Today is Our Lady of Guadalupe for our Hispanic brothers and sisters. As I chose to postpone today's Brigid's Breakfast, I drove to the church to post signs and change the voicemail message. On the way I saw the fleet of cars parked all around Ascension RC Church, where the customary dawn Mass and Mananitas for OL of G was celebrated. I am glad she looked after her children and her Misa, at least today and here.
The Canticle "suggested" for Morning Prayer in the BCP is the so-called "Song of the Three Young Men" (BCP 88) One man I respect called this the "song of the actual", as all creation is named and called upon to join in the general chorus, "glorify the Lord." Seems particularly apt today, as Advent waiting and openness, expectancy and quiet is forced upon us when the news channels hum excitedly with a "weather event" and unnecessary travel and restlessness ceases. Church-folk are part of the general agitation--there are things to do always, usually good things, but lots of things nonetheless. It can be a good thing to be compelled, as far as our professions permit, to pause and hear even briefly the song of creation in ourselves and in the world around us.
So we pause, breathe a prayer for those who must travel as well as for those who are without shelter, and welcome just a moment of quiet into our souls. Quiet, in which, without any effort or agitation on our part, the silent Word comes to birth in darkness and in secret, be we man or woman, old or young. Quiet, in which we need do nothing, move nothing, achieve nothing, save make room for the silent One who was born and who is constantly re-born in receptive hearts and in the forgotten places of our world.
Creation can be trusted to keep watch and to sing praise--"glorify the Lord." Pause and we too can hear.
If we continue to be icy, re-check this 'blog for updates. Stay safe.
archived musings and preachments
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
What's really going on?
Proper 28 B 2009
(1 Samuel 1: 4-20; Ps 16; Heb 10: 11-14, 19-25; Mark 13: 1-8)
Once there was a wise teacher of meditation and prayer in the East. It is said that he used to amuse his community of followers from time to time by searching about the monastery, anxiously peering into rooms, under furniture, and into corners. When asked what he was doing, he would say that he was looking for his own body. The students always seemed to think this was hilarious, and, so the story says, “never understood what the teacher was getting at.”
I thought of that story this week as I examined the readings and kept in mind today’s Collect. “All Holy Scripture is written for our learning”, so take a big bite, chew it up, and swallow it down. Well, today we’re given a helping of liver and onions to take in. The Gospel text gives us images that lie deep within the nightmares of the human soul. Wars, earthquakes, famines, and the great Temple itself torn apart like the great buildings of the East Coast were torn apart eight years ago: apocalypse. It’s a deep dread common to us all. That fear—that one day the dreadful violent end will come—gives rise to literature and to entertainment—look at all the disaster movies past and present. Apocalypse always seeks a contemporary plausible face—anyone here remember Y2K? Anyone here plan to see the movie “2012”, supposedly about the disaster predicted by an ancient Mayan calendar? An actual Mayan recently said that he wished people would stop asking him when the world will end—as far as he’s concerned his people ended their calendar at the western year 2012 because they ran out of room on the stone where they were carving the dates! But still, the images and the fear—fed by our own dread and sense of helplessness, fed by the fact that in this world bad things, violent things, seemingly senseless things can and do happen. Above all, we fear that the world and our lives may be ruled by nothing more than random chance, or even a cruel and faceless will.
Apocalypse can be earth-wide and cataclysmic. Usually, however, apocalypse is more personal, a private tragedy. Neither I nor anyone else has the right to make simple clichés or statements about the suffering of another, so trivializing pain that can only be experienced in order to be understood. An example of such pain is the story of Hannah in the Old Testament today. Infertility is a bitter and personal pain. So is living with serious illness or chronic pain, or loss of a loved one, or addiction.
But private or public disaster is not the meaning of the word “apocalypse.” The word actually means “uncovering”, letting us see what’s truly present, what’s truly at work in the world and in our lives.
What’s truly at work is God is in charge, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. What’s truly present is a cloud of witness and a God who loves us beyond measure. What is truly at work is the Spirit changing and renewing us even when we do not see or feel that change.
So what are we to do? How are we to live?
Remember that Eastern spiritual master, and open our eyes to see what is most deeply true about us and about our world. Don’t run madly to look for answers in blind alleys. God is with us, within us, around us. In times of challenge and fear and risk, keep standing on what is firm and unchanging. Know that Jesus has passed before us, and in ways we cannot begin to understand he has walked all our paths before us. Walk with confidence, and walk in the ways that Jesus has taught. Let’s help each other to walk this path, let’s walk with each other through good times and bad alike. And let’s keep gathering together, let’s keep showing up to pray and to be Christ’s body together. We go through our challenges together.
For we are never alone, our lives are never meaningless, and we are never forgotten. Desmond Tutu said it more clearly than do I. “I have some good news,” said Desmond. “I’ve read the book to the end, and guess what? We win.” In spite of all that happens, we are seen, we are known, and we are loved. And like the infant prophet to be born to Hannah, new hope is coming to birth in us in ways we cannot fully understand.
(1 Samuel 1: 4-20; Ps 16; Heb 10: 11-14, 19-25; Mark 13: 1-8)
Once there was a wise teacher of meditation and prayer in the East. It is said that he used to amuse his community of followers from time to time by searching about the monastery, anxiously peering into rooms, under furniture, and into corners. When asked what he was doing, he would say that he was looking for his own body. The students always seemed to think this was hilarious, and, so the story says, “never understood what the teacher was getting at.”
I thought of that story this week as I examined the readings and kept in mind today’s Collect. “All Holy Scripture is written for our learning”, so take a big bite, chew it up, and swallow it down. Well, today we’re given a helping of liver and onions to take in. The Gospel text gives us images that lie deep within the nightmares of the human soul. Wars, earthquakes, famines, and the great Temple itself torn apart like the great buildings of the East Coast were torn apart eight years ago: apocalypse. It’s a deep dread common to us all. That fear—that one day the dreadful violent end will come—gives rise to literature and to entertainment—look at all the disaster movies past and present. Apocalypse always seeks a contemporary plausible face—anyone here remember Y2K? Anyone here plan to see the movie “2012”, supposedly about the disaster predicted by an ancient Mayan calendar? An actual Mayan recently said that he wished people would stop asking him when the world will end—as far as he’s concerned his people ended their calendar at the western year 2012 because they ran out of room on the stone where they were carving the dates! But still, the images and the fear—fed by our own dread and sense of helplessness, fed by the fact that in this world bad things, violent things, seemingly senseless things can and do happen. Above all, we fear that the world and our lives may be ruled by nothing more than random chance, or even a cruel and faceless will.
Apocalypse can be earth-wide and cataclysmic. Usually, however, apocalypse is more personal, a private tragedy. Neither I nor anyone else has the right to make simple clichés or statements about the suffering of another, so trivializing pain that can only be experienced in order to be understood. An example of such pain is the story of Hannah in the Old Testament today. Infertility is a bitter and personal pain. So is living with serious illness or chronic pain, or loss of a loved one, or addiction.
But private or public disaster is not the meaning of the word “apocalypse.” The word actually means “uncovering”, letting us see what’s truly present, what’s truly at work in the world and in our lives.
What’s truly at work is God is in charge, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. What’s truly present is a cloud of witness and a God who loves us beyond measure. What is truly at work is the Spirit changing and renewing us even when we do not see or feel that change.
So what are we to do? How are we to live?
Remember that Eastern spiritual master, and open our eyes to see what is most deeply true about us and about our world. Don’t run madly to look for answers in blind alleys. God is with us, within us, around us. In times of challenge and fear and risk, keep standing on what is firm and unchanging. Know that Jesus has passed before us, and in ways we cannot begin to understand he has walked all our paths before us. Walk with confidence, and walk in the ways that Jesus has taught. Let’s help each other to walk this path, let’s walk with each other through good times and bad alike. And let’s keep gathering together, let’s keep showing up to pray and to be Christ’s body together. We go through our challenges together.
For we are never alone, our lives are never meaningless, and we are never forgotten. Desmond Tutu said it more clearly than do I. “I have some good news,” said Desmond. “I’ve read the book to the end, and guess what? We win.” In spite of all that happens, we are seen, we are known, and we are loved. And like the infant prophet to be born to Hannah, new hope is coming to birth in us in ways we cannot fully understand.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
How did it end?
Proper 27 B 2009
(Ruth 3: 1-5, 4…; Ps 127; Heb 9: 24-28;Mark 12: 38-44)
Some things work out perfectly. The Fall pledge mailing went out Friday, and look what we have here today—that lovely story about the poor woman and her gift of two copper coins!
Like many Gospel stories, we may think we know what this story is all about. That is always dangerous, because there is always something new for us in the Gospel. The lady who gave the small coins is often used as a morality play, an object lesson for generous giving. That’s fine. But there’s something I’ve always resented about this story. What I resent is this—we don’t hear what happened next.
Those folks who poured in big donations, those wealthy philanthropists—hey, big donations are always fun, that’s how new buildings and new projects are funded. But the Gospel is not primarily about fund-raising—the Gospel is about change and transformation. The wealthy folks went home, and I suspect nothing changed. They had an image of themselves as generous people, and that was confirmed. They had been proved in public as generous people. Their lifestyles were unchanged. Their self-images as devout and giving people were…unchanged. If what they wanted was to stay unchanged, then they got a good deal that day.
I have always wanted to know what happened to that poor widow when she got home. It is easy to romanticize this story and her sacrificial giving, and not ask what happened the same night, the next day. How did she live? Did she eat?
Generosity and sacrifice does not always have an immediate payback, the kind we want and expect. But maybe—maybe the woman’s poverty moved someone else, maybe a neighbor, to generosity in turn. Maybe her hunger was an invitation for someone to reach out to her. Random acts of giving have ripple effects, paybacks that we cannot anticipate.
And the woman, and those near her, had the chance to change, to be transformed. The devout members of the people of Israel sometimes called themselves the “anawim”, the poor of God. Sometimes spiritual poverty is just a cliché, a symbol without power. No one could say that the widow’s poverty was just a symbol, that it was without startling power.
The Gospel is a school of practice and of change. Mark Scandrette, teacher in the Emerging church movement, calls a authentic church setting a “Jesus dojo”, borrowing the word for a martial arts practice hall. The dojo only does you good if you show up, if you practice, and if you seek to grow and improve. In a talk entitled “The Five Myths Of Community,” Mark says that one of the myths is that of the “healthy skeptic.” “I used to be this guy,” says Mark. “I didn’t think the local church was ever doing the right thing really, so instead of giving money to my church I gave it for starving children in Africa. And I was always sidling up to the leadership and say, ‘You know, I’m reading this really cool book and I think you should read it too. And I think you should do…’ I was always on the fringe.” He stops, chuckles, and says, “I wasn’t right. I was messed up.”
The Jesus Way, says Mark, the Jesus dojo, is not about endless complaining, but it is a collective. Pitch in, and you will live the life. It is grace-filled and forgiving. Don’t moan about your past journey or the community’s past—instead give thanks. “Make a serious commitment to your present tribe” says Mark. And it’s not cool to suggest that the tribe do something that you yourself are not willing to do. Be direct, be involved, be here now.
Give in a different way. As we do this canvass, how can our giving change us? How can we see what we do with our money to be part of our following the Jesus Way? How can this customary process of talking about goals and money be different, be something that changes us all? And what will we be like the day after, once we’ve gone home?
(Ruth 3: 1-5, 4…; Ps 127; Heb 9: 24-28;Mark 12: 38-44)
Some things work out perfectly. The Fall pledge mailing went out Friday, and look what we have here today—that lovely story about the poor woman and her gift of two copper coins!
Like many Gospel stories, we may think we know what this story is all about. That is always dangerous, because there is always something new for us in the Gospel. The lady who gave the small coins is often used as a morality play, an object lesson for generous giving. That’s fine. But there’s something I’ve always resented about this story. What I resent is this—we don’t hear what happened next.
Those folks who poured in big donations, those wealthy philanthropists—hey, big donations are always fun, that’s how new buildings and new projects are funded. But the Gospel is not primarily about fund-raising—the Gospel is about change and transformation. The wealthy folks went home, and I suspect nothing changed. They had an image of themselves as generous people, and that was confirmed. They had been proved in public as generous people. Their lifestyles were unchanged. Their self-images as devout and giving people were…unchanged. If what they wanted was to stay unchanged, then they got a good deal that day.
I have always wanted to know what happened to that poor widow when she got home. It is easy to romanticize this story and her sacrificial giving, and not ask what happened the same night, the next day. How did she live? Did she eat?
Generosity and sacrifice does not always have an immediate payback, the kind we want and expect. But maybe—maybe the woman’s poverty moved someone else, maybe a neighbor, to generosity in turn. Maybe her hunger was an invitation for someone to reach out to her. Random acts of giving have ripple effects, paybacks that we cannot anticipate.
And the woman, and those near her, had the chance to change, to be transformed. The devout members of the people of Israel sometimes called themselves the “anawim”, the poor of God. Sometimes spiritual poverty is just a cliché, a symbol without power. No one could say that the widow’s poverty was just a symbol, that it was without startling power.
The Gospel is a school of practice and of change. Mark Scandrette, teacher in the Emerging church movement, calls a authentic church setting a “Jesus dojo”, borrowing the word for a martial arts practice hall. The dojo only does you good if you show up, if you practice, and if you seek to grow and improve. In a talk entitled “The Five Myths Of Community,” Mark says that one of the myths is that of the “healthy skeptic.” “I used to be this guy,” says Mark. “I didn’t think the local church was ever doing the right thing really, so instead of giving money to my church I gave it for starving children in Africa. And I was always sidling up to the leadership and say, ‘You know, I’m reading this really cool book and I think you should read it too. And I think you should do…’ I was always on the fringe.” He stops, chuckles, and says, “I wasn’t right. I was messed up.”
The Jesus Way, says Mark, the Jesus dojo, is not about endless complaining, but it is a collective. Pitch in, and you will live the life. It is grace-filled and forgiving. Don’t moan about your past journey or the community’s past—instead give thanks. “Make a serious commitment to your present tribe” says Mark. And it’s not cool to suggest that the tribe do something that you yourself are not willing to do. Be direct, be involved, be here now.
Give in a different way. As we do this canvass, how can our giving change us? How can we see what we do with our money to be part of our following the Jesus Way? How can this customary process of talking about goals and money be different, be something that changes us all? And what will we be like the day after, once we’ve gone home?
Monday, October 26, 2009
take heart
Proper 25 B 2009 (at St. David’s)
(Job 42: 1-6, 10-17; Ps 34: 1-8; Heb 7: 23-28; Mark 10: 46-52)
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
I’m glad to be back here at St. David’s on a Sunday morning. It’s fun to get out of the box, and while your rector is wowing them at SPP I get to spend more time with a community that I feel is deeply bonded to my own.
Bonds and shared history are important. SPP was a mission of St. David’s back when Episcopal churches understood how and why to give birth to new churches. We have a statue of St. David inside our worship space, a reminder of that history and our gratitude. I am a good friend of your former rector John Nesbitt, and he celebrated the 8:00 AM Mass at SPP today. I am also a good friend of your present rector who is preaching at SPP as we speak. Sara and I are co-conspirators as she works for you and with you to help you and God bring forth new life from this place, from this church. I am trying to do the same at SPP. We are both trying to help the Episcopal diocese realize that, as one writer said recently, we have to change if we want to stay the same. If we want to witness to Christ and not bury Christ in our aging building, our old programs, and our daydreaming among our own history, if we want to unlock and open the wonderful treasure-trove which is Anglican-flavored Christianity, with sacrament and liturgy and generous searching intellect and reverence for mystery, then we need to look honestly at ourselves and the people around us and be willing to re-think, re-imagine, and begin again.
You are doing that now. You have held this place in this community and have opened yourselves to the wind of God blowing in new ways. The air is fresh, the place is busy and filled with life, and so I greet you as we re-imagine our lives and take the pilgrimage that Jesus has given us. It is good to be partners with you.
Today we are given this Gospel as a gift to help us do that.
We know this fellow by name—Bartimaeus, which is a mix of Greek and Aramaic meaning Timaeus’ son. He is poor, he has a half-foreign name, and he is blind. In other, more modern words, he is dead in the water and SOL—with no shelter and no way to get something to eat.
All he had was a cloak to help him get both: a raggedy cloak, to pull over his head to ward off the sun and to stretch out in front of him to catch bits of coins and maybe scraps of food. A cloak was a first century equivalent of a shopping cart and a “homeless—please help” sign.
But Bartimaeus has one more thing—a wild hope, a preposterous and desperate hope. “Son of David, have mercy!” Jesus, son of beloved king David, the king whom God swore he would love forever—hear me, see me, have pity on me.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
Take heart—if you feel any fear or doubt, if you are confused about your present and your future seems dark and cloaked—take heart. You are heard, you are seen. Feel new life beating and coursing through your mind, your heart, your soul.
“Get up”—leave the hopeless place you’ve gotten used to. Leave this place, even if you are afraid to move.
“He is calling you.” Do we believe that? Do we each believe that we are called, that our congregations are called, that St. David’s and SPP are called? Called—to mirror Christ, to be transformed, to be the radiant Body of Christ and the liberating presence of God.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” And when we stand, what shall we ask him to do for us?
(Job 42: 1-6, 10-17; Ps 34: 1-8; Heb 7: 23-28; Mark 10: 46-52)
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
I’m glad to be back here at St. David’s on a Sunday morning. It’s fun to get out of the box, and while your rector is wowing them at SPP I get to spend more time with a community that I feel is deeply bonded to my own.
Bonds and shared history are important. SPP was a mission of St. David’s back when Episcopal churches understood how and why to give birth to new churches. We have a statue of St. David inside our worship space, a reminder of that history and our gratitude. I am a good friend of your former rector John Nesbitt, and he celebrated the 8:00 AM Mass at SPP today. I am also a good friend of your present rector who is preaching at SPP as we speak. Sara and I are co-conspirators as she works for you and with you to help you and God bring forth new life from this place, from this church. I am trying to do the same at SPP. We are both trying to help the Episcopal diocese realize that, as one writer said recently, we have to change if we want to stay the same. If we want to witness to Christ and not bury Christ in our aging building, our old programs, and our daydreaming among our own history, if we want to unlock and open the wonderful treasure-trove which is Anglican-flavored Christianity, with sacrament and liturgy and generous searching intellect and reverence for mystery, then we need to look honestly at ourselves and the people around us and be willing to re-think, re-imagine, and begin again.
You are doing that now. You have held this place in this community and have opened yourselves to the wind of God blowing in new ways. The air is fresh, the place is busy and filled with life, and so I greet you as we re-imagine our lives and take the pilgrimage that Jesus has given us. It is good to be partners with you.
Today we are given this Gospel as a gift to help us do that.
We know this fellow by name—Bartimaeus, which is a mix of Greek and Aramaic meaning Timaeus’ son. He is poor, he has a half-foreign name, and he is blind. In other, more modern words, he is dead in the water and SOL—with no shelter and no way to get something to eat.
All he had was a cloak to help him get both: a raggedy cloak, to pull over his head to ward off the sun and to stretch out in front of him to catch bits of coins and maybe scraps of food. A cloak was a first century equivalent of a shopping cart and a “homeless—please help” sign.
But Bartimaeus has one more thing—a wild hope, a preposterous and desperate hope. “Son of David, have mercy!” Jesus, son of beloved king David, the king whom God swore he would love forever—hear me, see me, have pity on me.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
Take heart—if you feel any fear or doubt, if you are confused about your present and your future seems dark and cloaked—take heart. You are heard, you are seen. Feel new life beating and coursing through your mind, your heart, your soul.
“Get up”—leave the hopeless place you’ve gotten used to. Leave this place, even if you are afraid to move.
“He is calling you.” Do we believe that? Do we each believe that we are called, that our congregations are called, that St. David’s and SPP are called? Called—to mirror Christ, to be transformed, to be the radiant Body of Christ and the liberating presence of God.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” And when we stand, what shall we ask him to do for us?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
CeltPub Fuel for Oct 20
CeltPub Conversation fuel—October 20 2009 Lucky Lab 4:30-6:00 P
In the Intro (p. X) Newell writes, “’The whole universe takes part in the dance’” (Jesus) says. Jesus is speaking of a harmony at the heart of life. And he is pointing to a way of moving in relation to all things, even though he knows also the price of living in relation to such a unity.” When and where have you felt the dance? “Moved in relation”? And what is “the price to pay”? Have you ever paid some of that price?
Newell refers to John Scotus Eriugena: “…Christ is our memory. We suffer from the ‘soul’s forgetfulness’, he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.” He goes on to say the relationship of “nature and grace” in the Celtic tradition is not one of opposition but one of relationship and restoration. How does this live along with what you have been taught or inferred from “mainstream” Christian presentations of “nature and grace” if any? What questions, gifts, challenges does this pose from the context of your own life?
Or, talk about what you wish!
At 5:30, we’ll pass around a sheet where you may a) propose other kinds and times of gatherings which b) you are invited to sign your name to offer to host/co-ordinate.
In the Intro (p. X) Newell writes, “’The whole universe takes part in the dance’” (Jesus) says. Jesus is speaking of a harmony at the heart of life. And he is pointing to a way of moving in relation to all things, even though he knows also the price of living in relation to such a unity.” When and where have you felt the dance? “Moved in relation”? And what is “the price to pay”? Have you ever paid some of that price?
Newell refers to John Scotus Eriugena: “…Christ is our memory. We suffer from the ‘soul’s forgetfulness’, he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.” He goes on to say the relationship of “nature and grace” in the Celtic tradition is not one of opposition but one of relationship and restoration. How does this live along with what you have been taught or inferred from “mainstream” Christian presentations of “nature and grace” if any? What questions, gifts, challenges does this pose from the context of your own life?
Or, talk about what you wish!
At 5:30, we’ll pass around a sheet where you may a) propose other kinds and times of gatherings which b) you are invited to sign your name to offer to host/co-ordinate.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Aware
Proper 24 B 2009
(Job 38: 1-7; Ps 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Heb 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45)
“Be aware of your surroundings.”
Last Thursday night I taught our martial arts class. I wanted to do something fun, so in the last ten minutes I had the group divide into four teams and play a game called Tae Kwan Do dodge-ball. At the signal each team attacks the other and spars in a free-for-all. If a point is scored for a clean hit, that person needs to go and stand against the wall. They can only re-join if an active teammate touches them. The last team with one or more active members left wins.
There’s a lot to be learned in martial arts. One intense young man charged his opponents and began to fight furiously with the most challenging person. He was so intent that he ignored a seven-year old kid who slipped around him and delivered a perfect front kick to his spine. “Out!”
The lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. Lift up your eyes. As in martial arts, so in life. We are surrounded by beauty and glory. The seasons change, the year ages in the graceful journey that is autumn. We savor the days, and welcome the promise of new life as an old life passes away and we smile or weep in memory. Be aware.
But are we? Are our days a joy and a revelation, or a burden? Is our life more curse than blessing? Is joy and delight hard to come by?
If we are not watchful, if we do not take care, it is easy to live in the place of scarcity and lack and even resentment that is the temptation of all of us. It is my temptation. At my stage in life my demons have names like “discouragement”, “cynicism”, and “resentment” when life does not turn out the way I thought it should. “My life should be secure and stable now.” “The other people in my life should have gotten a clue by now.” Even “the parish should be all straightened out by now.”
“”Who is this who darkens counsel without understanding?” God’s dialogue with Job is ours as well. “Dark counsel” comes to all of us, when we are sure that the weary resentful voices inside us speak truth.
But if our days are more burden than joy, it may do no good to be harangued by some preacher to “snap out of it.” That just adds to the burden, gives us more things to do.
We need someone to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Jesus, says Hebrews, is “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
There is no burden we carry that has not already been carried by Jesus. There is no cry in the night, there is no agony of soul, there is no silent pain, there is no heaviness of heart that is not also being carried alongside us and within us. The Christ of hope and glory is the Christ who still suffers with his beloved people. As we struggle, as we journey, there is one who is with us and is healing us and is setting us free. Each step we take is not the same as the last. Each step takes us closer to knowing the heart of God.
A professor wrote recently that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a good community who were tired of doing the right thing—tired of being faithful in worship, tired of caring for the poor and needy, tired of keeping the community going one more year, one more month, one more day. Sound familiar? There’s no all-healing special program to address that. But there is Jesus Christ, his overwhelming love, his endless mystery and fascination, his amazing ability to heal and understand and renew and bring what was dead back to life.
Jesus has been to that moment of despair. From it he returns with grace and power to give abundantly to us.
(Job 38: 1-7; Ps 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Heb 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45)
“Be aware of your surroundings.”
Last Thursday night I taught our martial arts class. I wanted to do something fun, so in the last ten minutes I had the group divide into four teams and play a game called Tae Kwan Do dodge-ball. At the signal each team attacks the other and spars in a free-for-all. If a point is scored for a clean hit, that person needs to go and stand against the wall. They can only re-join if an active teammate touches them. The last team with one or more active members left wins.
There’s a lot to be learned in martial arts. One intense young man charged his opponents and began to fight furiously with the most challenging person. He was so intent that he ignored a seven-year old kid who slipped around him and delivered a perfect front kick to his spine. “Out!”
The lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. Lift up your eyes. As in martial arts, so in life. We are surrounded by beauty and glory. The seasons change, the year ages in the graceful journey that is autumn. We savor the days, and welcome the promise of new life as an old life passes away and we smile or weep in memory. Be aware.
But are we? Are our days a joy and a revelation, or a burden? Is our life more curse than blessing? Is joy and delight hard to come by?
If we are not watchful, if we do not take care, it is easy to live in the place of scarcity and lack and even resentment that is the temptation of all of us. It is my temptation. At my stage in life my demons have names like “discouragement”, “cynicism”, and “resentment” when life does not turn out the way I thought it should. “My life should be secure and stable now.” “The other people in my life should have gotten a clue by now.” Even “the parish should be all straightened out by now.”
“”Who is this who darkens counsel without understanding?” God’s dialogue with Job is ours as well. “Dark counsel” comes to all of us, when we are sure that the weary resentful voices inside us speak truth.
But if our days are more burden than joy, it may do no good to be harangued by some preacher to “snap out of it.” That just adds to the burden, gives us more things to do.
We need someone to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Jesus, says Hebrews, is “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
There is no burden we carry that has not already been carried by Jesus. There is no cry in the night, there is no agony of soul, there is no silent pain, there is no heaviness of heart that is not also being carried alongside us and within us. The Christ of hope and glory is the Christ who still suffers with his beloved people. As we struggle, as we journey, there is one who is with us and is healing us and is setting us free. Each step we take is not the same as the last. Each step takes us closer to knowing the heart of God.
A professor wrote recently that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a good community who were tired of doing the right thing—tired of being faithful in worship, tired of caring for the poor and needy, tired of keeping the community going one more year, one more month, one more day. Sound familiar? There’s no all-healing special program to address that. But there is Jesus Christ, his overwhelming love, his endless mystery and fascination, his amazing ability to heal and understand and renew and bring what was dead back to life.
Jesus has been to that moment of despair. From it he returns with grace and power to give abundantly to us.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Impossible
Proper 23 B 2009
(Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps 8; Heb 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31)
After a flood, a young man walked along the swollen riverbank to see the rushing water and the wreckage.
Around a bend in the river, he found an old man standing up to his chest in the dangerous current. The old man was reaching out his hand to a tangle of branches in the midst of the waters. Looking closer, the young man saw a large scorpion clinging to the end of one branch. The young man watched in wonder and horror as the scorpion stung the old man on the hand. After shaking his swollen, bleeding hand, the old man reached out to the scorpion again. And again, and again.
After watching this repetitive drama for some moments, the young man finally burst out, “Leave it alone, you old fool! Let that ungrateful bug drown! He’s not going to appreciate what you’re trying to do, and he will sting you every time!”
The old man turned and looked at the young man with serene eyes in spite of the pain. “It’s in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And it is in my nature to try and save it. Why should I change my own nature?”
Well, this story raises a lot of questions for me. The first is, who is that old man living with living with and why hasn’t he been taking his medication? To rescue an unlovable poisonous insect even though it thanks you with a sting is insane as far as the world is concerned. Lots of words come to mind to dismiss the old man’s behavior—self-destructive, masochistic, even the milder “co-dependent.” I know that as I tell this story faces and situations from my own life and my own ministry come to mind—people who rewarded loving attention with demands for even more attention, or new arrays of problems when the old ones had been resolved, or walking away after absorbing tons of time and attention, sometimes waving one or more fingers behind them as they did. We all can relate, we all have been there. Perhaps we have been on the other side of the fence also, at least once or twice.
We speak about “boundaries” and “tough love” and “taking care of ourselves so we have something left to give to others.” Those are all wise words. Job’s words in the first reading become all of our words as we try to live and love, when all good works seem to taste and feel like dust and God’s face is hidden.
And yet, I want what that old man had—the peace, and the freedom to live in that embracing, giving, loving place. I find myself thinking that it is not just natural to live like that. It is supernatural, it is transformed nature, it is nature that is healed and set free by God.
Getting there is not an easy journey. Beware of easy religion with clear maps and all the answers! The man who ran up to Jesus today and asked him what to do had done everything right. He had kept the commandments, he’d read and listened to his Bible and took it all to heart. And I don’t think he was a hypocrite, because the text says that Jesus looked at him “and loved him.” But loving this man meant asking him to go to a place that his conscience and his religion had never asked him to go to before. Leave, leave what he thought he had a right to own even if he was doing good things with it. Leave it even though wealth was thought by some to be a sign of God’s blessing. Leave, give, follow, be nothing in the world’s eyes so you can have everything in God’s eyes. “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s impossible, humanly speaking. It is totally possible, with the help of God.
A man named Mark Scandrette recently gave a speech on “The Five Myths of Community.” He shocks his listeners, good church people, by reminding them that the first Christians were “miserable”—they lost a great deal for following Jesus, even their lives some of them. But church, says Mark, is not the place where we get all our needs met, where we find our favorite opinions affirmed, where we are totally comfortable all of the time. Even wanting community, says Mark, is not a good goal in itself; he said that “community is a beautiful by-product of seeking God’s kingdom together.” The key is to know and live that we come together to seek the kingdom of God. That is what a church is; that is all a church is.
This, by the way, is a stewardship sermon. Notice I have never used the word “money.” Stewardship begins with remembering who we most deeply are, and why we gather at all. When we hear that story of the old man reaching out to the scorpion, do we simply shudder in revulsion and disgust, or dismiss it as an improbable fable? Or does something in us come alight and say softly, “Yes, yes. I don’t like stings, but that is the kind of freedom and generous nature that I hunger for. I want to believe that life is possible. But I do not know how to get there.” And in the Gospel, the same thing—sell it all? In this housing market? Give it away? Where would I raise my kids? But isn’t there something deep inside, something that maybe was more active and visible when we were young and we hadn’t let life teach us oh so many limits, be oh so practical, that comes alive and says, “Yes, yes. I remember that! I remember hungering for that kind of freedom, I remember wanting to know what it would be like to live for God in that way. I remember traveling light, walking on a holy road.”
For us it is impossible. But not for God—even our tired and cynical hearts and our minds bombarded with a culture that tells us to get and get and no you do not yet have enough—it is not impossible for God.
And to share that journey, to ask what all that means, and to try it out—that is why a church exists. And that is the only Gospel reason for a church to exist.
(Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps 8; Heb 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31)
After a flood, a young man walked along the swollen riverbank to see the rushing water and the wreckage.
Around a bend in the river, he found an old man standing up to his chest in the dangerous current. The old man was reaching out his hand to a tangle of branches in the midst of the waters. Looking closer, the young man saw a large scorpion clinging to the end of one branch. The young man watched in wonder and horror as the scorpion stung the old man on the hand. After shaking his swollen, bleeding hand, the old man reached out to the scorpion again. And again, and again.
After watching this repetitive drama for some moments, the young man finally burst out, “Leave it alone, you old fool! Let that ungrateful bug drown! He’s not going to appreciate what you’re trying to do, and he will sting you every time!”
The old man turned and looked at the young man with serene eyes in spite of the pain. “It’s in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And it is in my nature to try and save it. Why should I change my own nature?”
Well, this story raises a lot of questions for me. The first is, who is that old man living with living with and why hasn’t he been taking his medication? To rescue an unlovable poisonous insect even though it thanks you with a sting is insane as far as the world is concerned. Lots of words come to mind to dismiss the old man’s behavior—self-destructive, masochistic, even the milder “co-dependent.” I know that as I tell this story faces and situations from my own life and my own ministry come to mind—people who rewarded loving attention with demands for even more attention, or new arrays of problems when the old ones had been resolved, or walking away after absorbing tons of time and attention, sometimes waving one or more fingers behind them as they did. We all can relate, we all have been there. Perhaps we have been on the other side of the fence also, at least once or twice.
We speak about “boundaries” and “tough love” and “taking care of ourselves so we have something left to give to others.” Those are all wise words. Job’s words in the first reading become all of our words as we try to live and love, when all good works seem to taste and feel like dust and God’s face is hidden.
And yet, I want what that old man had—the peace, and the freedom to live in that embracing, giving, loving place. I find myself thinking that it is not just natural to live like that. It is supernatural, it is transformed nature, it is nature that is healed and set free by God.
Getting there is not an easy journey. Beware of easy religion with clear maps and all the answers! The man who ran up to Jesus today and asked him what to do had done everything right. He had kept the commandments, he’d read and listened to his Bible and took it all to heart. And I don’t think he was a hypocrite, because the text says that Jesus looked at him “and loved him.” But loving this man meant asking him to go to a place that his conscience and his religion had never asked him to go to before. Leave, leave what he thought he had a right to own even if he was doing good things with it. Leave it even though wealth was thought by some to be a sign of God’s blessing. Leave, give, follow, be nothing in the world’s eyes so you can have everything in God’s eyes. “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s impossible, humanly speaking. It is totally possible, with the help of God.
A man named Mark Scandrette recently gave a speech on “The Five Myths of Community.” He shocks his listeners, good church people, by reminding them that the first Christians were “miserable”—they lost a great deal for following Jesus, even their lives some of them. But church, says Mark, is not the place where we get all our needs met, where we find our favorite opinions affirmed, where we are totally comfortable all of the time. Even wanting community, says Mark, is not a good goal in itself; he said that “community is a beautiful by-product of seeking God’s kingdom together.” The key is to know and live that we come together to seek the kingdom of God. That is what a church is; that is all a church is.
This, by the way, is a stewardship sermon. Notice I have never used the word “money.” Stewardship begins with remembering who we most deeply are, and why we gather at all. When we hear that story of the old man reaching out to the scorpion, do we simply shudder in revulsion and disgust, or dismiss it as an improbable fable? Or does something in us come alight and say softly, “Yes, yes. I don’t like stings, but that is the kind of freedom and generous nature that I hunger for. I want to believe that life is possible. But I do not know how to get there.” And in the Gospel, the same thing—sell it all? In this housing market? Give it away? Where would I raise my kids? But isn’t there something deep inside, something that maybe was more active and visible when we were young and we hadn’t let life teach us oh so many limits, be oh so practical, that comes alive and says, “Yes, yes. I remember that! I remember hungering for that kind of freedom, I remember wanting to know what it would be like to live for God in that way. I remember traveling light, walking on a holy road.”
For us it is impossible. But not for God—even our tired and cynical hearts and our minds bombarded with a culture that tells us to get and get and no you do not yet have enough—it is not impossible for God.
And to share that journey, to ask what all that means, and to try it out—that is why a church exists. And that is the only Gospel reason for a church to exist.
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