4 Lent B 2009
(Num 21: 4-9; Ps 107: 1-3, 17-22; Eph 2: 1-10; John 3: 14-21)
Creating is costly for God.
Rabbis long ago told the story that, in the beginning, there was only God, and God was everywhere. In fact God filled all things, and there was no room for anything else. So God voluntarily withdrew and made an open place. In that open space the world came to be.
Creating is costly for God. Healing is even more costly.
Today the Hebrew Scripture tells a bizarre story of how God cures snakebite. The people of God are on their desert journey, and as usual they “grumble” and complain about not enough water and the dull food that God provided. God is stung by their complaints and sends poisonous snakes to sting them back. The people cry out and Moses prays. And God prescribes the strangest cure for snakebite—make a bronze serpent and hold it up, and anyone who looks on the snake will be healed.
The last thing in the world I want to see after a snake-bite is a snake! We could dismiss this story as a tribal tale that remembers sacred snake-images. A number of cultures, including Druid beliefs, associated snakes with healing power. But there is much more in this story than old symbols.
Every day people undergo surgery. We accept the strange notion that in order to heal a body, it is often necessary to wound it, to cut it. And those who seek psychotherapy learn that healing involves exploring their pain, re-visiting those actions and events that gave birth to their symptoms. Only by entering again into their pain do they have hope of healing.
Deep and true healing does not mean fleeing from pain, but rather entering into pain and pain’s source. In the desert the people are wounded by their alienation from God and from one another as they continue to walk towards freedom and encounter their lack of faith and trust. So facing an image of their deep pain in order to be saved from suffering may not be so strange. But what of God in all of this? Where is the God who paid a cost to bring creation itself into being?
The God who sent snakes and then proscribed a healing serpent image is not some cold punishing deity. This God who paid a cost at creation itself loves the people who journey in the wilderness—he hears their cries and set them free, feeds them and carries them. They were made and known and loved in the divine heart who made room for them. This relationship is passionate and committed, it’s a blood-bond, a covenant. Even if God is involved in their suffering, God suffers with them, God feels the pain they feel. That bronze serpent is not some clever symbol made for a people who respond to magic images. It is an ikon meant to express beyond words the God who suffers with his people’s pain. The bronze serpent expresses the wild, strange, wounded heart of the God who takes to heart the pain of his beloved people.
Jesus in John’s Gospel calls himself the bronze serpent. He is lifted on the cross as Moses’ healing serpent was lifted up. God’s wild, wounded, suffering heart is more than a bronze symbol. God made flesh is lifted and wounded and is one with his suffering people. God will be our healing and our hope for ever.
In whatever wilderness in which we walk, in whichever desert, in whatever desolate place that we God’s beloved people find ourselves today, look up. Long ago a strange image was lifted high in front of desperate people in the wilderness, and they were made well. Today look upon the heart of God, lifted up before us on the cross. Look up and know healing, hope, and new life.
archived musings and preachments
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Not alone
2 Lent B 2009
(Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16; Ps 22: 22-30; Rom 4: 13-25; Mark 8: 31-38)
Years ago a young man entered a strict monastery not far from here. He was devout and filled with ideals, and he loved the life he found—the simple diet, the silence, the manual work, the hours of prayer in the church and the private meditation in his cell. He loved it, even after the first glow wore off and he realized he had just done everything that he was going to be doing for the rest of his life. Then three years went by and things just kept getting harder. Each day felt like an uphill climb. He just wanted a change, any change. His life seemed to stretch ahead of him like a bleak desert landscape, featureless and dry. Finally he went to the Abbot and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”
I think of that monk as I hear these readings. We’ve settled into our Lenten walk, and today we hear some straight stuff from Jesus as to what his own walk will be. Not exactly joy and delight—suffering, rejection, and death, and only then resurrection. Peter himself takes him on and, for his pains, gets called “Satan.”
Maybe Peter was scared at the dark, “emo” kind of things his teacher and friend was saying. Maybe in the tense politics of 1st century Palestine Peter knew that all that talk was dangerous. As usual, the Bible doesn’t give us Peter’s inner monologue. Instead, it leaves us with our own.
I had this text before me one night back in the early ‘80’s in the Philippines. The student community and I had decided to stay in the village where we were subject to paramilitary attacks and ambushes. During the silent meditation period late one afternoon, I was reading that part about “those who want to save their life will lose it” when a burst of automatic rifle fire went off a couple of hundred yards away. We sheltered frightened villagers that night, and I waited with the farmers holding their pathetic cultivating knives in the shadow of the chapel while the guerillas crept close enough to silence the crickets in the bushes. To this day, I do not know why they did not fire.
Several weeks later, like the monk with the abbot, I went to my superior and said “I can’t do this.”
Is this bad news, or good news? None of us can shoulder our personal cross alone. No one really “handles” their lives. No one can face their own burdens, their own vulnerabilities, their own challenges alone. We do not have to. We are not meant to. The Gospel is not about our being strong. The Gospel is about God being strong in us.
“I can’t do this anymore,” said the younger monk to the abbot. The abbot grinned, for he had been there before. So has everyone who has tried to follow a Gospel path, to follow Jesus amidst the stresses and challenges of their own lives and that of a world indifferent to the Gospel’s strange power. “Good,” replied the abbot. “Stop trying. Just keep showing up for stuff.” After thirteen years, the monk is still there.
Keep showing up—to our lives, to our faith, to our God. It’s not a magic formula, it does not make everything feel all right. But everything is somehow different. We let God be God when we let go of trying to get it clear and get it right and instead journey humbly with one another, listening, praying for the grace to love another day, pray another day, trust another day.
Old Abram in the desert had come a long way, and was tired and squinty-eyed from looking at the sun. Sarai was way beyond the stresses and changes of pregnancy and childbearing in the desert. But they were not done. They trusted in the one who spoke. New names, an old promise made new, new life and new strength to live it. When we let God be strong, we set free the strange power of the Gospel. We set free Christ’s power to transform us, transform the world.
(Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16; Ps 22: 22-30; Rom 4: 13-25; Mark 8: 31-38)
Years ago a young man entered a strict monastery not far from here. He was devout and filled with ideals, and he loved the life he found—the simple diet, the silence, the manual work, the hours of prayer in the church and the private meditation in his cell. He loved it, even after the first glow wore off and he realized he had just done everything that he was going to be doing for the rest of his life. Then three years went by and things just kept getting harder. Each day felt like an uphill climb. He just wanted a change, any change. His life seemed to stretch ahead of him like a bleak desert landscape, featureless and dry. Finally he went to the Abbot and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”
I think of that monk as I hear these readings. We’ve settled into our Lenten walk, and today we hear some straight stuff from Jesus as to what his own walk will be. Not exactly joy and delight—suffering, rejection, and death, and only then resurrection. Peter himself takes him on and, for his pains, gets called “Satan.”
Maybe Peter was scared at the dark, “emo” kind of things his teacher and friend was saying. Maybe in the tense politics of 1st century Palestine Peter knew that all that talk was dangerous. As usual, the Bible doesn’t give us Peter’s inner monologue. Instead, it leaves us with our own.
I had this text before me one night back in the early ‘80’s in the Philippines. The student community and I had decided to stay in the village where we were subject to paramilitary attacks and ambushes. During the silent meditation period late one afternoon, I was reading that part about “those who want to save their life will lose it” when a burst of automatic rifle fire went off a couple of hundred yards away. We sheltered frightened villagers that night, and I waited with the farmers holding their pathetic cultivating knives in the shadow of the chapel while the guerillas crept close enough to silence the crickets in the bushes. To this day, I do not know why they did not fire.
Several weeks later, like the monk with the abbot, I went to my superior and said “I can’t do this.”
Is this bad news, or good news? None of us can shoulder our personal cross alone. No one really “handles” their lives. No one can face their own burdens, their own vulnerabilities, their own challenges alone. We do not have to. We are not meant to. The Gospel is not about our being strong. The Gospel is about God being strong in us.
“I can’t do this anymore,” said the younger monk to the abbot. The abbot grinned, for he had been there before. So has everyone who has tried to follow a Gospel path, to follow Jesus amidst the stresses and challenges of their own lives and that of a world indifferent to the Gospel’s strange power. “Good,” replied the abbot. “Stop trying. Just keep showing up for stuff.” After thirteen years, the monk is still there.
Keep showing up—to our lives, to our faith, to our God. It’s not a magic formula, it does not make everything feel all right. But everything is somehow different. We let God be God when we let go of trying to get it clear and get it right and instead journey humbly with one another, listening, praying for the grace to love another day, pray another day, trust another day.
Old Abram in the desert had come a long way, and was tired and squinty-eyed from looking at the sun. Sarai was way beyond the stresses and changes of pregnancy and childbearing in the desert. But they were not done. They trusted in the one who spoke. New names, an old promise made new, new life and new strength to live it. When we let God be strong, we set free the strange power of the Gospel. We set free Christ’s power to transform us, transform the world.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Temptation
1 Lent B 2009
Genesis 9: 8-17; Ps 25; 1 Peter 3: 18-22; Mark 1: 9-13
I have had two great temptations.
One happened at my diaconal ordination. Seven of us stood in the impressive sanctuary of St. James Cathedral a great deal of fuss was made over us. A tall and stately bishop pressed his hands on our heads, we were vested in finery, and finally we stood proudly in front of a packed house while people applauded. Then a voice from somewhere said quietly, “Congratulations. You really are this, the lights, the vestments, the attention, the applause. You really are a little better than average.”
This temptation still happens, at least once a week, only without the bishop and the cathedral.
The other temptation happened when I left my old Catholic Order. The first job I had was a pretty good match, but I resigned after a serious disagreement with the boss. My second job I quit because I hated it and I was terrible at it. So that year I was unemployed over Christmas and I had no idea what to do with the rest of my professional life. A voice came to me again—“You’re really no good at much of anything useful, you know. You’re just not worth a lot.”
You’re better than the rest. You’re nothing. This is the face of temptation, at least for me, and for many of us. Serious temptation is not the urge to do naughty things. Temptation is not the urge to ask “What would Ned Flanders do?” and feel bad when we don’t do it. Serious temptation is the strange attraction to be something other than who we are, to trade the gift of our basic selves for anything else, anything less.
We are the beloved of God. We are bound to the God of heaven and of earth. We are in the image of God, participate in the nature of God, are in the process of becoming God.
The sole purpose of the Bible is to shout that good news in our ears. The Noah-story cries out that the deepest truth is not that of reward and punishment. God so loves us that God swears there will be no more flood to punish, no divine attempt to hit the “reset” button for humanity. God swears this. We live under the rainbow of that promise.
We are the beloved of God. God sets us free. Christ has taken all the basic temptations we face upon himself. His ministry began with his baptism, where he heard that astonishing voice—“You are my Beloved.” Then, Spirit drives him to the desert. Beloved, desert, temptation all live together in one mystery. And there are others with him—wild beasts, and angels. Jesus shows us the way to liberation, and takes us with him, so it is we who heard the voice saying “Beloved”, it is we who are driven into the desert, it is we who pass through temptation, it is we who emerge with Jesus transformed.
But the mystery is, we still need to walk our own path of temptation.
We walk it with complete hope, since strangely enough the victory is already won. But we each walk our path to make the victory our own. We each hear temptation’s voice—“You really are different from everyone else”, or “you really are nothing.” It’s one and the same.
When Spirit drives us into the desert this Lent, know that it is a Spirit-path we walk. Welcome the wild beasts, the earthy wild wondrous truth of our own nature and the wondrous freedom of the wild world. Welcome the angels, who come in many forms, who love disguises, but who will help us when we are most in need.
And hold close the echo of that wondrous voice—“You are my Beloved.” These are the words and this is the Speaker that transforms the desert into the place where we find our home.
Genesis 9: 8-17; Ps 25; 1 Peter 3: 18-22; Mark 1: 9-13
I have had two great temptations.
One happened at my diaconal ordination. Seven of us stood in the impressive sanctuary of St. James Cathedral a great deal of fuss was made over us. A tall and stately bishop pressed his hands on our heads, we were vested in finery, and finally we stood proudly in front of a packed house while people applauded. Then a voice from somewhere said quietly, “Congratulations. You really are this, the lights, the vestments, the attention, the applause. You really are a little better than average.”
This temptation still happens, at least once a week, only without the bishop and the cathedral.
The other temptation happened when I left my old Catholic Order. The first job I had was a pretty good match, but I resigned after a serious disagreement with the boss. My second job I quit because I hated it and I was terrible at it. So that year I was unemployed over Christmas and I had no idea what to do with the rest of my professional life. A voice came to me again—“You’re really no good at much of anything useful, you know. You’re just not worth a lot.”
You’re better than the rest. You’re nothing. This is the face of temptation, at least for me, and for many of us. Serious temptation is not the urge to do naughty things. Temptation is not the urge to ask “What would Ned Flanders do?” and feel bad when we don’t do it. Serious temptation is the strange attraction to be something other than who we are, to trade the gift of our basic selves for anything else, anything less.
We are the beloved of God. We are bound to the God of heaven and of earth. We are in the image of God, participate in the nature of God, are in the process of becoming God.
The sole purpose of the Bible is to shout that good news in our ears. The Noah-story cries out that the deepest truth is not that of reward and punishment. God so loves us that God swears there will be no more flood to punish, no divine attempt to hit the “reset” button for humanity. God swears this. We live under the rainbow of that promise.
We are the beloved of God. God sets us free. Christ has taken all the basic temptations we face upon himself. His ministry began with his baptism, where he heard that astonishing voice—“You are my Beloved.” Then, Spirit drives him to the desert. Beloved, desert, temptation all live together in one mystery. And there are others with him—wild beasts, and angels. Jesus shows us the way to liberation, and takes us with him, so it is we who heard the voice saying “Beloved”, it is we who are driven into the desert, it is we who pass through temptation, it is we who emerge with Jesus transformed.
But the mystery is, we still need to walk our own path of temptation.
We walk it with complete hope, since strangely enough the victory is already won. But we each walk our path to make the victory our own. We each hear temptation’s voice—“You really are different from everyone else”, or “you really are nothing.” It’s one and the same.
When Spirit drives us into the desert this Lent, know that it is a Spirit-path we walk. Welcome the wild beasts, the earthy wild wondrous truth of our own nature and the wondrous freedom of the wild world. Welcome the angels, who come in many forms, who love disguises, but who will help us when we are most in need.
And hold close the echo of that wondrous voice—“You are my Beloved.” These are the words and this is the Speaker that transforms the desert into the place where we find our home.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
of leprosy, pain, and healing
6 Epiphany B 2009
(2 Kings 5: 1-14; Ps 30; 1 Cor 9: 24-27; Mark 1: 40-45)
Do we want to be healed?
Scott Peck said that most people really did not want to be healed. Many people came to see Scott for psychotherapy. All said they wanted to be healed. But soon it became obvious that what they wanted was for the pain to go away, for the symptoms to vanish. To be healed, said Scott, is different. Healing costs something. To be healed means to learn something new about the world, about ourselves, and about God. To be healed means to get up and go on a journey. To be healed means to change. And that can be hard.
Pain is a terrible thing. But pain can be a good angel. Pain tells us that something is wrong and that we need to be healed. We need to get up and do something, go on a journey, and change. Lepers feel no pain, and that’s not good. Lepers do not know when they are bleeding and when their wounds are infected and need to be cleansed.
Naaman the Aramean in today’s tale was a leper. As a leper he felt no pain in his body. But I think he felt a leper’s pain, the pain of shame and isolation and fear. He must have been at the end of his rope, because on the word of a slave he got up and took a long and dangerous journey to the land of his enemies, to Israel. The Israelite King thought his search was a cruel joke. But Naaman pushed past the king’s cynicism and fear and found the prophet. Even at the end Namaan almost turned away from the way of healing. He let pride and his own expectations and even his racism get the better of him. What, no hocus pocus? No magic wand? Just wash in this puny little Jewish river? Again it was his servants who called him to his senses. Namaan listened humbly to his own servants. Hope, a journey, seeking the divine word, overcoming his own expectations, and finally humility all had their way. And the painless leper with a pain-filled soul was healed.
Do we want to be healed? Are we called to go on a journey? As individuals? As a church? What expectations must we lay aside, what prejudices, what fears? Who calls us to humility and to accept the healing that only God can give?
And who are we when we’re called to heal?
The healing in the Gospel, again with a leper, is one of Jesus’ first healings. It’s easy to miss what happens to Jesus while we watch the leper. Our version says Jesus was “moved with pity”, but the word actually means “his guts were moved.” Some translate this “pity”, “compassion”, or even “anger.” All these reactions were present, I think, as Jesus faced this ravaged, hideous, unclean man. And yet, out of that, Jesus heals. “I want it, I will it, be clean!”
By being fully in the world, by being completely himself, fully human, with all his human complexity, Jesus heals. So we can be healed and healers too.
So much goes unhealed in ourselves and in our world when we lack this authenticity, when we are not fully present to our own lives, when we are not authentic and present to our own world. We keep things safe when we do not name and face our own pain and the pain of others and the world. But then, no one is healed, no wounds are exposed, and God who is Truth cannot make truth and set healing loose in the world.
To follow Christ is to follow the one who is truth and who is fully present to the world as it is. To be healed is to arise and follow the One who asks us to seek, to name, and to listen humbly as to how we are to change.
(2 Kings 5: 1-14; Ps 30; 1 Cor 9: 24-27; Mark 1: 40-45)
Do we want to be healed?
Scott Peck said that most people really did not want to be healed. Many people came to see Scott for psychotherapy. All said they wanted to be healed. But soon it became obvious that what they wanted was for the pain to go away, for the symptoms to vanish. To be healed, said Scott, is different. Healing costs something. To be healed means to learn something new about the world, about ourselves, and about God. To be healed means to get up and go on a journey. To be healed means to change. And that can be hard.
Pain is a terrible thing. But pain can be a good angel. Pain tells us that something is wrong and that we need to be healed. We need to get up and do something, go on a journey, and change. Lepers feel no pain, and that’s not good. Lepers do not know when they are bleeding and when their wounds are infected and need to be cleansed.
Naaman the Aramean in today’s tale was a leper. As a leper he felt no pain in his body. But I think he felt a leper’s pain, the pain of shame and isolation and fear. He must have been at the end of his rope, because on the word of a slave he got up and took a long and dangerous journey to the land of his enemies, to Israel. The Israelite King thought his search was a cruel joke. But Naaman pushed past the king’s cynicism and fear and found the prophet. Even at the end Namaan almost turned away from the way of healing. He let pride and his own expectations and even his racism get the better of him. What, no hocus pocus? No magic wand? Just wash in this puny little Jewish river? Again it was his servants who called him to his senses. Namaan listened humbly to his own servants. Hope, a journey, seeking the divine word, overcoming his own expectations, and finally humility all had their way. And the painless leper with a pain-filled soul was healed.
Do we want to be healed? Are we called to go on a journey? As individuals? As a church? What expectations must we lay aside, what prejudices, what fears? Who calls us to humility and to accept the healing that only God can give?
And who are we when we’re called to heal?
The healing in the Gospel, again with a leper, is one of Jesus’ first healings. It’s easy to miss what happens to Jesus while we watch the leper. Our version says Jesus was “moved with pity”, but the word actually means “his guts were moved.” Some translate this “pity”, “compassion”, or even “anger.” All these reactions were present, I think, as Jesus faced this ravaged, hideous, unclean man. And yet, out of that, Jesus heals. “I want it, I will it, be clean!”
By being fully in the world, by being completely himself, fully human, with all his human complexity, Jesus heals. So we can be healed and healers too.
So much goes unhealed in ourselves and in our world when we lack this authenticity, when we are not fully present to our own lives, when we are not authentic and present to our own world. We keep things safe when we do not name and face our own pain and the pain of others and the world. But then, no one is healed, no wounds are exposed, and God who is Truth cannot make truth and set healing loose in the world.
To follow Christ is to follow the one who is truth and who is fully present to the world as it is. To be healed is to arise and follow the One who asks us to seek, to name, and to listen humbly as to how we are to change.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
slave or free?
5 Epiphany B 2009
(Isaiah 40: 21-31; Ps 147: 1-12, 21c; 1 Cor 9: 16-23; Mark 1: 29-39)
Who is a slave, and who is free?
Today we prayed to be set free from bondage. “Liberation” was a common word back in the Chicago of my passionate younger days. The God of the Bible is a God of liberation, and we proclaimed this daily in our prayers and in our protests. It was all good and important and true—the key moment of the Old Testament is God’s freeing of Israel from slavery, and the key moment of the New is Jesus breaking the slavery of death.
But there was yet a deeper liberation for which we longed. When I was younger I was freer than I am now in many ways—free of obligations, free of debt, free to imagine my life as an endless blank slate of possibilities. Now my shoulders bow a little more under my responsibilities. But I have this odd dark sense that I am somehow freer now than I was then.
The prayer does not leave it at “liberation”—there’s that note about “the bondage of our sins.” My cloudy sense of deeper freedom has nothing to do with my having “less sin.” Maybe it has to do with more self-awareness—I have fewer illusions about my mixed motivations, the self-interest behind even some of my more generous-seeming moments. Maybe it has to do with knowing my basic need, my need for God, for grace, for the liberation that only God provides. Free from self—not self-hatred, but free of making myself the center of the world.
Some of the people I have known who have been the freest according to the world’s standards—“independently wealthy”, free of obligations, able to pick up and go where they wished when they wished—have been the least happy, have been prisoners of boredom and lack of meaning and above all lonely.
On the other hand, my mother wrote in her journal that we found after her death—“My days are exhausting. There are little thanks. But if anyone reads this, know that I was not trapped in this house and with this family. I could have packed a suitcase any day and walked out, and once or twice I almost did. But I freely chose to stay, and I am glad I did.”
Following Christ is the mystery of how to be truly free.
God sees and God knows, sings Isaiah. God’s strength does not fade like the polish on a silver bowl, like the bright color of a silk robe. “Those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
A woman lay dying last year, tired and in pain. She had the most marvelous time dying , receiving visitors like she was the Queen Mum, telling terrible jokes. “I had a wonderful life, and I have no regrets” she said. Wings of eagles, indeed.
Paul’s words are full of the language of obligation. “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” But Paul was not running in terror to serve an angry, demanding God. Paul was a man enchanted, a man living in awe, not fear. He wanted to be immersed forever in the mystery that he had glimpsed.
I’ve met some deeply free people, people who live a freedom that has nothing to do with status or independent wealth.
One was a woman, have a great time dying. One was my mother, worn with parenting six ungrateful boys. Some more are at Brigid’s Table or Rahab’s Sisters, who carry the cross of their lives with courage and joy, who bear hideous pain and real slavery yet dare to hope for something more. And some who do nothing more than live in simple faith, do their work, love those who are in their charge, love and wonder at God.
Some are monks, who watch no TV, do not leave their monastery, do not speak except for chanting psalms, who have doctorates yet work with their hands. They are some of the freest men I’ve ever met.
To be truly free is to know that our freedom comes from a deeper wellspring even than our own hearts and souls.
To be truly free is to be freedom for others.
To be truly free is to let God’s freedom come alive in our hearts, our hands, and our world.
Another prayer says, “God, to know you is eternal life. To serve you is perfect freedom.”
(Isaiah 40: 21-31; Ps 147: 1-12, 21c; 1 Cor 9: 16-23; Mark 1: 29-39)
Who is a slave, and who is free?
Today we prayed to be set free from bondage. “Liberation” was a common word back in the Chicago of my passionate younger days. The God of the Bible is a God of liberation, and we proclaimed this daily in our prayers and in our protests. It was all good and important and true—the key moment of the Old Testament is God’s freeing of Israel from slavery, and the key moment of the New is Jesus breaking the slavery of death.
But there was yet a deeper liberation for which we longed. When I was younger I was freer than I am now in many ways—free of obligations, free of debt, free to imagine my life as an endless blank slate of possibilities. Now my shoulders bow a little more under my responsibilities. But I have this odd dark sense that I am somehow freer now than I was then.
The prayer does not leave it at “liberation”—there’s that note about “the bondage of our sins.” My cloudy sense of deeper freedom has nothing to do with my having “less sin.” Maybe it has to do with more self-awareness—I have fewer illusions about my mixed motivations, the self-interest behind even some of my more generous-seeming moments. Maybe it has to do with knowing my basic need, my need for God, for grace, for the liberation that only God provides. Free from self—not self-hatred, but free of making myself the center of the world.
Some of the people I have known who have been the freest according to the world’s standards—“independently wealthy”, free of obligations, able to pick up and go where they wished when they wished—have been the least happy, have been prisoners of boredom and lack of meaning and above all lonely.
On the other hand, my mother wrote in her journal that we found after her death—“My days are exhausting. There are little thanks. But if anyone reads this, know that I was not trapped in this house and with this family. I could have packed a suitcase any day and walked out, and once or twice I almost did. But I freely chose to stay, and I am glad I did.”
Following Christ is the mystery of how to be truly free.
God sees and God knows, sings Isaiah. God’s strength does not fade like the polish on a silver bowl, like the bright color of a silk robe. “Those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
A woman lay dying last year, tired and in pain. She had the most marvelous time dying , receiving visitors like she was the Queen Mum, telling terrible jokes. “I had a wonderful life, and I have no regrets” she said. Wings of eagles, indeed.
Paul’s words are full of the language of obligation. “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” But Paul was not running in terror to serve an angry, demanding God. Paul was a man enchanted, a man living in awe, not fear. He wanted to be immersed forever in the mystery that he had glimpsed.
I’ve met some deeply free people, people who live a freedom that has nothing to do with status or independent wealth.
One was a woman, have a great time dying. One was my mother, worn with parenting six ungrateful boys. Some more are at Brigid’s Table or Rahab’s Sisters, who carry the cross of their lives with courage and joy, who bear hideous pain and real slavery yet dare to hope for something more. And some who do nothing more than live in simple faith, do their work, love those who are in their charge, love and wonder at God.
Some are monks, who watch no TV, do not leave their monastery, do not speak except for chanting psalms, who have doctorates yet work with their hands. They are some of the freest men I’ve ever met.
To be truly free is to know that our freedom comes from a deeper wellspring even than our own hearts and souls.
To be truly free is to be freedom for others.
To be truly free is to let God’s freedom come alive in our hearts, our hands, and our world.
Another prayer says, “God, to know you is eternal life. To serve you is perfect freedom.”
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Annual Address 2009--Called
Annual Address 2009 (3 Epiph B)
(Jonah 3: 1-5; Ps 62: 6-14; 1 Cor 7: 29-31; Mark 1: 14-20)
All we’re asked to do is to follow Jesus when he calls.
A number of us wrestled this past week with what it means to be called by Jesus. This is some of what emerged: To be called means to be known by name. To be called means we are asked to respond, to get up and do. To be called means that we are asked to live the deep mystery of our own lives, and the deep mystery of the life of the one who calls. To be called means to live in trust, to walk in faith.
Jonah was called to speak strange words of God to hostile people. He was famous for his reluctance and for how God’s call to him never stopped. Jesus was himself called, and Jesus called others. No outline of a plan, no five or ten year goals. I wonder if there were others who were called and who did not respond to Jesus. The ones we know by name were the ones who got up “immediately” and followed, without knowing the five or ten year plan.
Is Saints Peter and Paul a called community? And to what life are we called? It’s not enough to say, “Of course we’re called. We’re a church!” Some churches do not ask these questions. Some do not listen to God whispering the answers.
How has God whispered to us since last Annual Meeting?
We have grown and deepened, I believe. We have welcomed the awesome gifts of people come among us who are helping to re-imagine our ministries with children and youth, music and worship, outreach to the poor, and deepening our ongoing formation in Christ. These ministries are visible in a deeper joy and higher visibility of children and youth, with a revived catechumenate, with music enriched by the gifts of the community, with new ways for the Companions and Culdees of Columba to share life and fellowship, with new and ongoing outreach programs. We have a hunger for God and Christ and a deep joy in our fellowship with one another. That hunger and that joy is tangible. We have pursued a mission among Hispanic folks and that congregation is growing and is vital.
Others are drawn to this life we share. The parish and The Columba Center received an Ecumenical Service Award this past May. Pilgrims seek us out, who have heard of our outreach work or the spirituality lived in our worship or of the Celtic note we strike.
Our journey has had its measure of struggle and pain. During my sabbatical parish leadership coped with the challenge of a fistfight at Brigid’s Table and made hard decisions in the aftermath. Maybe that’s why “I Survived The Sabbatical” t-shirts were given to the wardens! We continue to struggle with budget and money concerns. We said good-by to a number of dear old friends, faithful members, and one former member: Chuck Reese, Ruth Sommerville, Cythia Brown, Sally Shore, Evelyn Coulter, John Rice, Bob Cockburn, Brian Russell, Marjorie Purcell, and Art Roddy. May they rest in Jesus.
We all have a sense of our world changing rapidly. The language of change is everywhere. Portions of our economy collapse, and we need only look around us this morning to see people who have been directly impacted. Many of us have a sense that together we need to take a new path. But there is hope.
Hope was spoken aloud as the nation and world was electrified by the past election. No matter how we voted, we were moved by the language and longing for hope. The world spoke of America turning down a new path. People of non-European lineage stared with joy at the first African-descended President, and spoke of hope.
I think all hope is grounded in humanity’s deepest belief that all our lives have worth and meaning and that we are the free children of God, loved beyond measure. And God shall call and we shall follow until God will be all in all.
Are we a called community? How may that take flesh this year?
If we are a called community, we will live the outrageous love of God openly and visibly and seek new ways to make that loved life visible. The world is changing, and how we are visible to those called to find us needs to change as well.
If we are a called community, we shall fully welcome those who do come to us and take the adventure that their presence and gifts offer. This year six Vestry seats open, and with prayer and discernment the nominating committee spoke to many and six responded. Of those six, three are less than age thirty, and all but one have been among us less than five years. It used to be that Saints Peter and Paul had a way of letting people know that they were “newbies” for at least five years. That vestige of older church culture has come to an end and needs to come to an end.
If we are a called community, we will continue to develop the Hispanic component of our parish and let their increasing presence change us as God wills.
If we are a called community, we will keep asking ourselves what it means to be a church in this era called by some “post-modern.” I do believe that we are called to be a community living a classic Trinitarian faith, rooted in the Word and the sacraments, deeply appreciative of our Anglican and Catholic heritage. But I also think that when we quietly and prayerfully examine various parts of our life, “we’ve always done it this way” is not a good enough answer. We need to speak in new ways, reach out to new people, seek new ways to celebrate and to serve.
The time is short, as Paul says today. There is a sense of urgency to our life. We have a great gift and we are called to live it with passion and with joy. We may have a reprieve on money matters for one more year. This year will soon be over and we need to ask ourselves what God calls Saints Peter and Paul to be and to do with a stressed budget amidst a wounded economy. For the world is hurting. It’s tempting to make Annual Meeting all about our internal affairs. But as William Temple said, the church is the only organization which exists for those who are not yet members. We are Christ in the world. Only God could come up with such an impractical way to work. To be a called community is to listen and to respond. We don’t know where it will all end. But I am naïve enough to believe that if we listen and follow, we will walk with Jesus and will never be left alone. That’s all we’re called to do and to be when all is said and done.
(Jonah 3: 1-5; Ps 62: 6-14; 1 Cor 7: 29-31; Mark 1: 14-20)
All we’re asked to do is to follow Jesus when he calls.
A number of us wrestled this past week with what it means to be called by Jesus. This is some of what emerged: To be called means to be known by name. To be called means we are asked to respond, to get up and do. To be called means that we are asked to live the deep mystery of our own lives, and the deep mystery of the life of the one who calls. To be called means to live in trust, to walk in faith.
Jonah was called to speak strange words of God to hostile people. He was famous for his reluctance and for how God’s call to him never stopped. Jesus was himself called, and Jesus called others. No outline of a plan, no five or ten year goals. I wonder if there were others who were called and who did not respond to Jesus. The ones we know by name were the ones who got up “immediately” and followed, without knowing the five or ten year plan.
Is Saints Peter and Paul a called community? And to what life are we called? It’s not enough to say, “Of course we’re called. We’re a church!” Some churches do not ask these questions. Some do not listen to God whispering the answers.
How has God whispered to us since last Annual Meeting?
We have grown and deepened, I believe. We have welcomed the awesome gifts of people come among us who are helping to re-imagine our ministries with children and youth, music and worship, outreach to the poor, and deepening our ongoing formation in Christ. These ministries are visible in a deeper joy and higher visibility of children and youth, with a revived catechumenate, with music enriched by the gifts of the community, with new ways for the Companions and Culdees of Columba to share life and fellowship, with new and ongoing outreach programs. We have a hunger for God and Christ and a deep joy in our fellowship with one another. That hunger and that joy is tangible. We have pursued a mission among Hispanic folks and that congregation is growing and is vital.
Others are drawn to this life we share. The parish and The Columba Center received an Ecumenical Service Award this past May. Pilgrims seek us out, who have heard of our outreach work or the spirituality lived in our worship or of the Celtic note we strike.
Our journey has had its measure of struggle and pain. During my sabbatical parish leadership coped with the challenge of a fistfight at Brigid’s Table and made hard decisions in the aftermath. Maybe that’s why “I Survived The Sabbatical” t-shirts were given to the wardens! We continue to struggle with budget and money concerns. We said good-by to a number of dear old friends, faithful members, and one former member: Chuck Reese, Ruth Sommerville, Cythia Brown, Sally Shore, Evelyn Coulter, John Rice, Bob Cockburn, Brian Russell, Marjorie Purcell, and Art Roddy. May they rest in Jesus.
We all have a sense of our world changing rapidly. The language of change is everywhere. Portions of our economy collapse, and we need only look around us this morning to see people who have been directly impacted. Many of us have a sense that together we need to take a new path. But there is hope.
Hope was spoken aloud as the nation and world was electrified by the past election. No matter how we voted, we were moved by the language and longing for hope. The world spoke of America turning down a new path. People of non-European lineage stared with joy at the first African-descended President, and spoke of hope.
I think all hope is grounded in humanity’s deepest belief that all our lives have worth and meaning and that we are the free children of God, loved beyond measure. And God shall call and we shall follow until God will be all in all.
Are we a called community? How may that take flesh this year?
If we are a called community, we will live the outrageous love of God openly and visibly and seek new ways to make that loved life visible. The world is changing, and how we are visible to those called to find us needs to change as well.
If we are a called community, we shall fully welcome those who do come to us and take the adventure that their presence and gifts offer. This year six Vestry seats open, and with prayer and discernment the nominating committee spoke to many and six responded. Of those six, three are less than age thirty, and all but one have been among us less than five years. It used to be that Saints Peter and Paul had a way of letting people know that they were “newbies” for at least five years. That vestige of older church culture has come to an end and needs to come to an end.
If we are a called community, we will continue to develop the Hispanic component of our parish and let their increasing presence change us as God wills.
If we are a called community, we will keep asking ourselves what it means to be a church in this era called by some “post-modern.” I do believe that we are called to be a community living a classic Trinitarian faith, rooted in the Word and the sacraments, deeply appreciative of our Anglican and Catholic heritage. But I also think that when we quietly and prayerfully examine various parts of our life, “we’ve always done it this way” is not a good enough answer. We need to speak in new ways, reach out to new people, seek new ways to celebrate and to serve.
The time is short, as Paul says today. There is a sense of urgency to our life. We have a great gift and we are called to live it with passion and with joy. We may have a reprieve on money matters for one more year. This year will soon be over and we need to ask ourselves what God calls Saints Peter and Paul to be and to do with a stressed budget amidst a wounded economy. For the world is hurting. It’s tempting to make Annual Meeting all about our internal affairs. But as William Temple said, the church is the only organization which exists for those who are not yet members. We are Christ in the world. Only God could come up with such an impractical way to work. To be a called community is to listen and to respond. We don’t know where it will all end. But I am naïve enough to believe that if we listen and follow, we will walk with Jesus and will never be left alone. That’s all we’re called to do and to be when all is said and done.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Hearing and Meeting
2 Epiphany B 2009
(1 Sam 3: 1-10; Ps 139: 1-5, 12-17; 1 Cor 6: 12-20; John 1: 43-51)
Do we hear the voice of God? Do we answer, “Of course!” or “of course not!” or “I don’t know what that means.” We read texts that tell of God speaking. God IS speech in our tradition, God is word. But what do we believe about the voice of God? Not God’s speech to the holy and the famous, but God’s speech to us, to you and to me. Do we hear the voice of God?
Do we hear in the Bible the voice of God? Does Samuel’s story help us hear? This IS a story of speaking and hearing. We hear “the Word of the Lord was rare in those days”, a statement which has always made me feel at home. This story is set in a temple and the boy was a priest, but even then Samuel did not know that God was speaking. His sleep is disturbed, and he thinks the old man Eli is calling. It also takes old Eli time to believe that God may still speak and that it is the boy, not him, who is being addressed. He does tell Samuel to listen and what to say back.
What wakes us up in the middle of the night? What is hidden in the speech or silence we hear? Is it in our own pain or our own joy where God’s speech is hidden? Where else do we hear the voice of God? The speech of God is a hidden speech. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that any God that would let us prove his existence is an idol. The speech of God is no easier to prove. The speech of God may be subtle and soft, but when heard it can move hearts and change lives. Perhaps to be a person of faith is to believe that God’s speech is still possible. A world in which God may speak is a world with hope. A world in which God may speak is where power or wealth or despair or death does not have the last word. A world in which God may speak is a world where all our assumptions may be upset. A world in which God may speak is where faithful hearts are listening hearts. Do we hear the voice of God?
Have we ever met Jesus and what does that mean?
Today’s Gospel tells about meeting Jesus. Jesus decides to go to Galilee, he does not say why. Before he goes he finds Philip and says, without explaining what it will mean, “Follow me.” Philip follows by finding Nathaniel and asks him to come see Jesus. Nathaniel does not buy it and Jesus likes that. Jesus says he saw Nate under a fig tree, and Nate bursts out with that statement of faith—“Son of God! King of Israel!” Why? Two different groups in my hearing this past week wondered why. And Jesus tells Nate that he’ll see greater things still—just like Jacob long ago, Nate will see angels rising and descending, not on some stone in the wilderness, but on the mysterious Son of Man.
What does it mean to meet Jesus? Did we meet Jesus in our own face or in the face of another, in prayer or worship, sacrament, speech, or silence? Was it once only or does it still happen? One seeker told me that they wished they had not met Jesus because life was simpler before they had. But done is done, and once our hearts and minds have been kindled we find we wish to go deeper and deeper. And then we are surprised when we find our lives changing, our immersion in the community of Jesus deepening, our sense that our life has a new center growing.
And no matter what we have felt, no matter what we have learned, no matter how far we’ve come, Jesus may still come as a stranger and a surprise. I don’t believe that we follow Jesus because we know him. We know Jesus because we follow him, we’ve begun the journey, and we learn of him on the way. Each time we take the road with Jesus, the wonders we find will be greater still.
Have we ever met Jesus and what does that mean? The answer will deepens, and he’ll show us more wonder still.
(1 Sam 3: 1-10; Ps 139: 1-5, 12-17; 1 Cor 6: 12-20; John 1: 43-51)
Do we hear the voice of God? Do we answer, “Of course!” or “of course not!” or “I don’t know what that means.” We read texts that tell of God speaking. God IS speech in our tradition, God is word. But what do we believe about the voice of God? Not God’s speech to the holy and the famous, but God’s speech to us, to you and to me. Do we hear the voice of God?
Do we hear in the Bible the voice of God? Does Samuel’s story help us hear? This IS a story of speaking and hearing. We hear “the Word of the Lord was rare in those days”, a statement which has always made me feel at home. This story is set in a temple and the boy was a priest, but even then Samuel did not know that God was speaking. His sleep is disturbed, and he thinks the old man Eli is calling. It also takes old Eli time to believe that God may still speak and that it is the boy, not him, who is being addressed. He does tell Samuel to listen and what to say back.
What wakes us up in the middle of the night? What is hidden in the speech or silence we hear? Is it in our own pain or our own joy where God’s speech is hidden? Where else do we hear the voice of God? The speech of God is a hidden speech. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that any God that would let us prove his existence is an idol. The speech of God is no easier to prove. The speech of God may be subtle and soft, but when heard it can move hearts and change lives. Perhaps to be a person of faith is to believe that God’s speech is still possible. A world in which God may speak is a world with hope. A world in which God may speak is where power or wealth or despair or death does not have the last word. A world in which God may speak is a world where all our assumptions may be upset. A world in which God may speak is where faithful hearts are listening hearts. Do we hear the voice of God?
Have we ever met Jesus and what does that mean?
Today’s Gospel tells about meeting Jesus. Jesus decides to go to Galilee, he does not say why. Before he goes he finds Philip and says, without explaining what it will mean, “Follow me.” Philip follows by finding Nathaniel and asks him to come see Jesus. Nathaniel does not buy it and Jesus likes that. Jesus says he saw Nate under a fig tree, and Nate bursts out with that statement of faith—“Son of God! King of Israel!” Why? Two different groups in my hearing this past week wondered why. And Jesus tells Nate that he’ll see greater things still—just like Jacob long ago, Nate will see angels rising and descending, not on some stone in the wilderness, but on the mysterious Son of Man.
What does it mean to meet Jesus? Did we meet Jesus in our own face or in the face of another, in prayer or worship, sacrament, speech, or silence? Was it once only or does it still happen? One seeker told me that they wished they had not met Jesus because life was simpler before they had. But done is done, and once our hearts and minds have been kindled we find we wish to go deeper and deeper. And then we are surprised when we find our lives changing, our immersion in the community of Jesus deepening, our sense that our life has a new center growing.
And no matter what we have felt, no matter what we have learned, no matter how far we’ve come, Jesus may still come as a stranger and a surprise. I don’t believe that we follow Jesus because we know him. We know Jesus because we follow him, we’ve begun the journey, and we learn of him on the way. Each time we take the road with Jesus, the wonders we find will be greater still.
Have we ever met Jesus and what does that mean? The answer will deepens, and he’ll show us more wonder still.
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