Jeremiah 45:1-5 You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Psalm 7:1-10 Domine, Deus meus
Acts 11:27-12:3 Herod had James the brother of John killed with the sword
Matthew 20:20-28 "Are ye able? said the Master"

In the church's Kalendar, we honor several times the names of Jameses, for there have been many saints in the canon with this name. First there is James Minor or James the Less, perhaps because we know less about him, and not much more than that he is the son of Alphaeus. We celebrate him on May Day, with St. Philip and the working class revolution, so far stifled and still in gestation. The relics of Philips and James were buried together in Rome in the 6th century. Like Saints Sergius and Bacchus, they may have been linked in the Church's memory because of their exemplary love for each other, and commemorated by closeted gay clergy for centuries for this reason. . This James may be the same as James the Younger, who with his mother (the "other Mary") stood apart and watched the judicial murder of the Lord.. Who can be sure?

James the Just, sometimes called San Justo, was the brother of the Lord, converted after the Resurrection, was president of the Jerusalem Church and is now remembered as the First Bishop of Jerusalem. He presided at the Council of Jerusalem, so we have him to thank that "no irksome restrictions" were placed upon us Gentiles coming into the New Covenant. When the issue of circumcision came up he and St. Paul favored the gospel in the uncut version, as it were, and did not require it, nor the keeping of Kosher, of the rest of us. He was martyred in 62, succceeded by a cousin of the Lord. For centuries, the Letter of James was attributed to the Galilean disciple, but it does not seem to have been known until Origen's time, at the end of the second centurey. "Jacob" is the Hebrew for James, and my have been chosen to suggest a new patriarchal authority, the father of the twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel. The piety of good works instead of Paul's proto-protestant "faith alone" does suggest an early Galilean, pre-Pauline religion, full of Jewish good works.

Santiago, we say in Spanish--and today is his day--Santiago Apóstol, James Major, or James the Greater. He is the son of Zebedee and the elder brother of John. They were fishermen in Galilee, partners of Simon and Andrew. James and John were nicknamed Boanerges, "Sons of Thunder", and we have come to call their pushy momma by the name of Mother Thunder. James was martyred in Jerusalem in 43, but from the ninth century the legend grew that he had preached in Spain before that, and his body had been taken to Compostella, where his relics were credited with helping to hustle the Moors out of Spain. Henry Chadwick writes that these stories are "derived from apocryphal romances about the apostles which became widespread popular reading in the latter half of the second century." James's symbol, the scallop shell, became the badge of those who went on pilgrimage, and still serves so: . Sir Walter Raleigh wrote the pilgrim's prayer, which he "supposed to be written by one at the point of death, the pilgrimage we all have tickets for, to the land from which no traveller returns.

                   "Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
                   My staff of faith to walk upon,
                   my scrip of joy, immortal diet,
                   my bottle of salvation; 
                   my gown of glory, hope's true gage,
                   and thus I'll take my pilgrimage."

He was originally commemorated with his brother John on December 27th, but they have since been parted. On the basis of Mark 10:39 and the reading from Matthew today, some think John was martyred along with his brother by Herod Agrippa, on the same occasion. The Roman Church for many years practically displaced James the Apostle on July 25 with a fictional fantasy saint, Christopher, originally named Offerus (bearer) but baptized by Christ himself in a legend after he had unwittingly carried Him through a dangerous river, and thus acquired the name, which means Christ Bearer. He was suddenly and rudely banished after Vatican II, but still lurks about on the dashboards of older model automobiles. In any case, Jesus promised not a cabinet post or an Executive Desk to James and John, but that they would get to drink from the same cup that would also come his way. One of our loveliest hymns for youth tells what became of John--'though he took Mother Mary to his own home, 'though he was the one who lay on Jesus' breast, yet "young John, who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless in Patmos died." And what became of James, the Big One, James the Great? The Acts of the Apostles tell how he came to drink the cup that Jesus promised him. At about the time the church in Jerusalem was at its weakest, suffering from the great famine that took place in the days of the emperor Claudius, it also suffered from the oppression of the puppet Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great. He was given the title "king" by Caligula, and the territory of Philip, but under Claudius became ruler of all Palestine . "About that time, says Luke, "Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and proceeded to arrest Peter also."

And this he did in the days of Unleavened Bread, the time of celebrating our liberation. The time of the earliest Easter we know of, a re-enactment indeed and a fulfillment of a Passover time a year or two before that, when on the way up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast, Jesus had promised a Passover Cup of Sufffering to them all. The reference of these eight words is supremely ironic. And martyrdom is only the supreme witness because it is in the context of our liberation--it would otherwise be only squalid slaughter. In eight words St. Luke puts the martyrdom of the first apostle, and from there on all the apostolic witness, into the context of liberation, an Exodus from political and social and economic slavery. The "time of unleavened bread" is celebrated moreover in the midst of a famine in the land. A famine in which the church in its Springtime became a socialist commune--and the disciples "determined that each must give according to their ability and give to each according to their need." It was the deal the Gentile mission cut with the poor mother church in Jerusalem, a ten year capital funds campaign in exchange for a recognition of its validity, and Paul's and Barnabas's bona fides as true apostles. . It was in the context of solidartity and celebration that violence thrust the Sons of Thunder into the Lightning Skies of the Reign of God. "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent bear it away." So Flannery O'Connor found the title for her novel.

Baruch thought that by being a faithful assistant scribe, aide-de-camp to Jeremiah, that he would also get "great things for himself", but Jeremiah had other news for him. "Don't look for great things, Baruch," said the prophet. "Don't even think of it! I am going to bring disaster upon all flesh, says the Lord." Many servants of the Churches in the Me First World think the way Baruch thought, he too a faithful servant of the Church. The mentality of the Free Marketplace has pervaded the Churches-- for "they think religion should yield dividends; and of course religion does yield high dividends, but only to the one whose resources are within.. . . for we brought nothing into the world; for that matter we cannot take anything with us when we leave, but if we have food and covering we may rest content. Those who want to be rich fall into temptations and snares and many foolish harmful desires which plunge people into ruin and perdition. The love of money is the root of all evil." (I Timothy 6: 5-10)

D. H. Lawrence wrote "The Root of Our Evil" as a midrash on that unpopular, downwardly mobile Scripture, which once was holy to a glad and sharing, downwardly mobile Church.

"The root of our present evil is that we buy and sell. Ultimately, we are all busy buying and selling one another. It began with Judas, and goes on in the wage-system. Men sell themselves for a wage, and employers look out for a bargain. And employers are bought by financiers, and financiers are sold to the devil.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Come, Satan, don't go dodging behind my back any longer. If you've got the goods, come forward, boy, and let's see 'em. I'm perfectly willing to strike a decent bargain. But I'm not having any dodging going on behind my back. What we want is some sort of communism not based on wages, nor profits, nor any sort of buying and selling but on a religion of life."

Personal advantage from the coming calamity, from the disaster that is surely on its way to the North American Empire in its buying and selling of nations, or an individual bail-out or buy-out from the Judgment of God, are not possible for the Me First World disciples of the Nazarene, any more than they were for holy Jeremiah or Saint James. Our situation is as René Girard puts it, "intervidual", and we are bound together in life and death, in sin and liberation. The promise we all have is that we shall drink from the cup of Christ's blood, which now streams in our firmament. It is also to be the cup of salvation, the cup of our liberation.

GRANT GALLUP
CASA AVE MARIA
MANAGUA, NICARAGUA C.A.
gallup@tmx.com.ni

• The Series: Father Gallup's "Homily Grits": http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/grits.html
• The Series "Joy Anyway!": http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/joy.html
• Louie Crew's Anglican pages: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/rel.html
• Louie Crew's home page: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew
• Send mail to: lcrew@newark.rutgers.edu

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