Christmas 2008
Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Psalm 96; Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
What we’d planned and what was real crashed head-on, these past several days.
What we’d planned was a peaceful Christmas. What we’d planned was our travel. What we’d planned was our church schedule intact so we could celebrate those lovely liturgies, sing all the lovely music we planned to sing, celebrate the astounding news of God taking flesh when we planned to. And then we planned to get home, celebrate with loved ones, and have some time and resources left over to help the poor.
What was real was record snowfall: snowdrifts piled into side streets, planes grounded, trains stalled, even buses stuck. One of us slept on the airport carpet off and on for 24 hours before her plane left for Chicago. The deacon got stuck on a side street just this past Thursday. What was real were hard decisions to forego Mass at church on the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Brigid’s Table Christmas meal, and then Mass for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
I stood in my neighborhood with my aging boots sunk deep in a big slushy pile of what-is-real waiting for the Chihuahua to figure out how to manage his personal business in the snow. I thought about what is real.
What is real is our life here on this living, unpredictable planet. What is real is how little control we really have over our lives. What is real is the work we do to live, the love we share to be human, our care for the poor who teach us how privileged we are. We slowed down and got in touch with ourselves, with one another, and with God. We got in touch with what’s real these past days.
That’s the Good News of Christmas. Christmas is real.
The Christmas Gospel says: No more promises and no more waiting. No more wishing and no more hoping. The gift is given. The Word of God, the vibrant living flaming Word, is among us. Fire and wind has taken flesh and blood. Mystery has become a tiny vulnerable child.
The night was silent, when Caesar’s legions covered the known earth and men now forgotten were in charge and a distant emperor taxed the world. In Rome they built him altars—the divine Caesar, the Savior of the world. This age is the age of peace, said Rome, the Roman peace, won by war and by blood and by treaties and by policies and by deals. The world was silent, watching, knowing there was no real peace that could come from a city of stone and a man on a throne.
Then what was Real became flesh.
The night was silent as all things were re-arranged for all time and a child was wrapped in cloths and laid in a feeding trough. Long ago the prophet said, “The donkey knows its manger, but Israel does not know their God.” That old wound was healed. Shepherds gathered and knew the one given to feed and free his people. We are still in shock.
Perhaps it is easier for our weary hearts and our disappointed souls and our perplexed minds to live in our plans and our wishes. But what is Real cries out in Bethlehem’s night. Often we do not recognize the sound. But today we do. The cry is God’s and the one who is Real is God, and at Christmas all is possible and all that was promised is here.
We see his glory. We hear his cry. We awake as if from a troubled dream to see and touch what is truly Real.
archived musings and preachments
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Christmas Masses postposed until Sunday December 28
Friends in God:
I never thought I would be involved in a decision to "cancel Christmas", as stop-action Santa did in that old Rankin-Bass cartoon that I was raised on. But Portland and the immediate area has been flattened by this round of snowstorms with more on the way, and we better observe "tradition" by obeying the Christian tradition of taking care of people's safety and well-being and not asking them to come out in this hazardous weather.
Sunday December 28 will be Saints Peter and Paul's parish observance of the feast of Christmas. The Mass schedule will remain the same as at any Sunday--8, 9:30, and 12 Noon Spanish. The 9:30 AM Mass will be "Carols and High Mass of Christmas" with all the lovely music and liturgy we planned for Christmas Eve.
Christmas is indeed "a season, and not a day", and this year we get to live into that. The culture will have moved into post-Christmas sales and forgetting, but we will gather to break the living Bread of the Word and the Bread of Life, knowing that the living Word has come and taken flesh among us. And we have seen his glory.
And hey...let's be careful out there.
I never thought I would be involved in a decision to "cancel Christmas", as stop-action Santa did in that old Rankin-Bass cartoon that I was raised on. But Portland and the immediate area has been flattened by this round of snowstorms with more on the way, and we better observe "tradition" by obeying the Christian tradition of taking care of people's safety and well-being and not asking them to come out in this hazardous weather.
Sunday December 28 will be Saints Peter and Paul's parish observance of the feast of Christmas. The Mass schedule will remain the same as at any Sunday--8, 9:30, and 12 Noon Spanish. The 9:30 AM Mass will be "Carols and High Mass of Christmas" with all the lovely music and liturgy we planned for Christmas Eve.
Christmas is indeed "a season, and not a day", and this year we get to live into that. The culture will have moved into post-Christmas sales and forgetting, but we will gather to break the living Bread of the Word and the Bread of Life, knowing that the living Word has come and taken flesh among us. And we have seen his glory.
And hey...let's be careful out there.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Candles and snow: 4 Advent
Not for years have we “canceled church.” But snow and ice that reminds me of New York winters when I was a kid, which would result in one day off from school at most, paralyze our dear Northwest where we are used to gentle climates, reliable brown mud on Christmas, lots of water, roses blooming in December. Biblical tales of deserts and the dry imagery of Advent, as well as poetic snowy Christmas scenes, are usually a stretch of the imagination for us. But this year my dry soul is matched by a wholly respectable snowfall mixed with our regional nemesis, freezing rain. So game called on account of weather, and we get to “be the church” where we are, alone or with loved ones, pondering how little control if any we have over weather, or over much of anything when we really think of it.
These days many plans have changed, many things have shifted. A lot of rhetoric over the years in churches like ours says things likes “Slow down, be quiet, it’s Advent!” Since this season carries such a burden of activities, buying, and gaiety whether we feel it or not, often I think the churchly command to add reflection to the Christmas list is one more burden. But it has come to us whether we wish it or not! And I for one am ready to take that as blessing as much as anything else.
But for me this time has not been all soft warm spiritual “fuzzies”, a winter feel-good time with God. As the weather closed in and the cold deepened, something very primitive awoke in my soul, something akin to my ancestors’ souls in impoverished medieval Ireland or ice-bound Alaska or storm-tossed Denmark. I felt myself huddling, wanting to stay warm and safe, with the itch to light something on fire that my bonfire-burning forebears would have understood immediately. The days up until today have shortened and, as writer Susan Cooper eloquently said, “the Dark is rising”, the light of kindly sun fading. As the light became scarce and the snow arose, I found myself fighting “irrational” thoughts—what if the light does not return? What if the snow never stops? And have I prepared well enough for winter? No worries about supplies of peat for fuel or sufficient dried salmon and berries, but will the mini-mart be open to sell milk and will the debit card work? Will the 50 year old oil furnace, taxed to its elderly limit, make it one more year, clearing its venerable throat one more time at 2 AM? And then I feel ashamed, as these thoughts are already privileged. For in our midst are those whose needs are more basic, who are without a roof and walls heated or not, who face unemployment or under-employment or eviction. And the season is a difficult one for many among us whose care is not financial but emotional and spiritual—those who feel the loss of loved ones more keenly at this time, those who are alone.
I found myself without inner resources to draw upon, no “health in me” as the Prayer Book language might say. And so my prayer, when I would shake myself free of brooding and of worry as a dog shakes free a coating of snow, was very basic: “O Lord, come” “O Light, return”. As I write this, the aging baby boomer in me is comforted by the image of Linus saying sagely “That’s what Advent is all about, Charlie Brown.”
And so we sing, “O come o come Emmanuel…” And we are given the wintry grace to mean it.
We missed both the RCL readings today as well as the Lessons and Carols format we had prepared for 9:30. And so if there is a chance amidst what home life demands take a moment to check the Hebrew scriptures—Isaiah 11: 1-9 and Isaiah 7: 10-15. In Christian consciousness Isaiah IS Advent to a powerful degree—it is Isaiah’s majestic poetry and astounding images that are enshrined in Handel’s “Messiah”, and reading the Preface to the first Book of Common Prayer one gets the clear sense that not reading Isaiah through during Advent is what drove Thomas Cramner to the English Reformation! (cf Book of Common Prayer p. 866) The first portion of the book of Isaiah is sometimes called by those with graduate degrees and big student loan debts “First Isaiah”, and is directed at Israel before the great traumatic defeats and deportations (“pre-exilic”). Storm clouds politically and culturally were on the horizon and the prophet speaks both of idolatry as well as the abuse of the poor and vulnerable at the hands of the powerful and wealthy. There is a higher Law and One who sees, says Isaiah. But amidst predictions of military defeat and social chaos there are some of the most astounding images of hope articulated anywhere in the Scriptures. One will come, one will be born, a mysterious Servant both royal and humble. And his birth and reign will bring about a transformation of the earth and of our lives, transformation that we cannot begin to imagine. Lambs and wolves will lie down together, children will play on the nests of poisonous snakes. Isaiah’s hunger and hope is awakened in every generation when we are brought up short by the gaping needs of the poor and of our own hearts, and when we look to this policy and this leader, then that leader, for hope and for meaning and for deliverance from the dead end into which we have driven ourselves. Hope is not a What, it is a Who, and now we are given the gift of knowing that no broken promise, no disillusioned voice, no disappointed dream has the final word. The final Word is God’s and is God, and in the dead of our winter that Word is spoken and takes flesh in our very midst.
The other choice in the Hebrew Scriptures for today was 2 Samuel 7: 1-11; 16, where David, now king, wants to do the decent ancient Palestinian thing for God and build a temple. But it is a strange thing that his court prophet Nathan tells him. Nathan’s waking mind says “Sure!” probably already planning how to decorate the interior and where his own chair will go, “Simple, not too showy, but solid, classic!” But Nathan sleeps and in the dream-time the God of dreams comes and tells Nathan and therefore David a counter-cultural thing. No temple needed, no thank you—I’m not just another Fertile Crescent deity who happens to be on top right now. I’m a pilgrim God and journey with you and with my people. Want to find me? Find me in my promise. Find me in the footsteps of your own journey where I have been with you. Find me in the house that I myself will build, not a split-level Parthenon, but in the living stones of a people. I’m not wood and bricks. I’m flesh and bone and promise and breath.
And just as strange is the dangerously familiar story of a message and a pre-marital pregnancy. I say “dangerous”, because familiarity has surrounded this tale with soft sentimental tones, risking that we know what it’s about before we hear it. But in Luke 1: 26-38 the angel, and not just any angel but one with serious biblical “cred”, Gabriel the messenger, is sent slumming. Gabriel is the messenger of God, and by all rights he should be hanging out in Jerusalem, in the temple, with the high priest and the rest of the professionals who are supposed to be looking and listening to angels as part of their position descriptions. But the stupendous being goes to backwater, “sketchy” Galilee, to some flyspeck called Nazareth, which is Nowhere even if the name suggests it’s a place that holy folk may be from (ex. “Nazarites” like Samson). And in Nowhere Gabe finds Nobody, an unmarried young woman. But this is a story about being surprised—the place that you think is really Somewhere may well be nowhere in particular, and Nowhere may be, in the blink of a divine eye, Everywhere and the only Place which is really happening. And Nobody? This young woman, marginal because of her gender in 1st century Israel and in a marginal heterodox town in a marginal province of the Roman Empire, is the tough-minded Everyone in the time it takes for a divine Being, to whom time means nothing, to stand before her and to speak. Mary, Miriam of the prophet’s name, is addressed with respect by great Gabriel with a prophet’s greeting—“Favored one! God is with you! Do not be afraid!” Not an average day in Nazareth—in a divine blink Mary is not just a prophet but is humanity, the earth as well, who is the first to hear Good News in all its joy and its outrageous promise and yes, its great risk to respectability and to convenience and to keeping things Just As They Are. As my monk-friend in Lafayette is fond of saying, “Mary is not rent-a-womb; she had a choice and she chose!” A poet said that the earth and the cosmos held its breath and waited for the answer. A young girl’s “Yes” made possible the silent explosion of the Event of events, the God who takes flesh and “pitches a tent among us.” And so never again be surprised or outraged by what this God can and will do, because nowhere is just nowhere and no one is nobody and God continues the divine Pilgrimage with God’s all-so-human people, walks with them, suffers with them, will even die with them and by them and will rise and so bring them to resurrection, will complete the journey begun with Mary’s “Yes” and Gabriel’s departure, the angelic mission done.
When the darkness seemed deepest and the snowflakes, tiny and savage-sharp as grains of sand, pelted the windows on Saturday night, primitive instincts and Advent hope met when we lit all four candles on the table Advent wreath. Sometimes a candle makes more sense than the most elegant thought. May Light come as promised but may we never think the Light is anything but an astounding, surprising Gift. May the Light shine forth from our lives into a world locked in a cold winter of many kinds.
This is already a long post, but here’s a pair of quotes that normally I would forego in order to keep my Sunday homilies to their trademark brevity.
One short one from Irenaus, 2nd Century theologian: “God is the glory of humanity. Humankind is the vessel which receives God’s action and all (God’s) wisdom and power.”*
A much longer one, that spoke loudly to me this past week, from a reflection by a UCC minister:
“…During this Christmas season, out of a stable, out of the dry, provincial hills of Bethlehem, comes a cry. It is the cry of a baby and it is the cry of God. It is the cry of every mother who has buried a child; the cry of the worker whose hands lie idle because of another layoff; the cry of the husband whose arms are empty this Christmas after 60 years of companionship; the cry of a body in the death throes of AIDS or cancer or heart disease; the cry of every human heart that has suffered.
“But it is also the cry of God, who says, ‘Enough! Enough of blind eyes and hard hearts, enough of compensation instead of justice, enough of slander instead of truth, brute strength instead of gentle power, hunger instead of fullness!
‘The day is coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will restore the years lost to you, I will give back the withered legs carried in a wheelchair, I will fill those deaf ears with music beyond all imagining, I will satisfy those longings for which you have wept and pummeled your pillow on 10,000 nights.
‘On the longest night of the year, the word will become flesh and dwell among you. You will behold the glory and the truth of that word in Christ Jesus.’”**
*as quoted by J. Robert Wright in Readings For The Daily Office From The Early Church, p. 24
**taken from “The Cruelest Month” by Norman B. Bendroth, from The Christian Century, December 30 2008, p. 10
These days many plans have changed, many things have shifted. A lot of rhetoric over the years in churches like ours says things likes “Slow down, be quiet, it’s Advent!” Since this season carries such a burden of activities, buying, and gaiety whether we feel it or not, often I think the churchly command to add reflection to the Christmas list is one more burden. But it has come to us whether we wish it or not! And I for one am ready to take that as blessing as much as anything else.
But for me this time has not been all soft warm spiritual “fuzzies”, a winter feel-good time with God. As the weather closed in and the cold deepened, something very primitive awoke in my soul, something akin to my ancestors’ souls in impoverished medieval Ireland or ice-bound Alaska or storm-tossed Denmark. I felt myself huddling, wanting to stay warm and safe, with the itch to light something on fire that my bonfire-burning forebears would have understood immediately. The days up until today have shortened and, as writer Susan Cooper eloquently said, “the Dark is rising”, the light of kindly sun fading. As the light became scarce and the snow arose, I found myself fighting “irrational” thoughts—what if the light does not return? What if the snow never stops? And have I prepared well enough for winter? No worries about supplies of peat for fuel or sufficient dried salmon and berries, but will the mini-mart be open to sell milk and will the debit card work? Will the 50 year old oil furnace, taxed to its elderly limit, make it one more year, clearing its venerable throat one more time at 2 AM? And then I feel ashamed, as these thoughts are already privileged. For in our midst are those whose needs are more basic, who are without a roof and walls heated or not, who face unemployment or under-employment or eviction. And the season is a difficult one for many among us whose care is not financial but emotional and spiritual—those who feel the loss of loved ones more keenly at this time, those who are alone.
I found myself without inner resources to draw upon, no “health in me” as the Prayer Book language might say. And so my prayer, when I would shake myself free of brooding and of worry as a dog shakes free a coating of snow, was very basic: “O Lord, come” “O Light, return”. As I write this, the aging baby boomer in me is comforted by the image of Linus saying sagely “That’s what Advent is all about, Charlie Brown.”
And so we sing, “O come o come Emmanuel…” And we are given the wintry grace to mean it.
We missed both the RCL readings today as well as the Lessons and Carols format we had prepared for 9:30. And so if there is a chance amidst what home life demands take a moment to check the Hebrew scriptures—Isaiah 11: 1-9 and Isaiah 7: 10-15. In Christian consciousness Isaiah IS Advent to a powerful degree—it is Isaiah’s majestic poetry and astounding images that are enshrined in Handel’s “Messiah”, and reading the Preface to the first Book of Common Prayer one gets the clear sense that not reading Isaiah through during Advent is what drove Thomas Cramner to the English Reformation! (cf Book of Common Prayer p. 866) The first portion of the book of Isaiah is sometimes called by those with graduate degrees and big student loan debts “First Isaiah”, and is directed at Israel before the great traumatic defeats and deportations (“pre-exilic”). Storm clouds politically and culturally were on the horizon and the prophet speaks both of idolatry as well as the abuse of the poor and vulnerable at the hands of the powerful and wealthy. There is a higher Law and One who sees, says Isaiah. But amidst predictions of military defeat and social chaos there are some of the most astounding images of hope articulated anywhere in the Scriptures. One will come, one will be born, a mysterious Servant both royal and humble. And his birth and reign will bring about a transformation of the earth and of our lives, transformation that we cannot begin to imagine. Lambs and wolves will lie down together, children will play on the nests of poisonous snakes. Isaiah’s hunger and hope is awakened in every generation when we are brought up short by the gaping needs of the poor and of our own hearts, and when we look to this policy and this leader, then that leader, for hope and for meaning and for deliverance from the dead end into which we have driven ourselves. Hope is not a What, it is a Who, and now we are given the gift of knowing that no broken promise, no disillusioned voice, no disappointed dream has the final word. The final Word is God’s and is God, and in the dead of our winter that Word is spoken and takes flesh in our very midst.
The other choice in the Hebrew Scriptures for today was 2 Samuel 7: 1-11; 16, where David, now king, wants to do the decent ancient Palestinian thing for God and build a temple. But it is a strange thing that his court prophet Nathan tells him. Nathan’s waking mind says “Sure!” probably already planning how to decorate the interior and where his own chair will go, “Simple, not too showy, but solid, classic!” But Nathan sleeps and in the dream-time the God of dreams comes and tells Nathan and therefore David a counter-cultural thing. No temple needed, no thank you—I’m not just another Fertile Crescent deity who happens to be on top right now. I’m a pilgrim God and journey with you and with my people. Want to find me? Find me in my promise. Find me in the footsteps of your own journey where I have been with you. Find me in the house that I myself will build, not a split-level Parthenon, but in the living stones of a people. I’m not wood and bricks. I’m flesh and bone and promise and breath.
And just as strange is the dangerously familiar story of a message and a pre-marital pregnancy. I say “dangerous”, because familiarity has surrounded this tale with soft sentimental tones, risking that we know what it’s about before we hear it. But in Luke 1: 26-38 the angel, and not just any angel but one with serious biblical “cred”, Gabriel the messenger, is sent slumming. Gabriel is the messenger of God, and by all rights he should be hanging out in Jerusalem, in the temple, with the high priest and the rest of the professionals who are supposed to be looking and listening to angels as part of their position descriptions. But the stupendous being goes to backwater, “sketchy” Galilee, to some flyspeck called Nazareth, which is Nowhere even if the name suggests it’s a place that holy folk may be from (ex. “Nazarites” like Samson). And in Nowhere Gabe finds Nobody, an unmarried young woman. But this is a story about being surprised—the place that you think is really Somewhere may well be nowhere in particular, and Nowhere may be, in the blink of a divine eye, Everywhere and the only Place which is really happening. And Nobody? This young woman, marginal because of her gender in 1st century Israel and in a marginal heterodox town in a marginal province of the Roman Empire, is the tough-minded Everyone in the time it takes for a divine Being, to whom time means nothing, to stand before her and to speak. Mary, Miriam of the prophet’s name, is addressed with respect by great Gabriel with a prophet’s greeting—“Favored one! God is with you! Do not be afraid!” Not an average day in Nazareth—in a divine blink Mary is not just a prophet but is humanity, the earth as well, who is the first to hear Good News in all its joy and its outrageous promise and yes, its great risk to respectability and to convenience and to keeping things Just As They Are. As my monk-friend in Lafayette is fond of saying, “Mary is not rent-a-womb; she had a choice and she chose!” A poet said that the earth and the cosmos held its breath and waited for the answer. A young girl’s “Yes” made possible the silent explosion of the Event of events, the God who takes flesh and “pitches a tent among us.” And so never again be surprised or outraged by what this God can and will do, because nowhere is just nowhere and no one is nobody and God continues the divine Pilgrimage with God’s all-so-human people, walks with them, suffers with them, will even die with them and by them and will rise and so bring them to resurrection, will complete the journey begun with Mary’s “Yes” and Gabriel’s departure, the angelic mission done.
When the darkness seemed deepest and the snowflakes, tiny and savage-sharp as grains of sand, pelted the windows on Saturday night, primitive instincts and Advent hope met when we lit all four candles on the table Advent wreath. Sometimes a candle makes more sense than the most elegant thought. May Light come as promised but may we never think the Light is anything but an astounding, surprising Gift. May the Light shine forth from our lives into a world locked in a cold winter of many kinds.
This is already a long post, but here’s a pair of quotes that normally I would forego in order to keep my Sunday homilies to their trademark brevity.
One short one from Irenaus, 2nd Century theologian: “God is the glory of humanity. Humankind is the vessel which receives God’s action and all (God’s) wisdom and power.”*
A much longer one, that spoke loudly to me this past week, from a reflection by a UCC minister:
“…During this Christmas season, out of a stable, out of the dry, provincial hills of Bethlehem, comes a cry. It is the cry of a baby and it is the cry of God. It is the cry of every mother who has buried a child; the cry of the worker whose hands lie idle because of another layoff; the cry of the husband whose arms are empty this Christmas after 60 years of companionship; the cry of a body in the death throes of AIDS or cancer or heart disease; the cry of every human heart that has suffered.
“But it is also the cry of God, who says, ‘Enough! Enough of blind eyes and hard hearts, enough of compensation instead of justice, enough of slander instead of truth, brute strength instead of gentle power, hunger instead of fullness!
‘The day is coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will restore the years lost to you, I will give back the withered legs carried in a wheelchair, I will fill those deaf ears with music beyond all imagining, I will satisfy those longings for which you have wept and pummeled your pillow on 10,000 nights.
‘On the longest night of the year, the word will become flesh and dwell among you. You will behold the glory and the truth of that word in Christ Jesus.’”**
*as quoted by J. Robert Wright in Readings For The Daily Office From The Early Church, p. 24
**taken from “The Cruelest Month” by Norman B. Bendroth, from The Christian Century, December 30 2008, p. 10
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Mass and activities canceled Sunday Dec 21, 4 Advent
Friends in God--due to unusually severe winter weather, we shall not open the church building for Mass or other activities Sunday December 21, 4 Advent. We fully plan to be open and offering Mass on Christmas Eve (10:30 PM) and Christmas Day (10:00 AM). Check this 'blog tomorrow late morning for a sermon reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. And check the 'blog for updates on weather conditions and how they may impact church activities.
The Collect for this Sunday is particularly beautiful...
"Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that at his coming our Lord Jesus Christ may find in us a mansion prepared for himself..."
Stay safe and warm, and pray for those among us who suffer on account of the weather.
The Collect for this Sunday is particularly beautiful...
"Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that at his coming our Lord Jesus Christ may find in us a mansion prepared for himself..."
Stay safe and warm, and pray for those among us who suffer on account of the weather.
Saturday 12/20 greening party canceled
Friends: the Saturday 12/20 greens-making party scheduled is canceled due to snow. Please check this 'blog for updates in church schedule, including Sunday AM Mass which is in doubt due to predictions of freezing rain.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Brigid's Table meal cancelled
Friends in God: Due to both present conditions as well as predictions for the next 24 hours, we have reluctantly cancelled Brigid's Table Christmas meal. Many thanks to all who have donated generously or who intended to volunteer.
Please check back on this 'blog for updates on parish service or activity schedules. And hey! Let's be careful out there! And keep in mind and prayer those who suffer most from this weather.
Please check back on this 'blog for updates on parish service or activity schedules. And hey! Let's be careful out there! And keep in mind and prayer those who suffer most from this weather.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Third Sunday in Advent - Fr. Phil
THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT
December 14, 2008
Ss. Peter & Paul – 8 A.M.
+++++
Today, the third Sunday in the season of Advent, is known in some places, like this one, as “Gaudete Sunday.” The Latin is “Rejoice” and comes from the beginning word of the Introit – or introduction – to the Latin Mass of this Sunday: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4).
At the risk of being perceived as quite mad – today’s weather [at least predicted by meteorologists as treacherous], the market, the auto-industry, the Governor of Illinois, the cheating on Wall Street, the loss of jobs, the dismal economic outlook – I say to you: there is cause for great rejoicing today. Because whether you or I feel like it or not, the joy of God is with us, and always with us. We really have nothing to do with that joy, other than to find it at times in the most unlikely places.
So, what does it mean to rejoice? It seems rather obvious. But things need sorting out in the harried euphoria of this season, when we sing about joy but many face staggering depths of depression. Our culture generates a kind of frenzy, and the church can do some sorting out.
We may observe that joy spoken of here is not the same as pleasure, nor
satisfaction, nor even the emotional high we call happiness. It is rather a steady assurance of the resolution of all kinds of things that don’t seem to “fit”, an assurance that those contradictions may be blown off by what is about to happen. This is not delight in possession of something, but in passionate anticipation for what is not yet.
We may see that joy is not a mark of our culture. We can discern that by watching folks, especially in this season in the pushing and shoving – even the crushing-to-death – of a shopping mall or any other place where people have their guards down. Most people look bored or distracted or just plain tired. And boredom, distraction, and fatigue are not helpful conditions for joy. Joy is an active enterprise linked with dance and song, not an emotion of the bored or exhausted. So, our texts today are addressed to a social setting in which real joy is a rare practice among us.
The community of faith, a minority community, is invited to the scandalous, subversive activity of joy. This community is authorized to do something the dominant culture is unable or unwilling to do. While the large community prefers its sorry weariness, this community is invited to an alternative way in the world. Joy, genuine Christian joy, undermines frantic activity. It shakes us free from the world that controls us by keeping us tired. And the ground for this alternative action is that something special, not yet widely known in the world, has been disclosed to us. There is announced to us a fundamental transformation of reality. That is the reason for joy. That’s really the center of the Gospel, what John announced, what the path was to be made straight for.
And on this Sunday nearest the 38th anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the church of God, it is what makes me joyful. Being an innate pessimist and a “regretter,” I now am invited to look, in the spirit of Gaudete, at what is “good and beautiful and true” in those 38 years. Like John the Forerunner, I have tried to make the path straight for those who followed me in the various places I was called upon to serve God and the Church. While it is sad to hear that one little mission closed its doors, and another parish where I served as assisting priest and musician suffered an arson fire, and yet another has “joined the Cone” of disenchanted former Episcopalians, I rejoice that another is doing creative outreach when at one time there was practically none. Another now houses a growing Hispanic mission, alongside the “Anglo” one; my last parish before coming to Oregon is in an interim place now with fine, talented lay people holding forth in the absence of clerical leadership; and Ascension Parish here in Portland continues with a fine music program inaugurated by the musician I hired and encouraged, and their outreach has expanded, and this in a place where one of my predecessors had put it down huffily.
So, in the words of our epistle-reading today, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
[The preacher, Fr. Phillip, is indebted to Walter Brueggemann for his notes in the Advent-Christmas portion of Proclamation 3, Series B, published by Fortress Press, 1984.]
December 14, 2008
Ss. Peter & Paul – 8 A.M.
+++++
Today, the third Sunday in the season of Advent, is known in some places, like this one, as “Gaudete Sunday.” The Latin is “Rejoice” and comes from the beginning word of the Introit – or introduction – to the Latin Mass of this Sunday: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4).
At the risk of being perceived as quite mad – today’s weather [at least predicted by meteorologists as treacherous], the market, the auto-industry, the Governor of Illinois, the cheating on Wall Street, the loss of jobs, the dismal economic outlook – I say to you: there is cause for great rejoicing today. Because whether you or I feel like it or not, the joy of God is with us, and always with us. We really have nothing to do with that joy, other than to find it at times in the most unlikely places.
So, what does it mean to rejoice? It seems rather obvious. But things need sorting out in the harried euphoria of this season, when we sing about joy but many face staggering depths of depression. Our culture generates a kind of frenzy, and the church can do some sorting out.
We may observe that joy spoken of here is not the same as pleasure, nor
satisfaction, nor even the emotional high we call happiness. It is rather a steady assurance of the resolution of all kinds of things that don’t seem to “fit”, an assurance that those contradictions may be blown off by what is about to happen. This is not delight in possession of something, but in passionate anticipation for what is not yet.
We may see that joy is not a mark of our culture. We can discern that by watching folks, especially in this season in the pushing and shoving – even the crushing-to-death – of a shopping mall or any other place where people have their guards down. Most people look bored or distracted or just plain tired. And boredom, distraction, and fatigue are not helpful conditions for joy. Joy is an active enterprise linked with dance and song, not an emotion of the bored or exhausted. So, our texts today are addressed to a social setting in which real joy is a rare practice among us.
The community of faith, a minority community, is invited to the scandalous, subversive activity of joy. This community is authorized to do something the dominant culture is unable or unwilling to do. While the large community prefers its sorry weariness, this community is invited to an alternative way in the world. Joy, genuine Christian joy, undermines frantic activity. It shakes us free from the world that controls us by keeping us tired. And the ground for this alternative action is that something special, not yet widely known in the world, has been disclosed to us. There is announced to us a fundamental transformation of reality. That is the reason for joy. That’s really the center of the Gospel, what John announced, what the path was to be made straight for.
And on this Sunday nearest the 38th anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the church of God, it is what makes me joyful. Being an innate pessimist and a “regretter,” I now am invited to look, in the spirit of Gaudete, at what is “good and beautiful and true” in those 38 years. Like John the Forerunner, I have tried to make the path straight for those who followed me in the various places I was called upon to serve God and the Church. While it is sad to hear that one little mission closed its doors, and another parish where I served as assisting priest and musician suffered an arson fire, and yet another has “joined the Cone” of disenchanted former Episcopalians, I rejoice that another is doing creative outreach when at one time there was practically none. Another now houses a growing Hispanic mission, alongside the “Anglo” one; my last parish before coming to Oregon is in an interim place now with fine, talented lay people holding forth in the absence of clerical leadership; and Ascension Parish here in Portland continues with a fine music program inaugurated by the musician I hired and encouraged, and their outreach has expanded, and this in a place where one of my predecessors had put it down huffily.
So, in the words of our epistle-reading today, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
[The preacher, Fr. Phillip, is indebted to Walter Brueggemann for his notes in the Advent-Christmas portion of Proclamation 3, Series B, published by Fortress Press, 1984.]
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Feel the gift
3 Advent B 2008
(Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11; Canticle 15; 1 Thess 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28)
Sometimes we just can’t believe in a gift.
My oldest brother Hank was born in 1939 and came of age during World War II. Times were hard even though there was work for my father. The babies kept coming, and fear in the news went hand-in-hand with ration cards and shortages.
For Christmas each kid got to ask for one special gift. One year Hank’s wish was for a real leather football. That was a big deal on my father’s salary. Christmas Eve came and Hank, about age 7, was in bad shape. It took several tries to get Hank to sleep. Finally Mom and Dad had some space to get things arranged in the living room. In the midst of exhausted Christmas prep, my parents heard a sound. Looking up, they saw what they described as a pale ghost of a 7 year old boy, staring and swaying, sound asleep, muttering something about a football. In desperation Mom and Dad let him feel the football through the wrapping paper. Only then could they coax Hank back into bed.
As I recall Hank had no memory of waking up and feeling that football on Christmas Day. But I guess when he was asleep and lost in his anxiety, feeling was believing.
Feeling is believing today. Today we wake up from our anxiety and doubt. Today on 3 Advent we reach out to touch that which is truly real.
Roses can be touched. Joy can be touched. Beneath the paper-thin veneer of our lives today we feel the solid shape of the gift to be given to us, the Christ, the gift who is already here.
Isaiah sung about it. The promised one is here among us, and he is here to release prisoners, speak good news to the poor, to lift up any who are bowed down. He is coming, but in God’s topsy-turvy way of doing things he is already here. He is here, in Sacrament and Word, in our flesh and lives. He is here when we give him our hands and minds to allow him to do his liberating, healing work. The poor and the captives and the mourners and those who cry out are not forgotten. They are heard, we are heard, and salvation is at work in our midst.
Mary sung about it, in that wonderful startling song where she repeats Isaiah’s promises and makes them deeper and more immediate. As she sung her song she felt the solid life of Jesus within her, moving, awakening, here and yet to come.
And John the Wild Man brings it. Today again we meet John, the Wild Man of the desert. He speaks in the old way that God always spoke, through the lips and the lives of wild men and wild women who stormed out of the desert with their faces and eyes aflame. He speaks of one who is to come. He will himself be the living Bath that will strip away our old life and give us a Life that is always new. Today we welcome the Wild Man of God, because he tells us that the promises of God are wild and untamed, and to follow the way of the Gospel is to live a wild life free in the very wind of God.
Is this life possible and real? Or is it just Advent poetry spoken by one of the more eccentric Episcopal clergy in town? Try and see. Feel the gift beneath the thin paper of what we think of as our lives. Feel the new life awakening in our own flesh and in our midst.
Today claim the gift that is given us by God.
(Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11; Canticle 15; 1 Thess 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28)
Sometimes we just can’t believe in a gift.
My oldest brother Hank was born in 1939 and came of age during World War II. Times were hard even though there was work for my father. The babies kept coming, and fear in the news went hand-in-hand with ration cards and shortages.
For Christmas each kid got to ask for one special gift. One year Hank’s wish was for a real leather football. That was a big deal on my father’s salary. Christmas Eve came and Hank, about age 7, was in bad shape. It took several tries to get Hank to sleep. Finally Mom and Dad had some space to get things arranged in the living room. In the midst of exhausted Christmas prep, my parents heard a sound. Looking up, they saw what they described as a pale ghost of a 7 year old boy, staring and swaying, sound asleep, muttering something about a football. In desperation Mom and Dad let him feel the football through the wrapping paper. Only then could they coax Hank back into bed.
As I recall Hank had no memory of waking up and feeling that football on Christmas Day. But I guess when he was asleep and lost in his anxiety, feeling was believing.
Feeling is believing today. Today we wake up from our anxiety and doubt. Today on 3 Advent we reach out to touch that which is truly real.
Roses can be touched. Joy can be touched. Beneath the paper-thin veneer of our lives today we feel the solid shape of the gift to be given to us, the Christ, the gift who is already here.
Isaiah sung about it. The promised one is here among us, and he is here to release prisoners, speak good news to the poor, to lift up any who are bowed down. He is coming, but in God’s topsy-turvy way of doing things he is already here. He is here, in Sacrament and Word, in our flesh and lives. He is here when we give him our hands and minds to allow him to do his liberating, healing work. The poor and the captives and the mourners and those who cry out are not forgotten. They are heard, we are heard, and salvation is at work in our midst.
Mary sung about it, in that wonderful startling song where she repeats Isaiah’s promises and makes them deeper and more immediate. As she sung her song she felt the solid life of Jesus within her, moving, awakening, here and yet to come.
And John the Wild Man brings it. Today again we meet John, the Wild Man of the desert. He speaks in the old way that God always spoke, through the lips and the lives of wild men and wild women who stormed out of the desert with their faces and eyes aflame. He speaks of one who is to come. He will himself be the living Bath that will strip away our old life and give us a Life that is always new. Today we welcome the Wild Man of God, because he tells us that the promises of God are wild and untamed, and to follow the way of the Gospel is to live a wild life free in the very wind of God.
Is this life possible and real? Or is it just Advent poetry spoken by one of the more eccentric Episcopal clergy in town? Try and see. Feel the gift beneath the thin paper of what we think of as our lives. Feel the new life awakening in our own flesh and in our midst.
Today claim the gift that is given us by God.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
That's Advent
1 Advent B 2008
(Isaiah 64: 1-9; Ps 80: 1-7, 16-18; 1 Cor 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 24-37)
Advent makes me remember stories from when I was young.
They’re not tales of snow and Red Ryder BB guns. The stories I remember are edgy, moments of fear and of truth.
One tale I remember each Advent was when my best buddy and I played in the forbidden abandoned car. The doors locked, and we could not open them ourselves. My big brother Rick heard our seven-year old cries and tore the door open with brute teenaged force. Trapped in the hot dusty car in July, knowing we’d gotten ourselves in there, helpless to open the doors ourselves—that’s Advent. Someone strong coming to save, the sound of that door tearing open, the rush of cool air and the feel of the free earth as we tumbled out free—that’s Advent.
The other tale I remember was when another brother, his friend, and I were caught out on Long Island Sound with the steep waves that built effortlessly with a northeast wind. We had to beat it through miles of open water before heaving to off the harbor mouth. We finally made the one risky turn and rode the breakers past the savage jetties, coasting slowly to a stop on the still waters of the protected harbor—that’s Advent.
Advent is when I realize how I’ve run myself into tight spots like the inside of an abandoned car. Advent is when I realize I need to be brought into a safe harbor. Advent is when I have deeply mixed feelings about what the larger culture calls “the holiday season.” I understand Charlie Brown who, in the vintage cartoon, takes a long look at all the Christmas busyness, sighs and says “Rats.” He’s looking for something real, something worthy of his trust and his joy. He’s not settling for something cheap.
Good friends in God, let’s not settle for anything cheap. The good news is, we do not have to. And we cannot afford to. We don’t have time. Today, Jesus in his teaching ends with one of the clearest commands in the Gospels—“stay awake.”
I wake up and realize that I’ve been expecting the wrong things from my life and from God. I’ve been waiting for complete financial and professional security, for “enough money.” And as time marches on, I’ve been waiting for assurance that I really will not begin to slowly acquire medical issues, that I’ll live nearly forever, completely healthy.
And then I wonder why I sigh and say “Rats.”
Save me God from my messed-up desires. Save me for thinking, for even a moment, that I am not like every other human being on this earth. Save me from thinking and acting like I can control that which cannot be controlled. A storm on open water is less treacherous than the storm I create in my own conflicted heart. An abandoned car is less of a trap than the trap I make for myself.
“Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”
In the darkening of the year, Isaiah’s mighty voice rolls out with the deepest cries of our hearts. Come, you our God who has been hidden in the confusion of our world and in our lives. Come, find us where we have hidden ourselves from you and from our own deepest truth. Come, tear open all doors of despair and darkness and gloom, come bring us to safe harbor. Come, make our souls boil with new hope. You are faithful, do this for us. You are wondrous, dazzle us with your wonders. Heal, forgive, raise to new life, as you have done for your faithful people of old, do now for us for we are yours. Spin us again on the pottery-wheel of your creative love. Re-make us as only you know how.
(Isaiah 64: 1-9; Ps 80: 1-7, 16-18; 1 Cor 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 24-37)
Advent makes me remember stories from when I was young.
They’re not tales of snow and Red Ryder BB guns. The stories I remember are edgy, moments of fear and of truth.
One tale I remember each Advent was when my best buddy and I played in the forbidden abandoned car. The doors locked, and we could not open them ourselves. My big brother Rick heard our seven-year old cries and tore the door open with brute teenaged force. Trapped in the hot dusty car in July, knowing we’d gotten ourselves in there, helpless to open the doors ourselves—that’s Advent. Someone strong coming to save, the sound of that door tearing open, the rush of cool air and the feel of the free earth as we tumbled out free—that’s Advent.
The other tale I remember was when another brother, his friend, and I were caught out on Long Island Sound with the steep waves that built effortlessly with a northeast wind. We had to beat it through miles of open water before heaving to off the harbor mouth. We finally made the one risky turn and rode the breakers past the savage jetties, coasting slowly to a stop on the still waters of the protected harbor—that’s Advent.
Advent is when I realize how I’ve run myself into tight spots like the inside of an abandoned car. Advent is when I realize I need to be brought into a safe harbor. Advent is when I have deeply mixed feelings about what the larger culture calls “the holiday season.” I understand Charlie Brown who, in the vintage cartoon, takes a long look at all the Christmas busyness, sighs and says “Rats.” He’s looking for something real, something worthy of his trust and his joy. He’s not settling for something cheap.
Good friends in God, let’s not settle for anything cheap. The good news is, we do not have to. And we cannot afford to. We don’t have time. Today, Jesus in his teaching ends with one of the clearest commands in the Gospels—“stay awake.”
I wake up and realize that I’ve been expecting the wrong things from my life and from God. I’ve been waiting for complete financial and professional security, for “enough money.” And as time marches on, I’ve been waiting for assurance that I really will not begin to slowly acquire medical issues, that I’ll live nearly forever, completely healthy.
And then I wonder why I sigh and say “Rats.”
Save me God from my messed-up desires. Save me for thinking, for even a moment, that I am not like every other human being on this earth. Save me from thinking and acting like I can control that which cannot be controlled. A storm on open water is less treacherous than the storm I create in my own conflicted heart. An abandoned car is less of a trap than the trap I make for myself.
“Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”
In the darkening of the year, Isaiah’s mighty voice rolls out with the deepest cries of our hearts. Come, you our God who has been hidden in the confusion of our world and in our lives. Come, find us where we have hidden ourselves from you and from our own deepest truth. Come, tear open all doors of despair and darkness and gloom, come bring us to safe harbor. Come, make our souls boil with new hope. You are faithful, do this for us. You are wondrous, dazzle us with your wonders. Heal, forgive, raise to new life, as you have done for your faithful people of old, do now for us for we are yours. Spin us again on the pottery-wheel of your creative love. Re-make us as only you know how.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Find and Seek
Christ the King 2008
(Ezek 34: 11-16, 20-24; Ps 100; Eph 1: 15-23; Mt 25: 31-46)
Butch the Lutheran is pastor of a church seven blocks from here. I asked him once, before entering his church to celebrate another great feast, what that feast meant. Butch the Lutheran gave me a long level look. He said, “To seek out the lost.”
Today is Christ the King, a different feast. But seeking out the lost is on the agenda again. Today we hear in the Hebrew Scripture that God will search for the lost, will seek them out, will find them wherever they have gone. I’m glad, because I get lost a lot. I get lost in my own fears, my own anger and impatience, my own lack of faith and trust. What should be most precious to me gets lost too—my call as a baptized Christian, my call as a priest, my flock, my family and friends. Above all my God gets lost. I get lost in my false self and lose sight of the God who is always before me, about me, within me.
Today, on the feast of Christ the King, we are all invited to approach the altar because we’re glad we’ve been found. We’re glad that there is a patient and passionate God who seeks us out in whatever blind alley we’ve run into, who reaches into every corner and dead-end we’re wandered into. We are the scattered who are gathered together. We are the lost who are found.
Ironically, we’re found first by the one for whom we were searching. Ephesians says “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…”
We have been found by God, not just to stay quietly at home, but so we may exult, we may search further, we may grow and deepen. Another wise young friend of mine says that her call, and the call of her church, is “to love and explore Christ.”
We are those who have been found by God. We are those whose desire has been kindled to “love and explore Christ.” And I pray that we become more deeply just this sort of community—grateful that we have been found, eager to love and explore Jesus Christ, Christ whose feast proclaims him King.
But will we know this King when we meet him?
Today’s Gospel tells us that all people have one thing in common. None of us recognize the King when we meet him. This story tells of radical incarnation—the King whom we proclaim is truly within the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the imprisoned, those on the edge. The King of the Gospel is the hidden King—hidden within the flesh of those wounded and in greatest need.
Thank the hidden King that we have been found. Thank the hidden King that our desire and longing has been kindled to seek his face. And thank God that the hidden King has given us this clue, this tale of where he may be found. Know him who has first known us. Seek him who has searched for us in every corner in which we have hidden. See and welcome him within people whose pain and struggle are his throne and his crown.
Welcome today, as our pledges and offerings commit ourselves to seek and serve the hidden King who has first found us and gathered us here. Welcome, as each of us brings the unique gift of our lives to help us all, all Saints Peter and Paul, become more deeply who we truly are.
(Ezek 34: 11-16, 20-24; Ps 100; Eph 1: 15-23; Mt 25: 31-46)
Butch the Lutheran is pastor of a church seven blocks from here. I asked him once, before entering his church to celebrate another great feast, what that feast meant. Butch the Lutheran gave me a long level look. He said, “To seek out the lost.”
Today is Christ the King, a different feast. But seeking out the lost is on the agenda again. Today we hear in the Hebrew Scripture that God will search for the lost, will seek them out, will find them wherever they have gone. I’m glad, because I get lost a lot. I get lost in my own fears, my own anger and impatience, my own lack of faith and trust. What should be most precious to me gets lost too—my call as a baptized Christian, my call as a priest, my flock, my family and friends. Above all my God gets lost. I get lost in my false self and lose sight of the God who is always before me, about me, within me.
Today, on the feast of Christ the King, we are all invited to approach the altar because we’re glad we’ve been found. We’re glad that there is a patient and passionate God who seeks us out in whatever blind alley we’ve run into, who reaches into every corner and dead-end we’re wandered into. We are the scattered who are gathered together. We are the lost who are found.
Ironically, we’re found first by the one for whom we were searching. Ephesians says “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…”
We have been found by God, not just to stay quietly at home, but so we may exult, we may search further, we may grow and deepen. Another wise young friend of mine says that her call, and the call of her church, is “to love and explore Christ.”
We are those who have been found by God. We are those whose desire has been kindled to “love and explore Christ.” And I pray that we become more deeply just this sort of community—grateful that we have been found, eager to love and explore Jesus Christ, Christ whose feast proclaims him King.
But will we know this King when we meet him?
Today’s Gospel tells us that all people have one thing in common. None of us recognize the King when we meet him. This story tells of radical incarnation—the King whom we proclaim is truly within the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the imprisoned, those on the edge. The King of the Gospel is the hidden King—hidden within the flesh of those wounded and in greatest need.
Thank the hidden King that we have been found. Thank the hidden King that our desire and longing has been kindled to seek his face. And thank God that the hidden King has given us this clue, this tale of where he may be found. Know him who has first known us. Seek him who has searched for us in every corner in which we have hidden. See and welcome him within people whose pain and struggle are his throne and his crown.
Welcome today, as our pledges and offerings commit ourselves to seek and serve the hidden King who has first found us and gathered us here. Welcome, as each of us brings the unique gift of our lives to help us all, all Saints Peter and Paul, become more deeply who we truly are.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Rat's Savings Plan
Proper 28 A 2008
(Judges 4: 1-7; Ps 123; 1 Thess 5: 1-11; Mt 25: 14-30)
I turned to the Truth section of the Oregonian yesterday for some financial news.
The Truth section is commonly called the comics. In one of my favorite strips, “Pearls Before Swine”, the Goat character, a bit of a yuppie who keeps his affairs neat and tidy, looks distressed. The Goat says to cynical Rat, “I put all my retirement money into an IRA five years ago and today I have less money than I started with.” Rat tells him he should have put his cash into a UTM like him. “A UTM?” “Yes, Under The Mattress” Goat looks even worse while Rat shouts, “I’m a financial guru!”
Rat’s UTM plan looks pretty smart these days. But the UTM plan doesn’t sit well with today’s Gospel. Or does it?
“A man” entrusts his property to his servants and leaves town. The story does not say that he left any instruction. Two of the servants do some trading, and when the man comes back they give him what they’ve managed to make. The third uses Rat’s UTM scheme and buries the cash. Maybe olive oil markets were tanking that year, who knows? The servant gives all the money back, no skimming off the top. This is another story that always struck me as uncomfortable and unfair. The guy didn’t LOSE anything, so why is he so upset? And I wonder what the owner would have said if the servants had made some bad investments, put the money in the sub-prime mortgage market, and lost it all? The story doesn’t say.
But I suggest that this story is about God’s economy. In times of fear and stress is makes more clear who different the economy of the reign of God is from the beast that the news and our hopes and fears call “the economy.”
In the world’s eyes, “the economy” is a faceless force that we may manipulate to our personal good like the “indolent rich” of today’s Psalm. O it is a force before which we feel powerless, as if it were a train coming down a tunnel. It may make us feel secure and powerful, perhaps even Godlike, or it scares us no end. In hard times it makes the Rat’s savings plan of UTM look wise.
But here, I suggest, is the economy of God according to this tale.
In the realm of God, nothing is impersonal. Anything we are given, money as well as our very lives and the time in which to live them, is given not by a What but by a Whom. All that we think of as “ours” is given in trust, without step-by-step instructions, by the owner.
We may do what we will. But fear and anxiety is not a good game plan. The UTM plan imprints our own fear and perhaps our own anger upon the good world and the good God who gives it. We may even find ourselves telling God by our actions who we think God is—“a hard man.”
Everything we have been given expresses who the owner is and who we are as a result. Our money as well as our very lives is meant to express the growth and increase, what one saint called the “greening power of God.” I don’t think she meant the green of a $20 dollar bill. I think she meant the green of new life for the world, for the community of God, for the poor, and for the greening power of God in our own souls.
Who gives us all that we have? What is that person like? Who do we wish to be in this world that is given in generous trust? The owner, after all, does come back to ask us how things have gone.
Maybe Rat and his UTM plan are not so wise after all.
(Judges 4: 1-7; Ps 123; 1 Thess 5: 1-11; Mt 25: 14-30)
I turned to the Truth section of the Oregonian yesterday for some financial news.
The Truth section is commonly called the comics. In one of my favorite strips, “Pearls Before Swine”, the Goat character, a bit of a yuppie who keeps his affairs neat and tidy, looks distressed. The Goat says to cynical Rat, “I put all my retirement money into an IRA five years ago and today I have less money than I started with.” Rat tells him he should have put his cash into a UTM like him. “A UTM?” “Yes, Under The Mattress” Goat looks even worse while Rat shouts, “I’m a financial guru!”
Rat’s UTM plan looks pretty smart these days. But the UTM plan doesn’t sit well with today’s Gospel. Or does it?
“A man” entrusts his property to his servants and leaves town. The story does not say that he left any instruction. Two of the servants do some trading, and when the man comes back they give him what they’ve managed to make. The third uses Rat’s UTM scheme and buries the cash. Maybe olive oil markets were tanking that year, who knows? The servant gives all the money back, no skimming off the top. This is another story that always struck me as uncomfortable and unfair. The guy didn’t LOSE anything, so why is he so upset? And I wonder what the owner would have said if the servants had made some bad investments, put the money in the sub-prime mortgage market, and lost it all? The story doesn’t say.
But I suggest that this story is about God’s economy. In times of fear and stress is makes more clear who different the economy of the reign of God is from the beast that the news and our hopes and fears call “the economy.”
In the world’s eyes, “the economy” is a faceless force that we may manipulate to our personal good like the “indolent rich” of today’s Psalm. O it is a force before which we feel powerless, as if it were a train coming down a tunnel. It may make us feel secure and powerful, perhaps even Godlike, or it scares us no end. In hard times it makes the Rat’s savings plan of UTM look wise.
But here, I suggest, is the economy of God according to this tale.
In the realm of God, nothing is impersonal. Anything we are given, money as well as our very lives and the time in which to live them, is given not by a What but by a Whom. All that we think of as “ours” is given in trust, without step-by-step instructions, by the owner.
We may do what we will. But fear and anxiety is not a good game plan. The UTM plan imprints our own fear and perhaps our own anger upon the good world and the good God who gives it. We may even find ourselves telling God by our actions who we think God is—“a hard man.”
Everything we have been given expresses who the owner is and who we are as a result. Our money as well as our very lives is meant to express the growth and increase, what one saint called the “greening power of God.” I don’t think she meant the green of a $20 dollar bill. I think she meant the green of new life for the world, for the community of God, for the poor, and for the greening power of God in our own souls.
Who gives us all that we have? What is that person like? Who do we wish to be in this world that is given in generous trust? The owner, after all, does come back to ask us how things have gone.
Maybe Rat and his UTM plan are not so wise after all.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Wake up!
Proper 27 A 2008
(Wisdom 6: 17-20; Ps 70; 1 Thess 4: 13-18; Mt 25: 1-13)
“Breaking up is hard to do.” Waking up is even harder.
There used to be Tom Peterson furniture commercials, on TV about 11 PM. Tom literally knocked on the inside of your TV screen. “Wake up!” he’d shout. You may not have bought the furniture, but you remembered the commercials.
Today the church is the glass screen and the Bible is Tom Peterson. We hear Jesus repeating one of the most common “Biblical values,” far more common than anything the mega-culture shouts to us as it uses and misuses that term. The value is simply this: “Wake up!”
Today ten young women are part of a wedding party. Their job is to wait for the bridegroom, and then bring him into the celebration. They carry oil lamps, part of the ritual and also needed since the bridegroom may come after dark. They wait. They fall asleep.
When we wait, we fall asleep, in many ways. Yesterday I drove back from Salem after two days straight of church meetings. That alone would make a monkey on caffeine drowsy. On top of that, I stayed out til the wee hours with a group of younger people, church leaders who had a lot to say about their lives, the church, and the problems and hope they see. That was worth staying awake for. God is doing new things among us, and I hope I have the trust and courage to see God at work and support those in whom God is working. But the whole ordeal was too much for my middle-aged constitution, and I crashed when I came home.
We fall asleep when we are weary. We fall asleep when we are discouraged. No one can stay on the mountaintop for ever, no one can stay in the giddy rush of spiritual or emotional elation. We come down, into the reality of our lives, the seeming ordinariness or even boredom of our days. We fall asleep spiritually when faced with too much challenge or too much tension or too much disillusion. It’s human to fall asleep. Jesus seems to know that.
But he also tells us that the time will come to wake up. Hope will dawn, joy will dawn. Suddenly change and fulfillment and healing will seem possible, within grasp. “Wake up!”
But when we wake up, we’d better have enough oil for our lamps.
Today’s Gospel story always bothered me a little. I was raised to always share. Break the cookie in half, share the sandwich, share a lick of your ice cream. The young women who wouldn’t share their oil always struck me as selfish.
But I think the world of this Gospel says that our light is our own responsibility. We cannot carry someone else’s spiritual life. No one can seek God for us, no one can drink in wisdom and light for us. Our search is our own. It may seem cruel, but it is what it is.
Where can we look for fuel and light? The first reading holds the key. Ask for Wisdom—she is generous and always on hand. But we must ask and we must seek. Seek Scripture and prayer, worship and sacrament, service and a healthy spiritual discipline, and just listening, listening for the still small voice of God. Live as a partner of God’s, generous and open. In Gospel-life, we only get to keep what we give. Live closed and asleep both, and nothing but a cold dry wick on the lamp will remain. Holy Wisdom wants to flow into us and through us to the world. Ask Lady Wisdom for light and illumination, ask her now, and she will come, she will meet us, and when we do wake up we’ll have enough oil to light our way. We’ll even have enough oil to light the way for Christ.
When I wake up, will God find enough oil in me to strike a light?
(Wisdom 6: 17-20; Ps 70; 1 Thess 4: 13-18; Mt 25: 1-13)
“Breaking up is hard to do.” Waking up is even harder.
There used to be Tom Peterson furniture commercials, on TV about 11 PM. Tom literally knocked on the inside of your TV screen. “Wake up!” he’d shout. You may not have bought the furniture, but you remembered the commercials.
Today the church is the glass screen and the Bible is Tom Peterson. We hear Jesus repeating one of the most common “Biblical values,” far more common than anything the mega-culture shouts to us as it uses and misuses that term. The value is simply this: “Wake up!”
Today ten young women are part of a wedding party. Their job is to wait for the bridegroom, and then bring him into the celebration. They carry oil lamps, part of the ritual and also needed since the bridegroom may come after dark. They wait. They fall asleep.
When we wait, we fall asleep, in many ways. Yesterday I drove back from Salem after two days straight of church meetings. That alone would make a monkey on caffeine drowsy. On top of that, I stayed out til the wee hours with a group of younger people, church leaders who had a lot to say about their lives, the church, and the problems and hope they see. That was worth staying awake for. God is doing new things among us, and I hope I have the trust and courage to see God at work and support those in whom God is working. But the whole ordeal was too much for my middle-aged constitution, and I crashed when I came home.
We fall asleep when we are weary. We fall asleep when we are discouraged. No one can stay on the mountaintop for ever, no one can stay in the giddy rush of spiritual or emotional elation. We come down, into the reality of our lives, the seeming ordinariness or even boredom of our days. We fall asleep spiritually when faced with too much challenge or too much tension or too much disillusion. It’s human to fall asleep. Jesus seems to know that.
But he also tells us that the time will come to wake up. Hope will dawn, joy will dawn. Suddenly change and fulfillment and healing will seem possible, within grasp. “Wake up!”
But when we wake up, we’d better have enough oil for our lamps.
Today’s Gospel story always bothered me a little. I was raised to always share. Break the cookie in half, share the sandwich, share a lick of your ice cream. The young women who wouldn’t share their oil always struck me as selfish.
But I think the world of this Gospel says that our light is our own responsibility. We cannot carry someone else’s spiritual life. No one can seek God for us, no one can drink in wisdom and light for us. Our search is our own. It may seem cruel, but it is what it is.
Where can we look for fuel and light? The first reading holds the key. Ask for Wisdom—she is generous and always on hand. But we must ask and we must seek. Seek Scripture and prayer, worship and sacrament, service and a healthy spiritual discipline, and just listening, listening for the still small voice of God. Live as a partner of God’s, generous and open. In Gospel-life, we only get to keep what we give. Live closed and asleep both, and nothing but a cold dry wick on the lamp will remain. Holy Wisdom wants to flow into us and through us to the world. Ask Lady Wisdom for light and illumination, ask her now, and she will come, she will meet us, and when we do wake up we’ll have enough oil to light our way. We’ll even have enough oil to light the way for Christ.
When I wake up, will God find enough oil in me to strike a light?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Go much higher
All Saints A 2008
(Rev 7: 9-17; Ps 34: 1-10, 22; 1 John 3: 1-3; Mt 5: 1-12)
“Did the rabbi go up to heaven?” The question wasn’t even nice.
A Jewish congregation in old Europe had a very humble rabbi. Every Sabbath after the evening prayers, the rabbi would disappear and not re-emerge until the next day. The village was small and everyone knew everyone else’s business. So rumors flew. “He breaks the Sabbath and works for the Gentiles.” “He has a mistress and he goes to her.” “He drinks until he is drunk.” “Maybe he goes up to heaven,” whispered one innocent soul. The others howled with laughter. “Right, to heaven!” Finally they sent one young man to follow the rabbi after the Sabbath prayers. “See if he goes up to heaven.”
The young man followed the rabbi that Friday night as he left the synagogue and walked quickly down the darkened street. Once out of the village, the rabbi took one of the paths up the mountain. After a long climb, they came to a small clearing. The young man watched as the rabbi entered a tiny shabby shack. He crept close to the window and watched with wonder as the rabbi bent over an old Gentile woman, lying sick and alone on a straw mattress. The young man saw the rabbi stack wood for her fire, boil some soup, and feed her from a bowl he held close to her lips. When the rabbi began to clean up the shack, he crept away.
Back in the village a bunch of men were drinking wine and waiting. When they saw the young man, they shouted, “Hey! Did the rabbi go to heaven?”
The young man stood and thought in silence. Finally he said, “No, the rabbi did not go to heaven. The rabbi went much higher than that.”*
Today we know that we too are called to go much higher than heaven.
Today we heard the text that we call the Beatitudes. We hear who is to be called blessed in the reign of God. It’s an intimidating list: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful. Some people call Christianity the great untried idea, and today we hear why people may not even try. “Beatitude” is a churchy word. We could also translate it “happy.” Here is what will make you truly happy: to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to hunger and thirst for justice in an unjust world…Try turning them upside down and see if they work. Happy are the rich, happy are those who never know sorrow, happy are those who pay no attention to the suffering of others? The choice between the reign of God and the dark thoughts of this world are more obvious when we do that.
We are called to this strange, intoxicating happiness, the joy of God which flips the world’s pleasure upside down. We are meant to find our joy where the world does not look.
But is it possible to live this life?
On All Saints a great crowd gathers that says “yes.” On Thursday night I asked, “Have you ever stood in this church by yourself and felt like you weren’t alone.” Benjamin LeBlanc answered, “Yes, and it feels a little weird.” Today’s weird, wonderful news is we are part of a multitude that has gone before, that is scattered over the wide earth now, and is yet to come. They are not all “people like us”: only a few are Episcopalians, or white, or North American. All colors and languages, all cultures and customs are represented. We are blessed that we are invited to join them.
And the best news of All Saints is that we can join them. We cannot follow Jesus with our own strength alone. To follow Jesus is a gift. That gift is freely given today.
John says that we are the children of God, through the Father’s love. We are part of the mystery, part of the multitude. There is a place for us. All we need to do is accept the gift, and in one another’s company start our own climb up the mountain. We may climb up our own ideals, or up our own weakness and frailty. It may be a path we choose, but it’s more likely a path that’s given to us. The climb may be seen by others, but it will probably be silent and secret, as secret as a hidden shack in a forest on a mountainside.
But we too may go much higher than heaven.
One writer said it all: “There is only one tragedy in life: not to be a saint.”
*taken from Welcome To The Wisdom Of The World by Joan Chittister
(Rev 7: 9-17; Ps 34: 1-10, 22; 1 John 3: 1-3; Mt 5: 1-12)
“Did the rabbi go up to heaven?” The question wasn’t even nice.
A Jewish congregation in old Europe had a very humble rabbi. Every Sabbath after the evening prayers, the rabbi would disappear and not re-emerge until the next day. The village was small and everyone knew everyone else’s business. So rumors flew. “He breaks the Sabbath and works for the Gentiles.” “He has a mistress and he goes to her.” “He drinks until he is drunk.” “Maybe he goes up to heaven,” whispered one innocent soul. The others howled with laughter. “Right, to heaven!” Finally they sent one young man to follow the rabbi after the Sabbath prayers. “See if he goes up to heaven.”
The young man followed the rabbi that Friday night as he left the synagogue and walked quickly down the darkened street. Once out of the village, the rabbi took one of the paths up the mountain. After a long climb, they came to a small clearing. The young man watched as the rabbi entered a tiny shabby shack. He crept close to the window and watched with wonder as the rabbi bent over an old Gentile woman, lying sick and alone on a straw mattress. The young man saw the rabbi stack wood for her fire, boil some soup, and feed her from a bowl he held close to her lips. When the rabbi began to clean up the shack, he crept away.
Back in the village a bunch of men were drinking wine and waiting. When they saw the young man, they shouted, “Hey! Did the rabbi go to heaven?”
The young man stood and thought in silence. Finally he said, “No, the rabbi did not go to heaven. The rabbi went much higher than that.”*
Today we know that we too are called to go much higher than heaven.
Today we heard the text that we call the Beatitudes. We hear who is to be called blessed in the reign of God. It’s an intimidating list: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful. Some people call Christianity the great untried idea, and today we hear why people may not even try. “Beatitude” is a churchy word. We could also translate it “happy.” Here is what will make you truly happy: to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to hunger and thirst for justice in an unjust world…Try turning them upside down and see if they work. Happy are the rich, happy are those who never know sorrow, happy are those who pay no attention to the suffering of others? The choice between the reign of God and the dark thoughts of this world are more obvious when we do that.
We are called to this strange, intoxicating happiness, the joy of God which flips the world’s pleasure upside down. We are meant to find our joy where the world does not look.
But is it possible to live this life?
On All Saints a great crowd gathers that says “yes.” On Thursday night I asked, “Have you ever stood in this church by yourself and felt like you weren’t alone.” Benjamin LeBlanc answered, “Yes, and it feels a little weird.” Today’s weird, wonderful news is we are part of a multitude that has gone before, that is scattered over the wide earth now, and is yet to come. They are not all “people like us”: only a few are Episcopalians, or white, or North American. All colors and languages, all cultures and customs are represented. We are blessed that we are invited to join them.
And the best news of All Saints is that we can join them. We cannot follow Jesus with our own strength alone. To follow Jesus is a gift. That gift is freely given today.
John says that we are the children of God, through the Father’s love. We are part of the mystery, part of the multitude. There is a place for us. All we need to do is accept the gift, and in one another’s company start our own climb up the mountain. We may climb up our own ideals, or up our own weakness and frailty. It may be a path we choose, but it’s more likely a path that’s given to us. The climb may be seen by others, but it will probably be silent and secret, as secret as a hidden shack in a forest on a mountainside.
But we too may go much higher than heaven.
One writer said it all: “There is only one tragedy in life: not to be a saint.”
*taken from Welcome To The Wisdom Of The World by Joan Chittister
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Not the plan
Proper 25 A 2008
(Deut 34: 1-12; Ps 90; 1 Thess 2: 1-8; Mt 22: 34-46)
Where is God when things don’t go according to plan?
I knew a good man, a hardworking man, who did his imperfect best to do the right thing. He loved his family, he showed up to work on time. When he fell on his face he picked himself up and kept going. After all his hard work, all he wanted was to leave the daily grind and retire, buy a little bit of a boat and go fishing when he wanted. Instead he died at age 61, four years short of retirement. When he died he was worried about his family and worried about being laid off. That man was my father.
At age 50, amidst soaring prices and a shifting economy, I understand Dad in a way I did not when I was 16.
Today, in this season of change, the fading of the seasons and the waning of the church’s year, God in the Bible asks us to stand within the mystery of incompletion. Who are we and who is God when the plan doesn’t work out, when our deepest desires don’t come true, or they don’t come true in the way we wanted and expected?
No one deserved seeing the Promised Land more than Moses. My God, the risks he took, the miles he walked, the faith he had to call upon or to ask of God! The text says that “never since has there arisen a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face-to-face.” And yet Moses does not get to cross over, does not get to the land to which he led those people. What’s with that? Isn’t there any justice in God’s realm?
And the Gospels have told of the ugly public arguments Jesus had with religious folk who agree on one thing—they are threatened and angry with Jesus. Today there seems to be some base-line agreement between Jesus and a Pharisee: “Love the LORD your God…love your neighbor as yourself.” But it’s not enough and it’s not the last word. Jesus challenges them about the identity and authority of the Messiah. And I am chilled by that last line—they did not “dare to ask him any more questions.” This is not the end of a friendly debate. The time for talk is over, the time for betrayal and violence is near.
Who are we, and who is God, in the midst of disappointment and struggle, and when things do not go according to plan?
I struggle with this. I am comforted that the Bible struggles with this too. I am also comforted that we all, gathered together today, struggle with this as well.
I think that one response is to ask “who have we become?” in our journey to where we are now. And who is God, the God of the journey, the God who has revealed the divine Face and the divine Presence to us along the long road we’ve walked?
Moses had walked a long road with the people God had chosen. The people and Moses were not the people of God from the very outset. They were chosen yes, but they had not been forged, they had not been molded, they had not been broken and re-made over and over again into the people prepared for the newness of a new land. And Moses had not become Moses, had not become that prophet who knew God face-to-face. He had not yet been shaped by those conversations. He had not risked. He had not yet failed and picked himself back up again.
And they had come to know a God who walks the road with them, who thirsted for them just as they thirsted for water, hungered for them as they hungered for bread, longed to be their God just as they longed to be a people belonging to God.
And the Gospel today? It is the tale of an incomplete journey, one that we know will lead to terrible loss, and beyond that loss to new life that no one at the time could imagine. But the road needed to be walked. And when the disciples were called upon the bear their own witness in the face of hostility, did they remember Jesus’ own lonely stand before angry religious folk and take strength?
My brothers and I gathered this past May for the first time in many years. In the midst of our incomplete journeys, our victories and defeats, we remembered a man whom we called Dad whose life and story shapes us still—shapes us and empowers us to take the next step, to not lose heart, to take the adventure even if our own journeys are incomplete.
The God of the journey calls us to be together and shapes us in the same way. Even now we are being forged and shaped into the people of God, the people of the crucified and risen Lord who is still on the road. We may walk lightly on that road and walk with faith, in God’s companionship and with one another. We may trust the end of the journey to the One who began the journey in the first place.
(Deut 34: 1-12; Ps 90; 1 Thess 2: 1-8; Mt 22: 34-46)
Where is God when things don’t go according to plan?
I knew a good man, a hardworking man, who did his imperfect best to do the right thing. He loved his family, he showed up to work on time. When he fell on his face he picked himself up and kept going. After all his hard work, all he wanted was to leave the daily grind and retire, buy a little bit of a boat and go fishing when he wanted. Instead he died at age 61, four years short of retirement. When he died he was worried about his family and worried about being laid off. That man was my father.
At age 50, amidst soaring prices and a shifting economy, I understand Dad in a way I did not when I was 16.
Today, in this season of change, the fading of the seasons and the waning of the church’s year, God in the Bible asks us to stand within the mystery of incompletion. Who are we and who is God when the plan doesn’t work out, when our deepest desires don’t come true, or they don’t come true in the way we wanted and expected?
No one deserved seeing the Promised Land more than Moses. My God, the risks he took, the miles he walked, the faith he had to call upon or to ask of God! The text says that “never since has there arisen a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face-to-face.” And yet Moses does not get to cross over, does not get to the land to which he led those people. What’s with that? Isn’t there any justice in God’s realm?
And the Gospels have told of the ugly public arguments Jesus had with religious folk who agree on one thing—they are threatened and angry with Jesus. Today there seems to be some base-line agreement between Jesus and a Pharisee: “Love the LORD your God…love your neighbor as yourself.” But it’s not enough and it’s not the last word. Jesus challenges them about the identity and authority of the Messiah. And I am chilled by that last line—they did not “dare to ask him any more questions.” This is not the end of a friendly debate. The time for talk is over, the time for betrayal and violence is near.
Who are we, and who is God, in the midst of disappointment and struggle, and when things do not go according to plan?
I struggle with this. I am comforted that the Bible struggles with this too. I am also comforted that we all, gathered together today, struggle with this as well.
I think that one response is to ask “who have we become?” in our journey to where we are now. And who is God, the God of the journey, the God who has revealed the divine Face and the divine Presence to us along the long road we’ve walked?
Moses had walked a long road with the people God had chosen. The people and Moses were not the people of God from the very outset. They were chosen yes, but they had not been forged, they had not been molded, they had not been broken and re-made over and over again into the people prepared for the newness of a new land. And Moses had not become Moses, had not become that prophet who knew God face-to-face. He had not yet been shaped by those conversations. He had not risked. He had not yet failed and picked himself back up again.
And they had come to know a God who walks the road with them, who thirsted for them just as they thirsted for water, hungered for them as they hungered for bread, longed to be their God just as they longed to be a people belonging to God.
And the Gospel today? It is the tale of an incomplete journey, one that we know will lead to terrible loss, and beyond that loss to new life that no one at the time could imagine. But the road needed to be walked. And when the disciples were called upon the bear their own witness in the face of hostility, did they remember Jesus’ own lonely stand before angry religious folk and take strength?
My brothers and I gathered this past May for the first time in many years. In the midst of our incomplete journeys, our victories and defeats, we remembered a man whom we called Dad whose life and story shapes us still—shapes us and empowers us to take the next step, to not lose heart, to take the adventure even if our own journeys are incomplete.
The God of the journey calls us to be together and shapes us in the same way. Even now we are being forged and shaped into the people of God, the people of the crucified and risen Lord who is still on the road. We may walk lightly on that road and walk with faith, in God’s companionship and with one another. We may trust the end of the journey to the One who began the journey in the first place.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Participate
Proper 23 A 2008 (RCL)
(Exodus 32: 1-14; Ps 106: 1-6, 19-23; Phil 4: 1-9; Mt 22: 1-14)
I miss Long Island weddings: ethnic Catholic, Irish or Italian or Polish or, in an incredible mix of energy and procreation and noise and food and alcohol, all three at the same time. It felt like everyone you ever knew was there. Everyone ended up on the dance floor, or laughing and watching from the side.
We’re invited to a wedding party in today’s Gospel. A generous king pitches a huge shindig for his son’s wedding. He invites the usual suspects, but those invited literally kill the messengers. That ends badly for everyone. There’s still a ton of rigatoni and peirogis and beer, so the king invites everyone possible, off the streets, out of the bars and the shopping malls and the car washes. The most outrageous wedding of the year is on its way.
We’d probably like it better if the story ended here. But there’s still one last squirmy bit about the guest and the wedding robe. That guy who doesn’t meet the dress code gets hog-tied and thrown out into the cold and dark.
There’s a real risk attached to this story. One may hear it as an unpleasant symbolic tale that confirms either our darkest hope or our worst fear. Our darkest hope is that in the end God is going to nail those people who don’t do right and don’t think right, those who don’t do or think like us. Our darkest fear is that we ourselves are in the end unacceptable, and that God really will reject us for what we’ve done or who we are. So we either hear this story with a sense of unpleasant satisfaction, or we dump it into that bin of nasty Bible material that we leave out or tune out when it’s read.
Either way, we risk missing what God may have to say.
Parables are not morality-plays in which God is clearly either the king or the landlord. We cannot say for certain who we are in a parable either—perhaps we’re everyone at different times. The world of the parables of Jesus is a world where God is not a character but rather God is the plot. By that I mean we are teased into entering the parable’s world and challenged to go where the story leads us. And notice that Jesus rarely short-changes the journey into the parable by handing us an interpretation.
At risk of seeming to hand out the Authorized Kurt Version of the parable, here’s what I personally heard in this story this past week: A wedding feast is joy. To be invited is an honor. The king wants guests. We are invited, whether we were on the first or the second list of guests.
Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to go to that wedding feast? Free food, free hooch, good company, a good time. The big news is not what happens when we refuse the invitation. The big news is that we are invited. And it’s wonderful. And it’s the king who invites. Is there really a choice?
What about that dress code?
When my second brother got married, there was great drama afoot the day of the wedding. His wife’s mother was divorced and had married a clock-maker named Clarence. There was no love lost between Clarence and her ex. Her ex had not been invited, but had announced on the grapevine that he was coming anyway and was going to clean clock-maker Clarence’s clock for him, if you get my drift.
The ex-husband and bride’s father showed up at the reception and stashed himself in the corner. He stayed alone and silent, likkering up and glowering at Clarence who died many a death beneath his hate-filled stare.
My brother was a submarine sailor at the time and several strapping young sailors had been told off to keep a weather eye out for dad-in-law and handle things if he decided to do more than stare.
Halfway through the evening, the Navy decided to act. They grabbed me, six years old at the time, and gave me my orders. I probably saluted, and walked across the dance floor to where the menacing father-in-law stood, bourbon in hand. I grabbed his suspenders, leaned back with all my weight, and let them go. You could hear the snap of the elastic everywhere in the hall.
Father-in-law stared in surprise, looked across at the sailors watching over the proceedings, then put his head back and laughed. When last seen, he was drinking and chatting with a couple of the young sailors in the corner.
It may not matter that you put on the right robe at the wedding. It matters that you wrap yourself in the right vibe, the right attitude, the right stance. A man wrapped in rage and violence has wrapped himself in something wholly different before the night was through.
The intoxicating joy of the kingdom is an invitation that resounds to the depth of our souls. To be invited to the feast of God’s reign really is no choice—why would we decide not to go? Or once there, why would we decide not to celebrate, to wrap ourselves with the same mad generous love which wraps the king who pitches the party? But we can choose. We can choose the cold and the darkness of our fears and our agendas of distrust and anger. At my point in life, the choices between hope and despair seem very clear.
A couple of weeks ago, our Senior Warden opened our fall Stewardship conversation with the theme “Participate in God’s work.” Today’s Gospel feast invites us to participate, and tells us what it’s like when we do. It’s mad love and freedom, it’s being honored guests at the best party in the cosmos, it’s sharing royal joy. Participate in the wedding bash? Oh yeah! Compared to that, everything else feels like fear and darkness, frustration and hands bound by the lack of hope of a cold world.
(Exodus 32: 1-14; Ps 106: 1-6, 19-23; Phil 4: 1-9; Mt 22: 1-14)
I miss Long Island weddings: ethnic Catholic, Irish or Italian or Polish or, in an incredible mix of energy and procreation and noise and food and alcohol, all three at the same time. It felt like everyone you ever knew was there. Everyone ended up on the dance floor, or laughing and watching from the side.
We’re invited to a wedding party in today’s Gospel. A generous king pitches a huge shindig for his son’s wedding. He invites the usual suspects, but those invited literally kill the messengers. That ends badly for everyone. There’s still a ton of rigatoni and peirogis and beer, so the king invites everyone possible, off the streets, out of the bars and the shopping malls and the car washes. The most outrageous wedding of the year is on its way.
We’d probably like it better if the story ended here. But there’s still one last squirmy bit about the guest and the wedding robe. That guy who doesn’t meet the dress code gets hog-tied and thrown out into the cold and dark.
There’s a real risk attached to this story. One may hear it as an unpleasant symbolic tale that confirms either our darkest hope or our worst fear. Our darkest hope is that in the end God is going to nail those people who don’t do right and don’t think right, those who don’t do or think like us. Our darkest fear is that we ourselves are in the end unacceptable, and that God really will reject us for what we’ve done or who we are. So we either hear this story with a sense of unpleasant satisfaction, or we dump it into that bin of nasty Bible material that we leave out or tune out when it’s read.
Either way, we risk missing what God may have to say.
Parables are not morality-plays in which God is clearly either the king or the landlord. We cannot say for certain who we are in a parable either—perhaps we’re everyone at different times. The world of the parables of Jesus is a world where God is not a character but rather God is the plot. By that I mean we are teased into entering the parable’s world and challenged to go where the story leads us. And notice that Jesus rarely short-changes the journey into the parable by handing us an interpretation.
At risk of seeming to hand out the Authorized Kurt Version of the parable, here’s what I personally heard in this story this past week: A wedding feast is joy. To be invited is an honor. The king wants guests. We are invited, whether we were on the first or the second list of guests.
Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to go to that wedding feast? Free food, free hooch, good company, a good time. The big news is not what happens when we refuse the invitation. The big news is that we are invited. And it’s wonderful. And it’s the king who invites. Is there really a choice?
What about that dress code?
When my second brother got married, there was great drama afoot the day of the wedding. His wife’s mother was divorced and had married a clock-maker named Clarence. There was no love lost between Clarence and her ex. Her ex had not been invited, but had announced on the grapevine that he was coming anyway and was going to clean clock-maker Clarence’s clock for him, if you get my drift.
The ex-husband and bride’s father showed up at the reception and stashed himself in the corner. He stayed alone and silent, likkering up and glowering at Clarence who died many a death beneath his hate-filled stare.
My brother was a submarine sailor at the time and several strapping young sailors had been told off to keep a weather eye out for dad-in-law and handle things if he decided to do more than stare.
Halfway through the evening, the Navy decided to act. They grabbed me, six years old at the time, and gave me my orders. I probably saluted, and walked across the dance floor to where the menacing father-in-law stood, bourbon in hand. I grabbed his suspenders, leaned back with all my weight, and let them go. You could hear the snap of the elastic everywhere in the hall.
Father-in-law stared in surprise, looked across at the sailors watching over the proceedings, then put his head back and laughed. When last seen, he was drinking and chatting with a couple of the young sailors in the corner.
It may not matter that you put on the right robe at the wedding. It matters that you wrap yourself in the right vibe, the right attitude, the right stance. A man wrapped in rage and violence has wrapped himself in something wholly different before the night was through.
The intoxicating joy of the kingdom is an invitation that resounds to the depth of our souls. To be invited to the feast of God’s reign really is no choice—why would we decide not to go? Or once there, why would we decide not to celebrate, to wrap ourselves with the same mad generous love which wraps the king who pitches the party? But we can choose. We can choose the cold and the darkness of our fears and our agendas of distrust and anger. At my point in life, the choices between hope and despair seem very clear.
A couple of weeks ago, our Senior Warden opened our fall Stewardship conversation with the theme “Participate in God’s work.” Today’s Gospel feast invites us to participate, and tells us what it’s like when we do. It’s mad love and freedom, it’s being honored guests at the best party in the cosmos, it’s sharing royal joy. Participate in the wedding bash? Oh yeah! Compared to that, everything else feels like fear and darkness, frustration and hands bound by the lack of hope of a cold world.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
On the edge
Michaelmas 2008
(Genesis 28: 10-17; Ps 103: 19-22; Rev 12: 7-12; John 1: 47-51)
If you’re “on the edge”, you have an angel close at hand.
Jacob was on the edge. Jacob was on the run from his brother, who wanted to kill him. Jacob may have figured he had it coming—Jake had just scammed his brother and fooled his blind, dying father into giving Jake the whole inheritance. Jake was scared, alone, and on the run, feeling bad about himself if he had any conscience left at all. He’s alone in the desert, heading towards family he hadn’t even met. Bandits or wolves could have easily finished him off. On the borderland between broken past and hopeless future, Jacob’s a man on the edge.
But on the edge is where you can meet angels.
God is on the edge. The God of the Bible often can’t be heard when things are secure and settled. On the edge is where you may meet God.
On the edge, God speaks and nothing is the same again.
When God speaks, we learn that the nameless piece of ground on which we stand—desert sand, a lonely house, a car in traffic, a bus gazing out the window, the eyes of a stranger, the deafening silence of our heart—is the house of God. And there God gives a promise where there was no hope—we are heard, we are seen, and in ways we cannot imagine the promise of God is working in our lives. God is with us, God will not leave us, until every astounding promise has been fulfilled.
Jake wakes up, wakes from his hopeless sleep. Awe, and wonder, and even fear—his hopeless little life is not so little. His life is part of something grand in the heart and mind of a grant God. When we learn that, we have truly woken up.
That’s where we see the angels. The angels wake us from our hopeless, visionless sleep, and teach us about the holy ground which is our lives, which is our world. They see and they hear. They live with God and for God. They share our road as we seek to live with God and for God.
This is the season of the angels. This is the feast and this the season where we remember, with awe and wonder and gratitude, that we are not alone, that our lives are not little and pointless, that we are known and heard and seen and loved and that those wonderful promises—power from on high, participation in God’s own life, transformation, eternal life, dying and rising—are all ours, ours for the taking. They see, they listen, and they even struggle with us and for us in our struggle, as stupendous Michael went hand-to-hand with Lucifer the Morning Star before the dawn of time. And they wake us up, they open our eyes to the truth of our lives.
Nathaniel in the Gospel was on the edge, and he didn’t even know it. He was a seeker who didn’t think he’d find anything worthwhile. When have we given up seeking the deepest desire of our hearts? But the day that started so ordinary ends in wonders. Cynically Nathaniel agrees to see the rabbi who can’t be anyone worth seeing. But he finds more than he could have imagined. He finds one who sees and hears him even before Nathaniel knew he was even searching. He finds one in who’s eyes and presence are somehow all wonders. He finds one who speaks of the angels. Here I am. I’m the holy ground. I’m the voice and the promise. See me, hear me, share my life, and your life will be holy ground as well.
Have you ever been on the edge? Are you on the edge now? Is anyone you know on the edge? It may not be a dead end or a jump into nothing. It may be holy ground. You may see angels. You may see God. And you will learn that you are seen, you are heard, and you were never alone. You may want peace. But you may be given far more—new hope, new and transformed life.
(Genesis 28: 10-17; Ps 103: 19-22; Rev 12: 7-12; John 1: 47-51)
If you’re “on the edge”, you have an angel close at hand.
Jacob was on the edge. Jacob was on the run from his brother, who wanted to kill him. Jacob may have figured he had it coming—Jake had just scammed his brother and fooled his blind, dying father into giving Jake the whole inheritance. Jake was scared, alone, and on the run, feeling bad about himself if he had any conscience left at all. He’s alone in the desert, heading towards family he hadn’t even met. Bandits or wolves could have easily finished him off. On the borderland between broken past and hopeless future, Jacob’s a man on the edge.
But on the edge is where you can meet angels.
God is on the edge. The God of the Bible often can’t be heard when things are secure and settled. On the edge is where you may meet God.
On the edge, God speaks and nothing is the same again.
When God speaks, we learn that the nameless piece of ground on which we stand—desert sand, a lonely house, a car in traffic, a bus gazing out the window, the eyes of a stranger, the deafening silence of our heart—is the house of God. And there God gives a promise where there was no hope—we are heard, we are seen, and in ways we cannot imagine the promise of God is working in our lives. God is with us, God will not leave us, until every astounding promise has been fulfilled.
Jake wakes up, wakes from his hopeless sleep. Awe, and wonder, and even fear—his hopeless little life is not so little. His life is part of something grand in the heart and mind of a grant God. When we learn that, we have truly woken up.
That’s where we see the angels. The angels wake us from our hopeless, visionless sleep, and teach us about the holy ground which is our lives, which is our world. They see and they hear. They live with God and for God. They share our road as we seek to live with God and for God.
This is the season of the angels. This is the feast and this the season where we remember, with awe and wonder and gratitude, that we are not alone, that our lives are not little and pointless, that we are known and heard and seen and loved and that those wonderful promises—power from on high, participation in God’s own life, transformation, eternal life, dying and rising—are all ours, ours for the taking. They see, they listen, and they even struggle with us and for us in our struggle, as stupendous Michael went hand-to-hand with Lucifer the Morning Star before the dawn of time. And they wake us up, they open our eyes to the truth of our lives.
Nathaniel in the Gospel was on the edge, and he didn’t even know it. He was a seeker who didn’t think he’d find anything worthwhile. When have we given up seeking the deepest desire of our hearts? But the day that started so ordinary ends in wonders. Cynically Nathaniel agrees to see the rabbi who can’t be anyone worth seeing. But he finds more than he could have imagined. He finds one who sees and hears him even before Nathaniel knew he was even searching. He finds one in who’s eyes and presence are somehow all wonders. He finds one who speaks of the angels. Here I am. I’m the holy ground. I’m the voice and the promise. See me, hear me, share my life, and your life will be holy ground as well.
Have you ever been on the edge? Are you on the edge now? Is anyone you know on the edge? It may not be a dead end or a jump into nothing. It may be holy ground. You may see angels. You may see God. And you will learn that you are seen, you are heard, and you were never alone. You may want peace. But you may be given far more—new hope, new and transformed life.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Which version?
Proper 22 A 2008 (RCL)
(Exodus 16: 2-15; Ps 105: 1-6, 37-45; Phil 1: 21-30; Mt 20: 1-16)
Version one: the people of Israel moved majestically, triumphantly out of Egypt. Everyone worked together, everyone was happy. In front walked Moses, tall and strong and handsome and chiseled, thumping his staff on the ground as if he knew exactly where he was going. Sometimes there was a little trouble. Sometimes people got a little anxious, a little testy. But Moses would open his mouth and put on that God-voice, lifted up his staff with a well-muscled arm, and then everything would turn out just fine. Even when they ran out of food in the desert, we knew it was no sweat. It was all under control.
Here’s version two, same story:
Everyone is cranky, everyone is tired, everyone is scared. Everyone is full of doubt. Moses is stressed and fed up and scared too, scared that he’s this close to getting lynched. He wants out, out from in between these frightened angry people and a faceless, mysterious God. That God seems cranky and angry too, just like Dad on those long car trips—“We’ll get there when we get there! Don’t make me come back there!” Or maybe more like Mom in the kitchen at 4:15—“Can’t you see I’m busy? Dinner’s coming, you’ll just have to wait!”
Which version sounds more like the Bible we’re reading? Which version sounds more like the real community life we are living?
We may want our life together with Christ to be like Hollywood, with a great sound-track, clean white robes, and Charleton Heston or maybe Brad Pitt in charge. But that’s like wishing our family Christmas dinner to be just like the movies, where everyone sits down peacefully and listens to the youngest say the sweetest grace, and then all eat and talk and laugh because all the conflicts got resolved by 6:00 PM Christmas Eve. Family is a lot messier than that. So is church, so is Christian community. But real, messy life is the ground where God meets us.
In today’s story, do you notice how nostalgic people are?
Everyone is sure that things were so much better before. Everyone wants to go back to Egypt, because “Remember the food? It was good!” Nostalgia is the best sauce there is. The past is almost always better. We forget our slavery. In this viewpoint, God is always back there, where we think life was so much more orderly. There is no way that God can be with us now, because now is so anxious and so unresolved. And there is no way that God can make a future for us. God cannot be trusted to do that.
So let’s go back. Turn the clock back, to Egypt, or to 1964, or to when we were much younger. That’s the way to worship the gods of Egypt. The gods of Egypt want their worshippers to return to how things were, and will teach us the proper ceremonies to keep things the same.
But the God of the Bible is present now and opens a future. God is here with us. We may not see the path. We make the path by walking. But God leads and God provides, and God promises new life for us even as we hash things out together and with God as honestly as we can.
Do we believe that God is with us here and now? Are we ready to walk our own path? Do we embrace the new future that is promised? Are we a community that would rather return to Egypt? Or do we choose to follow the God who leads in the midst of all our doubts, all our fear, all our human truth?
(Exodus 16: 2-15; Ps 105: 1-6, 37-45; Phil 1: 21-30; Mt 20: 1-16)
Version one: the people of Israel moved majestically, triumphantly out of Egypt. Everyone worked together, everyone was happy. In front walked Moses, tall and strong and handsome and chiseled, thumping his staff on the ground as if he knew exactly where he was going. Sometimes there was a little trouble. Sometimes people got a little anxious, a little testy. But Moses would open his mouth and put on that God-voice, lifted up his staff with a well-muscled arm, and then everything would turn out just fine. Even when they ran out of food in the desert, we knew it was no sweat. It was all under control.
Here’s version two, same story:
Everyone is cranky, everyone is tired, everyone is scared. Everyone is full of doubt. Moses is stressed and fed up and scared too, scared that he’s this close to getting lynched. He wants out, out from in between these frightened angry people and a faceless, mysterious God. That God seems cranky and angry too, just like Dad on those long car trips—“We’ll get there when we get there! Don’t make me come back there!” Or maybe more like Mom in the kitchen at 4:15—“Can’t you see I’m busy? Dinner’s coming, you’ll just have to wait!”
Which version sounds more like the Bible we’re reading? Which version sounds more like the real community life we are living?
We may want our life together with Christ to be like Hollywood, with a great sound-track, clean white robes, and Charleton Heston or maybe Brad Pitt in charge. But that’s like wishing our family Christmas dinner to be just like the movies, where everyone sits down peacefully and listens to the youngest say the sweetest grace, and then all eat and talk and laugh because all the conflicts got resolved by 6:00 PM Christmas Eve. Family is a lot messier than that. So is church, so is Christian community. But real, messy life is the ground where God meets us.
In today’s story, do you notice how nostalgic people are?
Everyone is sure that things were so much better before. Everyone wants to go back to Egypt, because “Remember the food? It was good!” Nostalgia is the best sauce there is. The past is almost always better. We forget our slavery. In this viewpoint, God is always back there, where we think life was so much more orderly. There is no way that God can be with us now, because now is so anxious and so unresolved. And there is no way that God can make a future for us. God cannot be trusted to do that.
So let’s go back. Turn the clock back, to Egypt, or to 1964, or to when we were much younger. That’s the way to worship the gods of Egypt. The gods of Egypt want their worshippers to return to how things were, and will teach us the proper ceremonies to keep things the same.
But the God of the Bible is present now and opens a future. God is here with us. We may not see the path. We make the path by walking. But God leads and God provides, and God promises new life for us even as we hash things out together and with God as honestly as we can.
Do we believe that God is with us here and now? Are we ready to walk our own path? Do we embrace the new future that is promised? Are we a community that would rather return to Egypt? Or do we choose to follow the God who leads in the midst of all our doubts, all our fear, all our human truth?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
What did you see?
Holy Cross 2008
(Isaiah 45: 21-25; Ps 98: 1-4; Gal 6: 14-18; John 12: 31-36a)
“What did you see?” The old man asks the question. The question brings you back to that strange, haunting night.
You were led into a dark room. You took off your clothes. You were led into dark waters. “The mystery” a voice chanted. “The mystery...” You stood still while a robed figure waded towards you. “Water only,” said a voice. “Water only, but now changed.” The robed figure held up a large object, difficult to see in detail. It is plunged into the water, then is held dripping before your eyes. “Water made sweet by God.” You gazed with wonder. Your eyes adjust to the dark, and you stare. “What did you see?” the old man gently asks again.
You answer, “I saw a rough piece of wood.” You saw, and you will always remember.
That’s an old story: St. Ambrose, talking about Baptism rites in the 4th Century. Now THAT’S extreme Baptism! We’ve become far too tame.
Today we also remember our Baptism, and on this Feast of the Holy Cross we remember the wood. A hunk of wood. It was a hunk of wood that Moses threw into the foul and bitter water in the desert to make it sweet. And it is the wood of the cross of Jesus, thrown into the foulness of the world and the bitterness of our lives. that re-claims us and the world from all that poisons, all that kills. “What did you see?” when you embraced faith over and over again through all the seasons and struggles of your life? Did you see the roughness of the wood? The wood: the sign of rejection and death which has become the instrument of life. Here, friends, is God’s answer to the cruelty of the world and the struggle of our lives.
Many of us were raised with dysfunctional religious backgrounds, and we are tempted to think of the cross as a message of masochism, of capricious pain that a capricious God demands we bear. This is not the scandal of the cross as the Gospel presents it, as old Ambrose taught it. Think astounding, searing love. Think outrageous gift. Think harrowing gateway to indescribable life.
We stare in wonder. We shudder at the blunt truth of it. Our hearts open in silent gratitude. And we boast.
Boast? That’s an odd thing to do about wood that expresses execution and shame and death. I’ve always wondered about Paul “boasting” about the cross of Jesus, as he says today.
When we boast, we name something that gives us a sense of worth. When we boast, we name our victories. When we boast, we name something that is unique about us, that makes us stand out from everyone else.
When Paul wrote today’s letter, he had already lived a despised life. He had been cast out of the Judaism he knew and loved. He had been rejected and beaten and stoned. Paul wasn’t even treated well by many in the early Church—he was too outrageous, he spoke too boldly about Christ representing a radical break from all history and even all previous faith. And he was way too liberal about letting in all those Gentiles!
But Paul wanted to boast in the Cross of Jesus. He wanted the insults of the world to be his praise. He wanted the rejection of the world, even the rejection of those who felt themselves religious and devout, to be his reason for pride. He wanted the humiliation of Jesus to be his victory.
Do we boast of the Cross? How do we do that? I’m still figuring that out. But here are some incomplete thoughts.
If we boast of the Cross, then our lives are meant to look and feel different. If we boast of the Cross, then we do not buy into what the world calls victory, what the world calls worthwhile, and WHO the world calls worthwhile.
If we boast of the Cross, then we stare in wonder each day at the rough wood of the mad, upside-down logic of God who declared the poor blessed, the rich sad, and those who come last as those who really come first.
If we boast of the Cross, then our very lives proclaim the outrageous hope of an outrageous God.
(Isaiah 45: 21-25; Ps 98: 1-4; Gal 6: 14-18; John 12: 31-36a)
“What did you see?” The old man asks the question. The question brings you back to that strange, haunting night.
You were led into a dark room. You took off your clothes. You were led into dark waters. “The mystery” a voice chanted. “The mystery...” You stood still while a robed figure waded towards you. “Water only,” said a voice. “Water only, but now changed.” The robed figure held up a large object, difficult to see in detail. It is plunged into the water, then is held dripping before your eyes. “Water made sweet by God.” You gazed with wonder. Your eyes adjust to the dark, and you stare. “What did you see?” the old man gently asks again.
You answer, “I saw a rough piece of wood.” You saw, and you will always remember.
That’s an old story: St. Ambrose, talking about Baptism rites in the 4th Century. Now THAT’S extreme Baptism! We’ve become far too tame.
Today we also remember our Baptism, and on this Feast of the Holy Cross we remember the wood. A hunk of wood. It was a hunk of wood that Moses threw into the foul and bitter water in the desert to make it sweet. And it is the wood of the cross of Jesus, thrown into the foulness of the world and the bitterness of our lives. that re-claims us and the world from all that poisons, all that kills. “What did you see?” when you embraced faith over and over again through all the seasons and struggles of your life? Did you see the roughness of the wood? The wood: the sign of rejection and death which has become the instrument of life. Here, friends, is God’s answer to the cruelty of the world and the struggle of our lives.
Many of us were raised with dysfunctional religious backgrounds, and we are tempted to think of the cross as a message of masochism, of capricious pain that a capricious God demands we bear. This is not the scandal of the cross as the Gospel presents it, as old Ambrose taught it. Think astounding, searing love. Think outrageous gift. Think harrowing gateway to indescribable life.
We stare in wonder. We shudder at the blunt truth of it. Our hearts open in silent gratitude. And we boast.
Boast? That’s an odd thing to do about wood that expresses execution and shame and death. I’ve always wondered about Paul “boasting” about the cross of Jesus, as he says today.
When we boast, we name something that gives us a sense of worth. When we boast, we name our victories. When we boast, we name something that is unique about us, that makes us stand out from everyone else.
When Paul wrote today’s letter, he had already lived a despised life. He had been cast out of the Judaism he knew and loved. He had been rejected and beaten and stoned. Paul wasn’t even treated well by many in the early Church—he was too outrageous, he spoke too boldly about Christ representing a radical break from all history and even all previous faith. And he was way too liberal about letting in all those Gentiles!
But Paul wanted to boast in the Cross of Jesus. He wanted the insults of the world to be his praise. He wanted the rejection of the world, even the rejection of those who felt themselves religious and devout, to be his reason for pride. He wanted the humiliation of Jesus to be his victory.
Do we boast of the Cross? How do we do that? I’m still figuring that out. But here are some incomplete thoughts.
If we boast of the Cross, then our lives are meant to look and feel different. If we boast of the Cross, then we do not buy into what the world calls victory, what the world calls worthwhile, and WHO the world calls worthwhile.
If we boast of the Cross, then we stare in wonder each day at the rough wood of the mad, upside-down logic of God who declared the poor blessed, the rich sad, and those who come last as those who really come first.
If we boast of the Cross, then our very lives proclaim the outrageous hope of an outrageous God.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Moving Day
Proper 22 A 2008
(Exodus 12: 1-14; Ps 149; Rom 13: 8-14; Mt 18: 15-20)
The most important story in the Bible is moving day.
Moves are stressful. Most of us don’t like to move. Most of us pack heavy. We all carry things with us that we are sure we cannot live without. Once we were in such a hurry that we packed our garbage. When we first drove out here, the moving van did not arrive until three weeks later. As the days went on and the house felt airy and open, I dreaded the arrival of the truck and all that stuff that we knew we did not really need.
Moving day Old Testament-style is edgier and scarier than that. The Hebrews were hopeless captives of a cruel and powerful empire and a vicious king. To stay meant slavery. To leave was risking death by the king’s soldiers or death in the desert.
But enslaved people, hopeless people, had heard hope spoken. Trapped people were challenged to believe in a God who wished them alive and free in a new land.
A cost had to be paid. The God who frees struck the enslavers hard. Blood was spilled. The lambs were killed and served for dinner a special way. In fact, the food was served standing up. No time for bread to rise. No time to eat sitting or lying down all cozy with your shoes off. Get your running shoes laced up, your backpack ready. The people of God are on the move.
So if we are the people of God, we are on the move.
Often we come to church or to faith itself expecting a firm place to stand, expecting something solid and predictable, something changeless in a rapidly-changing world, in our rapidly-changing lives. But in a few moments I will say “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” and you will hopefully respond, “Let us keep the feast.” Each time we gather for Mass, we celebrate our own Passover, our own moving day from death to life. How can we “keep the feast”?
God may not be predictable, but God can be trusted. We may rely on God for this: God wishes to free us from all our slaveries. God has paid a terrible price by providing the lamb for the Passover himself. The lamb is God’s beloved Son. As we eat the Christian Passover today, we say that we shall keep the feast. So pack up, and pack light. Don’t put off the move. Get ready for the journey and be ready to set out where God will lead. God will be the road, the journey, and the journey’s end. If we’re bored or unimpressed with the invitation of God today, then perhaps we need to listen more deeply. Listen—to the God who calls, to our own hearts which hunger for more, to the voice of the world which needs light-footed pilgrims on the move for God.
I have been away for four months, and I am glad to be back. But if anyone is glad I am back so that “things can go back to normal”, I hope that I will disappoint you. I want the remainder of my life and of my time here as rector of Saints Peter and Paul to be a journey-time, a moving-day. I want to celebrate the Passover of the Lord alert to the new thing that God is doing in our midst and in my own life, and to be light-footed enough to respond. We are called together to marvelous things, things we cannot understand yet but that God has in store for us. We are called to be the free people of God, to sing and to celebrate our freedom and our Liberator in our midst. I am not sure yet what that will mean for us all, but of one thing I am sure. Now is the time, now is our call, now the price paid, now the dinner served in a hurry. Now is the journey, so pack light and don’t put the garbage on the truck.
(Exodus 12: 1-14; Ps 149; Rom 13: 8-14; Mt 18: 15-20)
The most important story in the Bible is moving day.
Moves are stressful. Most of us don’t like to move. Most of us pack heavy. We all carry things with us that we are sure we cannot live without. Once we were in such a hurry that we packed our garbage. When we first drove out here, the moving van did not arrive until three weeks later. As the days went on and the house felt airy and open, I dreaded the arrival of the truck and all that stuff that we knew we did not really need.
Moving day Old Testament-style is edgier and scarier than that. The Hebrews were hopeless captives of a cruel and powerful empire and a vicious king. To stay meant slavery. To leave was risking death by the king’s soldiers or death in the desert.
But enslaved people, hopeless people, had heard hope spoken. Trapped people were challenged to believe in a God who wished them alive and free in a new land.
A cost had to be paid. The God who frees struck the enslavers hard. Blood was spilled. The lambs were killed and served for dinner a special way. In fact, the food was served standing up. No time for bread to rise. No time to eat sitting or lying down all cozy with your shoes off. Get your running shoes laced up, your backpack ready. The people of God are on the move.
So if we are the people of God, we are on the move.
Often we come to church or to faith itself expecting a firm place to stand, expecting something solid and predictable, something changeless in a rapidly-changing world, in our rapidly-changing lives. But in a few moments I will say “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” and you will hopefully respond, “Let us keep the feast.” Each time we gather for Mass, we celebrate our own Passover, our own moving day from death to life. How can we “keep the feast”?
God may not be predictable, but God can be trusted. We may rely on God for this: God wishes to free us from all our slaveries. God has paid a terrible price by providing the lamb for the Passover himself. The lamb is God’s beloved Son. As we eat the Christian Passover today, we say that we shall keep the feast. So pack up, and pack light. Don’t put off the move. Get ready for the journey and be ready to set out where God will lead. God will be the road, the journey, and the journey’s end. If we’re bored or unimpressed with the invitation of God today, then perhaps we need to listen more deeply. Listen—to the God who calls, to our own hearts which hunger for more, to the voice of the world which needs light-footed pilgrims on the move for God.
I have been away for four months, and I am glad to be back. But if anyone is glad I am back so that “things can go back to normal”, I hope that I will disappoint you. I want the remainder of my life and of my time here as rector of Saints Peter and Paul to be a journey-time, a moving-day. I want to celebrate the Passover of the Lord alert to the new thing that God is doing in our midst and in my own life, and to be light-footed enough to respond. We are called together to marvelous things, things we cannot understand yet but that God has in store for us. We are called to be the free people of God, to sing and to celebrate our freedom and our Liberator in our midst. I am not sure yet what that will mean for us all, but of one thing I am sure. Now is the time, now is our call, now the price paid, now the dinner served in a hurry. Now is the journey, so pack light and don’t put the garbage on the truck.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Sermon for August 31st - Tamara Yates
This week I’d like us to take a look at the Old Testament story of Moses and the Burning Bush. This is such a classic story, a Sunday School favorite, that we are particularly susceptible to missing it’s subtleties. When you think you know a story really well is actually when it has the most power to surprise you. So let’s dig in and see what we find.
As the curtain rises, we see Moses shepherding the flock of his father-in-law. For a brief recap, let’s recall that Moses after being raised by Pharoah’s daughter and growing up in the palace, went on to kill an Egyptian who was beating up a Hebrew and subsequently fled Egypt. Now, he is living a far more mundane existence, looking after sheep. He wanders beyond the wilderness, though, and comes perhaps unwittingly to the mountain of God. There he sees the most peculiar thing: a bush that is burning, but nevertheless remains intact. Flames are surrounding it, but not one twig disappears. Nor does it seem to be spreading to other plants and wildlife, with the typically destructive force of fire. It is blazing, but not consumed or consuming. Notice what Moses does--he turns aside to get a closer look. You might be thinking, “well YEAH. If I saw a bush that was burning without being burned up, I’d stop to look at it too!” But DO we? My hunch is that we are surrounded by burning bushes if we have eyes to see them. All of creation is alive with the glory of God, but often we are too busy, too distracted, and maybe too cynical to see the flames licking the edges of our everyday experiences. But the text says, “When God saw that Moses had turned aside, God called to him, ‘Moses! Moses!’” What might Moses have lost had he hurried past that bush? Slow down and pay attention to the moments, the events, and the people in your life who seem to shimmer with a strange light. Turn aside and listen for what they have to tell you. Nothing less than freedom from slavery and suffering is at stake!
So God speaks to Moses and says, “I have seen the pain of my people, I have heard their cry, I know their suffering.” This is the language of intimacy. The Hebrew word for knowing, yada, is the same word used in Hebrew for lovemaking. This is not academic knowing, this is soul knowing. God is intimately connected with God’s people and longs to lead them out of suffering into a place of abundance and peace, a land of milk and honey. The strange part in all of this, shocking really, is that God needs Moses to accomplish this. Sure, with 3,000 years of retrospect, Moses looks like a great guy and I don’t think any of us would argue that God made a bad choice. But at the moment of the Burning Bush, there wasn’t a whole lot of evidence in his favor. I mean this is the guy that blew a virtually un-blowable insider position in the Egyptian political system because he got hot-headed and killed somebody. Then he runs to save his own skin and now he’s puttering around the desert working for his father-in-law. Let’s just say that his resume isn’t looking so hot at this particular moment in the story. And, to be fair, no-one is more aware of this than Moses, whose first response to this exciting job offer hand-delivered by the creator of the Universe is, Who me? Who am I to go to Pharoah and bring the people out of Israel? In fact this seems to be the standard response in all the prophetic call stories and I think it is one with which we can resonate. Today we might actually respond to such a call by saying, Who am I? I’m no Moses. But ironically enough that’s exactly what Moses thought. I am reminded of Teresa of Avila’s claim that God has no hands but ours. And that includes you, whoever you are, no matter how insignificant or incapable you might feel.
God speaks compassionately to Moses’ fear promising, I will be with you. That leads Moses to the next logical question, and who, precisely, are you? He’s smart enough to put this question in the mouths of the people he is going to rescue. Not that I have any concerns, here, but uh…what if they want to know your name? Moses turns out to be gutsier than he looks, asking God for some credentials, a character reference in the form of a name. God’s response, in Hebrew, is EHYEH ASHER EHYEH. Often translated, I am who I am it is probably more like I will be who I will be. This is the Divine Name revealed for the first time, and it does, in fact, tell us about the character of this Deity who promises to be with us. If you listen to it in Hebrew it sounds like wind, like spirit? Or maybe like breathing. God self-identifies with being, with what is at the deepest level of reality—beyond our illusions and our fears and our projections, God is the being that simply is, the Truth of reality with a capital T. It is always unfolding, always becoming and always being at the one and the same time.
None of us will ever grasp this AM-ness, this what is-ness completely. We’re not meant to, in that we are finite human beings. What we can do—no, what we are called to do, is to manifest it in our very partial, very incomplete human lives. When we do not manifest the unique expression of the Divine that wants to be revealed through us, we live in slavery. When we deny or prevent that manifestation of Divinity in others, we act as Pharoah. Each of us participates both in being slaves and in the enslavement of others. And all the while, God is calling for the liberation of God’s people. That’s us and it’s those we oppress, both by the evil that we do and the evil that is done our behalf. Who are we? We are the Israelites when we suffer the denial, the dismissal and the rejection of our unique expression in the world. We are Pharoah when we participate in and support systems that exploit and oppress other persons or groups as they seek to express their own full humanity. And we are Moses, in that God comes to each and every one of us, asking us to live into the fullness of God’s image imprinted uniquely onto our very souls, and beyond that to speak the Truth to power, standing up for the fullness of that image as it finds expression in our brothers and sisters.
At the heart of the story of the Burning Bush is nothing less than a revelation of the nature of God. But even more spectacular perhaps, is its revelation of the intimate connection between God and us piddly—or not so piddly—humans. This story points us toward a startling truth that each of us, together with all of creation, is called to manifest a particular aspect of God’s being-ness. It invites us to imagine a co-creative relationship with God that would turn us into something very much like the Burning Bush. We would blaze with the very fire of God, while still maintaining our identity in all of its wholeness and respecting the identities of others. Blazing, but not consumed and not consuming. If stepping into such a vision of your life feels impossible, don’t worry. You’re not alone…God will be with you.
As the curtain rises, we see Moses shepherding the flock of his father-in-law. For a brief recap, let’s recall that Moses after being raised by Pharoah’s daughter and growing up in the palace, went on to kill an Egyptian who was beating up a Hebrew and subsequently fled Egypt. Now, he is living a far more mundane existence, looking after sheep. He wanders beyond the wilderness, though, and comes perhaps unwittingly to the mountain of God. There he sees the most peculiar thing: a bush that is burning, but nevertheless remains intact. Flames are surrounding it, but not one twig disappears. Nor does it seem to be spreading to other plants and wildlife, with the typically destructive force of fire. It is blazing, but not consumed or consuming. Notice what Moses does--he turns aside to get a closer look. You might be thinking, “well YEAH. If I saw a bush that was burning without being burned up, I’d stop to look at it too!” But DO we? My hunch is that we are surrounded by burning bushes if we have eyes to see them. All of creation is alive with the glory of God, but often we are too busy, too distracted, and maybe too cynical to see the flames licking the edges of our everyday experiences. But the text says, “When God saw that Moses had turned aside, God called to him, ‘Moses! Moses!’” What might Moses have lost had he hurried past that bush? Slow down and pay attention to the moments, the events, and the people in your life who seem to shimmer with a strange light. Turn aside and listen for what they have to tell you. Nothing less than freedom from slavery and suffering is at stake!
So God speaks to Moses and says, “I have seen the pain of my people, I have heard their cry, I know their suffering.” This is the language of intimacy. The Hebrew word for knowing, yada, is the same word used in Hebrew for lovemaking. This is not academic knowing, this is soul knowing. God is intimately connected with God’s people and longs to lead them out of suffering into a place of abundance and peace, a land of milk and honey. The strange part in all of this, shocking really, is that God needs Moses to accomplish this. Sure, with 3,000 years of retrospect, Moses looks like a great guy and I don’t think any of us would argue that God made a bad choice. But at the moment of the Burning Bush, there wasn’t a whole lot of evidence in his favor. I mean this is the guy that blew a virtually un-blowable insider position in the Egyptian political system because he got hot-headed and killed somebody. Then he runs to save his own skin and now he’s puttering around the desert working for his father-in-law. Let’s just say that his resume isn’t looking so hot at this particular moment in the story. And, to be fair, no-one is more aware of this than Moses, whose first response to this exciting job offer hand-delivered by the creator of the Universe is, Who me? Who am I to go to Pharoah and bring the people out of Israel? In fact this seems to be the standard response in all the prophetic call stories and I think it is one with which we can resonate. Today we might actually respond to such a call by saying, Who am I? I’m no Moses. But ironically enough that’s exactly what Moses thought. I am reminded of Teresa of Avila’s claim that God has no hands but ours. And that includes you, whoever you are, no matter how insignificant or incapable you might feel.
God speaks compassionately to Moses’ fear promising, I will be with you. That leads Moses to the next logical question, and who, precisely, are you? He’s smart enough to put this question in the mouths of the people he is going to rescue. Not that I have any concerns, here, but uh…what if they want to know your name? Moses turns out to be gutsier than he looks, asking God for some credentials, a character reference in the form of a name. God’s response, in Hebrew, is EHYEH ASHER EHYEH. Often translated, I am who I am it is probably more like I will be who I will be. This is the Divine Name revealed for the first time, and it does, in fact, tell us about the character of this Deity who promises to be with us. If you listen to it in Hebrew it sounds like wind, like spirit? Or maybe like breathing. God self-identifies with being, with what is at the deepest level of reality—beyond our illusions and our fears and our projections, God is the being that simply is, the Truth of reality with a capital T. It is always unfolding, always becoming and always being at the one and the same time.
None of us will ever grasp this AM-ness, this what is-ness completely. We’re not meant to, in that we are finite human beings. What we can do—no, what we are called to do, is to manifest it in our very partial, very incomplete human lives. When we do not manifest the unique expression of the Divine that wants to be revealed through us, we live in slavery. When we deny or prevent that manifestation of Divinity in others, we act as Pharoah. Each of us participates both in being slaves and in the enslavement of others. And all the while, God is calling for the liberation of God’s people. That’s us and it’s those we oppress, both by the evil that we do and the evil that is done our behalf. Who are we? We are the Israelites when we suffer the denial, the dismissal and the rejection of our unique expression in the world. We are Pharoah when we participate in and support systems that exploit and oppress other persons or groups as they seek to express their own full humanity. And we are Moses, in that God comes to each and every one of us, asking us to live into the fullness of God’s image imprinted uniquely onto our very souls, and beyond that to speak the Truth to power, standing up for the fullness of that image as it finds expression in our brothers and sisters.
At the heart of the story of the Burning Bush is nothing less than a revelation of the nature of God. But even more spectacular perhaps, is its revelation of the intimate connection between God and us piddly—or not so piddly—humans. This story points us toward a startling truth that each of us, together with all of creation, is called to manifest a particular aspect of God’s being-ness. It invites us to imagine a co-creative relationship with God that would turn us into something very much like the Burning Bush. We would blaze with the very fire of God, while still maintaining our identity in all of its wholeness and respecting the identities of others. Blazing, but not consumed and not consuming. If stepping into such a vision of your life feels impossible, don’t worry. You’re not alone…God will be with you.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
ST. MARY, MOTHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
ST. MARY, MOTHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
(transferred from August 15)
August 17, 2008
Ss. Peter & Paul – Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
In his letter to the church in Galatia (our second reading today), Paul cuts through romantic nonsense to say that Mary’s ministry, like her son’s, was above all else to be the incarnation of a fundamental gospel message. The two of them, this mother and her son, are our hereditary links to kinship with God. To prove that we are sons and daughters of God, says Paul, this child was born of this woman, “so that we might receive adoption as children” (Gal. 4:5).
The primary images of our human relationship one to another and of our relationship to God are not images of husband and wife, nor even of father and son, for these relationships are known only to some of us. The inclusive and archetypal image of mother and child affirms our common humanity and, in this particular birth, affirms our common inheritance. We are all children of a mother! The fact that that child happens to be male does not represent male hierarchy or superiority; it represents gender symmetry. Arguments over which is the greater—mother or son, male or female—are as inconsequential and as circular as the argument of who comes first? the chicken or the egg? Madonna and child, like chicken and egg, are inseparable.
In them we have an icon of our relationship to God and of our kinship with one another. In the reality of something so simple, so fundamental, and so common as a human birth, our relationship to God is affirmed and our status as children of God’s own making is confirmed. But such relationship challenges our autonomy and independence. It is not “modern.”
A few years ago, we enjoyed a weekly, popular television series, “Northern Exposure.” In it, Dr. Joel Fleischman is a young Jewish doctor from New York transplanted to a remote little town in Alaska to work off his medical school loans. His character is a good representative of the secularized religious persons who make up an enormous percentage of our population in this country. In one episode, Dr. Fleischman learns of his possible ties to a dissident Jew in the former Soviet Union.
As he reads the story of Evgeny Fleischman’s flight from oppression, the young Jewish doctor recalls the stories of the Soviet Jews shared around the family table in his childhood and youth. As he reads on, Evgeny Fleischman becomes more and more real, an incarnation of things he has only lightly apprehended in imagination. Joel is fascinated and moved.
Though a part of him repudiates the relationship and objects that it means nothing to him, he is drawn by the story and the images it calls forth. Finally, Joel picks up the telephone at his crude desk in Cicely, Alaska, and dials Israel. For long, pregnant moments, all he can do is recite the name, “Evgeny? … Evgeny Fleischman?” When he realizes that they are connected, in the literal and figurative senses, Joel is overcome with tears. The scene ends with this young, thoroughly modern, secularized Jew asking tearfully, but with sincerity, warmth, and noticeable reverence, “Evgeny, how are things in Israel?”
In the person and the image of Mary we are invited to be reunited with that radical connectedness we share in our common birth and life. This was and continues to be the “greatness of the Lord” proclaimed in her song: that God is firm in the promise to our ancestors, that God has not forgotten to show mercy to Abraham and Abraham’s children, from generation to generation, even to our own day. This is the greatness that rejoices her spirit and ours: that in God’s greatness we are all embraced as one family. This is her eternal mission and ministry—that we might look upon these elemental images, ponder them in our own imaginations until they become incarnate in our own lives—reunion with God, with neighbor, and with self as whole, and as holy, as the union of mother and child.
[taken from a homily in Sam Portaro’s Brightest and Best]
(transferred from August 15)
August 17, 2008
Ss. Peter & Paul – Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
In his letter to the church in Galatia (our second reading today), Paul cuts through romantic nonsense to say that Mary’s ministry, like her son’s, was above all else to be the incarnation of a fundamental gospel message. The two of them, this mother and her son, are our hereditary links to kinship with God. To prove that we are sons and daughters of God, says Paul, this child was born of this woman, “so that we might receive adoption as children” (Gal. 4:5).
The primary images of our human relationship one to another and of our relationship to God are not images of husband and wife, nor even of father and son, for these relationships are known only to some of us. The inclusive and archetypal image of mother and child affirms our common humanity and, in this particular birth, affirms our common inheritance. We are all children of a mother! The fact that that child happens to be male does not represent male hierarchy or superiority; it represents gender symmetry. Arguments over which is the greater—mother or son, male or female—are as inconsequential and as circular as the argument of who comes first? the chicken or the egg? Madonna and child, like chicken and egg, are inseparable.
In them we have an icon of our relationship to God and of our kinship with one another. In the reality of something so simple, so fundamental, and so common as a human birth, our relationship to God is affirmed and our status as children of God’s own making is confirmed. But such relationship challenges our autonomy and independence. It is not “modern.”
A few years ago, we enjoyed a weekly, popular television series, “Northern Exposure.” In it, Dr. Joel Fleischman is a young Jewish doctor from New York transplanted to a remote little town in Alaska to work off his medical school loans. His character is a good representative of the secularized religious persons who make up an enormous percentage of our population in this country. In one episode, Dr. Fleischman learns of his possible ties to a dissident Jew in the former Soviet Union.
As he reads the story of Evgeny Fleischman’s flight from oppression, the young Jewish doctor recalls the stories of the Soviet Jews shared around the family table in his childhood and youth. As he reads on, Evgeny Fleischman becomes more and more real, an incarnation of things he has only lightly apprehended in imagination. Joel is fascinated and moved.
Though a part of him repudiates the relationship and objects that it means nothing to him, he is drawn by the story and the images it calls forth. Finally, Joel picks up the telephone at his crude desk in Cicely, Alaska, and dials Israel. For long, pregnant moments, all he can do is recite the name, “Evgeny? … Evgeny Fleischman?” When he realizes that they are connected, in the literal and figurative senses, Joel is overcome with tears. The scene ends with this young, thoroughly modern, secularized Jew asking tearfully, but with sincerity, warmth, and noticeable reverence, “Evgeny, how are things in Israel?”
In the person and the image of Mary we are invited to be reunited with that radical connectedness we share in our common birth and life. This was and continues to be the “greatness of the Lord” proclaimed in her song: that God is firm in the promise to our ancestors, that God has not forgotten to show mercy to Abraham and Abraham’s children, from generation to generation, even to our own day. This is the greatness that rejoices her spirit and ours: that in God’s greatness we are all embraced as one family. This is her eternal mission and ministry—that we might look upon these elemental images, ponder them in our own imaginations until they become incarnate in our own lives—reunion with God, with neighbor, and with self as whole, and as holy, as the union of mother and child.
[taken from a homily in Sam Portaro’s Brightest and Best]
Monday, August 11, 2008
Feast of the Transfiguration
FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION
August 10, 2008 (transferred from August 6)
Ss. Peter & Paul Parish – Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
When I read or hear or celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration – as we’re doing today here in our parish – I rejoice that I am “mystical” and “spiritual” enough not to be bothered by its fantastic nature. You know, Jesus taking some of his disciples up to a mountain, the clouds, the vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, hear him.” I’d love to have been there.
Or would I? Would I be scared half out of my wits? Probably: I scare easily. There’s a linear part of me, a literal part of me that demands a glowing Jesus on a mountaintop with phantasms of Moses and Elijah on either side. But this has no poetry, I realize; the story of the Transfiguration is an artistic struggle to give voice to an intangible insight. In the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the story falls near the center of each evangelist’s record; in Luke, what we just heard today, the Transfiguration is pointedly positioned between two incidents.
Just before the Transfiguration, Jesus asks his followers, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” and receives varied replies: “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” Jesus then asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “The Messiah of God” (Lk 9:18-20). Jesus then recounts the expectations of the messianic mission, speaking to them of duty and of death. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. … there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:23-27).
About a week after this exchange, Jesus goes up a hill to pray, taking Peter, James, and John with him. While in prayer, Jesus’ face takes on a new radiance and Moses and Elijah appear on either side of him, and they talk to him—not with him. Jesus presumably learns from them the manner of God’s purposes for him and is perhaps encouraged to meet the suffering and death ahead of him. The vision ends with a thundering voice from the cloud repeating the acclamation heard at Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, “This is my Son, my Chose,” adding the instruction, “Listen to him!” (Lk 9:35).
But another story follows immediately. The very next day Jesus encounters a man who begs Jesus to come look at his son. The distraught man is concerned that his boy is possessed by a destructive spirit that “convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.” The desperate father has come to Jesus because, he says, “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus is provoked to an unusual outburst: “You faithless and perverse generation,” he charges, “how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” (Lk 9:37-41).
The Transfiguration is a kind of ordination. It is not a formal priestly ordination, but it is certainly the feast affirming the particular vocation of Jesus. Before he goes up the hill, he reveals his own doubts and his need for greater clarity of discernment in his little poll, asking “Who do they say …, who do you say that I am?” He ascends the hill with their answers still resounding in his head. Peter’s response confirms that at least some of the people understand him to be the Messiah, the Christ. Once on the hill he is told exactly who he is, presumably by Moses and Elijah, and emphatically in the voice that proclaims from the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen.”
Upon descending from the mountain, Jesus experiences the first test of his new ordination as he is confronted by the faithlessness of his own disciples. He encounters their poverty of trust and assumes the full burden of his vocation. He expresses so poignantly his frustration when he demands to know how long he must put up with them. But even in expressing this exasperation, he has obviously accepted what God has demanded of him. His question is rhetorical; he knows as well as we do that he answer is “for all eternity.”
After that strange experience on the hill Jesus possessed something he had not known or evidenced before. He bore within and expressed without the unmistakable assurance of one who knew his place and what was demanded of him; he knew he was loved and chosen by God. That knowledge was his authority and the core of his integrity; he knew it so surely he could never relinquish it, even to the power of death. He was changed, and everyone who saw him saw that change. He was transfigured. The brooding shadow of doubt—doubt over his own place in God’s order and affections—was replaced by the clear light of assurance.
That transfiguring light, that blinding flash of insight, opens any person as it opened Jesus. That unassailable assurance in God, in one’s place within God’s household, of one’s worth as a child of God, illuminates life. Such transfiguration begets transfiguration in others, as the light is passed from person to person, until the whole world is ablaze with glory and God’s voice resounds, “This is my world, my Creation, my Chosen.”
[Ideas and illustrations from Sam Portaro in Brightest and Best]
August 10, 2008 (transferred from August 6)
Ss. Peter & Paul Parish – Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
When I read or hear or celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration – as we’re doing today here in our parish – I rejoice that I am “mystical” and “spiritual” enough not to be bothered by its fantastic nature. You know, Jesus taking some of his disciples up to a mountain, the clouds, the vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, hear him.” I’d love to have been there.
Or would I? Would I be scared half out of my wits? Probably: I scare easily. There’s a linear part of me, a literal part of me that demands a glowing Jesus on a mountaintop with phantasms of Moses and Elijah on either side. But this has no poetry, I realize; the story of the Transfiguration is an artistic struggle to give voice to an intangible insight. In the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the story falls near the center of each evangelist’s record; in Luke, what we just heard today, the Transfiguration is pointedly positioned between two incidents.
Just before the Transfiguration, Jesus asks his followers, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” and receives varied replies: “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” Jesus then asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “The Messiah of God” (Lk 9:18-20). Jesus then recounts the expectations of the messianic mission, speaking to them of duty and of death. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. … there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:23-27).
About a week after this exchange, Jesus goes up a hill to pray, taking Peter, James, and John with him. While in prayer, Jesus’ face takes on a new radiance and Moses and Elijah appear on either side of him, and they talk to him—not with him. Jesus presumably learns from them the manner of God’s purposes for him and is perhaps encouraged to meet the suffering and death ahead of him. The vision ends with a thundering voice from the cloud repeating the acclamation heard at Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, “This is my Son, my Chose,” adding the instruction, “Listen to him!” (Lk 9:35).
But another story follows immediately. The very next day Jesus encounters a man who begs Jesus to come look at his son. The distraught man is concerned that his boy is possessed by a destructive spirit that “convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.” The desperate father has come to Jesus because, he says, “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus is provoked to an unusual outburst: “You faithless and perverse generation,” he charges, “how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” (Lk 9:37-41).
The Transfiguration is a kind of ordination. It is not a formal priestly ordination, but it is certainly the feast affirming the particular vocation of Jesus. Before he goes up the hill, he reveals his own doubts and his need for greater clarity of discernment in his little poll, asking “Who do they say …, who do you say that I am?” He ascends the hill with their answers still resounding in his head. Peter’s response confirms that at least some of the people understand him to be the Messiah, the Christ. Once on the hill he is told exactly who he is, presumably by Moses and Elijah, and emphatically in the voice that proclaims from the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen.”
Upon descending from the mountain, Jesus experiences the first test of his new ordination as he is confronted by the faithlessness of his own disciples. He encounters their poverty of trust and assumes the full burden of his vocation. He expresses so poignantly his frustration when he demands to know how long he must put up with them. But even in expressing this exasperation, he has obviously accepted what God has demanded of him. His question is rhetorical; he knows as well as we do that he answer is “for all eternity.”
After that strange experience on the hill Jesus possessed something he had not known or evidenced before. He bore within and expressed without the unmistakable assurance of one who knew his place and what was demanded of him; he knew he was loved and chosen by God. That knowledge was his authority and the core of his integrity; he knew it so surely he could never relinquish it, even to the power of death. He was changed, and everyone who saw him saw that change. He was transfigured. The brooding shadow of doubt—doubt over his own place in God’s order and affections—was replaced by the clear light of assurance.
That transfiguring light, that blinding flash of insight, opens any person as it opened Jesus. That unassailable assurance in God, in one’s place within God’s household, of one’s worth as a child of God, illuminates life. Such transfiguration begets transfiguration in others, as the light is passed from person to person, until the whole world is ablaze with glory and God’s voice resounds, “This is my world, my Creation, my Chosen.”
[Ideas and illustrations from Sam Portaro in Brightest and Best]
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
12th Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 13, Year A - Tracy LeBlanc
Jacob’s story is great fun. He is such a naughty guy it is hard to imagine God doing any sort of work through such a vessel. He is the wily coyote of his day, only much more lucky and much more successful. In the womb he struggled with his twin, grasping Esau’s heel as they were born. Fighting even then to be first, to have more. Later in life he outwitted his brother Esau for his birthright, buying it for a bowl of lentils. Later he dressed in “hairy” clothing, impersonated his brother in the presence of his blind father, Isaac, and outwitted both Esau and Isaac receiving the family blessing. Receiving a little of his own foul play he met with his uncle Laban. But in the end he outwitted even his wily uncle and made off with the best of the flock of sheep.
Here is the scene for today’s story. Jacob has fled his uncle, now father in law, and is headed toward the territory of Esau who he has not seen since he stole his rightful blessing. Esau did not take kindly to the loss of his blessing and last we heard intended to kill Jacob. And in this scene Jacob is afraid. It has been many years, but he fears the anger of his brother who is rumored to be approaching with a large group of men. Fearing for his life Jacob sends a large portion of his sheep and camels as gifts ahead of him for Esau. When he gets even closer he sends ahead his wives and children and stays alone at the river crossing…
Alone, afraid, at night. And the common folklore of the time is that river crossings are guarded by mischievous and ill wishing spirits that come out to guard the river at night and must be bested in order for a safe crossing. A bit like the more modern image of the troll guarding the bridge. Most of us have been in that space. Alone, afraid and facing the consequences of our own ill actions. It is in that space that Jacob encounters God.
This is not an ordinary human-divine meeting. God enters the scene disguised as a man in a setting in which Jacob may expect some unruly spirit, disguised much as Jacob disguised himself for Isaac. And from the beginning he and Jacob wrestle. It is a night that echo’s Jacob’s life. The struggle to be the best, the constant striving to win - these last long into the darkness of the night. Then, just as Jacob has tricked and weaseled his way into the winner’s circle again and again, God pulls an unfair move and puts out Jacob’s hip. Yet even with this impediment Jacob holds on. He will demand of this encounter a blessing. But first God will give him something more. God will give Jacob himself. The entire night has been a battle between Jacob and his own nature a close up mirror that allows Jacob to see and wrestle with all that he has been. And now God gives Jacob, whose name means “supplanter or trickster” a new name. He will now be named “Israel” or the one who wrestles with God. God honors Jacob’s struggling nature and makes it something good and holy – something an entire nation will be built upon. And not any nation, but the nation that will be the one to bear God into the world.
The story ends without much of a sense of how the encounter will have influenced Jacob. He recognizes he has seen God, he builds an altar and he goes forth to face the his fears and meet Esau. The real glimpse of the change that has occurred comes when Jacob and Esau meet. Esau, rather than greeting his brother with anger runs to meet Jacob and embraces him with tears. He thanks his brother for the offering of the gift but says it is not necessary. Jacob, the one who has his entire life pushed for more, who has never been satisfied with his situation, who has never been pleased with the existence of his brother, does not grab back at the gift in relief. Rather, he says “no, please, please take my gifts for seeing you is like seeing the face of God. And God has dealt generously with me and I have more than enough”…I have more than enough.
Once John Rockefeller was asked, , "Mr. Rockefeller, how much is enough?" to which he replied, "Just a little more than I have." We are all a little bit like Jacob. We may not be tricksters or wily, but we view the world through scarcity colored glasses, always striving for more. God’s encounter with Jacob does not change the nature of his struggling ambitious will but it does give him an new perspective on the world colored by God’s abundance. It leaves him able to see the generosity of God, able to appreciate the abundance of his life and able to love his brother. Jacob/Israel has been named and that has made all the difference.
Well, we too are named. To each of us God would reveal to us our true selves, our true names that honor who we are and open up in us a heart that revels in God’s abundance. This is the true nature of the Eucharist – that we offer ourselves wholly to God, (symbolically in bread and wine), God honors our gift as holy, transforms it and gives us back to ourselves. “Be what you see and receive who you are” as Fr. Kurt so often says. Eucharist is this act of offering ourselves and receiving our true selves back again from God. Not just a Sunday morning thing, but every time we offer our lives, our hands, our labors to God we are named.
Being named gives us a responsibility as well as a gift, though. Jacob’s name, Israel put him in the place to create a nation that would “be a blessing to the world”. Our names leave us with much the same charge. We are named and in turn must become namers ourselves.
One of my favorite summer activities is to reread some of my childhood favorites. This summer I am rereading Madeline L’Engle’s series that begins with the novel A Wrinkle in Time. The second book in the series, A Wind in the Door, is all about this issue of naming. L’Engle meshes together religious ideas, science, and fantasy to weave an engaging tale about a teenage girl named Meg and her family. In this book Meg meets a cherubim whose vast life has been spent learning all the names of all the stars. He is, he tells Meg, a “namer”. He must remember the names and remind the stars of who they are meant to be. Meg, he says, must become a namer too for the darkness of this tale are the Xers, the “unnamers” who demolish souls by making beings forget who they are meant to be. Meg, then must learn to “name” and most importantly to “name” a character who has been cantankerous and hurtful, Mr. Jenkins the school principal. The Cherubim teaches Meg that to truly name this man, to give him the gift of who he really is, she must love him. Her initial wish would be to discount this man. To let him be Xed, unnamed. But, as one of the themes L’Engle contends through this novel is that all are necessary to the work of salvation in the world, this man cannot be forgotten or all is lost. Meg has to love the most unlovable man. Meg must “name” him and give him the gift of knowing who he is really meant to be. Of course, in the world of fantasy this is a very powerful event. Mr. Jenkins is named and this enables him to grow in courage and love until he is able to offer himself as a sacrifice to save the life of another.
We have a lot of Xers in our world today. Myriads of influences that would unname us, that would tell us we are nothing. From depression and shaky self confidence to consumerism that would have us believe we are nothing without the new and improved “this or that”… or without that career or without that family or more subtly nothing without that spiritual practice or great act of service. Our own little Xers run around in our brains telling us what we are doing is not quite enough, or not quite right. Jacob’s night of wrestling gave him a chance to face all the Xers lies head on, to see himself fully, to see God honor that self and to hear God give him a true name. Could we sit through a night questioning, thinking, wrestling with God, with who we are, what our life has been about and allow God to show us a mirror and give us a name?
And could we take upon ourselves the role of the namer? Could we walk through this world loving people so much that our words and interactions affirm the spark of God given charisma and light that is in them? Could we do that even with a Jacob – a wily trickster out for himself kind of guy? Can we love him? Can we find in the midst of the difficult personality the spark of God? We must, because, truly we belong to each other in such a way that we are, all of us, necessary. God will make a nation out of the most surprising people. God will speak through the silliest or quietest of voices, will act through the most clumsy of hands and we must be constantly loving and naming those people so that their voices and hands are free to work.
I read a great account of the Gospel text today by Sarah Dylan. She asserted that the most impressive part of the miracle in this story is not the multiplication of food but that all of those people were willing to eat together. The laws and cultural taboos that ruled who was clean and unclean/in and out – those were especially stringent around who one ate with. A large crowd has gathered around Jesus. They most certainly did not all meet the criteria for dinner guest. In fact, it would have been scandalous for a good Jew to eat with several of the people present. Jesus, however, gets them all to eat a meal together. Here we are today, still attempting that meal. We gather at the Eucharist as a whole community. Not all of us would make great dinner guests. But at the moment of the Eucharist we are all one and we are asked to eat together. Not one of us is dispensable this morning. The moment we begin to think that we become Madeline L’Engles Xers.
Our challenge today is to allow our hearts to wrestle with God and to receive the gift of who we are meant to be. The challenge today is to take upon ourselves the mantle of Namer – to love and need one another, to affirm the Spirit of God that dwells in all our hearts. The challenge today is to have a meal together in love.
Jacob’s story is great fun. He is such a naughty guy it is hard to imagine God doing any sort of work through such a vessel. He is the wily coyote of his day, only much more lucky and much more successful. In the womb he struggled with his twin, grasping Esau’s heel as they were born. Fighting even then to be first, to have more. Later in life he outwitted his brother Esau for his birthright, buying it for a bowl of lentils. Later he dressed in “hairy” clothing, impersonated his brother in the presence of his blind father, Isaac, and outwitted both Esau and Isaac receiving the family blessing. Receiving a little of his own foul play he met with his uncle Laban. But in the end he outwitted even his wily uncle and made off with the best of the flock of sheep.
Here is the scene for today’s story. Jacob has fled his uncle, now father in law, and is headed toward the territory of Esau who he has not seen since he stole his rightful blessing. Esau did not take kindly to the loss of his blessing and last we heard intended to kill Jacob. And in this scene Jacob is afraid. It has been many years, but he fears the anger of his brother who is rumored to be approaching with a large group of men. Fearing for his life Jacob sends a large portion of his sheep and camels as gifts ahead of him for Esau. When he gets even closer he sends ahead his wives and children and stays alone at the river crossing…
Alone, afraid, at night. And the common folklore of the time is that river crossings are guarded by mischievous and ill wishing spirits that come out to guard the river at night and must be bested in order for a safe crossing. A bit like the more modern image of the troll guarding the bridge. Most of us have been in that space. Alone, afraid and facing the consequences of our own ill actions. It is in that space that Jacob encounters God.
This is not an ordinary human-divine meeting. God enters the scene disguised as a man in a setting in which Jacob may expect some unruly spirit, disguised much as Jacob disguised himself for Isaac. And from the beginning he and Jacob wrestle. It is a night that echo’s Jacob’s life. The struggle to be the best, the constant striving to win - these last long into the darkness of the night. Then, just as Jacob has tricked and weaseled his way into the winner’s circle again and again, God pulls an unfair move and puts out Jacob’s hip. Yet even with this impediment Jacob holds on. He will demand of this encounter a blessing. But first God will give him something more. God will give Jacob himself. The entire night has been a battle between Jacob and his own nature a close up mirror that allows Jacob to see and wrestle with all that he has been. And now God gives Jacob, whose name means “supplanter or trickster” a new name. He will now be named “Israel” or the one who wrestles with God. God honors Jacob’s struggling nature and makes it something good and holy – something an entire nation will be built upon. And not any nation, but the nation that will be the one to bear God into the world.
The story ends without much of a sense of how the encounter will have influenced Jacob. He recognizes he has seen God, he builds an altar and he goes forth to face the his fears and meet Esau. The real glimpse of the change that has occurred comes when Jacob and Esau meet. Esau, rather than greeting his brother with anger runs to meet Jacob and embraces him with tears. He thanks his brother for the offering of the gift but says it is not necessary. Jacob, the one who has his entire life pushed for more, who has never been satisfied with his situation, who has never been pleased with the existence of his brother, does not grab back at the gift in relief. Rather, he says “no, please, please take my gifts for seeing you is like seeing the face of God. And God has dealt generously with me and I have more than enough”…I have more than enough.
Once John Rockefeller was asked, , "Mr. Rockefeller, how much is enough?" to which he replied, "Just a little more than I have." We are all a little bit like Jacob. We may not be tricksters or wily, but we view the world through scarcity colored glasses, always striving for more. God’s encounter with Jacob does not change the nature of his struggling ambitious will but it does give him an new perspective on the world colored by God’s abundance. It leaves him able to see the generosity of God, able to appreciate the abundance of his life and able to love his brother. Jacob/Israel has been named and that has made all the difference.
Well, we too are named. To each of us God would reveal to us our true selves, our true names that honor who we are and open up in us a heart that revels in God’s abundance. This is the true nature of the Eucharist – that we offer ourselves wholly to God, (symbolically in bread and wine), God honors our gift as holy, transforms it and gives us back to ourselves. “Be what you see and receive who you are” as Fr. Kurt so often says. Eucharist is this act of offering ourselves and receiving our true selves back again from God. Not just a Sunday morning thing, but every time we offer our lives, our hands, our labors to God we are named.
Being named gives us a responsibility as well as a gift, though. Jacob’s name, Israel put him in the place to create a nation that would “be a blessing to the world”. Our names leave us with much the same charge. We are named and in turn must become namers ourselves.
One of my favorite summer activities is to reread some of my childhood favorites. This summer I am rereading Madeline L’Engle’s series that begins with the novel A Wrinkle in Time. The second book in the series, A Wind in the Door, is all about this issue of naming. L’Engle meshes together religious ideas, science, and fantasy to weave an engaging tale about a teenage girl named Meg and her family. In this book Meg meets a cherubim whose vast life has been spent learning all the names of all the stars. He is, he tells Meg, a “namer”. He must remember the names and remind the stars of who they are meant to be. Meg, he says, must become a namer too for the darkness of this tale are the Xers, the “unnamers” who demolish souls by making beings forget who they are meant to be. Meg, then must learn to “name” and most importantly to “name” a character who has been cantankerous and hurtful, Mr. Jenkins the school principal. The Cherubim teaches Meg that to truly name this man, to give him the gift of who he really is, she must love him. Her initial wish would be to discount this man. To let him be Xed, unnamed. But, as one of the themes L’Engle contends through this novel is that all are necessary to the work of salvation in the world, this man cannot be forgotten or all is lost. Meg has to love the most unlovable man. Meg must “name” him and give him the gift of knowing who he is really meant to be. Of course, in the world of fantasy this is a very powerful event. Mr. Jenkins is named and this enables him to grow in courage and love until he is able to offer himself as a sacrifice to save the life of another.
We have a lot of Xers in our world today. Myriads of influences that would unname us, that would tell us we are nothing. From depression and shaky self confidence to consumerism that would have us believe we are nothing without the new and improved “this or that”… or without that career or without that family or more subtly nothing without that spiritual practice or great act of service. Our own little Xers run around in our brains telling us what we are doing is not quite enough, or not quite right. Jacob’s night of wrestling gave him a chance to face all the Xers lies head on, to see himself fully, to see God honor that self and to hear God give him a true name. Could we sit through a night questioning, thinking, wrestling with God, with who we are, what our life has been about and allow God to show us a mirror and give us a name?
And could we take upon ourselves the role of the namer? Could we walk through this world loving people so much that our words and interactions affirm the spark of God given charisma and light that is in them? Could we do that even with a Jacob – a wily trickster out for himself kind of guy? Can we love him? Can we find in the midst of the difficult personality the spark of God? We must, because, truly we belong to each other in such a way that we are, all of us, necessary. God will make a nation out of the most surprising people. God will speak through the silliest or quietest of voices, will act through the most clumsy of hands and we must be constantly loving and naming those people so that their voices and hands are free to work.
I read a great account of the Gospel text today by Sarah Dylan. She asserted that the most impressive part of the miracle in this story is not the multiplication of food but that all of those people were willing to eat together. The laws and cultural taboos that ruled who was clean and unclean/in and out – those were especially stringent around who one ate with. A large crowd has gathered around Jesus. They most certainly did not all meet the criteria for dinner guest. In fact, it would have been scandalous for a good Jew to eat with several of the people present. Jesus, however, gets them all to eat a meal together. Here we are today, still attempting that meal. We gather at the Eucharist as a whole community. Not all of us would make great dinner guests. But at the moment of the Eucharist we are all one and we are asked to eat together. Not one of us is dispensable this morning. The moment we begin to think that we become Madeline L’Engles Xers.
Our challenge today is to allow our hearts to wrestle with God and to receive the gift of who we are meant to be. The challenge today is to take upon ourselves the mantle of Namer – to love and need one another, to affirm the Spirit of God that dwells in all our hearts. The challenge today is to have a meal together in love.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
emergent in Seattle
The last outward voyage of my sabbatical pilgrimage is concluded, as I am back from my "in residence" time with "emerging" Church of the Apostles in Seattle. I feel that the labyrinth-path is turning homeward once again. Homeward, towards resuming my life of public ministry, hopefully bearing in my hands the "clews" of threads which lead to something like insight for the voyage yet to come.
In Seattle I stayed with a hospitable couple in their early 50's, their age constituting "elderhood" in Karen Ward's decidedly young adult congregation. Ned and Jeanette have a room with bath on the first floor of their more vertical than horizontal new townhouse built in the midst of older wood-frame homes in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. Fremont is old white blue-collar Northwest first gone counter-cultural, now nouveau-riche and yuppie. Think SE PDX meets Oregon Country Fair with some Pearl District thrown in plus a waterfront. The whole Silicon Valley post-modern empire continues in Seattle as Google and Adobe have both moved in.
I tried to live as a pilgrim there, staying on foot (easy, as everything including a well-stocked Episcopal bookstore are within walking distance). I wanted to get to know this neighborhood in which Karen's bold experiment in liturgical-sacramental-monastic Emerging Church has taken root.
There are many things to learn about post-modern culture as incarnated in our own midst. There are great risks, as the rags and vestiges of established church hold no refuge for us now. In the somewhat-underground press, the Seattle equivalents of The Mercury and Willamette Week had random statements of hostility directed at "the imaginary god" of establishment religion. This God is characterized as oppressive and a projection of those who wish to cramp the freedom and expression of others. On the other hand, the culture and those who participate in it are so removed from the central "Christian story" that there is a curiosity evident from many, especially if a community shows itself to a) not be lame or espouse scary politics b) be open and conversant with contemporary life, and c) be passionate and genuine about the faith-life it is living and is willing to welcome others into their midst.
I walked, enjoyed Fremont which describes itself modestly as "the center of the universe" whose motto is "de libertas quirkum"--"the right to be wierd." I talked with people--street folks, barristas, shopkeeps, people who responded with surprise and pleasure when I asked them "Are you well?"
I feel my journey into monasticism and into Emerging is beginning to make sense and even to integrate the Celtic understanding. To be a pilgrim in the world...to not pretend to have the answers...to listen deeply, to others, to one's own questions and pain, and to God who speaks so softly...to not attempt to be anything more than human.
One conversation took place in an uber-cool basement coffee shop called "Stickman". After discussing the theology of Johnny Cash with the barrista who was playing his Dark Stranger remix I settled into an upholstered church pew. A very young couple entered, the young man flame-haired as Ron Weasley and his friend quiet and dark. They ordered and edged over my way self-consciously. Addressing me respectfully as "sir", they asked if they could share my seating as "we are big pew fans." I shoved over saying "Of course" and as they settled in with lattes and laptops they politely asked if I was a regular and if not then why was I in town. I told them that I was in residence with Church of the Apostles which met in the Fremont Abbey up the hill, a cool postmodern-traditional church. I took my leave after the conversation ran its clear course and commended to them the pew.
Church of the Apostles' Eucharist is Saturday at 5. The liturgy was to be a "Blues Eucharist", and the ponytailed-wildman Lutheran pastor and bass guitarist was warming up with some good riffs and wails. I looked up from the couch-conversation I was having and smiled. There was the flaming red hair of the young coffee-shop pew fan and his dark-haired friend. I walked over and said, "The irony is that here there's not a pew in sight." They grinned and said what I had said about the church sounded "pretty good." They stayed for the whole service.
By God's mercy, we have a place in this emerging world. It will be a good place, if we walk our path with humility, faith, and trust, loving the people who are placed in our path by the good God.
In Seattle I stayed with a hospitable couple in their early 50's, their age constituting "elderhood" in Karen Ward's decidedly young adult congregation. Ned and Jeanette have a room with bath on the first floor of their more vertical than horizontal new townhouse built in the midst of older wood-frame homes in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. Fremont is old white blue-collar Northwest first gone counter-cultural, now nouveau-riche and yuppie. Think SE PDX meets Oregon Country Fair with some Pearl District thrown in plus a waterfront. The whole Silicon Valley post-modern empire continues in Seattle as Google and Adobe have both moved in.
I tried to live as a pilgrim there, staying on foot (easy, as everything including a well-stocked Episcopal bookstore are within walking distance). I wanted to get to know this neighborhood in which Karen's bold experiment in liturgical-sacramental-monastic Emerging Church has taken root.
There are many things to learn about post-modern culture as incarnated in our own midst. There are great risks, as the rags and vestiges of established church hold no refuge for us now. In the somewhat-underground press, the Seattle equivalents of The Mercury and Willamette Week had random statements of hostility directed at "the imaginary god" of establishment religion. This God is characterized as oppressive and a projection of those who wish to cramp the freedom and expression of others. On the other hand, the culture and those who participate in it are so removed from the central "Christian story" that there is a curiosity evident from many, especially if a community shows itself to a) not be lame or espouse scary politics b) be open and conversant with contemporary life, and c) be passionate and genuine about the faith-life it is living and is willing to welcome others into their midst.
I walked, enjoyed Fremont which describes itself modestly as "the center of the universe" whose motto is "de libertas quirkum"--"the right to be wierd." I talked with people--street folks, barristas, shopkeeps, people who responded with surprise and pleasure when I asked them "Are you well?"
I feel my journey into monasticism and into Emerging is beginning to make sense and even to integrate the Celtic understanding. To be a pilgrim in the world...to not pretend to have the answers...to listen deeply, to others, to one's own questions and pain, and to God who speaks so softly...to not attempt to be anything more than human.
One conversation took place in an uber-cool basement coffee shop called "Stickman". After discussing the theology of Johnny Cash with the barrista who was playing his Dark Stranger remix I settled into an upholstered church pew. A very young couple entered, the young man flame-haired as Ron Weasley and his friend quiet and dark. They ordered and edged over my way self-consciously. Addressing me respectfully as "sir", they asked if they could share my seating as "we are big pew fans." I shoved over saying "Of course" and as they settled in with lattes and laptops they politely asked if I was a regular and if not then why was I in town. I told them that I was in residence with Church of the Apostles which met in the Fremont Abbey up the hill, a cool postmodern-traditional church. I took my leave after the conversation ran its clear course and commended to them the pew.
Church of the Apostles' Eucharist is Saturday at 5. The liturgy was to be a "Blues Eucharist", and the ponytailed-wildman Lutheran pastor and bass guitarist was warming up with some good riffs and wails. I looked up from the couch-conversation I was having and smiled. There was the flaming red hair of the young coffee-shop pew fan and his dark-haired friend. I walked over and said, "The irony is that here there's not a pew in sight." They grinned and said what I had said about the church sounded "pretty good." They stayed for the whole service.
By God's mercy, we have a place in this emerging world. It will be a good place, if we walk our path with humility, faith, and trust, loving the people who are placed in our path by the good God.
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