Today Light is born in the world. Today darkness flees and all weariness slinks away to hide and await another discouraged day.
Today heaven and earth are two words only according to punctuation. Today there is no need to seek in the heavens or in the depths of the past or in the intricacies of thought to find Divinity and transcendence and transformation. Today, as Richard Rohr eloquently said, God is perfectly hidden and perfectly revealed, and wholly lovable, in the Child born among us and for us.
The whole world had a Baby by sheer gift and grace.
Last night Saints Peter and Paul, or many of us at least, gathered to stand vigil at that Birth. The new life born was eloquently shown to us by the new life among us, infant Lydia, born to longtime members so that the parish had a baby! What an exquisite even on which to baptize a child, to be reminded without words of the Life given to us poor and vulnerable and a sheer gift in our arms!
Easiest sermon I've ever preached--I only had to hold the child.
And members of the Hispanic community brought food and brought costumes and enacted a brief version of Las Posadas, the rich customary remembrance of the Holy Family asking for shelter and welcome when they were refugees. The homeless and vulnerable among us, in our world, that which is vulnerable and homeless within us, and the incarnate Word born to his people who "received him not"--all were present and asking for "posada", shelter, and the cry of final welcome spoke the Hope that there is by grace a welcome for us and a welcome that will be invoked from our hurting transformed hearts.
And so we welcomed him, with song and silence and word and music and all our glorious, broken, loved humanity, in two languages, on a chilly evening in a church on a gritty urban strip. And so we loved the children and broke pinatas and enjoyed our life with one another. And so we live...as the often-wayward friends of the Friend who mercifully is born daily in our hearts and in our world.
archived musings and preachments
Friday, December 25, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
O Oriens
Today's "'O' Antiphon" can be rendered, "O Dayspring, Brightness of the Light Eternal, and Sun of Righteousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death."
I kinda like to render the Latin "Oriens" as "Eastern Dawn." You recognize it as the word from which we get "Oriental" as well as "oriented." Someone who is oriented literally knows which way to face, and the way to face is East. East, to drink in the rising sun; east, to greet the new light. East, to greet the One who is the true Dawn and the true Light.
No one who lives in the Northwest despises light. We'll take all we can get, thank you! But I have come to appreciate the region's gloom--helps remind me of my own need for that true Light and to long for it. And the Light comes as a gift.
Today also the feast of a favorite Saint--Thomas, who got a bad rap as "doubting Thomas", some sort of object lesson in thinking the right things. Thomas teaches us of the hunger and longing of authentic faith--he wishes to touch, he wishes to meet. An early Church Father said, "The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples." May Thomas' asking of the hard questions and longing for an authentic encounter with the Word made flesh be our own longing.
And may that Word light your way, on the longest night of the year, in whatever long night in which we find ourselves awaiting the dawn.
I kinda like to render the Latin "Oriens" as "Eastern Dawn." You recognize it as the word from which we get "Oriental" as well as "oriented." Someone who is oriented literally knows which way to face, and the way to face is East. East, to drink in the rising sun; east, to greet the new light. East, to greet the One who is the true Dawn and the true Light.
No one who lives in the Northwest despises light. We'll take all we can get, thank you! But I have come to appreciate the region's gloom--helps remind me of my own need for that true Light and to long for it. And the Light comes as a gift.
Today also the feast of a favorite Saint--Thomas, who got a bad rap as "doubting Thomas", some sort of object lesson in thinking the right things. Thomas teaches us of the hunger and longing of authentic faith--he wishes to touch, he wishes to meet. An early Church Father said, "The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples." May Thomas' asking of the hard questions and longing for an authentic encounter with the Word made flesh be our own longing.
And may that Word light your way, on the longest night of the year, in whatever long night in which we find ourselves awaiting the dawn.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
O Key of David
"O Key of David, and Scepter of the house of Israel, you open and no one can shut, you shut and no one can open: Come and bring the captives out of the prison house, those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death."
Today's "'O' Antiphon" (try Googling that) speaks with confidence of release from whatever binds us.
Any living thing instinctively hates being imprisoned. The worse thing that can be done for a living thing is to accustom it to prison walls. With time we do adapt to wall and bars--many convicts are "recidivous", returning again and again to jail. We shake our heads at this, but perhaps we all tend to be "recidivous", co-operating with the forces and voices that would imprison us in a life, any life, that is not fully who and what we are called to be.
What we are called to be, to paraphrase one early church pastor, is fully alive. And that is the glory of God.
Awake, watch, says Advent. Awake especially to whatever binds us, whatever walls have grown around us. We are not the summation of our fears, our dreads, we are not what a consumer culture or an atmosphere of rage and fear and resentment tell us we are. We are freed by the One who is Free, who cries out within us, within our most true selves, and who cries in word and Sacrament to hear, to awake, to stand, to walk, and finally to run. See the Key who comes to the darkest place in which we have been shackled or, perhaps, where we have placed ourselves.
Today's "'O' Antiphon" (try Googling that) speaks with confidence of release from whatever binds us.
Any living thing instinctively hates being imprisoned. The worse thing that can be done for a living thing is to accustom it to prison walls. With time we do adapt to wall and bars--many convicts are "recidivous", returning again and again to jail. We shake our heads at this, but perhaps we all tend to be "recidivous", co-operating with the forces and voices that would imprison us in a life, any life, that is not fully who and what we are called to be.
What we are called to be, to paraphrase one early church pastor, is fully alive. And that is the glory of God.
Awake, watch, says Advent. Awake especially to whatever binds us, whatever walls have grown around us. We are not the summation of our fears, our dreads, we are not what a consumer culture or an atmosphere of rage and fear and resentment tell us we are. We are freed by the One who is Free, who cries out within us, within our most true selves, and who cries in word and Sacrament to hear, to awake, to stand, to walk, and finally to run. See the Key who comes to the darkest place in which we have been shackled or, perhaps, where we have placed ourselves.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Frost and cold, glorify the Lord
Today is Our Lady of Guadalupe for our Hispanic brothers and sisters. As I chose to postpone today's Brigid's Breakfast, I drove to the church to post signs and change the voicemail message. On the way I saw the fleet of cars parked all around Ascension RC Church, where the customary dawn Mass and Mananitas for OL of G was celebrated. I am glad she looked after her children and her Misa, at least today and here.
The Canticle "suggested" for Morning Prayer in the BCP is the so-called "Song of the Three Young Men" (BCP 88) One man I respect called this the "song of the actual", as all creation is named and called upon to join in the general chorus, "glorify the Lord." Seems particularly apt today, as Advent waiting and openness, expectancy and quiet is forced upon us when the news channels hum excitedly with a "weather event" and unnecessary travel and restlessness ceases. Church-folk are part of the general agitation--there are things to do always, usually good things, but lots of things nonetheless. It can be a good thing to be compelled, as far as our professions permit, to pause and hear even briefly the song of creation in ourselves and in the world around us.
So we pause, breathe a prayer for those who must travel as well as for those who are without shelter, and welcome just a moment of quiet into our souls. Quiet, in which, without any effort or agitation on our part, the silent Word comes to birth in darkness and in secret, be we man or woman, old or young. Quiet, in which we need do nothing, move nothing, achieve nothing, save make room for the silent One who was born and who is constantly re-born in receptive hearts and in the forgotten places of our world.
Creation can be trusted to keep watch and to sing praise--"glorify the Lord." Pause and we too can hear.
If we continue to be icy, re-check this 'blog for updates. Stay safe.
The Canticle "suggested" for Morning Prayer in the BCP is the so-called "Song of the Three Young Men" (BCP 88) One man I respect called this the "song of the actual", as all creation is named and called upon to join in the general chorus, "glorify the Lord." Seems particularly apt today, as Advent waiting and openness, expectancy and quiet is forced upon us when the news channels hum excitedly with a "weather event" and unnecessary travel and restlessness ceases. Church-folk are part of the general agitation--there are things to do always, usually good things, but lots of things nonetheless. It can be a good thing to be compelled, as far as our professions permit, to pause and hear even briefly the song of creation in ourselves and in the world around us.
So we pause, breathe a prayer for those who must travel as well as for those who are without shelter, and welcome just a moment of quiet into our souls. Quiet, in which, without any effort or agitation on our part, the silent Word comes to birth in darkness and in secret, be we man or woman, old or young. Quiet, in which we need do nothing, move nothing, achieve nothing, save make room for the silent One who was born and who is constantly re-born in receptive hearts and in the forgotten places of our world.
Creation can be trusted to keep watch and to sing praise--"glorify the Lord." Pause and we too can hear.
If we continue to be icy, re-check this 'blog for updates. Stay safe.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
What's really going on?
Proper 28 B 2009
(1 Samuel 1: 4-20; Ps 16; Heb 10: 11-14, 19-25; Mark 13: 1-8)
Once there was a wise teacher of meditation and prayer in the East. It is said that he used to amuse his community of followers from time to time by searching about the monastery, anxiously peering into rooms, under furniture, and into corners. When asked what he was doing, he would say that he was looking for his own body. The students always seemed to think this was hilarious, and, so the story says, “never understood what the teacher was getting at.”
I thought of that story this week as I examined the readings and kept in mind today’s Collect. “All Holy Scripture is written for our learning”, so take a big bite, chew it up, and swallow it down. Well, today we’re given a helping of liver and onions to take in. The Gospel text gives us images that lie deep within the nightmares of the human soul. Wars, earthquakes, famines, and the great Temple itself torn apart like the great buildings of the East Coast were torn apart eight years ago: apocalypse. It’s a deep dread common to us all. That fear—that one day the dreadful violent end will come—gives rise to literature and to entertainment—look at all the disaster movies past and present. Apocalypse always seeks a contemporary plausible face—anyone here remember Y2K? Anyone here plan to see the movie “2012”, supposedly about the disaster predicted by an ancient Mayan calendar? An actual Mayan recently said that he wished people would stop asking him when the world will end—as far as he’s concerned his people ended their calendar at the western year 2012 because they ran out of room on the stone where they were carving the dates! But still, the images and the fear—fed by our own dread and sense of helplessness, fed by the fact that in this world bad things, violent things, seemingly senseless things can and do happen. Above all, we fear that the world and our lives may be ruled by nothing more than random chance, or even a cruel and faceless will.
Apocalypse can be earth-wide and cataclysmic. Usually, however, apocalypse is more personal, a private tragedy. Neither I nor anyone else has the right to make simple clichés or statements about the suffering of another, so trivializing pain that can only be experienced in order to be understood. An example of such pain is the story of Hannah in the Old Testament today. Infertility is a bitter and personal pain. So is living with serious illness or chronic pain, or loss of a loved one, or addiction.
But private or public disaster is not the meaning of the word “apocalypse.” The word actually means “uncovering”, letting us see what’s truly present, what’s truly at work in the world and in our lives.
What’s truly at work is God is in charge, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. What’s truly present is a cloud of witness and a God who loves us beyond measure. What is truly at work is the Spirit changing and renewing us even when we do not see or feel that change.
So what are we to do? How are we to live?
Remember that Eastern spiritual master, and open our eyes to see what is most deeply true about us and about our world. Don’t run madly to look for answers in blind alleys. God is with us, within us, around us. In times of challenge and fear and risk, keep standing on what is firm and unchanging. Know that Jesus has passed before us, and in ways we cannot begin to understand he has walked all our paths before us. Walk with confidence, and walk in the ways that Jesus has taught. Let’s help each other to walk this path, let’s walk with each other through good times and bad alike. And let’s keep gathering together, let’s keep showing up to pray and to be Christ’s body together. We go through our challenges together.
For we are never alone, our lives are never meaningless, and we are never forgotten. Desmond Tutu said it more clearly than do I. “I have some good news,” said Desmond. “I’ve read the book to the end, and guess what? We win.” In spite of all that happens, we are seen, we are known, and we are loved. And like the infant prophet to be born to Hannah, new hope is coming to birth in us in ways we cannot fully understand.
(1 Samuel 1: 4-20; Ps 16; Heb 10: 11-14, 19-25; Mark 13: 1-8)
Once there was a wise teacher of meditation and prayer in the East. It is said that he used to amuse his community of followers from time to time by searching about the monastery, anxiously peering into rooms, under furniture, and into corners. When asked what he was doing, he would say that he was looking for his own body. The students always seemed to think this was hilarious, and, so the story says, “never understood what the teacher was getting at.”
I thought of that story this week as I examined the readings and kept in mind today’s Collect. “All Holy Scripture is written for our learning”, so take a big bite, chew it up, and swallow it down. Well, today we’re given a helping of liver and onions to take in. The Gospel text gives us images that lie deep within the nightmares of the human soul. Wars, earthquakes, famines, and the great Temple itself torn apart like the great buildings of the East Coast were torn apart eight years ago: apocalypse. It’s a deep dread common to us all. That fear—that one day the dreadful violent end will come—gives rise to literature and to entertainment—look at all the disaster movies past and present. Apocalypse always seeks a contemporary plausible face—anyone here remember Y2K? Anyone here plan to see the movie “2012”, supposedly about the disaster predicted by an ancient Mayan calendar? An actual Mayan recently said that he wished people would stop asking him when the world will end—as far as he’s concerned his people ended their calendar at the western year 2012 because they ran out of room on the stone where they were carving the dates! But still, the images and the fear—fed by our own dread and sense of helplessness, fed by the fact that in this world bad things, violent things, seemingly senseless things can and do happen. Above all, we fear that the world and our lives may be ruled by nothing more than random chance, or even a cruel and faceless will.
Apocalypse can be earth-wide and cataclysmic. Usually, however, apocalypse is more personal, a private tragedy. Neither I nor anyone else has the right to make simple clichés or statements about the suffering of another, so trivializing pain that can only be experienced in order to be understood. An example of such pain is the story of Hannah in the Old Testament today. Infertility is a bitter and personal pain. So is living with serious illness or chronic pain, or loss of a loved one, or addiction.
But private or public disaster is not the meaning of the word “apocalypse.” The word actually means “uncovering”, letting us see what’s truly present, what’s truly at work in the world and in our lives.
What’s truly at work is God is in charge, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. What’s truly present is a cloud of witness and a God who loves us beyond measure. What is truly at work is the Spirit changing and renewing us even when we do not see or feel that change.
So what are we to do? How are we to live?
Remember that Eastern spiritual master, and open our eyes to see what is most deeply true about us and about our world. Don’t run madly to look for answers in blind alleys. God is with us, within us, around us. In times of challenge and fear and risk, keep standing on what is firm and unchanging. Know that Jesus has passed before us, and in ways we cannot begin to understand he has walked all our paths before us. Walk with confidence, and walk in the ways that Jesus has taught. Let’s help each other to walk this path, let’s walk with each other through good times and bad alike. And let’s keep gathering together, let’s keep showing up to pray and to be Christ’s body together. We go through our challenges together.
For we are never alone, our lives are never meaningless, and we are never forgotten. Desmond Tutu said it more clearly than do I. “I have some good news,” said Desmond. “I’ve read the book to the end, and guess what? We win.” In spite of all that happens, we are seen, we are known, and we are loved. And like the infant prophet to be born to Hannah, new hope is coming to birth in us in ways we cannot fully understand.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
How did it end?
Proper 27 B 2009
(Ruth 3: 1-5, 4…; Ps 127; Heb 9: 24-28;Mark 12: 38-44)
Some things work out perfectly. The Fall pledge mailing went out Friday, and look what we have here today—that lovely story about the poor woman and her gift of two copper coins!
Like many Gospel stories, we may think we know what this story is all about. That is always dangerous, because there is always something new for us in the Gospel. The lady who gave the small coins is often used as a morality play, an object lesson for generous giving. That’s fine. But there’s something I’ve always resented about this story. What I resent is this—we don’t hear what happened next.
Those folks who poured in big donations, those wealthy philanthropists—hey, big donations are always fun, that’s how new buildings and new projects are funded. But the Gospel is not primarily about fund-raising—the Gospel is about change and transformation. The wealthy folks went home, and I suspect nothing changed. They had an image of themselves as generous people, and that was confirmed. They had been proved in public as generous people. Their lifestyles were unchanged. Their self-images as devout and giving people were…unchanged. If what they wanted was to stay unchanged, then they got a good deal that day.
I have always wanted to know what happened to that poor widow when she got home. It is easy to romanticize this story and her sacrificial giving, and not ask what happened the same night, the next day. How did she live? Did she eat?
Generosity and sacrifice does not always have an immediate payback, the kind we want and expect. But maybe—maybe the woman’s poverty moved someone else, maybe a neighbor, to generosity in turn. Maybe her hunger was an invitation for someone to reach out to her. Random acts of giving have ripple effects, paybacks that we cannot anticipate.
And the woman, and those near her, had the chance to change, to be transformed. The devout members of the people of Israel sometimes called themselves the “anawim”, the poor of God. Sometimes spiritual poverty is just a cliché, a symbol without power. No one could say that the widow’s poverty was just a symbol, that it was without startling power.
The Gospel is a school of practice and of change. Mark Scandrette, teacher in the Emerging church movement, calls a authentic church setting a “Jesus dojo”, borrowing the word for a martial arts practice hall. The dojo only does you good if you show up, if you practice, and if you seek to grow and improve. In a talk entitled “The Five Myths Of Community,” Mark says that one of the myths is that of the “healthy skeptic.” “I used to be this guy,” says Mark. “I didn’t think the local church was ever doing the right thing really, so instead of giving money to my church I gave it for starving children in Africa. And I was always sidling up to the leadership and say, ‘You know, I’m reading this really cool book and I think you should read it too. And I think you should do…’ I was always on the fringe.” He stops, chuckles, and says, “I wasn’t right. I was messed up.”
The Jesus Way, says Mark, the Jesus dojo, is not about endless complaining, but it is a collective. Pitch in, and you will live the life. It is grace-filled and forgiving. Don’t moan about your past journey or the community’s past—instead give thanks. “Make a serious commitment to your present tribe” says Mark. And it’s not cool to suggest that the tribe do something that you yourself are not willing to do. Be direct, be involved, be here now.
Give in a different way. As we do this canvass, how can our giving change us? How can we see what we do with our money to be part of our following the Jesus Way? How can this customary process of talking about goals and money be different, be something that changes us all? And what will we be like the day after, once we’ve gone home?
(Ruth 3: 1-5, 4…; Ps 127; Heb 9: 24-28;Mark 12: 38-44)
Some things work out perfectly. The Fall pledge mailing went out Friday, and look what we have here today—that lovely story about the poor woman and her gift of two copper coins!
Like many Gospel stories, we may think we know what this story is all about. That is always dangerous, because there is always something new for us in the Gospel. The lady who gave the small coins is often used as a morality play, an object lesson for generous giving. That’s fine. But there’s something I’ve always resented about this story. What I resent is this—we don’t hear what happened next.
Those folks who poured in big donations, those wealthy philanthropists—hey, big donations are always fun, that’s how new buildings and new projects are funded. But the Gospel is not primarily about fund-raising—the Gospel is about change and transformation. The wealthy folks went home, and I suspect nothing changed. They had an image of themselves as generous people, and that was confirmed. They had been proved in public as generous people. Their lifestyles were unchanged. Their self-images as devout and giving people were…unchanged. If what they wanted was to stay unchanged, then they got a good deal that day.
I have always wanted to know what happened to that poor widow when she got home. It is easy to romanticize this story and her sacrificial giving, and not ask what happened the same night, the next day. How did she live? Did she eat?
Generosity and sacrifice does not always have an immediate payback, the kind we want and expect. But maybe—maybe the woman’s poverty moved someone else, maybe a neighbor, to generosity in turn. Maybe her hunger was an invitation for someone to reach out to her. Random acts of giving have ripple effects, paybacks that we cannot anticipate.
And the woman, and those near her, had the chance to change, to be transformed. The devout members of the people of Israel sometimes called themselves the “anawim”, the poor of God. Sometimes spiritual poverty is just a cliché, a symbol without power. No one could say that the widow’s poverty was just a symbol, that it was without startling power.
The Gospel is a school of practice and of change. Mark Scandrette, teacher in the Emerging church movement, calls a authentic church setting a “Jesus dojo”, borrowing the word for a martial arts practice hall. The dojo only does you good if you show up, if you practice, and if you seek to grow and improve. In a talk entitled “The Five Myths Of Community,” Mark says that one of the myths is that of the “healthy skeptic.” “I used to be this guy,” says Mark. “I didn’t think the local church was ever doing the right thing really, so instead of giving money to my church I gave it for starving children in Africa. And I was always sidling up to the leadership and say, ‘You know, I’m reading this really cool book and I think you should read it too. And I think you should do…’ I was always on the fringe.” He stops, chuckles, and says, “I wasn’t right. I was messed up.”
The Jesus Way, says Mark, the Jesus dojo, is not about endless complaining, but it is a collective. Pitch in, and you will live the life. It is grace-filled and forgiving. Don’t moan about your past journey or the community’s past—instead give thanks. “Make a serious commitment to your present tribe” says Mark. And it’s not cool to suggest that the tribe do something that you yourself are not willing to do. Be direct, be involved, be here now.
Give in a different way. As we do this canvass, how can our giving change us? How can we see what we do with our money to be part of our following the Jesus Way? How can this customary process of talking about goals and money be different, be something that changes us all? And what will we be like the day after, once we’ve gone home?
Monday, October 26, 2009
take heart
Proper 25 B 2009 (at St. David’s)
(Job 42: 1-6, 10-17; Ps 34: 1-8; Heb 7: 23-28; Mark 10: 46-52)
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
I’m glad to be back here at St. David’s on a Sunday morning. It’s fun to get out of the box, and while your rector is wowing them at SPP I get to spend more time with a community that I feel is deeply bonded to my own.
Bonds and shared history are important. SPP was a mission of St. David’s back when Episcopal churches understood how and why to give birth to new churches. We have a statue of St. David inside our worship space, a reminder of that history and our gratitude. I am a good friend of your former rector John Nesbitt, and he celebrated the 8:00 AM Mass at SPP today. I am also a good friend of your present rector who is preaching at SPP as we speak. Sara and I are co-conspirators as she works for you and with you to help you and God bring forth new life from this place, from this church. I am trying to do the same at SPP. We are both trying to help the Episcopal diocese realize that, as one writer said recently, we have to change if we want to stay the same. If we want to witness to Christ and not bury Christ in our aging building, our old programs, and our daydreaming among our own history, if we want to unlock and open the wonderful treasure-trove which is Anglican-flavored Christianity, with sacrament and liturgy and generous searching intellect and reverence for mystery, then we need to look honestly at ourselves and the people around us and be willing to re-think, re-imagine, and begin again.
You are doing that now. You have held this place in this community and have opened yourselves to the wind of God blowing in new ways. The air is fresh, the place is busy and filled with life, and so I greet you as we re-imagine our lives and take the pilgrimage that Jesus has given us. It is good to be partners with you.
Today we are given this Gospel as a gift to help us do that.
We know this fellow by name—Bartimaeus, which is a mix of Greek and Aramaic meaning Timaeus’ son. He is poor, he has a half-foreign name, and he is blind. In other, more modern words, he is dead in the water and SOL—with no shelter and no way to get something to eat.
All he had was a cloak to help him get both: a raggedy cloak, to pull over his head to ward off the sun and to stretch out in front of him to catch bits of coins and maybe scraps of food. A cloak was a first century equivalent of a shopping cart and a “homeless—please help” sign.
But Bartimaeus has one more thing—a wild hope, a preposterous and desperate hope. “Son of David, have mercy!” Jesus, son of beloved king David, the king whom God swore he would love forever—hear me, see me, have pity on me.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
Take heart—if you feel any fear or doubt, if you are confused about your present and your future seems dark and cloaked—take heart. You are heard, you are seen. Feel new life beating and coursing through your mind, your heart, your soul.
“Get up”—leave the hopeless place you’ve gotten used to. Leave this place, even if you are afraid to move.
“He is calling you.” Do we believe that? Do we each believe that we are called, that our congregations are called, that St. David’s and SPP are called? Called—to mirror Christ, to be transformed, to be the radiant Body of Christ and the liberating presence of God.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” And when we stand, what shall we ask him to do for us?
(Job 42: 1-6, 10-17; Ps 34: 1-8; Heb 7: 23-28; Mark 10: 46-52)
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
I’m glad to be back here at St. David’s on a Sunday morning. It’s fun to get out of the box, and while your rector is wowing them at SPP I get to spend more time with a community that I feel is deeply bonded to my own.
Bonds and shared history are important. SPP was a mission of St. David’s back when Episcopal churches understood how and why to give birth to new churches. We have a statue of St. David inside our worship space, a reminder of that history and our gratitude. I am a good friend of your former rector John Nesbitt, and he celebrated the 8:00 AM Mass at SPP today. I am also a good friend of your present rector who is preaching at SPP as we speak. Sara and I are co-conspirators as she works for you and with you to help you and God bring forth new life from this place, from this church. I am trying to do the same at SPP. We are both trying to help the Episcopal diocese realize that, as one writer said recently, we have to change if we want to stay the same. If we want to witness to Christ and not bury Christ in our aging building, our old programs, and our daydreaming among our own history, if we want to unlock and open the wonderful treasure-trove which is Anglican-flavored Christianity, with sacrament and liturgy and generous searching intellect and reverence for mystery, then we need to look honestly at ourselves and the people around us and be willing to re-think, re-imagine, and begin again.
You are doing that now. You have held this place in this community and have opened yourselves to the wind of God blowing in new ways. The air is fresh, the place is busy and filled with life, and so I greet you as we re-imagine our lives and take the pilgrimage that Jesus has given us. It is good to be partners with you.
Today we are given this Gospel as a gift to help us do that.
We know this fellow by name—Bartimaeus, which is a mix of Greek and Aramaic meaning Timaeus’ son. He is poor, he has a half-foreign name, and he is blind. In other, more modern words, he is dead in the water and SOL—with no shelter and no way to get something to eat.
All he had was a cloak to help him get both: a raggedy cloak, to pull over his head to ward off the sun and to stretch out in front of him to catch bits of coins and maybe scraps of food. A cloak was a first century equivalent of a shopping cart and a “homeless—please help” sign.
But Bartimaeus has one more thing—a wild hope, a preposterous and desperate hope. “Son of David, have mercy!” Jesus, son of beloved king David, the king whom God swore he would love forever—hear me, see me, have pity on me.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
Take heart—if you feel any fear or doubt, if you are confused about your present and your future seems dark and cloaked—take heart. You are heard, you are seen. Feel new life beating and coursing through your mind, your heart, your soul.
“Get up”—leave the hopeless place you’ve gotten used to. Leave this place, even if you are afraid to move.
“He is calling you.” Do we believe that? Do we each believe that we are called, that our congregations are called, that St. David’s and SPP are called? Called—to mirror Christ, to be transformed, to be the radiant Body of Christ and the liberating presence of God.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” And when we stand, what shall we ask him to do for us?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
CeltPub Fuel for Oct 20
CeltPub Conversation fuel—October 20 2009 Lucky Lab 4:30-6:00 P
In the Intro (p. X) Newell writes, “’The whole universe takes part in the dance’” (Jesus) says. Jesus is speaking of a harmony at the heart of life. And he is pointing to a way of moving in relation to all things, even though he knows also the price of living in relation to such a unity.” When and where have you felt the dance? “Moved in relation”? And what is “the price to pay”? Have you ever paid some of that price?
Newell refers to John Scotus Eriugena: “…Christ is our memory. We suffer from the ‘soul’s forgetfulness’, he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.” He goes on to say the relationship of “nature and grace” in the Celtic tradition is not one of opposition but one of relationship and restoration. How does this live along with what you have been taught or inferred from “mainstream” Christian presentations of “nature and grace” if any? What questions, gifts, challenges does this pose from the context of your own life?
Or, talk about what you wish!
At 5:30, we’ll pass around a sheet where you may a) propose other kinds and times of gatherings which b) you are invited to sign your name to offer to host/co-ordinate.
In the Intro (p. X) Newell writes, “’The whole universe takes part in the dance’” (Jesus) says. Jesus is speaking of a harmony at the heart of life. And he is pointing to a way of moving in relation to all things, even though he knows also the price of living in relation to such a unity.” When and where have you felt the dance? “Moved in relation”? And what is “the price to pay”? Have you ever paid some of that price?
Newell refers to John Scotus Eriugena: “…Christ is our memory. We suffer from the ‘soul’s forgetfulness’, he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.” He goes on to say the relationship of “nature and grace” in the Celtic tradition is not one of opposition but one of relationship and restoration. How does this live along with what you have been taught or inferred from “mainstream” Christian presentations of “nature and grace” if any? What questions, gifts, challenges does this pose from the context of your own life?
Or, talk about what you wish!
At 5:30, we’ll pass around a sheet where you may a) propose other kinds and times of gatherings which b) you are invited to sign your name to offer to host/co-ordinate.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Aware
Proper 24 B 2009
(Job 38: 1-7; Ps 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Heb 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45)
“Be aware of your surroundings.”
Last Thursday night I taught our martial arts class. I wanted to do something fun, so in the last ten minutes I had the group divide into four teams and play a game called Tae Kwan Do dodge-ball. At the signal each team attacks the other and spars in a free-for-all. If a point is scored for a clean hit, that person needs to go and stand against the wall. They can only re-join if an active teammate touches them. The last team with one or more active members left wins.
There’s a lot to be learned in martial arts. One intense young man charged his opponents and began to fight furiously with the most challenging person. He was so intent that he ignored a seven-year old kid who slipped around him and delivered a perfect front kick to his spine. “Out!”
The lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. Lift up your eyes. As in martial arts, so in life. We are surrounded by beauty and glory. The seasons change, the year ages in the graceful journey that is autumn. We savor the days, and welcome the promise of new life as an old life passes away and we smile or weep in memory. Be aware.
But are we? Are our days a joy and a revelation, or a burden? Is our life more curse than blessing? Is joy and delight hard to come by?
If we are not watchful, if we do not take care, it is easy to live in the place of scarcity and lack and even resentment that is the temptation of all of us. It is my temptation. At my stage in life my demons have names like “discouragement”, “cynicism”, and “resentment” when life does not turn out the way I thought it should. “My life should be secure and stable now.” “The other people in my life should have gotten a clue by now.” Even “the parish should be all straightened out by now.”
“”Who is this who darkens counsel without understanding?” God’s dialogue with Job is ours as well. “Dark counsel” comes to all of us, when we are sure that the weary resentful voices inside us speak truth.
But if our days are more burden than joy, it may do no good to be harangued by some preacher to “snap out of it.” That just adds to the burden, gives us more things to do.
We need someone to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Jesus, says Hebrews, is “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
There is no burden we carry that has not already been carried by Jesus. There is no cry in the night, there is no agony of soul, there is no silent pain, there is no heaviness of heart that is not also being carried alongside us and within us. The Christ of hope and glory is the Christ who still suffers with his beloved people. As we struggle, as we journey, there is one who is with us and is healing us and is setting us free. Each step we take is not the same as the last. Each step takes us closer to knowing the heart of God.
A professor wrote recently that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a good community who were tired of doing the right thing—tired of being faithful in worship, tired of caring for the poor and needy, tired of keeping the community going one more year, one more month, one more day. Sound familiar? There’s no all-healing special program to address that. But there is Jesus Christ, his overwhelming love, his endless mystery and fascination, his amazing ability to heal and understand and renew and bring what was dead back to life.
Jesus has been to that moment of despair. From it he returns with grace and power to give abundantly to us.
(Job 38: 1-7; Ps 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Heb 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45)
“Be aware of your surroundings.”
Last Thursday night I taught our martial arts class. I wanted to do something fun, so in the last ten minutes I had the group divide into four teams and play a game called Tae Kwan Do dodge-ball. At the signal each team attacks the other and spars in a free-for-all. If a point is scored for a clean hit, that person needs to go and stand against the wall. They can only re-join if an active teammate touches them. The last team with one or more active members left wins.
There’s a lot to be learned in martial arts. One intense young man charged his opponents and began to fight furiously with the most challenging person. He was so intent that he ignored a seven-year old kid who slipped around him and delivered a perfect front kick to his spine. “Out!”
The lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. Lift up your eyes. As in martial arts, so in life. We are surrounded by beauty and glory. The seasons change, the year ages in the graceful journey that is autumn. We savor the days, and welcome the promise of new life as an old life passes away and we smile or weep in memory. Be aware.
But are we? Are our days a joy and a revelation, or a burden? Is our life more curse than blessing? Is joy and delight hard to come by?
If we are not watchful, if we do not take care, it is easy to live in the place of scarcity and lack and even resentment that is the temptation of all of us. It is my temptation. At my stage in life my demons have names like “discouragement”, “cynicism”, and “resentment” when life does not turn out the way I thought it should. “My life should be secure and stable now.” “The other people in my life should have gotten a clue by now.” Even “the parish should be all straightened out by now.”
“”Who is this who darkens counsel without understanding?” God’s dialogue with Job is ours as well. “Dark counsel” comes to all of us, when we are sure that the weary resentful voices inside us speak truth.
But if our days are more burden than joy, it may do no good to be harangued by some preacher to “snap out of it.” That just adds to the burden, gives us more things to do.
We need someone to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Jesus, says Hebrews, is “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
There is no burden we carry that has not already been carried by Jesus. There is no cry in the night, there is no agony of soul, there is no silent pain, there is no heaviness of heart that is not also being carried alongside us and within us. The Christ of hope and glory is the Christ who still suffers with his beloved people. As we struggle, as we journey, there is one who is with us and is healing us and is setting us free. Each step we take is not the same as the last. Each step takes us closer to knowing the heart of God.
A professor wrote recently that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a good community who were tired of doing the right thing—tired of being faithful in worship, tired of caring for the poor and needy, tired of keeping the community going one more year, one more month, one more day. Sound familiar? There’s no all-healing special program to address that. But there is Jesus Christ, his overwhelming love, his endless mystery and fascination, his amazing ability to heal and understand and renew and bring what was dead back to life.
Jesus has been to that moment of despair. From it he returns with grace and power to give abundantly to us.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Impossible
Proper 23 B 2009
(Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps 8; Heb 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31)
After a flood, a young man walked along the swollen riverbank to see the rushing water and the wreckage.
Around a bend in the river, he found an old man standing up to his chest in the dangerous current. The old man was reaching out his hand to a tangle of branches in the midst of the waters. Looking closer, the young man saw a large scorpion clinging to the end of one branch. The young man watched in wonder and horror as the scorpion stung the old man on the hand. After shaking his swollen, bleeding hand, the old man reached out to the scorpion again. And again, and again.
After watching this repetitive drama for some moments, the young man finally burst out, “Leave it alone, you old fool! Let that ungrateful bug drown! He’s not going to appreciate what you’re trying to do, and he will sting you every time!”
The old man turned and looked at the young man with serene eyes in spite of the pain. “It’s in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And it is in my nature to try and save it. Why should I change my own nature?”
Well, this story raises a lot of questions for me. The first is, who is that old man living with living with and why hasn’t he been taking his medication? To rescue an unlovable poisonous insect even though it thanks you with a sting is insane as far as the world is concerned. Lots of words come to mind to dismiss the old man’s behavior—self-destructive, masochistic, even the milder “co-dependent.” I know that as I tell this story faces and situations from my own life and my own ministry come to mind—people who rewarded loving attention with demands for even more attention, or new arrays of problems when the old ones had been resolved, or walking away after absorbing tons of time and attention, sometimes waving one or more fingers behind them as they did. We all can relate, we all have been there. Perhaps we have been on the other side of the fence also, at least once or twice.
We speak about “boundaries” and “tough love” and “taking care of ourselves so we have something left to give to others.” Those are all wise words. Job’s words in the first reading become all of our words as we try to live and love, when all good works seem to taste and feel like dust and God’s face is hidden.
And yet, I want what that old man had—the peace, and the freedom to live in that embracing, giving, loving place. I find myself thinking that it is not just natural to live like that. It is supernatural, it is transformed nature, it is nature that is healed and set free by God.
Getting there is not an easy journey. Beware of easy religion with clear maps and all the answers! The man who ran up to Jesus today and asked him what to do had done everything right. He had kept the commandments, he’d read and listened to his Bible and took it all to heart. And I don’t think he was a hypocrite, because the text says that Jesus looked at him “and loved him.” But loving this man meant asking him to go to a place that his conscience and his religion had never asked him to go to before. Leave, leave what he thought he had a right to own even if he was doing good things with it. Leave it even though wealth was thought by some to be a sign of God’s blessing. Leave, give, follow, be nothing in the world’s eyes so you can have everything in God’s eyes. “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s impossible, humanly speaking. It is totally possible, with the help of God.
A man named Mark Scandrette recently gave a speech on “The Five Myths of Community.” He shocks his listeners, good church people, by reminding them that the first Christians were “miserable”—they lost a great deal for following Jesus, even their lives some of them. But church, says Mark, is not the place where we get all our needs met, where we find our favorite opinions affirmed, where we are totally comfortable all of the time. Even wanting community, says Mark, is not a good goal in itself; he said that “community is a beautiful by-product of seeking God’s kingdom together.” The key is to know and live that we come together to seek the kingdom of God. That is what a church is; that is all a church is.
This, by the way, is a stewardship sermon. Notice I have never used the word “money.” Stewardship begins with remembering who we most deeply are, and why we gather at all. When we hear that story of the old man reaching out to the scorpion, do we simply shudder in revulsion and disgust, or dismiss it as an improbable fable? Or does something in us come alight and say softly, “Yes, yes. I don’t like stings, but that is the kind of freedom and generous nature that I hunger for. I want to believe that life is possible. But I do not know how to get there.” And in the Gospel, the same thing—sell it all? In this housing market? Give it away? Where would I raise my kids? But isn’t there something deep inside, something that maybe was more active and visible when we were young and we hadn’t let life teach us oh so many limits, be oh so practical, that comes alive and says, “Yes, yes. I remember that! I remember hungering for that kind of freedom, I remember wanting to know what it would be like to live for God in that way. I remember traveling light, walking on a holy road.”
For us it is impossible. But not for God—even our tired and cynical hearts and our minds bombarded with a culture that tells us to get and get and no you do not yet have enough—it is not impossible for God.
And to share that journey, to ask what all that means, and to try it out—that is why a church exists. And that is the only Gospel reason for a church to exist.
(Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps 8; Heb 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31)
After a flood, a young man walked along the swollen riverbank to see the rushing water and the wreckage.
Around a bend in the river, he found an old man standing up to his chest in the dangerous current. The old man was reaching out his hand to a tangle of branches in the midst of the waters. Looking closer, the young man saw a large scorpion clinging to the end of one branch. The young man watched in wonder and horror as the scorpion stung the old man on the hand. After shaking his swollen, bleeding hand, the old man reached out to the scorpion again. And again, and again.
After watching this repetitive drama for some moments, the young man finally burst out, “Leave it alone, you old fool! Let that ungrateful bug drown! He’s not going to appreciate what you’re trying to do, and he will sting you every time!”
The old man turned and looked at the young man with serene eyes in spite of the pain. “It’s in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And it is in my nature to try and save it. Why should I change my own nature?”
Well, this story raises a lot of questions for me. The first is, who is that old man living with living with and why hasn’t he been taking his medication? To rescue an unlovable poisonous insect even though it thanks you with a sting is insane as far as the world is concerned. Lots of words come to mind to dismiss the old man’s behavior—self-destructive, masochistic, even the milder “co-dependent.” I know that as I tell this story faces and situations from my own life and my own ministry come to mind—people who rewarded loving attention with demands for even more attention, or new arrays of problems when the old ones had been resolved, or walking away after absorbing tons of time and attention, sometimes waving one or more fingers behind them as they did. We all can relate, we all have been there. Perhaps we have been on the other side of the fence also, at least once or twice.
We speak about “boundaries” and “tough love” and “taking care of ourselves so we have something left to give to others.” Those are all wise words. Job’s words in the first reading become all of our words as we try to live and love, when all good works seem to taste and feel like dust and God’s face is hidden.
And yet, I want what that old man had—the peace, and the freedom to live in that embracing, giving, loving place. I find myself thinking that it is not just natural to live like that. It is supernatural, it is transformed nature, it is nature that is healed and set free by God.
Getting there is not an easy journey. Beware of easy religion with clear maps and all the answers! The man who ran up to Jesus today and asked him what to do had done everything right. He had kept the commandments, he’d read and listened to his Bible and took it all to heart. And I don’t think he was a hypocrite, because the text says that Jesus looked at him “and loved him.” But loving this man meant asking him to go to a place that his conscience and his religion had never asked him to go to before. Leave, leave what he thought he had a right to own even if he was doing good things with it. Leave it even though wealth was thought by some to be a sign of God’s blessing. Leave, give, follow, be nothing in the world’s eyes so you can have everything in God’s eyes. “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s impossible, humanly speaking. It is totally possible, with the help of God.
A man named Mark Scandrette recently gave a speech on “The Five Myths of Community.” He shocks his listeners, good church people, by reminding them that the first Christians were “miserable”—they lost a great deal for following Jesus, even their lives some of them. But church, says Mark, is not the place where we get all our needs met, where we find our favorite opinions affirmed, where we are totally comfortable all of the time. Even wanting community, says Mark, is not a good goal in itself; he said that “community is a beautiful by-product of seeking God’s kingdom together.” The key is to know and live that we come together to seek the kingdom of God. That is what a church is; that is all a church is.
This, by the way, is a stewardship sermon. Notice I have never used the word “money.” Stewardship begins with remembering who we most deeply are, and why we gather at all. When we hear that story of the old man reaching out to the scorpion, do we simply shudder in revulsion and disgust, or dismiss it as an improbable fable? Or does something in us come alight and say softly, “Yes, yes. I don’t like stings, but that is the kind of freedom and generous nature that I hunger for. I want to believe that life is possible. But I do not know how to get there.” And in the Gospel, the same thing—sell it all? In this housing market? Give it away? Where would I raise my kids? But isn’t there something deep inside, something that maybe was more active and visible when we were young and we hadn’t let life teach us oh so many limits, be oh so practical, that comes alive and says, “Yes, yes. I remember that! I remember hungering for that kind of freedom, I remember wanting to know what it would be like to live for God in that way. I remember traveling light, walking on a holy road.”
For us it is impossible. But not for God—even our tired and cynical hearts and our minds bombarded with a culture that tells us to get and get and no you do not yet have enough—it is not impossible for God.
And to share that journey, to ask what all that means, and to try it out—that is why a church exists. And that is the only Gospel reason for a church to exist.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Show up
Proper 20 B 2009
(Prov 31: 10-31; Ps 1; James 3: 13-4: 3, 7-8a)
God spoke to me when I walked the Chihuahua.
The Chihuahua is a constant in our household life—he upholds the truth that in our lives there is someone or something who needs constant care, daily attention, and the results are often not pretty. And there’s no medal given for a good job.
So I was walking the Chihuahua, no longer caring that it is impossible to keep one’s dignity while walking a Chihuahua. The Chihuahua stopped for a particularly productive moment. I stooped with one of the numerous plastic bags we keep for just such occasions. As I rose, I heard in my mind’s eye a voice that said, “This is your life.”
Now, that may sound like one of the darker moments, but it wasn’t. I stood still and felt the breeze. The sun was bathing Mt. Tabor in soft light, making the green of the trees glow. Even the Chihuahua seemed to sense something in his almond-sized brain as he stood still for a change. I held in my hand the only tangible thing a Chihuahua produces and thought, “This is my life. I’d better start showing up for it.”
Our God is a God of the present moment, of the actual. God does not wait for pious moments or for times when we feel neat and clean and properly prepared for the presence of the Divine. God is in the actual, in the day to day. We are to “love things heavenly”, but “heavenly” is not the same as “not yet.” “Heavenly” begins now.
If we wish to encounter this God and drink deeply of God’s presence, then we need to show up at our own lives. We need to be present and greet the moment. We need to acknowledge with awe and gratitude the God whose presence is felt in the actual, whose love is conveyed through the love of others.
And it matters what we do, how we show up.
When I read today’s Old Testament text, I figured I was dead in the water. I thought about how my life expectancy would be measured in minutes if not in seconds if I presumed to tell any woman here all about a “good wife.” Besides, as the text presents it she’s kind of a Type A personality, sleep deprivation and all. Personally I prefer to keep my role models a low bar—Homer Simpson is my model for fatherhood, or on really bad days Peter Griffin.
But the woman whom I have the honor of living with is usually up before light, often walking the same Chihuahua through whom God spoke to me. Most of us are up before first light. All those details—making a living, engaging with the family, multitasking—our lives may not have much to do with weaving and distaffs and linen cloth any more, but the sweat of keeping it all together, dropping as few juggling balls as possible, feels very familiar. And in the midst of that, we struggle to be decent human beings, to give something to those in need, to show up at church sometimes. That’s where we all live. This text loves the actual, and says that God not only sees our lives but is there in the sweat and the juggling. So it matters that we show up to our own lives, it matter who we are. And it matters what we ask for from God in order to live our lives, says James. So ask often and well. We’ll get what we need to live a life in Christ.
In fact, we’ll get what we need in order to have our lives transformed.
The Gospel today is all about reversing expectations. Mine are being reversed all the time. There’s a character in a Tolstoy short story who wanted nothing more than that his life proceed “easily, pleasantly, and decorously.” At age 51 I am coming to terms with the fact that my life will never be all worked out—job secure, income not obscenely large but enough to eliminate worry, health of course fine, and everything smooth for the spouse and kids. Well, real life does not proceed “easily, pleasantly, and decorously.” Goodness and gift alternates with curve balls and, often enough, burdens that we end up carrying for the long haul.
But we’re not called to ease and predictability. We’re called to wonder and to transformation. In the Gospel-world, the most despised and powerless are great. Everything we thought about power, prominence, and meaning is flipped upside-down by Jesus taking that child in his arms. In Jesus’ times children really did not exist as people until they reached a certain age and it looked as if they would survive childhood. They had few if any rights, and were here today, gone tomorrow.
But God loves and raises up the forgotten and the vulnerable.
God raises up the forgotten and vulnerable in the world. We the Church do well to remember that when we lament our lack of access to financial and political power, and when we ask what is our mission and reason for being.
And God raises up the forgotten, vulnerable portions of our own lives. Nothing we live, nothing we endure, nothing we wonder is beyond the loving gaze and transforming power of God. Often enough, it is the most neglected, ordinary, and vulnerable part of ourselves that is the most crucial. It is there that we meet the loving God.
Just ask any Chihuahua.
(Prov 31: 10-31; Ps 1; James 3: 13-4: 3, 7-8a)
God spoke to me when I walked the Chihuahua.
The Chihuahua is a constant in our household life—he upholds the truth that in our lives there is someone or something who needs constant care, daily attention, and the results are often not pretty. And there’s no medal given for a good job.
So I was walking the Chihuahua, no longer caring that it is impossible to keep one’s dignity while walking a Chihuahua. The Chihuahua stopped for a particularly productive moment. I stooped with one of the numerous plastic bags we keep for just such occasions. As I rose, I heard in my mind’s eye a voice that said, “This is your life.”
Now, that may sound like one of the darker moments, but it wasn’t. I stood still and felt the breeze. The sun was bathing Mt. Tabor in soft light, making the green of the trees glow. Even the Chihuahua seemed to sense something in his almond-sized brain as he stood still for a change. I held in my hand the only tangible thing a Chihuahua produces and thought, “This is my life. I’d better start showing up for it.”
Our God is a God of the present moment, of the actual. God does not wait for pious moments or for times when we feel neat and clean and properly prepared for the presence of the Divine. God is in the actual, in the day to day. We are to “love things heavenly”, but “heavenly” is not the same as “not yet.” “Heavenly” begins now.
If we wish to encounter this God and drink deeply of God’s presence, then we need to show up at our own lives. We need to be present and greet the moment. We need to acknowledge with awe and gratitude the God whose presence is felt in the actual, whose love is conveyed through the love of others.
And it matters what we do, how we show up.
When I read today’s Old Testament text, I figured I was dead in the water. I thought about how my life expectancy would be measured in minutes if not in seconds if I presumed to tell any woman here all about a “good wife.” Besides, as the text presents it she’s kind of a Type A personality, sleep deprivation and all. Personally I prefer to keep my role models a low bar—Homer Simpson is my model for fatherhood, or on really bad days Peter Griffin.
But the woman whom I have the honor of living with is usually up before light, often walking the same Chihuahua through whom God spoke to me. Most of us are up before first light. All those details—making a living, engaging with the family, multitasking—our lives may not have much to do with weaving and distaffs and linen cloth any more, but the sweat of keeping it all together, dropping as few juggling balls as possible, feels very familiar. And in the midst of that, we struggle to be decent human beings, to give something to those in need, to show up at church sometimes. That’s where we all live. This text loves the actual, and says that God not only sees our lives but is there in the sweat and the juggling. So it matters that we show up to our own lives, it matter who we are. And it matters what we ask for from God in order to live our lives, says James. So ask often and well. We’ll get what we need to live a life in Christ.
In fact, we’ll get what we need in order to have our lives transformed.
The Gospel today is all about reversing expectations. Mine are being reversed all the time. There’s a character in a Tolstoy short story who wanted nothing more than that his life proceed “easily, pleasantly, and decorously.” At age 51 I am coming to terms with the fact that my life will never be all worked out—job secure, income not obscenely large but enough to eliminate worry, health of course fine, and everything smooth for the spouse and kids. Well, real life does not proceed “easily, pleasantly, and decorously.” Goodness and gift alternates with curve balls and, often enough, burdens that we end up carrying for the long haul.
But we’re not called to ease and predictability. We’re called to wonder and to transformation. In the Gospel-world, the most despised and powerless are great. Everything we thought about power, prominence, and meaning is flipped upside-down by Jesus taking that child in his arms. In Jesus’ times children really did not exist as people until they reached a certain age and it looked as if they would survive childhood. They had few if any rights, and were here today, gone tomorrow.
But God loves and raises up the forgotten and the vulnerable.
God raises up the forgotten and vulnerable in the world. We the Church do well to remember that when we lament our lack of access to financial and political power, and when we ask what is our mission and reason for being.
And God raises up the forgotten, vulnerable portions of our own lives. Nothing we live, nothing we endure, nothing we wonder is beyond the loving gaze and transforming power of God. Often enough, it is the most neglected, ordinary, and vulnerable part of ourselves that is the most crucial. It is there that we meet the loving God.
Just ask any Chihuahua.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
For a little longer...
Holy Cross address 2009
“Sing to the Lord a new song…” we said (sang) today.
I hope that today we will sing a new song. I don’t mean that we need to sing a song written last night, although I’d like to try that sometime. Old songs can become new songs. Old churches can become new churches.
Today’s feast shows us how. In the Holy Cross lessons and Collect we hear how God is among us and how we are empowered to live with each other. Humility is power. Service is authority. Be human if you would be divine. Follow in order to lead. What does that have to do with our life here at Saints Peter and Paul?
As the Psalm implies, we can choose to stick with old songs. We can lose hope or faith in our future or our capacity to show forth Christ to this new, post-modern age. We can stay small and hold on tight, worry and wait for “something to happen” or “somebody to do something.” But if we do that, we forget how God can renew and bring forth new life, and we forget our own history.
We are a charming aging Episcopal church first planted in Montavilla at the turn of the 20th century. We have changed, died and risen many times. Each time, people of faith and vision and courageous leadership has created new life to serve a changing world. I think the best era was the original founding of the old St. Peter’s. I am not sure how they worshipped, or dressed, what hymns they sung, or how their life looked. But I know that they planted a church at the inspiration of a priest who said, “Montavilla is a place which needs the church much.”
Montavilla still needs the church much. We are here for a reason. We are not just here for ourselves. We are here to serve. We are here to learn about the people who surround us. We are not here to ensure our own survival just as we are now. We are not here to make other people look like us and act like us. We are here to seek them, love them, invite them, and go together with them to a place that is new to both them and us. That is the Kingdom of God. That is the “new song.”
I stand before you with the authority of 14 years of service and of leadership as Rector. That has been a great privilege for which I give humble thanks. I believe that I am called to be here still. I also believe that I am called to exercise a special gift, which is to put into practice what I have learned about the church that God is everywhere calling into being. I spent six of my younger years as a Catholic missionary helping to bring forth new forms of church in the developing world. I believe I have come full circle. I do not believe that I am called to maintain business-as-usual at Saints Peter and Paul. I am of course called to love and to serve, and to uphold worship, teaching, and pastoral care of the sick and suffering. That does not change. But I believe we have a year of grace in front of us, what one leader called the “Episcopal moment”, and like all moments this one can come and then pass us by if we do not grasp it. In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks urgently, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light…”
The urgency is made plain by our energy and finances.
I have felt an atmosphere of weariness in many aspects of our life. The former women’s group no longer functions, we have not been able to attract any volunteers to sustain classical Sunday morning church school, and we are not maintaining our outside grounds and physical appearance among many other former ministries. It just feels like there is no energy there.
The parish’s finances have been getting worse in the past several years. We have carried on even though we’re living beyond our means. This year our reserves were used up. And I sense that we are tired of the whole money question. We organized an ambitious fund-raiser at PGE Park and this ended by wearing out a very small group of hard-working people.
We received an estate this past year from a generous parishioner named Cynthia Brown. Cynthia had several concerns that she expressed with her bequest—she was concerned about the long-term viability of the parish, she was concerned that our deacon was receiving no compensation for her generous ministry, she was always concerned about our physical grounds, and she of course was a musician and lover of church music.
The estate totaled $209,000.00. We have already used $50,000.00 of this money to patch the big hole in our operating budget and to repay the capital funds account donated for long-term improvement. So we will have decisions to make about that money in this coming year.
As I see it, we can make a frugal decision, which is to bank the money long-term and reduce all expenses to within our means. This would probably mean dropping the rector’s compensation to less than full-time and making other staff cuts. This is the “turn out the lights and wait for something to happen” choice. In my view this violates the intention of the donor, because doing nothing new does not build a future. Mere survival is not a Gospel value, and churches either grow or slowly die. I was sponsored for ordination by a lovely old church that chose to slowly die. It died.
Or we can use up that money to patch our budget at present levels. That means we will be back having this same conversation in a year or two, with fewer choices available.
Or we can take this moment as God’s invitation and empowerment to grow. And growth does not mean to keep doing what we have been doing, only do it harder and expect different results. To grow means to welcome creativity and to try new things. To grow means to reach out beyond ourselves and to love and invite those who are really around us and among us.
The same speaker I have been quoting asked his gathering, “If you had a choice between staying the same size and getting more money, or growing so that your new size and your new identity put you in a different place, which would you choose?” He went on to say that if a church does not intend to grow, then every time it asks for money it is stealing.
I do not want to steal Cynthia’s money by using it and not intending to grow. As we begin the Fall canvass, I do not want us to steal each other’s money if we do not intend to grow.
So I choose to be a missionary again. I will be looking at my own gifts and talents in order to not just maintain our life, but to grow our life in Christ. Did you know that at present I am the priest in the Diocese that people come to talk to about new models of church and ministry? I intend to put this into practice right here. You can expect the same basic kindness and care and listening ear as before. But I think it’s time to re-start my ministry as Rector, and to be much more forthright about my own sense of vision and of mission.
We have so many advantages. We have a building and property free and clear, we have a rich inherited tradition of liturgy and sacrament. We have the Episcopal inheritance of the “middle way” avoiding the ideological pitfalls of liberal and conservative which suck up so much energy. We have a faithful continuing membership who have sustained our life with time, talent, and treasure, and I hope will continue to do so. Thank you all for making this moment possible.
And we have newer gifts. We have highly committed members among us who have been here five years or less, who have grown up in the emerging post-modern culture and know it well. Thank you for coming to make up a new church, thank you for exercising your gifts among us.
We have the richness of the Celtic vision, which I think we have barely begun to explore and which I will make more visible. I chose the re-imagined Celtic heritage not simply because it speaks to me but because the Celtic Christian vision has unique power to speak to post-modern people and experience.
And we have many new ideas and new ministries that have already begun.
Here is our new song. Here is how we would not steal Cynthia’s money or anyone else’s. It is time for an extreme makeover.
I want to seek a consultant, who will help me as rector and help us all in choosing new life.
We shall expand our Hispanic community and ministry. I am glad that we have invited and welcomed people who would never have come to or probably would not have been welcome here 50 years ago. It is a good start.
I believe we need a fourth service, not as a simple alternative for our present membership who might want their Sunday mornings to themselves, but as an active way to invite and make welcome people whom we will otherwise never see on Sunday morning. Our Sunday morning schedule alone does not speak to many of the de-churched and un-churched and alone will not grow us in the way that we need. A group of leaders here have already experimented with such a service. I think we need to back this with talent and energy and with any financing necessary for it to succeed.
We need to re-imagine and re-design our fellowship space so that it is welcoming and inviting and “safe” for non-members to come to. Did you know that lots of folks find churches scary? What would make our space as easy and inviting to come to as, say, the Bi-Partisan Café on Stark, or even the Lucky Lab Brewpub?
We need to love our grounds and exterior better, and if we are too few and too busy to do so ourselves than we should pay to have that done if only for awhile.
Another group of us met last week to start a financial self-sustaining project—brewing beer to support our ministries. It’s an ancient custom for monks and other religious communities to make beer, wine, and other such products for their own support, and today the best beer in the world is made by Belgian Trappist monks. I think we need to back this with whatever work, support, and financing is necessary to help it be a well-planned success.
I think we need to write a new letter of agreement with Deacon Tracy and honor Cynthia’s desire to better support Tracy in her ministry.
And as for me, in order to support my family my full-time compensation needs to be at least maintained. But I would be stealing that money if I were not working specifically for the growth of Saints Peter and Paul as I believe we need. So I wish to re-allocate my time and energy for growth and re-development. I will call on the office of the new bishop to help me do this. And I will rely upon the support of Fr. John Nesbitt and Fr. Phil to help me devote time and energy to growth. Fr. Lindsay has chosen to attend St. David’s for six months in order to support Mother Sara in her efforts to re-invent that congregation. Fr. Lindsay is a missionary soul.
We need to seek ways that work for us to better know one another and to form some authentic community among all our present membership. For that I welcome anyone’s ideas and energy. I’m not a very good social director.
I think a portion of the bequest should be put away in a long-term fund. But the majority should be invested in making a viable future. And I will ask the Vestry to choose to do so. All these choices will be put before the Vestry for their decision. Speak to any member of the Vestry with your thoughts.
We will lay our whole life before us for discernment, reflection, and choice. We will do so in a spirit of listening and of respect. We will hold periodic Town Hall meetings, the next one just next week, to help us do this. We wish to leave no one behind. But we wish to move forward. And we shall, with the Spirit’s help. That’s our new song.
We are not here primarily for ourselves. We are surrounded by beautiful gifted hurting people who may not be dying to be Episcopalian, may have no idea what the term “Anglo-Catholic” means and may never care, but who are longing for God and for healing and for community and for meaning. Can we help them find that? Do we still believe that of ourselves? As we become more fully that kind of community, we shall be richly fed as well. In a year’s time we may find that we still have hard choices to make. But at least we will have dreamed and lived and become more bonded to one another and to the One who came to serve. And we will have helped this community that we love so much live into a vibrant future, for people whom we do not yet know. But I hope we will get to know some of them very soon!
“Sing to the Lord a new song…” we said (sang) today.
I hope that today we will sing a new song. I don’t mean that we need to sing a song written last night, although I’d like to try that sometime. Old songs can become new songs. Old churches can become new churches.
Today’s feast shows us how. In the Holy Cross lessons and Collect we hear how God is among us and how we are empowered to live with each other. Humility is power. Service is authority. Be human if you would be divine. Follow in order to lead. What does that have to do with our life here at Saints Peter and Paul?
As the Psalm implies, we can choose to stick with old songs. We can lose hope or faith in our future or our capacity to show forth Christ to this new, post-modern age. We can stay small and hold on tight, worry and wait for “something to happen” or “somebody to do something.” But if we do that, we forget how God can renew and bring forth new life, and we forget our own history.
We are a charming aging Episcopal church first planted in Montavilla at the turn of the 20th century. We have changed, died and risen many times. Each time, people of faith and vision and courageous leadership has created new life to serve a changing world. I think the best era was the original founding of the old St. Peter’s. I am not sure how they worshipped, or dressed, what hymns they sung, or how their life looked. But I know that they planted a church at the inspiration of a priest who said, “Montavilla is a place which needs the church much.”
Montavilla still needs the church much. We are here for a reason. We are not just here for ourselves. We are here to serve. We are here to learn about the people who surround us. We are not here to ensure our own survival just as we are now. We are not here to make other people look like us and act like us. We are here to seek them, love them, invite them, and go together with them to a place that is new to both them and us. That is the Kingdom of God. That is the “new song.”
I stand before you with the authority of 14 years of service and of leadership as Rector. That has been a great privilege for which I give humble thanks. I believe that I am called to be here still. I also believe that I am called to exercise a special gift, which is to put into practice what I have learned about the church that God is everywhere calling into being. I spent six of my younger years as a Catholic missionary helping to bring forth new forms of church in the developing world. I believe I have come full circle. I do not believe that I am called to maintain business-as-usual at Saints Peter and Paul. I am of course called to love and to serve, and to uphold worship, teaching, and pastoral care of the sick and suffering. That does not change. But I believe we have a year of grace in front of us, what one leader called the “Episcopal moment”, and like all moments this one can come and then pass us by if we do not grasp it. In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks urgently, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light…”
The urgency is made plain by our energy and finances.
I have felt an atmosphere of weariness in many aspects of our life. The former women’s group no longer functions, we have not been able to attract any volunteers to sustain classical Sunday morning church school, and we are not maintaining our outside grounds and physical appearance among many other former ministries. It just feels like there is no energy there.
The parish’s finances have been getting worse in the past several years. We have carried on even though we’re living beyond our means. This year our reserves were used up. And I sense that we are tired of the whole money question. We organized an ambitious fund-raiser at PGE Park and this ended by wearing out a very small group of hard-working people.
We received an estate this past year from a generous parishioner named Cynthia Brown. Cynthia had several concerns that she expressed with her bequest—she was concerned about the long-term viability of the parish, she was concerned that our deacon was receiving no compensation for her generous ministry, she was always concerned about our physical grounds, and she of course was a musician and lover of church music.
The estate totaled $209,000.00. We have already used $50,000.00 of this money to patch the big hole in our operating budget and to repay the capital funds account donated for long-term improvement. So we will have decisions to make about that money in this coming year.
As I see it, we can make a frugal decision, which is to bank the money long-term and reduce all expenses to within our means. This would probably mean dropping the rector’s compensation to less than full-time and making other staff cuts. This is the “turn out the lights and wait for something to happen” choice. In my view this violates the intention of the donor, because doing nothing new does not build a future. Mere survival is not a Gospel value, and churches either grow or slowly die. I was sponsored for ordination by a lovely old church that chose to slowly die. It died.
Or we can use up that money to patch our budget at present levels. That means we will be back having this same conversation in a year or two, with fewer choices available.
Or we can take this moment as God’s invitation and empowerment to grow. And growth does not mean to keep doing what we have been doing, only do it harder and expect different results. To grow means to welcome creativity and to try new things. To grow means to reach out beyond ourselves and to love and invite those who are really around us and among us.
The same speaker I have been quoting asked his gathering, “If you had a choice between staying the same size and getting more money, or growing so that your new size and your new identity put you in a different place, which would you choose?” He went on to say that if a church does not intend to grow, then every time it asks for money it is stealing.
I do not want to steal Cynthia’s money by using it and not intending to grow. As we begin the Fall canvass, I do not want us to steal each other’s money if we do not intend to grow.
So I choose to be a missionary again. I will be looking at my own gifts and talents in order to not just maintain our life, but to grow our life in Christ. Did you know that at present I am the priest in the Diocese that people come to talk to about new models of church and ministry? I intend to put this into practice right here. You can expect the same basic kindness and care and listening ear as before. But I think it’s time to re-start my ministry as Rector, and to be much more forthright about my own sense of vision and of mission.
We have so many advantages. We have a building and property free and clear, we have a rich inherited tradition of liturgy and sacrament. We have the Episcopal inheritance of the “middle way” avoiding the ideological pitfalls of liberal and conservative which suck up so much energy. We have a faithful continuing membership who have sustained our life with time, talent, and treasure, and I hope will continue to do so. Thank you all for making this moment possible.
And we have newer gifts. We have highly committed members among us who have been here five years or less, who have grown up in the emerging post-modern culture and know it well. Thank you for coming to make up a new church, thank you for exercising your gifts among us.
We have the richness of the Celtic vision, which I think we have barely begun to explore and which I will make more visible. I chose the re-imagined Celtic heritage not simply because it speaks to me but because the Celtic Christian vision has unique power to speak to post-modern people and experience.
And we have many new ideas and new ministries that have already begun.
Here is our new song. Here is how we would not steal Cynthia’s money or anyone else’s. It is time for an extreme makeover.
I want to seek a consultant, who will help me as rector and help us all in choosing new life.
We shall expand our Hispanic community and ministry. I am glad that we have invited and welcomed people who would never have come to or probably would not have been welcome here 50 years ago. It is a good start.
I believe we need a fourth service, not as a simple alternative for our present membership who might want their Sunday mornings to themselves, but as an active way to invite and make welcome people whom we will otherwise never see on Sunday morning. Our Sunday morning schedule alone does not speak to many of the de-churched and un-churched and alone will not grow us in the way that we need. A group of leaders here have already experimented with such a service. I think we need to back this with talent and energy and with any financing necessary for it to succeed.
We need to re-imagine and re-design our fellowship space so that it is welcoming and inviting and “safe” for non-members to come to. Did you know that lots of folks find churches scary? What would make our space as easy and inviting to come to as, say, the Bi-Partisan Café on Stark, or even the Lucky Lab Brewpub?
We need to love our grounds and exterior better, and if we are too few and too busy to do so ourselves than we should pay to have that done if only for awhile.
Another group of us met last week to start a financial self-sustaining project—brewing beer to support our ministries. It’s an ancient custom for monks and other religious communities to make beer, wine, and other such products for their own support, and today the best beer in the world is made by Belgian Trappist monks. I think we need to back this with whatever work, support, and financing is necessary to help it be a well-planned success.
I think we need to write a new letter of agreement with Deacon Tracy and honor Cynthia’s desire to better support Tracy in her ministry.
And as for me, in order to support my family my full-time compensation needs to be at least maintained. But I would be stealing that money if I were not working specifically for the growth of Saints Peter and Paul as I believe we need. So I wish to re-allocate my time and energy for growth and re-development. I will call on the office of the new bishop to help me do this. And I will rely upon the support of Fr. John Nesbitt and Fr. Phil to help me devote time and energy to growth. Fr. Lindsay has chosen to attend St. David’s for six months in order to support Mother Sara in her efforts to re-invent that congregation. Fr. Lindsay is a missionary soul.
We need to seek ways that work for us to better know one another and to form some authentic community among all our present membership. For that I welcome anyone’s ideas and energy. I’m not a very good social director.
I think a portion of the bequest should be put away in a long-term fund. But the majority should be invested in making a viable future. And I will ask the Vestry to choose to do so. All these choices will be put before the Vestry for their decision. Speak to any member of the Vestry with your thoughts.
We will lay our whole life before us for discernment, reflection, and choice. We will do so in a spirit of listening and of respect. We will hold periodic Town Hall meetings, the next one just next week, to help us do this. We wish to leave no one behind. But we wish to move forward. And we shall, with the Spirit’s help. That’s our new song.
We are not here primarily for ourselves. We are surrounded by beautiful gifted hurting people who may not be dying to be Episcopalian, may have no idea what the term “Anglo-Catholic” means and may never care, but who are longing for God and for healing and for community and for meaning. Can we help them find that? Do we still believe that of ourselves? As we become more fully that kind of community, we shall be richly fed as well. In a year’s time we may find that we still have hard choices to make. But at least we will have dreamed and lived and become more bonded to one another and to the One who came to serve. And we will have helped this community that we love so much live into a vibrant future, for people whom we do not yet know. But I hope we will get to know some of them very soon!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
"What if..." on "participatory formation"
(note--a work in progress, inspired by "Seizing The Episcopal Moment")
Beginning a conversation…”what if?”
What if—we took seriously God’s invitation to live a different way of “being church” in the Episcopal tribe of Oregon?
What if we truly began to act and not simply reacted to factors like waning energy in present models of church, plummeting revenues, and abundant signs that the style of church that worked in the mid-20th century is no longer adequate?
What if we took seriously Brian McLaren’s invitation and charge to “create a zone of innovation and empowerment, a zone in which creative young/emerging leaders…can be supported to plant new faith communities relevant to the needs of young adults while being exempted from conventional internal politics and institutional constraints”?
What if we largely ceased “protecting the church” from pioneers, visionaries, and dreamers, and began actively seeking, welcoming, and supporting such people in an intentional companionship relationship?
What if we shifted the locus for such a relationship BACK to the local church, the local congregations, the local context for actual ministry as opposed to a distant graduate school setting?
What if such a setting emphasize group discernment and group participation in building a theological project together, rather than a curriculum pre-set and handed down in order to “form”?
What if we gathered the rich resources of teaching and preaching and pastoral ministry we already possess in our midst in order to enrich such a setting?
What if St. David’s were preserved all this time because it is meant to be the locus for such a community?
What if this “community of ministry” were taken seriously by the diocesan COM, and not seen as a secondary substitute for “real formation” in a Div school?
What if the new bishop enthusiastically supported such a project?
What if this new community were genuinely bi-cultural such that people tropic towards OR raised up by Hispanic community settings would feel wholly welcome?
What if, within this community, those participating would find ample support and resources to discern their call to committed baptismal ministry, to diaconate, to priesthood, or to any number of emerging forms of ministerial leadership?
What if those who would welcome such a community would be actively engaged in its ongoing formation and not have something “planned for them”?
What if this community, although enriched and shaped in large part by its Anglican “tribal roots”, were significantly post-denominational?
What if this new community of mission and ministry actively equipped folks to plant and nurture new forms of community and church?
What if the community itself were a “living laboratory” of such new forms of church?
What if we actively invited and recruited people into this community?
What if this community did theology and pastoral preparation BETTER than existing Div schools?
What if people immersed in such a community could be told that the Episcopal Diocese will take their sense of call seriously and will ordain them and support them in “doing new things”?
What if this process were not seen as strictly a “youth experiment” but would be open and inviting to all ages?
What if this process were explicitly hospitable to people with families, such that participating did not mean being torn from one’s family and that creative ways to welcome kids and spouses/companions were built in?
The one non “What-if?” in this sequence is myself—I care a lot about this, and it may be that I am still here around the premises because I am called to make this an other projects take flesh. We will see. But this is much bigger than me or any one person, and I feel called to help this new community take shape.
Kurt Neilson+
August 15, 2009
Beginning a conversation…”what if?”
What if—we took seriously God’s invitation to live a different way of “being church” in the Episcopal tribe of Oregon?
What if we truly began to act and not simply reacted to factors like waning energy in present models of church, plummeting revenues, and abundant signs that the style of church that worked in the mid-20th century is no longer adequate?
What if we took seriously Brian McLaren’s invitation and charge to “create a zone of innovation and empowerment, a zone in which creative young/emerging leaders…can be supported to plant new faith communities relevant to the needs of young adults while being exempted from conventional internal politics and institutional constraints”?
What if we largely ceased “protecting the church” from pioneers, visionaries, and dreamers, and began actively seeking, welcoming, and supporting such people in an intentional companionship relationship?
What if we shifted the locus for such a relationship BACK to the local church, the local congregations, the local context for actual ministry as opposed to a distant graduate school setting?
What if such a setting emphasize group discernment and group participation in building a theological project together, rather than a curriculum pre-set and handed down in order to “form”?
What if we gathered the rich resources of teaching and preaching and pastoral ministry we already possess in our midst in order to enrich such a setting?
What if St. David’s were preserved all this time because it is meant to be the locus for such a community?
What if this “community of ministry” were taken seriously by the diocesan COM, and not seen as a secondary substitute for “real formation” in a Div school?
What if the new bishop enthusiastically supported such a project?
What if this new community were genuinely bi-cultural such that people tropic towards OR raised up by Hispanic community settings would feel wholly welcome?
What if, within this community, those participating would find ample support and resources to discern their call to committed baptismal ministry, to diaconate, to priesthood, or to any number of emerging forms of ministerial leadership?
What if those who would welcome such a community would be actively engaged in its ongoing formation and not have something “planned for them”?
What if this community, although enriched and shaped in large part by its Anglican “tribal roots”, were significantly post-denominational?
What if this new community of mission and ministry actively equipped folks to plant and nurture new forms of community and church?
What if the community itself were a “living laboratory” of such new forms of church?
What if we actively invited and recruited people into this community?
What if this community did theology and pastoral preparation BETTER than existing Div schools?
What if people immersed in such a community could be told that the Episcopal Diocese will take their sense of call seriously and will ordain them and support them in “doing new things”?
What if this process were not seen as strictly a “youth experiment” but would be open and inviting to all ages?
What if this process were explicitly hospitable to people with families, such that participating did not mean being torn from one’s family and that creative ways to welcome kids and spouses/companions were built in?
The one non “What-if?” in this sequence is myself—I care a lot about this, and it may be that I am still here around the premises because I am called to make this an other projects take flesh. We will see. But this is much bigger than me or any one person, and I feel called to help this new community take shape.
Kurt Neilson+
August 15, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Preference human and divine
Proper 18 B 2009
(Prov 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Ps 125; James 2: 1-10, 14-17; Mark 7: 24-37)
Preference can create the world we live in.
While we lived in Saint Louis, a prime-time news show filmed an episode there called “True Colors.” Their cameras followed two young men who were also friends from college. The only obvious difference between them was that one was white and the other was black.
The men interviewed for jobs, shopped in a jewelry store, and searched for apartments. The filmed results were stunning. The young white man was treated with warmth and was offered a second interview, while the black man was treated coolly and sent away with no such promise. The white man was shown great courtesy by the staff in the jewelry store, while the black man was ignored except by the security guard who shadowed him the whole time he was there. The white man was offered an apartment immediately, while the black man was told there were no vacancies. And there were.
We’ve heard such stories before. We hear them over and over because preference, favoring the wealthy, the fashionable, the sophisticated over the rest of humanity is an old, old tale.
It’s a problem of wisdom and knowledge, says Proverbs. Choose a good name over great riches, for God made us all. We have the same source, the same family root, the same parent. No one is better because of their blood or their nation or their wealth. If you would be blessed, be a blessing. Share what you have with the poor.
This is easier when we feel we have some extra to share. These days things feel more thin. When things seem thin, our compassion can grow thin as well. Yesterday a small generous group met to continue Brigid’s Table on Saturday mornings. We have $1000.00 to make weekly meals for 40 for four months. A church is many things, and we do need to care for ourselves—many have said that lately. But if we cease to care for the poor, we cease to be a church.
That’s what James says. Be careful of the ways in which we give preference to the rich. We may not rise to our feet to seat the wealthy at banquets. But don’t we admire those who heap up wealth, who some think are smarter than the average because of how much money they can make? The media is full of this daily. God sees differently, and God says a real faith is a faith put on the line. Some call this “walking the talk.” Live God’s life and have God’s heart, God who seeks out those in need. Do something with the faith you profess.
But what happens when we feel like we have nothing more to give? Lately many of us, myself included, have felt like this. How do you get enthused about reaching out when you want someone to just reach in, pour water on the dryness inside?
In the Gospel Jesus pours out God’s love on all who are poor. He pours it out on a Gentile woman, descendant of the ancient Philistines, ancestral enemies of the people of God. She doesn’t accept Jesus’ remark about favoring only the people of Israel. She believes in the outrageous love of God for the poor and she is filled. All we need do is ask, and Jesus is eager to pour out God’s own love into our hearts and souls. Sometimes I think our asking is stingy, and so we feel like we receive little. Perhaps a starting point to ask ourselves how abundant do we believe our God is, and then ask ourselves why we don’t ask for all of God, all of God’s love.
For in the end it is we who are poor, it is we who are empty, it is we who are as much in need as any ragged wanderer on 82nd Avenue.
We are preferred by God when we feel our hearts are empty. We are preferred by God when our souls are parched and dry. We can ask with confidence and be filled by God. In word and sacrament, liturgy and life itself—we can be filled with God.
(Prov 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Ps 125; James 2: 1-10, 14-17; Mark 7: 24-37)
Preference can create the world we live in.
While we lived in Saint Louis, a prime-time news show filmed an episode there called “True Colors.” Their cameras followed two young men who were also friends from college. The only obvious difference between them was that one was white and the other was black.
The men interviewed for jobs, shopped in a jewelry store, and searched for apartments. The filmed results were stunning. The young white man was treated with warmth and was offered a second interview, while the black man was treated coolly and sent away with no such promise. The white man was shown great courtesy by the staff in the jewelry store, while the black man was ignored except by the security guard who shadowed him the whole time he was there. The white man was offered an apartment immediately, while the black man was told there were no vacancies. And there were.
We’ve heard such stories before. We hear them over and over because preference, favoring the wealthy, the fashionable, the sophisticated over the rest of humanity is an old, old tale.
It’s a problem of wisdom and knowledge, says Proverbs. Choose a good name over great riches, for God made us all. We have the same source, the same family root, the same parent. No one is better because of their blood or their nation or their wealth. If you would be blessed, be a blessing. Share what you have with the poor.
This is easier when we feel we have some extra to share. These days things feel more thin. When things seem thin, our compassion can grow thin as well. Yesterday a small generous group met to continue Brigid’s Table on Saturday mornings. We have $1000.00 to make weekly meals for 40 for four months. A church is many things, and we do need to care for ourselves—many have said that lately. But if we cease to care for the poor, we cease to be a church.
That’s what James says. Be careful of the ways in which we give preference to the rich. We may not rise to our feet to seat the wealthy at banquets. But don’t we admire those who heap up wealth, who some think are smarter than the average because of how much money they can make? The media is full of this daily. God sees differently, and God says a real faith is a faith put on the line. Some call this “walking the talk.” Live God’s life and have God’s heart, God who seeks out those in need. Do something with the faith you profess.
But what happens when we feel like we have nothing more to give? Lately many of us, myself included, have felt like this. How do you get enthused about reaching out when you want someone to just reach in, pour water on the dryness inside?
In the Gospel Jesus pours out God’s love on all who are poor. He pours it out on a Gentile woman, descendant of the ancient Philistines, ancestral enemies of the people of God. She doesn’t accept Jesus’ remark about favoring only the people of Israel. She believes in the outrageous love of God for the poor and she is filled. All we need do is ask, and Jesus is eager to pour out God’s own love into our hearts and souls. Sometimes I think our asking is stingy, and so we feel like we receive little. Perhaps a starting point to ask ourselves how abundant do we believe our God is, and then ask ourselves why we don’t ask for all of God, all of God’s love.
For in the end it is we who are poor, it is we who are empty, it is we who are as much in need as any ragged wanderer on 82nd Avenue.
We are preferred by God when we feel our hearts are empty. We are preferred by God when our souls are parched and dry. We can ask with confidence and be filled by God. In word and sacrament, liturgy and life itself—we can be filled with God.
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Train
Proper 16 B 2009
1 Kings 8: 22-30, 41-43; Ps 84; Eph 6: 10-20; John 6: 56-69
Going through my files, I found this story—it still speaks.
There was a train running through lovely rolling countryside. The train was well-kept, efficiently run, with confident staff, good food in the dining car, and comfortable seating. The passengers were used to how good was the train, and so assumed that the train had always run this way and always would. The train’s name, oddly enough, was “the church.”
But as time went on, things seem to change—at first so gradually that it was easy to ignore or explain away. The train began to run a little late sometimes, and once in awhile it ran very late. The interior of the cars seemed to become a little more worn, and little problems like a small tear in the upholstery was not fixed right away, then was not fixed at all. The food was not the same—new recipes, and the old selections did not seem as good. The conductors and other staff seemed to be hiding anxiety behind their professional smiles, and could be seen to gather in small groups discussing things in quiet urgent tones. And the scenery outside the windows was different than people remembered—an unfamiliar route, through country with different trees and animals, becoming slowly more desert-like.
Some passengers seemed oblivious to the changes. Others noted the changes but kept their thoughts to themselves. Still others began to speak with each other—a few seemed glad of some change, but most were anxious or even angry that life on the train was different than before. Those who were angry blamed new passengers, or blamed the staff, or blamed those who owned the railroad.
One day, to everyone’s shock, the train slowed abruptly, then came to a sudden, lurching halt! The staff almost ran through the cars in near-panic and got off without giving any explanation or instruction. The passengers arose and most but not all climbed down the steps of the cars and gathered outside.
The train was in a barren desert landscape. Those who walked to the front of the train saw the reason why the train had stopped. The tracks actually seemed to slowly disappear in the sand in front of the engine, and were invisible as far as the eye could see.
The staff had no explanations and seemed as shocked as the passengers. Some, passengers and staff, walked apart from the larger group and stared into the distance in silence. Some were seen to cry. The rest all talked at once in disbelief. Those who were angry before were angry again, and blamed the staff and the railroad. Others said that some sort of conspiracy must have buried the tracks. A few people abandoned the train and the group and wandered off in various directions. People proposed first one solution, then another. A very vocal group advocated putting the train in reverse and backing down the way they had come—after all, they reasoned, at least those tracks were known to exist.
But then a couple of sharp-eyed people called the others to the front of the train. Wordlessly they pointed to the sands ahead. There the astonished people saw that the sand was without train tracks, but was not without tracks of any kind. Staring, the people saw one track leading into the heart of the desert. It was footprints, and those who bent over to examine the prints reported that it looked as though the person who made the prints was wearing sandals.
After a long time of staring, the passengers and the staff of the train walked into the desert, following the footprints.
That tale was written by a Roman Catholic in the Catechumenate movement, sometime back in the 1970’s. The storyteller had some clear sense of things to come.
The story can apply to a larger church on the whole—Episcopal certainly, but I hear from my friends in other polities that everyone has a version of the train. The story can apply to a congregation such as ours. Or it can apply to our own individual lives of faith.
Together or alone, we are all led to the desert, where what we expected and how we were used to live no longer applies. Usually this comes about through forces and realities larger than ourselves. Transitions good or painful put us in the desert. And once we’ve worked through all our emotions and fears and anger and wonder, we’re left gazing into the desert. Faith says that the desert is not just a waste of sand. Eyes of faith can see the path that has been made by the One who always goes before us.
The Gospel speaks of this. All the Gospels were composed when the early Jesus movement was fragile and there was no train, no routine, no long-established way to do things or run the railroad. Today we hear Jesus saying just how outrageous his path is. Share my life fully, be in me and let me be in you, flesh as food and blood as drink. It was a desert track way too stark and shocking for many who were following him up until then, who probably wanted their new faith presented in well-established Jewish categories. But that train had come to a stop in the sand, at least for those who had taken a chance on the strange compelling new rabbi who called them to follow him into the desert of faith and a new life.
It’s OK to love the train, it’s OK to love where the train has been. It’s OK to tell stories of how wonderful the journey has been up until now. It’s even OK to want to back the train up along the track we know.
But there is more ahead. There is a journey to walk. There is new life in what seems to be bleak and desert. And there is one who walks that path already, who asks us to follow him into what waits for us—food in the desert, unexpected water, a new journey to be blazed.
1 Kings 8: 22-30, 41-43; Ps 84; Eph 6: 10-20; John 6: 56-69
Going through my files, I found this story—it still speaks.
There was a train running through lovely rolling countryside. The train was well-kept, efficiently run, with confident staff, good food in the dining car, and comfortable seating. The passengers were used to how good was the train, and so assumed that the train had always run this way and always would. The train’s name, oddly enough, was “the church.”
But as time went on, things seem to change—at first so gradually that it was easy to ignore or explain away. The train began to run a little late sometimes, and once in awhile it ran very late. The interior of the cars seemed to become a little more worn, and little problems like a small tear in the upholstery was not fixed right away, then was not fixed at all. The food was not the same—new recipes, and the old selections did not seem as good. The conductors and other staff seemed to be hiding anxiety behind their professional smiles, and could be seen to gather in small groups discussing things in quiet urgent tones. And the scenery outside the windows was different than people remembered—an unfamiliar route, through country with different trees and animals, becoming slowly more desert-like.
Some passengers seemed oblivious to the changes. Others noted the changes but kept their thoughts to themselves. Still others began to speak with each other—a few seemed glad of some change, but most were anxious or even angry that life on the train was different than before. Those who were angry blamed new passengers, or blamed the staff, or blamed those who owned the railroad.
One day, to everyone’s shock, the train slowed abruptly, then came to a sudden, lurching halt! The staff almost ran through the cars in near-panic and got off without giving any explanation or instruction. The passengers arose and most but not all climbed down the steps of the cars and gathered outside.
The train was in a barren desert landscape. Those who walked to the front of the train saw the reason why the train had stopped. The tracks actually seemed to slowly disappear in the sand in front of the engine, and were invisible as far as the eye could see.
The staff had no explanations and seemed as shocked as the passengers. Some, passengers and staff, walked apart from the larger group and stared into the distance in silence. Some were seen to cry. The rest all talked at once in disbelief. Those who were angry before were angry again, and blamed the staff and the railroad. Others said that some sort of conspiracy must have buried the tracks. A few people abandoned the train and the group and wandered off in various directions. People proposed first one solution, then another. A very vocal group advocated putting the train in reverse and backing down the way they had come—after all, they reasoned, at least those tracks were known to exist.
But then a couple of sharp-eyed people called the others to the front of the train. Wordlessly they pointed to the sands ahead. There the astonished people saw that the sand was without train tracks, but was not without tracks of any kind. Staring, the people saw one track leading into the heart of the desert. It was footprints, and those who bent over to examine the prints reported that it looked as though the person who made the prints was wearing sandals.
After a long time of staring, the passengers and the staff of the train walked into the desert, following the footprints.
That tale was written by a Roman Catholic in the Catechumenate movement, sometime back in the 1970’s. The storyteller had some clear sense of things to come.
The story can apply to a larger church on the whole—Episcopal certainly, but I hear from my friends in other polities that everyone has a version of the train. The story can apply to a congregation such as ours. Or it can apply to our own individual lives of faith.
Together or alone, we are all led to the desert, where what we expected and how we were used to live no longer applies. Usually this comes about through forces and realities larger than ourselves. Transitions good or painful put us in the desert. And once we’ve worked through all our emotions and fears and anger and wonder, we’re left gazing into the desert. Faith says that the desert is not just a waste of sand. Eyes of faith can see the path that has been made by the One who always goes before us.
The Gospel speaks of this. All the Gospels were composed when the early Jesus movement was fragile and there was no train, no routine, no long-established way to do things or run the railroad. Today we hear Jesus saying just how outrageous his path is. Share my life fully, be in me and let me be in you, flesh as food and blood as drink. It was a desert track way too stark and shocking for many who were following him up until then, who probably wanted their new faith presented in well-established Jewish categories. But that train had come to a stop in the sand, at least for those who had taken a chance on the strange compelling new rabbi who called them to follow him into the desert of faith and a new life.
It’s OK to love the train, it’s OK to love where the train has been. It’s OK to tell stories of how wonderful the journey has been up until now. It’s even OK to want to back the train up along the track we know.
But there is more ahead. There is a journey to walk. There is new life in what seems to be bleak and desert. And there is one who walks that path already, who asks us to follow him into what waits for us—food in the desert, unexpected water, a new journey to be blazed.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
God-bearers
Mary the God-Bearer 2009
Isaiah 61: 10-11; Ps 34: 1-9; Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 1: 46-55)
God can take flesh in our lives.
A medieval abbot shocked his monks. He taught that we are supposed to be so radically open to the presence and action of God that the Word can take flesh in us just as the Word took flesh in Mary of Nazareth long ago. Within the last year a “supportive spouse” who does not come to church heard of our name for today’s feast—Mary the God-bearer—and said “But we’re ALL God-bearers!”
Ironic, don’t you think, that a medieval monk and a post-modern de-churched Portlander would be on the same page?
But maybe it’s not so ironic. Maybe the hunger of Saint Bernard in the 11th century and an intelligent, well-educated Northwesterner is the same—deep, universal, and always new. Every searching heart wants to know that we are not alone, that there is a loving will that threads its way gently yet powerfully through our lives, that we simply do not live, breathe, love, suffer, and die with no one to mark our coming and our going. We want to know, we want to trust that in our lives, in our searching, in the cries of the suffering and the poor especially, there is an echo in the divine heart. And the answer of the divine heart to these questions and these cries is not to manufacture answers for the head, but to birth new and astounding life in our bodies and in our souls.
It’s a tender and audacious faith. Tender and audacious hearts are the favorite dwelling place of God.
Mary of Nazareth was such a tender and audacious heart. I was taught a sweet piety about Mary that got pretty sticky at times. “Gentle lady, meek and mild…”, and the old Church held her up as a role model for obedient children and submissive women.
It’s a good thing we read the Bible with clearer eyes today. Mary was one in a line of outrageous women who let themselves be changed by the divine fire. Miriam prophet-sister of Aaron, Deborah the Judge, Judith the warrior, Hannah who never lost faith or hope—all were powerful and all were chosen by God to make a radical change for the better. One of my first Bible teachers said, “When the God of the Bible wants to flip things upside-down, God looks for a woman.” Taking on the frightening news of the Incarnation, and facing the scorn and possible violence of an outraged religious population, was not the act of a weak or passive person. Gentle yes, but the gentleness is of someone who is empowered to be gentle from a deep place of peace and trust. Think Desmond Tutu gentle…
She wears so many faces, does Mary the God-bearer. All those who are in deep need take her as their own. Medieval peasants made her their great Lady, more beautiful and powerful and kind than whoever was Queen reigning on the local throne. On the image hanging in our kitchen at home her skin is a deep black, as is the skin of her holy Child. Our Hispanic fellow-parishioners see her with rich brown skin and glossy black hair like an Aztec princess.
We all see her as our own, because she is our own. She is one of us and among us, and the “yes” she said to God is the “yes” she assures us we can all say to the transforming power of God in our lives. The “yes” we say together with her as the Church is the “yes” to God’s tender care for all those poor, all those abused, all those ignored or most forgotten.
Mary’s “yes” to God is always fresh and always new. Fresh and new is her invitation to us to join her in saying “yes” to God.
Isaiah 61: 10-11; Ps 34: 1-9; Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 1: 46-55)
God can take flesh in our lives.
A medieval abbot shocked his monks. He taught that we are supposed to be so radically open to the presence and action of God that the Word can take flesh in us just as the Word took flesh in Mary of Nazareth long ago. Within the last year a “supportive spouse” who does not come to church heard of our name for today’s feast—Mary the God-bearer—and said “But we’re ALL God-bearers!”
Ironic, don’t you think, that a medieval monk and a post-modern de-churched Portlander would be on the same page?
But maybe it’s not so ironic. Maybe the hunger of Saint Bernard in the 11th century and an intelligent, well-educated Northwesterner is the same—deep, universal, and always new. Every searching heart wants to know that we are not alone, that there is a loving will that threads its way gently yet powerfully through our lives, that we simply do not live, breathe, love, suffer, and die with no one to mark our coming and our going. We want to know, we want to trust that in our lives, in our searching, in the cries of the suffering and the poor especially, there is an echo in the divine heart. And the answer of the divine heart to these questions and these cries is not to manufacture answers for the head, but to birth new and astounding life in our bodies and in our souls.
It’s a tender and audacious faith. Tender and audacious hearts are the favorite dwelling place of God.
Mary of Nazareth was such a tender and audacious heart. I was taught a sweet piety about Mary that got pretty sticky at times. “Gentle lady, meek and mild…”, and the old Church held her up as a role model for obedient children and submissive women.
It’s a good thing we read the Bible with clearer eyes today. Mary was one in a line of outrageous women who let themselves be changed by the divine fire. Miriam prophet-sister of Aaron, Deborah the Judge, Judith the warrior, Hannah who never lost faith or hope—all were powerful and all were chosen by God to make a radical change for the better. One of my first Bible teachers said, “When the God of the Bible wants to flip things upside-down, God looks for a woman.” Taking on the frightening news of the Incarnation, and facing the scorn and possible violence of an outraged religious population, was not the act of a weak or passive person. Gentle yes, but the gentleness is of someone who is empowered to be gentle from a deep place of peace and trust. Think Desmond Tutu gentle…
She wears so many faces, does Mary the God-bearer. All those who are in deep need take her as their own. Medieval peasants made her their great Lady, more beautiful and powerful and kind than whoever was Queen reigning on the local throne. On the image hanging in our kitchen at home her skin is a deep black, as is the skin of her holy Child. Our Hispanic fellow-parishioners see her with rich brown skin and glossy black hair like an Aztec princess.
We all see her as our own, because she is our own. She is one of us and among us, and the “yes” she said to God is the “yes” she assures us we can all say to the transforming power of God in our lives. The “yes” we say together with her as the Church is the “yes” to God’s tender care for all those poor, all those abused, all those ignored or most forgotten.
Mary’s “yes” to God is always fresh and always new. Fresh and new is her invitation to us to join her in saying “yes” to God.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
He's changed, we're changed
Transfiguration 2009
Exodus 34: 29-35; Ps 99: 5=9; 2 Peter 1: 13-21; Luke 9: 28-36
A tired, discouraged people gathered at the foot of the mountain. They had been abused, demeaned, and hunted. They had run from their enemies into the desert, the one place where their enemies would not want to follow.
They had almost died from starvation and thirst. They had to trust that their survival was not due to luck, but was a gift from an unseen, nameless God. This God spoke through the mouth of a man with a speech impediment. This man led them to an isolated mountain, told them to wait for him, and disappeared on the mountain for days at a time.
What passed through their heads, what words passed their lips, while they were waiting? Did they speak about how crazy this whole trip was? Did they talk about the absent leader as a religious fanatic, a dreamer? Did the practical ones among them say that they should return to where they had come from, where there was food and shelter and where they knew their place? Did they want to trade uncertainty for certitude, return to a world that was small and safe?
But they were given a gift. They were shown the deep truth about who they were and who was speaking to them. When he returned the man’s face shown with dazzling divine light. As they saw the light and heard his words, they too were changed—changed from frightened individuals into a people-- a just people, a people bonded to one another and to their God. They knew who they really were and who they were empowered to be. And they could take the next step on their pilgrimage, the next step with their pilgrim God.
Who are we as we hear this story today? Are we also tired, hungry, thirsty, looking? Do we wish we could turn back the clock and go back to what we knew or thought we knew?
The brilliance of God shines forth today as it shone from the face of Moses. Today we too know that we are chosen, loved, and are never alone. We know that God is glory and that we too are filled with glory. The curtain is pushed aside, and we know that we are called and empowered to be a glorious people, to be a people bonded to one another and to God.
Tired men stressed out from constant contact with needy people, weary from travel, filled with wonder and questions, climbed another mountain. Their teacher was with them, the teacher who fascinated them—they did not know why. Their wonder and their questions did not vanish that day of mountain glory—they deepened and were changed. Glory, light and transformation, long-dead prophets alive. And the voice—“My son, I love him, listen to him.”
They lifted their eyes and they saw Jesus alone. But he had been changed, and so had they. Their questions—who is this? Who are we called to be? How does God give us hope?—were all changed. The question was not “will God free us?” Instead, it was “how will God free us, and how shall we follow?” Peter and John and James had been changed as their Master had been changed.
We are them—Peter and John and James. We climb the mountain today and see God’s glory in the face of Jesus. We have heard the story and the story brings us to the light. And today, the questions do not go away, but they too are different. Not “where is God?” but “where do I find this God most deeply?” Not “does anything mean anything?” but “what do I do with Meaning itself—how does it make my own life shine with meaning?” Not “do I have any power?” but “how does God’s power shine forth in me?”
We are bonded as a people and we are changed.
Exodus 34: 29-35; Ps 99: 5=9; 2 Peter 1: 13-21; Luke 9: 28-36
A tired, discouraged people gathered at the foot of the mountain. They had been abused, demeaned, and hunted. They had run from their enemies into the desert, the one place where their enemies would not want to follow.
They had almost died from starvation and thirst. They had to trust that their survival was not due to luck, but was a gift from an unseen, nameless God. This God spoke through the mouth of a man with a speech impediment. This man led them to an isolated mountain, told them to wait for him, and disappeared on the mountain for days at a time.
What passed through their heads, what words passed their lips, while they were waiting? Did they speak about how crazy this whole trip was? Did they talk about the absent leader as a religious fanatic, a dreamer? Did the practical ones among them say that they should return to where they had come from, where there was food and shelter and where they knew their place? Did they want to trade uncertainty for certitude, return to a world that was small and safe?
But they were given a gift. They were shown the deep truth about who they were and who was speaking to them. When he returned the man’s face shown with dazzling divine light. As they saw the light and heard his words, they too were changed—changed from frightened individuals into a people-- a just people, a people bonded to one another and to their God. They knew who they really were and who they were empowered to be. And they could take the next step on their pilgrimage, the next step with their pilgrim God.
Who are we as we hear this story today? Are we also tired, hungry, thirsty, looking? Do we wish we could turn back the clock and go back to what we knew or thought we knew?
The brilliance of God shines forth today as it shone from the face of Moses. Today we too know that we are chosen, loved, and are never alone. We know that God is glory and that we too are filled with glory. The curtain is pushed aside, and we know that we are called and empowered to be a glorious people, to be a people bonded to one another and to God.
Tired men stressed out from constant contact with needy people, weary from travel, filled with wonder and questions, climbed another mountain. Their teacher was with them, the teacher who fascinated them—they did not know why. Their wonder and their questions did not vanish that day of mountain glory—they deepened and were changed. Glory, light and transformation, long-dead prophets alive. And the voice—“My son, I love him, listen to him.”
They lifted their eyes and they saw Jesus alone. But he had been changed, and so had they. Their questions—who is this? Who are we called to be? How does God give us hope?—were all changed. The question was not “will God free us?” Instead, it was “how will God free us, and how shall we follow?” Peter and John and James had been changed as their Master had been changed.
We are them—Peter and John and James. We climb the mountain today and see God’s glory in the face of Jesus. We have heard the story and the story brings us to the light. And today, the questions do not go away, but they too are different. Not “where is God?” but “where do I find this God most deeply?” Not “does anything mean anything?” but “what do I do with Meaning itself—how does it make my own life shine with meaning?” Not “do I have any power?” but “how does God’s power shine forth in me?”
We are bonded as a people and we are changed.
Monday, June 29, 2009
abundant universe
5th Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 8 B
2 Samuel 1:1,17-27; Ps 130; 2 Cor 8:7-15; Mark 5: 21-43
I think today’s readings are out of order.
To me, the Gospel should be first. I need to hear the promises of Jesus first. To live my life each day I need the promise and the presence of the living Jesus who brings hope and life.
The crowd felt that. Today everyone looks for Jesus, everyone knows that God is doing something extraordinary in and through this man. Later will come abandonment, doubt, and fear. Now there is wild hope and the baring of wounds.
The wildest hope of all is beating death.
No despair is so deep, no hope is so desperate as a parent’s hope when their child is near death. Down into the dust goes that good religious man, pillar of his community, down go his inhibitions and status in this desperate thought—is God so great in this man Jesus that there is hope in the face of death?
As a parent, I am moved to tears that Jesus does not question or wait—he simply goes to the man’s house.
God’s power is abundant and God’s hope is so wild and free that it cannot be contained. All my life I have struggled to do one thing at a time, to stay focused, to not dilute my energy. But God’s energy doesn’t get diluted with all our needs—it expands. On the way to the man’s house a woman waits. She has lived with illness and weakness and shame and despair—remember that her “hemorrhages” kept her ritually unclean. She dares to hope that God’s power is abundant and free to anyone who ask. She reaches out, she touches, she is healed. “It’s your faith,” says Jesus. Believe abundantly, receive abundantly. It is not magic thinking—it’s not “believe hard enough and in the right way and you’ll get what you want.” No, it’s like this—we live in an abundant universe, loved by and filled with an abundant God. Invite, accept, ask, breathe…and we live in that abundance and trust the God who is abundance.
Jesus gets to the house, and he enters and takes the hand of the dead young woman. Touching the dead made you unclean, and remember that this girl was 12 and of marriageable age. Jesus set aside all taboos by taking the hand of that young dead girl alone. His words in Aramaic are tender and intimate, “Talitha cum.” And hope and God’s abundance are born again into the world. There are no barriers to the love of God.
Some people ask, “Are you saved?” or “Have you accepted Jesus Christ?” I do not despise any question that might move someone into new life. But the question that speaks to me is, “Do I wish to live in an abundant universe?”
The answer to that question isn’t easy. We get used to our lives being small, risk-free, and predictable. If we expect the big bad to come down, we’re set for it when it does.
But the abundance of God frees us to live with passion even in the face of death.
Today David lamented over Saul and his son Jonathan. The love between these three broke all sorts of barriers and tradition and politics and reason. David and Jonathan loved each other “like their own souls,” and David’s other loves after Jonathan never seem to work out well. As for Saul, even when he turned to madness and violence David remained his wounded but loving foster-son. I really don’t think David was ever the same after the death of these two men that he loved so much—there was a shadow over his life and his family that emerges over and over. But David had this great gift—to embrace hope and an abundant God. David re-invented his own life and faith many times, and so he is free to mourn because he holds to hope.
When we mourn and lament, are we open to the new thing that God will do in our lives and in those around us? Do we cry because once again the world has proved to be as disappointing as we expected? Or does God hear our every cry and cries with us, and in God’s cry a new creation is born in ways we cannot understand?
Paul says, Christ who was rich became poor for us, so we may become rich.
We feel the pinch of loss and fear these days—downsizing, layoffs, fear, more impoverished people coming to us. The abundance of God is strange news at such times. But the abundance of God is always strange, and Paul asks the community to follow through with their promise to finish the collection for the poor community in Jerusalem. There was a recession in those days too. But finish your generous plan, says Paul, not with what you don’t have, but with what you do have. It will be enough. God will make sure that it is enough.
Do we wish to live in an abundant universe? Do we love and seek an abundant God? Do we think that this church community is a community of abundance? Is the God we worship in many voices an abundant God?
2 Samuel 1:1,17-27; Ps 130; 2 Cor 8:7-15; Mark 5: 21-43
I think today’s readings are out of order.
To me, the Gospel should be first. I need to hear the promises of Jesus first. To live my life each day I need the promise and the presence of the living Jesus who brings hope and life.
The crowd felt that. Today everyone looks for Jesus, everyone knows that God is doing something extraordinary in and through this man. Later will come abandonment, doubt, and fear. Now there is wild hope and the baring of wounds.
The wildest hope of all is beating death.
No despair is so deep, no hope is so desperate as a parent’s hope when their child is near death. Down into the dust goes that good religious man, pillar of his community, down go his inhibitions and status in this desperate thought—is God so great in this man Jesus that there is hope in the face of death?
As a parent, I am moved to tears that Jesus does not question or wait—he simply goes to the man’s house.
God’s power is abundant and God’s hope is so wild and free that it cannot be contained. All my life I have struggled to do one thing at a time, to stay focused, to not dilute my energy. But God’s energy doesn’t get diluted with all our needs—it expands. On the way to the man’s house a woman waits. She has lived with illness and weakness and shame and despair—remember that her “hemorrhages” kept her ritually unclean. She dares to hope that God’s power is abundant and free to anyone who ask. She reaches out, she touches, she is healed. “It’s your faith,” says Jesus. Believe abundantly, receive abundantly. It is not magic thinking—it’s not “believe hard enough and in the right way and you’ll get what you want.” No, it’s like this—we live in an abundant universe, loved by and filled with an abundant God. Invite, accept, ask, breathe…and we live in that abundance and trust the God who is abundance.
Jesus gets to the house, and he enters and takes the hand of the dead young woman. Touching the dead made you unclean, and remember that this girl was 12 and of marriageable age. Jesus set aside all taboos by taking the hand of that young dead girl alone. His words in Aramaic are tender and intimate, “Talitha cum.” And hope and God’s abundance are born again into the world. There are no barriers to the love of God.
Some people ask, “Are you saved?” or “Have you accepted Jesus Christ?” I do not despise any question that might move someone into new life. But the question that speaks to me is, “Do I wish to live in an abundant universe?”
The answer to that question isn’t easy. We get used to our lives being small, risk-free, and predictable. If we expect the big bad to come down, we’re set for it when it does.
But the abundance of God frees us to live with passion even in the face of death.
Today David lamented over Saul and his son Jonathan. The love between these three broke all sorts of barriers and tradition and politics and reason. David and Jonathan loved each other “like their own souls,” and David’s other loves after Jonathan never seem to work out well. As for Saul, even when he turned to madness and violence David remained his wounded but loving foster-son. I really don’t think David was ever the same after the death of these two men that he loved so much—there was a shadow over his life and his family that emerges over and over. But David had this great gift—to embrace hope and an abundant God. David re-invented his own life and faith many times, and so he is free to mourn because he holds to hope.
When we mourn and lament, are we open to the new thing that God will do in our lives and in those around us? Do we cry because once again the world has proved to be as disappointing as we expected? Or does God hear our every cry and cries with us, and in God’s cry a new creation is born in ways we cannot understand?
Paul says, Christ who was rich became poor for us, so we may become rich.
We feel the pinch of loss and fear these days—downsizing, layoffs, fear, more impoverished people coming to us. The abundance of God is strange news at such times. But the abundance of God is always strange, and Paul asks the community to follow through with their promise to finish the collection for the poor community in Jerusalem. There was a recession in those days too. But finish your generous plan, says Paul, not with what you don’t have, but with what you do have. It will be enough. God will make sure that it is enough.
Do we wish to live in an abundant universe? Do we love and seek an abundant God? Do we think that this church community is a community of abundance? Is the God we worship in many voices an abundant God?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The Messiah is among you
(note--this is a precis of a homily delivered 7 Easter--Sunday May 24. The text references is Acts 1: 15-26)
This monastery had fallen on hard times.
It had not always been this hard. The abbey had once been full of energetic monks, working, studying, praying, laughing. Many pilgrims had come to pray at the shrine of the abbey's patron saint, and pilgrims mean offerings of money and prosperity. The church was full of local people and some who would come from afar to attend the abbey's beautiful Easter and Christmas services.
But that was now long ago, the "good old days." With the years, new candidates for the community had gradually decreased until now, when no one had joined the community for years. The members had dwindled to about 7 faithful grey heads. The cult of the abbey's patron saint had dwindled in popularity, until now no more pilgrims with their prayers and their rich offerings came to kneel and to give. And the great church was empty, even for the major feasts.
The monks tried not to fret about this, because the Gospel says "do not be anxious." But the thought of their future--was there a future?--weighed heavily on them all, from the Abbot on down. Finally the brethren, at the weekly chapter meeting, asked their Abbot, "Why don't you talk to the rabbi?"
The rabbi was the Abbot's oldest friend, a hermit who studied the Torah alone in a hut in the woods. Often the Abbot would visit him, and they would share the simple food that the Abbot would bring or that the rabbi grew in his tiny garden. They would share good talk, or they would share the silence which only very good friends can share.
The Abbot made the journey and found his old friend, who greeted him with delight. They shared food, and some talk, and some silence. The rabbi finally looked at the Abbot with wise old eyes and asked, "My old friend, something troubles your heart."
The Abbot took a deep breath and began to speak. He unburdened himself fully to his friend the rabbi--the gradual shrinking of the community, their increasing poverty, their fear that within a generation they would be too few and too old to even keep the abbey building and so the monastery would close.
After his words had completely run out, the two friends sat in the silence a long time. Finally, the rabbi looked at his friend the abbot, and said simply, "Well, the Messiah is among you."
The abbot knew well those moments when his friend would utter words and would be oblivious to requests to explain them, and this was one of those times. After sharing in the silence for a little while longer, the abbot took leave of his friend.
The monks were all waiting for their abbot and asked him eagerly, "What did the rabbi say?"
"He said, 'The Messiah is among you.'"
"What did he mean?"
"You know better than to ask that!" the abbot replied a little testily. "He's the rabbi, and sometimes he just says stuff and does not explain. This is one of those times."
As the days went on, the abbot and the other monks thought, and prayed, and talked when allowed about the rabbi's words. "The Messiah is among us. Where? What can that mean?"
One afternoon during silent meditation the Abbot sat in the church and rolled the words around in his mind--the Messiah is among us...
Surely the rabbi does not mean me, thought the abbot. I know I am not the Messiah.
And surely he does not mean Brother Egbert. Brother Egbert is a couple of candles short of a candelabra, not the brightest soul.
But, thought the abbot, Brother Egbert always has a smile on his face, and is capable of being cheerful and of raising our hearts even in the gloomiest part of the winter, no matter how hard life gets. If the Messiah were here, that is how he would be--he would spread joy even in our sorrow.
And surely Father Fabian is not the Messiah--Father Fabian is the grumpiest man this side of Saint Peter's Basilica.
But, thought the abbot, Father Fabian is the first to complain, but Father Fabian is also the first to show up and to work at a difficult task, and he never leaves until the job is done. If the Messiah were here, that is how he would be--he would call no attention to himself, but he would work and give where it was most needed.
As the abbot thought about the other members of the little community, he realized that none of them were the Messiah, but each had a part, each had something of the Messiah, if he were among them.
At the next chapter meeting the abbot shared his insight with the monks.
Something changed then. It did not change dramatically, and it did not change overnight. Perhaps it was that the heaviness of their anxiety and their fear of the future lifted. Perhaps it was that the monks recognized that there was more to each of them than met the eye, and they began to treat one another with a little more respect, a little more reverence even. The days did not seem overshadowed with dread.
That Easter, in the great empty church, a little family, poor young peasant couple with their three children, came and heard the great Mass. They shyly escaped before anyone could greet them. But they came back at Pentecost, and they brought their parents.
That summer, during pilgrimage season, the brother sacristan was startled to find a pilgrim, tall and lean, kneeling in the silence and shadows of the church before the shrine of the abbey's patron saint. As he stood, he placed a coin in the offering box, and the solitary "clink" echoes through the church.
And that Advent, during a rainstorm, the abbot himself heard a persistent pounding at the main doors. He opened them, to find a rough-looking young Saxon peasant standing, clothes worn, knife scar visible on his face. "What do you want?" asked the abbot, in some fear. The young man opened his mouth and spoke in Saxon accent the ancient words, "I desire the mercy of God, the discipline of the Rule, and to join your community."
Towards the end of his life, the abbot sat in the abbey's garden and looked out at this community. Strong young monks worked in the field, laughing, breaking the Rule a little, but never mind. They do things differently, they see the world differently, they sing the Psalms with different tones, but they are here and they are generous and full of faith. And the pilgrims come, from different lands than before, speaking in different tongues. But they come full of faith to pray before the shrine of the patron saint, whom they call by a different name in their own languages. As the abbot looked at his community, so different yet the same, he smiled. The rabbi was right--the Messiah was among them.
Well, I have been among you for 14 years now, and I can tell you with complete assurance that I am not the Messiah. But the Messiah is among us. The Messiah is among us, in the gifts of each member whom the Messiah has brought by speaking in their hearts. Long-time member, come just yesterday--the Messiah is among us. The early community of Acts knew this--that is why, after being shattered by the murder of their founder and the betrayal of one of their inner circle, they were able to just roll the dice and choose another as replacement for the leader who had betrayed them. They knew that the gift had been richly given. The Messiah was among them, and would open a rich future for them that they could not even imagine. So it is here, now, among us. The Messiah is among us.
This monastery had fallen on hard times.
It had not always been this hard. The abbey had once been full of energetic monks, working, studying, praying, laughing. Many pilgrims had come to pray at the shrine of the abbey's patron saint, and pilgrims mean offerings of money and prosperity. The church was full of local people and some who would come from afar to attend the abbey's beautiful Easter and Christmas services.
But that was now long ago, the "good old days." With the years, new candidates for the community had gradually decreased until now, when no one had joined the community for years. The members had dwindled to about 7 faithful grey heads. The cult of the abbey's patron saint had dwindled in popularity, until now no more pilgrims with their prayers and their rich offerings came to kneel and to give. And the great church was empty, even for the major feasts.
The monks tried not to fret about this, because the Gospel says "do not be anxious." But the thought of their future--was there a future?--weighed heavily on them all, from the Abbot on down. Finally the brethren, at the weekly chapter meeting, asked their Abbot, "Why don't you talk to the rabbi?"
The rabbi was the Abbot's oldest friend, a hermit who studied the Torah alone in a hut in the woods. Often the Abbot would visit him, and they would share the simple food that the Abbot would bring or that the rabbi grew in his tiny garden. They would share good talk, or they would share the silence which only very good friends can share.
The Abbot made the journey and found his old friend, who greeted him with delight. They shared food, and some talk, and some silence. The rabbi finally looked at the Abbot with wise old eyes and asked, "My old friend, something troubles your heart."
The Abbot took a deep breath and began to speak. He unburdened himself fully to his friend the rabbi--the gradual shrinking of the community, their increasing poverty, their fear that within a generation they would be too few and too old to even keep the abbey building and so the monastery would close.
After his words had completely run out, the two friends sat in the silence a long time. Finally, the rabbi looked at his friend the abbot, and said simply, "Well, the Messiah is among you."
The abbot knew well those moments when his friend would utter words and would be oblivious to requests to explain them, and this was one of those times. After sharing in the silence for a little while longer, the abbot took leave of his friend.
The monks were all waiting for their abbot and asked him eagerly, "What did the rabbi say?"
"He said, 'The Messiah is among you.'"
"What did he mean?"
"You know better than to ask that!" the abbot replied a little testily. "He's the rabbi, and sometimes he just says stuff and does not explain. This is one of those times."
As the days went on, the abbot and the other monks thought, and prayed, and talked when allowed about the rabbi's words. "The Messiah is among us. Where? What can that mean?"
One afternoon during silent meditation the Abbot sat in the church and rolled the words around in his mind--the Messiah is among us...
Surely the rabbi does not mean me, thought the abbot. I know I am not the Messiah.
And surely he does not mean Brother Egbert. Brother Egbert is a couple of candles short of a candelabra, not the brightest soul.
But, thought the abbot, Brother Egbert always has a smile on his face, and is capable of being cheerful and of raising our hearts even in the gloomiest part of the winter, no matter how hard life gets. If the Messiah were here, that is how he would be--he would spread joy even in our sorrow.
And surely Father Fabian is not the Messiah--Father Fabian is the grumpiest man this side of Saint Peter's Basilica.
But, thought the abbot, Father Fabian is the first to complain, but Father Fabian is also the first to show up and to work at a difficult task, and he never leaves until the job is done. If the Messiah were here, that is how he would be--he would call no attention to himself, but he would work and give where it was most needed.
As the abbot thought about the other members of the little community, he realized that none of them were the Messiah, but each had a part, each had something of the Messiah, if he were among them.
At the next chapter meeting the abbot shared his insight with the monks.
Something changed then. It did not change dramatically, and it did not change overnight. Perhaps it was that the heaviness of their anxiety and their fear of the future lifted. Perhaps it was that the monks recognized that there was more to each of them than met the eye, and they began to treat one another with a little more respect, a little more reverence even. The days did not seem overshadowed with dread.
That Easter, in the great empty church, a little family, poor young peasant couple with their three children, came and heard the great Mass. They shyly escaped before anyone could greet them. But they came back at Pentecost, and they brought their parents.
That summer, during pilgrimage season, the brother sacristan was startled to find a pilgrim, tall and lean, kneeling in the silence and shadows of the church before the shrine of the abbey's patron saint. As he stood, he placed a coin in the offering box, and the solitary "clink" echoes through the church.
And that Advent, during a rainstorm, the abbot himself heard a persistent pounding at the main doors. He opened them, to find a rough-looking young Saxon peasant standing, clothes worn, knife scar visible on his face. "What do you want?" asked the abbot, in some fear. The young man opened his mouth and spoke in Saxon accent the ancient words, "I desire the mercy of God, the discipline of the Rule, and to join your community."
Towards the end of his life, the abbot sat in the abbey's garden and looked out at this community. Strong young monks worked in the field, laughing, breaking the Rule a little, but never mind. They do things differently, they see the world differently, they sing the Psalms with different tones, but they are here and they are generous and full of faith. And the pilgrims come, from different lands than before, speaking in different tongues. But they come full of faith to pray before the shrine of the patron saint, whom they call by a different name in their own languages. As the abbot looked at his community, so different yet the same, he smiled. The rabbi was right--the Messiah was among them.
Well, I have been among you for 14 years now, and I can tell you with complete assurance that I am not the Messiah. But the Messiah is among us. The Messiah is among us, in the gifts of each member whom the Messiah has brought by speaking in their hearts. Long-time member, come just yesterday--the Messiah is among us. The early community of Acts knew this--that is why, after being shattered by the murder of their founder and the betrayal of one of their inner circle, they were able to just roll the dice and choose another as replacement for the leader who had betrayed them. They knew that the gift had been richly given. The Messiah was among them, and would open a rich future for them that they could not even imagine. So it is here, now, among us. The Messiah is among us.
Ecstasy
(note--this is a precis of a homily delivered on Sunday May 17/6 Easter--Acts 10: 44-48 was the main text)
Not long ago at a monastery in the Midwest, the novice master in charge of the newbie monks noticed that his guys were looking depressed. He called them together and, after a moment of silence, asked them, "What is it that you love about this life?"
They answered, "The ecstasy we feel when we are in the fields working, late morning or late afternoon. God feels so near, permeating everything--we feel in touch with the divine in all things."
The older monk then asked, "What's the worse thing about this life?"
They answered unanimously, "Standing in church at 3:00 AM chanting Psalms, 7 days a week. Then over and over again throughout the day, every day."
The old monk thought for a moment, then said, "Very well. For the next couple of weeks, you do not have to come to church for any of the prayer Offices. In fact, I order you not to come."
After four days the newbie monks came to the novice master and said, "We didn't come here to be farm hands, in dresses." They asked for permission to come back to the daily prayer Offices, 3:00 AM and all.
The novice master asked, "What happened to your ecstasies?"
The young monks replied that they had faded and disappeared after the first couple of days.
The old monk observed, "I can't be sure, but it sounds like your ecstasies in the fields in the sunlight were connected with standing in the church at 3:00 AM chanting Psalms."
Ecstasy can be spontaneous. But more often it is the gift of a life lived, a commitment honored.
We all desire ecstasy--it is a hard-wired human need. "Ecstasy" literally means "out of one's being", being taken out of our skin as it were, out of the little bounds of our routine and the ways in which the marvels of the world seem common and dull to us. Somehow we inhabit another place, or perhaps we are seeing the place clearly for the first time. Bliss, rapture, deep peace--this is all ecstasy. The experience can be very personal--one young woman says "dance" in answer to the question of what is her ecstasy, another older woman says "gardening." Any ecstasy has the breath of the divine about it--it is God who draws us out of our own skin and the skin of what we think is the everyday, and calls us into larger vision, larger joy and abandon, larger life.
To ask "What is my ecstasy?" is a spiritual exercise. There we will detect the whisper of God.
A community too can experience ecstasy, and perhaps not in the visibly enraptured ways that we may expect.
We forget that the early Jesus movement was thoroughly Jewish and probably more stern in its observance than the Pharisees. A Jewish Messiah had come to fulfill the ancient promises to Israel. When the expected fulfillment of Jesus' promise did not come and the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed, the new movement may well have come to an end, just another enthusiastic little sect disappeared in the dustbin of history.
But the early community chose ecstasy, and this is how. Today's tale tells how Peter and the good Jewish guys from Jerusalem made a journey to talk to some Gentiles, those pork-eating, Greek-speaking, statue-worshipping, sexually randy Gentiles. These folks were off the salvation map, out of the question, despised. But Peter and the boys saw the same ecstasy in them as they knew in themselves. So Peter committed ecstasy--he chose to climb out of the skin of what he thought God was about and who he thought God loved and reached out his baptizing hand to these goyim, these Gentiles. And that is how the Jewish Jesus movement not only survived but spread and grew--an act of ecstasy, climbing out of their own skin of theology and prejudice and narrow imagination to see that God was greater and God was wiser and the people of God were far more diverse and God's desire was outrageous. And they were invited to participate in the ecstasy of God who strains to embrace all people, all the cosmos.
How are we to participate in the ecstasy of God? How are we to be that community of ecstasy, and climb out of the skin of who we think we are and what we think is the plan and desire of God?
Not long ago at a monastery in the Midwest, the novice master in charge of the newbie monks noticed that his guys were looking depressed. He called them together and, after a moment of silence, asked them, "What is it that you love about this life?"
They answered, "The ecstasy we feel when we are in the fields working, late morning or late afternoon. God feels so near, permeating everything--we feel in touch with the divine in all things."
The older monk then asked, "What's the worse thing about this life?"
They answered unanimously, "Standing in church at 3:00 AM chanting Psalms, 7 days a week. Then over and over again throughout the day, every day."
The old monk thought for a moment, then said, "Very well. For the next couple of weeks, you do not have to come to church for any of the prayer Offices. In fact, I order you not to come."
After four days the newbie monks came to the novice master and said, "We didn't come here to be farm hands, in dresses." They asked for permission to come back to the daily prayer Offices, 3:00 AM and all.
The novice master asked, "What happened to your ecstasies?"
The young monks replied that they had faded and disappeared after the first couple of days.
The old monk observed, "I can't be sure, but it sounds like your ecstasies in the fields in the sunlight were connected with standing in the church at 3:00 AM chanting Psalms."
Ecstasy can be spontaneous. But more often it is the gift of a life lived, a commitment honored.
We all desire ecstasy--it is a hard-wired human need. "Ecstasy" literally means "out of one's being", being taken out of our skin as it were, out of the little bounds of our routine and the ways in which the marvels of the world seem common and dull to us. Somehow we inhabit another place, or perhaps we are seeing the place clearly for the first time. Bliss, rapture, deep peace--this is all ecstasy. The experience can be very personal--one young woman says "dance" in answer to the question of what is her ecstasy, another older woman says "gardening." Any ecstasy has the breath of the divine about it--it is God who draws us out of our own skin and the skin of what we think is the everyday, and calls us into larger vision, larger joy and abandon, larger life.
To ask "What is my ecstasy?" is a spiritual exercise. There we will detect the whisper of God.
A community too can experience ecstasy, and perhaps not in the visibly enraptured ways that we may expect.
We forget that the early Jesus movement was thoroughly Jewish and probably more stern in its observance than the Pharisees. A Jewish Messiah had come to fulfill the ancient promises to Israel. When the expected fulfillment of Jesus' promise did not come and the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed, the new movement may well have come to an end, just another enthusiastic little sect disappeared in the dustbin of history.
But the early community chose ecstasy, and this is how. Today's tale tells how Peter and the good Jewish guys from Jerusalem made a journey to talk to some Gentiles, those pork-eating, Greek-speaking, statue-worshipping, sexually randy Gentiles. These folks were off the salvation map, out of the question, despised. But Peter and the boys saw the same ecstasy in them as they knew in themselves. So Peter committed ecstasy--he chose to climb out of the skin of what he thought God was about and who he thought God loved and reached out his baptizing hand to these goyim, these Gentiles. And that is how the Jewish Jesus movement not only survived but spread and grew--an act of ecstasy, climbing out of their own skin of theology and prejudice and narrow imagination to see that God was greater and God was wiser and the people of God were far more diverse and God's desire was outrageous. And they were invited to participate in the ecstasy of God who strains to embrace all people, all the cosmos.
How are we to participate in the ecstasy of God? How are we to be that community of ecstasy, and climb out of the skin of who we think we are and what we think is the plan and desire of God?
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Into the wilderness
5 Easter B 2009
Acts 8: 26-40; Ps 22: 24-30; 1 John 4: 7-21; John 15: 1-8
Yesterday at noon I was drinking beer with Quasimodo.
OK fine, his name is not Quasimodo, he’s not a hunchback. His name’s Parker, but like Quasimodo he’s moved into the stone bell tower of Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church on Belmont and 55th. He’s there with the blessing of the congregation. And he’s not there to ring the bell. Michelle Harvey, Vestryperson, was with me. Why Parker is in that tower with the congregation’s blessing is a good story.
Mount Tabor Presbyterian Church is an old congregation founded in 1892. In their well-endowed stone church the congregation thrived in the years after both of the two World Wars. But now I’m told the congregation is down to about 40 people at last Sunday’s “traditional” service. They can’t pay their bills, they can’t keep up the large physical plant.
The congregation could have chosen to hang on that way of life to the bitter end, huddling close to one another, telling stories about the “old days”, badgering the central church authorities for more help. Instead they decided that they had to change if they are to have a future and if they are to continue to witness to the love of Christ.
So the congregation took all of their remaining resources and poured them into a new mission. One whole end of the building is being converted into an attractive arts center, coffee shop, and gathering place. They are making themselves an inviting place for post-modern, post-christian, de-churched or un-churched Portlanders to gather and to share faith and meaning and the challenges of their lives. Parker is leading this effort along with one of their younger clergy. When Michelle and I visited, we walked past a group of neighbors strolling around who were pointing and chatting about the work inside. “Yeah, it’s really nice, they call it Tabor Place” I heard one man say. It’s good to hear a non-churched person say something nice about a church in their midst.
I think what is happening at Mt. Tabor Pres is one way that today’s story from Acts comes alive. Philip heads out of familiar Jerusalem after that church is shattered by persecution. He runs into an unlikely man, a foreigner, a dark African who is also a eunuch, a rejected sexual minority according to religious law. Philip chooses to enter this man’s world and in turn is invited to share his space inside his chariot. Philip’s message falls on very fertile ground and the Ethiopian is swept away. He asks for baptism, and Philip freely gives him water and new birth. If you go to Ethiopia today you can see the result. You will see one of the oldest continuing Christian communities in the world. There Philip and the eunuch are honored as the apostles of Ethiopia.
Philip went into the wilderness. He did not stay home amidst a shattered Jerusalem church waiting for something to happen. Philip took the risk of trusting God and sharing the Gospel with a foreigner, overcoming whatever prejudice he felt towards dark-skinned folks or despised sexual minorities. He shared the Gospel gladly and the results were two Spirit-filled people and then a whole new nation choosing Christ.
That’s how faith is shared. That is how the church is re-born.
Back in 2007 we took one small step into the wilderness. We invited and welcomed our sisters and brothers of the Hispanic community, and we have been blessed. Today at the 12 Noon Mass we will celebrate our first Baptism. One of the lectors is a high school student preparing for her Quinceanera, who wants to be a communion minister.
How else are we called to be the church of Philip? What other wilderness are we being invited into? Do we see ourselves as struggling to survive, or are we called enter the worlds of more people we do not yet know?
Acts 8: 26-40; Ps 22: 24-30; 1 John 4: 7-21; John 15: 1-8
Yesterday at noon I was drinking beer with Quasimodo.
OK fine, his name is not Quasimodo, he’s not a hunchback. His name’s Parker, but like Quasimodo he’s moved into the stone bell tower of Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church on Belmont and 55th. He’s there with the blessing of the congregation. And he’s not there to ring the bell. Michelle Harvey, Vestryperson, was with me. Why Parker is in that tower with the congregation’s blessing is a good story.
Mount Tabor Presbyterian Church is an old congregation founded in 1892. In their well-endowed stone church the congregation thrived in the years after both of the two World Wars. But now I’m told the congregation is down to about 40 people at last Sunday’s “traditional” service. They can’t pay their bills, they can’t keep up the large physical plant.
The congregation could have chosen to hang on that way of life to the bitter end, huddling close to one another, telling stories about the “old days”, badgering the central church authorities for more help. Instead they decided that they had to change if they are to have a future and if they are to continue to witness to the love of Christ.
So the congregation took all of their remaining resources and poured them into a new mission. One whole end of the building is being converted into an attractive arts center, coffee shop, and gathering place. They are making themselves an inviting place for post-modern, post-christian, de-churched or un-churched Portlanders to gather and to share faith and meaning and the challenges of their lives. Parker is leading this effort along with one of their younger clergy. When Michelle and I visited, we walked past a group of neighbors strolling around who were pointing and chatting about the work inside. “Yeah, it’s really nice, they call it Tabor Place” I heard one man say. It’s good to hear a non-churched person say something nice about a church in their midst.
I think what is happening at Mt. Tabor Pres is one way that today’s story from Acts comes alive. Philip heads out of familiar Jerusalem after that church is shattered by persecution. He runs into an unlikely man, a foreigner, a dark African who is also a eunuch, a rejected sexual minority according to religious law. Philip chooses to enter this man’s world and in turn is invited to share his space inside his chariot. Philip’s message falls on very fertile ground and the Ethiopian is swept away. He asks for baptism, and Philip freely gives him water and new birth. If you go to Ethiopia today you can see the result. You will see one of the oldest continuing Christian communities in the world. There Philip and the eunuch are honored as the apostles of Ethiopia.
Philip went into the wilderness. He did not stay home amidst a shattered Jerusalem church waiting for something to happen. Philip took the risk of trusting God and sharing the Gospel with a foreigner, overcoming whatever prejudice he felt towards dark-skinned folks or despised sexual minorities. He shared the Gospel gladly and the results were two Spirit-filled people and then a whole new nation choosing Christ.
That’s how faith is shared. That is how the church is re-born.
Back in 2007 we took one small step into the wilderness. We invited and welcomed our sisters and brothers of the Hispanic community, and we have been blessed. Today at the 12 Noon Mass we will celebrate our first Baptism. One of the lectors is a high school student preparing for her Quinceanera, who wants to be a communion minister.
How else are we called to be the church of Philip? What other wilderness are we being invited into? Do we see ourselves as struggling to survive, or are we called enter the worlds of more people we do not yet know?
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Care and feeding of sheep
4 Easter B 2009
Acts 4: 5-12; Ps 23; 1 John 3: 16-24; John 10: 11-18
It’s a good Sunday for sheep stories. I heard two new ones this past week, from your fellow members.
One tale told of an old rancher back in Eastern Oregon. This old cowboy was a nice man who never wanted to hurt a fly. The storyteller said that one day he paid a call on the rancher and found him very upset. Asked why he was upset, the rancher said that he had just fired one of his foremen. When asked why he had fired him, the rancher replied, “I had to. The man ate his OWN breakfast BEFORE he fed the sheep.”
The old rancher was a nice man, but nice didn’t get in the way of how he knew a man was supposed to care for sheep.
The other story was told during an argument about how dumb sheep really are. “Sheep are stupid!” said one of your fellow members. “No they’re not!” replied another. “Oh yes they are!” said the first. “Not always,” shot back the second. “I knew some sheep that were very smart. It depends on the shepherd. If the sheep spend a lot of time with the shepherd, they become like the shepherd.”
Maybe it doesn’t much matter what the sheep are like to start with. Maybe it matter what the sheep are like in the end, and how they get that way.
I know that I am not personally the Good Shepherd, even though his words in today’s Gospel challenge me to ask what motivates me in my ministry, what guides my concerns and decisions—the hired hand? A delicate matter, since I’m one of the few on the payroll here. Or does someone else drive my ministry, someone more simple and more bold? But the Good Shepherd stands in the midst of all of us this Sunday and we are all challenged by his words and his example. He “lays down his life for the sheep.” He calls and the sheep know his voice. He does not run from the wolf. John’s letter says that it is not just the Shepherd who loves in this way; we are to “lay down our lives for one another…in truth and action.” What does it mean to be this community of the Good Shepherd?
The sheep become more like the Good Shepherd the longer they spend time with him. How do we best spend quality time with the Good Shepherd? Through prayer? Through the sacraments? Through engagement with one another in community? Through serving in the shepherd’s name? The only way we become like the shepherd is by spending time with him through our regular Christian practice.
The more time we spend in the Shepherd’s company, the more we become like the Shepherd, the more we share his mind and his heart.
The Good Shepherd feeds the sheep before he eats his own breakfast. What questions do we ask here: How can we survive? Can we survive without changing? Are these shepherd questions?
Or are these shepherd questions: how can we spend more time with the shepherd so that he can change us? And who are we called to feed?
The Good Shepherd has a large sense of his flock. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” The community of the Good Shepherd does not wish to keep its circle small.
How can we spend more meaningful time with the Shepherd so he can change us? How can we best love one another? Whom else are we called to feed, to invite, to include?
These feel more like Good Shepherd questions. I’ll live with them today I believe the Good Shepherd wants us to live with those questions as his own beloved community.
Acts 4: 5-12; Ps 23; 1 John 3: 16-24; John 10: 11-18
It’s a good Sunday for sheep stories. I heard two new ones this past week, from your fellow members.
One tale told of an old rancher back in Eastern Oregon. This old cowboy was a nice man who never wanted to hurt a fly. The storyteller said that one day he paid a call on the rancher and found him very upset. Asked why he was upset, the rancher said that he had just fired one of his foremen. When asked why he had fired him, the rancher replied, “I had to. The man ate his OWN breakfast BEFORE he fed the sheep.”
The old rancher was a nice man, but nice didn’t get in the way of how he knew a man was supposed to care for sheep.
The other story was told during an argument about how dumb sheep really are. “Sheep are stupid!” said one of your fellow members. “No they’re not!” replied another. “Oh yes they are!” said the first. “Not always,” shot back the second. “I knew some sheep that were very smart. It depends on the shepherd. If the sheep spend a lot of time with the shepherd, they become like the shepherd.”
Maybe it doesn’t much matter what the sheep are like to start with. Maybe it matter what the sheep are like in the end, and how they get that way.
I know that I am not personally the Good Shepherd, even though his words in today’s Gospel challenge me to ask what motivates me in my ministry, what guides my concerns and decisions—the hired hand? A delicate matter, since I’m one of the few on the payroll here. Or does someone else drive my ministry, someone more simple and more bold? But the Good Shepherd stands in the midst of all of us this Sunday and we are all challenged by his words and his example. He “lays down his life for the sheep.” He calls and the sheep know his voice. He does not run from the wolf. John’s letter says that it is not just the Shepherd who loves in this way; we are to “lay down our lives for one another…in truth and action.” What does it mean to be this community of the Good Shepherd?
The sheep become more like the Good Shepherd the longer they spend time with him. How do we best spend quality time with the Good Shepherd? Through prayer? Through the sacraments? Through engagement with one another in community? Through serving in the shepherd’s name? The only way we become like the shepherd is by spending time with him through our regular Christian practice.
The more time we spend in the Shepherd’s company, the more we become like the Shepherd, the more we share his mind and his heart.
The Good Shepherd feeds the sheep before he eats his own breakfast. What questions do we ask here: How can we survive? Can we survive without changing? Are these shepherd questions?
Or are these shepherd questions: how can we spend more time with the shepherd so that he can change us? And who are we called to feed?
The Good Shepherd has a large sense of his flock. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” The community of the Good Shepherd does not wish to keep its circle small.
How can we spend more meaningful time with the Shepherd so he can change us? How can we best love one another? Whom else are we called to feed, to invite, to include?
These feel more like Good Shepherd questions. I’ll live with them today I believe the Good Shepherd wants us to live with those questions as his own beloved community.
That's Easter
3 Easter B 2009
Acts 3: 12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3: 1-7; Luke 24: 36b-48
The lilies are faded and gone. We still wear white and speak of Eastertide, the Great 50 days when the church partied and kept the Easter party going. We have time to ask—what is Easter? What is the risen life?
One Sunday in Eastertide, a few years ago, the whole church sat in post-Easter shock. The clergy looked dazed, attendance was down. There was an empty feeling. The lilies were starting to look pretty sad.
The priest sitting next to me whispered, “This is probably more how it really was, that first Easter. Not many people, energy low, people in wonder or disbelief.” He smiled. “This is Easter,” he said. “This is real.”
This is Easter. This is real. When the drama is over, when we’re all dealing with our lives and wondering how the Easter news fits in—that’s real. That’s Easter, that’s the risen life.
“Do you have something to eat?”
That’s how real is Easter, that’s how real is this risen life. As the disciples speak, Jesus appears and insists that he’s real. He’s hungry, they give bother to say they give him broiled fish, he eats, and then he “opens their minds” to understand the Scriptures. I wonder why food and need and giving had to happen before their minds were opened? I wonder if we do things backwards in church—maybe we should eat first and then talk about God! That would be real. It has to be real to be Easter, it has to be real to be the risen life.
Years ago, a young priest named Ernesto left his comfortable city church and went to live with dirt-poor fishermen and their families on an island in Nicaragua. He abandoned the position of awe that clergy traditionally hold for Latin American folks and shared their lives. Ernesto worked with them setting the nets at night and mending the nets by day. One night a week he would gather with them by firelight. They would share a little food, then Ernesto would read a passage from the Gospels and ask people what they thought it meant. Slowly, shyly, they spoke aloud their fears and hopes—their fear of their own government and its soldiers, their hopes in God who came to live among them in Jesus and who promised them the risen life. Real people shared food and faith—that is Easter. That is risen life.
Easter is real lives transformed. Easter was in that first reading, where people are shocked because a real lame man was really healed by Peter’s word. In a world of illusions and shadows and fears, what is real will cut through the fog and will make us free. We are loved as beloved children, says the letter from John. That is what is real—all else is illusion. So if we are loved so deeply, act like the loved children that we are. Live into Easter, live into the risen life.
Easter is real and the risen life is real if we name it and grab it and let it take bones and flesh in our lives. I saw some real Easter yesterday. Something remarkable happened at the celebration of a wedding here, something that has nothing to do with flowers or cake or first dances or romantic pop songs sung by wedding singers.
During the Mass, the couple washed each others’ feet.
We wash feet once a year during Holy Week. But a couple chose that as part of celebrating their life. A demanding life lived together—raising kids, paying bills, doing it all over again each and every day. Washing feet to say all that—that’s Easter. That’s the risen life.
Long ago a saint called Benedict was praying alone in a cave. It was Easter Day, and the local priest was worried that Benedict had been alone so long that he did not even know it was Easter. He went to the cave with some food and said, “Greetings brother! It’s Easter Day!”
Benedict looked up and said, “It truly is Easter, brother, because you are here.” A kind visit, some food. That’s Easter. That’s the risen life.
People caring enough about their church to wear their work clothes and share work on a Sunday—that’s Easter. That’s the risen life.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work…Bread blessed and broken. Simple life shared. Eyes opened, so that we may know that nothing is ordinary, ever again. Risen life quivers beneath the surface of all things, ready to dazzle us if our eyes are open. That’s what’s real. That’s Easter, that’s the risen life.
Acts 3: 12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3: 1-7; Luke 24: 36b-48
The lilies are faded and gone. We still wear white and speak of Eastertide, the Great 50 days when the church partied and kept the Easter party going. We have time to ask—what is Easter? What is the risen life?
One Sunday in Eastertide, a few years ago, the whole church sat in post-Easter shock. The clergy looked dazed, attendance was down. There was an empty feeling. The lilies were starting to look pretty sad.
The priest sitting next to me whispered, “This is probably more how it really was, that first Easter. Not many people, energy low, people in wonder or disbelief.” He smiled. “This is Easter,” he said. “This is real.”
This is Easter. This is real. When the drama is over, when we’re all dealing with our lives and wondering how the Easter news fits in—that’s real. That’s Easter, that’s the risen life.
“Do you have something to eat?”
That’s how real is Easter, that’s how real is this risen life. As the disciples speak, Jesus appears and insists that he’s real. He’s hungry, they give bother to say they give him broiled fish, he eats, and then he “opens their minds” to understand the Scriptures. I wonder why food and need and giving had to happen before their minds were opened? I wonder if we do things backwards in church—maybe we should eat first and then talk about God! That would be real. It has to be real to be Easter, it has to be real to be the risen life.
Years ago, a young priest named Ernesto left his comfortable city church and went to live with dirt-poor fishermen and their families on an island in Nicaragua. He abandoned the position of awe that clergy traditionally hold for Latin American folks and shared their lives. Ernesto worked with them setting the nets at night and mending the nets by day. One night a week he would gather with them by firelight. They would share a little food, then Ernesto would read a passage from the Gospels and ask people what they thought it meant. Slowly, shyly, they spoke aloud their fears and hopes—their fear of their own government and its soldiers, their hopes in God who came to live among them in Jesus and who promised them the risen life. Real people shared food and faith—that is Easter. That is risen life.
Easter is real lives transformed. Easter was in that first reading, where people are shocked because a real lame man was really healed by Peter’s word. In a world of illusions and shadows and fears, what is real will cut through the fog and will make us free. We are loved as beloved children, says the letter from John. That is what is real—all else is illusion. So if we are loved so deeply, act like the loved children that we are. Live into Easter, live into the risen life.
Easter is real and the risen life is real if we name it and grab it and let it take bones and flesh in our lives. I saw some real Easter yesterday. Something remarkable happened at the celebration of a wedding here, something that has nothing to do with flowers or cake or first dances or romantic pop songs sung by wedding singers.
During the Mass, the couple washed each others’ feet.
We wash feet once a year during Holy Week. But a couple chose that as part of celebrating their life. A demanding life lived together—raising kids, paying bills, doing it all over again each and every day. Washing feet to say all that—that’s Easter. That’s the risen life.
Long ago a saint called Benedict was praying alone in a cave. It was Easter Day, and the local priest was worried that Benedict had been alone so long that he did not even know it was Easter. He went to the cave with some food and said, “Greetings brother! It’s Easter Day!”
Benedict looked up and said, “It truly is Easter, brother, because you are here.” A kind visit, some food. That’s Easter. That’s the risen life.
People caring enough about their church to wear their work clothes and share work on a Sunday—that’s Easter. That’s the risen life.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work…Bread blessed and broken. Simple life shared. Eyes opened, so that we may know that nothing is ordinary, ever again. Risen life quivers beneath the surface of all things, ready to dazzle us if our eyes are open. That’s what’s real. That’s Easter, that’s the risen life.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Show me!
2 Easter B 2009
(Acts 4: 32-35; Ps 133; 1 John 1: 1-2: 2; John 20:19-31)
Not long ago a Catholic monk began to study the meditation practices of Zen Buddhism. He meditated on his own, he spoke to other people who practiced Zen, he read Christian authors like Thomas Merton who had explored the wisdom of the East. Finally he approached the abbot of a Zen monastery in Japan and asked to stay for a month-long silent retreat.
The Zen abbot did not think this was a good idea, and he kept the Catholic monk at arm’s length for some time. But the monk kept asking, and finally the Zen abbot said, “I will allow you to make a retreat with us on one condition—when you are finished, I will ask you to show me your resurrection.”
“Show me your resurrection!” Have we ever been asked that?
I think that when we think about resurrection we usually talk about Jesus’ resurrection—what was that empty tomb experience at Easter? What was the early Church trying to say in those stories about meeting the risen Jesus? But I think there is a danger that we stand apart from the Easter news when we stay there, in some sort of place where resurrection is an intellectual issue.
I think the real question is not so much “What was Jesus’ resurrection like?”, how it was or even, for some, if it was. The question rather is, “What does it mean?” “Show me your resurrection?” What would we say? What do we say? By the lips of a non-Christian we are being asked something very basic and very orthodox. Jesus is raised, says the early Church, and we are raised with him. So, how’s that working for us? How are we different? What does it mean?
In the Gospel Thomas says, “Unless I see…unless I put my finger in his wounds…I will not believe.”
Thomas in the Gospel will not accept anything second-hand—he wants the real deal. And Thomas gets what he longs for and asks for! We hear his resurrection in his cry, “My Lord and my God.” The searching, passionate heart will find, doubts and all. And the real Christ that we will find still has his wounds. In the wounds of the world, in the wounds of all of us his beloved people, we touch and see God.
“That which we have heard…seen with our eyes…looked at and touched with our hands…the word of life” says John’s letter. I always read this assuming that the writer referred to having actually seen and touched the physical risen Lord. I wonder now—this letter was written decades after the Gospel events. I wonder if “that which we have heard”, seen, and touched were rather the other members of John’s community, the beloved of God who were in Christ as Christ was in God. These burning words are not about a past event so much as they are about a present reality, the risen Christ among them and their love for one another. That was their resurrection. And is this letter also about this church, about us?
“The community of believers were of one heart and mind…everything they owned was held in common.” Their resurrection was visible when that first church was of one heart and soul, when they cared for one another equally, when they spoke of the risen Lord in words but more deeply in their transformed lives together. They were different, and it showed. In a brutal world of power and domination, haves and have-nots, they were hope.
“Show me your resurrection!” I’ll live with that question, and I invite us all to live with it today and in the days to come. So far, I see my resurrection in leaving behind anxiety about our future as a parish and seeing the new life and new choices and new energy in our midst. Salvador’s Baptism at the Great Vigil and the bi-lingual Mass of Easter Sunday are signs of that new life. I’m still working on the rest, but thus far that’s my resurrection this Eastertide. Show me your resurrection!
(Acts 4: 32-35; Ps 133; 1 John 1: 1-2: 2; John 20:19-31)
Not long ago a Catholic monk began to study the meditation practices of Zen Buddhism. He meditated on his own, he spoke to other people who practiced Zen, he read Christian authors like Thomas Merton who had explored the wisdom of the East. Finally he approached the abbot of a Zen monastery in Japan and asked to stay for a month-long silent retreat.
The Zen abbot did not think this was a good idea, and he kept the Catholic monk at arm’s length for some time. But the monk kept asking, and finally the Zen abbot said, “I will allow you to make a retreat with us on one condition—when you are finished, I will ask you to show me your resurrection.”
“Show me your resurrection!” Have we ever been asked that?
I think that when we think about resurrection we usually talk about Jesus’ resurrection—what was that empty tomb experience at Easter? What was the early Church trying to say in those stories about meeting the risen Jesus? But I think there is a danger that we stand apart from the Easter news when we stay there, in some sort of place where resurrection is an intellectual issue.
I think the real question is not so much “What was Jesus’ resurrection like?”, how it was or even, for some, if it was. The question rather is, “What does it mean?” “Show me your resurrection?” What would we say? What do we say? By the lips of a non-Christian we are being asked something very basic and very orthodox. Jesus is raised, says the early Church, and we are raised with him. So, how’s that working for us? How are we different? What does it mean?
In the Gospel Thomas says, “Unless I see…unless I put my finger in his wounds…I will not believe.”
Thomas in the Gospel will not accept anything second-hand—he wants the real deal. And Thomas gets what he longs for and asks for! We hear his resurrection in his cry, “My Lord and my God.” The searching, passionate heart will find, doubts and all. And the real Christ that we will find still has his wounds. In the wounds of the world, in the wounds of all of us his beloved people, we touch and see God.
“That which we have heard…seen with our eyes…looked at and touched with our hands…the word of life” says John’s letter. I always read this assuming that the writer referred to having actually seen and touched the physical risen Lord. I wonder now—this letter was written decades after the Gospel events. I wonder if “that which we have heard”, seen, and touched were rather the other members of John’s community, the beloved of God who were in Christ as Christ was in God. These burning words are not about a past event so much as they are about a present reality, the risen Christ among them and their love for one another. That was their resurrection. And is this letter also about this church, about us?
“The community of believers were of one heart and mind…everything they owned was held in common.” Their resurrection was visible when that first church was of one heart and soul, when they cared for one another equally, when they spoke of the risen Lord in words but more deeply in their transformed lives together. They were different, and it showed. In a brutal world of power and domination, haves and have-nots, they were hope.
“Show me your resurrection!” I’ll live with that question, and I invite us all to live with it today and in the days to come. So far, I see my resurrection in leaving behind anxiety about our future as a parish and seeing the new life and new choices and new energy in our midst. Salvador’s Baptism at the Great Vigil and the bi-lingual Mass of Easter Sunday are signs of that new life. I’m still working on the rest, but thus far that’s my resurrection this Eastertide. Show me your resurrection!
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