I don’t say this based on the Bible, and a good thing because what does the U.S. military care about that?  Neither do I make my case made based on ethics or morals because apart from Scripture what absolute ethics or morals can you have?  You only have the dictates of conventional wisdom, the social contract, or mutual self-interest, and these have given us education funded by lottery; parental consent for piercing but not aborting, and the public school system.

Even if the military somehow regard the Bible in general as authoritative, this aspect of the 6^th Commandment is the latest in several Second Table Commandments to be made obsolete.  First the lure of painless taxes caused the State to accept gambling the 7^th Commandment notwithstanding.  The fear of feminism or perhaps the supremacy of the individual caused the state to accept the murdering of babies in the womb the 5^th Commandment notwithstanding.  Now easy divorce, long term fornication, and gay right have made the 6^th Commandment meaningless.  What case can be made before the world against gays and lesbians openly serving in the military based on a Commandment it views as passé, irrelevant, a historical anarchism?

To a world that still had a moral foundation you could make the case that just as the military cannot allow murderers, adulterers, thieves, and liars to openly serve, so they can’t allow homosexuals.  But to a world that recognizes no binding authority beyond what all can agree to the case against homosexuality has to be made from what homosexuals themselves say.

Gays and lesbians claim they are naturally attracted to the same sex.  It’s not something homosexuals turn off and on any more than heterosexuals do.  So we should treat their same sex desires the way opposite sex desires are treated.

In 1979 at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, my unit was made up of males and females.  The unit had a perimeter all the way around it to protect it from the “enemy;” within the perimeter was the female’s tent.  It was surrounded by three rolls of Concertina barb wire.  This wasn’t to protect the women from the “enemy” but from the male soldiers. 

The military has generally recognized that there is no denying nature, or in the words of Luther, it does no good to put paper next to fire and command the paper not to burn.  So for example, a female soldier may not strip down to her bra though the males may take their undershirts off.  A female soldier may not even go without her bra with her undershirt on.  Why?  You know why.  Finally, at a certain age in the quadrennial physicals, all female soldiers will get pelvic exams and all males prostate exams.  If the doctor doing the female exams is a male, a female nurse must be in the examining room.

Paper is paper; fire is fire, and you must respect the properties of both.  Therefore, if by their own admission homosexuals are naturally attracted to their same sex, then we can’t have them showering or sleeping with their same sex.  They have to be housed with the other sex.  Lesbian’s don’t need another female in the room for their pelvic exam, but they sure can’t be the one’s doing them, and male soldiers might have to ask for another male soldier to be present for their prostate exams.  Then again depending on his “orientation” he might not.

Do you see how impractical this would be?  Ah but we’ve grown beyond these gender distinctions placed upon on us by society.  There is no more male or female just people.  Yet, even the homosexuals would deny this.  They aren’t attracted to the opposite sex; they are attracted to the same. 

Where will it end?  Ask the Romans and the Greeks before them, or the Book of Romans after them.

God did tread on Haiti.  Let’s not believe the forces of nature randomly, haphazardly, or coincidentally came together to shake Haiti.  When we’re talking about who can cause the earth to shake, we’re talking about God.  And, unlike Pat Robertson, I’m not sure what this says about Haiti, but I am sure what it says to us all: “Repent” (Luke 13: 1-9)!  Now for the heresy: I’m not sure it says, “Help!”

While the churchmen will study and weigh theological issues ad infinitum, while when confronted with a controversial point of confession, they will shrewdly say, “I’m not sure what that means,” they show no such caution in the footsteps of God.  No, they all know we should help and we should do it by sending money.

LCMS World Relief sounds the alarm as does Lutheran World Relief.  LCMS World Relief crows that only 7% of monies raised go to administrative costs.  LWF trumpets their’s is 8.9%.  Both are good for charitable agencies, but neither are good enough.

 To provide a kingdom of the left service LCMS World Relief takes three pastors from the kingdom of the right.  Since LWF is headed by an LCMS pastor too, that makes four.  There is no reason for this duplication.  World relief is something we can and should, in the name of efficiency, cooperate with the ELCA.   LWR gives out in aid each year what it takes LCMS World Relief to distribute in three.  If it’s only about giving aid in Jesus’ name, if it’s only about kingdom of the left issues, we don’t need two Lutheran agencies.  If World Relief is about preaching the Gospel, we are confusing the two kingdoms.

More of this at another time.  The real issue for me is rushing in to Haiti with greenbacks flying.  I know the world did that; the world always does, but should we?  In the President’s State of the Union address, he told how an 8 year old boy sent him his allowance and asked him to give it to the people of Haiti, and the two Houses of Congress went, “Awwwh.”  And for 10 dollars sent by this Lutheran, the 100 sent by that Lutheran, the 1,000 sent by this congregation, I’m afraid that’s all we might get.

Here are some tidbits from an article entitled “2 weeks after Haiti quake, food aid falls short” by Associated Press Writers Vivian Sequera And Ben Fox,– Wed Jan 27, 6:15 pm.

-          “Street vendors openly sell U.S.-donated rice by the cupful from bags marked “not for resale.” At a homeless camp, a young woman told of thieves who tried to sell her own food back to her.”

-          “Whether locked up in warehouses or stolen by thugs from people’s hands, food from the world’s aid agencies still isn’t getting to enough hungry Haitians, leaving the strongest and fittest with the most.”

-          “The U.N. food agency urgently appealed to governments for more cash for food for Haiti — $800 million to feed 2 million people through December, more than quadruple the $196 million already pledged.”

-          “Fears of official corruption also are surfacing.”

-          “Paul Coroleuski of the U.S.-based Convoy of Hope, which has distributed aid in Haiti for three years, said he has more than 100 tons of food in a Port-au-Prince warehouse ready to hand out, but it has been delayed for days by Haitian officials who say they will take over distribution. “

-          “Private agencies like his worry that Haitian officials “will do what they always have done, which is the government takes care of the government and the people are secondary,” he said.”

-          “’If they turn it over to the Haitian government, they would take it all for themselves,’ said Muller Bellegarde, 30, as he waited for food in the unrelenting tropical sun.”

-          “Haitians remember that when the government took charge of delivering international aid to the city of Gonaives after deadly hurricane floods in 2008, much of it ended up sold on the black market.”

It was the same in the latest Ethiopian famine.  Tons of money was donated that really did buy loads of food, but it rotted in warehouses or was enjoyed only by a few.  It should give us pause when former President of the United States George Bush tells Americans that they should not send food, clothes, or water to Haiti but only money to the private fund he and President Clinton are heading because “trust me; we know how to best spend your money.”  If you think politicians really know how to best spend money, you haven’t been paying attention for a few years now.

But what should we do?  If you want to send money, by all means do.  If you think this is the best way to help, then go ahead and pay.  However, don’t begrudge those who don’t.  Money might not be a good way to help Haiti.  Even if you think it is, consider that you have already paid, are paying and will continue to pay to help Haiti.

These tidbits are from NPR.  80% of Haiti’s Gross Domestic Product is foreign aid.  The US provides the lion’s share of that.  You are the U.S.  The earthquake is said to have destroyed 25% of Haiti’s GDP.  Well, you can’t destroy foreign aid, so Haiti’s lost 25% of 20%.  The 82^nd Airborne is on the ground in Haiti.  Who do you think pays for them?

Have you ever noticed that when people want us to buy into a loosening of morals they magnify the size of the world?  “Who are you to speak?  What are you among so many?”  But when they want us to buy, literally, into the world’s problems they shrink the world to the global village.  In the first area which the world insists we tread lightly, I think Holy Scripture gives us the right to tread like stormtroopers.  In the second area, where the world insists we tread like dragoons, I think a step tempered by angelic fear is more in order.

Paul says that “the Spirit clearly says” about the latter days: “They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (I Timothy 4: 3-5).

What usually jumps out at Protestants, including Lutherans, is the forbidding to marry part, but I want to focus on “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”  Many believe these words of approbation apply to everything except alcohol and many more believe they can’t apply to tobacco.  Can’t receive these creations of God with thanksgiving; if you think you can, try putting a bottle of wine and a pack of Camels on your thanksgiving altar at church.  Nope, no how no way that alcohol that God gave to make glad the heart of man and to alleviate his sorrow (Ps. 104:15; Pr. 31:6) or tobacco that has stimulated the noses, bowels, and minds of men for centuries can be consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.

Fruits and vegetables (Make sure you get five servings a day now.) and not just grains but whole grains are good for you and praiseworthy.  Lean meats are also okay.  Be like the Israelites and give the fat to God.  But don’t be like them when it comes to getting your Omega 3 acids.  You’d have to cut out things like shrimp and crabs (Lv. 11:9-12).  Come to think of it some foods are so good for you that you can simply leave out consecrating them by the Word of God and prayer.

Narratives on the Catechism published by Lutheran Book Concern of Columbus in 1915 gives food for thought in this regard.  It says, “He who goes to the table without prayer goes away without the blessing of God and his meat and drink may prove the means of his death just as well as, had he sacrificed them with prayer, they would have ministered to the support of his bodily life”  (Vol. III, p. 77.).

Hmm, what a strange thought.  It is biblical but hardly medical; it is theological but hardly technological.  The Word of God and prayer is what consecrate food to my health.  The demon isn’t in the rum and the health isn’t in the food itself.

As the good Baptist preacher is wont to say, “That will preach.”  But not my a coward such as I.

The maker of this cereal is Food For Life Baking Company.  It is neither surprising nor thought provoking as to location (California) or date of organization (1964).  Even the fact that there is food for the body but not for the soul here provides little food for thought.  What provides grist for the mental mill is that the LCMS serves up the same pablum.

In the Fall 2009 Better Health published by Concordia Plan Services, there is the article on page 3 entitled  “Bible Super Foods.”  I quote the opening paragraph.  “We use the Bible as our guide for daily living, but it also can serve as a guide to healthier food choices.  In verses like Deuteronomy 8:8 (‘…a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranate, olive, oil and honey…’), God reveals to us some foods that are good for us:”

The article goes on to tell you why wheat and barely, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey are good for you. They could very well be, and probably are, good for you, but to say that God mentions them in the Bible for that reason is to say more than God does.  The 7^th Day Adventists have always argued this way about the Levitical laws pertaining to food.  It is really healthier to eat beef rather than pork; try telling that to someone from Iowa.  Reasoning like this mistakes the theological point of the Levitical laws for a medicinal one.

In fairness to Better Health, they didn’t write the article “Bible Super Foods.”  They attribute it to “CNN.com, beliefnet.com, Journal of Urology.”  Well if it’s from the Journal of Urology it can’t be peeing in the wind, can it?  Medically no; theologically yes.

If you want to see how far awry this way of thinking can go, buy some Ezekiel 4:9 cereal, and cook it in accordance with God’s further directions to Ezekiel in chapter 4 verses 11-15. But don’t be surprised when you come away saying, “That tastes like _____!

Chesterton (I think) said that for the British everything happens in the stateroom, for the French everything happens in the bedroom; for the German everything happens in the bathroom.  Luther might have agreed.

He said of his discovery of the Gospel, “The Spiritus Sanctus [Holy Spirit] gave me this realization in the cloaca.’”  There is what Oberman terms “a dignified way out” of having the locus of the Lutheran Reformation in the bathroom.  Luther didn’t mean the toilet, but the study in the tower that was above the toilet.

Oberman, however, thinks Luther meant the toilet, the can, the john precisely.  Since the crapper is the most degrading place for man, it’s “the Devil’s favorite habitat.”  In the filthiest place on earth is where Luther gloried in Christ being “for him.”  The most unholy spot on earth “is the very place to express contempt for the adversary through trust in Christ crucified” (Heiko A. Oberman, Luther Man Between God and the Devil, 155).

Luther had a German, bathroom sense of humor.  He liked a Latin rhyme about the Devil catching a monk reading the first of his daily prayers while sitting on the toilet.

The Latin is:

Diabolus:      Monachus super latrinam

                          Non debes legere primam!

Monachus:   Purgo meum ventrem

                          Et colo Deum omnipotentem;

                          Tibi quae infra,

                          Deo omnipotenti, quod supra!

 It doesn’t rhyme in English but still the point is made.

Devil:   You monk in the latrine,

               You may not read the matins here!

Monk:  I am cleansing my bowels

               And worshipping God Almighty;

               You deserve what descends

               And God what ascends.

 Render unto God, Caesar, and the Devil to each their own.

I have never been in favor of the category “Professional Church Worker.”  As far I know, it’s only used by the LCMS.  In it are all those who work for the church fulltime except never are janitors included (I don’t know why not.) and seldom are secretaries.  So the list includes pastors, teachers, DCE’s, directors of evangelism, deaconesses, and all those ministers made so by contemporary churches.  I don’t like the category of “Professional Church Worker” for the same reason I don’t like “The Religious” category of the Roman Catholics.  Both exclude the ordinary Christian lay person.

 On another LCMS church’s website I found a deaconess’s self-description of her work.  Here it is.

 What a Deaconess Does

Many people often ask, “What does a deaconess do?” In response to that, I’ve compiled a list of 25 things a deaconess can do for you. Note that this list is just the tip of the iceberg — my mission here is to serve the congregation in the most practical, helpful and spiritual ways that I can.

1. Pray with you before a stressful doctor’s appointment.

2. Bring a hot meal to a family with a new baby.

3. Lead a women’s Bible study.

4. Stop and check on your elderly parent when you’re having a hectic week.

5. Find ways for you to get the volunteer hours you need for a scholarship application.

6. Drive you to an appointment.

7. Pick up a prescription.

8. Answer your questions about church.

9. Listen.

10. Go along with you on an appointment that might be scary to go to alone.

11. Come over for a visit and devotion on a day when you’re feeling lonely.

12. Take a walk with you on a day that is too nice for you to be inside.

13. Call to check in with you when you haven’t been to church in awhile.

14. Come along when you go to visit a grandchild who has stopped coming to church.

15. Help you find a ride to church.

16. Help you fill out a confusing form.

17. Bring you some groceries when you’re too sick to leave the house.

18. Sit with a sick child while you run the other kids to school.

19. Go with you to visits a friend who is going through a tough time.

20. Help you to find the social services available in the community.

21. Read a recipe for you when you want to bake cookies for your neighbor.

22. Follow up with visitors to the church.

23. Recommend a good book.

24. Give you ideas for ways to lead family devotions.

25. Pray for you.

What this deaconess does any lay person can and should do.  She is not a Professional Church Worker; she is Professional Laywoman.  Don’t get me wrong; it’s not this woman’s fault.  She gave up many years of her life and many thousands of dollars to become this for her church ( I suspect that the latter of her two sacrifices is most important to our seminaries.).  But this Professional Church Workers’ movement is at best a move back to the Middle Ages and at worst a move back to Rome.  Only “professionals” are really going to be the Body of Christ.  Only “professionals” are going to be about the work of the church.  Don’t try it yourself at church, and whatever you do, don’t try doing these things at home!  And people won’t.  Herein is the true loss.

The Summer 2009 issue of Higher Things has an article entitled “What’s With the Collar?”  It makes some fine points favoring the wearing of a clerical collar which I do six days a week, but I am being pushed towards wearing a shirt and tie or perhaps even a black polo shirt with a cross or fish emblem on it. And it’s the laity who is pushing me.  Let me explain how.

It begins with something the article says. “There is, however, a significant amount of symbolism behind the use of vestments and especially a clerical collar.”  I would say there is significant amount of symbolism that can be made from them but it’s not “behind” their use. Rev. Roger Pittelko, the former president of the LCMS’s English District, who went by “bishop” before bishop was even cool among us, wrote a short piece in the April 2004 Concordia Theological Quarterly titled “Clerical Collar – To Wear or Not to Wear?”

He writes in part, “What we call liturgical vestments were, in fact, originally ordinary clothing worn by all.  The alb, cincture, and chasuble were regular dress in the Roman world.  But styles changed.  When the barbarians invaded the Roman empire, they brought a new form of dress, trousers and a shirt.  As the new styles were adopted, the clergy retained the old clothing.  The old clothing was not understood to be liturgical vesture for use in the services of the church.  The old clothing, now considered vestments, was given new symbolic meaning.  This process of the clergy keeping the old style has gone on ever since.  The cassock, a common walking coat used by all gentlemen in the Middle Ages, was retained by the clergy when it was shortened to form a suit coat….From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, gentlemen wore elaborate collars.  Often they were of lace or something that took the appearance of a primitive ascot tie.  To keep the collar from being soiled, a band of linen was worn around the neck.  In time, styles changed.  The collars disappeared, but clergy retained the band of linen around the neck.  The band of linen used to keep the collar from being soiled is the clerical collar of today” (p. 154). (For more in-depth information on the origins of vestments in ordinary clothing see Church Vestments Their Origin & Development, Herbert Norris.)

Here’s the sentence from Pittelko that makes my case.  “With our culture adopting more and more casual clothing, it is possible that the new clerical uniform will be a shirt and tie” (p. 154).  The more people come to church in jeans, shorts, sandals, etc. the more pastors will be encouraged to adopt what was once considered proper attire for church: a coat and tie.  The robes could be lost too following this rubric although historically society has always robed what they honored most clergymen, women, and judges.

Since the Supreme Court is much in the news of late, did you know they have rules for the attire of lawyers and journalists?  “The rules are strictly interpreted and strictly executed.  And then some…..’The dress code is part of the court’s desire to maintain the atmosphere that one might expect in the nation’s highest court,’ said Kathy Arberg, the court’s public information officer” (Joan Biskupic, The Washington Post, “In this court, one must dress with respect for the justices,” in Austin American Statesman, 12-18-99, p. 4).

Obviously James 2 comes into play and his warning against being prejudiced against “a poor man in shabby clothing,” though the setting there is probably the court and not the church.  How people dress for church can’t be a matter of the law.  People are to dress for church as they do for everything else according to their evaluation of the occasion they are attending.  We have all gone someplace under or overdressed.  If a man showed up in church in a tuxedo or a woman in an evening gown, he or she would be overdressed, but everyone would know just how highly they evaluated the Divine Service, wouldn’t they?  Wait a minute that is how most people dress for their marriage and the marriage supper that follows, hmm.

As for us pastors, since we have historically taken our cues from how our people dress, as you go we go.  That means when you make the move to T-shirts and shorts I get to wear a polo.  For now, I’m thinking of trying a shirt and tie.  I miss ties.  They offer such a wide variety of color choices. So many ways to express myself.  Then again why don’t I make the move to colored clericals? Whatever I wear I’m confessing something.

Reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I discovered I might not know the real meaning of effeminacy.  It doesn’t mean weak or even sissified to the author of that work.  Several of the emperors Gibbon styles as effeminate he notes for prowess in battle but interestingly he also notes their savageness apparently confirming that with extreme sentimentality goes extreme brutality. Elizabeth Robbins, from what I can find, first said this in reference to the World War I Germans.  She has a character in The Messenger say of them, “Trouble with the ruck of ‘em is, they go from the extreme of sentimentality at one end to the extreme of brutality at the other.”  Think of the Mafia don cooing tenderly over his pet cat one moment to gunning down a snitch the next.

So effeminacy doesn’t equal weakness, but according to Webster’s it means “1: having feminine qualities untypical of a man: not manly in appearance or manner. 2: marked by an unbecoming delicacy or overrefinement.”  Having attended three Higher Things conference (I did not attend this year’s gathering.  I will next year.), I noted what I considered effeminacy in the second sense in the conduct of the liturgy particularly the chanting.  Gibbon might not have labeled it as such, but it was definitely “marked by unbecoming delicacy.”  It was excessively sweet which sounded feminine and wimpish to me.

This might say more about my ears then their lips, but I am relieved to discover I’m not the only one who finds this not appealing.  Indeed the Archbishop of Lyons during the time of Charlemagne found it downright dangerous.  “Agobard [Why don’t we have good names like that anymore?] denounced cantors who, thinking themselves at a theatrical performance, affected an exaggerated sweetness in their singing: ‘They say that music makes demons flee, but we should be aware that such songs welcome them into the heart’” (Pierre Riche, Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne, 194).

Did the good archbishop think it made them an offer they couldn’t refuse?

“The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us” Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  This quote is at the bottom of The Rev. Lowell Michelson May 2009 newsletter article.  I find it incredibly ironic.  Why?  Because The Rev. Lowell Michelson is the ELCA pastor who will one day give an account for the soul of Dr. George Tiller.

I could begin this post by deploring violence, let alone murder, as the way to resolve a situation.   Indeed, “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).  I could say what my mother always did, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”  But I begin with, “Why should we be on the defensive?” A man who made a living doing violence to others (the unborn) died by the violence of another.  That’s nothing new under the sun. When one murderer murders another murderer people very rarely rush to condemn him.  One gang member kills another gang member and we flip the channel or turn the newspaper page.  “O that again.”  

If the Pro-Abortion Guttmacher Institute is right, there are 1,032 abortions of babies past the 24^th week each year. If the Center for Disease Control is right, there are an additional 18,200 abortions between 20 and 24 weeks gestation each year.  This means Dr. Tiller as one of only 3 late term abortion “providers” was responsible for 6,410 dead babies a year.  Over the 20 years of his “practice,” he put to death 128,213 babies.  Using the Guttmacher Institute’s percentages for partial birth abortions, Dr. Tiller 217 times held a warm, heart throbbing baby in one hand and with the other hand plunged an instrument into the baby’s head to evacuate the contents.  Because what he did was legal doesn’t mean it wasn’t monstrous.

Here we come back to Hitler and Bonhoeffer.  Bonhoeffer is a hero of liberal Lutherans because he was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.  He was caught and put to death.  What Hitler was doing in Germany had the sanction of the German government and law at the time.  In the Nuremberg Trials the principle that there is such a thing as a crime against humanity was used to convict Nazis.  Even though they did nothing against the laws of their nation, they had committed crimes against humanity.  So did Dr. Tiller.  But while liberals praise Bonhoeffer’s attempt to assassinate Hitler, they condemn the assassination of Dr. Tiller.  To be consistent, those who praise Bonhoeffer should praise Dr. Tiller’s assassin.

I praise neither.  In fact, in a previous blog I noted the slippery slope one confessional Lutheran pastor was starting down when he said “’Those who espouse quietism in the face of despotism must look elsewhere than the mature Luther’” (CTQ, January 2009, fn. 70, p. 88, in my blog “Bonhoeffer, Hitler, and Holocaust”).  Individuals may not act for God when it comes to “bearing the sword.”  It’s only the State that doesn’t bear the sword in vain.  It’s only the State that can be “God’s servant” when imposing the death penalty. When individual bear the sword in their own name it’s not only “in vain” but to their eternal peril even in the cases of monstrous rulers or doctors.

Pastors in particular are called to act for God in retaining and forgiving sins.  Whatever sins they retain they are retained; whatever sins they forgive they are forgiven. Dr. Tiller’s ELCA pastor did not act for God in his case.  He didn’t condemn his sin but communed and confirmed him in it.  The LCMS pastor that excommunicated Dr. Tiller for his impenitent sin of murdering the unborn did act for God.  So did the LCMS pastors assigned as chaplains to the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg.  The Lutheran Witness several years ago had their accounts.  They preached law and Gospel to these monsters as those who know the monstrosity of their own sins.

There’s one thing left to say.  Can you imagine year after year communing with Dr. Tiller?  If you’re in a LCMS congregation that practices open Communion or is open to all Lutherans, you don’t have to imagine, you did.  His sin was your sin.  The sin of the ELCA that judges abortion to be a tragic choice is still your sin.  The Jesus the ELCA preaches accepts impenitent abortionists. He doesn’t free people from sins but frees people to remain in them.

Most people think the big issue confronting the ELCA this summer is whether to ordain practicing homosexuals.  Since they have no problem communing practicing abortionists, what is their dilemma?  Having trashed the 5^th Commandment, what’s one more?

Dr. Andrew E. Steinmann in his commentary on Daniel (Concordia Commentary series, 2008) has a fuller, richer view.  He writes on page 207.  “In fact, the angelic decree of the ‘watchers’ from heaven [4:17 quoted above from the NASB] portends the great reversal in Jesus:…Jesus truly became ‘the lowliest of humans’ on the cross as he bore the sin of the world and was abandoned by His Father, but then he was raised, exalted, and seated in power at the right hand of the ‘Most High,’ appointed with authority over the entirety of the ‘human kingdom’ (see Mt 28:18).”

Jesus, “the least in the kingdom of heaven,” (Luke 7:28) surely was the “lowliest of men.”  He who was “made to be sin” (2 Cor. 5: 21) surely was the worst man in any State.  And God most certainly did give all authority to Him in heaven and on earth (Mt. 28:18).

My only caveat is this.  Earthly rulers who don’t see they are set on earthly thrones because they are the least end up acting as the worst.  The govern from pride not humility.  Of all the emperors of Rome there were precious few who did not see the purple as indicative of being better than others.  One notable exception is Julian.  Notable because he is known as Julian the Apostate.  He tried to bring Rome back to paganism after it had been converted to Christianity, yet he was more humble then his Christian predecessors.  News reached Julian that a citizen of Ancyra had the audacity to make for himself a purple garment and wear it in public. Under the reign of Julian’s Christian predecessor, this would have been a capital offense. Julian however, sent him a pair of purple slippers to complete his Imperial ensemble (Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 354).

Now to complete this foray into humility.  Isn’t it notable that given the history of purple and its connection to royalty, rule, and being above the hoi polloi, the Church chose this color to mark its seasons of repentance Advent and Lent?  In the Church purple is the color of repentance, lowliness, unworthiness.  There is no purple that I know in any seals or symbols connected with the American presidency.  I suspect this was to avoid the implications of the purple of Rome.  However, it seems we also missed the implications of the purple of Church.