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‘Ye are the salt of the earth . . .’ Matthew 5.13
I have been reading A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter by Catherine Meeks. Dr Meeks recently retired as executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing in Atlanta. I remember vividly and often her visit to our Diocese in February 2020 to do a workshop for the Union of Black Episcopalians (UBE) and the Bishop’s Institute.
I am old enough to have lived through the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and to have had my then young and idealistic imagination shaped by it. But Dr Meeks’ visit four years ago challenged me to think afresh, and to repent afresh. Her book is having the same clear, sharp antidotal effect on me.
Dr Meeks’ book put me in mind of something G.K. Chesterton wrote about Christian saints. Chesterton defined a saint as someone who will be found ‘restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects.’ And each generation ‘seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want; but rather what the people need’. He reminds that the first saints were told by their Lord, ‘Ye are the salt of the earth’. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II referred to his well-fed, beefy soldiers as ‘the salt of the earth’, implying that they were the best in the world. To the Kaiser’s use of the phrase, Chesterton offers a correction:
‘But salt seasons and preserves beef, not because it is like beef, but because it is very unlike it.
Christ did not tell His Apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people; and the text about the salt of the earth is really as sharp and shrewd and tart as the taste of salt. It is because they were the exceptional people, that they must not lose their exceptional quality.
“If salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” is a much more pointed question than any mere lament over the price of the best beef. If the world grows too worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows too worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldliness by the world.’
The autobiography of Catherine Meeks is salt and seasoning to my attempt at Christian discipleship. ‘Ye are the salt of the earth’ is also a pretty good metaphor for our Lenten journey: as we pray to be guided this season closer to God and (sometimes sharply) a bit more detached from our disposition to sin.
Praying everyone a happy and holy Lent,
Douglas
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Is this a fast, to keep
The larder lean?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour?
No; ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.
Robert Herrick, 1591-1674
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An Interview with Javon Seaborn,
Rector, St. Gabriel's Church, Jacksonville
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Canon Javon Seaborn has had an interesting ministry including serving in the U.S. Army chaplaincy and in the Anglican Church of Tanzania. May 7-8, 2024, he will host with Canon Aaron Smith a Prayer and Renewal Conference at Grace Episcopal Church, Orange Park with Bishop Sospeter of Tanzania as the keynote missioner. Everyone is welcome. Details at the back of this Newsletter.
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Interview
HDD: Father Javon, would you tell us a bit about yourself? Where you were born and grew up, your faith formation, your call to the ministry, your specific call to St Gabriel’s and your family?
Fr Javon: I was born in Atlanta GA on a military base called Fort McPherson. My dad and mom were of West Indian descent my dad was a military man who was serving while he was going to Norfolk State University. My mother was a homemaker and waiting for my father to come back home from deployment (Vietnam).
My faith formation was formed by grandmother who came from a Pentecostal background. All my upbringing was in Miami FL and particularly in the Pentecostal faith. I knew of the Anglican faith, but we only visited every now and then.
At the age of 18 I decided to go into the U.S. ARMY as a computer network specialist and my first duty assignment was Ansbach, Germany.
My first encounter in Germany I ran into a lady who gave me a prophecy that I was running from the Lord, and I had a calling on my life. I immediately got back on the train and got back to my barracks, and I decided to go to the post chapel that Friday night. It was at that chapel service I gave my life to the Lord and later that night I had a vision that I was going to be a priest/chaplain in the Army.
I spent the next ten years serving in the Army as a soldier and husband because I got married during that time to my wife Virginia and right around the ninth year I decided to get out and pursue an Army commission at Florida International University in Miami.
While at FIU I had another encounter with the Lord. I met a man who was walking down the hall and he told me “You are running from the Lord and God has called you to be an Army chaplain”. That night I prayed, and I decided to accept my call and decided to go to seminary in Virginia. Four years from that previous event I graduated from seminary, and I was an Army chaplain on my way to Iraq.
I spent ten years enlisted and 15 as a military chaplain for a total of 25 years active federal service. Upon retiring I really felt the Lord calling me to serve in a small parish that could not afford a full-time priest.
I met Canon DeFoor in 2018 and we talked. We engaged again in 2023 and he told me about some of the openings in the Diocese and St Gabriel’s stood out to me. Since I was living in Vero Beach I came up and visited and I fell in love with the church and the people. The vestry voted me in during the month of June 2023 and my family and I have been here ever since.
HDD: You have had a lot of interesting experience of ministry before joining our Diocese — as an Army chaplain and serving in an Anglican Province in Africa. Tell us more about being an Army Chaplain.
Fr Javon: I served as Army Chaplain over 15 years and three take aways that I use in parish ministry today are (1) how to minister in a pluralistic environment, (2) how to analyze my ministry context when I am preaching, and (3) how to minister in worship settings that are beyond my denomination or ethnicity.
For a majority of the 15 years, I was an Army Chaplain even though I was Anglican the supervisory chaplains would put me in the all-black Pentecostal chapel services and the collective Protestant service. These two chapel services would be my home and would shape my theology for the next 15 years.
Another thing I learned serving in the military as a chaplain is knowing how to accommodate and serve all people (gay, white, atheist etc.) I served them all and served them faithfully and I carry that ethos into my ministry today. This ethos has strengthened my parochial ministry especially in our Diocese.
I say in my church “God didn’t call me to be a judge, but He did call me to love and proclaim the Gospel.” This has been my mantra: to love people no matter what their religion is or what their sexuality is --- I am called to love them. The U.S. Army in 2011 ended any remaining restrictions on openly gay soldiers and this prepared me for where I am today.
HDD: How were you called overseas to serve in the Church in Tanzania? What was the character and shape of your ministry there? What gifts did the clergy and laity of the Church in Tanzania share with you from their storehouse of faith and heritage?
Fr Javon: I was connected to the Anglican Church of Tanzania by happen stance (being in the right place at the right time). I was endorsed for ministry there and I was able to serve once I retired from the Army. Once I retired, I was installed in the Cathedral as a canon and was made Canon to the Ordinary or in their language Commissary. Their faith is so strong and so pure.
I visit Tanzania every year and I planning on going this year during the month of June for three weeks and during that time I will distribute 100 Bibles in Swahili to children. I will also do other things throughout the diocese, but the main thing is to see what projects need to be done so that back in the States I can start my priority list. The conditions in Tanzania are not the best but the people make the best of it and it shows their tenacity and fervor.
HDD: ‘Prayer and Renewal’. What led you to focus on these topics as the subject of a conference for the people of St Gabriel’s and Grace? How did you and Fr Aaron decide to bring your two congregations together for this conference?
Fr Javon: I have always been a part of the renewal moment in the Anglican/Episcopal church. Second, I believe prayer is essential to the church and the believer and without prayer we could not talk or walk. Prayer is essential and the church today does not put a strong emphasis on prayer nor the Holy Spirit. These are topics that are very dear to me since I spent time many days in Afghanistan and Iraq in contemplation and prayer in the desert. The Holy Spirit is real, and prayer is essential for every believer today.
I met Fr. Aaron at a diocesan meeting, and we just hit it off. He gets me and I get him so we hang out sometime at the Urban Bean (our favorite coffee place) and talk life and it is good for clergy to have a person they can just talk to. Fr. Aaron and Fr. Justin Yawn are those people to me that I can go to and just talk and let my hair down.
HDD: Tell us about Bishop Sospeter from Tanzania and his ministry who is coming for the Conference. Will he be leading the Conference?
Fr Javon: Bishop Sospeter Ndenza is a graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary, and he is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Kibondo in the Anglican Church of Tanzania. Bishop Sospeter is a powerful prayer warrior and preacher, and he is a servant bishop. He has over 92 parishes in his diocese, and he will see them all in two weeks. His heart is for the people and ministry, and it shows how he interacts with the people. Bishop Sospeter will be leading the conference, and he will talk on the importance of prayer as it relates to the Holy Spirit.
HDD: Is the Conference open to others outside the two parishes or intended primarily just for the two churches?
Fr Javon: The conference is open to anyone all are welcome (in the Diocese and outside the Diocese) and it is free.
HDD: Please share with us anything else you would like to share.
Fr Javon: This conference is designed to re-start your prayer life or your love for prayer and the Holy Spirit. Sometimes our prayer life gets in a rut, and we wonder what we need to do. This conference will give you the tools to challenge you to go back to the basics and re-establish that relationship with the Holy Spirit and that commitment you had in prayer. Please come on out and enjoy. There will be childcare, food and fellowship.
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Bishop's Institute February 2024 Book List | |
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Hannah Durkin. The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade Hardcover – January 30, 2024.
The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War.
The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history. Amazon review.
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Pope Francis. A Good Life: 15 Essential Habits for Living with Hope and Joy Hardcover – February 20, 2024
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Peter Kreeft. Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas
Aquinas Paperback – November 14, 2014.
2024 is the 750th anniversary of the death of St Thomas Aquinas. Thought you could never climb the mountain of Thomas’s Summa Theologica? Here is hope and help.
Kreeft offers 358 quotations from Thomas (just about one per day) and his own clear commentary on each of them. Kreeft is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and a wonderful Christian author and teacher.
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Richard Leonard, SJ. Why God? Stories to Inspire Faith Paperback – February 4, 2024.
Leonard is an Australian Jesuit author and film critic. In this book he explores the presence of God in the lives of people often in unexpected places and events.
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Darrin M. McMahon. Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea Hardcover – November 14, 2023.
Equality. McMahon asks: ‘How much do we want, and for whom?’ It did not all start with the American Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. McMahon argues that the strive for equality was in the social makeup of our cave-dwelling and hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Religion in general (and Christianity in particular) has been one of the strongest forces for equality in the last two millennia. St Basil the Great, for example, was a great critic of wealth and preached that a rich person who failed to help a poor person was ‘a murderer’. Dense, rich, solidly researched and beautifully written.
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Rachel Mann. A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 40 Days with Jane Austen Paperback – November 30, 2023.
I might never have linked Jane Austen with the season of Lent--- but here it is. If Austen is dear to you, set aside a daily quiet moment, settle back in a wing back with this book and a cup of tea: ‘India or China? Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong?’ Here you go.
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Rob Marshall. Transfiguration: 50 Pilgrim Steps Paperback – November 30, 2023.
Rob Marshall has led many pilgrimages to the Holy Land and his insights into the life and passion of Christ, focusing here on the Transfiguration, is a wonderful guide through Lent.
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Catherine Meeks. A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter Paperback – February 13, 2024.
Catherine Meeks has recently retired as head of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing in Atlanta. She has much wisdom to share in this book that might challenge and act as a catalyst for our own discipleship. Her book is also just so beautifully written.
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In 590 AD, Pope Gregory I rewrote the list of seven deadly sins, changing them to lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride; and re-wrote their antidotes--- the seven godly virtues. These virtues are said to turn a Christian toward God and away from our disposition to sin.
HUMILITY
O everliving God, let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; that as he from his loftiness stooped to the death of the cross, so we in our lowliness may humble ourselves, believing, obeying, living, and dying to the glory of the Father; for the same Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
Christina Rossetti, 1830-94
FORGIVENESS
Who will not mercy unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?
Edmund Spencer, 1552-99
GENEROSITY
Thine are all the gifts, O God,
Thine the broken bread;
Let the naked feet be shod,
And the starving fed.
Let thy children, by thy grace,
Give as they abound,
Till the poor having breathing-space
And the lost are found.
John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-92
PURITY
O God our Father, help us to nail to the Cross of thy dear Son the whole body of our death, the wrong desires of the heart, the sinful devisings of the mind, the corrupt apprehensions of the eyes, the cruel words of the tongue, the ill employment of hands and feet; that the old man being crucified and done away, the new man may live and grow into the glorious likeness of the same thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
A Procession of Passion Prayers
LOVE
O Lord Christ, who by thy love for mankind has taught us the power of love: Implant this love within us, that, loving thee with all our heart, we may love all men for thy sake; to the glory of thy Name. Amen.
Eric Milner-White, 1884-1963
DILIGENCE
Give me, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards; give me an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; give me an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Amen.
St Thomas Aquinas, 1225-74
TEMPERANCE
O Lord God, give us grace to set a good example to all amongst whom we live, to be just and true in all our dealings, to be strict and conscientious in the discharge of every duty, pure and temperate in all enjoyment, kind and charitable and courteous toward all men; that so the mind of Jesus Christ may be formed in us, and all men take knowledge of us that we are his disciples; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Dean Vaughan, 1816-97
NB For more prayers appropriate to Lent see: Marion J. Hatchett. Lenten Prayers for Everyman- Paperback, 1967.
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Numbers in the Bible
If you have ever attended one of my Bible Studies classes, I frequently mention that numbers in the Bible have more than just numeric significance. I'm sure that each of you have heard the numbers 3, 7, and 40, numerous times in scripture. And while today we may think that this may be mere coincidence, the early Hebrews would not have thought so.
Ancient near eastern cultures frequently use numbers to mean something more than just their numerical value. Hebrew hermeneutics has an interpretation approach that includes a “remez.” A remez (Hebrew) is a hint of a deeper meaning that is below the surface or behind the words.
Understanding the meanings behind these numbers in the Bible can help us understand just how inspired the early writers were. Take the number 7 for example. Truly it means 7 things, but symbolically in the Bible, 7 stands for completeness. Such as the 7 days of creation. With the deeper meaning that God’s creation was complete in 7 days, nothing else was needed.
Before we dive in to a bit of biblical numerology, let me give some caution. We should never place too much emphasis on numbers, rather than the story itself. Exaggerating their symbolic message can lead to dangerous misconceptions, mystical ideas, bad theology, and even outright occultism.
Believing that numbers hold a mystical power that can be tapped into for divination purposes is wrong. As earlier mentioned, cultures such as the Babylonians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and other ancient Middle Eastern cultures used numerology for divination purposes. As well as Pythagorean mystery teachings, and Gnosticism. Saint Ambrose wrote this warning:
“The number 7 is good, but we do not explain it after the doctrine of Pythagoras and other philosophers, but rather according to the manifestation and division of the grace of the spirit; for the prophet Isaiah has enumerated the principal gifts of the Holy Spirit as 7.” (Epistle to Horontianus)
So, with a bit of curiosity and caution here are just a few of those numbers:
1 = Oneness - 1 is independent of all other numbers and is contained in all other numbers. 1 is only divisible by itself and represents the union of the Godhead as one God.
2 = Companionship, Witness - Although 2 are joined together becoming 1 in marriage, they are still 2 individuals, purposed by God to be companions to each other in separate and unique ways. At least 2 witnesses are needed for Jewish trials.
3 = Triunity, Divine Purpose - 3 is the number of triunity as perfectly seen in the Holy Trinity; one God in three Persons. Triunity existed before the foundations of the world, with the infinite and eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 3 Days from Jesus’s death to His resurrection.
4 = Creative works of God - 4 pertains to God's earthly creative works. Four corners of the earth, 4 cardinal directions (N, E, S, W), 4 phases of the moon, 4 elements (earth, fire, water, air) etc.
7 = Completion, Perfection - 7 days of creation, 7 colors in a rainbow, and there are over fifty 7’s in John’s Revelation (bowls, trumpets, Angels, etc.).
12 = God’s Perfect Government or Order - 12 months in a year, twelve sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles chosen by Jesus.
40 = Trials, Testing and Preparing - 40 days and 40 nights it rained upon the earth, 40 days Moses was on Mount Sinai to receive the law, 40 days after his birth a male child was dedicated to God, 40 days Jesus fasted in the wilderness, and for 40 days Jesus taught his disciples after his resurrection.
I have skipped many numbers and only included a few examples. There are thousands of examples of biblical numerology on the web. Many disagree about what the number symbolically references. I have selected the most common designation of the numbers, and their symbolic inference.
I stopped at 40, because it is the season of Lent, and we have 40 days to “prepare” for Jesus’s defeat of death on Easter morning. I know what you're thinking, there are 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, and you're right. But you've forgotten the 6 Sundays in between are feast days and not counted. Because Valentine’s and Ash Wednesday are the 14th of February this year, I hope you saved your chocolate for Sunday!
Lastly, while numerology is both interesting and fun, the most important thing to remember, is that you are counted in the Book of Life. Have a blessed Lenten Season.
Praying that our Lord finds you and yours well.
Archdeacon,
The Ven. Mark Richardson
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Upcoming Back Story Interview Series: Feb. 20 | |
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Dean Kate Moorehead Carroll and Dr. Catherine Meeks will be featured in a special edition of Back Story on Feb. 20.
The interview series, initiated by The First Monday Book Club, will delve into the creative journey behind Meek's memoir: "A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper's Daughter."
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Upcoming Prayer and Renewal Conference | |
St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church and Grace Episcopal Church are hosting a prayer and renewal conference on March 7-8 from 6:30 - 8 p.m. at 245 Kingsley Ave, Orange Park, FL, 32073. A flyer is below with more details. | | | | |
