Father Lindsey used to give me encouragement and feedback on my sermons. Beyond the usual complaint that I was too quiet his advice to me was “tell them at the beginning where you are going to end up”. So…this is where I want to end up:
You are loved immeasurably. In whatever prison binds your heart, amidst the poverty of your soul, in the blindness of your actions, you are loved with a love that passes understanding. You also hold the Christ of Love in your heart. Your hands, your words – they can be love to the world. You are loved and therefore you can and must love.
Today’s Gospel is fascinating and confusing. The story really begins with what we read last week. Jesus returned to his home town and is teaching in the synagogue. He reads from the scroll of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Jesus tells the crowd that he is the one to fulfill these words.
At first the people seem very impressed. They “speak well of him” and wonder that such words can come from a carpenter’s son. But then the whole thing goes sour. The Gospel writer doesn’t give us any details about the conversation and what led Jesus to his testy-seeming reply that “a prophet is not accepted in his own country”. Did the people begin to count the cost of the message he was giving? Because being loved as a person in poverty, oppressed by a Roman regime, sounds exciting and good. But perhaps they began to realize the discomfort that will come upon those in the synagogue if Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor to the poor in their own midst. Suddenly a synagogue where only the clean, healthy and those in good standing are allowed might be filled with the stench of beggars, the hands of thieves and the jabbering of the possessed. Worship would look and feel much different if the place must be shared with such people. Old Amos the begger, oy! He stinks. I sure hope Jesus doesn’t mean he can come in the synagogue too! And what about that Zeke? I gave him a coin for alms yesterday and he did not even say thank you. How ungrateful! Must I sit by him to worship?
Then Jesus is clear that not only will this message be proclaimed to the marginalized of the Jewish people, but is a message for Gentiles as well. The thought of their community expanding to include the foreigner is too much.
We cannot know if either or both of these reasons caused the crowd’s response, but it seems that either way their response, violent and angry as it is, is related to fear of change. Will their synagogue look different? Will their entire faith look different? As much as I would like to think that we are vastly different from this group of people, I have to admit that we struggle with the same questions. We are sometimes frightened of, angry at, resistant of those who threaten to bring change. We struggle with the humility to hear the voice of others.
It is so very hard to love – to really love. And before we can even begin to try we need to hear the first part of this Gospel again.
The part where the love, freedom and mercy of Christ are offered to us. For we are the poor, the imprisoned, the blind. Our personal prisons may not have metal bars but addiction, self doubt, fear, anger these all bind us up, tempt us to lock pieces of our hearts away. Daily we stumble in blindness with an unkind word here, an over reaction there. We are each desperately in need of one who comes and speaks love to our most hidden and hurting places and proclaims liberty and the time of the Lord’s favor!
The Epistle reading today is a call to a radical kind of love. A love that imitates the love we receive. Take a moment to be steeped in that love. (These phrases taken from the Message) Love never gives up on you, doesn’t keep track of your mistakes, doesn’t like to see you desperate and groveling for mercy. Love puts up with everything, knows you for the very best that you are, and goes on and on to the end. No prison can hold it out, no poor depravity of spirit can chase it away and no blindness keep it from finding you.
You are loved, deeply loved. And the Christ of Love dwells in your heart and calls you too to love.
This Corinthians passage read today follows a list of different gifts that contribute to the community and the necessity of all parts of the body. The previous passage ends “but eagerly desire the greater gifts and I will show still the most excellent way”. The most excellent way, the gift that is necessary from all of us and necessary for any of the other gifts to have meaning – the only gift that is eternal and does not end – love.
This is not a warm fuzzy description of Love as an enjoyable feeling. It is a down in the dirt, self sacrificing, action oriented prescription that would be a challenge to share with those with whom we also have warm fuzzy kinds of feelings, let alone with those who we do not know or like.
The first place we practice this love outside of our families is in this community.
The community of the body of Christ is a human and messy place. When we commit to being part of the community and pouring out our love on these people and this place we are not signing on for an easy task! We are a varied group of people who come from different experiences, have different hopes, value parts of church life in varied ways. We hold in common the truth that we are loved by a generous and merciful God and are called to live that love out in the midst of this community and in the world. What does it mean to love this community? What would it look like if we could approach the person most different from us in this place with the actions the Epistle describes – to keep no track of wrongs, to remain humble, to always look for the best, to never give up?
What does this love look like as we interact with the world? Daily we are fighting a cultural message that tells us giving is a good thing, but only when the recipient acts in certain, prescribed and “worthy” ways. He must be gracious, be working to better himself, she should not ask repeatedly but be content with one gift. We must resist a cultural attitude that suggests to us that all of the trouble of the poor is brought about because of their own personal failings. An attitude that invites us to overlook systemic issues that contribute to people’s plights, to view people as hopeless and to see those in need as different from ourselves and as having little to offer to our life and community. In what ways does love oppose those messages?
There is a growing discourse that fends off this prescribed way of being, that insists that we give only to the worthy – both in religious and non-religious circles. Love has won out in some ways. But the act of giving and loving is often not the romantic, fulfilling experience people hope it will be. We’ve experienced that here. Giving comes with the smell of alcohol, urine and days of dirt. It isn’t always greeted with a warm handshake and thanks. In recent memory we experienced violence and fear. It means disruption to our days and sometimes discomfort and distraction in our sacred space. And yet love…
Brigid is one who had quite the grasp on the message of love. The list of her miracles is extensive and is overflowing with examples of her extravagant generosity. She goes to milk the cows and make cheese. But as she works many who are in need walk by and she gives each of them some of the cream. When her time for work is over she looks at her supplies and sees that she has given away all that she has gathered and that she has nothing left for her family. She prays and as much cream as she has given away is returned to her. Another time, in trouble for her already extravagant giving, she is being sold to a man in the town. As she waits outside a poor man walks by and having nothing of her own to give she gives away her father’s jeweled sword. At her abbey she encounters a poor man whose clothes are threadbare and wishes not to send him into the cold without warm clothing. Having nothing of her own that will fit him she grabs the beautiful new vestments of the visiting bishop and hands them to the man. Luckily her prayers return a new set just before the bishop comes looking for them! If she had shoes on her feet or a cloak on her shoulders they would be shed at the first sight of someone who had need of them.
But my favorite of the Brigid “giving” stories is when she encounters a crotchety old man who comes to her abbey. He is grumpy and demanding. “You have plenty and I have nothing! Give me food - no not the meager bread, I want a good portion of that meat! You call that a good portion – cheapskate! Is that the softest blanket you have?” Others are offended by his rudeness and think he should be sent on his way with nothing. But Brigid loads him down with generous portions of goods, treats him with kindness and then sends him back into the world.
What went through Brigid’s head each time she gave away the stuff of the world around her to those who were poor? Did she worry where her next meal would come from if she gave away her bread? Did she fret that she would be chastised by her father or bishop or community for sharing their belongings? If she was afflicted at all by fear she found a way to act despite it. The sheer list of miracles associated with her giving things away to the poor paint a picture of a person to whom the love of the poor dominated her being. But it would be a mistake to believe that the choices Brigid made were easy – part of her sainthood and not choices that we too could make. Just like Brigid we are called to this very active, sacrificing kind of love. We may not succeed at chasing away fear as often as she did, but we are compelled to try.
Brigid’s life, too, is caught up in the community she created, a community that was unique, that held a place for women and men, for rich and for poor. I imagine that there was conflict, fear and discouragement in that community as much as in our own community of varied voices. But that is not what her community is remembered for. It is remembered as a place of welcome to the stranger and to the poor. What will we be remembered for? In what ways will love overcome our fear and shine forth to this small corner of the world?
This then is where I end, as I said:
You are loved immeasurably. In whatever prison binds your heart, amidst the poverty of your soul, in the blindness of your actions you are loved with a love that passes understanding. You also hold the Christ of Love in your heart. Your hands, your words – they can be love to the world. You are loved and therefore you can and must love.
archived musings and preachments
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Chrysalis
Annual Address 2010
(Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Ps 19; 1 Cor 12: 12-31a; Luke 4: 14-21)
Just last night I completely re-wrote this year’s address. I was inspired and shaped by Father Lindsay Warren’s funeral last Friday.
Many of us feel we knew Lindsay in some meaningful way. To those who did not, know that Lindsay was a priest and a faithful parish member, friend of many of us. Lindsay was a keen and thoughtful observer of the ways of God in this parish of Saints Peter and Paul.
Lindsay did not commit himself to this parish because he liked formal worship, incense, chant, and even traditional hymnody. His personal worship tastes were more simple and informal. He never got the Celtic thing and told me so. He was mystified by the term “emerging church.” But Lindsay came here and stayed here because he loved this community, and because he believed that God was at work among us. His highest praise was that our parish language had changed during his time into language of mission and of the Gospel, of reaching out.
And Lindsay was prophetic in his observations of our life and our challenges. On Friday I told of his imagery for the present reality of the church. “The chrysalis”, he said. “The caterpillar spins a cocoon and becomes a chrysalis. Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar actually dies. For a time it is just goo. With time a totally different creature emerges, one that does not look like the caterpillar at all—a butterfly.”
He also said, less poetically but very insightfully, “The greatest challenge of the church in our time is to welcome new people and bring forth new life, yet honor and bring along the older members.”
We have become, within the space of a few years, a very different community. We are composed of long-term members who have made our life possible through presence and work and giving. Many of these are of my generation, baby-boomers. We are also composed of a large number of people who have been here five years or less. Many of these are young adults and are now prominent in parish leadership. We have many among us who were drawn here and whom have stayed because of the Celtic Christian vision. Others like our stress on outreach. Others are drawn to our atmosphere of intentional prayer rooted in the monastic tradition and a deep sense of sacrament. Others, because the music speaks to them. And now we have a new community among us whose first language is Spanish and whose reasons for coming and staying with us we are still learning about. We are traditional and conservative, post-modern and progressive, young and old, English-speaking and Spanish-speaking, all at once.
The new directory is coming out next week. I find it a startling document. I look at it and realize how we have changed.
We have changed, because we have said goodbye to many dear friends,
including Peggy Stricklan, Darlene Tindall, Bruce Mason, and Fr. Lindsay Warren. (+)
We have changed, because new people bring new dynamics and new relationships and the perception and attitudes of the changing culture that they inhabit. Among these are Scott and Kris Kennedy, Lydia Ledgerwood and Steve Eberlein with baby Zoe born last year, Bert Roberts, Fr. John and Ellen Nesbitt, Rachel Walton, Melissa King, Monica Goracke with young Suchitra with her lovely smile, Miranda Powell, Jamie Marks returned after an absence, lately Maggie Iba, and babies Lydia Wolf-Munzer and Travis Oates newly-born. And these are only the English-speaking households! A number of new households are regular worshipping and giving members from the Spanish Mass. Only because our database for the Misa folks is so poor am I not listing their names today.
We have changed without significant changes in worship schedule, worship practices, or the basics of weekly life at SPP. It’s important to say that, because we need to be clear about what we mean when we talk about “changes”, whether we use that word positively or negatively.
Lindsay’s comment about the challenge of reaching out to new people and welcoming new life, yet honoring those who have journeyed long with us, rings loud and clear. It is in fact a gooey time to use Fr. Lindsay’s chrysalis analogy, a time when things feel fragile and undefined and confusing and unsure as to the outcome. Often it feels like some things are dying. Just remember that death, for caterpillars as well as for churches, leads to new and abundant life.
It is a time that calls for prayer and for humility and for charity towards one another. Paul’s church in Corinth faced the same temptation that we do, which is to wish for a monochromatic church composed of people with whom we completely agree, of whom we completely approve. No part of the body can say to the other, “I do not need you” says Paul. That wisdom is put to the test now, in our midst, as all of us who are here are needed, all are part of the body.
It is a time when we need to practice deep and respectful listening to one another and to God. We have great gifts, but we have great challenges. For example, we have two challenges regarding money—a big deficit in our operating budget as well as how to responsibly disburse an estate given to us to ensure our long-term future. It’s funny how money is a challenge when you don’t have it, and when you do.
It is a time that calls for re-commitment from all continuing members, and an invitation to commitment to the newest among us.
Someone told me that I need to ask people to do more things. I was also told that I should not be afraid to scold people for not stepping up.
Well, I’ve asked people to do things a lot, and I get told “no” a lot. I understand—most of us feel stressed and time-poor. But “no” often means that a piece of our life does not get done, or it gets done by an increasingly small number of tired and frustrated people.
And I am not a good scolder. But I will speak frankly to us about how I think we all need to step up, to renew or deepen or begin commitment.
To those who are trying to sustain our life by hard and often thankless work, thank you. Speak up and point out what needs to be done, and what help is needed. But also be open to the fact that life has changed, and perhaps some tasks need to be done differently or with new approaches that new people need to feel free to try.
To our loved elders who are still with us, thank you. We need you more than you can know.
To longtime members of my own generation, the new elders, “baby-boomers” if you will, thank you for your ongoing witness and all the blood and sweat and tears that has made our life possible. Our task now is to be “good elders”, which is an art and a daily discipline. Being a good elder means speaking up when we feel we have insights or past experience which is helpful, but also to listen to those newer and those younger and admire their energy, encourage their dreams, and let them try things. Being a good elder means balancing moderation and caution with encouragement and openness. Being a good elder means leading by example, even if we feel that we have “given at the office” and it is time for someone else to do the heavy lifting. Tiredness, cynicism, disillusionment, bitterness, and fear are the temptations of people our age. I know—I wrestle with them all daily and not always successfully. But wrestle we must, in order to be “good elders” and not become some of those older folk that we remember as not letting us try anything, who seemed to have nothing but criticism.
To those newer among us, thank you for coming and giving of your lives and dreams. You have and do enrich us. Your task is to explore how you may become more deeply a participant in the life of Christ here and join with us in growing this community. When a piece of churchy culture is murky or unexplained, ask us—we may be blind to how obscure our life is. Ask how to be more involved. Be patient—we welcome new dreams and visions, but we get to the community we envision by loving the community which is. Dream, ask “why not?”, ask questions, but be with us and work with patience and with commitment—real human communities do not change overnight.
All of this is totally worthwhile. Did you know that the word “church” is from Greek and means “belonging to the Lord”? Ragged a band as we are, diverse and hanging together by God knows what, we belong to Christ. We belong to the Lord. And our Lord shares his own mission freely with us, and we with the world.
(Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Ps 19; 1 Cor 12: 12-31a; Luke 4: 14-21)
Just last night I completely re-wrote this year’s address. I was inspired and shaped by Father Lindsay Warren’s funeral last Friday.
Many of us feel we knew Lindsay in some meaningful way. To those who did not, know that Lindsay was a priest and a faithful parish member, friend of many of us. Lindsay was a keen and thoughtful observer of the ways of God in this parish of Saints Peter and Paul.
Lindsay did not commit himself to this parish because he liked formal worship, incense, chant, and even traditional hymnody. His personal worship tastes were more simple and informal. He never got the Celtic thing and told me so. He was mystified by the term “emerging church.” But Lindsay came here and stayed here because he loved this community, and because he believed that God was at work among us. His highest praise was that our parish language had changed during his time into language of mission and of the Gospel, of reaching out.
And Lindsay was prophetic in his observations of our life and our challenges. On Friday I told of his imagery for the present reality of the church. “The chrysalis”, he said. “The caterpillar spins a cocoon and becomes a chrysalis. Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar actually dies. For a time it is just goo. With time a totally different creature emerges, one that does not look like the caterpillar at all—a butterfly.”
He also said, less poetically but very insightfully, “The greatest challenge of the church in our time is to welcome new people and bring forth new life, yet honor and bring along the older members.”
We have become, within the space of a few years, a very different community. We are composed of long-term members who have made our life possible through presence and work and giving. Many of these are of my generation, baby-boomers. We are also composed of a large number of people who have been here five years or less. Many of these are young adults and are now prominent in parish leadership. We have many among us who were drawn here and whom have stayed because of the Celtic Christian vision. Others like our stress on outreach. Others are drawn to our atmosphere of intentional prayer rooted in the monastic tradition and a deep sense of sacrament. Others, because the music speaks to them. And now we have a new community among us whose first language is Spanish and whose reasons for coming and staying with us we are still learning about. We are traditional and conservative, post-modern and progressive, young and old, English-speaking and Spanish-speaking, all at once.
The new directory is coming out next week. I find it a startling document. I look at it and realize how we have changed.
We have changed, because we have said goodbye to many dear friends,
including Peggy Stricklan, Darlene Tindall, Bruce Mason, and Fr. Lindsay Warren. (+)
We have changed, because new people bring new dynamics and new relationships and the perception and attitudes of the changing culture that they inhabit. Among these are Scott and Kris Kennedy, Lydia Ledgerwood and Steve Eberlein with baby Zoe born last year, Bert Roberts, Fr. John and Ellen Nesbitt, Rachel Walton, Melissa King, Monica Goracke with young Suchitra with her lovely smile, Miranda Powell, Jamie Marks returned after an absence, lately Maggie Iba, and babies Lydia Wolf-Munzer and Travis Oates newly-born. And these are only the English-speaking households! A number of new households are regular worshipping and giving members from the Spanish Mass. Only because our database for the Misa folks is so poor am I not listing their names today.
We have changed without significant changes in worship schedule, worship practices, or the basics of weekly life at SPP. It’s important to say that, because we need to be clear about what we mean when we talk about “changes”, whether we use that word positively or negatively.
Lindsay’s comment about the challenge of reaching out to new people and welcoming new life, yet honoring those who have journeyed long with us, rings loud and clear. It is in fact a gooey time to use Fr. Lindsay’s chrysalis analogy, a time when things feel fragile and undefined and confusing and unsure as to the outcome. Often it feels like some things are dying. Just remember that death, for caterpillars as well as for churches, leads to new and abundant life.
It is a time that calls for prayer and for humility and for charity towards one another. Paul’s church in Corinth faced the same temptation that we do, which is to wish for a monochromatic church composed of people with whom we completely agree, of whom we completely approve. No part of the body can say to the other, “I do not need you” says Paul. That wisdom is put to the test now, in our midst, as all of us who are here are needed, all are part of the body.
It is a time when we need to practice deep and respectful listening to one another and to God. We have great gifts, but we have great challenges. For example, we have two challenges regarding money—a big deficit in our operating budget as well as how to responsibly disburse an estate given to us to ensure our long-term future. It’s funny how money is a challenge when you don’t have it, and when you do.
It is a time that calls for re-commitment from all continuing members, and an invitation to commitment to the newest among us.
Someone told me that I need to ask people to do more things. I was also told that I should not be afraid to scold people for not stepping up.
Well, I’ve asked people to do things a lot, and I get told “no” a lot. I understand—most of us feel stressed and time-poor. But “no” often means that a piece of our life does not get done, or it gets done by an increasingly small number of tired and frustrated people.
And I am not a good scolder. But I will speak frankly to us about how I think we all need to step up, to renew or deepen or begin commitment.
To those who are trying to sustain our life by hard and often thankless work, thank you. Speak up and point out what needs to be done, and what help is needed. But also be open to the fact that life has changed, and perhaps some tasks need to be done differently or with new approaches that new people need to feel free to try.
To our loved elders who are still with us, thank you. We need you more than you can know.
To longtime members of my own generation, the new elders, “baby-boomers” if you will, thank you for your ongoing witness and all the blood and sweat and tears that has made our life possible. Our task now is to be “good elders”, which is an art and a daily discipline. Being a good elder means speaking up when we feel we have insights or past experience which is helpful, but also to listen to those newer and those younger and admire their energy, encourage their dreams, and let them try things. Being a good elder means balancing moderation and caution with encouragement and openness. Being a good elder means leading by example, even if we feel that we have “given at the office” and it is time for someone else to do the heavy lifting. Tiredness, cynicism, disillusionment, bitterness, and fear are the temptations of people our age. I know—I wrestle with them all daily and not always successfully. But wrestle we must, in order to be “good elders” and not become some of those older folk that we remember as not letting us try anything, who seemed to have nothing but criticism.
To those newer among us, thank you for coming and giving of your lives and dreams. You have and do enrich us. Your task is to explore how you may become more deeply a participant in the life of Christ here and join with us in growing this community. When a piece of churchy culture is murky or unexplained, ask us—we may be blind to how obscure our life is. Ask how to be more involved. Be patient—we welcome new dreams and visions, but we get to the community we envision by loving the community which is. Dream, ask “why not?”, ask questions, but be with us and work with patience and with commitment—real human communities do not change overnight.
All of this is totally worthwhile. Did you know that the word “church” is from Greek and means “belonging to the Lord”? Ragged a band as we are, diverse and hanging together by God knows what, we belong to Christ. We belong to the Lord. And our Lord shares his own mission freely with us, and we with the world.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
well done
Funeral Homily for Lindsay Warren
January 22, 2009
(Numbers 6: 22-27; Ps 37: 1-8, 17-18; Revelations 21: 1-7; Luke 19: 11-17)
To Fred and Linda who grieve their dad, to Mary who could not be here today, to all of us who gather in this holy place to pray and mourn and yet smile, I say welcome.
Most of us have our own vivid memories of Lindsay Warren. One of mine is how he loved to walk up to me whenever I had just finished some exhausting church thing—a huge liturgy, a challenging funeral, an arduous Annual Meeting. He’d take my hand and intone, “Well done, good and faithful servant…” Before I knew better, I would thank him, which gave him his next best straight line, “Now take charge of TEN cities!”
Thanks a ton, Lindsay—just when I wanted a beer and a soft chair, nothing more. One exhausting Sunday I snarled, “Take charge of your own ruddy cities!” He grinned.
But today I’ll take some gentle payback from the Gospel, and say, “Now, Lindsay, take charge of ten cities!”
We all know he’d love the joke, and we all know he’d love a well-timed Biblical turn of phrase. Most if not all of us who spent time with Lindsay had some moment unique to ourselves where the smile, the look, serious sometimes but always with a sparkle, and the phrase, the poem, and yes the absolutely awful pun would follow. Some high church official apparently offered Lindsay to pay out of pocket if he’d get a “pun-ectomy.” Fortunately there’s no such thing, not with a co-pay we could afford.
But that quality that Lindsay had—what was it? I described it to someone recently as “absolute personalism”, the gift of being in complete I-Thou relationship with a person in a way that would put Martin Buber to shame. When you were with him, you were completely with him and he with you. Since Lindsay’s death, I have been besieged with so many people on the phone, face-to-face, or on e-mail, who each feel that they shared something unique and special with Lindsay.
Well, we did. We all did. That was part of the outrageous, utterly human and warm gift of this man, wending his way ever more slowly around town in that outlandish Cadillac, walking in at Lindsay-pace wearing that re-sale shop plaid vest, and slowing you down in the midst of what seemed so important. For what? Things that were so much simpler, but now seem so much more important—a joke, some philosophy, his latest wonder at the grand glory of the cosmos, a prayer.
Now I wish I had slowed down even more, but that is the way of things.
Steve Hiscoe read the Numbers text, the Aaronic blessing that was loved by Saint Francis and who copied it out in his own hand as a gift for a friend. “The Lord bless you and keep you…show his face to you…give you peace.”
Steve was Lindsay’s confrere in the local Franciscan fellowship and knows, as do I, how Lindsay loved Francis and Francis’ way of seeing the world as shot through with wonder and glory and whimsy and Christ’s Presence, divine presence. Lindsay to me showed more of Francis’ spirit than some whom I have known who walk through life literally wearing brown robes and sandals—humor, joy, and above all humility and a refusal to take himself too seriously. We’ll end our Mass today by singing Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures, and as we do I’ll see Lindsay’s face as he would look off and wonder at the majesty of the ages, the intricate wonder of evolution, the vast distances between the stars.
And Lindsay the priest loved Francis’ knocked-flat astonishment at the love and healing power of God.
Lindsay was a man who understood grace and forgiveness and I think bet his life on it. I will always think of Lindsay as a holy man, but it was no holiness sprung of a life without flaw or an impossible goody two-shoes kind of morality. I respect and love Lindsay the wounded healer, the saved sinner, because he knew and spoke candidly about his failings and his struggles. It’s a matter of public knowledge that he passed through a time as an adult and a priest of personal brokenness, when he and Mary separated. Mary wrote about this quite openly in her book Let The Earth Bring Forth, for which she still gets fan letters from people who found hope in hers and Lindsay’s story. The healing of their marriage and Lindsay’s recovery of his priesthood was dearly-bought every step of the way. I think that Lindsay’s insistence on the unconditional love of God was not a pleasant religion, but for him was a matter of life and death. His favorite quote on the matter was taken from a homily of Desmond Tutu’s: “God loves you. Full stop.” Full stop—no commas, no “buts”, no conditions, nothing to earn.
This is not simply a sweet piety. It is a witheringly honest and naked kind of way to live, and to re-assert and re-live each day. Lindsay walked that talk, and I will always be grateful for what it says to me.
Lindsay the priest freely gave that blessing of Aaron, that priestly blessing of unconditional divine love, as freely as he received it. As I wrote this one of the orphans of the street came and knocked on the door, asking for…well, the usual. I once saw Lindsay put his hand round the back of this unlovely man’s head and pray. He and Mary labored for years in “Vital Signs”, their own healing ministry. And he would always assist in administering healing here. After anointing others he would never fail to gesture to me, hold out the oil, and bow his own head for healing. From his wounds came healing, just as did from his Master.
I’ll gladly match story-for-story with anyone else concerning special moments with Lindsay. My family has their share—the birthday he shared with my older daughter and how they would call each other that day; how he and Mary helped us get orthodontia for one of the kids; the two years he helped a brand-new rector with a financially-challenged parish in a changing culture by serving as non-paid associate; all the talks about changing church, changing culture, and his changing body in what he called in his last sermon, “The end of the third stage of my life.” “I was born on another planet called the 1930’s, you know,” he’d assure you. Later you will hear a solo from a young woman whose talent Lindsay delighted in and from whose grandmother Lindsay took piano lessons. In the pews here you will notice that most of the red Prayer Books have a plate in front designating them as memorials to one Eunice Mullen, Lindsay’s mom. He’s pretty much everywhere today.
These last months have been hard. As Mary moved more deeply into dementia and finally was placed in residential care, something seemed to leave Lindsay just as memory and speech left Mary. His walk was slower, his smile was slower and less frequent, something was quenched. Living life alone did not agree with Lindsay. I had an odd sense at the time that his sermon last December 17 was his last, but I did not know how true that was to be.
Lindsay once wondered aloud at the process whereby a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. “Did you know that when the cocoon is spun and the caterpillar becomes a pupa, somatically it dies and for awhile it’s really nothing?” he marveled. “When I was a boy, I’d crack open the chrysalis and what would pour out was just kind of, well goo.” Lindsay said prophetically that this was the stage in which the church was at present—seeming death, indeterminate, mushy. But the process does lead to new life.
I think this is a personal process too, especially for a person baptized into the death of Jesus and eating and drinking at his table weekly. In these last months Lindsay let go of much that was dear to him as his strength waned, much that gave his life shape. But death and the promise of new life go hand in hand. Lindsay struggled to be faithful to this hard truth of his life even to the end. So, Lindsay, priest, husband, father, artist, lover of science and of the spoken and written word, lover of the Word made flesh, saved sinner, wounded healer, you live now in the promise that death does not have the last word, that new life springs forth from the most forgotten of places. And the old and weary will go, as the Prayer Book says, from strength to strength in the “larger life” of perfect service. Just when we are tempted to think we are done, Lindsay would have us know there’s more. There’s always more.
So, dear dear friend, well done, well done good and faithful servant…
Wait for it…
Now take charge of ten cities!
January 22, 2009
(Numbers 6: 22-27; Ps 37: 1-8, 17-18; Revelations 21: 1-7; Luke 19: 11-17)
To Fred and Linda who grieve their dad, to Mary who could not be here today, to all of us who gather in this holy place to pray and mourn and yet smile, I say welcome.
Most of us have our own vivid memories of Lindsay Warren. One of mine is how he loved to walk up to me whenever I had just finished some exhausting church thing—a huge liturgy, a challenging funeral, an arduous Annual Meeting. He’d take my hand and intone, “Well done, good and faithful servant…” Before I knew better, I would thank him, which gave him his next best straight line, “Now take charge of TEN cities!”
Thanks a ton, Lindsay—just when I wanted a beer and a soft chair, nothing more. One exhausting Sunday I snarled, “Take charge of your own ruddy cities!” He grinned.
But today I’ll take some gentle payback from the Gospel, and say, “Now, Lindsay, take charge of ten cities!”
We all know he’d love the joke, and we all know he’d love a well-timed Biblical turn of phrase. Most if not all of us who spent time with Lindsay had some moment unique to ourselves where the smile, the look, serious sometimes but always with a sparkle, and the phrase, the poem, and yes the absolutely awful pun would follow. Some high church official apparently offered Lindsay to pay out of pocket if he’d get a “pun-ectomy.” Fortunately there’s no such thing, not with a co-pay we could afford.
But that quality that Lindsay had—what was it? I described it to someone recently as “absolute personalism”, the gift of being in complete I-Thou relationship with a person in a way that would put Martin Buber to shame. When you were with him, you were completely with him and he with you. Since Lindsay’s death, I have been besieged with so many people on the phone, face-to-face, or on e-mail, who each feel that they shared something unique and special with Lindsay.
Well, we did. We all did. That was part of the outrageous, utterly human and warm gift of this man, wending his way ever more slowly around town in that outlandish Cadillac, walking in at Lindsay-pace wearing that re-sale shop plaid vest, and slowing you down in the midst of what seemed so important. For what? Things that were so much simpler, but now seem so much more important—a joke, some philosophy, his latest wonder at the grand glory of the cosmos, a prayer.
Now I wish I had slowed down even more, but that is the way of things.
Steve Hiscoe read the Numbers text, the Aaronic blessing that was loved by Saint Francis and who copied it out in his own hand as a gift for a friend. “The Lord bless you and keep you…show his face to you…give you peace.”
Steve was Lindsay’s confrere in the local Franciscan fellowship and knows, as do I, how Lindsay loved Francis and Francis’ way of seeing the world as shot through with wonder and glory and whimsy and Christ’s Presence, divine presence. Lindsay to me showed more of Francis’ spirit than some whom I have known who walk through life literally wearing brown robes and sandals—humor, joy, and above all humility and a refusal to take himself too seriously. We’ll end our Mass today by singing Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures, and as we do I’ll see Lindsay’s face as he would look off and wonder at the majesty of the ages, the intricate wonder of evolution, the vast distances between the stars.
And Lindsay the priest loved Francis’ knocked-flat astonishment at the love and healing power of God.
Lindsay was a man who understood grace and forgiveness and I think bet his life on it. I will always think of Lindsay as a holy man, but it was no holiness sprung of a life without flaw or an impossible goody two-shoes kind of morality. I respect and love Lindsay the wounded healer, the saved sinner, because he knew and spoke candidly about his failings and his struggles. It’s a matter of public knowledge that he passed through a time as an adult and a priest of personal brokenness, when he and Mary separated. Mary wrote about this quite openly in her book Let The Earth Bring Forth, for which she still gets fan letters from people who found hope in hers and Lindsay’s story. The healing of their marriage and Lindsay’s recovery of his priesthood was dearly-bought every step of the way. I think that Lindsay’s insistence on the unconditional love of God was not a pleasant religion, but for him was a matter of life and death. His favorite quote on the matter was taken from a homily of Desmond Tutu’s: “God loves you. Full stop.” Full stop—no commas, no “buts”, no conditions, nothing to earn.
This is not simply a sweet piety. It is a witheringly honest and naked kind of way to live, and to re-assert and re-live each day. Lindsay walked that talk, and I will always be grateful for what it says to me.
Lindsay the priest freely gave that blessing of Aaron, that priestly blessing of unconditional divine love, as freely as he received it. As I wrote this one of the orphans of the street came and knocked on the door, asking for…well, the usual. I once saw Lindsay put his hand round the back of this unlovely man’s head and pray. He and Mary labored for years in “Vital Signs”, their own healing ministry. And he would always assist in administering healing here. After anointing others he would never fail to gesture to me, hold out the oil, and bow his own head for healing. From his wounds came healing, just as did from his Master.
I’ll gladly match story-for-story with anyone else concerning special moments with Lindsay. My family has their share—the birthday he shared with my older daughter and how they would call each other that day; how he and Mary helped us get orthodontia for one of the kids; the two years he helped a brand-new rector with a financially-challenged parish in a changing culture by serving as non-paid associate; all the talks about changing church, changing culture, and his changing body in what he called in his last sermon, “The end of the third stage of my life.” “I was born on another planet called the 1930’s, you know,” he’d assure you. Later you will hear a solo from a young woman whose talent Lindsay delighted in and from whose grandmother Lindsay took piano lessons. In the pews here you will notice that most of the red Prayer Books have a plate in front designating them as memorials to one Eunice Mullen, Lindsay’s mom. He’s pretty much everywhere today.
These last months have been hard. As Mary moved more deeply into dementia and finally was placed in residential care, something seemed to leave Lindsay just as memory and speech left Mary. His walk was slower, his smile was slower and less frequent, something was quenched. Living life alone did not agree with Lindsay. I had an odd sense at the time that his sermon last December 17 was his last, but I did not know how true that was to be.
Lindsay once wondered aloud at the process whereby a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. “Did you know that when the cocoon is spun and the caterpillar becomes a pupa, somatically it dies and for awhile it’s really nothing?” he marveled. “When I was a boy, I’d crack open the chrysalis and what would pour out was just kind of, well goo.” Lindsay said prophetically that this was the stage in which the church was at present—seeming death, indeterminate, mushy. But the process does lead to new life.
I think this is a personal process too, especially for a person baptized into the death of Jesus and eating and drinking at his table weekly. In these last months Lindsay let go of much that was dear to him as his strength waned, much that gave his life shape. But death and the promise of new life go hand in hand. Lindsay struggled to be faithful to this hard truth of his life even to the end. So, Lindsay, priest, husband, father, artist, lover of science and of the spoken and written word, lover of the Word made flesh, saved sinner, wounded healer, you live now in the promise that death does not have the last word, that new life springs forth from the most forgotten of places. And the old and weary will go, as the Prayer Book says, from strength to strength in the “larger life” of perfect service. Just when we are tempted to think we are done, Lindsay would have us know there’s more. There’s always more.
So, dear dear friend, well done, well done good and faithful servant…
Wait for it…
Now take charge of ten cities!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
with power
BAPTISM OF OUR LORD
Observed on January 17, 2010
Ss. Peter & Paul, Portland – Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
Into the water blessed with power,
There baptized by John his friend,
Goes the Saviour for the sinner,
Having nothing to amend.
This baptizer with his power
Gives baptism real and true.
Then the curtained heaven opened.
Closed before to sinners’ view.
(Peter Abelard)
“Can we actually ‘know’ the universe?” Woody Allen once asked. And then, before anyone could attempt an answer, he said, “It’s hard enough finding your way around Chinatown.” Either looking through a telescope, or reading thee street signs in Chinatown, the question of Epiphany is Woody Allen’s question: “Can we actually ‘know’ the universe?” Or, one step further, can we know the God of the universe—at least in any way that matters to us?
The renowned French scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) underwent what he called a “definitive” conversion experience on November 23, 1654. As a testimony to his change of heart, and the new way he had come to know God, Pascal sewed into the lining of his favorite coat the following words: “Not the God of the philosophers nor the God of science, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Pascal, in his conversion experience, could easily be the poster child for the season of Epiphany. For the self-disclosure of God, Pascal learned, as testified to by the statement stitched in his jacket, was that the One who converted him was far from the “remote” God of the philosophers. This was not an aloof God—nor a purely cerebral God, either. This was not a God detached from human concern, who lived only in the realm of concepts and theories. A God who could best be apprehended by reason—mathematically or propositionally. One, in fact, gets the feeling that Pascal had had enough of knowing this “Uncaused First Cause,” this “Governor of the Universe,” or this “Unmoved Mover.” He needed more; a God to whom he could give his heart, as well as his head.
Pascal, like most of us, needed a personal, saving God. A God who was more than “pure Actuality.” A God less apprehended by reason than by faith. In other words, Pascal needed a God who not only cared for him, but a God who would go to any length to make that care for humanity
2
known—personally. A God whose self-risk and self-expenditure could be discerned in history, not simply contemplated under a microscope, or figured out in a mathematical equation. A God who is with the people of Haiti and struggling every inch of the way with them. A God who puts it into the hearts of God’s people to help with their prayers, money and presence.
Pascal’s conversion led him to a God of faith, a God primarily of relationship. The God who called Abraham and Sarah to leave Haran—with no maps, and without any guarantees. This was the God who struggled with Jacob in the darkness at the Jabbok, so that Jacob might be changed into “Israel.” This was the God who burned in a bush before Moses. The God who fingered this obscure shepherd (not to mention a felon and a lousy speaker), to return to Egypt and undo Pharaoh’s tyrannical system of rule—the strongest in the world.
Pascal’s God was the God who strengthened David, a pretty shepherd boy, to go out and kill the Philistine monster, Goliath. This was the God, surrounded by winged seraphs in the temple calling out “Holy, Holy, Holy,” who made young Isaiah quake with unworthiness. The One who called Jeremiah from before he was formed in his mother’s womb to be a prophet to the nations. Alas, this was not only a “God of the universe,” but a God who could help you find your way through Chinatown, too.
This was the God of Jesus. And this is the God who appears to us—at every celebration of the Baptism of Jesus—not in a formula, or through a high-tech microscope, but in the earthiness of a mystical rendezvous between a wilderness holy man, John, and his questing cousin, Jesus. This is “epiphany” at its biblical best. A God revealed up close and personal—if not “in your face.” This is not a God beyond life—confined to the realm of “spirit”—but an enfleshed God, wholly concerned with healing the world of “matter,” because matter matters.
This is Pascal’s “new God.” A God who from the heavens is definitely disclosed on a river bank; in a cleansing rite of purification that will inaugurate the Divine deliverance of the world by the life and death of this man Jesus. This is definitely not the same revelation of God you would imagine through the Hubbell telescope, or in a strand of DNA under an electron microscope, or the one that the Russian cosmonaut claimed to see while orbiting the earth. This is a God bumped along in the womb as his mother rode a donkey to Bethlehem—who suckled at Mary’s breast, who practiced a carpenter’s trade that he learned from his father Joseph, and who grew up with his brothers and sisters in a little village named Nazareth. A God who suffered and died as a public spectacle, and who rose from the dead. A God who will raise the Haitians from their current death and hell to life and heaven.
This is the God into whose arms we abandon ourselves in baptism. The One to whom we entrust our lives, and the One into whom we die—to live as divine servants of Christ. The One who reaches us and grasps us and drowns us in Divine Love—the ongoing “epiphany” that baptism manifests and celebrates.
John Westerhoff tells a profound story about a baptism that he witnessed some years ago in a small church outside Buenos Aires. This story makes the point about the God who calls not just for contemplation, but for new birth:
3
“As I walked in a bit late, I witnessed a congregation on its knees, singing a Good Friday hymn. Down the aisle came a father carrying a handmade child’s coffin. His wife carried a pail of water from the family well. Behind them came the godparents carrying a naked baby in a serape. With tears in his eyes, the father put the coffin on the altar, the mother poured in the water, and the godparents handed the child over to the priest.
“As the priest asked the parents and godparents the required questions, he put the oil used in the Last Rites of the Church on the child’s skin. He took the baby and, holding its nose, immersed the child in the coffin with the words, ‘You are drowned in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.’ As he raised the child out of the water the child cried out as he probably had when he emerged from his mother’s womb at his first birth.
“The priest held up the child and exclaimed, ‘And you are resurrected that you might love and serve the Lord.’ The congregation leaped up and began to sing an Easter hymn. The priest poured perfumed oil over the child and, as he signed the baby with the cross, said, ‘I now brand you, as we do cattle on the range, with the sign of the cross, so that the world will always know and you will never be able to deny to whom you belong.’ The congregation broke into applause and came forward to offer the child the kiss of peace with the words, ‘Welcome, Juan Carlos Cristiano.’ No longer was the child to be known as Juan Carlos Renosa. He had been adopted by and brought into a new family—the family called Christian. That was a baptism I will always remember and need to recount.”
The unclouded there descended
God the Spirit as a dove,
In baptizing re-ascending,
Proving present grace thereof.
Peace to mortals, peace to angels,
Highest glory where they soar.
To the Father, the Redeemer,
To the Spirit evermore.
(Peter Abelard)
Main ideas and quotations from Synthesis (date unknown). First used January 11, 1998, at Trinity Church, Marshall, Michigan. Abelard poem found in Homily Service, January, 2004.
Observed on January 17, 2010
Ss. Peter & Paul, Portland – Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
Into the water blessed with power,
There baptized by John his friend,
Goes the Saviour for the sinner,
Having nothing to amend.
This baptizer with his power
Gives baptism real and true.
Then the curtained heaven opened.
Closed before to sinners’ view.
(Peter Abelard)
“Can we actually ‘know’ the universe?” Woody Allen once asked. And then, before anyone could attempt an answer, he said, “It’s hard enough finding your way around Chinatown.” Either looking through a telescope, or reading thee street signs in Chinatown, the question of Epiphany is Woody Allen’s question: “Can we actually ‘know’ the universe?” Or, one step further, can we know the God of the universe—at least in any way that matters to us?
The renowned French scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) underwent what he called a “definitive” conversion experience on November 23, 1654. As a testimony to his change of heart, and the new way he had come to know God, Pascal sewed into the lining of his favorite coat the following words: “Not the God of the philosophers nor the God of science, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Pascal, in his conversion experience, could easily be the poster child for the season of Epiphany. For the self-disclosure of God, Pascal learned, as testified to by the statement stitched in his jacket, was that the One who converted him was far from the “remote” God of the philosophers. This was not an aloof God—nor a purely cerebral God, either. This was not a God detached from human concern, who lived only in the realm of concepts and theories. A God who could best be apprehended by reason—mathematically or propositionally. One, in fact, gets the feeling that Pascal had had enough of knowing this “Uncaused First Cause,” this “Governor of the Universe,” or this “Unmoved Mover.” He needed more; a God to whom he could give his heart, as well as his head.
Pascal, like most of us, needed a personal, saving God. A God who was more than “pure Actuality.” A God less apprehended by reason than by faith. In other words, Pascal needed a God who not only cared for him, but a God who would go to any length to make that care for humanity
2
known—personally. A God whose self-risk and self-expenditure could be discerned in history, not simply contemplated under a microscope, or figured out in a mathematical equation. A God who is with the people of Haiti and struggling every inch of the way with them. A God who puts it into the hearts of God’s people to help with their prayers, money and presence.
Pascal’s conversion led him to a God of faith, a God primarily of relationship. The God who called Abraham and Sarah to leave Haran—with no maps, and without any guarantees. This was the God who struggled with Jacob in the darkness at the Jabbok, so that Jacob might be changed into “Israel.” This was the God who burned in a bush before Moses. The God who fingered this obscure shepherd (not to mention a felon and a lousy speaker), to return to Egypt and undo Pharaoh’s tyrannical system of rule—the strongest in the world.
Pascal’s God was the God who strengthened David, a pretty shepherd boy, to go out and kill the Philistine monster, Goliath. This was the God, surrounded by winged seraphs in the temple calling out “Holy, Holy, Holy,” who made young Isaiah quake with unworthiness. The One who called Jeremiah from before he was formed in his mother’s womb to be a prophet to the nations. Alas, this was not only a “God of the universe,” but a God who could help you find your way through Chinatown, too.
This was the God of Jesus. And this is the God who appears to us—at every celebration of the Baptism of Jesus—not in a formula, or through a high-tech microscope, but in the earthiness of a mystical rendezvous between a wilderness holy man, John, and his questing cousin, Jesus. This is “epiphany” at its biblical best. A God revealed up close and personal—if not “in your face.” This is not a God beyond life—confined to the realm of “spirit”—but an enfleshed God, wholly concerned with healing the world of “matter,” because matter matters.
This is Pascal’s “new God.” A God who from the heavens is definitely disclosed on a river bank; in a cleansing rite of purification that will inaugurate the Divine deliverance of the world by the life and death of this man Jesus. This is definitely not the same revelation of God you would imagine through the Hubbell telescope, or in a strand of DNA under an electron microscope, or the one that the Russian cosmonaut claimed to see while orbiting the earth. This is a God bumped along in the womb as his mother rode a donkey to Bethlehem—who suckled at Mary’s breast, who practiced a carpenter’s trade that he learned from his father Joseph, and who grew up with his brothers and sisters in a little village named Nazareth. A God who suffered and died as a public spectacle, and who rose from the dead. A God who will raise the Haitians from their current death and hell to life and heaven.
This is the God into whose arms we abandon ourselves in baptism. The One to whom we entrust our lives, and the One into whom we die—to live as divine servants of Christ. The One who reaches us and grasps us and drowns us in Divine Love—the ongoing “epiphany” that baptism manifests and celebrates.
John Westerhoff tells a profound story about a baptism that he witnessed some years ago in a small church outside Buenos Aires. This story makes the point about the God who calls not just for contemplation, but for new birth:
3
“As I walked in a bit late, I witnessed a congregation on its knees, singing a Good Friday hymn. Down the aisle came a father carrying a handmade child’s coffin. His wife carried a pail of water from the family well. Behind them came the godparents carrying a naked baby in a serape. With tears in his eyes, the father put the coffin on the altar, the mother poured in the water, and the godparents handed the child over to the priest.
“As the priest asked the parents and godparents the required questions, he put the oil used in the Last Rites of the Church on the child’s skin. He took the baby and, holding its nose, immersed the child in the coffin with the words, ‘You are drowned in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.’ As he raised the child out of the water the child cried out as he probably had when he emerged from his mother’s womb at his first birth.
“The priest held up the child and exclaimed, ‘And you are resurrected that you might love and serve the Lord.’ The congregation leaped up and began to sing an Easter hymn. The priest poured perfumed oil over the child and, as he signed the baby with the cross, said, ‘I now brand you, as we do cattle on the range, with the sign of the cross, so that the world will always know and you will never be able to deny to whom you belong.’ The congregation broke into applause and came forward to offer the child the kiss of peace with the words, ‘Welcome, Juan Carlos Cristiano.’ No longer was the child to be known as Juan Carlos Renosa. He had been adopted by and brought into a new family—the family called Christian. That was a baptism I will always remember and need to recount.”
The unclouded there descended
God the Spirit as a dove,
In baptizing re-ascending,
Proving present grace thereof.
Peace to mortals, peace to angels,
Highest glory where they soar.
To the Father, the Redeemer,
To the Spirit evermore.
(Peter Abelard)
Main ideas and quotations from Synthesis (date unknown). First used January 11, 1998, at Trinity Church, Marshall, Michigan. Abelard poem found in Homily Service, January, 2004.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Longing and Light
Epiphany 2010
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
The best stories are the ones that are easy to tell and easy to remember.
We hear one of those stories today. A star shines over a humble stable. A young mother, exhausted but lost in the wonder that overtakes the soul of every woman who give birth, every woman who gazes on the tiny face of new life that she bore in her own body. Did she hear the echo of angels, I wonder? Did her long-suffering spouse Joseph lift himself from his worry and tiredness long enough to stand and breathe in the Glory of the moment? God perfectly hidden, yet perfectly revealed.
The tiny stable would have been crammed full with wonder as it was, but there was room for more.
We grew up calling them the Magi, the mysterious nameless pilgrims from Somewhere Back East. That Latin word means magicians, wizards. These guys did not search the Scriptures for prophesies, they did not remember what they had been taught in church. Oh no, they saw a new star and checked their star charts and did an astrology casting and listened to their dreams, and that’s how God was happy to speak to them. Today is the feast where we honor people who come to God and Light by unorthodox ways. Today is the day we remember that all people are called by the good God, all people are spoken to and enticed by God, and all are welcomed in as they are. All one needs to do is to seek and enter stable door.
And within the tiny stable there is room for a thousand seeking pilgrim Magi, camels and all, with room for more, always room for more. There is room for you and for me.
Has your heart ever longed for wholeness, for meaning, for truth, for passion, for new life, for God? Have you ever been dissatisfied with old certitudes, old answers that may have made sense once but no longer do? Then you are part of this story, the Epiphany story.
Have you ever been surprised in the midst of your busy life, in your joy, in your pain, in your companionship, in your solitude or your loneliness, and heard the echo of another song? Seen the light of a different star? Have you ever longed to make the journey of a lifetime, a journey you’d be willing to bet your life on, to see if maybe oh just maybe there was an answer to the hunger in your heart? The Magi took painful and dangerous roads and faced down a lunatic murderous king only to kneel at a stable door.
Have you ever been surprised by beauty streaming forth from humble hearts and humble places? Have you found God in the most ordinary of places, the most ordinary of times? Then you are in this story. The Magi gave away their treasure to a child so newborn he still had that warm moist new baby smell.
Have you come away from a meeting with God that has changed you? Would you like to? Have you become a different person because of what you have seen and felt, in joy, in sorrow, in pain? Has this change been hard to explain to anyone else? One poet said the Magi were never at home again, back home in the East, “among an alien people clutching their gods.” If this all makes some sort of strange sense, then you are in this story, you are an Epiphany pilgrim, you are a wanderer ready to be changed and made new. “Arise, shine, for your light has come” said the prophet. Deep gloom enshrouds the people, but over us the Lord will rise.
Faith is the star that leads us from old certitudes and the Way Things Are. The star leads to a new place that is more humble than we expected, more ordinary than we expected, more wondrous than we expected, more transforming than we expected. We search, and God loves our searching, but God does lead us by strange roads. There are strangers to meet, some angels, some hostile. There are fellow-pilgrims to meet, people we would never have dreamed would have been with us. We end united in searching, united in purpose, united in our hunger and our need, united in awe before the glory of what is revealed to us.
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
The best stories are the ones that are easy to tell and easy to remember.
We hear one of those stories today. A star shines over a humble stable. A young mother, exhausted but lost in the wonder that overtakes the soul of every woman who give birth, every woman who gazes on the tiny face of new life that she bore in her own body. Did she hear the echo of angels, I wonder? Did her long-suffering spouse Joseph lift himself from his worry and tiredness long enough to stand and breathe in the Glory of the moment? God perfectly hidden, yet perfectly revealed.
The tiny stable would have been crammed full with wonder as it was, but there was room for more.
We grew up calling them the Magi, the mysterious nameless pilgrims from Somewhere Back East. That Latin word means magicians, wizards. These guys did not search the Scriptures for prophesies, they did not remember what they had been taught in church. Oh no, they saw a new star and checked their star charts and did an astrology casting and listened to their dreams, and that’s how God was happy to speak to them. Today is the feast where we honor people who come to God and Light by unorthodox ways. Today is the day we remember that all people are called by the good God, all people are spoken to and enticed by God, and all are welcomed in as they are. All one needs to do is to seek and enter stable door.
And within the tiny stable there is room for a thousand seeking pilgrim Magi, camels and all, with room for more, always room for more. There is room for you and for me.
Has your heart ever longed for wholeness, for meaning, for truth, for passion, for new life, for God? Have you ever been dissatisfied with old certitudes, old answers that may have made sense once but no longer do? Then you are part of this story, the Epiphany story.
Have you ever been surprised in the midst of your busy life, in your joy, in your pain, in your companionship, in your solitude or your loneliness, and heard the echo of another song? Seen the light of a different star? Have you ever longed to make the journey of a lifetime, a journey you’d be willing to bet your life on, to see if maybe oh just maybe there was an answer to the hunger in your heart? The Magi took painful and dangerous roads and faced down a lunatic murderous king only to kneel at a stable door.
Have you ever been surprised by beauty streaming forth from humble hearts and humble places? Have you found God in the most ordinary of places, the most ordinary of times? Then you are in this story. The Magi gave away their treasure to a child so newborn he still had that warm moist new baby smell.
Have you come away from a meeting with God that has changed you? Would you like to? Have you become a different person because of what you have seen and felt, in joy, in sorrow, in pain? Has this change been hard to explain to anyone else? One poet said the Magi were never at home again, back home in the East, “among an alien people clutching their gods.” If this all makes some sort of strange sense, then you are in this story, you are an Epiphany pilgrim, you are a wanderer ready to be changed and made new. “Arise, shine, for your light has come” said the prophet. Deep gloom enshrouds the people, but over us the Lord will rise.
Faith is the star that leads us from old certitudes and the Way Things Are. The star leads to a new place that is more humble than we expected, more ordinary than we expected, more wondrous than we expected, more transforming than we expected. We search, and God loves our searching, but God does lead us by strange roads. There are strangers to meet, some angels, some hostile. There are fellow-pilgrims to meet, people we would never have dreamed would have been with us. We end united in searching, united in purpose, united in our hunger and our need, united in awe before the glory of what is revealed to us.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Light
2 Christmas C 2009
(Jer 31: 7-14; Ps 84; Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a; Luke 2:41-52)
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for 2 Christmas, BCP)
Two men in a small Irish village were always fighting.
If Mike went to pasture his cows, Frank argued that the pasture was actually his. If Frank went to harvest his wheat, Mike said that Frank had cut the edge of Mike’s field. Every season, for whatever reason, there was a fight. Everyone was sick of it. A group of people went to the village priest and asked him to intervene.
The little old priest sat and scratched his bald head and thought and thought. Then he stood and went to Mike and Frank and said, “You’re fine strong men. But I know something neither of you can do.”
Mike and Frank stopped their arguing long enough to stare at the little priest and ask, “And what’s that?”
“I’ll bet that neither of you can fill every corner of your barns on Christmas Eve. By midnight I’ll have filled mine more full than yours. If I win, you have to shake hands and leave off your bickering for good.”
Mike and Frank agreed. And so, all Christmas Eve, while the whole village watched, Mike and Frank filled each his own barn with whatever they could lay their hands on. Animals, bales of hay, furniture, wood scraps—they dragged it all inside and arranged it so as to fill every corner. Meanwhile the little priest sat by a fire in the center of the village, reading his prayers, closing his eyes, sometimes singing to himself, doing nothing to fill his own barn.
Near the stroke of midnight Frank and Mike paused, drenched with sweat in spite of the cold, exhausted. Their barns were filled with all manner of things and all manner of unhappy animals too, but still there was room in some of the corners and near the top.
The little priest stood slowly, stiff with cold. The whole village watched while he went inside his humble little house. He emerged with a single candle. All followed as he stepped inside his empty barn. The little priest lit the candle and all watched in silence as the flame grew and the light filled the inside of the barn, every corner. The priest spoke aloud and said, “The True Light has come into the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
All watched as Mike and Frank shook hands and, true to their word, left off their fighting for good and all.
Well, the 2009 1040 tax forms already came in the mail, the gifts have been opened and in some cases exchanged, we’re slowly learning to write 2010 on our checks and letters. But this is still Christmastide, and the proclamation of the Word made flesh is still ours for the taking, still ours to kindle light and hope in our lives and in our world. One early church figure said that God’s nature was spread through the infant born in Bethlehem like heat spreads through iron until the iron glows. So our lives are also aglow—believe it. We too are changed—live into it. If a word and a candle can make two stubborn Irishman stop arguing, think what our lives aglow with the Christmas Gospel can do.
And as surprising as a candle lit during a Christmas Eve bet, prepare to be surprised by grace and by gift.
There’s surprise in today’s Gospel tale of neglectful parents and a naughty 12 year old kid. After the annual trip to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph forget to check that Jesus is part of the entourage going back home. Ever know anyone who was left behind at a truck stop?
They head back, probably in a panic and thinking maybe slave traders or worse snatched the kid. Finally they find him, learning that he CHOSE to stay behind, probably hanging out with other students and eating what they chose to share with him. As a parent, I think Jesus’ answer to Mary is kinda middle-school flippant—whattaya mean you didn’t know where I was?
But beneath this scene that any parent or anyone who’s been 12 years old can enter into is something deeper. For people of the Christmas Gospel, there is always something more that trembles just beneath the surface. Frightened parents and a willful kid are more—they are a sign that this kid will be full of surprises, that his life and even this moment is meant to be a gift and a mystery for us all. If nothing is every ordinary again after the birth of Christ, then no moment is without the power to allow God to break through and move our hearts to joy and our feet to dance.
God shared our human life with Christ, so that could share the divine dance and the divine joy.
(Jer 31: 7-14; Ps 84; Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a; Luke 2:41-52)
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for 2 Christmas, BCP)
Two men in a small Irish village were always fighting.
If Mike went to pasture his cows, Frank argued that the pasture was actually his. If Frank went to harvest his wheat, Mike said that Frank had cut the edge of Mike’s field. Every season, for whatever reason, there was a fight. Everyone was sick of it. A group of people went to the village priest and asked him to intervene.
The little old priest sat and scratched his bald head and thought and thought. Then he stood and went to Mike and Frank and said, “You’re fine strong men. But I know something neither of you can do.”
Mike and Frank stopped their arguing long enough to stare at the little priest and ask, “And what’s that?”
“I’ll bet that neither of you can fill every corner of your barns on Christmas Eve. By midnight I’ll have filled mine more full than yours. If I win, you have to shake hands and leave off your bickering for good.”
Mike and Frank agreed. And so, all Christmas Eve, while the whole village watched, Mike and Frank filled each his own barn with whatever they could lay their hands on. Animals, bales of hay, furniture, wood scraps—they dragged it all inside and arranged it so as to fill every corner. Meanwhile the little priest sat by a fire in the center of the village, reading his prayers, closing his eyes, sometimes singing to himself, doing nothing to fill his own barn.
Near the stroke of midnight Frank and Mike paused, drenched with sweat in spite of the cold, exhausted. Their barns were filled with all manner of things and all manner of unhappy animals too, but still there was room in some of the corners and near the top.
The little priest stood slowly, stiff with cold. The whole village watched while he went inside his humble little house. He emerged with a single candle. All followed as he stepped inside his empty barn. The little priest lit the candle and all watched in silence as the flame grew and the light filled the inside of the barn, every corner. The priest spoke aloud and said, “The True Light has come into the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
All watched as Mike and Frank shook hands and, true to their word, left off their fighting for good and all.
Well, the 2009 1040 tax forms already came in the mail, the gifts have been opened and in some cases exchanged, we’re slowly learning to write 2010 on our checks and letters. But this is still Christmastide, and the proclamation of the Word made flesh is still ours for the taking, still ours to kindle light and hope in our lives and in our world. One early church figure said that God’s nature was spread through the infant born in Bethlehem like heat spreads through iron until the iron glows. So our lives are also aglow—believe it. We too are changed—live into it. If a word and a candle can make two stubborn Irishman stop arguing, think what our lives aglow with the Christmas Gospel can do.
And as surprising as a candle lit during a Christmas Eve bet, prepare to be surprised by grace and by gift.
There’s surprise in today’s Gospel tale of neglectful parents and a naughty 12 year old kid. After the annual trip to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph forget to check that Jesus is part of the entourage going back home. Ever know anyone who was left behind at a truck stop?
They head back, probably in a panic and thinking maybe slave traders or worse snatched the kid. Finally they find him, learning that he CHOSE to stay behind, probably hanging out with other students and eating what they chose to share with him. As a parent, I think Jesus’ answer to Mary is kinda middle-school flippant—whattaya mean you didn’t know where I was?
But beneath this scene that any parent or anyone who’s been 12 years old can enter into is something deeper. For people of the Christmas Gospel, there is always something more that trembles just beneath the surface. Frightened parents and a willful kid are more—they are a sign that this kid will be full of surprises, that his life and even this moment is meant to be a gift and a mystery for us all. If nothing is every ordinary again after the birth of Christ, then no moment is without the power to allow God to break through and move our hearts to joy and our feet to dance.
God shared our human life with Christ, so that could share the divine dance and the divine joy.
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