3 Advent A 2010
(Isaiah 35: 1-10; Canticle 15; James 5: 7-10; Matthew 11: 2-11)
“Welcome to my torture chamber!”
My second violent rear-ending totaling yet another car left me with lower back pain and a feeling of vulnerability. I had received my black belt just a month before and felt better about my health and strength than I had since I was a kid. Now I felt weakened and frail, and I wanted that feeling of strength and independence back.
Bill the physical therapist was a man about my age, but spare and fit and energetic and utterly honest. He smiled as I scanned the large room, filled with equipment. Some of the gear looked like fitness-center type stuff, weight machines and all. Some looked more complex and just scary, like post-modern Spanish Inquisition machinery designed to tear a confession out of people’s lips.
Still smiling, Bill said, “Whatta ya think? People come to physical therapy thinking that they are going to get deep-tissue massage and lots of hugs. Most of the time they are with me they complain and swear at me. But they leave with their lives back. If you want to be healed, you will work and push yourself. Because to heal damaged tissue, you have to strengthen the muscles and tissue around the damaged place. In order to get better, you have to get stronger.”
Today, I did not hang a sign on the church that says, “Welcome to Fr. Kurt’s torture chamber”, although some Sundays people may think that to themselves. But I take a lesson from my old therapist and say that today, Rose Sunday, “Be joyful!” Sunday, is a day when we come for healing and learn that, if we wish to be healed, we must take on strength. We must enter the physical therapy-chamber of God.
Isaiah’s glad song is all about taking on strength. He is very specific: “Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees!” The promise of God is near, so now is not the time to collapse and sit by the side of the road! Even if we are beaten down, by life or by pain or by discouragement or by doubt, now is the time to take on strength. Our God is strong, so ask for his strength. Our God is strong, so ask and ask to be the person of strength that God made us to be. There is good news today—if we feel at the end of our strength, we can call on God for divine strength. In fact, we can be demanding about it! Did you notice that we told God to get stirred up when we began the Mass today? Get moving, God, get up and get busy! We are empowered by God to ask that boldly. But if we do, know that we ask God to get stirred up so we can get stirred up. In the world of the Gospel, No beggar is left by the side of the road.
And that is what Jesus tells John. John asks that heartbreaking question right before his execution that is on the lips of every honest seeker: Are you the one we are waiting for, or do we wait for someone else? Jesus’ answer is not a theological statement, but an invitation for John to look at how God’s power has been stirred up. “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” God is on the move, things are changing, and you John? Even from your prison cell, are you on the move too?
We talk of the two comings of Jesus—once long ago, humble and born in a stable; once again, in power and glory. The monk Bernard in the Middle Ages said that there is a third coming—Jesus comes every day. And he comes to give us strength for the journey. “Keep God’s word…let it enter into your very being… Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread, or your heart will wither away. Fill your soul with richness and strength…The Son with the Father will come to you.”
So, welcome to the Advent physical therapy gym. It’s not a bedroom and it is not a couch. If we wish to be healed, if we still believe in the promises of God and the divine goodness, then be ready to work out. Be ready to seek strength. I always felt wide awake after those therapy sessions, as if every fibre of my body were tingling and alert. That’s what a good workout will do for you. That is also a good description of an Advent state of soul.
archived musings and preachments
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
called out...
"In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.' This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
`Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.'"
"Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
"But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
"'I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'" (Matthew 3: 1-12)
Matthew's community of Antioch, notes Alexander Shaia, were a disparate Jewish collective traumatized by the sacking of Jerusalem and the razing of the Temple, God's holy dwelling-place. As people in crisis, they vacillated between despair and seeking for hope and meaning in these events, for a reason to go on, for a way to understand the incomprehensible. Some elements of the community advocated a renewed and vigorous Torah-centered faith not dependent on the Temple and its sacrifices, rigorous in its observance and very clear about who was in the community and who was out. This is a very human response to crisis and disaster and we see this reflected in many strict literalist or "fundamentalist" movements today.
Others, whom Shaia dubs "Messianists", were Jewish followers of the charismatic lay teacher from Galilee, believing him to be God's anointed. They not only struggled to make sense of the loss of the Temple, which they also held sacred, but were still making sense of their Master's horrible execution by the Romans.
To all these people Matthew tells his story of the powerful, enigmatic figure of John the Baptizer, embodying in his person the charisma and shock of the old prophets of Judah and Israel with something utterly new, a new proclamation. He calls all to leave Jerusalem, to leave the well-known holy city with its Temple, to an unnamed place "in the wilderness." The unnamed and the unknown place becomes the place of change and encounter. All are called to this change--to what end? No one knows! But as one preacher said, perhaps the people hearing John looked back towards Jerusalem and, in a moment of sacred disorientation, wondered if the familiar holy city really was "the wilderness", and whether this nameless piece of wild country was the sacred dwelling of God!
It is the officially "holy people", the Pharisees and Sadducees, who hear John's harshest words.
What is disrupted for us in our lives, in our church, in our world? What has us disoriented, reeling? From what familiar and even "sacred" place are we being called forth? What "familiar holiness" is being spoken to harshly by the prophet's words? And, in the question placed in the mouths of John's hearers, what are we to do?
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
`Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.'"
"Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
"But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
"'I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'" (Matthew 3: 1-12)
Matthew's community of Antioch, notes Alexander Shaia, were a disparate Jewish collective traumatized by the sacking of Jerusalem and the razing of the Temple, God's holy dwelling-place. As people in crisis, they vacillated between despair and seeking for hope and meaning in these events, for a reason to go on, for a way to understand the incomprehensible. Some elements of the community advocated a renewed and vigorous Torah-centered faith not dependent on the Temple and its sacrifices, rigorous in its observance and very clear about who was in the community and who was out. This is a very human response to crisis and disaster and we see this reflected in many strict literalist or "fundamentalist" movements today.
Others, whom Shaia dubs "Messianists", were Jewish followers of the charismatic lay teacher from Galilee, believing him to be God's anointed. They not only struggled to make sense of the loss of the Temple, which they also held sacred, but were still making sense of their Master's horrible execution by the Romans.
To all these people Matthew tells his story of the powerful, enigmatic figure of John the Baptizer, embodying in his person the charisma and shock of the old prophets of Judah and Israel with something utterly new, a new proclamation. He calls all to leave Jerusalem, to leave the well-known holy city with its Temple, to an unnamed place "in the wilderness." The unnamed and the unknown place becomes the place of change and encounter. All are called to this change--to what end? No one knows! But as one preacher said, perhaps the people hearing John looked back towards Jerusalem and, in a moment of sacred disorientation, wondered if the familiar holy city really was "the wilderness", and whether this nameless piece of wild country was the sacred dwelling of God!
It is the officially "holy people", the Pharisees and Sadducees, who hear John's harshest words.
What is disrupted for us in our lives, in our church, in our world? What has us disoriented, reeling? From what familiar and even "sacred" place are we being called forth? What "familiar holiness" is being spoken to harshly by the prophet's words? And, in the question placed in the mouths of John's hearers, what are we to do?
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Pioneer Square
The attempted Pioneer Square bombing
For me, the recent bombing attempt at Pioneer Square brushed closely by, like the brush of the feathers of a dark bird. My son and his girlfriend were there. Last year the whole family and I were there. I know some of you were too, or had family and friends who were at Pioneer Square, “Portland’s living room.”
I ask myself as I write how my reflections might be different had the attempt been successful, and if my son and his friend had been killed or injured. I do not know the answer to that question. Perhaps none of us do until we are tragically in that position. Nevertheless, as a follower of Jesus and a priest as well as a father and husband and citizen, I write as I feel the compelling need.
I am not immune to fear, and I am not immune to anger arising from fear. I have been proximate to enough violence and death to know how life can change or be erased in the blink of an eye. I have sat and sought for words with those who grieve, and more often have sat with them in silence.
And yet I say, with all of the conviction of my soul, that we are called and empowered not to allow our lives and our responses to be ruled by that anger and that fear. The teaching of the Christ whom I follow is clear—forgive, as you would be forgiven; love your enemies, do good to those who offend you, pray for those who persecute you. We make a grave mistake if we imagine that these clear teachings of Jesus were somehow easier and less complex in the 1st Century when he spoke them, or are only meant to apply to peaceful and simple times. They were never simple or easy, and they are meant to apply always.
We clergy often commit the sin of acting as if the teachings of our Lord are easy and palatable and intended for our comfort alone. In the name of maintaining numbers and contributors in our congregations we often gloss over the hard sayings of Jesus. We are not called to comfort and to a false “inner peace” that ignores the enormity of what is done in our world, done often in our name and on our behalf.
In the face of a potential act of mass violence, we cannot lapse uncritically into language like “the war on terror”, coined not by the Gospel but by a past political administration, in reflecting on how to respond with our faith and our integrity intact. Any easy alliance between the Gospel and militant zealous patriotism needs to be strongly examined in the light of our best values. Sadly, voices proclaiming their faith in the Prince of Peace have in the same breath advocated violence, religious intolerance, and revenge.
I am grateful beyond words that that bomb did not go off, that it was a contrived fake. My eyes sting with a father’s relieved tears as I write these words.
I am deeply grateful that there are those who pay the price to search out and to act on dangers to my family, my neighbors, and my people. I admit that, paraphrasing an English writer, that I sleep safely knowing that rough men and women are willing to deal out violence to those who would deal out violence to me. But I believe we must never excuse ourselves from the moral complexity and ambiguity of that fact. The price that is paid for our sense of security, borne by those whose lives and souls are endangered by that work as well as those who are the recipients of violence on our behalf, should trouble us and place before us the question of how to do we actually change such a brutal world.
I grieve for that 19 year old young man, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, whose life as he knew it is over. It is true that a confused, alienated young man is fully capable of making conscious choices and of harming a lot of people. But a 19 year old is a very young person, very impressionable, as I remember I was at 19. Fortunately I chose and embraced value-systems that were more humane and more responsible than did Mohamed. The spectacle of his arrest and trial is to me mostly about the problem of alienated immigrant youth, desperate and angry at being adrift in a culture not their own. People I know and respect work with Somali children and youth in Portland and can speak to the legacy of political violence, the memory of refugee camps, and the cultural alienation suffered by those children. In spite of any fear and anxiety we feel, we cannot begin to understand what those children carry within their minds and souls. As a nation of immigrants, save for those of Native blood who have been made to feel like aliens in their own land, we need to recall our own family stories and know some empathy.
I am glad that Mohamed will have his “day in court.” And I am glad the defense will call into question the procedure used in the development of the case against him. The best strength of our nation, that which makes us distinct in the world, is that we are concerned with the individual rights of all, that our law enforcement is not immune to scrutiny and accountability, and that all are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. These basic civil safeguards are often threatened in times of fear and anger. Sometimes officials and law enforcement have found the practice of accountability, public scrutiny, and legal defense awkward and frustrating in the pursuit of their goals. But this is the price of a participative democracy in which individual rights are protected. It is messy, complicated, and slow. But we compromise these rights and practices at risk of losing what is most worth defending about this nation. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is the second-worse system in the world—the only one worse is all the rest.
I grieve for the fact that, in the words of one frustrated Muslim citizen, one incident like this takes the five steps towards understanding laboriously taken forward and flings us ten steps back. We all should feel outrage and a sense of common threat by the arson committed in the Corvallis mosque. It is directed against any who publically witness to their faith. I am deeply moved by the response of the people of Corvallis and of faith-communities there to rally around the people of the mosque. I do think that leadership of the various Islamic communities (for there are many, distinguished by history and teachings and ethnic roots as are Christians) have an obligation to speak out clearly against violence and the distortion of their teachings represented by terrorism. But I also believe that we Christian folk have the same obligation, to speak out against the violence and coercion done in the name of our own faith, and we usually avoid it. Too often we turn a blind eye to language sprinkled with the name of Jesus and imagery from the Bible used to justify military action overseas as well as prejudice and violence against vulnerable people and groups and communities among us. There are too many planks in our own eyes for us to feel self-righteous about the splinter in the eye of another.
There is nothing easy about living in these times, even amidst the relative serenity and illusion of isolation that some of us enjoy here in Portland, Oregon. There is nothing easy about how our best and most fundamental values, both as citizens and, for those of us who profess faith, live side by side with the potential violence of our times. It is vital that we do not leap to any easy conclusion that makes it easy. Even had that bomb been real, these hard questions remain. How costly is the achievement of a sense of security if we lose what is most vital, most precious about our core values? Or in the words of one far more eloquent, “What does it profit you to gain the whole world, and yet lose yourself in the process?”
For me, the recent bombing attempt at Pioneer Square brushed closely by, like the brush of the feathers of a dark bird. My son and his girlfriend were there. Last year the whole family and I were there. I know some of you were too, or had family and friends who were at Pioneer Square, “Portland’s living room.”
I ask myself as I write how my reflections might be different had the attempt been successful, and if my son and his friend had been killed or injured. I do not know the answer to that question. Perhaps none of us do until we are tragically in that position. Nevertheless, as a follower of Jesus and a priest as well as a father and husband and citizen, I write as I feel the compelling need.
I am not immune to fear, and I am not immune to anger arising from fear. I have been proximate to enough violence and death to know how life can change or be erased in the blink of an eye. I have sat and sought for words with those who grieve, and more often have sat with them in silence.
And yet I say, with all of the conviction of my soul, that we are called and empowered not to allow our lives and our responses to be ruled by that anger and that fear. The teaching of the Christ whom I follow is clear—forgive, as you would be forgiven; love your enemies, do good to those who offend you, pray for those who persecute you. We make a grave mistake if we imagine that these clear teachings of Jesus were somehow easier and less complex in the 1st Century when he spoke them, or are only meant to apply to peaceful and simple times. They were never simple or easy, and they are meant to apply always.
We clergy often commit the sin of acting as if the teachings of our Lord are easy and palatable and intended for our comfort alone. In the name of maintaining numbers and contributors in our congregations we often gloss over the hard sayings of Jesus. We are not called to comfort and to a false “inner peace” that ignores the enormity of what is done in our world, done often in our name and on our behalf.
In the face of a potential act of mass violence, we cannot lapse uncritically into language like “the war on terror”, coined not by the Gospel but by a past political administration, in reflecting on how to respond with our faith and our integrity intact. Any easy alliance between the Gospel and militant zealous patriotism needs to be strongly examined in the light of our best values. Sadly, voices proclaiming their faith in the Prince of Peace have in the same breath advocated violence, religious intolerance, and revenge.
I am grateful beyond words that that bomb did not go off, that it was a contrived fake. My eyes sting with a father’s relieved tears as I write these words.
I am deeply grateful that there are those who pay the price to search out and to act on dangers to my family, my neighbors, and my people. I admit that, paraphrasing an English writer, that I sleep safely knowing that rough men and women are willing to deal out violence to those who would deal out violence to me. But I believe we must never excuse ourselves from the moral complexity and ambiguity of that fact. The price that is paid for our sense of security, borne by those whose lives and souls are endangered by that work as well as those who are the recipients of violence on our behalf, should trouble us and place before us the question of how to do we actually change such a brutal world.
I grieve for that 19 year old young man, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, whose life as he knew it is over. It is true that a confused, alienated young man is fully capable of making conscious choices and of harming a lot of people. But a 19 year old is a very young person, very impressionable, as I remember I was at 19. Fortunately I chose and embraced value-systems that were more humane and more responsible than did Mohamed. The spectacle of his arrest and trial is to me mostly about the problem of alienated immigrant youth, desperate and angry at being adrift in a culture not their own. People I know and respect work with Somali children and youth in Portland and can speak to the legacy of political violence, the memory of refugee camps, and the cultural alienation suffered by those children. In spite of any fear and anxiety we feel, we cannot begin to understand what those children carry within their minds and souls. As a nation of immigrants, save for those of Native blood who have been made to feel like aliens in their own land, we need to recall our own family stories and know some empathy.
I am glad that Mohamed will have his “day in court.” And I am glad the defense will call into question the procedure used in the development of the case against him. The best strength of our nation, that which makes us distinct in the world, is that we are concerned with the individual rights of all, that our law enforcement is not immune to scrutiny and accountability, and that all are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. These basic civil safeguards are often threatened in times of fear and anger. Sometimes officials and law enforcement have found the practice of accountability, public scrutiny, and legal defense awkward and frustrating in the pursuit of their goals. But this is the price of a participative democracy in which individual rights are protected. It is messy, complicated, and slow. But we compromise these rights and practices at risk of losing what is most worth defending about this nation. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is the second-worse system in the world—the only one worse is all the rest.
I grieve for the fact that, in the words of one frustrated Muslim citizen, one incident like this takes the five steps towards understanding laboriously taken forward and flings us ten steps back. We all should feel outrage and a sense of common threat by the arson committed in the Corvallis mosque. It is directed against any who publically witness to their faith. I am deeply moved by the response of the people of Corvallis and of faith-communities there to rally around the people of the mosque. I do think that leadership of the various Islamic communities (for there are many, distinguished by history and teachings and ethnic roots as are Christians) have an obligation to speak out clearly against violence and the distortion of their teachings represented by terrorism. But I also believe that we Christian folk have the same obligation, to speak out against the violence and coercion done in the name of our own faith, and we usually avoid it. Too often we turn a blind eye to language sprinkled with the name of Jesus and imagery from the Bible used to justify military action overseas as well as prejudice and violence against vulnerable people and groups and communities among us. There are too many planks in our own eyes for us to feel self-righteous about the splinter in the eye of another.
There is nothing easy about living in these times, even amidst the relative serenity and illusion of isolation that some of us enjoy here in Portland, Oregon. There is nothing easy about how our best and most fundamental values, both as citizens and, for those of us who profess faith, live side by side with the potential violence of our times. It is vital that we do not leap to any easy conclusion that makes it easy. Even had that bomb been real, these hard questions remain. How costly is the achievement of a sense of security if we lose what is most vital, most precious about our core values? Or in the words of one far more eloquent, “What does it profit you to gain the whole world, and yet lose yourself in the process?”
Your jacket
1 Advent A 2010
(Isaiah 2: 1-5; Ps 122; Romans 13: 11-14; Matthew 24: 36-44)
Walking out of my martial arts class this past summer, sweaty from a hard workout, I turned as a young man shouted at me from a passing car. “What’s that?” I shouted back. He rolled the window down all the way and shouted again, “Wax on, wax off!”
In terms of what can be shouted from a car on 82nd Avenue, I appreciated this and walked away doing “wax on…” I liked the old Karate Kid movie with everyone’s favorite resident Asian sage, Mr. Miyagi. Not long ago I rented the re-make with Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s son. I liked it because it was different, placing the kid in China as a guest rather than in L.A. There was no “wax on, wax off.” Instead Jackie Chan taught basic martial arts in a different way.
“Put on your jacket! Take it off. Pick it up. Put it on. Now take it off. Pick it up.” And on and on and on, the kid endlessly taking that same jacket off, putting it on, stooping over and over until I felt my own back creak with the stoop and I thought the jacket would be worn to shreds.
Finally the endless gesture, seemingly so meaningless, makes the kid rebel. Jackie Chan then demonstrates how the seemingly meaningless ordinary gesture is actually the foundation for a powerful kung fu practice, the basis for defense and balance on which all else will be built. And, says Jackie, “everything is kung fu.”
The year has turned, and we are again in Advent. Have you been tempted to ask what is this purpose of endless repetition of readings, prayers, colors, and moods? Think of this: Put on your jacket, take it off, pick it up. This will teach us everything. And, I tell you, “Everything is Advent.”
“Cast away the works of darkness…”
The light wanes and grows short, this time of year. The fading light is a reminder that there is darkness in this world. I myself have become very aware of the heaviness of darkness, the weight of it, clinging to my body like an old, stained jacket. We each have such a jacket. Some of its stains have been imposed—the discouragement from struggle, from the cruelty and the seemingly random nature of the world and its pain. Some stains we have put on ourselves, from the anger and impatience and frustration and self-absorbedness of our lives. Paul does us the favor of listing some pretty general jacket-stains: “reveling and drunkenness”, “debauchery and licentiousness”, “quarreling and jealousy.” My personal jacket has stains like resentment, disgust, and apathy, the temptations of middle age. When we allow our lives to be shaped by these stains, that is sin. “Take off your jacket.” Because the good news is, we can. We are not our discouragement, our heaviness, our despair. In each of us there is a soul that stands with open arms awaiting our God.
“Put on the armor of light…”
We can live in a new and renewed way. We can place on ourselves a new jacket, a new way of being and seeing and feeling and praying and loving. The time is now. “Put your jacket on.” “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Jackie says that “everything is kung fu,” but I say that everything is Advent. We live now in hope because he has come among us in humility, taking flesh and teaching and healing and dying and rising and filling all things. So what we do is full of meaning: our turning, our casting aside our personal and corporate works of darkness, our putting on the light of Christ. The vision of Isaiah, that all nations will come as pilgrims to Jerusalem, that swords will become plows, spears become pruning shears, tanks become farm tractors, warships become hospitals—that is the promise and the gift to those who follow Jesus.
This is how we are to live, this is what we shall do. Take off your jacket, pick it up, put it on. We shall be changed, we shall be transformed, in the casting aside of darkness and putting on Christ. The Light is promised to us, the Light is dawning in our midst. The time is now. Casting aside and putting on teaches us the deep lesson of this time.
That lesson is simple: Everything is Advent.
(Isaiah 2: 1-5; Ps 122; Romans 13: 11-14; Matthew 24: 36-44)
Walking out of my martial arts class this past summer, sweaty from a hard workout, I turned as a young man shouted at me from a passing car. “What’s that?” I shouted back. He rolled the window down all the way and shouted again, “Wax on, wax off!”
In terms of what can be shouted from a car on 82nd Avenue, I appreciated this and walked away doing “wax on…” I liked the old Karate Kid movie with everyone’s favorite resident Asian sage, Mr. Miyagi. Not long ago I rented the re-make with Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s son. I liked it because it was different, placing the kid in China as a guest rather than in L.A. There was no “wax on, wax off.” Instead Jackie Chan taught basic martial arts in a different way.
“Put on your jacket! Take it off. Pick it up. Put it on. Now take it off. Pick it up.” And on and on and on, the kid endlessly taking that same jacket off, putting it on, stooping over and over until I felt my own back creak with the stoop and I thought the jacket would be worn to shreds.
Finally the endless gesture, seemingly so meaningless, makes the kid rebel. Jackie Chan then demonstrates how the seemingly meaningless ordinary gesture is actually the foundation for a powerful kung fu practice, the basis for defense and balance on which all else will be built. And, says Jackie, “everything is kung fu.”
The year has turned, and we are again in Advent. Have you been tempted to ask what is this purpose of endless repetition of readings, prayers, colors, and moods? Think of this: Put on your jacket, take it off, pick it up. This will teach us everything. And, I tell you, “Everything is Advent.”
“Cast away the works of darkness…”
The light wanes and grows short, this time of year. The fading light is a reminder that there is darkness in this world. I myself have become very aware of the heaviness of darkness, the weight of it, clinging to my body like an old, stained jacket. We each have such a jacket. Some of its stains have been imposed—the discouragement from struggle, from the cruelty and the seemingly random nature of the world and its pain. Some stains we have put on ourselves, from the anger and impatience and frustration and self-absorbedness of our lives. Paul does us the favor of listing some pretty general jacket-stains: “reveling and drunkenness”, “debauchery and licentiousness”, “quarreling and jealousy.” My personal jacket has stains like resentment, disgust, and apathy, the temptations of middle age. When we allow our lives to be shaped by these stains, that is sin. “Take off your jacket.” Because the good news is, we can. We are not our discouragement, our heaviness, our despair. In each of us there is a soul that stands with open arms awaiting our God.
“Put on the armor of light…”
We can live in a new and renewed way. We can place on ourselves a new jacket, a new way of being and seeing and feeling and praying and loving. The time is now. “Put your jacket on.” “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Jackie says that “everything is kung fu,” but I say that everything is Advent. We live now in hope because he has come among us in humility, taking flesh and teaching and healing and dying and rising and filling all things. So what we do is full of meaning: our turning, our casting aside our personal and corporate works of darkness, our putting on the light of Christ. The vision of Isaiah, that all nations will come as pilgrims to Jerusalem, that swords will become plows, spears become pruning shears, tanks become farm tractors, warships become hospitals—that is the promise and the gift to those who follow Jesus.
This is how we are to live, this is what we shall do. Take off your jacket, pick it up, put it on. We shall be changed, we shall be transformed, in the casting aside of darkness and putting on Christ. The Light is promised to us, the Light is dawning in our midst. The time is now. Casting aside and putting on teaches us the deep lesson of this time.
That lesson is simple: Everything is Advent.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Matthew's mountain--climbing and changing
Matthew 24:36-44
Jesus said to the disciples, "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
Alexander Shaia in his work The Hidden Power Of The Gospels speaks of a central task, a question that each Gospel asks. This question was forged by the lived experience of each actual community whose struggles gave birth to a Gospel text. Shaia identifies the Jewish Christian community of Antioch, reeling from the destruction of the Temple and struggling to understand the newness brought by their puzzling Messiah, as the progenitors of the Gospel of Matthew, and identifies the burning question of Matthew as: How do we move through change?
This opening text of Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary brings us face to face with the image of change as presented by Matthew's Jesus immediately before his Passion. Sadly, this imagery has been cherry-picked and cobbled together into a lurid brand of selectively-literalistic apocalyptic literature and rhetoric that I say runs contrary to the Gospel's use of it. Popular contemporary Christian apocalyptic is used to hammer home the veracity of certain presentations of the Gospel, for the most part culturally and politically conservative presentations. The imagery of apocalyptic can be employed, as has many "fire and brimstone" teachings through the ages, to literally "scare the hell" out of people, to authenticate the voice of various forms of religious authority and assure obedience to it. An even less savory use is to give a sense of entitlement and assurance to those who have decided they are "the faithful", coupled with an edge of unpleasant satisfaction at the comeuppance given to the unbeliever. After all, what does one do if one is "Left Behind"?
But I do not think this text provides any of these doctrinal assurances or affirmation of entitlement. Jesus says something simpler: the ordinary is deceptive, for nothing is ordinary. The purposes of God are deeper than we can understand. There is unpredictability hard-wired into our ordinary-seeming lives. This is a deeply subversive message, both to our own understanding as well as to the voice of static religious or political authority. Jesus does not say that the good, the pious, the doctrinally or politically correct will be "taken"; only that there will be deep and unpredictable disruption of our lives and our relationships and of our understanding of "the ordinary." What to do, how to be in such a reality? Like a householder on guard--live as a Watcher. Watch! Wake up! Traditional angelology spoke of an order of angels called "Grigori", the "Watchers." Do like a Watcher, and watch! Wake up, look, learn!
Jesus said to the disciples, "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
Alexander Shaia in his work The Hidden Power Of The Gospels speaks of a central task, a question that each Gospel asks. This question was forged by the lived experience of each actual community whose struggles gave birth to a Gospel text. Shaia identifies the Jewish Christian community of Antioch, reeling from the destruction of the Temple and struggling to understand the newness brought by their puzzling Messiah, as the progenitors of the Gospel of Matthew, and identifies the burning question of Matthew as: How do we move through change?
This opening text of Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary brings us face to face with the image of change as presented by Matthew's Jesus immediately before his Passion. Sadly, this imagery has been cherry-picked and cobbled together into a lurid brand of selectively-literalistic apocalyptic literature and rhetoric that I say runs contrary to the Gospel's use of it. Popular contemporary Christian apocalyptic is used to hammer home the veracity of certain presentations of the Gospel, for the most part culturally and politically conservative presentations. The imagery of apocalyptic can be employed, as has many "fire and brimstone" teachings through the ages, to literally "scare the hell" out of people, to authenticate the voice of various forms of religious authority and assure obedience to it. An even less savory use is to give a sense of entitlement and assurance to those who have decided they are "the faithful", coupled with an edge of unpleasant satisfaction at the comeuppance given to the unbeliever. After all, what does one do if one is "Left Behind"?
But I do not think this text provides any of these doctrinal assurances or affirmation of entitlement. Jesus says something simpler: the ordinary is deceptive, for nothing is ordinary. The purposes of God are deeper than we can understand. There is unpredictability hard-wired into our ordinary-seeming lives. This is a deeply subversive message, both to our own understanding as well as to the voice of static religious or political authority. Jesus does not say that the good, the pious, the doctrinally or politically correct will be "taken"; only that there will be deep and unpredictable disruption of our lives and our relationships and of our understanding of "the ordinary." What to do, how to be in such a reality? Like a householder on guard--live as a Watcher. Watch! Wake up! Traditional angelology spoke of an order of angels called "Grigori", the "Watchers." Do like a Watcher, and watch! Wake up, look, learn!
Friday, November 19, 2010
A joy and a delight
(sermon delivered by Cat Healy on 25 Pentecost, Year C, Nov 14 2010)
25 Pentecost 2010
Isaiah 65:17-25 – Psalm 98 – 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 – Luke 21:5-19
It strikes me that this week’s readings summarize every campaign ad we’ve seen on TV in the last several months. It’s the same in each election year: Half the candidates promise us new heavens and a new earth, and the other half tell us that anyone unwilling to work should not eat. A few brave ones do both. Beneath all the flag backdrops and political rhetoric, there are kernels of truth in there somewhere. That’s why campaign ads work; we’re all looking for something to believe in.
But Isaiah’s vision of the new earth is much more than a campaign ad. Here, we see God’s promise that the people of Israel, who have suffered so long, will not be destroyed. And more than that, they will be blessed beyond their imagining: “I will rejoice in Israel,” says the Lord; “I will delight in my people.” In every part of the new Jerusalem, God promises transformation. Infant mortality will disappear; no one will be homeless or hungry; even animals will have no need to harm each other.
However, there is another piece of this transformed creation. The ancient Israelites may have used different language for what we now call “social justice,” but they surely understood the concept. Isaiah’s new Jerusalem is about more than long lives and vegetarian lions. When the world is re-created, the workers who build will be able to inhabit their houses, and those who plant will enjoy the fruits of their labors. “They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat.” This is not a faraway utopian vision, like the wolf lying down with the lamb. For this reason, it is much more challenging to us. Think about the world we live in now. The people who haul the lumber and lay the bricks of mansions will never inhabit them; workers spend hour after hour in the hot sun, picking produce they could never afford to buy. We know from the Hebrew prophets that this is not the world God wants. But these kinds of changes are not magic tricks that will be worked by God alone, with no effort from us, the people of the new earth. If we want to live in such a world, we have to do the work ourselves.
If you fast-forward to Thessalonians, you can watch a community of people trying to live out this mandate. The Christians of Thessalonica were mostly Gentiles; the Scriptures were brand-new to them, so they approached the Hebrew prophets as starry-eyed converts, seeing this vision of the world for the very first time. Though it’s hard to know for sure, you can imagine how carefully they made their chore charts, ensuring that everyone had an equal share of the labor and enjoyed an equal share of the fruits. They wanted to be just like their heroes, Paul and Timothy; just like Jesus and the Apostles; they wanted to make the new Jerusalem. In today’s reading, you can see how that went for them.
They are tired. They are cranky. They are in a bad mood.
Equal sharing of labor is hard. Equal sharing of the rewards is even harder. You don’t need to be an early Christian to know this; you only need to share a kitchen with someone. The Christians Paul is addressing here have a lot working against them. They’re getting picked on left and right by all the other people in Thessalonica, who view them as a cult; they converted as adults, they have no roots in Jewish tradition, and a lot of them are new even to monotheism; and in the midst of all this, they’re trying to revolutionize the labor economy as we know it. No wonder they’re burned out. And so they complain to Paul that their fellow Christians are “living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.”
And so Paul writes back: Shut up and do your work! Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
Not because he wants the Thessalonians to starve each other. Not because he is heartless.
But because everyone has to buy into the new Jerusalem, or it doesn’t stand a chance.
Had Paul gone into more detail here, he might have said: If even one of you sits back and hoards your wealth while another goes hungry, the vision falls apart. If even one of you takes a break from your labor in the fields and lets your brother or sister do their share of the work and yours too, allows them to suffer and struggle while you rest in the shade, the new heaven and the new earth are shot.
And this is where campaign ads always fail. They ignore the obvious: We can’t do it alone. If we treat our own good intentions as our only fuel, our only source of energy, we develop compassion fatigue and begin to come apart at the seams. If we try to build the new Jerusalem without God as its rock, we crumble.
In the same way, if we lose our sense of community – if we find ourselves unable to look past “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat” – we fall apart.
Isaiah resonates with us, though, because he tells us that we don’t have to do this hard work alone. As we work on building the Kingdom, as we make our chore charts, as we try to ensure that no one goes hungry and everyone gets a chance to reap what they sow – we are lifted up by one whose strength and patience are infinitely greater than ours. Whose powers of forgiveness are infinite, who, no matter how many times we turn away, is able to remake us as a joy and a delight.
25 Pentecost 2010
Isaiah 65:17-25 – Psalm 98 – 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 – Luke 21:5-19
It strikes me that this week’s readings summarize every campaign ad we’ve seen on TV in the last several months. It’s the same in each election year: Half the candidates promise us new heavens and a new earth, and the other half tell us that anyone unwilling to work should not eat. A few brave ones do both. Beneath all the flag backdrops and political rhetoric, there are kernels of truth in there somewhere. That’s why campaign ads work; we’re all looking for something to believe in.
But Isaiah’s vision of the new earth is much more than a campaign ad. Here, we see God’s promise that the people of Israel, who have suffered so long, will not be destroyed. And more than that, they will be blessed beyond their imagining: “I will rejoice in Israel,” says the Lord; “I will delight in my people.” In every part of the new Jerusalem, God promises transformation. Infant mortality will disappear; no one will be homeless or hungry; even animals will have no need to harm each other.
However, there is another piece of this transformed creation. The ancient Israelites may have used different language for what we now call “social justice,” but they surely understood the concept. Isaiah’s new Jerusalem is about more than long lives and vegetarian lions. When the world is re-created, the workers who build will be able to inhabit their houses, and those who plant will enjoy the fruits of their labors. “They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat.” This is not a faraway utopian vision, like the wolf lying down with the lamb. For this reason, it is much more challenging to us. Think about the world we live in now. The people who haul the lumber and lay the bricks of mansions will never inhabit them; workers spend hour after hour in the hot sun, picking produce they could never afford to buy. We know from the Hebrew prophets that this is not the world God wants. But these kinds of changes are not magic tricks that will be worked by God alone, with no effort from us, the people of the new earth. If we want to live in such a world, we have to do the work ourselves.
If you fast-forward to Thessalonians, you can watch a community of people trying to live out this mandate. The Christians of Thessalonica were mostly Gentiles; the Scriptures were brand-new to them, so they approached the Hebrew prophets as starry-eyed converts, seeing this vision of the world for the very first time. Though it’s hard to know for sure, you can imagine how carefully they made their chore charts, ensuring that everyone had an equal share of the labor and enjoyed an equal share of the fruits. They wanted to be just like their heroes, Paul and Timothy; just like Jesus and the Apostles; they wanted to make the new Jerusalem. In today’s reading, you can see how that went for them.
They are tired. They are cranky. They are in a bad mood.
Equal sharing of labor is hard. Equal sharing of the rewards is even harder. You don’t need to be an early Christian to know this; you only need to share a kitchen with someone. The Christians Paul is addressing here have a lot working against them. They’re getting picked on left and right by all the other people in Thessalonica, who view them as a cult; they converted as adults, they have no roots in Jewish tradition, and a lot of them are new even to monotheism; and in the midst of all this, they’re trying to revolutionize the labor economy as we know it. No wonder they’re burned out. And so they complain to Paul that their fellow Christians are “living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.”
And so Paul writes back: Shut up and do your work! Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
Not because he wants the Thessalonians to starve each other. Not because he is heartless.
But because everyone has to buy into the new Jerusalem, or it doesn’t stand a chance.
Had Paul gone into more detail here, he might have said: If even one of you sits back and hoards your wealth while another goes hungry, the vision falls apart. If even one of you takes a break from your labor in the fields and lets your brother or sister do their share of the work and yours too, allows them to suffer and struggle while you rest in the shade, the new heaven and the new earth are shot.
And this is where campaign ads always fail. They ignore the obvious: We can’t do it alone. If we treat our own good intentions as our only fuel, our only source of energy, we develop compassion fatigue and begin to come apart at the seams. If we try to build the new Jerusalem without God as its rock, we crumble.
In the same way, if we lose our sense of community – if we find ourselves unable to look past “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat” – we fall apart.
Isaiah resonates with us, though, because he tells us that we don’t have to do this hard work alone. As we work on building the Kingdom, as we make our chore charts, as we try to ensure that no one goes hungry and everyone gets a chance to reap what they sow – we are lifted up by one whose strength and patience are infinitely greater than ours. Whose powers of forgiveness are infinite, who, no matter how many times we turn away, is able to remake us as a joy and a delight.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Sycamore and the Trees of Life
Today’s Sermon
Posted on October 31, 2010 by Carl McColman
Sermon for October 31, 2010, Sts. Peter & Paul Episcopal Church, Portland, OR
Text: So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. (Luke 19:4)
When I was a boy I loved to climb trees. We had two pine trees in our back yard, and one of them I could only climb up maybe five feet or so, but in the other, larger one I could get at least ten or twelve feet off the ground, which was pretty high for a ten year old kid! How fondly I remember my clothes and limbs covered with dust when I would finally descend from the branches. Even having to pull out the occasional splinter was worth the joy of bonding with that tree.
Climbing a tree always gave me a new perspective; I would climb it for fun, or I would do it to get away from it all, or even just to think through my homework. I suppose I was also trying to avoid doing my homework, but I never really thought about it in those terms!
In today’s Gospel, Zacchaeus the tax collector does precisely this: he climbs the Sycamore tree to get a new perspective on Christ. He’s not satisfied with the rumors and hearsay about Jesus. He wants to see for himself. But he’s not a very big guy, either physically or socially. No one is going to do any favors for Zach. So he takes matters in his own hands, and up the tree he goes. And once he does, — guess what? Not only does he see Jesus, but Jesus sees him. Jesus calls to him. And out of this encounter, Jesus comes to visit Zacchaeus’s home, and Zacchaeus is forever transformed. I think the Sycamore Tree is the unsung hero of the Zacchaeus tale. It has been relegated to the status of whimsy in a children’s song. But without that tree, the encounter between Jesus and the tax collector might never have happened.
Indeed, if we take a step back and look at the entire history of our faith, we will notice that trees appear again and again, always at some sort of pivotal moment in the story of our ongoing relationship with God.
We remember, of course, the two great trees in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Keep in mind also that the Tree of Life reappears at the other end of the Bible, when Zion is transformed into the Heavenly or New Jerusalem, with none other than that great tree at its very center. And let us not forget the tree that was felled so that its wood could be used to build the cross — the “tree” on which Our Lord hung, as he suffered and died. For that matter remember that Jesus and Joseph were carpenters, which means that trees provided the raw material by which they earned their daily bread.
In fact, that’s true for many of us, even today. Trees give us the material by which we live and work. As an author, I am reminded of Thich Nhat Hanh, who in his books asks his readers to give thanks for the trees that died to make the paper on which his words are printed. Perhaps in our day of Kindles and other ebook readers, this is changing, but at least for the moment, so many of the words we read come to us on paper made from the wood of a tree.
When I think about the spirituality of trees, I also cannot help but think about the great wisdomkeepers of Ireland, Scotland and Wales: the Celts. Today, of course, is October 31, or Hallowe’en — but it is also Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival marking the end of summer and indeed the end of the year. Samhain was a day for honoring the ancestors, and if we honor our Celtic ancestors, we remember that they had a particular devotion to trees. This is true not only of the pagan Celts, but even of the earliest Celtic Christians. For example, St. Brigit made her home in Kildare, a name that means “The Church of the Oak.” In Kildare archaeologists have discovered the foundation of a temple where nineteen sisters of Brigit tended an eternal flame. Just a short walk from this site are two holy wells which remain, to this day, sites of sacred pilgrimage for Christians and Pagans alike.
For the ancient Celts, what the sacred flame, the holy well, and the great tree all had in common was their function as portals, or doorways, between the worlds. Fire transforms, water flows, and trees reach high. Each of these, in their own way, signify the alchemy of the human spirit as it is transformed, flows into, and reaches for the very heart of God.
I would be remiss if I did not also tip my metaphorical hat to our Jewish brothers and sisters, and their great mystical tree: The Tree of Life within the Kabbalah. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a symbol which represents the various stages of reality, or consciousness, that form a sort of creational continuum between the unspeakable splendor of God and the ordinary reality of human awareness. “Climbing the Kabbalistic Tree” is therefore a metaphor or a symbol for the transformations of human consciousness that take place as we seek to “put on the mind of Christ,” which is how Saint Paul describes the journey of inner transformation.
I would like to suggest a metaphor for us to explore this morning. I invite you to join with me in thinking about the great trees of the spiritual world — whether we are talking about the Jewish Tree of Life, the Celtic Oak Tree of Brigit, the World Tree, Yggdrasil of Norse Mythology, the Cross of Christ, or even the humble Sycamore Tree that Zacchaeus climbed: all these trees function as symbols of the human body itself. We stand, our feet planted on the ground and our hands and eyes reaching for the stars. We are creatures of clay animated with the Breath of God. So like these great trees, we stand between the worlds, the worlds of ordinary reality and the always-transforming splendor of our Triune God.
The philosopher Rudolf Eucken said that humanity “is the meeting point of various stages of reality.” In other words, we are, like the great trees of Celtic mythology, the link between the physical and the spiritual dimensions of the cosmos.
This, then, is why I commend to you the practice of Christian spirituality: of lectio divina, or meditative reading of the Bible; of meditation itself, thoughtful reflection on the great mysteries of our faith, and the summit of our spirituality, contemplation, the practice of allowing all thoughts and distractions to gently rise and fall within the greater silence that is our most natural ground of being. When we enter into meditation or contemplation, we are symbolically “climbing the tree” of our own minds and hearts, and in doing so, we reach a new perspective, a new vantage point, a new place where it is possible to encounter the Risen Lord — but, even more important, where Christ encounters us. And in this encounter, he asks to come into our lives, our homes, and leaves us forever transformed.
The great German mystic Meister Eckhart said: “The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.” This, then, is the heart of contemplation: I gaze at God, and God gazes at me. This is brought about because we climb the tree of contemplation, where, from a new and higher vantage point, this encounter with the Holy is made possible. And when we return from the height of our inner tree, we find that our lives have been changed forever. And out of this change, we are empowered to truly and lovingly serve others.
So on this Hallowe’en Day, I hope that each of us will take time to reflect on Zacchaeus and his sycamore tree. Give thanks for the trees in your life, whether living are dead. From paper to furniture to floors to cabinets, our lives are filled with the gift of trees. So consider this, and give thanks. But give particular thanks for the trees that are alive, the living, sentient beings that bless us with their fruit, and their shade, their roots that stabilize our soil, and most important of all, their oxygen. And finally, consider the sacred tree that you can find within the theater of your spiritual imagination, where you are invited to climb to a new vantage point where, like Zacchaeus, you may see, and encounter, and be encountered by, the One who can change your life with love with truth and goodness and beauty. For after all, it is in his name that we gather today, for the great feast in which he is both priest and victim. Amen.
(see Carl McColman's blog at www.anamchara.com )
Posted on October 31, 2010 by Carl McColman
Sermon for October 31, 2010, Sts. Peter & Paul Episcopal Church, Portland, OR
Text: So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. (Luke 19:4)
When I was a boy I loved to climb trees. We had two pine trees in our back yard, and one of them I could only climb up maybe five feet or so, but in the other, larger one I could get at least ten or twelve feet off the ground, which was pretty high for a ten year old kid! How fondly I remember my clothes and limbs covered with dust when I would finally descend from the branches. Even having to pull out the occasional splinter was worth the joy of bonding with that tree.
Climbing a tree always gave me a new perspective; I would climb it for fun, or I would do it to get away from it all, or even just to think through my homework. I suppose I was also trying to avoid doing my homework, but I never really thought about it in those terms!
In today’s Gospel, Zacchaeus the tax collector does precisely this: he climbs the Sycamore tree to get a new perspective on Christ. He’s not satisfied with the rumors and hearsay about Jesus. He wants to see for himself. But he’s not a very big guy, either physically or socially. No one is going to do any favors for Zach. So he takes matters in his own hands, and up the tree he goes. And once he does, — guess what? Not only does he see Jesus, but Jesus sees him. Jesus calls to him. And out of this encounter, Jesus comes to visit Zacchaeus’s home, and Zacchaeus is forever transformed. I think the Sycamore Tree is the unsung hero of the Zacchaeus tale. It has been relegated to the status of whimsy in a children’s song. But without that tree, the encounter between Jesus and the tax collector might never have happened.
Indeed, if we take a step back and look at the entire history of our faith, we will notice that trees appear again and again, always at some sort of pivotal moment in the story of our ongoing relationship with God.
We remember, of course, the two great trees in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Keep in mind also that the Tree of Life reappears at the other end of the Bible, when Zion is transformed into the Heavenly or New Jerusalem, with none other than that great tree at its very center. And let us not forget the tree that was felled so that its wood could be used to build the cross — the “tree” on which Our Lord hung, as he suffered and died. For that matter remember that Jesus and Joseph were carpenters, which means that trees provided the raw material by which they earned their daily bread.
In fact, that’s true for many of us, even today. Trees give us the material by which we live and work. As an author, I am reminded of Thich Nhat Hanh, who in his books asks his readers to give thanks for the trees that died to make the paper on which his words are printed. Perhaps in our day of Kindles and other ebook readers, this is changing, but at least for the moment, so many of the words we read come to us on paper made from the wood of a tree.
When I think about the spirituality of trees, I also cannot help but think about the great wisdomkeepers of Ireland, Scotland and Wales: the Celts. Today, of course, is October 31, or Hallowe’en — but it is also Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival marking the end of summer and indeed the end of the year. Samhain was a day for honoring the ancestors, and if we honor our Celtic ancestors, we remember that they had a particular devotion to trees. This is true not only of the pagan Celts, but even of the earliest Celtic Christians. For example, St. Brigit made her home in Kildare, a name that means “The Church of the Oak.” In Kildare archaeologists have discovered the foundation of a temple where nineteen sisters of Brigit tended an eternal flame. Just a short walk from this site are two holy wells which remain, to this day, sites of sacred pilgrimage for Christians and Pagans alike.
For the ancient Celts, what the sacred flame, the holy well, and the great tree all had in common was their function as portals, or doorways, between the worlds. Fire transforms, water flows, and trees reach high. Each of these, in their own way, signify the alchemy of the human spirit as it is transformed, flows into, and reaches for the very heart of God.
I would be remiss if I did not also tip my metaphorical hat to our Jewish brothers and sisters, and their great mystical tree: The Tree of Life within the Kabbalah. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a symbol which represents the various stages of reality, or consciousness, that form a sort of creational continuum between the unspeakable splendor of God and the ordinary reality of human awareness. “Climbing the Kabbalistic Tree” is therefore a metaphor or a symbol for the transformations of human consciousness that take place as we seek to “put on the mind of Christ,” which is how Saint Paul describes the journey of inner transformation.
I would like to suggest a metaphor for us to explore this morning. I invite you to join with me in thinking about the great trees of the spiritual world — whether we are talking about the Jewish Tree of Life, the Celtic Oak Tree of Brigit, the World Tree, Yggdrasil of Norse Mythology, the Cross of Christ, or even the humble Sycamore Tree that Zacchaeus climbed: all these trees function as symbols of the human body itself. We stand, our feet planted on the ground and our hands and eyes reaching for the stars. We are creatures of clay animated with the Breath of God. So like these great trees, we stand between the worlds, the worlds of ordinary reality and the always-transforming splendor of our Triune God.
The philosopher Rudolf Eucken said that humanity “is the meeting point of various stages of reality.” In other words, we are, like the great trees of Celtic mythology, the link between the physical and the spiritual dimensions of the cosmos.
This, then, is why I commend to you the practice of Christian spirituality: of lectio divina, or meditative reading of the Bible; of meditation itself, thoughtful reflection on the great mysteries of our faith, and the summit of our spirituality, contemplation, the practice of allowing all thoughts and distractions to gently rise and fall within the greater silence that is our most natural ground of being. When we enter into meditation or contemplation, we are symbolically “climbing the tree” of our own minds and hearts, and in doing so, we reach a new perspective, a new vantage point, a new place where it is possible to encounter the Risen Lord — but, even more important, where Christ encounters us. And in this encounter, he asks to come into our lives, our homes, and leaves us forever transformed.
The great German mystic Meister Eckhart said: “The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.” This, then, is the heart of contemplation: I gaze at God, and God gazes at me. This is brought about because we climb the tree of contemplation, where, from a new and higher vantage point, this encounter with the Holy is made possible. And when we return from the height of our inner tree, we find that our lives have been changed forever. And out of this change, we are empowered to truly and lovingly serve others.
So on this Hallowe’en Day, I hope that each of us will take time to reflect on Zacchaeus and his sycamore tree. Give thanks for the trees in your life, whether living are dead. From paper to furniture to floors to cabinets, our lives are filled with the gift of trees. So consider this, and give thanks. But give particular thanks for the trees that are alive, the living, sentient beings that bless us with their fruit, and their shade, their roots that stabilize our soil, and most important of all, their oxygen. And finally, consider the sacred tree that you can find within the theater of your spiritual imagination, where you are invited to climb to a new vantage point where, like Zacchaeus, you may see, and encounter, and be encountered by, the One who can change your life with love with truth and goodness and beauty. For after all, it is in his name that we gather today, for the great feast in which he is both priest and victim. Amen.
(see Carl McColman's blog at www.anamchara.com )
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