative form and scattered across
PDF files uploaded daily.</p>
<p>So, I decided to …</p><p><a href="https://github.com/revjawells/covid">See this on GitHub with data updates!</a></p>
<p>I've been wanting to visualize how cases of COVID-19 in New Hampshire
are progressing. The State of New Hampshire puts out a daily updates
with this information, but it's in narrative form and scattered across
PDF files uploaded daily.</p>
<p>So, I decided to use <a href="http://www.gnuplot.info/">Gnuplot</a> to help me
visualize what is happening. I created the text file below with the data
from the daily updates, which I gather manually. Each line contains
the date in MM/DD/YYYY form, the current number of reported cases and
the number of new cases reported. These values are tab-separated.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span># covid.dat - COVID-19 statistics in New Hampshire
# Source: https://www.nh.gov/covid19/news/updates.htm
# Date Cases Change
3/13/2020 7 0
3/14/2020 7 7
3/15/2020 13 6
3/16/2020 17 4
3/17/2020 26 9
# ...
4/10/2020 885 66
</pre></div>
<p>I haven't used Gnuplot much since college, so I had to consult a number of
online tutorials to dust off my memory. After a lot of finagling I was
able to coax Gnuplot into graphing this data in an attractrive manner.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span># covid.plot - gnuplot commands to generate COVID-19 graphs from online data
# Set up output graphic parameters.
set term png
set output "covid.png"
# Set up the graph title, axes labels and graph key.
set title "Number of Persons with COVID-19 in New Hampshire"
set xlabel "Date"
set ylabel "Cases"
set key top left
# Set up the x-axis to show dates.
set xdata time
set format x "%m/%d"
# Tell Gnuplot that we are reading dates in a specific format.
set timefmt "%m/%d/%Y"
# Set up line stylings.
set style line 1 linecolor rgb "red" pointtype 7
set style line 2 linecolor rgb "blue" pointtype 7
# Read data from file and plot into a graph.
plot "covid.dat" using 1:2 with linespoints linestyle 1 title "Total cases", \
"covid.dat" using 1:3 with linespoints linestyle 2 title "New cases"
</pre></div>
<p>This will give me a red line showing the total number of reported
cases and a blue line showing the new cases each day. Every evening the
State issues its daily report and I manually enter the new data into
covid.dat. Finally, I issue the command:</p>
<p>~/src/covid> gnuplot covid.plot </p>
<p>And I get the file covid.png which looks like this:
<img alt="Number of Persons with COVID-19 in New Hampshire" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/covid.png"></p>Maundy Thursday Reflection2020-04-09T13:52:13-04:002020-04-09T13:52:13-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-04-09:/maundy-thursday-reflection.html<p><img alt="Picture: Garden of Gethsemane, 2020" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/maundy.jpg"></p>
<p><em>Picture: Communion service with New England United Methodist Conference,
Garden of Gethsemane, February 2020</em></p>
<p>"Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall
mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they
shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).</p>
<p>As many …</p><p><img alt="Picture: Garden of Gethsemane, 2020" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/maundy.jpg"></p>
<p><em>Picture: Communion service with New England United Methodist Conference,
Garden of Gethsemane, February 2020</em></p>
<p>"Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall
mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they
shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).</p>
<p>As many congregations observe Maundy Thursday, remember how many services
obey so closely Jesus' instructions at the Last Supper:</p>
<p>First, the act of foot-washing often follows the sermon, taking the place
in the service sometimes occupied by reciting a Creed. How notable to
replace declaring faith with words to declaring faith with actions! "I
by my works will show you my faith" (James 2:18).</p>
<p>Then, the next part of the service might be Holy Communion. How quickly
after an act of Christian service do we need the refreshment of grace at
Jesus' table! In this era of pandemic, New Hampshire churches are doing
extraordinary and miraculous acts of loving service. Let us never forget
to return to God to receive the spiritual graces we need to keep that
service going: "Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be
weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).</p>
<p>Finally, friends, we need be open to encountering God's grace in new
ways. During COVID-19, many of us are prevented from gathering at the
Lord's table together to receive what Jesus gave us tonight. United
Methodist pastor Rev. Dwight Haynes recounted this story about his
experience marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the March 25,
2015 issue of the Concord Monitor:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was very warm. Without breakfast, some people fainted. I remember
getting a sip from a gallon jug of Kool-Aid being passed along. Later,
another black neighbor from one of the shacks by the side of the road
passed along some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. For me, it was
the miracle of sharing re-enacted, an experience of Communion I shall
never forget.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Church, Jesus' command to love others as he loves us is weighty. You are
doing much right now to show your faith by your works but never neglect to
seek the grace of God to keep us going. Even though we cannot now gather
at the Lord's table, we can trust that God will provide sufficient grace
in surprising ways so that we might continue to "walk and not be faint."</p>Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester2020-04-03T10:52:58-04:002020-04-03T10:52:58-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-04-03:/prayer-of-st-richard-of-chichester.html<p><img alt="Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/richard.jpg"></p><p><img alt="Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/richard.jpg"></p>Palm Sunday Reflection2020-04-02T10:31:59-04:002020-04-02T10:31:59-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-04-02:/palm-sunday-reflection.html<p><img alt="Picture: Palm tree with dates, Mount of Olives, 2020" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/palm.jpg"></p>
<p><em>Palm tree with dates, Mount of Olives, 2020</em></p>
<p>In the Gospels, Jesus' followers cut palm branches for his way into
Jerusalem. In the Bible, palm branches are associated with the celebration
of the Festival of Booths or Sukkot (Lev. 23:40).</p>
<p>But the Festival of Booths is a fall festival …</p><p><img alt="Picture: Palm tree with dates, Mount of Olives, 2020" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/palm.jpg"></p>
<p><em>Palm tree with dates, Mount of Olives, 2020</em></p>
<p>In the Gospels, Jesus' followers cut palm branches for his way into
Jerusalem. In the Bible, palm branches are associated with the celebration
of the Festival of Booths or Sukkot (Lev. 23:40).</p>
<p>But the Festival of Booths is a fall festival, after the palm dates are
harvested. The story of Palm Sunday takes place in the spring, at the
Passover. To cut branches from the palm tree in the spring means that
the tree will die. When the tree dies, there will be no dates to harvest
for eating or for market later.</p>
<p>And so the palm tree becomes a symbol of Crucifixion, of life cut short
too early. The palm becomes a symbol of sacrifice through its association
with the death of Jesus.</p>
<p>The power of the palm tree as a symbol of martyrdom extends into
Islam. After last year's New Zealand mosque murders, Imam Mustafa of the
Islamic Society of Greater Concord remarked during his Friday sermon:
"They may strike us, but like the palm tree, we bend but we do not
break. They may strike us and we do not break even though we give up
our best fruits."</p>
<p>Remember the symbol of palm: in times of loss and sacrifice, we bend but
we do not break. Even though we lose some of our best fruits, we bend
but do not break. And this power of this symbol is found in the Cross
of Christ whose grace is sufficient and whose power is made perfect in
weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).</p>For where two or three2020-03-23T21:45:07-04:002020-03-23T21:45:07-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-03-23:/for-where-two-or-three.html<p><img alt="For where two or three are gathered in my name, a Zoom server is there among them." src="https://jasonawells.org/images/emmaus.png"></p><p><img alt="For where two or three are gathered in my name, a Zoom server is there among them." src="https://jasonawells.org/images/emmaus.png"></p>Mike Pence on Healing the Land2020-03-23T21:44:49-04:002020-03-23T21:44:49-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-03-23:/healland.html<p><img alt="Vice President Mike Pence prays with the White House Coronavirus task force, Feb 26, 2020." src="https://jasonawells.org/images/pence.jpg"></p>
<p>At today's <a href="https://www.wavy.com/news/national/white-house-coronavirus-task-force-to-give-monday-briefing">White House Coronavirus Task Force
briefing</a>,
Vice President Mike Pence closed his remarks with the words "heal the
land." This phrase has a lot of resonance among charismatic evangelical
Christians. I'll explain:</p>
<p>The relevant verse here is 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If my people, which are
called by …</p><p><img alt="Vice President Mike Pence prays with the White House Coronavirus task force, Feb 26, 2020." src="https://jasonawells.org/images/pence.jpg"></p>
<p>At today's <a href="https://www.wavy.com/news/national/white-house-coronavirus-task-force-to-give-monday-briefing">White House Coronavirus Task Force
briefing</a>,
Vice President Mike Pence closed his remarks with the words "heal the
land." This phrase has a lot of resonance among charismatic evangelical
Christians. I'll explain:</p>
<p>The relevant verse here is 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If my people, which are
called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face,
and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will
forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (KJV).</p>
<p>I've heard the phrase "if my people" and "heal their land" a great deal
in some Christian circles. The short phrases are a stand-in for the
whole verse which calls for humility, prayer and conversion.</p>
<p>Related, on Feb. 26 many <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/mike-pence-mocked-for-praying-coronavirus-task-force-white-house.html">mocked Vice President
Pence</a>
for this photo of the Coronavirus task force at prayer. For some Christian
interpretation of 2 Chronicles 7:14, this was a necessary prerequisite
for the "healing the land."</p>
<p><a href="https://decisionmagazine.com/if-my-people/">This piece by Tony Evans</a>
appeared in Franklin Graham's Decision Magazine under the title "If My
People." Like many uses of the phrase it prescribes prayer and evangelism
to address America's ills. In my experience, the talks and articles that
cite the "If my people...heal the land," verse are usually vague and
evasive about what America's ills specifically are. Whatever they are,
prayer and evangelism is the answer.</p>
<p>My guess is that there is a lot of "dog whistle" involved in that the
speaker can refer to "healing the land" without naming ills and the
listener is ready to supply them privately from the unspoken agreement.</p>
<p>Usually this dog whistle has a politically conservative valence, but the
kind of speech has its liberal versions too. Among progressive Christians
you'll hear references to Micah 6:8 and Amos 5:24 as ways to position
themselves around humility, justice and the well-being of all.</p>
<p>For me, I'd like to see Vice President Pence's use of this verse lean
into the "humility" part of the verse. I'm fine with the prayer and
evangelism but the humility to defer to scientific and medical experts
certainly has a place in the "healing of the land.</p>Palindromic Numbers2020-03-21T17:25:48-04:002020-03-21T17:25:48-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-03-21:/palindromic-numbers.html<p>A palindromic number is a number that is the same, backwards and
forwards, e.g. 12321. It so happens that for almost all numbers,
repeatedly adding a number to its reverse eventually produces a
palindromic number. For example:</p>
<p>78 + 87 = 165<br>
165 + 561 = 726<br>
726 + 627 = 1353<br>
1353 + 3531 = 4884 …</p><p>A palindromic number is a number that is the same, backwards and
forwards, e.g. 12321. It so happens that for almost all numbers,
repeatedly adding a number to its reverse eventually produces a
palindromic number. For example:</p>
<p>78 + 87 = 165<br>
165 + 561 = 726<br>
726 + 627 = 1353<br>
1353 + 3531 = 4884 </p>
<p>This subject has been interesting as long as we've had computers to
calculate all of the repeated addtions. Wolfram MathWorld has <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/PalindromicNumberConjecture.html">a short
article</a>
about the Palindromic Number Conjecturge. In August
of 1985, Creative Computing also published a <a href="https://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v11n8/24_The_palindromic_number_co.php">a short
article</a>
on palindromic numbers.</p>
<p><a href="https://jasonawells.org/math/palindro">I wrote a program to do this repeated
addition.</a>. Enter a number
into the dialog box and it will start the process of repeated addition
until the a palindrome is produced. Note: don't enter the number
<a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/196-Algorithm.html">196</a>. Do try the
number 89, which takes 24 steps.</p>Noli me tangere2020-03-21T17:24:59-04:002020-03-21T17:24:59-04:00Jason Wellstag:jasonawells.org,2020-03-21:/noli-me-tangere.html<p><img alt="Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not. Saint Mary Magdalene, Patron of Social Distancing" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/noli.png"></p><p><img alt="Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not. Saint Mary Magdalene, Patron of Social Distancing" src="https://jasonawells.org/images/noli.png"></p>