Today the church honors two unsung, and largely unknown, first Apostles: St. Simon and St. Jude, Companions of Jesus.

St. Simon the Zealot (sometimes called “Simon the Less” to distinguish him from Simon-Peter) and St. Jude (sometimes called “Jude the Obscure” because he is largely known for not being Judas Iscariot) were numbered in those first twelve apostles, saw Jesus post-resurrection, ate with him, and were sent out to preach the Gospel.

But that’s all we really know about them.

Luke is the writer who calls Simon a “Zealot,” which could mean that he was a member of the Zealot party in ancient Palestine, a radically “anti-Roman rule” faction. It’s worth highlighting that, if Simon was a Zealot, then it meant he walked with Matthew the Tax Collector in shared mission…an anti-Roman activist and pro-Roman bureaucrat working together in Jesus inner-circle.

Let that sink in…Jesus’ inner circle had people with diametrically opposing viewpoints…

St. Jude (who some think wrote the epistle of Jude) is sometimes called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus in Matthew, perhaps to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot.

There is a little-known apocryphal book called “The Passion of Simon and Jude” that says that St. Jude preached for a decade in Mesopotamia and that he and Simon labored in Persia together where they were martyred in tandem (hence why they are commemorated together today).

St. Simon is rumored to have been sawn in half…which is why he’s often depicted with a saw. St. Jude is often depicted with an ax because…well…you get the picture.

There is also a little fun legend about St. Jude healing the King of Edessa, and other stories about them fighting against Zoroastrianism in the ancient world.

Today, St. Jude is probably best known as being the namesake of hospitals and organizations that provide care to the most critical causes. In fact, in Roman Catholicism St. Jude is the patron saint of “hopeless causes.”

Why, you might ask?

Well, because St. Jude is so obscure and had no cultic following, Roman Catholic theologians thought that perhaps he might welcome and be attentive to the most desperate prayers.

St. Simon the Zealot is a reminder for me that the church has always had radicals within its walls, and was political from its very inception.

St. Jude is a reminder for me that sometimes the people who seem forgettable and least important become the ones we lean on the most in our most desperate hours.

-Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations helped with the historical pieces of the saints

-icons by Nowitzki Tramonto

Today the church honors three 17th Century musicians for the ages: Philipp Nicolai, Johan Heermann, and Paul Gerhardt.

To go into depth on each of these musicians would be to go on too long for a simple social media post. A cursory search of the Google machine will lead you to some interesting background on each.

What I’d rather do, though, is note that all three were not just hymnwriters, they were theologians. The theology we sing affects the theology we trust, Beloved. The tune is the hook, but the words are the bait, the thing we swallow, the thing we start to subconsciously believe.

In other words: be careful what you sing because it will become what you say you believe.

Out of the three of these, Paul Gerhardt is the one you’ll know the best if you grew up in a Lutheran church. While we sing the works of all three of these giants of the hymnic faith, Gerhardt is no doubt the greatest Lutheran hymnwriter.

He also, no doubt, had the most unusual facial hair.

Want to look up some of their tunes?

In your Evangelical Lutheran Worship you’ll find Nicolai on hymn 308 (“O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright!” sung at Epiphany), 436 (“Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying” sung at Advent), and 786 (“O Holy Spirit, Enter In” Nicolai only wrote the tune for this one, and I’ve rarely sung it).

Heeraman’s work can be found on 349 (“Ah, Holy Jesus” sung every Lent), 675 (“O Christ, Our Light, O Radiance True” sung in Ordinary Time), and 806 (“O God, My Faithful God” sung in times of crisis).

And the seminal Gerhardt tunes can be enjoyed on 241 (“O Lord, How Shall I Meet You” sung at Advent), 273 (“All My Heart Again Rejoices” sung at Christmas), 340 (“A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth” sung during Lent), 351 and 352 (“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” sung during Holy Week…a favorite of mine!), 378 (“Awake, My Heart, with Gladness” an underappreciated Easter hymn), 568 (“Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadows” a very sweet evening hymn), 761 (“Evening and Morning” a lovely song on trust), and 788 (“If God My Lord Be for Me”…sung in times of trial).

Do some searches, sit back, and learn the faith.

On this day the church honors a saint with a familiar name, but one who is often confused with other similarly-named apostles. Today is the feast day of St. James of Jerusalem, Brother of Our Lord.

St. James is noted in the books of Matthew and Mark as one of the brothers of Jesus. In the book of Galatians, St. Paul wrote that he met St. James on his first visit to the city.

In the same way that St. Peter led the church in Rome, St. James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem and, with such a distinct role, you’d think we’d hear more about him in the scriptures…but we just don’t.

At question is his actual kinship with Jesus. In trying to highlight how singularly significant Jesus is in history, many Christian writers have struggled to let any siblings be a part of the story. But it’s worth noting that it would have been quite unusual for Mary and Joseph to have only had one child. In the ancient world that was not common family-planning. At the heart of this speculation, though, is not even really Jesus, but rather Mary. In an effort to keep her singularly virginal, all sorts of stories cropped up about a first marriage for Joseph in which he sired other children, making St. James the step-sibling of Jesus.

This is all fancy family footwork without any substance.

To add to the confusion, some historians of the early church suggest that this James is the same “James the Less” who was one of Jesus’ disciples with a different parentage altogether. The thought is that St. James was the son of Mary of Clopas, the younger sister of Mary, Mother of Our Lord. While it is true that the same word for “brother” can also mean “cousin” in the ancient world, this, too, seems far fetched and an attempt to solve a problem that is not really there.

Jesus had siblings. It’s OK. We can all get over it.

St. James of Jerusalem really first comes on the scene post-resurrection when he is met by the risen Jesus. The early church considered him an important piece in the first stories of the church, perhaps as a replacement for St. James, Son of Zebedee (who was martyred early on).

In the same way that St. Paul felt a special calling to the Gentile-Christians, St. James of Jerusalem spent his ministry with the Jewish-Christians. It is believed he was martyred sometime in the early 60’s, right around the composition of the first Gospels. Some early church historians even claim it was the priest Annas who ordered his stoning, though this is more lore than anything.

Today is an especially appropriate day to lift up prayers for the church in Jerusalem.

St. James of Jerusalem is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, of two important things:

First, when we attempt to make Jesus so “special” we actually rob him of the most relatable parts of his being. The idea that he had siblings is kind of neat to me because, as someone who knows what it’s like to juggle family relationships, he knows a bit of my experience…our human experience. I mean, isn’t a central thought of the church that we are all the siblings of Jesus? Why must it be correct theologically, but not biologically?

Religious folks struggle with biology…

Secondly, the church has always struggled with niche ministry, worried that it would rub too much against the norm. St. Paul felt a calling to the Gentiles, and St. James of Jerusalem to the Jewish-Christians. Today some pastors feel a call to ministry on the streets, or to marginalized communities, or even to Wall Street Brokers. Some pastors don’t feel a call to the pulpit, but rather to the pavement. Some leaders don’t even feel a call to the priesthood, but are feeling a push to live as prophets.

From the early church, specialized ministry was already happening, and yet we still struggle so much with those who want to “do something different” with their call or want to start communities that don’t look a lot like conventional “church” communities.

Why?

-most historical bits, with the exception of some of the commentary around controversies, aided by Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-Icon by Tobias Haller, BSG

Today the church honors the Feast Day of St. Luke, the Evangelist.

We believe Luke was a Greek, and a Gentile, but we’re not really sure where he’s from or much about his life, other than he was a physician. He was a disciple of St. Paul and worked alongside him in missionary endeavors.

In Luke’s Gospel (which has a sequel in the Book of Acts) we learn that Luke was not an eyewitness to anything Jesus did or said. According to early lore Luke wrote his Gospel in Greece and preached in Bithynia, though we can’t verify any of that. Lore also has him reaching the ripe old age of eighty-four, a bachelor all those years.

Again, none of that is really more than speculation.

There is also an obviously dubious claim that he painted the first picture of Mary, Mother of Our Lord. For this reason many icons have him holding a painting of her.

The observance of this day as his feast day is quite old in the Eastern Church, and may be closely associated with the actual day of his death. On this day in many places people will make special donations to hospitals and nursing homes, an homage to this physician-evangelist, and there may have even been some “healing services” or anointing services happening in some churches (though, in the midst of a pandemic, I imagine this physician would rather churches not gather in person this year).

Luke’s spiritual sign is the patient ox, because he plods along in his story, slowly, recounting in detail much about Jesus and the life of the early church.

Luke’s Gospel is marked by special attention to women, the sick, and the marginalized communities in general in the ancient world. For this reason it is the favorite Gospel of many. Luke, for instance, has Jesus giving his main sermon not on a mountain, but on a plain…a sign of equality (and, also, a reminder that the Gospels don’t all match up). Luke also notes that “Blessed are the poor” in his recounting of the Beatitudes includes an economic element. Matthew changed it to “poor in spirit,” but Luke has it as “those who are in poverty.”

Luke, and in his recounting, Jesus, cares deeply for the poor, the sick, and the marginalized.

He is a reminder for me, and for the whole church, that the church, too, has a duty first and foremost not to the powerful, but to those Jesus felt a duty toward: the poor, the sick, and the marginalized.

-icon written by Theophilia

Today is the feast day of one of my favorite mystics and saints, St. Teresa of Avila, Visionary and Renewer of the Church.

St. Teresa was born in 1515 into an old Spanish family of note, and had nine brothers and sisters all told. Her mother died when she was fifteen, and Teresa was sent off to school at a convent where she read the letters of St. Jerome (whose saint day was not too long ago!). Inspired by his writing, St. Teresa decided to take vows and become a nun.

Her father, though, had other ideas, and forbade her from pursuing a life in the church. So, Teresa did what every teen does: she ran away from home and joined the Carmelites in Avila.

Soon after joining the convent, however, young Teresa fell deathly ill and lapsed into a deep coma which, after she recovered from it, left her paralyzed from the waist down for three years.

It was then that she began to receive her visions, though she was quite lax with her spiritual practices. It didn’t seem to matter, though, because she began to physically feel the presence of the Divine quite acutely, eventually prompting her to recommit to her vows and take the name, “Teresa of Jesus.”

In 1560 she decided she needed to reform the monastery, as she felt it had become too austere. Facing great opposition she found a way to have a new monastery built, and dedicated it to St. Joseph.

In a page that could have been ripped from today’s headlines, lawsuits ensued. Her nuns were shamed and called names, and their numbers remained quite small. St. Teresa, in her wisdom, actually limited the number of nuns she would take to 21 in sum total, believing a smaller cohort had more chance to create community.

Eventually the Pope blessed the order, now called the Discalced Carmelites (because they wore sandals and not shoes), and St. Teresa set about starting other reformed monastic communities, calling them from pretention and austerity to a more humble way of being.

Throughout Spain St. Teresa established seventeen other communities. They were always small, intentionally poor, and extremely disciplined.

St. Teresa of Avila eventually fell ill and died in 1582, having struggled her whole life to call the church to greater humility.

St. Teresa is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes small pockets of apocalyptic (that is, reforming) people can change the world and be remembered in the annals of history. No one recalls the large convents of her day, booming with money, golden candlesticks (or, as we might say today, screens and technology), but we all recall this slight visionary who struggled and led a handful of folks.

I mean, that story kind of sounds like Jesus, right?

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-historical notes from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-icon written by Theophillia

-critiques of megachurches all me