Annual Address 2008
(Isaiah 9: 1-4; Ps 27: 1, 5-13; 1 Cor 1: 10-18; Mt 4: 12-23)
I used to have a business model approach to Annual Meeting, as if it’s time to drop the “God-talk” and get down to “practical matters”—budgets and policies and votes and Robert’s Rules. When I did this, I felt like a sweaty-palmed CEO convincing the shareholders that he’s really worth keeping around for another year.
But I’ve changed: I think it is vital that we don’t suspend who we are—called by the living God, animated by Holy Spirit—for the sake of “business”. I will speak to our life in light of God’s Word which we heard today. That’s our “business”.
“There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish…The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…”
We are a community of hope. We have a great, scary, edgy gift here in that we have no wealth or status to fall back on. We live on God’s kindness, expressed in the gift of our active membership who seek to follow God with their money as well as with their hearts and minds and hands and time. And we trust in the vision of passionate life in Christ, the welcome of pilgrims, and the service of our neighbors in need in order to draw others into our community. As one long-time member put it, “Compared to other churches, we are very lucky. We struggle with the right things—how to better serve, how to draw others into a fuller life in Christ.”
This past year we took a leap of faith and suspended our big fund-raisers. This was a way of taking care of our generous “usual suspects” who had exhausted themselves. It also allowed to concentrate on what is most important—our life in Christ, welcoming those who are drawn to that vision, and truly opening our life to them. And we have been blessed—in Advent alone we welcomed eleven new households among us. Many of these new pilgrims are moving right into positions of leadership and service.
Hope was visible and tangible in new projects this year—in the search to make our space fully handicapped-accessible, in the new Spanish Mass, in a renewed adult formation program, in a new vision for children’s ministry and a brand-new youth group, in the fascinating people who now seek us out to speak about God and pilgrimage and hope. And this hope has been publicly affirmed in the recent Living Church article about the parish as well as in ongoing interest in my book.
We struggle with great pain and suffering—among our own membership, and among the people who walk this gritty street. I know something about everyone here, so some Sundays I look out and my empathy for the burdens you bear almost overwhelms me. Gazing out at the people of this street, I feel the same. But we are a community of hope, and we are meant for joy. Sometimes that joy comes spontaneously, when we take simple delight in being together. Sometimes that joy comes from a deep and silent place, when we are at quiet prayer or at sacred song or listening to Scripture or tasting the Eucharist on both tongue and heart. We are a people of joy.
“I appeal to you…that there be no divisions among you…the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
After all these years, I still can’t name what keeps us glued together, except what is said in these words of our co-patron Paul.
It’s tough at the best of times to live together, to share one altar and one life. Church is not the place where we always live in harmony and peace. Church is where we live together, and sometimes struggle together. But we struggle together, not to test who will impose their will or to prove who is “right”. Church is where we engage one another under the power of the cross. Under the cross’ power we dare to be vulnerable to one another, we dare to speak but also to listen, we dare to seek reconciliation and give and receive forgiveness from God and one another. It’s supposed to be different in here, different from the angry and anxious world which shouts first and does not listen, which runs to courts and even to guns rather that giving the power of the cross so much as a try. I feel at peace that we try in our brokenness to be such a community, and I pray that we continue to do so. It’s a tough time for the world, for our own lives, for the Episcopal Church and for the Anglican Communion. In whatever challenges await us, I pray and trust that we shall deal with one another in the right way—under the foolish-seeming power of the Cross.
“Follow me” In the Gospel Jesus calls, and in today’s Collect we prayed that we might answer that call.
We are called, by a personal and living God. We are called to proclaim and live that intoxicating, life-giving vision of hope and liberation and common life and forgiveness and God’s “Shalom” that Jesus called the Kingdom or the Reign of God. So we can risk and we can dream that God may make true the hopes of our hearts. That is our life. I pray that we may continue to grow for the right reasons, and that all that we do and say be done in the light of Christ.
archived musings and preachments
Monday, January 28, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Toward God 4: "A Blind Feeling Unto God"
This chapter of Casey's struck me at a very important and vulnerable place.
I have been very skeptical of forms of spirituality that seemed "all about feeling", such as the semi-ecstatic forms of prayer that I experienced in charismatic gatherings for instance. Authenticity has always been important to me, and when I was in such gatherings surrounded by apparently ecstatic people I felt ill at ease. I just did not feel like putting my hands in the air or using the other gestures and mannerisms that I saw others using. And I resented the implication, sometimes put into words, that I "was not open" or "did not possess the Spirit."
As such one of my favorite expressions became "just because you think you feel the Spirit doesn't mean you 'possess' the Spirit. And just because you don't 'feel the Spirit' does not mean that the Spirit is not there."
I still think that strictly speaking that statement is true. But Casey's gentle words lead me into wishing to be more gentle both with others and with myself. He speaks of the classical understanding of the role of "spiritual pleasure", in Latin "delectatio", in a life lived "towards God"--to invite us and lead us into relationship. And I like what Casey says about the source of spiritual satisfaction--that with time, when by God's mercy we acquire the gift and habit of stillness and of listening, prayer begins to spring up from a deep place that is not in fact our "emotions" per se. But in a real relationship there is an ebb and flow of feeling, sensation, including desolation. My friendships and deepest loves have all of these moments and more. Why should my relationship with God have any less depth and complexity and texture?
This chapter is healing in ways that I find difficult to put into words. Perhaps that is part of what the traditional notion of "compunction" is--to be pierced, and moved from indifference to caring.
I have been very skeptical of forms of spirituality that seemed "all about feeling", such as the semi-ecstatic forms of prayer that I experienced in charismatic gatherings for instance. Authenticity has always been important to me, and when I was in such gatherings surrounded by apparently ecstatic people I felt ill at ease. I just did not feel like putting my hands in the air or using the other gestures and mannerisms that I saw others using. And I resented the implication, sometimes put into words, that I "was not open" or "did not possess the Spirit."
As such one of my favorite expressions became "just because you think you feel the Spirit doesn't mean you 'possess' the Spirit. And just because you don't 'feel the Spirit' does not mean that the Spirit is not there."
I still think that strictly speaking that statement is true. But Casey's gentle words lead me into wishing to be more gentle both with others and with myself. He speaks of the classical understanding of the role of "spiritual pleasure", in Latin "delectatio", in a life lived "towards God"--to invite us and lead us into relationship. And I like what Casey says about the source of spiritual satisfaction--that with time, when by God's mercy we acquire the gift and habit of stillness and of listening, prayer begins to spring up from a deep place that is not in fact our "emotions" per se. But in a real relationship there is an ebb and flow of feeling, sensation, including desolation. My friendships and deepest loves have all of these moments and more. Why should my relationship with God have any less depth and complexity and texture?
This chapter is healing in ways that I find difficult to put into words. Perhaps that is part of what the traditional notion of "compunction" is--to be pierced, and moved from indifference to caring.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
What Do You Seek?
2 Epiphany A 2008
(Isaiah 49: 1-7; Ps 40: 1-12; 1 Cor 1: 1-9; John 1: 29-42)
"Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory..."
I look forward to this Collect each year during the Epiphany season. "Illumination" has always been a rich word to me, especially since I discovered that the early Church referred to Baptism as "illumination." Light, suffusing, transforming, shining through our lives...I remember that we kids used to like to shine strong flashlights through our hands, as it seemed magical and scary and unearthly all at once for the light to pierce our skin and flesh and glow through them, showing delicate bones in faint outline. I remember that each 2 Epiphany, and imagine the Christ-light glowing through flesh and bone as well as through mind and heart and everything that makes up who we are.
For us here, the flashlight is the faith-life we lead together, the Word and Sacraments that we share week to week, day to day, Baptism and Eucharist and Bible. There may well be other ways for Christ to shine in lives--it would be arrogant to say "no" to that--but this is our way, the ancient and ever-new way of the Church. It's a privilege to show up and to allow Word and Sacrament to be the means that Christ shines in us and through us and transforms us through light.
Today it feels odd to be getting ready to go to Church once more as yesterday we celebrated the funeral of Chuck Reese, longtime beloved member here and a man, if there was any, whose constant presence and faith-filled "showing up" illustrated what it means for a life to be "illumined by Word and Sacraments" and to be "filled with the radiance of Christ's glory." Most of us felt after the funeral that we had "been to church" for the weekend, had celebrated Christ's saving power and love in the context of the life and death of one of Christ's faithful servants, and now to go back Sunday morning is a matter of faith and will! But go we shall, and show up on this morning in gratitude for the fact that Jesus Christ shows up every morning, every moment of our lives.
And today we speak in the Gospel of two ways, the way of John the Baptist and the way of Jesus.
One Celtic theologian says that the church year hinges on the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist. The Nativity or Birth of John the Baptist is celebrated on June 24, at the summer solstice, when the sun is at its height but the light of the sun begins its long slow fade to winter. The Birth of Jesus is celebrated on December 25 at the winter solstice, when in the depths of darkness the light of the sun begins to grow again. Their lives are both complimentary and contrasting. Today in John's Gospel we hear of how they are complimentary.
The Way of John the Baptist is a counter-cultural spiritual praxis--stepping aside. Last time I was in New York, my cousin told me that the most recent manifestation of aggressive New York driving habits is that many people no longer use their turn signals to indicate they wish to turn--"They say that's the same thing as asking permission to turn, and they say they don't need anyone's permission!" I laughed a little uneasily at the mulish angry pride in that, thinking that such pride will prove to be expensive and dangerous. But rarely does our culture teach us that there is something good about giving way, making space, allowing the other to go ahead, to increase, to take center stage. But that is just what John the Baptist is shown as doing for Jesus. "After me comes he who is before me..." Elsewhere he says "He must increase, I must decrease." This "way" may sound like a self-degrading stance, but it is actually fulfilling and life-giving. Anyone who has been involved with a young person, as a parent or coach or in any other role, knows how fulfilling it is to allow the young life to burst forth and grow and change while you smile and simply watch as they cut loose and come into their own. Any teacher knows that--the best compliment to a teacher is that the student exceed the teacher. And anyone in ministry needs to be very clear that it is about God, it is about Jesus Christ, and NOT about their own ego-fulfillment. That fulfillment will come, but in the joy and satisfaction of watching individual lives or the life of a congregation grow in faith and generosity and confidence and independence.
The Way of Jesus in today's Gospel is not a contrast of Jesus thumping his breast and beaming and saying, "That's right, I'm the one." It is instead an invitation.
The Gospel of John is full of intricate, delicate personal encounters. This is one of the most tender yet most challenging. Two pilgrims come to the newly-appeared Rabbi. They don't even have their questions clearly outlined, they don't have a script. They seem to stutter when Jesus turns and asks them, "What do you seek?" They don't ask for the Secret Words, for a one-liner of doctrine, for the shortcut sure-fire ticket to everlasting Salvation. "Where do you live?" Jesus doesn't answer with anything more profound than "Come and see."
Yet what could be more profound? Come and see my life the way it really is. Come and see where I sleep and eat and relax. Come and be with me. Share my life as it is. And that will be what you seek. Because we seek a life lived, we seek illumination and transformation, we seek to share the very life of God.
What do you seek?
Come and see. Come share. Come be illumined by Word and Sacrament. Come shine with the radiance of Christ's glory.
(Isaiah 49: 1-7; Ps 40: 1-12; 1 Cor 1: 1-9; John 1: 29-42)
"Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory..."
I look forward to this Collect each year during the Epiphany season. "Illumination" has always been a rich word to me, especially since I discovered that the early Church referred to Baptism as "illumination." Light, suffusing, transforming, shining through our lives...I remember that we kids used to like to shine strong flashlights through our hands, as it seemed magical and scary and unearthly all at once for the light to pierce our skin and flesh and glow through them, showing delicate bones in faint outline. I remember that each 2 Epiphany, and imagine the Christ-light glowing through flesh and bone as well as through mind and heart and everything that makes up who we are.
For us here, the flashlight is the faith-life we lead together, the Word and Sacraments that we share week to week, day to day, Baptism and Eucharist and Bible. There may well be other ways for Christ to shine in lives--it would be arrogant to say "no" to that--but this is our way, the ancient and ever-new way of the Church. It's a privilege to show up and to allow Word and Sacrament to be the means that Christ shines in us and through us and transforms us through light.
Today it feels odd to be getting ready to go to Church once more as yesterday we celebrated the funeral of Chuck Reese, longtime beloved member here and a man, if there was any, whose constant presence and faith-filled "showing up" illustrated what it means for a life to be "illumined by Word and Sacraments" and to be "filled with the radiance of Christ's glory." Most of us felt after the funeral that we had "been to church" for the weekend, had celebrated Christ's saving power and love in the context of the life and death of one of Christ's faithful servants, and now to go back Sunday morning is a matter of faith and will! But go we shall, and show up on this morning in gratitude for the fact that Jesus Christ shows up every morning, every moment of our lives.
And today we speak in the Gospel of two ways, the way of John the Baptist and the way of Jesus.
One Celtic theologian says that the church year hinges on the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist. The Nativity or Birth of John the Baptist is celebrated on June 24, at the summer solstice, when the sun is at its height but the light of the sun begins its long slow fade to winter. The Birth of Jesus is celebrated on December 25 at the winter solstice, when in the depths of darkness the light of the sun begins to grow again. Their lives are both complimentary and contrasting. Today in John's Gospel we hear of how they are complimentary.
The Way of John the Baptist is a counter-cultural spiritual praxis--stepping aside. Last time I was in New York, my cousin told me that the most recent manifestation of aggressive New York driving habits is that many people no longer use their turn signals to indicate they wish to turn--"They say that's the same thing as asking permission to turn, and they say they don't need anyone's permission!" I laughed a little uneasily at the mulish angry pride in that, thinking that such pride will prove to be expensive and dangerous. But rarely does our culture teach us that there is something good about giving way, making space, allowing the other to go ahead, to increase, to take center stage. But that is just what John the Baptist is shown as doing for Jesus. "After me comes he who is before me..." Elsewhere he says "He must increase, I must decrease." This "way" may sound like a self-degrading stance, but it is actually fulfilling and life-giving. Anyone who has been involved with a young person, as a parent or coach or in any other role, knows how fulfilling it is to allow the young life to burst forth and grow and change while you smile and simply watch as they cut loose and come into their own. Any teacher knows that--the best compliment to a teacher is that the student exceed the teacher. And anyone in ministry needs to be very clear that it is about God, it is about Jesus Christ, and NOT about their own ego-fulfillment. That fulfillment will come, but in the joy and satisfaction of watching individual lives or the life of a congregation grow in faith and generosity and confidence and independence.
The Way of Jesus in today's Gospel is not a contrast of Jesus thumping his breast and beaming and saying, "That's right, I'm the one." It is instead an invitation.
The Gospel of John is full of intricate, delicate personal encounters. This is one of the most tender yet most challenging. Two pilgrims come to the newly-appeared Rabbi. They don't even have their questions clearly outlined, they don't have a script. They seem to stutter when Jesus turns and asks them, "What do you seek?" They don't ask for the Secret Words, for a one-liner of doctrine, for the shortcut sure-fire ticket to everlasting Salvation. "Where do you live?" Jesus doesn't answer with anything more profound than "Come and see."
Yet what could be more profound? Come and see my life the way it really is. Come and see where I sleep and eat and relax. Come and be with me. Share my life as it is. And that will be what you seek. Because we seek a life lived, we seek illumination and transformation, we seek to share the very life of God.
What do you seek?
Come and see. Come share. Come be illumined by Word and Sacrament. Come shine with the radiance of Christ's glory.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
"Toward God" Chapter 3: Given, Not Achieved
Several things I enjoy about Casey. One is, he always rewards a re-read. I've become very choosey about the books I buy, and one criteria is whether or not I see myself re-reading a given book. As I go over these chapters, some of which I read months ago, I find new nuggets as well as familiar truths which I am perhaps more ready to hear than I was before.
I also like the fact that Casey is quietly challenging, even unsettling. He does not see the role of a "spiritual" book as a conveyor of "warm fuzzies".
This chapter strikes head-on two assumptions we make in our culture: a) you get what you want by your own efforts, and b) prayer is meant to "feel good" and is an optional self-enhancement activity.
Casey speaks to the first in his first sentence thus: "Prayer is strange in being an activity where no success is possible." Again he returns to the difficult truth that "real" prayer comes out of one's own real-life circumstances. "The ecstatic prayer of a mystic is in no way superior to the agonized stumbling of a sinner..." Often people who become enchanted with the "spiritual life" measure "success" by feeling or some sense of self-fulfillment: the mystically-minded progressive who feels whole and at peace at the Labyrinth workshop, or the Pentecostal who "feels the Spirit" and hence regards their prayer as "Spirit-filled." I include myself among those who passed through and still on occasion fall into this perception--ever since age 18 I loved "feeling mystical", whole and at peace and centered, in silent prayer or on retreat. I believe these experiences are fine, but they are easy to latch onto for their own sake such that when the feeling fades (and it always does) we get anxious and put a lot of energy into replicating it or seeking what "went wrong."
Casey suggests that in fact nothing may be "wrong"; what matters is that we pray, and by prayer he means allow Spirit to work in us, to pray in us in fact, and to reveal progressively our own wounds and fears and desires that they may be healed. We can trust God to work, and as Casey says God always succeeds even though we may not feel that way.
One simple story that I like that Casey does not cite is of a contemporary monk who was asked by someone how he seemed to have learned to "pray always", St. Paul's instruction that has haunted classical Christian spiritual teaching. He replied, "I think that prayer has always been inside me, like a spring covered by a stone. Then one day Jesus came and took away the stone." I sometimes pray now that Jesus will take away my own stone. Of course, maybe he has--who am I or anyone else to measure?
Throughout Casey retains his "positive anthropology" that we are in fact intended for God and are "hard-wired" for spiritual fulfillment that goes far beyond that sort of emotional or intellectual perception that we have "found it". I like the ball-held-under-water analogy, that not matter how it is held down the ball strains toward the surface. On down days I appreciate that sort of imagery, as well as the fact that Casey says it is precisely on those "down days" that the greatest amount of genuine growth is being accomplished in us. My moments of mystic sense of oneness are few and far between, let me tell you! In fact lately I have felt not a sense of total desolation, but rather a great silence and a sense of standing on dry ground. Beats a swamp, but still it's human to expect something more when one has put in a lot of time showing up, spiritually speaking! I hear Casey's counsel as comfort, to trust that Spirit is at work and that, to paraphrase a famous Russian Orthodox patriarch, the Holy One of Blessing teaches me to pray and in fact prays in me.
I also like the fact that Casey is quietly challenging, even unsettling. He does not see the role of a "spiritual" book as a conveyor of "warm fuzzies".
This chapter strikes head-on two assumptions we make in our culture: a) you get what you want by your own efforts, and b) prayer is meant to "feel good" and is an optional self-enhancement activity.
Casey speaks to the first in his first sentence thus: "Prayer is strange in being an activity where no success is possible." Again he returns to the difficult truth that "real" prayer comes out of one's own real-life circumstances. "The ecstatic prayer of a mystic is in no way superior to the agonized stumbling of a sinner..." Often people who become enchanted with the "spiritual life" measure "success" by feeling or some sense of self-fulfillment: the mystically-minded progressive who feels whole and at peace at the Labyrinth workshop, or the Pentecostal who "feels the Spirit" and hence regards their prayer as "Spirit-filled." I include myself among those who passed through and still on occasion fall into this perception--ever since age 18 I loved "feeling mystical", whole and at peace and centered, in silent prayer or on retreat. I believe these experiences are fine, but they are easy to latch onto for their own sake such that when the feeling fades (and it always does) we get anxious and put a lot of energy into replicating it or seeking what "went wrong."
Casey suggests that in fact nothing may be "wrong"; what matters is that we pray, and by prayer he means allow Spirit to work in us, to pray in us in fact, and to reveal progressively our own wounds and fears and desires that they may be healed. We can trust God to work, and as Casey says God always succeeds even though we may not feel that way.
One simple story that I like that Casey does not cite is of a contemporary monk who was asked by someone how he seemed to have learned to "pray always", St. Paul's instruction that has haunted classical Christian spiritual teaching. He replied, "I think that prayer has always been inside me, like a spring covered by a stone. Then one day Jesus came and took away the stone." I sometimes pray now that Jesus will take away my own stone. Of course, maybe he has--who am I or anyone else to measure?
Throughout Casey retains his "positive anthropology" that we are in fact intended for God and are "hard-wired" for spiritual fulfillment that goes far beyond that sort of emotional or intellectual perception that we have "found it". I like the ball-held-under-water analogy, that not matter how it is held down the ball strains toward the surface. On down days I appreciate that sort of imagery, as well as the fact that Casey says it is precisely on those "down days" that the greatest amount of genuine growth is being accomplished in us. My moments of mystic sense of oneness are few and far between, let me tell you! In fact lately I have felt not a sense of total desolation, but rather a great silence and a sense of standing on dry ground. Beats a swamp, but still it's human to expect something more when one has put in a lot of time showing up, spiritually speaking! I hear Casey's counsel as comfort, to trust that Spirit is at work and that, to paraphrase a famous Russian Orthodox patriarch, the Holy One of Blessing teaches me to pray and in fact prays in me.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Wild Child
The Baptism of the Lord 2008
(Isaiah 42: 1-9; Ps 29; Acts 10: 34-43; Matthew 3: 13-17)
It is rich beyond belief, this brief time in the church’s rhythm of worship: dreams in the night, a pregnancy before marriage, a third trimester donkey trip, an emperor taxing the poor, angels who sing, shepherds who shake, a baby in the straw, a star in the night, wizards who come, rich gifts in a shed, a killer king, mothers wailing, a family fleeing for its life.
And those are the stories. They have given birth to rich words and ideas. Incarnation and Epiphany—our attempts to put into words the meaning of the astounding stories that we have heard and taken into our hearts yet again.
Today—one more story. We fast-forward and leave behind all those lovely haunting stories of a mysterious child. Here the church serves up another image, a dreamlike tale of not an infant but a man, a young man filled with life and passion and fire, all the promise of a vibrant young person. We like to be around young people because we bask in that life and promise. Today we bask in the young life of promise that walks down to a river in the wilderness. The wild prophet John, the water-dunker, stands waiting. From the depth of Israel’s past we hear the lips of long-dead Isaiah breathe these words as the young man wades into the water, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.”
Whispered urgent words are exchanged—is this the right thing to do? Wonder and questions give way to water on skin. And a young man emerges from cool flowing Jordan and sees Heaven and Spirit and hears—not ten more commandments, but a simple message: Here is my Son. He is my Beloved. He pleases me so very much.
Stars and camels and stables have led to the Jordan. Why tell this story here and now? Is this what Christmas is all about?
This is what it is all about.
Here is God made flesh and flesh made God. Here is the one who is beloved. Here is the one who has come to serve. Both are true-beloved and servant. Each reveals the depth of the other. Jesus is beloved of the heart of God. See Jesus, see God’s heart. We see God’s humble servant heart. God-Word-servant-flesh is plunged into the river. At the first beginning God drew order out of the chaos of the primal water. This time God reaches into Jordan’s water and draws forth a new creation, the first wild child of the new humanity. River-water becomes birth-water, the first word he hears is “Beloved.”
We are plunged into the Jordan too. Jesus is our Baptismal sponsor and our fellow-candidate. We are plunged into cool Jordan and up we come again. We are the new creation. We hear those impossible words that many of us despair of ever hearing—you are beloved, God’s own heart. God is very pleased with you. Go with Jesus into the water and know the love of the heart of God. Come out with Jesus and be empowered to love and to serve. We are empowered—to turn from death and towards life and light. We are empowered, to taste and hear and see God in our flesh and in the flesh of others. We are empowered, to be the daughters and sons of the heart of God, to share in the delight and the joy and the sorrow and the heartbreak and the wild hope of the wisdom of God.
The haunting old story has led us here—water on our skin, God’s voice in our ears, the vital young Beloved at our sides. Did he know, that day at the river, where the path of God would lead? The story doesn’t say. He did know that he was called, beloved, made new. As we face the promise and the joy and the challenge of this year, can we ask for anything more?
(Isaiah 42: 1-9; Ps 29; Acts 10: 34-43; Matthew 3: 13-17)
It is rich beyond belief, this brief time in the church’s rhythm of worship: dreams in the night, a pregnancy before marriage, a third trimester donkey trip, an emperor taxing the poor, angels who sing, shepherds who shake, a baby in the straw, a star in the night, wizards who come, rich gifts in a shed, a killer king, mothers wailing, a family fleeing for its life.
And those are the stories. They have given birth to rich words and ideas. Incarnation and Epiphany—our attempts to put into words the meaning of the astounding stories that we have heard and taken into our hearts yet again.
Today—one more story. We fast-forward and leave behind all those lovely haunting stories of a mysterious child. Here the church serves up another image, a dreamlike tale of not an infant but a man, a young man filled with life and passion and fire, all the promise of a vibrant young person. We like to be around young people because we bask in that life and promise. Today we bask in the young life of promise that walks down to a river in the wilderness. The wild prophet John, the water-dunker, stands waiting. From the depth of Israel’s past we hear the lips of long-dead Isaiah breathe these words as the young man wades into the water, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.”
Whispered urgent words are exchanged—is this the right thing to do? Wonder and questions give way to water on skin. And a young man emerges from cool flowing Jordan and sees Heaven and Spirit and hears—not ten more commandments, but a simple message: Here is my Son. He is my Beloved. He pleases me so very much.
Stars and camels and stables have led to the Jordan. Why tell this story here and now? Is this what Christmas is all about?
This is what it is all about.
Here is God made flesh and flesh made God. Here is the one who is beloved. Here is the one who has come to serve. Both are true-beloved and servant. Each reveals the depth of the other. Jesus is beloved of the heart of God. See Jesus, see God’s heart. We see God’s humble servant heart. God-Word-servant-flesh is plunged into the river. At the first beginning God drew order out of the chaos of the primal water. This time God reaches into Jordan’s water and draws forth a new creation, the first wild child of the new humanity. River-water becomes birth-water, the first word he hears is “Beloved.”
We are plunged into the Jordan too. Jesus is our Baptismal sponsor and our fellow-candidate. We are plunged into cool Jordan and up we come again. We are the new creation. We hear those impossible words that many of us despair of ever hearing—you are beloved, God’s own heart. God is very pleased with you. Go with Jesus into the water and know the love of the heart of God. Come out with Jesus and be empowered to love and to serve. We are empowered—to turn from death and towards life and light. We are empowered, to taste and hear and see God in our flesh and in the flesh of others. We are empowered, to be the daughters and sons of the heart of God, to share in the delight and the joy and the sorrow and the heartbreak and the wild hope of the wisdom of God.
The haunting old story has led us here—water on our skin, God’s voice in our ears, the vital young Beloved at our sides. Did he know, that day at the river, where the path of God would lead? The story doesn’t say. He did know that he was called, beloved, made new. As we face the promise and the joy and the challenge of this year, can we ask for anything more?
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
"Toward God" chapter 2: The human basis of prayer
Thanks to those who have joined the conversation!
Casey is true to his Catholic roots in this: in order to speak about a living relationship with God, we must speak about the human person, the "sacred ground" where the biblical God is manifests and towards who the biblical God is drawn. Reminds me of that "glorious, unresolved mess" of which Mary spoke in her comment!
In chapter 2 he had me at "Discontent is crucial to the emergence of prayer." The awakening of my own attraction to God was filled with this sense of discontent, the longing for something more. When I first discovered the Psalms, I was thrilled that there was an ancient way to speak bluntly with the Mystery, but even among them I was most drawn to Psalms of longing like Ps 63 ("O God, you are my God...for you my soul is thirsting") and Ps 42 ("When shall I go and enter the presence of God?")
And yet, beginning with stumbling steps to walk a path that hopefully led to that God did little to slake that sense of discontent; rather it grew. As the years have gone on, I have "made friends" with that sense of discontent and let it guide my days and prayer, rather than treat it like a problem to be solved. Makes me wonder how many people sense that dissatisfaction in their lives and, rather than let it draw them within and without in a God-search, allow the culture to convince them to treat it like a symptom to be medicated? What think--what role does discontent play in a life lived in the divine dance?
Casey goes on with handy "bullets" to flesh out his presentation of the "human basis":
1) Prayer is growth in truth
2) Prayer is petition
3) Prayer always leaves us not fully satisfied
4) Prayer is a school of self-forgetfulness
What I find both healing and deeply challenging in Casey is his quiet insistence that we "keep it real", that authentic prayer is never a flight from our human truth nor is it taking refuge in dogmatic certitudes and spiritual "warm fuzzies." There's an echo for me here of Scott Peck, who defines mental health as an "unrelentling commitment to reality no matter what the cost." Casey invites us and challenges us to explore, accept, and embrace our reality as the only path to a meaningful relationship with a living God.
What practices help us "keep prayer real", allow us to pray from that ground where we are incomplete, in need, reliant, without our own resources? Does this enable us, as Casey says, to "grow in compassion for others" which is part of that self-forgetfulness which Casey cites. A parishioner recently quoted liberation theologian Leonardo Boff who said, and I paraphrase, that we are untimately not to find God in our prayer, meditation, Biblical study, and other spiritual practices. We are ultimately to find God where Jesus himself did, "in the faces of the humiliated." Quite a pre-Lenten thought! As a person who has long been attracted to the practice and culture of Christian spirituality--contemplation, Daily Office and all--I find that statement deeply challenging. But it makes more strange sense the longer I go about this pilgrim project. Makes me think of the increasingly-familiar poem of John of the Cross: "In the evening, we shall all be examined on love." What think?
Casey is true to his Catholic roots in this: in order to speak about a living relationship with God, we must speak about the human person, the "sacred ground" where the biblical God is manifests and towards who the biblical God is drawn. Reminds me of that "glorious, unresolved mess" of which Mary spoke in her comment!
In chapter 2 he had me at "Discontent is crucial to the emergence of prayer." The awakening of my own attraction to God was filled with this sense of discontent, the longing for something more. When I first discovered the Psalms, I was thrilled that there was an ancient way to speak bluntly with the Mystery, but even among them I was most drawn to Psalms of longing like Ps 63 ("O God, you are my God...for you my soul is thirsting") and Ps 42 ("When shall I go and enter the presence of God?")
And yet, beginning with stumbling steps to walk a path that hopefully led to that God did little to slake that sense of discontent; rather it grew. As the years have gone on, I have "made friends" with that sense of discontent and let it guide my days and prayer, rather than treat it like a problem to be solved. Makes me wonder how many people sense that dissatisfaction in their lives and, rather than let it draw them within and without in a God-search, allow the culture to convince them to treat it like a symptom to be medicated? What think--what role does discontent play in a life lived in the divine dance?
Casey goes on with handy "bullets" to flesh out his presentation of the "human basis":
1) Prayer is growth in truth
2) Prayer is petition
3) Prayer always leaves us not fully satisfied
4) Prayer is a school of self-forgetfulness
What I find both healing and deeply challenging in Casey is his quiet insistence that we "keep it real", that authentic prayer is never a flight from our human truth nor is it taking refuge in dogmatic certitudes and spiritual "warm fuzzies." There's an echo for me here of Scott Peck, who defines mental health as an "unrelentling commitment to reality no matter what the cost." Casey invites us and challenges us to explore, accept, and embrace our reality as the only path to a meaningful relationship with a living God.
What practices help us "keep prayer real", allow us to pray from that ground where we are incomplete, in need, reliant, without our own resources? Does this enable us, as Casey says, to "grow in compassion for others" which is part of that self-forgetfulness which Casey cites. A parishioner recently quoted liberation theologian Leonardo Boff who said, and I paraphrase, that we are untimately not to find God in our prayer, meditation, Biblical study, and other spiritual practices. We are ultimately to find God where Jesus himself did, "in the faces of the humiliated." Quite a pre-Lenten thought! As a person who has long been attracted to the practice and culture of Christian spirituality--contemplation, Daily Office and all--I find that statement deeply challenging. But it makes more strange sense the longer I go about this pilgrim project. Makes me think of the increasingly-familiar poem of John of the Cross: "In the evening, we shall all be examined on love." What think?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
A mad path
Epiphany 2008
(Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ps 72; Ephesians 3: 1-12; Matthew 2: 1-12)
This is a story of leaving home, walking a mad path, and being changed.
The infant Messiah had been foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. These “wise men” were astrologers, magicians. They didn’t come to find the Messiah through the orthodox and correct ways. Their magic, their outlandish spirituality, led them West from what we now call Iraq. They shouldn’t have been there in Palestine. It was a mad thing they did, to leave their homes where they were known, to follow nothing more solid than a star.
What strange paths have we walked, how many detours from the “acceptable” and “decent” path have we taken? How many side trips have we been on in our own lives? The Gospel seems to say it doesn’t matter. They question is not “where have you been?”, but rather “what do you seek?” God has a way of using any path to call us home.
The wise men come to Jerusalem, expecting that if something big is going to happen then it will of course happen in the Big Apple. And in the Big Apple they almost step on a snake, Herod the paranoid King. The air was full of threats as the wise men bowed with Eastern courtesy to the old jackal on the throne. Polite things were said while Herod pondered how to use the chumps from out of town and the wise men recognized a slimy tyrant from long experience and schemed how to get away from him with their heads still on their bodies.
We walk our journey in a world which does not value our path, which usually ignores us or even schemes to use us. It is a great gift that following Jesus is no longer looked on as a sane and normal thing, something any good person does. The way of the Gospel is a mad path that trusts a promise and a crucified Lord. How do we walk this path through the world and keep our souls intact?
The star still lay ahead, the star which had the power to not only shine but to beckon and guide. Not turned aside by fear, the pilgrims arrive. They find—what? What they expected, what they thought their lives of wisdom and mysticism had earned them? Or did they find something or someone utterly different, so different that they are themselves transformed?
They were transformed. They became people who listened to God in their dreams. They became people who were willing to go home “by another road.” There’s no returning on the same paths and returning to their old life, “among an alien people clutching their gods” as the poet said. The journey itself, as well as the One awaiting them in an unexpected place, transformed them forever.
They are us.
Tradition crowned the wise men and assigned them the mystic number three “kings of Orient are” and gave their skins all the colors of the peoples of the earth. One old myth says that they were actually the three sons of Noah, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, raised from the dead to represent all humanity’s journey to Bethlehem’s shed. The church school students declared them the Three Wise Women who would have arrived earlier than the men because they would have stopped to ask for directions. But the point is we have surrounded the mystic pilgrims with poetry and art and story and song because they are us. The doors of welcome are flung wide. We are all invited to the blazing wonder of God among us. But we each walk our own pilgrim path. No one can say that our journey is not correct. The Beloved of God blesses the path. Perhaps the Beloved, the Christ is the journey and the path, the star and the restless longing all at once. That’s how we recognize him when we finally arrive. And we arrive to be changed, to become a new people who listen to God in dreams and who are willing to take “another road.”
(Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ps 72; Ephesians 3: 1-12; Matthew 2: 1-12)
This is a story of leaving home, walking a mad path, and being changed.
The infant Messiah had been foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. These “wise men” were astrologers, magicians. They didn’t come to find the Messiah through the orthodox and correct ways. Their magic, their outlandish spirituality, led them West from what we now call Iraq. They shouldn’t have been there in Palestine. It was a mad thing they did, to leave their homes where they were known, to follow nothing more solid than a star.
What strange paths have we walked, how many detours from the “acceptable” and “decent” path have we taken? How many side trips have we been on in our own lives? The Gospel seems to say it doesn’t matter. They question is not “where have you been?”, but rather “what do you seek?” God has a way of using any path to call us home.
The wise men come to Jerusalem, expecting that if something big is going to happen then it will of course happen in the Big Apple. And in the Big Apple they almost step on a snake, Herod the paranoid King. The air was full of threats as the wise men bowed with Eastern courtesy to the old jackal on the throne. Polite things were said while Herod pondered how to use the chumps from out of town and the wise men recognized a slimy tyrant from long experience and schemed how to get away from him with their heads still on their bodies.
We walk our journey in a world which does not value our path, which usually ignores us or even schemes to use us. It is a great gift that following Jesus is no longer looked on as a sane and normal thing, something any good person does. The way of the Gospel is a mad path that trusts a promise and a crucified Lord. How do we walk this path through the world and keep our souls intact?
The star still lay ahead, the star which had the power to not only shine but to beckon and guide. Not turned aside by fear, the pilgrims arrive. They find—what? What they expected, what they thought their lives of wisdom and mysticism had earned them? Or did they find something or someone utterly different, so different that they are themselves transformed?
They were transformed. They became people who listened to God in their dreams. They became people who were willing to go home “by another road.” There’s no returning on the same paths and returning to their old life, “among an alien people clutching their gods” as the poet said. The journey itself, as well as the One awaiting them in an unexpected place, transformed them forever.
They are us.
Tradition crowned the wise men and assigned them the mystic number three “kings of Orient are” and gave their skins all the colors of the peoples of the earth. One old myth says that they were actually the three sons of Noah, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, raised from the dead to represent all humanity’s journey to Bethlehem’s shed. The church school students declared them the Three Wise Women who would have arrived earlier than the men because they would have stopped to ask for directions. But the point is we have surrounded the mystic pilgrims with poetry and art and story and song because they are us. The doors of welcome are flung wide. We are all invited to the blazing wonder of God among us. But we each walk our own pilgrim path. No one can say that our journey is not correct. The Beloved of God blesses the path. Perhaps the Beloved, the Christ is the journey and the path, the star and the restless longing all at once. That’s how we recognize him when we finally arrive. And we arrive to be changed, to become a new people who listen to God in dreams and who are willing to take “another road.”
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Toward God 1
Michael Casey's book "Toward God" is one that I have returned to twice, and each time I find more food for my own pilgrimage. Casey is Abbot of a Trappist (Cistercian) monastery in Australia. For those inclined to Celtic and monastic connections, the Cistercians were a radical reform movement of the 11th Century, starting from what they called simply "the new monastery" in Citeaux of France. Returning to a primitive observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, the Cistercians emphasized simplicity, prayer, manual work, and the witness of the Desert Fathers and other early monastic figures. It's notable that in Ireland, once imported, the Cistercians spread and prospered. I think that is due in part to the resonances struck with the ancient Celtic monastic tradition by Cistercian simplicity and emphasis on personal prayer. At this juncture of my own journey, I find that the Cistercian tradition has quietly made itself a significant part of my life. I have long loved the Trappist monastery close by here at Lafayette, Oregon, and plan to spend a month of my sabbatical time with the community, God willing. Of course, like many another Christian of the late 20th century I have a fascination for Thomas Merton. Casey's book is very much part of this Cistercian-tropism, as he has proven to be a wise guide in the ways of prayer. And now I am also reading Esther DeWaal's introduction to the Cistercian heritage "The Way Of Simplicity." I am grateful for this quiet, unassuming, yet passionate witness within the Body of believers.
Chapter 1 of Casey's book captured me immediately: his exploration of the first chapter of John's Gospel and his provocative comment that the verse could just as legitimately be translated as "the Word was toward God." So often I had on some level assumed that to be "spiritual" was to be in some static state, everything finally figured out and resolved. This brief meditation put into context what I have personally learned through the long school of the labyrinthine journey that is my actual pilgrimage--that it is the hunger for God which drives my own prayer, and that this longing for God is actually found within the very life of God the Trinity. God longs for God in fact. This very image has worked itself into my own prayer and preaching. What do you think?
Casey's anthropology or view of human nature is very positive, and in the historical sense very Catholic. Ex.: "We were created with an orientation toward God, and so actions that direct us toward God accord with the imperatives of our nature." I find this positive view of human personhood very liberating, and I also find this a contrast with the classical Continental Protestant view of total human depravity and the fact that God's grace is supra nos, utterly distinct from us and beyond us. Does this matter, or is it just a"head trip" to use a dated '70's turn of phrase? I think it does myself, but how about you?
Casey speaks of prayer as that which starts from the reality of our lives, that prayer is not some sort of technique or idealized state that we "put on" but that authentic prayer wells up from our lives and in fact specifically through our experience of our own suffering: "...it is by passing through such periods that we begin to discover our deeper selves: we make contact with our neediness and and find in our hearts a great longing and love for the God who remains unseen." How has the experience of suffering brought us to a ground of our being where we can "break through", dramatically or gradually, to a deeper experience of God? Or how not?
That is as far as I will venture in this post. Casey's first chapter has more rich themes, and I would welcome anyone else's mining of his text for more "chewing material."
Peace on the 10th Day of Christmas,
kurt n
Chapter 1 of Casey's book captured me immediately: his exploration of the first chapter of John's Gospel and his provocative comment that the verse could just as legitimately be translated as "the Word was toward God." So often I had on some level assumed that to be "spiritual" was to be in some static state, everything finally figured out and resolved. This brief meditation put into context what I have personally learned through the long school of the labyrinthine journey that is my actual pilgrimage--that it is the hunger for God which drives my own prayer, and that this longing for God is actually found within the very life of God the Trinity. God longs for God in fact. This very image has worked itself into my own prayer and preaching. What do you think?
Casey's anthropology or view of human nature is very positive, and in the historical sense very Catholic. Ex.: "We were created with an orientation toward God, and so actions that direct us toward God accord with the imperatives of our nature." I find this positive view of human personhood very liberating, and I also find this a contrast with the classical Continental Protestant view of total human depravity and the fact that God's grace is supra nos, utterly distinct from us and beyond us. Does this matter, or is it just a"head trip" to use a dated '70's turn of phrase? I think it does myself, but how about you?
Casey speaks of prayer as that which starts from the reality of our lives, that prayer is not some sort of technique or idealized state that we "put on" but that authentic prayer wells up from our lives and in fact specifically through our experience of our own suffering: "...it is by passing through such periods that we begin to discover our deeper selves: we make contact with our neediness and and find in our hearts a great longing and love for the God who remains unseen." How has the experience of suffering brought us to a ground of our being where we can "break through", dramatically or gradually, to a deeper experience of God? Or how not?
That is as far as I will venture in this post. Casey's first chapter has more rich themes, and I would welcome anyone else's mining of his text for more "chewing material."
Peace on the 10th Day of Christmas,
kurt n
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