Rich's Ruminations

Christian Unity

2012-01-22T07:11:00.000-05:00

I have been praying this week with images of two great Christian leaders, St. Peter and St. Paul. I have been imagining St. Peter as a Gloucester, Massachusetts fisherman. And St. Paul as a Harvard professor. Both images, admittedly, take a bit of a hermeneutical leap, but not a huge one. The images below don't totally capture what I have been seeing with my mind's eye, but they come close enough. (And the images were not copyrighted!)

What we know from the New Testament is that Peter was not a formally educated man. Sometimes formally educated people mistakenly believe that people without access to formal education aren't smart but in my experience that is a giant mistake.
Some of the wisest people I have ever known didn't go to college - and well, quite frankly, I've known some people who hold PhD's who aren't so smart. But that's another post, for another day...

St. Peter is "street smart," as I imagine him. Or, more accurately, "water smart." Wise about the ways of the world. St. Paul, in contrast, is sitting at a desk, comfortable in the world of ideas and formally trained in both Jewish and Roman traditions.

This past Wednesday, January 18, the Church remembered the Confession of St. Peter at Caesarea Phillipi, where he says to Jesus, "you are the Messiah, the Christ." This coming Wednesday, January 25, we will remember the Conversion of St. Paul and his Damascus Road encounter with the Risen Christ. These two feast days mark either end of The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

We tend to focus in this week on denominations, because that is the Church we know. And there is nothing wrong with that, although I do think there is a danger of a certain kind of hubris to which no Christian I know is immune: often when we pray for "unity" what we are really praying for is that others will see the light that we have seen. That if they grow into the full stature of Christ they will see what we see and become more like us. This takes on various forms depending on whether one is Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, or Protestant but the premise is the same: unity implies agreement, as if somehow when Jesus' prayer that we may all be one is fulfilled that we will all be the same.

I think this is silly. For me this is a week to celebrate our diversity, and in the midst of that diversity a unity that holds us together in spite of ourselves.

But increasingly we live in a world where denominations mean less and less. Increasingly it's no big deal for a Roman priest and an evangelical pastor to co-officiate at a wedding or funeral. Yesterday I was at an ordination for an Episcopal priest. A local Roman priest sat with us and while he did not feel comfortable receiving Holy Communion, he did come up and ask the new priest for a blessing. I think that's pretty good, and surely progress over the past fifty years or so since the opening days of Vatican II.

But pre-denominationally and post-denominationally we will still face a challenge, and it's captured by the two images above. Peter and Paul were very different people. Their journeys were very different too. But one was not "better" than the other. Peter seems to embody in some respect what we might call the "catholic" tradition--small c. Among other things, the conversion that leads to his confession that Jesus is the Christ seems gradual. In contrast, Paul seems to embody in some respect what we might call the "protestant" tradition--small p. Among othe things, the conversion that leads to his confession that Jesus is the Christ seems rather dramatic.

In the first-century Church as in the twenty-first century Church, the differences tend to be more along the lines of personality than denomination. Within the congregation I serve we have people whose faith-journeys tend to be either more like Peter's or more like Paul's. Often they speak very different languages about what this means for them. Often their relationships can be as difficult as the Scriptures tell us Paul and Peter's relationship was.

But they both loved Jesus. They both served Jesus. They were one, not because they were the same; but because of the risen Christ. In this week of Prayer for Christian Unity that is worth remembering, and emulating.

Remembering Dr. King

2012-01-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes people forget that before, during, and after the time he was a Civil Rights leader, Dr. King was a Baptist preacher. The following is an excerpt from a sermon he preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on June 5, 1966. The full sermon is entitled "Guidelines for a Constructive Church." I share the excerpt below because it gives us a glimpse of King as pastor.

You see, the church is not a social club, although some people think it is. They get caught up in their exclusivism, and they feel that it’s a kind of social club with a thin veneer of religiosity, but the church is not a social club. The church is not an entertainment center, although some people think it is. You can tell in many churches how they act in church, which demonstrates that they think it’s an entertainment center. The church is not an entertainment center. Monkeys are to entertain, not preachers. But in the final analysis the church has a purpose...and therefore it has certain guidelines that it must follow.

Let us first think of the fact that if the church is following its guidelines, it seeks to heal the broken-hearted. Now there is probably no human condition more tantalizing than a broken heart. You see, broken-heartedness is not a physical condition; it’s a condition of spiritual exhaustion. And who here this morning has not experienced a broken heart? I would say broken-heartedness comes basically from the trying experience of disappointment. And I don't believe there are many people here this morning under the sound of my voice who have not been disappointed about something.

Here is a young man or a young woman dreaming of some great career and setting out in school to try to make that career possible, only to discover that they don't quite have the mental faculties, the technical know-how, to achieve excellence in that particular field. And so they end up having to choose life’s second best, and because of this they end up with a broken heart.

Here is a couple standing before the altar in a marriage that seems to be born in heaven, only to discover that six months or a year later the conflicts and the dissensions begin to develop; arguments and misunderstandings begin to unfold. And that same marriage which a year earlier seemed to have been born in heaven ends up in the divorce court and the individuals are left with a broken heart.

Here is a family, a mother and father striving desperately to train their children up in the way that they should go. Working hard to make their education possible; working hard to give them a sense of direction, praying fervently for their guidance. And yet, in spite of all of this, one or two of the children end up taking the wrong road, moving toward some strange and tragic far country. And the parents end up having to acknowledge that the children that they raised are prodigals lost in a far country, and they end up with a broken heart.

And then there comes life’s ultimate tragedy, that something that always makes for a broken heart. Who this morning hasn't experienced it: when you must stand before the bier of a loved one…that day when the casket rolls down the aisle? That experience called death, which is the irreducible common denominator of all people. And no one can lose a loved one, no one can lose a mother or father, sister, brother, a child, without ending up with a broken heart. Broken-heartedness is a reality in life.

And Sunday after Sunday, week after week, people come to God’s church with broken hearts. They need a word of hope. And the church has an answer—if it doesn't, it isn't a church. The church must say in substance that broken-heartedness is a fact of life. Don’t try to escape when you come to that experience. Don't try to repress it. Don't end up in cynicism. Don't get mean when you come to that experience. The church must say to people that Good Friday is a fact of life. The church must say to people that failure is a fact of' life. Some people are only conditioned to success. They are only conditioned to fulfillment. Then when the trials and the burdens of life unfold, they can't stand up with it. But the church must tell people that Good Friday is as much a fact of life as Easter; failure is as much a fact of life as success; disappointment is as much a fact of life as fulfillment. And the church must tell people to take your burden, take your grief and look at it, don't run from it. Say that this is my grief and I must bear it. Look at it hard enough and say, "How can I transform this liability into an asset?"

This is the power that God gives you. He doesn't say that you're going to escape tension; he doesn't say that you're going to escape disappointment; he doesn't say that you’re going to escape trials and tribulations. But what religion does say is this: that if you have faith in God, that God has the power to give you a kind of inner equilibrium through your pain. So let not your heart be troubled. "If ye believe in God, ye believe also in me." Another voice rings out, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden”…Come unto me, all ye that are heartbroken; I will give you rest”… if the church is true to its guidelines, it heals the broken-hearted.

Feast of the Holy Name

2012-01-01T10:30:00.000-05:00

I was born on St.Patrick’s Day. For that reason, my father wanted to name me Patrick. My motherinsisted, however, that I be called Richard, after my father. (Technically, Igot his middle name; he was “E. Richard” and I’m “Richard M.”)

Even so, asanyone who has lived in a house where two generations share a name knows, youhave to navigate which one you are speaking to. In my case, I spent the firsttwelve years or so of my life as “little Richie” while my dad was “big Rich.” Eventually, I got to drop the “little” but longafter that many family and friends who know me from childhood continue to callme Richie. When I am back in my hometown, as I was this past week, and walkinto the Hawley Diner, I invariably run into people who have not seen me foryears; they still call me “Richie.” Mostly I have given up trying tochange that.

Shakespeare had Romeo say that “a rose is still arose by any other name”—and I suppose it is. But names nevertheless do conveysomething, because they tell us who we are or at least who others think we are.I sometimes wonder how I would be different if I had been named Patrick ratherthan Richard. I know that it makes a difference how I respond if I am called“Richie” or “Rich” or “Father Rich”or “Richard.” Hathy and I had a landlord when we lived in New Britain,Connecticut who called us, for four years, “Dick and Hattie.” I realize that itmakes a difference to some extent not only howI am, but even who I am—when I amcalled by these various names.

So today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Itis a day we don’t usually get to make a big deal of—the eighth day afterChristmas—January 1—which only rarely falls on a Sunday. The name"Jesus" is a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς, which is itself a Hellenization of the Hebrewיְהוֹשֻׁעַ Yĕhōšuă‘ or Joshua. The name means: "YHWH delivers"or "YHWH rescues.”

The name Jesus appears to have been a fairly commonname in Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth. And it is, of course, an old Biblical name thatgoes all the way back to the end of the Exodus story—to the days when Yeshua fought the Battle of Jericho andthe walls came tumblin’ down! In Luke1:26-33, the angel, Gabriel, told Mary to name her child Jesus. And in Matthew 1:21, the angel told Joseph to name the child Jesus: “you are to give him the name Jesus, because he willsave his people from their sins." That sort of takes the fun out of theback-and-forth most parents go through in considering names, but that is whatthe Bible says: Mary and Joseph didn’t have to fight over that one because theyboth got it on good authority that this would be the name!

In the same way that Christians are officially “named”at Baptism, so little Jewish boys are named at their bris. Luke tells us that “after eight days had passed it was timeto circumcise the child…” So it is not only the name of Jesus that comes on this eighth day of Christmas; circumcision is asign of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Luke wants us to knowthat Jesus is a child of that covenant, afaithful Jew. Jesus is born into a tradition that goes back to Moses and theExodus, to David and the psalms, to Jeremiah and the exile, to Isaiah and homecoming.

Jesusbears the name of God. His very name includes the namerevealed to Moses at the burning bush: YHWH delivers. Obviously Jesus bearsthat holy name in a special way, but the point of circumcision, as with HolyBaptism, is that God's people also bear the name of God.

We have—each of us—been given names—formal names andnicknames and perhaps some names that only a few people are allowed to call us.We try to live up to our names as best we can and we try not to bring shame toour family names. But in addition to those given names and family names, thereis a name that binds us all together into one great bigextended-complicated-sometimes dysfunctional family—the Body of Christ. ThroughHoly Baptism we have been claimed and marked. We bear the Holy Name of Jesus,our Lord and our God and our Savior, the Name of the One who calls us his “friends.”

Prayer for a New Year

2011-12-31T14:48:00.000-05:00

The prayer below can be found in one of Walter Brueggemann's collections of prayers, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth. I share it with best wishes for the year ahead to all the faithful readers of this blog. Peace and good,
Rich

Occupy our Calendars

Our times are in your hands:
But we count our times for us;
we count our days and fill them with us;
we count our weeks and fill them with our busyness;
we count our years and we fill them with our fears.
And then caught up short with your claim,
Our times are in your hands!
Take our times, times of love and times of weariness,
Take them all, bless them, break them,
give them to us again,
slow paced and eager,
fixed in our readiness for neighbor.
Occupy our calendars,
Flood us with itsy-bitsy, daily kairoi,
In the name of your fleshed kairos. Amen.

Winter Reading List

2011-12-29T21:50:00.000-05:00

I love getting a nice new stack of books at Christmas to carry me through the long winter ahead. Here are the books that are now at the top of my reading list.

Daniel Kahneman is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. The book (which was on my "wish list to Santa") takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind, seeking to explain the two ways we think: System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and logical. We need both! Kahneman engages the reader in reflecting on the strengths and limitations of each.

I love Lutherans and I love Garrison Keillor. This book was a gift from a parishioner. Many people assume that Keillor was and is a Lutheran; in fact he was raised (as he points out in the preface) in the Sanctified Brethren sect. (I have been told he now worships with Episcopalians) In any case, he tells great stories about the Lutherans and I assume some of them are true. I have always been a big fan of Pastor Ingqvist. The book is comprised of 28 stories, including ones I know already (e.g. "Gospel Birds") and others like "Church Organist," "The True Meaning of Christmas," and "Potato Salad."

Hathy gave me this book, also on my "wish list" this Christmas. For my money, Volf (who teaches at Yale) is the single most creative theologian in the Church today. This book seeks points of intersection and overlap between Christianity and Islam. As he writes in the introduction: "A deep chasm of misunderstanding, dislike, and even hatred separates many Christians and Muslims today. Christian responses to Allah - understood here as the God of the Qur'an - will either widen that chasm or help bridge it." Volf seeks to bridge it. (Me too!)

Another parishioner gave me this book by my very favorite Biblical scholar. (I make a distinction between theologians and Biblical scholars which is why I can say Volf is the most creative theologian in the Church today. Hands down, Brueggemann is the most creative Biblical scholar!) This is classic Brueggemann; anyone who knows his work in the past decade at least will recognize his thesis, the contestation between narratives. On the one hand there is the dominant narrative of our time, a narrative that promotes self-sufficiency, militarism, and consumerism. On the other, the Church offers the Biblical narrative that posits a God who is gracious, uncompromising, and real. What is required of a prophetic preacher? The practice of prophetic imagination!

My brother gave me this book, signed by Monsignor Esseff, a Roman priest of Lebanese descent who is a popular retreat speaker for people in recovery. I have read the first chapter and expect to see echoes both of my own vocation and my roots in northeast Pennsylvania.

Joy to the World!

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

In their book, What the Gospels Really TeachAbout Jesus’ Birth, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write these words:

What would you think ofa book that started with the opener, ‘I am going to discuss Mahatma Gandhi as aHindu saint, but I’ll skip all that distracting stuff about British imperialIndia.’? Or another with, ‘I am going to describe Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.as a Christian saint, but I’ll get right to his biography and skip all thatstuff about racism in America as background baggage’?

The questions are meant to be rhetorical ones and perhapseven a little bit sarcastic. But the point being made is a very serious one: youcannot understand the birth of Jesus detached from its first-century Romanimperial context. You cannot understandanything apart from context, including this birth. And yet one of the very realchallenges of preaching the Christmas story is that the preacher can assume that nearly everyone in the pews has heard this story from the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel, and almost as certain that most have heard it in ways utterly disconnectedfrom all that “distracting” stuff about imperial Rome. When we skip all that other stuff as “baggage” we are in danger of losing the real meaning of Christmas…

Jesus’ birth took place “…in those days when a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all theworld should be registered…” Whatever the historicity of that census may ormay not have been, the point is that this is what dictators do: they issueedicts so that they keep an eye on people so they won’t get out of line!

There are signs of Rome’s imperial power everywhere inthe Gospel accounts, if you know what you are looking for. Even as we celebrateJesus’ birth, we do so at the foot of the cross: the Romanequivalent of the guillotine or the electric chair.

One of the mostmisunderstood and misquoted of all the sayings of Jesus is the one aboutrendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what belongs to God. If youread that pithy response within context,then you realize that Jesus is asking his followers to discern where theirallegiance really does lie. Who is Lord of your life? How much of you belongsto Caesar and how much of you belongs to God? Jesus’ comment is rhetorical (andperhaps even a little sarcastic) because it’s so clear that the answer he ishoping for is most definitely not that Caesar gets everything during theweek and God gets an hour or so if we have that left in us on Sunday mornings!

I am aware that birthday parties are not necessarilythe time for heady history lessons. Even so, birthday parties are occasions fortelling stories. I love those cards you get when you turn forty or fifty thatremind you of what was happening in the year you were born and who wasPresident and how much it cost for a gallon of gas or a new home. Context matters. It tells us somethingabout who we are, and what shaped us if we lived through the Great Depressionor were born the year John Kennedy was assassinated or if are old enough toremember the days before the internet. Context matters, in our lives and in thelife of the One whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. And to skip over those partsis to miss so much of what matters.

What matters is that Jesus’ wasn’t born at thecenter of imperial power. He isn’t born in Rome and sent to the best private schools. Hecomes into this world as a vulnerable baby, born to a poor, teenage mother who(at least at the time of his birth) is living in a temporary homeless shelter. Hewill grow up to see the world from that angle. He’s born in occupied Palestine where the politicalleader, Herod, (at least according to Matthew’s telling of the story) is so frightenedby his birth that he has countless children “disappeared” in an unsuccessfuleffort to destroy Jesus. His first visitors will be shepherds, who representthe lowest socio-economic strata of society. The scholars may well argue about thehistoricity of these parts of the story. But just because they may not have happened doesn't mean they aren't true.

The theological point of the Incarnation is that Godis with us—that God is no longer confined to the heavens or to our houses ofworship, but has come into the world—into the streets. Everything about theparticular circumstances of Jesus birth reminds us that, as Mother Theresa putit, you will see the face of Jesus most clearly among the poor and vulnerable.

Even though Jesus is born into a violent andoccupied land, he refused to perpetuate the cycle of violence. His Kingdom isnot of this world. But that doesn’t mean that it is only spiritual, orsomething that we see only after we die. It means that he refuses to lead aviolent coup that then becomes what it hates, only to require another violentcoup and then another...

He comes among us as Prince of Peace, and calls upon usto be peacemakers so that the Kingdom might come on earth as it is in heaven. Truly this birth is joy to the world, in every time and place. Merry Christmas!

A Bonhoeffer Christmas

2011-12-24T08:51:00.000-05:00

During this Advent season, alongwith a daily blog written by the people of my parish, I have been using a compilation of the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled: God is in theManger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas for my daily meditations. As Advent comes to an end and gives way to the twelve days of Christmas, I want to share two reflections from thatcollection that I find particularly compelling.

How shall we deal with such achild? Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and tooproud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become toofull of serious thoughts...that we cannot bow our head in humility at thewonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our senseof importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and thewise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger likechildren?

And this:

Joy to the world! Anyone for whom this sound is foreign,or who hears in it nothing but weak enthusiasm, has not yet really heard thegospel. For the sake of humankind, Jesus Christ became a human being in astable in Bethlehem: Rejoice, O Christendom! For sinners, Jesus Christ became acompanion of tax collectors and prostitutes: Rejoice, O Christendom! For thecondemned, Jesus Christ was condemned to the cross on Golgatha: Rejoice, OChristendom! For all of us, Jesus Christ was resurrected to eternal life:Rejoice, O Christendom!...All over the world today people are asking: Where isthe path to joy? The Church of Christ answers loudly: Jesus is our joy! (IPeter 1:7-9). Joy to the world!

Happy Winter Solstice

2011-12-22T13:39:00.002-05:00

Today is the shortest day of the year. Starting tomorrow, the days begin to get a little longer and a little bit brighter. Winter has not really even arrived yet in New England, but no matter how bad this winter gets, spring will come again. Yesterday I was driving through town and saw a bumper sticker that said, "Christianity has pagan DNA." I have no idea how the driver of the car feels about Christianity, but the bumper sticker made me smile. It is true of course. The question is, what does it mean?

My family has an annual tradition of attending The Christmas Revels, which is billed as a celebration of the winter solstice. It is a wonderful mix of music and dance and theater but it is also a recognition of the ways that the solstice is intertwined with Christian tradition. Or, if you will, of how Christianity has pagan DNA.

This is not an appealing thought to all Christians. The Puritans of New England certainly were not happy with Christmas reveling, which led them to ban Christmas in Boston when they had the chance. For the Puritans, Christmas was a bit too much "Church of England" and it carried with it way too much wassailing. But mostly they didn't consider December 25 to be the "birthday" of Jesus.

I remember one day when I was a young campus minister, a student knocked on my door. He had learned in one of his classes that Christians had taken over the Roman festival of Saturnalia and set December 25 as Christmas Day--and the professor had told the class that Jesus was not really born on that day. He couldn't believe that and came to me looking for reassurance. I told him that his professor was right, and that there was no evidence to support December 25 as Jesus' birthday. He was devastated. I didn't know what to say. But he found words before I did. "I cannot accept that," he told me before leaving my office, never to come by again. "I choose to believe that since Jesus had to be born on a certain day, that it could have been December 25 and that when the Church settled on that date they must have been guided by the Holy Spirit in setting it."

For my own part, what the Incarnation means is that God has come into the world, into a particular time and place. Choosing this time of year to celebrate that birth--of the Light coming into the world, makes great theological sense, even if it is not historically "accurate." (Although I have sometimes wondered how my theology of Christmas would be turned upside down if I lived in the southern hemisphere; but that is surely another post for another time!)

As the gospel spreads, it must take hold in different cultures or die. What I love about The Revels is that you see how this Christian story of the dear savior's birth is like a seed that grows differently in different soils: when the birth of Jesus encounters Russian Orthodox culture, or a French fishing village in the sixteenth century, or Victorian England or Appalachia it births something new and wonderful. When that happens the story is told again, in song and dance and the birth of new "traditions." So, too, with us: as the birth we celebrate in just a few days takes hold in us. Our "traditions" are not merely rigid repetitions of an unchanging past, but joyful surprises of the gift of God-with-us--in this time and place.

My student friend, and the Puritans, may be right to have worried about wanting to keep their story "pure." There is always a danger of the gospel being consumed by or overwhelmed by the culture's own narratives. On the other hand, to keep the story as "our own" runs counter to the whole point; or so it seems to me. Christ comes into this world because God so loves the world (not only the Church.) This birth is good news precisely because it leads to so many diverse traditions and customs as it takes hold in this great big world. The key is to be discerning, but if Christmas means anything at all it is that God has taken to the streets--not just our houses of worship.

For this Christian, at least, there is no shame in honoring our pagan DNA! It leads us, I think, to remember that many people are seeking the light in what oftentimes feels like a dark world. When the power goes out, you can curse the darkness or you can light a candle. You don't even need to be a person of faith to get that.

This month of December offers us a season of holy-days as many other people of faith celebrate festivals of light, including our Jewish friends lighting those miraculous Menorah candles this week. As a Christian, I embrace the many connections--past and present--that allow the story of Christ's Incarnation to be told in many different and creative ways. And am happy to tip the hat to our pagan roots on this day of the winter solstice.

Magnificat

2011-12-18T20:20:00.000-05:00

Below is an excerpt from the sermon I preached for the Fourth Sunday of Advent at St. Francis. The full text, and audio, will be posted on the St. Francis Church website.

Mary's Song—the Magnificat—isabout what is possible for all human beings, female and male, young and old—withGod’s help. Her soul magnifies the Lord. I think it means something like, with God we cando infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. I think it means that when we doa little thing in the name of Christ it ripples out to change the world,magnified to the nth degree! Mary is deeply rooted in her Jewish tradition, drawing for strength as she sings a new song to the Lord on a very old song, Hannah’s Song. (That song can be found in ISamuel 2:1-10—sung at the birth of Samuel, who was a gift from God, as everychild is a gift from God.)

Rooted in the tradition, she also points us toward the future, prefiguring Pentecost: that day when Holy Spirit breaksdown all walls that divide. For the Holy Spirit there is never “them” and “us”- only us beloved children of God. Mary models for us what it might mean to letthe Holy Spirit blow through our lives and make us new in spite of the dominantculture’s expectations. She knew (as her forebear Hannah knew) that God caresabout justice and cares especially for the poor. She knew that the deck isstacked and that in this world kids attending inner-city schools or growing upin the third world do not have the same opportunities that a kid going to a school in the suburbs has. That shouldn't inflict guilt; it's just a reality check. God loves us all, but God wants the playing field tobe more even, and so somebody has to take the side of the underdog. That iswhat the liberation theologians mean when they speak of God’s preferentialoption for the poor and I think Mary is doing liberation theology in the Magnificat.

When Mary riffs on Hannah’s Song, she stands in a long lineof Biblical prophets, male and female, who know this. God knocks the proud andarrogant and powerful down a few pegs and brings up the lowly and fills thehungry with good things and sends the rich away empty, not because God hatesthe rich but because God really does love the poor, the ones who in the Bibleare called God’s anawim—God’s littleones. In this dog-eat-dog world theanawim need God on their side because the rich do pretty well taking careof themselves. Mary will teach her child, Jesus, to love the poor as God lovesthem; and as she loves them. She will teach him how to read the prophets, sothat when his public ministry begins his first words will sound a lot like thesong we heard his mother singing today. Theapple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This text isunmistakably a call narrative. Mary is called by God through the very same patternthat we find throughout the Old Testament whenever God needs to have a jobdone: from Abraham to Moses to Samuel to Isaiah with his “unclean lips.” Theangel says, “I’ve got a job for you.” Like those who have gone before her, she isinitially fearful and confused. “How can all this be?” she asks. The angelinsists that it can be because with God all things are possible. That’s when Marysings: I am fully open to the will of Godfor my life.

Like all call narratives, including the callsthat come to us in our own lives, Mary has a choice. I love the lines in DeniseLevertov’s poem, The Annunciation,which go like this:

…we are told of meek obedience. Noone mentions
courage
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent. God waited.
She was free
to accept or refuse, choice

integral to humanness.

Like all of those men, Mary is free to say, “get lost angel!”Like those others, she instead chooses, freely, to say: Here I am! Send me! In so doing, she is the first and modeldisciple. She is bold and courageous and strong in this moment, and not thisone only. She will have to be bold and courageous and strong to raise a sonlike the one she raises. And she will have be bold and courageous and strongwhen her son walks theVia Delarosa some thirty years later, as her heart is pierced and her son dieson a tree. Mary has to bury her child, something no parent should ever have todo.

Thereis nothing passive or submissive about Mary. And while she may not have a starringrole in the Bible—her role is crucial in the deeper, wider, tradition. RomanCatholics perhaps say too much about her, but Protestants have not yet said nearlyenough. Mary says “yes” to God and the world is changed. She is Christ-bearer,which is precisely the ministry that you and I are called to: to make room in ourselvesfor Christ to be born; to take on our flesh.

Thelife of faith is not without its questions, struggles, uncertainties and fears.But with God, all things are possible.God comes to us, as to Mary, not because we are perfect, but because we arewilling to open our lives to the radical transformation that the Spirit brings.As we prepare our hearts for Christmas we look to Mary as one who shows us whatis possible, even now. May Christ be made manifest—and even magnified—throughus, for the sake of this world.

Annunciation

2011-12-18T07:03:00.000-05:00

DeniseLevertov was born in Essex, England, on October 24, 1923. Her father, who had beenraised a Hasidic Jew, converted to Christianity while attending universityin Germany. By the time Denise was born he had settled in England and become anAnglican priest. Her mother, who was Welsh, read authors such as Willa Cather,Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, and Leo Tolstoy aloud to the family. Denise waseducated entirely at home, and claimed to have decided to become a writer atthe age of five.

This Fourth Sunday of Advent, in this season when Christians continue to wait expectantly and prepare for Christmas, focuses on the angel Gabriel's message to Mary, and on her response (The Magnificat) as recounted in the first chapter of Luke's Gospel. Levertov's poem on this event is below.

The Annunciation

by Denise Levertov

Weknow the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lecturn, a book; always
the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent. God waited.

She was free
to accept or refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

Aren't there annunciations
of one sort or another in most lives?
Some unwillingly undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes..

She had been a child who played, ate, spelt
like any other child - but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked

a simple, "How can this be?"
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel's reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power -
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love -

but who was God.

Messy Christmasses

2011-12-17T08:46:00.000-05:00

I thought that this "pause for thought" message from Rowan, Archbishop of Canterbury, was right on target. The biggest challenge in my own spiritual journey, over many decades, has been battling the demon of perfectionism and trying to just let it be. I'm making some progress...

Christ is born, whether or not we have our act together. Christ is born, because we rarely do!

What Would Jesus Say?

2011-12-12T09:39:00.004-05:00

For those who have not yet heard, Lowe's is pulling its advertising from The Learning Channel's All American Muslim. (If you have not heard this disturbing news, see a news report from CNN here or my previous post here.) The group leading the charge is called the Florida Family Association, led by David Caton. According to their website, their mission is "to educate people on what they can do to defend, protect, and promote traditional biblical values."

One might assume that people interested in "biblical values" would be interested in the teachings of Jesus. So here is a parable from the tenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, only slightly edited. Let anyone with ears to hear, hear:

On one occasion a member of the Florida Family Association stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’

"You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Detroit to Dearborn when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A pastor of a large mega-church happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by. So too, an Executive Director of a lobbying organization to preserve "traditional family values" - when he came to the place and saw him, passed by.

But a young Muslim high school student, who was running late to soccer practice, as he traveled came to where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He pulled over, knowing he'd never get to soccer practice and went to him and bandaged his wounds and put ointment on them. Then he put the man in his own car and drove him to the hospital. He waited with him in the Emergency Room for two hours until the man's wife finally arrived. And then he stayed with them both until the man's doctor arrived. (Turns out the doc happened to be the kid's mother, one of the most respected surgeons in Dearborn--but that's another story!)

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The member of the FFA replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

All American Muslims

2011-12-12T06:59:00.002-05:00

I've only seen the show once, but I was really hopeful when I did. The Learning Channel's All American Muslim "takes a look at Dearborn, Michigan through the lens of five Muslim American families." It explores their lives inside and outside of their faith community, including customs and celebrations and misconceptions. That goal incensed some Christian evangelicals, who have protested the show and now gotten at least one sponsor (Lowe's) to pull their ads from the show. This in the same week when Newt Gingrich called Palestinians "an invented people."

How can you be a Biblical literalist and then interpret "love of neighbor" to only mean evangelical Christians who greet you with a "Merry Christmas" everywhere you go? This is religious bigotry and it does not serve Christ or the Church. It suggests that the title of the show is somehow an oxymoron: that you cannot be a real "all American" and a Muslim; after all, real Americans are all evangelical Christians, right? (Like the Founding Fathers!?)

Shame on Lowe's for succumbing to hatred, fear, and bullying. If there is ever to be peace on earth, and good will to all (isn't THAT "the reason for the season?") it must begin with us, and with Christians trying to behave more like Jesus. I commend Miroslav Volf's work to you for thinking through the theology. And for my own part I'm going to start watching American Muslim more intentionally. I wish I could also stop shopping at Lowe's, but I can't remember the last time I was there anyway.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent

2011-12-11T21:18:00.001-05:00

First Thessalonians isthe oldest document in the New Testament. It is the earliest of Paul’sLetters, written around the middle of the first century—less than two decades afterthe death and resurrection of Jesus—and almost two decades before Mark’s Gospel was written. So this letter gives us a glimpseinto the earliest years of what life was like in for our earliest Christian forebears.

In the opening words of this short epistle, Paul writes:

“We always give thanks to God forall of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before Godyour work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope…” (I Thessalonians 1:2-3)

Faith, hope, and love—the very same words that Paul will famously unpack in a laterletter to a conflicted congregation in Corinth. Paul and the believers inThessalonica thought that the end of the world was coming soon (and verysoon)—that Christ’s return as king of kings and lord of lords was imminent. Sothis short letter is dealing with questions about how the community can “keepalert” and stay ready for that day. (That is why it makes such good Adventreading.) How to do that? By waking up to a life of faith, hope, andlove.

Those early Christians were a people of expectation who werewaiting for Christ to return and to establish the Kingdom of God on earth as itis in heaven. They were waiting for God’s peaceable kingdom—that day when lionand lamb would play together and you no longer had to worry about your childbeing bitten by a poisonous asp. A day when they would no longer hurt ordestroy on all of God’s holy mountain; a day when swords would be beaten intoplowshares.

So this was the primary theological question those earlyChristians wrestled with: how to live asa people who were prepared, a people of expectation.

Advent is not Lent. Both are seasons ofpreparation. But preparing for a birth is very different from preparing for a death.It is true that there is a somberpart of Advent and some overlap. This is our second week in a row with John theBaptist, who is all about repentance—which is definitely a key theme in Lent aswell.

But as we light those candles on that wreath, one at a time, we rememberthat they are associated with words like hope and peace and joy and love. If wemake Advent too much like Lent we will miss the boat. Advent is aboutanticipation. It’s like people who are expecting a child have to get thenursery ready and go to birthing classes. Unlike Lent, we sing our alleluiasall the way through Advent. Like John the Baptist we are called to help preparethe way and make the paths straight. Next weekend we will join Mary in saying“yes, Lord, let it be with me according to your word" as we prepare a place withinourselves for the Christ-child to be born.

At the beginning of chapter five ofFirst Thessalonians, Paul writes:

“Now concerning the times and theseasons, you do not need to have anything written to you…for you yourselvesknow very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”(I Thessalonians 5:1-2)

Paul being Paul, of course, he does have a bit more to say.But this is important: it’s not to put the fear of God into them. That issometimes how we hear the preachers on television and in some other placestalking about the end of human history: as fire and brimstone, as threat. You better repent or you willbe left behind! You better accept Jesus or you’ll end up on the naughty listand not the nice one! But that is not where Paul goes with this. Instead, heoffers a word of encouragement. Because you are children of the day, be sure toact like it! Since you are children of light, make sure you walk the walk! Andthen these words:

· respect one another

· esteem one another

· be at peace with one another

· admonish the idlers

· encourage the fainthearted and help the weak

· be patient with everyone

· don’t repay evil with evil; instead, respond toevil by doing good!

Those words are in turn followed by the verses we heard today,verses 16-24 of the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians:

· rejoice always

· praywithout ceasing

· givethanks in all circumstances

· do not quench the Spirit

· do not despise the words of prophets

· test everything

· hold fast to what is good

These words are like a mission statement for a parish thatis not only in the midst of Advent, but that is trying to be faithful to Christ52 weeks a year, with God’s help. It’s how we are called to live “in themeantime.” If we keep respecting one another and esteeming one another and areat peace and if we rejoice always and pray without ceasing and givethanks in all circumstances, we will be ready. Do notquench the Spirit! Hold fast to what is good!

On this day we light the third candle in our wreaths: therose candle. This third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday – from the Latin word that means “rejoice.” This reading from theearliest decades of the Church’s life goes with the theme of this day as welight this rose candle of joy. This season is about joy—it’s notsomething we have to wait until Christmas to talk about, or to experience. Ifwe try to do Advent without joy we miss the point. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

But if Advent is not Lent, we do well to remember that it’snot Christmas either. We need to resist letting the dominant culture setthe agenda. I think that is the big counter-cultural message of this season isfor us to stay focused on what really matters. True joy takes us way deeperthan instant gratification. The reasonfor this season is about way more than whether the clerk in the mall says“Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.”

Advent gives us a chance in the midst of a crazy month toreflect on what it means to be the Church and why it matters not only for oursake, but for the sake of this broken world. It gives us an opportunity to ask:how can we be a more joyful, prayerful, Eucharistic, spirit-filled, prophetic,tested community in the midst of so much fluff? How can we keep growing intothe full stature of Christ?

If we keep doing these things—rejoicing, praying,giving thanks—then we will be ready enough toreceive the gift that is Christmas.

Stir-Up Sunday

2011-12-10T21:01:00.001-05:00

The Third Sunday of Advent is affectionately known in some circles as Stir-Up Sunday because of the collect appointed for this day:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

I really liked Steve Pankey's blog entry on this prayer, entitled "Our Most Dangerous Prayer." Among other things he notes that we should be careful about what we pray for, and that if God answers this prayer the whole world changes. We must change!

His commentary can be found at Draughting Theology.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-08T09:06:00.001-05:00

I literally felt sick to my stomach when I recently watched Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad. I was reminded (once it truly dawned on me that this was not a Saturday Night Live spoof) of Joseph Welch's words to Senator McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Rick Perry's candidacy is finished because he is a buffoon. But Fox News is at it again and in case you have not heard, President Obama is fighting a war against Christmas. (It's December so, of course it must be time to beat that drum again.) I avoid Fox News as much as possible, but I get enough of it through John Stewart to make me crazy. (If you don't watch Fox or John Stewart, then check out this segment on the Tree Fighting Ceremony. Among other things, by the way, he's 100% right about how the Puritans felt about Christmas...but never mind the facts when you are fighting a "war" - the truth is always the first casualty.)

In fact, what President Obama said this week when he lit the nation's Christmas tree, is here. It's worth a listen, unfiltered. On that same day he talked about immigration reform in light of the Christmas story, in what at least one commentator called a sermon.

I remain a fan of the president, but this is not a blog offering political support. It is simply to say that if this season is about light shining in the darkness, then lies must be exposed. In the end the truth matters. The truth really does set us free.

I am proud to be a Christian and an American; in that order. In this Advent season I am getting ready to celebrate once again the "dear savior's birth." I look forward to celebrating a very Merry Christmas with my family and in my parish.

But I have promised in holy baptism to respect the dignity of every human being. I know that this is a holiday season, and that other faithful people celebrate other holy days in this season; and some who have no faith still yearn for something more. I find myself wondering if the Jew, Jesus, would really want to use the celebration of his birth to make Jews and people of other faiths feel like they are not "real" Americans. Actually, let me re-phrase that: I don't wonder about that at all. I think using his name to belittle other people of faith probably gives Jesus the same feeling in his stomach that I felt immediately after watching Rick Perry's ad--in need of some alka seltzer.

I sometimes genuinely wonder how people so fixated on the second amendment can so easily ignore the first one. In any event, I prefer to keep the Christmas greetings in church - not because I think faith can be segmented from real life but because I seek to build bridges and find common ground with all of God's children who seek good will for all, and peace on earth in this time. Moreover, I'm not sure that a Christmas greeting at Walmart or the mall makes me somehow feel more special. At the very least it cheapens and distorts and commercializes what matters so deeply to me; the Incarnation. If I hear one more time about ABC-Family's 25 days of Christmas I am going to scream! For the record, it's still Advent, and there are twelve days of Christmas that culminate in Epiphany! I don't expect ABC-Family to preach that. But I'd so much rather they call this the 25 days of Solstice than distort my tradition!

Happy Holidays!

James "Pierre" Smith, RIP

2011-12-03T11:22:00.006-05:00

Most high school teachers you have for one year; the potential exceptions tending to be in the music and language departments. I took French for four years at Wallenpaupack Area High School with a guy named Jim Smith, who died this past Thursday.

To his face we called him Mr. Smith. Behind his back we always called him "Pierre." He loved all things French. He was a Pennsylvania boy and a card-carrying member of the NRA; but he also loved Paris and saw no contradiction there. He introduced me to quiche, brie, escargots, crusty baguettes, Bordeaux, and le petit prince. I learned far more from him than how to say my name and buy a train ticket in Paris: he introduced me to the world.

When I was a freshman, he was offering a trip to London and Paris. The trip was supposed to be for upperclassmen but he needed another kid to make the trip happen and he asked me, and my parents, if I could go along. (I suppose he thought I was mature enough!) I went, and for a small-town fifteen year old it was a life-changing experience I still recall with great fondness.

In my senior year we were studying existentialism and he asked the local Methodist minister to come in and make a "guest lecture" on Sartre and Camus to our class. I was also a Methodist, in a different congregation served by the same pastor. Edgar Singer was new to town, but he came in and talked to us about things I didn't know previously that ministers knew anything about: big existential questions, philosophical questions that wrestled with meaning and purpose. Edgar Singer told us that in addition to Camus and Sartre, who had much to offer, there were also Christian existentialists like Kierkegaard who, while not French, were worth getting to know. It was a formative moment for me and a memory I went back to when I first read Kierkegaard in college and began feeling a call to ordained ministry. Because of that moment (and others like it) I never felt that "fear" that some Christians have of learning, and philosophy, and questions. Jim Smith indirectly played a key role in making that happen.

In Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons, there is this famous exchange:

Sir Thomas More: Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one.
Richard Rich: If I was, who would know it?
Sir Thomas More: You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that.

Indeed! Merci beaucoup, Pierre.

Some Advent Music to "sooth the soul"

2011-12-02T15:27:00.000-05:00

Miroslav Volf

2011-12-01T07:02:00.000-05:00

Miroslav Volf (born 1956) is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is going to be the guest preacher at Harvard University's Memorial Church on the Third Sunday of Advent, and so I've been encouraging my eldest (who sings in the choir there) to "keep awake" that morning!

Volf is a Croatian immigrant to this country. His early work was focused on forgiveness and reconciliation; I know him primarily through Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Otherness and Reconciliation and Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, both of which I highly recommend. That has taken him, especially since 9/11, into interfaith conversations and theological reflection on the relationship between Christianity and Islam. Allah: A Christian Response is on my reading list for this upcoming Christmastide. He is, to my mind, one of the most (if not THE most) creative theologians in the world today. In searching for some material to send Graham before Volf's visit to Harvard, I came across this quote:

Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and
imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.

Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent

2011-11-27T13:12:00.002-05:00

The First Sunday of Advent, which is the very first Sunday of the liturgical year, picks up where we left off last weekend. New beginnings often come from old endings. I told my spiritual director once that I was in a time of transition and he said, “Rich, all of life is transition, just one transition after another…”

It’s true, but we do well to be reminded. Some of us tend to carry around in our heads an image of what life is supposed to be like and along with all those sugarplums dancing around our heads, I think that is especially true in these weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We carry around no small number of “shoulds” that we lay on ourselves and sometimes on others. Sometimes in the midst of a transition, big or small, we think the goal is to get “back” to normal. But we need to be open, in the midst of seasons of transition, to the “new normals” that come on the other side of every transition we face.

When you get married (or divorced) life is changed. When a child, or a grandchild is born; life is changed. And when that same child goes off to kindergarten or college or gets married herself, life is changed. When the nest is emptied, or a loved one dies, again life is changed. When a bishop retires or an associate rector moves into a new position, life changes. Transitions. Beginnings and endings; endings and beginnings. As we have come to the end of the church year, we now begin again. With signs of endings all around us, we are a people of new beginnings. And so we begin this Advent season looking back to the first coming of baby Jesus, even as we await the second coming of the King of kings.

As we begin again today, I want to have a second listen to those words we heard from the opening chapter of Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Corinth.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:3-9)

This is good advice, I think, on how to live in the midst of transition. In fact, I want to make it even simpler on this weekend, when the tryptophan may still be working its way through our bodies. I’m going to take a red pen to Holy Scripture and give Paul what he always needed: a good editor! Some punctuation! Verses 4-7 is one long run-on sentence; but I am going to insert a period after verse four—just for today: I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.

In just a few days we’ll be turning the page of the calendar to December. And you all know what that means. Fighting for a parking place at the mall and even at the Big Y. Perhaps some snow and ice thrown in for good measure. Maybe too much egg nog. And for too many of us, too many old losses kicked up; too much pain in those memories of loved ones not here. We can talk ourselves into crisis mode pretty quickly by playing old tapes. And we can get ourselves stuck there.

Or we can decide this Advent to make a new beginning, toward a new normal. We can let go of at least some of that old stuff, and begin anew, with gratitude. We can count our blessings and give thanks—not for what we wish would be but for what is. The thing about counting your blessings is that it grounds you in the present tense.

Don’t worry about who has been naughty and who has been nice! Make a different kind of list: focus on those things in your life for which you are grateful and the people in your life who make you smile. Make that list and check it twice. Write them down and offer them to God in prayer: I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.

What is really interesting about that line, if you remember what the Letter to the Corinthians is all about, is that the church in Corinth was a total mess. Paul could have said, “you guys are driving me crazy!” Because they were, and in fact he will say that at various points in this letter. He could have said, and does say, “you all need to get your act together.” They were a pretty gifted lot actually; maybe too talented. They tended to be a little bit too proud and arrogant. So Paul will remind them in chapter thirteen that love is not arrogant or rude.

But he begins with gratitude. As a pastor, I don’t think Paul is just buttering them up; just telling them he’s thankful for them when he’d really like to wring their necks. In fact I don’t think he tells them that for their sakes so much as for his own. I’ve been there. The longer one is in the same place, as a pastor, the more specific our thanksgivings become. We are not generically thankful for a generic congregation: we are thankful for the unique, particular “characters” who make St. Francis what it is, in all of it’s glory.

I still think my all-time favorite December movie is “It’s A Wonderful Life.” I love that scene when George Bailey comes back home and starts seeing everything through new eyes: and now he’s thankful even for his bloody lip, and that old Savings and Loan and his house and the piano playing and of course ZuZu’s petals. Same stuff of his life, but transformed by gratitude.

Gratitude doesn’t make everything perfect; it just means we see it through the eyes of love. Same life, same people, same stuff: but it is gratitude that makes it all wonderful. It doesn’t mean there aren’t ever conflicts. But you can be thankful in the midst of it all, thankful for what is—not for what you wish would be if everyone got their act together. Thankful in the midst of all of life’s transitions. So I think Paul really means it: the Corinthians drive him into vertigo sometimes. But he loves them. And I imagine they loved him back.

If we begin Advent with gratitude and thanksgiving, then I believe it will make us better givers. The gifts we give may actually be more creative, and more thoughtful; not necessarily more expensive. If we begin with thanksgiving and focus on the particular people in our lives for whom we are grateful, those people whom God has given us as companions along the way, then we might find ways of expressing our genuine thanks to them. Can you imagine a better Christmas present than getting a letter from a former student, for example, who tells you why you changed her life in second grade?

I want us, as we begin Advent, to listen to Paul and to do what he did: give thanks to God for the people who mean something to us: family, friends, teachers, a neighbor who shovels our walks because they worry that we are too old to be doing that anymore; a co-worker who makes the workplace more humane or the baker who hangs a little pumpkin bread on your door every Thanksgiving, or the beekeeper who drops some local honey off at your house, or the brewer who passes along an imperial stout.

It’s up to you what you do with this, but here, and now, I want to invite you to take just two minutes of silent prayer before we say the Creed today: just to reflect, to consider, to pray. To give God thanks for those people in our lives who make it real, and make it meaningful, those who give us hope.

Hope

2011-11-26T08:13:00.000-05:00

We light the first Advent candle to mark the beginning of our Christmas preparations and to remind ourselves that we are a people of Hope. It’s a word sometimes cheapened by everyday usage. We may hope that the Patriots win tomorrow’s game, or that it isn’t raining when we take our vacation to Disney World.

But hope is a bigger word in our vocabulary of faith than that.“Faith, Hope, and Love,” at least according to St. Paul, comprise the big three. While love may well be “the greatest of these,” the implication is that the three are somehow connected. I’ve always thought that the journey begins with faith, which isn’t primarily about saying a creed or about memorizing a catechism, but about trust. More specifically, it is about well-placed (rather than misplaced) trust. And faith leads us to hope, and hope teaches us how to love one another. To say this another way, it is difficult (if not impossible) to love (particularly the unlovely) unless we have faith, and hope...

Between our house and our neighbor’s there are a whole lot of maple trees. From time to time I try to clip back or hack down all of the little maple trees that sprout up. But they seem to come back even stronger in the spring with new shoots. That happens, as I understand it, because the root system already there makes new life come about more quickly, even though at ground level it appears that life has been cut off.

On a practical level this is annoying, but it’s also a Biblical image of hope. An important Advent image to ponder is the “stump of Jesse” that gives way to a “new branch of David.” Jesse was King David’s father. What this metaphor suggests is that even though it appeared as if the Davidic dynasty came to an end–that it was only a stump—nevertheless from that stump new growth will and does appear. For us as Christians that is language we cannot help but to connect to Jesus, the Son of David who is our hope and our salvation.

Advent is a time to contemplate new beginnings, new possibilities. It’s a season of hope. And so even though Advent begins with talk about endings about the end of the world we know, it, is about the hope that in the midst of it all that God is doing a new thing: God is bringing forth a branch of David out of the old stump of Jesse. God is birthing a new creation: new heavens, and a new earth.

Hope isn’t naivete, or blind cockeyed optimism. It is the conviction that sin and death never get the last word. It is the conviction that love is stronger than hate, that the truth is stronger than lies, that trust is stronger than fear. Hope is the knowledge that God is in the healing business and that health is God’s plan for us: personally, socially, and cosmically. As people of hope, we choose not to let our fears dictate our behaviors; instead acting and living and moving from that place of hope that leads us to a manger in Bethlehem.

During this Advent Season, the people of St. Francis Church will be offering daily reflections that can be found at: http://stfrancisholden.blogspot.com/ for anyone who may be interested.

Look, Consider, Seek

2011-11-23T10:09:00.001-05:00

The Mount of the Beatitudes, Photo by Rich Simpson

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:25-33)

Have you ever tried to tell a worrier (even when that worrier is yourself) not to worry? It really doesn’t work! I think some of us are born to worry and others of us are born to let others do the worrying, and there’s not a whole lot we can do about that. But to all of us, I think Jesus offers three words in these verses from "The Sermon on the Mount:" look, consider, seek.

Look at the birds. To look at the birds is to see—really see—God’s good creation. To watch an eagle soar or a cardinal feeding at your bird feeder or a flock of geese headed south in formation is to remember that we are a part of that creation, that we are connected to it. We are stewards of it but that doesn’t make us the center of it. Birds (and fish and lions and tigers and bears and cats and dogs) can all remind us of that.

Consider the flowers. This time of year in New England, one might think, “well, we have to wait on that one.” But maybe not. To consider them right now is to know that already they slumber in the earth. They are ready for winter, for the snows to fly. And then spring will come again as it always does, and the warm earth and April showers will bring new life and new possibilities. Even now, then there is much to ponder. And eventually we will again consider their beauty. I’m married to a person who sees the beauty even in dandelions. I have to confess I’m not quite there, yet. But her attitude is that the difference between a weed and a flower is all in the eye of the beholder. In our natural lawn, "flowers” are not limited to the garden: they pop up all over the place, little reminders of beauty and of the fragility of life.

Finally, seek the Kingdom of God. First. That’s important. When we seek God first, then the rest really does fall into place. There’s an old camp object lesson about this. You take a big pot and you pour into it all the little things of your life: the details of soccer and dance and the countless events that fill our days. You pour those in as sand. And then you add in some pebbles: the bigger stuff like family and friendship. Guess what? Already the pot is too full. These things won’t fit—not to mention the largest commitment of all—the rock that is meant to represent God in our lives.

That simple object lesson reminds us all how easy it is to fill our lives up and have no room left for God. But if you reverse the order, and put the first things first, starting with the big things and then the medium sized ones and then pour the sand in, guess what? It all fits. The small things find enough room. First things first—and all the rest follows.

Look. Consider. Seek. I believe that when we live our lives in that way, we begin to model an alternative way to be in the world. We cannot help but to be more thankful and generous people. And maybe even the worriers among us get some perspective.

What is tomorrow really about? God is the big thing—the center—the giver of all good gifts. Family and friends are the next biggest thing, simply being together. Few people enjoy food as much as I do—but here is the thing: if the turkey is overcooked or the cranberry sauce is dropped on the floor or the pies burn, it really is okay. More likely, for those who keep things in the right order, the food will be just fine. But if there is love around the table it really doesn’t matter. On the other hand, I guarantee you that there are tables where the food is perfect—but the people gathered around it can barely stand one another. The food cannot fix any of that. As the Scriptures say, "better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred." (Proverbs 15:17, NIV)

Look, consider and seek. I do think that when we keep these things first, we actually find that we have a whole lot less to worry about. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Reign of Christ

2011-11-20T17:02:00.000-05:00

Below is a slightly edited version of the sermon I preached this weekend at St. Francis Church. (RMS)

It has been twenty-three weeks since the Feast of Pentecost: almost six months now of what is sometimes called “ordinary time.” This last Sunday after Pentecost—this last Sunday of the liturgical year—has been called “Christ the King Sunday” or "The Reign of Christ.”

We proclaim as central to the mystery of faith that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. If you look at the rhythm of the liturgical calendar, then you have to go back even further than 23 weeks ago, to Friday, April 22—Good Friday. We remembered on that day that Christ really died on a cross outside of Jerusalem. That event, foolish and scandalous to many, takes us to the heart of the wisdom of God and to the core of the Christian faith.

And then on the third day we lit the holy fire and sang our alleluias again as we celebrated the Paschal mystery: Christ is risen. Not once-upon-a-time in a land far away, where Jesus was raised and showed his hands and side to a few frightened disciples. We sang on Easter morning those great words of Brian Wren's, that Christ is alive—“no longer bound to distant years in Palestine…He comes to claim the here and now…” Christ is present in the Eucharist and present in the world, disguised especially as poor, and thirsty, and naked, and in prison.

Christ has died. Christ is risen… and Christ will come again.

If you can read a newspaper, or if you watch the news on television, or if you have feeds on your homepage from CNN or The New York Times then you don’t need me to tell you that it feels like we are a long way from this Reign of Christ. And maybe even that it feels like we’re heading in the wrong direction. Tea partiers and Occupy Wall Streeters agree on nothing, it seems, except for one thing: the system is utterly broken. And the poor pay the heaviest price for that…

The number of people in poverty in this country in 2010 was 46.2 million, the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published. Fifteen million of those are children. The poverty level in this country is defined as a family of four with an income of less than $22,500 a year. And there are a whole lot more, the near poor, who are barely making ends meet and in danger of slipping deeper into poverty.

Every time we seem to make some progress in the Middle East, it seems that there is a setback. We still live in a dangerous world, and even when we choose not to live in fear or set foreign policies rooted in anxiety, we must never confuse Christian hope with wishful thinking. We cannot wish dictators away, cruel men who oppress and hurt and destroy their own people, God’s own people.

It is a violent world we live in, and the evils perpetrated against our children can give us nightmares. In churches, in schools and on college campuses from Penn State to the Citidel—no place, it seems, is immune from predators who would hurt and seek to destroy the young and vulnerable. We pray at Holy Baptism that every child of God will know the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. Yet a few broken and sick adults can do so much serious damage to that joy and wonder.

There is so much violence and degradation in the world we live in. Why then do we come to a church like this one to pray? So we can forget? In order to escape?

No…we come here to remember. We come here to listen to God’s Word, and to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it until by God’s grace we are empowered and equipped and encouraged to act as instruments of God’s peace: to do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God. We come here to be awakened to the reality of what it means to be the Church in the face of so much pain. We come here to be awakened to the dream of God for a better world.

Twenty-three weeks after the Feast of Pentecost, we gather to consider the Reign of Christ, that day when the mustard seed of God’s reign comes to full fruition and there are new heavens and a new earth and God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. We pause to imagine a day of justice and peace, a time when every tear is wiped away, a time when those who have caused pain and violence are held accountable for their actions. This day, like every day for us who bear the name of Christ, is about Jesus who suffered and died on a cross; the risen Christ who brings healing in his wings and new possibilities; the king of kings who will separate the sheep from the goats.

In today’s gospel reading, from the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, the criteria for judgment is not about who claims Jesus as lord. That proclamation is rightly made by those who bear his name, his disciples--the Church. We should own that and share that good news with all the world. That faith claim defines us as Christians and holds us together.

But in this particular text, on this particular day, the words from Matthew’s gospel are addressed to the nations, not just to Jesus’ disciples. And the criteria by which the nations are judged as either “sheep” or “goat” is not about a theological claim, but about ethics. And quite specifically: about how the poor and vulnerable are treated in any given society.

So it isn’t about whether a nation is, or claims to be, a Christian nation. (Many will say, “Lord, Lord.”) In fact, Jesus’ parable seems to presume a good bit of confusion among the sheep and goats about which they are. Some say, “Lord, Lord…we love you Jesus” but they are in truth goats masquerading as sheep—because they have ignored the poor. And some may say, “Praise be to Allah” or “Namaste”—but if they do justice and love mercy and care for the hungry and the sick and those in prison, they discover in the end that they were really sheep: that even if they didn’t do these things in the name of Jesus, they still did them to Jesus himself. That is what the text says, after all. It is what Jesus says. (Or at least what Matthew records Jesus as having said!)

In any event, our work is not to be the King—the Judge; that job is taken. We don’t get to decide who is a sheep or who is a goat: the Son of Man does. But as people who do claim Jesus as Lord, we have an even greater obligation to listen to his words and to act according to his command. We have an obligation to behave like sheep in the meantime.

For that is where we live…in the meantime. We are called to respect the dignity of every human being. We are called to work for justice. We are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit those in prison.

That can feel pretty paralyzing because when we awaken to the pain and suffering of this world—whether it be in Africa, or in Central America, or in Worcester County--the problems seem so big. There are just too many who are hungry and sick and naked and in prison. It can feel like we could work to the point of burnout and it would still not be nearly enough.

But the truth is, we do not do this work alone. It is among the many, many reasons, why we need each other: why we need community. Not just in this parish church but as part of a community that is connected to a Diocese, and to a national Church, and to a global Communion. And it is why even the Anglican Communion—cannot do this work alone. We need ecumenical and interfaith partnerships with all who are willing to do justice and love mercy, whatever their faith tradition may be (or may not be!)

This text reminds us that it is the work that matters, and that work (along with our confession of Jesus as Lord) defines who we are, and invites us to get clearer about being sheep who know the Good Shepherd rather than goats who simply mouth the words.

Today’s gospel reading can leave us feeling paralyzed and guilty. But by God’s grace, it can awaken us to our true vocation as followers of Jesus:

`Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

Happy 98th Birthday!

2011-11-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

Jan Dorsey, shown above in pink, celebrated her 98th birthday this past week. She is one of the founding members of the parish I serve and most Sundays she is still in church. Today we sang "Happy Birthday" and shared some cake at coffee hour. Add this to the (long) list of reasons I love parish ministry...

(Thanks to Dave Faford for snapping the photo!)

A Cloud of Witnesses

2011-11-01T07:19:00.001-04:00

I have not been a very active blogger of late. Work and family obligations these past two months have been somewhat overwhelming. A pre-Halloween winter storm this weekend which resulted in a loss of our power and internet access for twenty-four hours didn't even come as a welcome Sabbath rest for me: instead, I was climbing the walls and thinking about all the work that I was not getting done!

If there is a day to blog, however, it is this one for me. I know that Christmas and Easter are the two great Christian Feast Days, and rightly so. But give me Ash Wednesday and All Saints, and I'd be happy. The former reminds us that we are dust, that we don't have all the time in the world and so we better live in the time we have. It reminds us that we are creatures, not Creator; that we play a role but are not "in charge."

The latter, as I see it, reminds us that nothing in all of that creation can separate us from the love of God--not even death. We are creatures and we will indeed return to the dust. But that is not the last word and we will sing again. More importantly, we are not alone. All of us can sing when we are joining the song of a heavenly chorus. And all of us can believe, when we know that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who sing with us and for us: alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. It is a thin space indeed that separates the saints triumphant and the saints militant (surely we need new language here)...and never is that space thinner than when we break the bread and share the cup. Truly "a mystic sweet communion...a fellowship divine."

As pastor, I sometimes tell people when they lose a loved one that while the person is gone, the relationship is not ended. For me this is no pious cliche; I believe it to my core, based on my own life-experience. My father died at the age of 37, when I was just 18 years old. I have now "outlived him" by 11 years. But only if he remains frozen in time. In truth, over the past thirty years, I have come to better understand, forgive, and love him. And as I watch my oldest son navigate his way through college, and my younger son not very far behind, I am aware of the circle of life that this day affirms. And I believe that my dad is somehow part of it all. My memories on this Feast of All Saints are therefore not so much nostalgic as present-tense; and that makes my heart glad, not sad.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee, by faith, before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. Allelulia, Alleluia.