5 Easter A 2008 (RCL)
Earth Day Weekend
(Acts 7: 55-60; Ps 31: 1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2: 2-10; John 14: 1-14)
In ancient Christian Ireland, they believed that the sun would dance in the sky on Easter morning.
Beneath this lovely romantic tale lies deep wisdom. Believe or don’t believe that the sun can dance at the Easter dawn. This story proclaims the truth that the God of the Bible is not concerned solely with the well-being of human beings. The Celts loved to call God the King of the Elements, God of water and fire and earth and air. God inhabits creation, participates in it, loves it and delights in it. God endows creation with dignity and its own reasons. Grand space nebulas, hulking gentle manatees, majestic whales and fierce tigers, towering trees and harshly beautiful deserts—all does not exist just for us to use and then discard. This too is an Easter message.
The sacred creation does not exist outside of us. Many of us are attracted to the ancient Celtic Christian way of seeing. We want a faith that brings us closer to the earth, healing the strange imaginary wedge driven between us and the earth, the sea, the sky. The Celts did not view the sacred creation as an anxious problem, as something apart from themselves. They did not have the option to sit in a comfortable room with food processed so it no longer looks like the animals and plants from which it came, with an array of buttons at hand that gives us the illusion of easy control over life. They loved the rising of the sun and the coming of the rains, the phases of the moon and the run of the salmon, the lambing and the shearing and the harvesting. They knew they were part of the sacred cycle, the divine dance filled with the fierce, endless energy of the Holy Trinity. Just as the vigorous endless knot-work filled their manuscripts, so they believed the endless energy of God took form again and again in the rhythms of life.
They often chose to live on the edge of harsh, wild beauty, lovely lonely valleys like Glendalough or mad fierce islands like Iona or Skellig Michael, so they could know God and know themselves. Know God—the grand glory of the Lord of the Elements. Know themselves—grace-filled but small, frail, gently caressed by a summer breeze or dashed to death in an instant by a towering Atlantic wave. That’s why we Oregonians head to the coast or up the gorge or up on the mountain. No matter what our heads think about God, we long to know God and to know ourselves by walking and breathing in the dance of creation.
But times have changed. Columba and his monks did not face their responsibility in killing the salmon and poisoning the air, stripping the heavens of the protective ozone layer, filling Iona and the sea with the discarded trash of their community. But we do. Only today the headlines are filled with the collapse of the salmon run and the abuse of the Sacramento River far away that may be one thing to blame. But we as a people all have our share of the responsibility and the result.
We have also a gift that Columba did not have. We may repent and learn again how to love the earth and sea and sky made and indwelt by the Holy Three. We may change our hearts and mind and habit. It is not by listing facts but by changing hearts that we shall love and preserve the sacred earth.
We may do so this Eastertide, as the nation observes Earth Day. We may ask the good God to help as we seek a new way to love the ancient creation. If we do this, we love the Lord Jesus himself who dwells at the heart of creation as true God and truly human. The risen Lord dwells in God, and we dwell in him. The Risen One dwells at the heart of creation, and we with him. To love and cherish the sacred creation is to love the risen Lord and the Holy Three who inhabit the created world. And in that love, the sun may dance, and we may see it.
archived musings and preachments
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Easter 3: walking to Emmaus (Fr. Phil)
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
Year A
Ss. Peter & Paul –
+++++
Why, we might ask, were the two travelers in today’s Gospel “headed for the hills”?
If they had been anything like the rest of the disciples—and there is no evidence to think that they were not—then these Emmaus walkers had given up. They, too, had left Jesus in the lurch. When the chips were down—and they were down as low as they could go—these individuals were interested primarily in saving their own skins. Although Luke never gives any reasons why these particular followers of Jesus were headed to this obscure, little-known village, it is a safe guess that Emmaus was as good a place as any to “get out of Dodge.” To wimp out.
Frederick Buechner wrote eloquently about “Emmaus” in his book The Magnificent Defeat: “’Emmaus’ is where we go when life gets to be too much for us: … the place we go in order to escape—a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole damned thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.’ … Emmaus may be buying a new suit or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.”
2
A large part of the Exhilarating News of the Resurrection is that the Risen Lord comes to us anyway. In the midst of our wimpishness. In the hour of our faithlessness. Under the spell of thrown-up hands and drained resolve. Under the pall of disillusionment and despair. On our way to our favorite “Emmaus” to escape reality. Jesus comes to us—even though “unrecognizable” at first , and even though believed to be a “stranger” (Lk. 24:18).
Albert Schweitzer said that Jesus was “the man who fit no formula.” And indeed his coming to Cleopas and the other disciples walking toward Emmaus fits no formula. The Resurrected One will be who he will be. Whereas he speaks immediately to Mary, calling her by name (Jn. 20:16); whereas he makes himself immediately recognizable to the disciples squirreled away behind locked doors, showing them his wounds (Jn. 20:19-20)—on the road to Emmaus, Jesus remains “incognito” until he reveals himself to them in blessed and broken bread at table (Lk. 24:30-31). It seems that Jesus kept his identity secret so that a key post-Resurrection truth could be imparted.
It is a truth that in most religions (or distortions thereof) there is no Divine welcome for the sinner until he or she has “gotten right” with God. The message is: “Get right with God and God will get right with you.” Get acceptable, and God will accept you. But here we see just the opposite: Jesus comes among the sinful apart from any sign of repentance whatsoever. Jesus comes among them as a gift. God remains faithful even if we do not. Emmaus demonstrates that Jesus does not appear among us demanding newness of life; he confers newness of life.
3
Amendment of life is a consequence of grace, not its precursor, something required beforehand.
Another truth Jesus makes known to them when he asks the question: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” (v. 26). The implication here is that people in their waywardness and sinfulness still remain instruments of God: Pilate and Caiaphas; the Sanhedrin; Judas; Peter, James, and John; the Emmaus disciples themselves—all, in their own way, despite their twistedness—still remained instruments of God in the Paschal Mystery. That God is able to use us, not just in our fleeting moments of righteousness, but in the depths of our waywardness, is a profound truth of the Resurrection faith. As Peter would declare to the crowd at Pentecost: “… this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power” (Acts
Yet another truth is that the only way we can make sense of Easter—as these disciples struggle to do on the road to Emmaus—is to encounter the Risen Christ ourselves. To have our eyes “opened” so that we may recognize the Lord in our midst. Returning to Frederick Buechner’s The Magnificent Defeat, he says: “It is not the objective proof of God’s existence that we want, but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle we are really after. And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”
4
How do we experience the miracle of Resurrection Presence?
As the canticle Benedictus expresses it:
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
He has come to his people and set them free;
He has raised up for us a mighty Savior
Born of the house of his servant David.
Barry Vaughn has written about Emmaus:
We may not go again to walk with Cleopas and his companion from
How often have we said, “But we had hoped …”?
“But we had hoped … that we would be successful in getting work …
5
but we had hoped … that this relationship would last and bring love and contentment to our lives … but we had hoped … that the doctors would find a cure…”
And perhaps as we wondered if we had hoped in vain, did someone draw near and speak a word of comfort and hope to us? Did someone remind us that God has entered into human life in all its joy and sorrow? Did someone remind you that on the Cross God took and blessed and broke God’s own life and offered it to us in the midst of suffering so that all human sadness and pain might become vehicles of God’s presence?
Are you saying even now, “But we had hoped …”? Then draw near to this table, where Jesus invites us to take again the bread that he blessed and broke and gave. And open your eyes and your hearts and be hopeful. The women who went to the tomb were right: he is risen.
Alleluia! He is risen indeed!
[Things consulted: H.K. Synthesis
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Toward God Ch. 9 "Short Prayers" and coming to a close
I share in this post some thoughts about this chapter"Short Prayers", and also share some thoughts about 'blogging on Casey's book and bringing this experiment to a probable close for now.
"Short prayers" is how I grew up. One prayer-gift of traditional Catholicism is that of both teaching and encouraging short prayers. One cannot escape a traditional RC upbringing without running head-on into standard prayers for memorization such as the "Hail Mary", the "Gloria" or "Glory be", what I grew up calling the "Our Father" only to learn later that Protestant folk called it the "Lord's Prayer" and added the "for Thine is the Kingdom..." portion. And these prayers, along with the Apostles' Creed and a few others, were all systemitized in the Latin or RC form of the Rosary. The drone of the "Hail Mary" over and over was what church-before-Mass sounded like, what the funeral home sounded like, sometimes what the home at prayer sounded like.
Sometimes the drone sounded jaded and mechanical, and later such prayer-practices were mocked and disparaged from the inside, by a post-Vatican II RC Church (now famous were the priests who would tear a Rosary into shreds from the pulpit and scatter the beads while exhorting people to "pray the liturgy"), and from outside, from Protestant folk who insisted that we "just pray, don't 'say prayers'". Funny how things came full-circle, and now Protestant folks are exploring prayer-beads and the Rosary traditions and I have been asked more than once by newcomers if we have a Rosary group they can join.
Beyond the Rosary itself was even shorter prayers, verses, a practice somewhat more ecumenical as I think Evangelical folk did the same sort of thing with memorized Bible verses. One traditional RC school referred to short one-line prayers as "ejaculations", giving rise to a lot of squirmy humor on the adolescent church-school level of things. But we were encouraged to place the desire of our hearts, spiritually speaking, into one phrase, a sort of "cry of the heart" to God. I can remember several--"Jesus I adore you", "Mary pray for us" leap out.
Anthony Bloom in his classic book "Beginning To Pray" calls these "walking-stick prayers", and in that context speaks of the Eastern Orthodox "Jesus Prayer" ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me") and the rich tradition that has grown up with its practice. We need to have a few words that accompany us throughout the day, supporting us when we're weary, focusing our restless thoughts and hearts.
I've come to the conclusion for my part that the actual words do not matter, or that no one formula is objectively better than another. What matters is that we pray, in season and out of season. In preparation for my sabbatical, one focus of which will hopefully be primitive monasticism, I have been reading John Cassian. "O God, make speed to save me" works just fine and is already familiar from its use in the Daily Office. And I agree wholly with Cassian when he says, and Casey quotes, that "prayer is only a faint whisper within us", and that to whisper once is far better than not to whisper at all.
I am interested to hear of anyone's experience with placing our prayers into a whisper of words, the ancient tradition of short prayers which Augustine said "the brethren in Egypt aim like arrows", short as to avoid wandering attention.
I want to share as well that I think my desire to finish reflecting on Casey's book before sabbatical is not realistic, and I will bring this experiment to a close for now. It has been on the one hand a good discipline for me to try to systematically reflect on a rich book and invite others to do so. On the other hand I had hoped for a stronger sense of conversation between readers. For my part I think I tried too hard to completely summarize each chapter, and so perhaps I unintentionally precluded conversation. And often enough I became distracted and so 'blog entries fell off of the weekly rhythm I had hoped to sustain. One of my personal secrets is that I am not a fast reader, and I know that a number of us finished Casey long ago and had moved on; hence these reflections might have felt like afterthoughts. Of late making 'blog entries began to feel like producing one more piece for consumption, and at this juncture, right before sabbatical, I am feeling my inner well to be quite dry and the bucket is clattering upon the stones at the bottom. I hope to find some filling-time, but have learned that laying that expectation upon God and upon a time of renewal is too utilitarian. I'll be filled in the way and in the time that God wills. Let me know any thoughts you may have about how we may sustain cyber-conversation in the future. And thanks for the reading, and for the reflecting.
"Short prayers" is how I grew up. One prayer-gift of traditional Catholicism is that of both teaching and encouraging short prayers. One cannot escape a traditional RC upbringing without running head-on into standard prayers for memorization such as the "Hail Mary", the "Gloria" or "Glory be", what I grew up calling the "Our Father" only to learn later that Protestant folk called it the "Lord's Prayer" and added the "for Thine is the Kingdom..." portion. And these prayers, along with the Apostles' Creed and a few others, were all systemitized in the Latin or RC form of the Rosary. The drone of the "Hail Mary" over and over was what church-before-Mass sounded like, what the funeral home sounded like, sometimes what the home at prayer sounded like.
Sometimes the drone sounded jaded and mechanical, and later such prayer-practices were mocked and disparaged from the inside, by a post-Vatican II RC Church (now famous were the priests who would tear a Rosary into shreds from the pulpit and scatter the beads while exhorting people to "pray the liturgy"), and from outside, from Protestant folk who insisted that we "just pray, don't 'say prayers'". Funny how things came full-circle, and now Protestant folks are exploring prayer-beads and the Rosary traditions and I have been asked more than once by newcomers if we have a Rosary group they can join.
Beyond the Rosary itself was even shorter prayers, verses, a practice somewhat more ecumenical as I think Evangelical folk did the same sort of thing with memorized Bible verses. One traditional RC school referred to short one-line prayers as "ejaculations", giving rise to a lot of squirmy humor on the adolescent church-school level of things. But we were encouraged to place the desire of our hearts, spiritually speaking, into one phrase, a sort of "cry of the heart" to God. I can remember several--"Jesus I adore you", "Mary pray for us" leap out.
Anthony Bloom in his classic book "Beginning To Pray" calls these "walking-stick prayers", and in that context speaks of the Eastern Orthodox "Jesus Prayer" ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me") and the rich tradition that has grown up with its practice. We need to have a few words that accompany us throughout the day, supporting us when we're weary, focusing our restless thoughts and hearts.
I've come to the conclusion for my part that the actual words do not matter, or that no one formula is objectively better than another. What matters is that we pray, in season and out of season. In preparation for my sabbatical, one focus of which will hopefully be primitive monasticism, I have been reading John Cassian. "O God, make speed to save me" works just fine and is already familiar from its use in the Daily Office. And I agree wholly with Cassian when he says, and Casey quotes, that "prayer is only a faint whisper within us", and that to whisper once is far better than not to whisper at all.
I am interested to hear of anyone's experience with placing our prayers into a whisper of words, the ancient tradition of short prayers which Augustine said "the brethren in Egypt aim like arrows", short as to avoid wandering attention.
I want to share as well that I think my desire to finish reflecting on Casey's book before sabbatical is not realistic, and I will bring this experiment to a close for now. It has been on the one hand a good discipline for me to try to systematically reflect on a rich book and invite others to do so. On the other hand I had hoped for a stronger sense of conversation between readers. For my part I think I tried too hard to completely summarize each chapter, and so perhaps I unintentionally precluded conversation. And often enough I became distracted and so 'blog entries fell off of the weekly rhythm I had hoped to sustain. One of my personal secrets is that I am not a fast reader, and I know that a number of us finished Casey long ago and had moved on; hence these reflections might have felt like afterthoughts. Of late making 'blog entries began to feel like producing one more piece for consumption, and at this juncture, right before sabbatical, I am feeling my inner well to be quite dry and the bucket is clattering upon the stones at the bottom. I hope to find some filling-time, but have learned that laying that expectation upon God and upon a time of renewal is too utilitarian. I'll be filled in the way and in the time that God wills. Let me know any thoughts you may have about how we may sustain cyber-conversation in the future. And thanks for the reading, and for the reflecting.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
The Right Place: Easter Vigil 2008
Easter Vigil 2008
Have you ever longed for healing, freedom, and light? Have you ever felt hopeless? Have you ever wondered if there is any way out? Have you ever felt just what a tight place is all about?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then you’ve come to the right place.
Or more precisely, you’ve come to the right One. You’ve come to Hope Personified, the Way through all darkness, the Open Space when the walls are closing in, the One who is healing itself.
My words fail. Stories come to mind, stories that I’ve told before. Stories like when my best grade school buddy and I locked ourselves in an abandoned car, and what it was like to have the door torn open and to breathe free air. Stories like the daylong journey into the hills in Mindanao, first on motorcycle then on foot, through ambush points and adder-infested jungle. We came over a high pass and saw a hidden valley, emerald-green with young rice plants and tropical flowers and cocoanut palms and simple lovely huts beneath the sun. A hidden treasure, which was worth every step of the way.
These are small tastes, simple signs that God can give new life in the very teeth of struggle and captivity. When have you been given signs that speak of new life?
But tonight we are given more than signs. In word and sacred story we are told of captivity and release on the shores of Egypt. No cruel Empire, with its iron laws of sacrifice and wealth and power, can win out over God’s irresistible desire to make mischief with those laws and release captives into freedom. We hear the wondrous poetry of Holy Wisdom, the living Presence of God who speaks in loving womanly tones and calls her children to new and wise life. The prophet tells us we’re given a new heart and a new spirit, no matter how bitter and worn-out our old hearts may be. And all these tales of new life and new insight and release beat a path to the rough entrance of a stone tomb, filled with death’s stillness and death’s smell. But inside we find nothing, nothing but air and abandoned grave cloth and dust dancing in the shafts of sunlight. Tombs and graves are for the dead. The One we seek is alive.
He is alive, and all our pain and struggle is transformed. He is alive, and we do not need to fear pain and death. The Beloved has been raised from death by God whose love is stronger than death. And so whatever is hopeless, whatever is trapped, whatever longs for forgiveness and new life and healing and peace in us and in our world now can be, will be, and in faith’s mystery already is a new creation through the One who passed through captivity and betrayal, pain and death. In Christ all our pain and struggle is known and loved. In Christ all our pain and struggle is raised to new life.
Another preacher once said: Let none lament their poverty, for the Universal Kingdom has been revealed! Let none mourn their transgressions, for Pardon has dawned from the tomb! Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free!
Whatever we have longed for in the deepest and most desperate desire of our hearts, it is here and more besides. It is here, and it is not a thing but a Who, the Living One who sets us free day by day until all creation is set free for all time. Today we’re all honored guests, all hoping for welcome, all reaching out for hope, all receiving so much more than we could even imagine! All are welcome, poor and broken, wounded and sinners, and even those who do not think they are! We’re all new as the youngest infant we baptize. See what the Risen One can do for us all.
Have you ever longed for healing, freedom, and light? Have you ever felt hopeless? Have you ever wondered if there is any way out? Have you ever felt just what a tight place is all about?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then you’ve come to the right place.
Or more precisely, you’ve come to the right One. You’ve come to Hope Personified, the Way through all darkness, the Open Space when the walls are closing in, the One who is healing itself.
My words fail. Stories come to mind, stories that I’ve told before. Stories like when my best grade school buddy and I locked ourselves in an abandoned car, and what it was like to have the door torn open and to breathe free air. Stories like the daylong journey into the hills in Mindanao, first on motorcycle then on foot, through ambush points and adder-infested jungle. We came over a high pass and saw a hidden valley, emerald-green with young rice plants and tropical flowers and cocoanut palms and simple lovely huts beneath the sun. A hidden treasure, which was worth every step of the way.
These are small tastes, simple signs that God can give new life in the very teeth of struggle and captivity. When have you been given signs that speak of new life?
But tonight we are given more than signs. In word and sacred story we are told of captivity and release on the shores of Egypt. No cruel Empire, with its iron laws of sacrifice and wealth and power, can win out over God’s irresistible desire to make mischief with those laws and release captives into freedom. We hear the wondrous poetry of Holy Wisdom, the living Presence of God who speaks in loving womanly tones and calls her children to new and wise life. The prophet tells us we’re given a new heart and a new spirit, no matter how bitter and worn-out our old hearts may be. And all these tales of new life and new insight and release beat a path to the rough entrance of a stone tomb, filled with death’s stillness and death’s smell. But inside we find nothing, nothing but air and abandoned grave cloth and dust dancing in the shafts of sunlight. Tombs and graves are for the dead. The One we seek is alive.
He is alive, and all our pain and struggle is transformed. He is alive, and we do not need to fear pain and death. The Beloved has been raised from death by God whose love is stronger than death. And so whatever is hopeless, whatever is trapped, whatever longs for forgiveness and new life and healing and peace in us and in our world now can be, will be, and in faith’s mystery already is a new creation through the One who passed through captivity and betrayal, pain and death. In Christ all our pain and struggle is known and loved. In Christ all our pain and struggle is raised to new life.
Another preacher once said: Let none lament their poverty, for the Universal Kingdom has been revealed! Let none mourn their transgressions, for Pardon has dawned from the tomb! Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free!
Whatever we have longed for in the deepest and most desperate desire of our hearts, it is here and more besides. It is here, and it is not a thing but a Who, the Living One who sets us free day by day until all creation is set free for all time. Today we’re all honored guests, all hoping for welcome, all reaching out for hope, all receiving so much more than we could even imagine! All are welcome, poor and broken, wounded and sinners, and even those who do not think they are! We’re all new as the youngest infant we baptize. See what the Risen One can do for us all.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Hope in death: 5 Lent
5 Lent A 2008 (RCL)
(Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Ps 130; Rom 8: 6-11; John 11: 1-45)
A memorable graveyard moment:
My Aunt Alice, my mother’s sister and the last fabulous survivor of my family’s “old folks”, died five years ago this May. I flew back to New York for the funeral. Like any good Irish funeral, there are lots of stories to tell. But my favorite moment came when the six of us and my cousin Paul were gathered around her open grave. The profound silence was broken by my brother Hank, who has no sense of the volume of his voice after a lifetime spent in sheet metal shops. Hank’s voice boomed, “Well, that the last of them!”
We put our heads back and laughed. But as we gazed down into Aunt Alice’s grave the laughs turned uneasy. Someone spoke in a softer tone, “Yeah, we’re the old folks now.”
Last week we heard about the joy of blindness, that if we think we can see we’d better turn blind so Jesus can open our eyes to what is true and real. Today we hear of the hope in death.
I try to be generous and kind when I attend funerals. But the older I get, the more critical I’ve become. I’ve smelled too many flower petals, heard too much sticky sentiment, read too many re-prints of that poem that says “I’m not really dead.” Tell that to the people living in the now empty-feeling house. We walk away numb from many funerals, never having discussed the silent elephant in the room. In a series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett, Death is a main character. He’s not a bad guy, he’s not mean, sometimes he is unintentionally funny. But he’s Death, and when he comes to call there’s no argument.
“Mortal, can these bones live?”
I think of the Killing Fields of Cambodia or the sites of genocide the world over when I hear today’s Valley of Dry Bones. Silent bones, absolutely still—as a young priest it took me a long time to get used to the stillness of death. But there in that stillness of death the living God asks the question and awaits our answer. Do we believe that the Breath of God, the living Word of God, can make the dead live?
What is dead and still within us and among us that cries out to God for Breath and life?
“I am Resurrection and I am Life…Do you believe this?”
Again the question—in the face of the stillness of death, can God bring life from death? Martha answers like most of us would, like decent religious people often do: “Yes, I know that my brother will rise again, will live again on the last day, by and by.” Jesus’ next words are outrageous—here before you, I am Resurrection, I am life. Now we have two choices. Either Jesus is a fool and cruel as well, using Martha’s grief as a chance to play theology and ego-games. Or Jesus is somebody new and outrageous and unexpected, that he is Life and that only those who are dead or have faced death can know the super-abundant Life that stands before us.
Even though Death and I are old acquaintances, colleagues even, I still shudder when I feel the faint touch of the icy finger or gaze down into yet another grave. “Yeah, we’re the old folks now.” But the question that the living One asks us today os more powerful still, and the answer isn’t an idea or a sentiment, something to make us feel good enough to get through another day. The answer is a Who, and he is here, among us and within us. In all our dying he is present for he drank fully of the cup of death. And if the Spirit which raised the Beloved from the dead dwells in us, the Holy One will give life to our mortal bodies too.
(Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Ps 130; Rom 8: 6-11; John 11: 1-45)
A memorable graveyard moment:
My Aunt Alice, my mother’s sister and the last fabulous survivor of my family’s “old folks”, died five years ago this May. I flew back to New York for the funeral. Like any good Irish funeral, there are lots of stories to tell. But my favorite moment came when the six of us and my cousin Paul were gathered around her open grave. The profound silence was broken by my brother Hank, who has no sense of the volume of his voice after a lifetime spent in sheet metal shops. Hank’s voice boomed, “Well, that the last of them!”
We put our heads back and laughed. But as we gazed down into Aunt Alice’s grave the laughs turned uneasy. Someone spoke in a softer tone, “Yeah, we’re the old folks now.”
Last week we heard about the joy of blindness, that if we think we can see we’d better turn blind so Jesus can open our eyes to what is true and real. Today we hear of the hope in death.
I try to be generous and kind when I attend funerals. But the older I get, the more critical I’ve become. I’ve smelled too many flower petals, heard too much sticky sentiment, read too many re-prints of that poem that says “I’m not really dead.” Tell that to the people living in the now empty-feeling house. We walk away numb from many funerals, never having discussed the silent elephant in the room. In a series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett, Death is a main character. He’s not a bad guy, he’s not mean, sometimes he is unintentionally funny. But he’s Death, and when he comes to call there’s no argument.
“Mortal, can these bones live?”
I think of the Killing Fields of Cambodia or the sites of genocide the world over when I hear today’s Valley of Dry Bones. Silent bones, absolutely still—as a young priest it took me a long time to get used to the stillness of death. But there in that stillness of death the living God asks the question and awaits our answer. Do we believe that the Breath of God, the living Word of God, can make the dead live?
What is dead and still within us and among us that cries out to God for Breath and life?
“I am Resurrection and I am Life…Do you believe this?”
Again the question—in the face of the stillness of death, can God bring life from death? Martha answers like most of us would, like decent religious people often do: “Yes, I know that my brother will rise again, will live again on the last day, by and by.” Jesus’ next words are outrageous—here before you, I am Resurrection, I am life. Now we have two choices. Either Jesus is a fool and cruel as well, using Martha’s grief as a chance to play theology and ego-games. Or Jesus is somebody new and outrageous and unexpected, that he is Life and that only those who are dead or have faced death can know the super-abundant Life that stands before us.
Even though Death and I are old acquaintances, colleagues even, I still shudder when I feel the faint touch of the icy finger or gaze down into yet another grave. “Yeah, we’re the old folks now.” But the question that the living One asks us today os more powerful still, and the answer isn’t an idea or a sentiment, something to make us feel good enough to get through another day. The answer is a Who, and he is here, among us and within us. In all our dying he is present for he drank fully of the cup of death. And if the Spirit which raised the Beloved from the dead dwells in us, the Holy One will give life to our mortal bodies too.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Toward God chapter 8: Models of Prayer
My apologies for silence these past couple of weeks. A little oral surgery and Lenten life intruded on keeping my covenant to post reflections on Abbot Casey's book.
Sometimes in the midst of all the weariness and demands I felt overwhelmed by the idea of 'blogging on "Toward God." Now I think I may have set myself up to fail. I think I tried too hard to write a complete summary of each chapter, whereas it's both easier and perhaps invites more response if I only share a few personal thoughts.
"Models of Prayer" speaks of two practices. The first is how good it is to base one's daily prayer engaging the Bible, and to carry a bit of that around with us throughout the day. Kind of like a "personal Bible"--words or phrases that strike one's heart that can be kept in mind, chewed on throughout the day. That happens for me more by accident right now, as I read the day's Office interspersed with silence and some chance for private prayer. Sometimes a word or verse jumps up and hits me between the eyes. Sometimes a passage feels awkward or off-putting, and it is that very sense of unease that makes it haunt me throughout the day. Sometimes none of these things happen, and I am distracted and fog out no matter how many times I try and bring my attention back to the text. Well, God's not a vending machine and the Bible is not some sort of spiritual all-you-can-eat buffet. I find myself just admitting my blindness and obtuseness and asking God to have mercy on me and that. How about the rest of you?
The other practice is basing one's prayer in the forms and spirit that we find in the Bible's own prayer. Although there are many examples, the most powerful and numerous examples are the Psalms.
The Psalms first crashed in on me as astounding forms of prayer when I was a senior in high school. The rawness of the speech of the Psalms, the directness of the address to God, and the rawness as well of the emotions of the Psalms--exaltation and ecstasy, rage and vindictiveness, depression and despair, wonder and questions, dryness and desolation--made me feel that there was room for me and my dark and brooding heart somewhere in there. I still feel that. Praying the Psalms daily is the one practice that keeps me even a little focused, that makes faith possible--on days when I feel nothing, the Psalms carry me, and sometimes even help me pray that "nothing" that I feel.
If God likes being addressed as the Psalms address God, then we are welcome in God's presence in all of our turbulent, unresolved, still-to-be-redeemed-fully humanity.
What have been your experiences with the Psalms?
Sometimes in the midst of all the weariness and demands I felt overwhelmed by the idea of 'blogging on "Toward God." Now I think I may have set myself up to fail. I think I tried too hard to write a complete summary of each chapter, whereas it's both easier and perhaps invites more response if I only share a few personal thoughts.
"Models of Prayer" speaks of two practices. The first is how good it is to base one's daily prayer engaging the Bible, and to carry a bit of that around with us throughout the day. Kind of like a "personal Bible"--words or phrases that strike one's heart that can be kept in mind, chewed on throughout the day. That happens for me more by accident right now, as I read the day's Office interspersed with silence and some chance for private prayer. Sometimes a word or verse jumps up and hits me between the eyes. Sometimes a passage feels awkward or off-putting, and it is that very sense of unease that makes it haunt me throughout the day. Sometimes none of these things happen, and I am distracted and fog out no matter how many times I try and bring my attention back to the text. Well, God's not a vending machine and the Bible is not some sort of spiritual all-you-can-eat buffet. I find myself just admitting my blindness and obtuseness and asking God to have mercy on me and that. How about the rest of you?
The other practice is basing one's prayer in the forms and spirit that we find in the Bible's own prayer. Although there are many examples, the most powerful and numerous examples are the Psalms.
The Psalms first crashed in on me as astounding forms of prayer when I was a senior in high school. The rawness of the speech of the Psalms, the directness of the address to God, and the rawness as well of the emotions of the Psalms--exaltation and ecstasy, rage and vindictiveness, depression and despair, wonder and questions, dryness and desolation--made me feel that there was room for me and my dark and brooding heart somewhere in there. I still feel that. Praying the Psalms daily is the one practice that keeps me even a little focused, that makes faith possible--on days when I feel nothing, the Psalms carry me, and sometimes even help me pray that "nothing" that I feel.
If God likes being addressed as the Psalms address God, then we are welcome in God's presence in all of our turbulent, unresolved, still-to-be-redeemed-fully humanity.
What have been your experiences with the Psalms?
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Good Question: 3 Lent A
3 Lent A 2008 (RCL)
(Ex 17: 1-7; Ps 95; Rom 5: 1-11; John 4: 5-42)
God loves a good question. God also loves a good questioner.
In the desert, while Moses fretted and the people complained, there were questions asked. They weren’t very sophisticated questions. “Where is there bread?” “Where is there water?” “Where is there meat?” Or, going deeper, "Is the LORD with us or not?"
God did grumble right back, and God did get pretty cranky with all the griping. But God responded. A people were forged in that desert, a people who asked questions even if it strained their relationship with God. “O that today you would hearken to God’s voice” sings the Psalm. “Harden not your hearts…”
How can we be a people who question God, and yet listen? How can we be a people who stand before God with our doubts and concerns yet not harden our hearts?
People listen best when they are at peace. People don’t harden their hearts when they believe their hearts have been healed.
God gives us peace and heals us through Paul’s words.
We are justified…we have peace…even in our suffering we have hope...God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. Christ died for us not when we were at our best but just as we are, broken, wounded, and sinful. We are reconciled to God and each other, we will be saved by the life of the living Lord.
It was that living Lord who made the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well so astounding.
She and Jesus shouldn’t even have been talking. She was a foreign woman from a despised minority. Jesus starts the conversation with a request—he needs something from her, he’s thirsty. But she picks up the thread and goes right back at him. “Why do you ask me for a drink?” “Living water, where do you get it?” Then, “Give me this water.”
Jesus leads them both deeper and deeper, deeper into her own life, and deeper into his call, deeper into God’s life. “Water, living water gushing up inside…” “Go call your husband…you’ve had five husbands…God is spirit, worship him in spirit and truth…the Messiah is speaking, I am he”
I love her attitude, the Samaritan woman, she’s full of life and history and she’s no shrinking violet. Attitude and nerve is not the same thing as a hard heart and a closed ear. She listens, she engages, and she receives the gift given to her: more than a jar of water, more than she bargained for, more than she ever imagined. It took a listening ear, and a heart ready and open to receive the astounding gift of God.
God loves a good question, and loves the questioner. What is your question today? What question does your life and soul pose to God? You may receive an answer you expect. But you may receive far more. You may hear silence that takes you to the depths, the depths of your own soul and the depths of God. You may hear strange words today, newness and strength, healing and forgiveness and a new start, a new life. Living water, gushing up, and the voice of One who says “I am.”
(Ex 17: 1-7; Ps 95; Rom 5: 1-11; John 4: 5-42)
God loves a good question. God also loves a good questioner.
In the desert, while Moses fretted and the people complained, there were questions asked. They weren’t very sophisticated questions. “Where is there bread?” “Where is there water?” “Where is there meat?” Or, going deeper, "Is the LORD with us or not?"
God did grumble right back, and God did get pretty cranky with all the griping. But God responded. A people were forged in that desert, a people who asked questions even if it strained their relationship with God. “O that today you would hearken to God’s voice” sings the Psalm. “Harden not your hearts…”
How can we be a people who question God, and yet listen? How can we be a people who stand before God with our doubts and concerns yet not harden our hearts?
People listen best when they are at peace. People don’t harden their hearts when they believe their hearts have been healed.
God gives us peace and heals us through Paul’s words.
We are justified…we have peace…even in our suffering we have hope...God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. Christ died for us not when we were at our best but just as we are, broken, wounded, and sinful. We are reconciled to God and each other, we will be saved by the life of the living Lord.
It was that living Lord who made the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well so astounding.
She and Jesus shouldn’t even have been talking. She was a foreign woman from a despised minority. Jesus starts the conversation with a request—he needs something from her, he’s thirsty. But she picks up the thread and goes right back at him. “Why do you ask me for a drink?” “Living water, where do you get it?” Then, “Give me this water.”
Jesus leads them both deeper and deeper, deeper into her own life, and deeper into his call, deeper into God’s life. “Water, living water gushing up inside…” “Go call your husband…you’ve had five husbands…God is spirit, worship him in spirit and truth…the Messiah is speaking, I am he”
I love her attitude, the Samaritan woman, she’s full of life and history and she’s no shrinking violet. Attitude and nerve is not the same thing as a hard heart and a closed ear. She listens, she engages, and she receives the gift given to her: more than a jar of water, more than she bargained for, more than she ever imagined. It took a listening ear, and a heart ready and open to receive the astounding gift of God.
God loves a good question, and loves the questioner. What is your question today? What question does your life and soul pose to God? You may receive an answer you expect. But you may receive far more. You may hear silence that takes you to the depths, the depths of your own soul and the depths of God. You may hear strange words today, newness and strength, healing and forgiveness and a new start, a new life. Living water, gushing up, and the voice of One who says “I am.”
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