Song of Solomon 2:8-13, James 1:17-27 and Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Listen to the words and messages of this week’s scripture texts. In the Song of Solomon we heard, “Arise My love”; in the letter of James we are referred to as “my beloved” and in the Gospel of Mark Jesus reaches to the very center of God’s beloved, our hearts. These words describe a very special communion between God and all creation of which each of us are members.
Our capacity to respond to the way we are being addressed by God as “beloved” will be directly related to the way we have heard the bread texts in John’s Gospel over the last few weeks.
Christ loves us through Eucharist but there is a way we leave ourselves out of Holy Communion. Our lives can become so consumed in searching for Jesus that we miss the Christ before us. Due to our well-defined search we risk missing Jesus’ intimate relation to us when we are called by our name – “beloved”. Holy Communion is not only Divine presence. Holy Communion might be better described as radical communion.
The point of all the bread texts these last few weeks was far less about worshipping the most precious Body and Blood of Jesus and more about the way we are transformed by placing ourselves in intimate proximity to Christ through a communal Eucharistic feast. We become precious through Baptism and Eucharist.
The focus is not a temporary receiving of less than seconds each week, but rather, the way Eucharist opens us up. By frequently receiving the Body and Blood of Christ we radically open our lives to Christ. But this opening is not merely between each of us and God, but radically opens us up as a church. This radical opening is due to the way our hearts become commingled with God’s heart through the Eucharist.
Words such as “love” and “beloved” suggest an intimate communion between two lovers. Yet when the two lovers are God and ourselves we can be misled by the terms. The communion between two lovers is usually understood as an exclusive love. If we overlay this normative expectation on our communion with God then we justify a personal spirituality that sees all outsiders as intruders to our most sacred bond.
As a child I loved visiting the Blessed Sacrament in my parish church, but I always had an unspeakable question. I would name that childlike question this way - if we receive Jesus then how can Jesus be outside of ourselves?
As a theologian my concern has shifted to cautioning churches that reception of the bread and wine does not mean that we become the Body of Christ in a literal way that displaces or replaces the centrality of the Trinitarian reality for our lives. You see there is a very thin space between self-abandonment in a privatized relation to God and Divine inundation where we confuse and conflate ourselves for and with God creating our own false idols. Idols we then worship and protect from intrusion by others.
The call to the beloved is a public call to all creation. When we hear the words “my love” and “beloved” do we recognize ourselves, identify with, and feel called to respond? The scripture throws us a curve ball for God talks to us in today’s texts the way we often talk about God. God addresses us with awe and humility by naming us God’s “beloved”. Let’s just take a moment to savor our participation in this radical communion as God’s beloved.
If we can embrace and cherish our beloved nature then we will be freed from a fragmented and false humility where God is great and we are inferior missing the possibility of radical communion. That is the point of today’s texts and the tension between the law of the Pharisees and Jesus’ law. The Pharisees kept their distance as they scrupulously kept the law. Whereas, God’s law, the perfect law within us nurtured by the Eucharist frees us to live into God through each other in radical communion.
Arise my love is God’s call to all creation as “beloved”. As Trinity Church prepares to begin a new program year such recognition of being beloved frees us up from the necessity of tentatively seeking an overly defined passageway to God for ourselves or for others.
Our mission is to avoid building barriers that falsely seek to protect God’s communion from those we may see as intruders. With God there are no intruders. Therefore I want to preach beyond our Episcopalian notion of inclusion of strangers as inclusion is still about what we do and thus risks still seeing some people as intruders.
To free ourselves from this bind we have to redefine our communion with God. Holy Communion leads often to distancing the holy from the least worthy whereas radical communion abandons our inclusive responsibilities to God. The community of the “beloved” lives with a radical openness always pointing to God as the host to all. We practice this as a church when the presider says, “This is God’s table and all are welcome.”
Holy Communion may take place at this church’s table, but radical communion must be practiced at all tables. Nor does radical communion stop with an inclusive church community such as Trinity Church but goes beyond the gates of the church into the streets of downtown Reno and throughout our nation and the entire world.
Communion without intruders means each of us has the privilege to own our dignity as “beloved” and to serve with a deep sense that we are privileged to minister. The beloved is authorized in a very special way through the ministry of the baptized to care for the lover’s loved savoring the beloved in each person. Communities of beloved arise to their vocation in open communion with boundaryless space for all God’s beloved.
The time has come for us to arise out of our slumber and to celebrate God’s radical communion with all God’s beloved creation.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Living Bread As Covenant: Our Gift of Holy Vulnerability - August 9, 2009 at St. Stephen's Church, Reno
John 6:35, 41-45
Bread is central to your identity as a congregation not the least through your bread program and love of hospitality. Bread is central to the larger church too. Stories about bread are stories about people in relationship with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Bread is the conduit of all of these relationships – but not just any bread -- the Living Bread.
One of my favorite bread stories is the one at Emmaus after Jesus’ resurrection when the disciples did not recognize Jesus until they saw him in the breaking of the bread. These were his closest friends, but they did not recognize Jesus until they shared a meal with him. The Emmaus story reminds us of the centrality of the Living Bread.
Bread was central to the Emmaus story, as Jesus had become the Living Bread. Bread was also essential to the disciples’ story in the way it helped them to recognize Jesus. At Emmaus, Jesus’ story and the disciples’ story became one in their shared communion. Living Bread was a sign of the diversity of their transformation. Their stories depended on one another through their relationship with each other. As Jesus was changed into the Living Bread the disciples began their transformation through the Living Bread.
I am reminded of the OT text – Jer 31:31 – the prophet said of the Lord, “I will make a new covenant with them….”I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” The new covenant in the New Testament is Jesus. Through Jesus’ passion and resurrection we have been gifted with the Living Bread as our means to deeper communion through an ongoing process of transformation.
One way of seeing the Living Bread is as our covenant with one another in and through Jesus. Often there has been some confusion that a covenant is the same as a binding contract. That is you do this and I will do that and if one of us fails we will take disciplinary action against the other. Covenants are not hierarchical pacts that coerce the other to stay in relationship, but rather an expression of our desire to be together. Christian covenants are based on the virtue of unconditional love. A covenant is less about finding the right words to exactly describe the relationship. Contracts can never be covenants as they attempt to freeze relationships into place so they will never change.
Covenants anticipate that people will change and thus leaves space for change to gracefully emerge and tenderly engaged. Covenant provides a structure so that our best intentions are given the space to breathe and unfold bringing us into unexpected places of grace. Structure should not be confused with authoritative top-down hierarchy. Living Bread transforms structure through covenant. Living Bread as covenantal structure reminds us what we want to be mutually intentional about with each other.
A covenant that has shaped my life is made up of only eight words. In 2005 when Stefani and I were preparing to be married we went on an eight days retreat in the Tetons between Idaho and Wyoming. It was an Episcopal parish whose primary ministry was to offer centering prayer retreats. The church was across the street from a small rustic hotel where retreatants stayed. Our time together initiated a process of an unfolding covenant.
During our one-week of being together on retreat we decided to keep a journal as a means of communicating through the silence. Stefani had the journal from the morning to the evening and I had it from evening to morning. We wrote our reflections on our prayer as well as expressions of our appreciation and affection for each other. We also wrote down the ways we were beginning to envision our life together. In addition to our individual reflections, we would also write responses in the margins on the other’s comments.
Out of this retreat/journaling experience emerged an expression of our love and commitment. Specifically eight words emerged telling our unfolding story. These words are: truth, intimacy, hospitality, table fellowship, celebration, abundance, vulnerability and joy.
With further reflection we saw natural pairs: truth/abundance, hospitality/table fellowship, celebration/joy and intimacy/vulnerability. As we designed our wedding rings it seem as natural to decouple the paired words. In each of our wedding rings we have four words from each of the four pairs of words. Stefani’s ring has truth, hospitality, intimacy and celebration. My ring has joy, vulnerability, abundance and table fellowship.
Together through these two rings is the expression of our shared vision for a full life. Through these rings we are saying to one another and publicly to others that we are more likely to live a life of truth, intimacy, joy, hospitality, abundance, celebration, vulnerability and table fellowship when we are together than if we were apart.
The words did not compel us to live this way. We already were living in this way but we both wanted to deepen our experience through a shared life. In the presence of the Living Bread we exchanged our wedding rings to remind us of our primary covenant with God who forever calls us into an ongoing process of transformation.
I acknowledge to you that there’s an innocent quality to the story I just told you. However, have no fear, I am not innocent to the pain and suffering associated with a betrayal of power. Over the years of my life I have witnessed and experienced such betrayals where I have worked as well as where I have worshipped.
As a young man I aspired to be a “wounded healer” to use Henri Nouwen’s term. At the same time I was fortunate enough to realize that I was then too wounded to be a priest. Then I yearned to receive healing more than I wished to be a sign of it. I left seminary and only returned twenty years later.
In the interim years with the blessing of wise mentors I sorted out my own issues of faith identity, family history and my issues with authority. During these years a new vision of ministry was unfolding within me.
Some ministers seem to think that they can minister and heal out of their open and unhealed wounds. These ministers have not done their own inner work and can be dangerous to the People of God. The ministers who are even more dangerous don’t even know they are wounded and undiscerning churches ordain them.
I am not telling you anything that you don’t already know very well. I am confident that you like me know that it is the Living Bread who heals not even the most non-anxious priest or lay minister. It is when we believe that either priest or layperson heals our yearnings that we betray the power of the Living Bread as the only wounded healer.
In today’s second reading we are being called to deepen our relationship with each other by becoming imitators of the Living Bread. Caution is necessary here, for we must never come to believe that we can become God for then we betray Living Bread as our healing power. The emphasis must always be on our being imitators.
All of us are always in process of becoming more loving to be in communion with Living Bread but not to replace the centrality of Living Bread. It means that we bear with one another’s stories, questions and unfolding hopes. Yet this kind of transformation is challenging if we have ever been betrayed for we fear the unknown cost of our being vulnerable.
I know as a chaplain and as a spiritual director that the stories we tell our selves and each other reflect where we are in this healing process by what we say as much as by what is left unsaid. Michael Lapsey is an Anglican priest in South Africa. In April 1990 he lost both of his hands and one eye opening a letter bomb targeted for him due to his anti-apartheid activism.
He has spent his whole life since teaching people about reconciliation and communion. In a sermon he gave at All Saints Church Pasadena he talked about his travels around the world. As a means to come to know his hosts when he visited people’s homes he would ask them if he could see their family photo albums.
Lapsey noted that as people showed him their albums they seem to skip over selected stories. Sometimes albums had an empty space where a picture had been torn out. Lapsey would inquire what about the picture passed over or the empty spaces. He said sometimes people refused to talk about it and at other times people would briefly say something clearly wanting to move on with little notice. However the pain Lapsey saw in their eyes told another story.
As it turned out in almost all cases the empty space was covering up some form of deep hurt or betrayal. The picture seemed to be pulled out as an attempt to extinguish their memory, their pain and mostly represented their blunt refusal to ever be vulnerable again. Who among us cannot identify with their conviction not to be hurt?
Like couples we who are drawn to live in a parish community imperfectly enter into each other’s lives and if we are humble enough we even know that we will inevitably fail one another. Just as in other healthy relationships we are not paralyzed by this fear for we acknowledge Living Bread is our only source of communion and healing. Through the Living Bread we relearn a holy vulnerability that those in Lapsey’s story must have thought was not possible.
It has been my experience that when we forget the centrality of the Living Bread it is then that we risk betraying each other by imposing our false idols on one another. Vulnerability is not the source of our betrayal rather it is our unhealed wounds coupled with false power that imitates the power of God when we most risk betraying each other.
The Living Bread discerns and cherishes our holy vulnerability. “To you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.” The Living Bread knows each one of us in our blessed vulnerability that cannot be surpassed even by the most affirming intimacy of two lovers. Would being known in this way embarrass or shame us? For the most part I suspect not.
My sense is that the Living Bread would tenderly tell our stories. As Living Bread speaks all our pictures are cherished. Then even the pictures as in Lapsey’s story that still provoke pain would have a sense of deep healing. To be known by each other in the way that God has come to know us is our lifelong work.
As we learn to find our satisfaction only in the Living Bread then we will become vulnerable to each other letting our stories gracefully unfold. At its best this way of being is a contagious process where story begets story and questions begets new stories.
Be cautious though of people who promise you a way to fast forward yours or your congregation’s story without struggle for these are false idols of Living Bread. Our covenant call is to live into an unfolding story entrusted to communion with the Living Bread. A sign of our holy vulnerability and patience with this unfolding story is when we can acknowledge to each other that we are each only imitators of Living Bread and celebrate this without shame.
Bread is central to your identity as a congregation not the least through your bread program and love of hospitality. Bread is central to the larger church too. Stories about bread are stories about people in relationship with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Bread is the conduit of all of these relationships – but not just any bread -- the Living Bread.
One of my favorite bread stories is the one at Emmaus after Jesus’ resurrection when the disciples did not recognize Jesus until they saw him in the breaking of the bread. These were his closest friends, but they did not recognize Jesus until they shared a meal with him. The Emmaus story reminds us of the centrality of the Living Bread.
Bread was central to the Emmaus story, as Jesus had become the Living Bread. Bread was also essential to the disciples’ story in the way it helped them to recognize Jesus. At Emmaus, Jesus’ story and the disciples’ story became one in their shared communion. Living Bread was a sign of the diversity of their transformation. Their stories depended on one another through their relationship with each other. As Jesus was changed into the Living Bread the disciples began their transformation through the Living Bread.
I am reminded of the OT text – Jer 31:31 – the prophet said of the Lord, “I will make a new covenant with them….”I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” The new covenant in the New Testament is Jesus. Through Jesus’ passion and resurrection we have been gifted with the Living Bread as our means to deeper communion through an ongoing process of transformation.
One way of seeing the Living Bread is as our covenant with one another in and through Jesus. Often there has been some confusion that a covenant is the same as a binding contract. That is you do this and I will do that and if one of us fails we will take disciplinary action against the other. Covenants are not hierarchical pacts that coerce the other to stay in relationship, but rather an expression of our desire to be together. Christian covenants are based on the virtue of unconditional love. A covenant is less about finding the right words to exactly describe the relationship. Contracts can never be covenants as they attempt to freeze relationships into place so they will never change.
Covenants anticipate that people will change and thus leaves space for change to gracefully emerge and tenderly engaged. Covenant provides a structure so that our best intentions are given the space to breathe and unfold bringing us into unexpected places of grace. Structure should not be confused with authoritative top-down hierarchy. Living Bread transforms structure through covenant. Living Bread as covenantal structure reminds us what we want to be mutually intentional about with each other.
A covenant that has shaped my life is made up of only eight words. In 2005 when Stefani and I were preparing to be married we went on an eight days retreat in the Tetons between Idaho and Wyoming. It was an Episcopal parish whose primary ministry was to offer centering prayer retreats. The church was across the street from a small rustic hotel where retreatants stayed. Our time together initiated a process of an unfolding covenant.
During our one-week of being together on retreat we decided to keep a journal as a means of communicating through the silence. Stefani had the journal from the morning to the evening and I had it from evening to morning. We wrote our reflections on our prayer as well as expressions of our appreciation and affection for each other. We also wrote down the ways we were beginning to envision our life together. In addition to our individual reflections, we would also write responses in the margins on the other’s comments.
Out of this retreat/journaling experience emerged an expression of our love and commitment. Specifically eight words emerged telling our unfolding story. These words are: truth, intimacy, hospitality, table fellowship, celebration, abundance, vulnerability and joy.
With further reflection we saw natural pairs: truth/abundance, hospitality/table fellowship, celebration/joy and intimacy/vulnerability. As we designed our wedding rings it seem as natural to decouple the paired words. In each of our wedding rings we have four words from each of the four pairs of words. Stefani’s ring has truth, hospitality, intimacy and celebration. My ring has joy, vulnerability, abundance and table fellowship.
Together through these two rings is the expression of our shared vision for a full life. Through these rings we are saying to one another and publicly to others that we are more likely to live a life of truth, intimacy, joy, hospitality, abundance, celebration, vulnerability and table fellowship when we are together than if we were apart.
The words did not compel us to live this way. We already were living in this way but we both wanted to deepen our experience through a shared life. In the presence of the Living Bread we exchanged our wedding rings to remind us of our primary covenant with God who forever calls us into an ongoing process of transformation.
I acknowledge to you that there’s an innocent quality to the story I just told you. However, have no fear, I am not innocent to the pain and suffering associated with a betrayal of power. Over the years of my life I have witnessed and experienced such betrayals where I have worked as well as where I have worshipped.
As a young man I aspired to be a “wounded healer” to use Henri Nouwen’s term. At the same time I was fortunate enough to realize that I was then too wounded to be a priest. Then I yearned to receive healing more than I wished to be a sign of it. I left seminary and only returned twenty years later.
In the interim years with the blessing of wise mentors I sorted out my own issues of faith identity, family history and my issues with authority. During these years a new vision of ministry was unfolding within me.
Some ministers seem to think that they can minister and heal out of their open and unhealed wounds. These ministers have not done their own inner work and can be dangerous to the People of God. The ministers who are even more dangerous don’t even know they are wounded and undiscerning churches ordain them.
I am not telling you anything that you don’t already know very well. I am confident that you like me know that it is the Living Bread who heals not even the most non-anxious priest or lay minister. It is when we believe that either priest or layperson heals our yearnings that we betray the power of the Living Bread as the only wounded healer.
In today’s second reading we are being called to deepen our relationship with each other by becoming imitators of the Living Bread. Caution is necessary here, for we must never come to believe that we can become God for then we betray Living Bread as our healing power. The emphasis must always be on our being imitators.
All of us are always in process of becoming more loving to be in communion with Living Bread but not to replace the centrality of Living Bread. It means that we bear with one another’s stories, questions and unfolding hopes. Yet this kind of transformation is challenging if we have ever been betrayed for we fear the unknown cost of our being vulnerable.
I know as a chaplain and as a spiritual director that the stories we tell our selves and each other reflect where we are in this healing process by what we say as much as by what is left unsaid. Michael Lapsey is an Anglican priest in South Africa. In April 1990 he lost both of his hands and one eye opening a letter bomb targeted for him due to his anti-apartheid activism.
He has spent his whole life since teaching people about reconciliation and communion. In a sermon he gave at All Saints Church Pasadena he talked about his travels around the world. As a means to come to know his hosts when he visited people’s homes he would ask them if he could see their family photo albums.
Lapsey noted that as people showed him their albums they seem to skip over selected stories. Sometimes albums had an empty space where a picture had been torn out. Lapsey would inquire what about the picture passed over or the empty spaces. He said sometimes people refused to talk about it and at other times people would briefly say something clearly wanting to move on with little notice. However the pain Lapsey saw in their eyes told another story.
As it turned out in almost all cases the empty space was covering up some form of deep hurt or betrayal. The picture seemed to be pulled out as an attempt to extinguish their memory, their pain and mostly represented their blunt refusal to ever be vulnerable again. Who among us cannot identify with their conviction not to be hurt?
Like couples we who are drawn to live in a parish community imperfectly enter into each other’s lives and if we are humble enough we even know that we will inevitably fail one another. Just as in other healthy relationships we are not paralyzed by this fear for we acknowledge Living Bread is our only source of communion and healing. Through the Living Bread we relearn a holy vulnerability that those in Lapsey’s story must have thought was not possible.
It has been my experience that when we forget the centrality of the Living Bread it is then that we risk betraying each other by imposing our false idols on one another. Vulnerability is not the source of our betrayal rather it is our unhealed wounds coupled with false power that imitates the power of God when we most risk betraying each other.
The Living Bread discerns and cherishes our holy vulnerability. “To you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.” The Living Bread knows each one of us in our blessed vulnerability that cannot be surpassed even by the most affirming intimacy of two lovers. Would being known in this way embarrass or shame us? For the most part I suspect not.
My sense is that the Living Bread would tenderly tell our stories. As Living Bread speaks all our pictures are cherished. Then even the pictures as in Lapsey’s story that still provoke pain would have a sense of deep healing. To be known by each other in the way that God has come to know us is our lifelong work.
As we learn to find our satisfaction only in the Living Bread then we will become vulnerable to each other letting our stories gracefully unfold. At its best this way of being is a contagious process where story begets story and questions begets new stories.
Be cautious though of people who promise you a way to fast forward yours or your congregation’s story without struggle for these are false idols of Living Bread. Our covenant call is to live into an unfolding story entrusted to communion with the Living Bread. A sign of our holy vulnerability and patience with this unfolding story is when we can acknowledge to each other that we are each only imitators of Living Bread and celebrate this without shame.
My Power is Made Perfect in Weakness - July 4, 2009 at Trinity Church, Reno
2 Cor 12: 2-10 and Mark 6:1-13
Today’s readings are timely for us as we celebrate our nation’s independence. As a former colony of the British Empire we were once weak and with our postcolonial independence we became strong and powerful as a nation. It is right that we celebrate our independence.
We just heard, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” These words are not likely mottos of colonizers or even proud independent nations like America.
The question then that we must address this morning is what is the difference between human power and divine power?
If as former colonies we rightfully and proudly have rejected our colonized form of weakness, then what do we make of these words – Power is made perfect in weakness?
Frankly, these words are very easy to gloss over as ancient and irrelevant to us today. However, if do gloss over these words we do so at our peril. To find the gem hidden for us in these texts we have to work through our instinctive biases against weakness.
In both the Corinthians reading and the Gospel of Mark we see that our personal power can be haughty and boastful pointing to the strength of our own resources. The texts are challenging us to turn towards the power we receive through our complete dependence on God.
The thorn in the Corinthians reading can be interpreted as divine punishment for being too boastful. We can also take the text literally and God gave the thorn to make the man humble. The second interpretation if we are not careful quickly leads to divine punishment or a form of sacrificial love that at least for me makes God’s motives with us questionable.
I think it is an unhelpful image to see God as zapping us when we are too elated -- to use the words of this morning’s text. Let’s not get stuck there though. Our texts today help us interpret Jesus’ power in a different way than the power exercised by leaders of contemporary empires. Some speak of the power of the cross, but we must be careful how we approach the cross or we quickly fall back into an interpretation of divine punishment and that suffering will make us perfect.
Indeed, many empires have used similar texts to justify slavery and other forms of oppression in the name of God. It is so easy to blur these lines between God’s power and human weakness when we read these texts.
Let’s face it -- the words – “Power is made perfect in weakness” is a prophetic statement and as the Gospel instructs us, if we live in this way we are not likely to be recognized by friends and family in our hometowns.
In many corporate settings it is common to find high energy messages posted on the walls of the company to encourage people to perform at increasing levels of excellence. Business scholars have reported that these high-energy statements encourage employees to make money for the organization by increasing their sense of pride for their efficiency and profitability. That said, in my 15 years of working as a businessman I never saw signs that said, “Power is made perfect in weakness”. To the contrary weakness is associated with mediocrity and typically weak employees are quickly terminated.
The weakness of the second reading and Gospel is not about mediocrity or unjust colonization as we once suffered as a nation or that others face today.
As I hear today’s text and attempt a fresh interpretation I recall the Philippians passage “He emptied himself and became human.” In emptying I don’t hear sacrifice but rather opening ourselves up to love and to be loved.
The weakness is a place of opening such that our focus is not on our own strength but on recognizing and receiving God’s grace. When we recognize that our power is based on God’s grace and not on our inner strength we are less likely to boast of the possessions and power we may have accumulated, but rather point to God.
And people who are truly weak in a Godly manner know this and they point to the goodness of God’s grace when they feel this kind of power within themselves.
The biographer of Jean Vanier, Michael Downey called the thorn in today’s second reading, “A blessed weakness”. Jean Vanier is the founder of the worldwide movement of L’Arche, meaning the ark. L’Arche is a very special home for people who are developmentally disabled.
Downey wrote, “It is in our own weakness and limitation that God comes to us, not in our strength, security, and certitude. God is powerful compassion and mercy who meets us in our weakness, our blessed weakness.” As compassion, God offers us an example through Jesus of how we are to serve each other.
Vanier found L’Arche at a time in his life when he was searching for God. Vanier had spent three years in an extended retreat working with his spiritual director hoping to find God’s purpose for his life. Finally, his spiritual director exasperated by Jean Vanier’s lengthy process encouraged him to go home and pay attention to the weak and the poor in his town.
Each morning in his little countryside town outside of Paris Jean Vanier would walk to the bakery for some fresh bread. One morning he saw two homeless men who were clearly disabled. Jean Vanier invited these men into his home and soon others sought him out to care for their loved ones. Vanier says of his work that he does it out of his own struggles, confusion, uncertainty and rejection giving him that privileged space to be in solidarity with the most vulnerable.
This sounds counter-cultural to what most of us have been taught. Twenty-five years ago, upon announcing to my parents of my interest in living and working in a L’Arche community they frowned upon his work as misguided and said to me, “Joe, you can do so much better”. Vanier’s work was unknown and did not carry with it the same cache as being a member of the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit I later became or as an ordained priest. It was risky and it was scary.
My parents are not alone in mistaking blessed weakness for mediocrity. Yet Jean Vanier’s blessed weakness is not the mediocrity or weakness that corporations eradicate by terminating their incompetent employees or even the same as the over scrupulous religious who seeks to be perfect by eliminating their very humanity.
Blessed weakness is a way of loving ourselves so that we may love the incorrigible other within us and in others. Vanier did this by loving the developmentally disabled who were disposed of in the streets of France and or forgotten in state asylums around the world. His first act of love has inspired over two hundred small communities around the world.
Not all of us are called to become members of L’Arche, but we are called to cherish the paradoxical blessed weakness of God’s power made perfect in weakness.
Vanier has taught that every person, no matter how small or even incorrigible has a gift to give that we are invited to cherish. However, his emphasis is not just that we cherish weakness out of mere charity, but that we recognize that our communities are incomplete when we purify them of the weakness that offends us. Purification is the purpose of empires. Genocide is about purifying weakness from nations. Yet it is not just nations who do this.
Vanier and today’s texts calls us to gather up what we may once have disposed of in ourselves or in others and cherish ours and their blessed weaknesses. And if we love in this way then we will quickly see the prophetic cost of being different.
With now some sense of irony due to my parents’ rejection of Vanier’s way of living, when my mother was sick with end stage Alzheimer’s I turned to Jean Vanier’s books to find strength to learn how to be a compassionate son. It was not easy. I had had a turbulent relationship with my mom and much needed to be healed in both of us. In her end stage Alzheimer’s my mom was no longer available for the necessary healing conversation that often makes a difference for families at the end of life.
Inspired by Jean Vanier’s witness, I developed a prayer mantra to say when I visited my mom at the nursing home. I love you as you are this day, not as I remember you or as I wish you to be, but as you are this day.
By saying this mantra aloud for a year, several times a week during my visits at the nursing home in time what emerged for me was a tiny glimpse of God’s unconditional love. The mantra was an occasion of healing – God’s power made perfect in weakness. This is my story. I am confident you have your own stories of God’s power made perfect in weakness. So let us gather our stories together and if we must boast, let us boast to all that Trinity Church’s power, as a community of faith, is made perfect in blessed weakness.
Today’s readings are timely for us as we celebrate our nation’s independence. As a former colony of the British Empire we were once weak and with our postcolonial independence we became strong and powerful as a nation. It is right that we celebrate our independence.
We just heard, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” These words are not likely mottos of colonizers or even proud independent nations like America.
The question then that we must address this morning is what is the difference between human power and divine power?
If as former colonies we rightfully and proudly have rejected our colonized form of weakness, then what do we make of these words – Power is made perfect in weakness?
Frankly, these words are very easy to gloss over as ancient and irrelevant to us today. However, if do gloss over these words we do so at our peril. To find the gem hidden for us in these texts we have to work through our instinctive biases against weakness.
In both the Corinthians reading and the Gospel of Mark we see that our personal power can be haughty and boastful pointing to the strength of our own resources. The texts are challenging us to turn towards the power we receive through our complete dependence on God.
The thorn in the Corinthians reading can be interpreted as divine punishment for being too boastful. We can also take the text literally and God gave the thorn to make the man humble. The second interpretation if we are not careful quickly leads to divine punishment or a form of sacrificial love that at least for me makes God’s motives with us questionable.
I think it is an unhelpful image to see God as zapping us when we are too elated -- to use the words of this morning’s text. Let’s not get stuck there though. Our texts today help us interpret Jesus’ power in a different way than the power exercised by leaders of contemporary empires. Some speak of the power of the cross, but we must be careful how we approach the cross or we quickly fall back into an interpretation of divine punishment and that suffering will make us perfect.
Indeed, many empires have used similar texts to justify slavery and other forms of oppression in the name of God. It is so easy to blur these lines between God’s power and human weakness when we read these texts.
Let’s face it -- the words – “Power is made perfect in weakness” is a prophetic statement and as the Gospel instructs us, if we live in this way we are not likely to be recognized by friends and family in our hometowns.
In many corporate settings it is common to find high energy messages posted on the walls of the company to encourage people to perform at increasing levels of excellence. Business scholars have reported that these high-energy statements encourage employees to make money for the organization by increasing their sense of pride for their efficiency and profitability. That said, in my 15 years of working as a businessman I never saw signs that said, “Power is made perfect in weakness”. To the contrary weakness is associated with mediocrity and typically weak employees are quickly terminated.
The weakness of the second reading and Gospel is not about mediocrity or unjust colonization as we once suffered as a nation or that others face today.
As I hear today’s text and attempt a fresh interpretation I recall the Philippians passage “He emptied himself and became human.” In emptying I don’t hear sacrifice but rather opening ourselves up to love and to be loved.
The weakness is a place of opening such that our focus is not on our own strength but on recognizing and receiving God’s grace. When we recognize that our power is based on God’s grace and not on our inner strength we are less likely to boast of the possessions and power we may have accumulated, but rather point to God.
And people who are truly weak in a Godly manner know this and they point to the goodness of God’s grace when they feel this kind of power within themselves.
The biographer of Jean Vanier, Michael Downey called the thorn in today’s second reading, “A blessed weakness”. Jean Vanier is the founder of the worldwide movement of L’Arche, meaning the ark. L’Arche is a very special home for people who are developmentally disabled.
Downey wrote, “It is in our own weakness and limitation that God comes to us, not in our strength, security, and certitude. God is powerful compassion and mercy who meets us in our weakness, our blessed weakness.” As compassion, God offers us an example through Jesus of how we are to serve each other.
Vanier found L’Arche at a time in his life when he was searching for God. Vanier had spent three years in an extended retreat working with his spiritual director hoping to find God’s purpose for his life. Finally, his spiritual director exasperated by Jean Vanier’s lengthy process encouraged him to go home and pay attention to the weak and the poor in his town.
Each morning in his little countryside town outside of Paris Jean Vanier would walk to the bakery for some fresh bread. One morning he saw two homeless men who were clearly disabled. Jean Vanier invited these men into his home and soon others sought him out to care for their loved ones. Vanier says of his work that he does it out of his own struggles, confusion, uncertainty and rejection giving him that privileged space to be in solidarity with the most vulnerable.
This sounds counter-cultural to what most of us have been taught. Twenty-five years ago, upon announcing to my parents of my interest in living and working in a L’Arche community they frowned upon his work as misguided and said to me, “Joe, you can do so much better”. Vanier’s work was unknown and did not carry with it the same cache as being a member of the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit I later became or as an ordained priest. It was risky and it was scary.
My parents are not alone in mistaking blessed weakness for mediocrity. Yet Jean Vanier’s blessed weakness is not the mediocrity or weakness that corporations eradicate by terminating their incompetent employees or even the same as the over scrupulous religious who seeks to be perfect by eliminating their very humanity.
Blessed weakness is a way of loving ourselves so that we may love the incorrigible other within us and in others. Vanier did this by loving the developmentally disabled who were disposed of in the streets of France and or forgotten in state asylums around the world. His first act of love has inspired over two hundred small communities around the world.
Not all of us are called to become members of L’Arche, but we are called to cherish the paradoxical blessed weakness of God’s power made perfect in weakness.
Vanier has taught that every person, no matter how small or even incorrigible has a gift to give that we are invited to cherish. However, his emphasis is not just that we cherish weakness out of mere charity, but that we recognize that our communities are incomplete when we purify them of the weakness that offends us. Purification is the purpose of empires. Genocide is about purifying weakness from nations. Yet it is not just nations who do this.
Vanier and today’s texts calls us to gather up what we may once have disposed of in ourselves or in others and cherish ours and their blessed weaknesses. And if we love in this way then we will quickly see the prophetic cost of being different.
With now some sense of irony due to my parents’ rejection of Vanier’s way of living, when my mother was sick with end stage Alzheimer’s I turned to Jean Vanier’s books to find strength to learn how to be a compassionate son. It was not easy. I had had a turbulent relationship with my mom and much needed to be healed in both of us. In her end stage Alzheimer’s my mom was no longer available for the necessary healing conversation that often makes a difference for families at the end of life.
Inspired by Jean Vanier’s witness, I developed a prayer mantra to say when I visited my mom at the nursing home. I love you as you are this day, not as I remember you or as I wish you to be, but as you are this day.
By saying this mantra aloud for a year, several times a week during my visits at the nursing home in time what emerged for me was a tiny glimpse of God’s unconditional love. The mantra was an occasion of healing – God’s power made perfect in weakness. This is my story. I am confident you have your own stories of God’s power made perfect in weakness. So let us gather our stories together and if we must boast, let us boast to all that Trinity Church’s power, as a community of faith, is made perfect in blessed weakness.
A Sideless God - June 21, 2009 at St. Stephen's Church, Reno
Mark 4:35-41
My wife, Stefani and I have a cat named Baba that we found at the Reno shelter in September. We were told that he had a very difficult life. He was abused, adopted then rejected by his adoptive parents after only three weeks. Honestly, if Stefani and I were not sharing the cat, then Baba would have likely ended up back in the shelter. Several times I was tempted to return Baba. Yet in the last few months he has considerably calmed down. He spends his whole day on a soft blue blanket on our bed. He can go anywhere if he has his blanket.
It is common knowledge at Trinity Episcopal Church that I want to get a dog. So two parishioners were going away for a few days and thought it would be a good idea for me to care for their dog as way to have a better sense of what it is like to have a dog. So a few weeks ago we dog sat for a lovely poodle. The poodle’s name does not matter to the story. This poodle sits in his household on his blanket too for most of the day.
When Baba and the poodle met even though they shared similar blanket rituals, they hissed and barked at one another. We needed to keep them separate from one another. We imagined the two blankets side by side, but it was our vision not theirs. The cost of this separation was that Stefani slept with Baba and I slept with the poodle in two separate rooms. Needless to say we will not be getting a dog anytime soon!
Territory is important – for people and as you can see for cats and dogs.
Where are we when we hear Jesus’s invitation to go to the other side?
Often I suspect we metaphorically bark and hiss at God. Just as the cat insists on his own blanket without interruption from the strange dog, we find ways to relocate our metaphorical blankets – our customs and patterns in to new places.
The words “the other side” carries with them powerful cultural and political resonances. Other side can be as mundane as going to the other side of the street or as mysterious as to an unknown place.
We talk commonly about the other side of our families – the maternal and paternal sides.
The other side of a church aisle is merely descriptive. Often when we say other side in this way it is merely a way of differentiating between where we are and where others are. There is no judgment in saying that people sit on the other side of the church. You may have a pew you commonly go to, but there is no culture for that side of the church.
Little is at risk when we say let us go to the other side of the street for we can see what is ahead of us and behind us. We are still in control. We can see the other side as we leave from the one side of the street to the other. What we see from the other side of the street is different than what we see on this side, but it is the same street. The distance is short between two sides of the street. We see the same people as there is an easy passage from one side of the street to the other.
It is common even expected in scholarly arguments to present both sides of a question, weigh the sides and then make a judgment based on analysis for one more than the other or to reframe and create a third side.
We speak of the other side of a political issue and this often in our culture can lead to suspicion of and at its worst demonization of the other side. The Religious Right condemns pluralism and the progressive liberal condemns the narrow gate. Blue states versus red states, gay versus straight and black versus white.
The other side of the ocean does not bring with it much fear if you are going to London, but if you are going to Iraq, Africa or India to be among people who speak a different language or in a turbulent context this can provoke anxiety, fear or even our refusal to go.
When we talk about death there is an unknown quality to the other side of life.
So the other side can be as mundane as the other side of the street or the other side of death into the complete unknown. There is a spectrum or range of feelings that come with going to the other side.
In this morning’s Gospel going to the other side is not quite as simple as going to the other side of the street as the disciples take a boat to get there so it must be reasonably far away. Given the examples of the other side I have shared we can empathize with the disciples.
When you have traveled I am sure you have experienced the way ordinary events like finding your way around the city can be anxiety producing as you are in a different place. Likely the disciples at home would have experienced other storms without the same fear they have in this story.
When we travel over time in one place we realize our way and settle into what is initially different and develop a comfortable pattern and confidence. We make the space our own but the space does not change. We either change by being open to new customs or we insist on our own customs in this new place. The disciples in their fear of the storm express their anxiety about a new place.
A few months ago the Lutherans from Faith Lutheran Church crossed the street after your church’s fire to join worship with the Episcopalians here at St. Stephen’s. Crossing the street I said was pretty mundane but was it mundane for you? Was it mundane for you to cross the street? You encountered a different worship style, different space, different people, different leadership, different ministry priorities and different resources. You were not alone as although the people of St. Stephen’s did not physically go to the other side of the street, you welcomed new people into your worship space and community. Perhaps at times you even were aware that people from the other side of the street came over to this side of the street. How did that make you feel?
As you both prepare to return to your ordinary way of life without the proximity of the other, what have you learned from this pilgrimage of crossing to the other side of the street or welcoming a different people to a different tradition? How will your time give you empathy for times in the future when you will be called to go to the other side?
I grew up in a very home-bound family. My parents were proud that they never left NYC. As a result later in life leaving to go anywhere produced great anxiety in me. In the nineties I took a job where I had to do 90% travel. A priest friend said to me that I should find a restaurant in each city where I was known and go there to feel a sense of safety and companionship. In a way I relocated my familiarity to a different place. Like the cat I kept my blanket with me.
Then in 2000 I was offered a job to leave NYC for LA. Shortly after getting to LA I was homesick. I considered returning home to NYC. It was hard to put down my blanket in LA, as it was dramatically different from any city I had ever been. My urban patterns did not fit comfortably in to LA. For example LA is not walking city, as had been my custom, but a driving city. I had to learn how to drive on really fast freeways.
Then one day I thought back to all my travels and I realized how I had always been safe even in the midst of my anxieties. I sensed God calling me to trust at an even deeper level when I moved to LA. The words that came to me one morning in prayer were to accept LA on its own terms and not to compare it to NYC where I grew up or other cities I worked or lived. I lived into this mantra in a way that changed my life and opened up opportunities for me that I never had before. Since LA I have lived in affluent Cambridge, just outside of Boston, then in working class Manchester, England and now in Reno – three very different places with very different people and customs.
After living in LA though I began to see people in their contexts in a different way. I judged their way against the measure and standard of my way less frequently. In January I will travel to India to give a scholarly paper. It will be the most dramatically different place I have ever been to in my life. I am excited and also a little anxious. Yet I am going to India with a deep sense of trust that I never had before in any of my previous travels. The trust I have is that God goes before me. God is within me. And now I am confident that God is on the other side in people who look different than me. In a way it has been like learning to float. If you think about it too much you sink. If you relax then your entire body, mind, heart and soul can enjoy the calm of otherwise turbulent waters.
I have a confession. I don’t know how to swim but on occasion my wife lets me lay my body against her body in the water and for a moment I feel the extraordinary calm in my body as I rest in God’s waters. I intend conflation here – as I rest against my lover I discover I am also in the hands of God. The disciples thought about it too much and they thought they were going to sink. I often think about it too much and feel like I am sinking too, but than Stefani and or God is there to keep me afloat.
Jesus is calm on both sides of the boat and also in different places. His center is not Bethlehem or Nazareth or even Jerusalem, but life with his Father and through the Holy Spirit preaching and living the Gospel.
What have you learned from your pilgrimage to the other side or with the other side? Are you impatiently waiting to get back to your comfortable routines without the other or do you have a deeper awareness that God abides with you on both sides of the street?
I hope you have had at least a glimpse that God dwells deeply on both sides of the street. I hope you have partially witnessed God in different customs and rituals. The Good News of today’s Gospel is that when we can trust God on God’s terms than we are freer to go beyond just the other side of the street. Then our cherished church rituals become a means and much less our ends. The triumph of going to the other side is having the privilege to encounter God in a new and different place. The other side may be mysterious to you and I but God dwells on all sides.
When we live with the conviction that God dwells on both sides then we can hear and embody Jesus’ words -- Peace, be still. In the years ahead wherever you are on whatever side of the street or on the other side of the world, remember that God is with you. But God is not just with you. God is on all sides, in all places and conditions of life. If you trust and accept God on God’s terms you will never sink, but rather you will live a glorious life of unexpected and abundant grace and blessing. This is God’s gift to us today, next Sunday and throughout our lives. God everywhere is our grace and blessing, so let us live into God on all sides.
My wife, Stefani and I have a cat named Baba that we found at the Reno shelter in September. We were told that he had a very difficult life. He was abused, adopted then rejected by his adoptive parents after only three weeks. Honestly, if Stefani and I were not sharing the cat, then Baba would have likely ended up back in the shelter. Several times I was tempted to return Baba. Yet in the last few months he has considerably calmed down. He spends his whole day on a soft blue blanket on our bed. He can go anywhere if he has his blanket.
It is common knowledge at Trinity Episcopal Church that I want to get a dog. So two parishioners were going away for a few days and thought it would be a good idea for me to care for their dog as way to have a better sense of what it is like to have a dog. So a few weeks ago we dog sat for a lovely poodle. The poodle’s name does not matter to the story. This poodle sits in his household on his blanket too for most of the day.
When Baba and the poodle met even though they shared similar blanket rituals, they hissed and barked at one another. We needed to keep them separate from one another. We imagined the two blankets side by side, but it was our vision not theirs. The cost of this separation was that Stefani slept with Baba and I slept with the poodle in two separate rooms. Needless to say we will not be getting a dog anytime soon!
Territory is important – for people and as you can see for cats and dogs.
Where are we when we hear Jesus’s invitation to go to the other side?
Often I suspect we metaphorically bark and hiss at God. Just as the cat insists on his own blanket without interruption from the strange dog, we find ways to relocate our metaphorical blankets – our customs and patterns in to new places.
The words “the other side” carries with them powerful cultural and political resonances. Other side can be as mundane as going to the other side of the street or as mysterious as to an unknown place.
We talk commonly about the other side of our families – the maternal and paternal sides.
The other side of a church aisle is merely descriptive. Often when we say other side in this way it is merely a way of differentiating between where we are and where others are. There is no judgment in saying that people sit on the other side of the church. You may have a pew you commonly go to, but there is no culture for that side of the church.
Little is at risk when we say let us go to the other side of the street for we can see what is ahead of us and behind us. We are still in control. We can see the other side as we leave from the one side of the street to the other. What we see from the other side of the street is different than what we see on this side, but it is the same street. The distance is short between two sides of the street. We see the same people as there is an easy passage from one side of the street to the other.
It is common even expected in scholarly arguments to present both sides of a question, weigh the sides and then make a judgment based on analysis for one more than the other or to reframe and create a third side.
We speak of the other side of a political issue and this often in our culture can lead to suspicion of and at its worst demonization of the other side. The Religious Right condemns pluralism and the progressive liberal condemns the narrow gate. Blue states versus red states, gay versus straight and black versus white.
The other side of the ocean does not bring with it much fear if you are going to London, but if you are going to Iraq, Africa or India to be among people who speak a different language or in a turbulent context this can provoke anxiety, fear or even our refusal to go.
When we talk about death there is an unknown quality to the other side of life.
So the other side can be as mundane as the other side of the street or the other side of death into the complete unknown. There is a spectrum or range of feelings that come with going to the other side.
In this morning’s Gospel going to the other side is not quite as simple as going to the other side of the street as the disciples take a boat to get there so it must be reasonably far away. Given the examples of the other side I have shared we can empathize with the disciples.
When you have traveled I am sure you have experienced the way ordinary events like finding your way around the city can be anxiety producing as you are in a different place. Likely the disciples at home would have experienced other storms without the same fear they have in this story.
When we travel over time in one place we realize our way and settle into what is initially different and develop a comfortable pattern and confidence. We make the space our own but the space does not change. We either change by being open to new customs or we insist on our own customs in this new place. The disciples in their fear of the storm express their anxiety about a new place.
A few months ago the Lutherans from Faith Lutheran Church crossed the street after your church’s fire to join worship with the Episcopalians here at St. Stephen’s. Crossing the street I said was pretty mundane but was it mundane for you? Was it mundane for you to cross the street? You encountered a different worship style, different space, different people, different leadership, different ministry priorities and different resources. You were not alone as although the people of St. Stephen’s did not physically go to the other side of the street, you welcomed new people into your worship space and community. Perhaps at times you even were aware that people from the other side of the street came over to this side of the street. How did that make you feel?
As you both prepare to return to your ordinary way of life without the proximity of the other, what have you learned from this pilgrimage of crossing to the other side of the street or welcoming a different people to a different tradition? How will your time give you empathy for times in the future when you will be called to go to the other side?
I grew up in a very home-bound family. My parents were proud that they never left NYC. As a result later in life leaving to go anywhere produced great anxiety in me. In the nineties I took a job where I had to do 90% travel. A priest friend said to me that I should find a restaurant in each city where I was known and go there to feel a sense of safety and companionship. In a way I relocated my familiarity to a different place. Like the cat I kept my blanket with me.
Then in 2000 I was offered a job to leave NYC for LA. Shortly after getting to LA I was homesick. I considered returning home to NYC. It was hard to put down my blanket in LA, as it was dramatically different from any city I had ever been. My urban patterns did not fit comfortably in to LA. For example LA is not walking city, as had been my custom, but a driving city. I had to learn how to drive on really fast freeways.
Then one day I thought back to all my travels and I realized how I had always been safe even in the midst of my anxieties. I sensed God calling me to trust at an even deeper level when I moved to LA. The words that came to me one morning in prayer were to accept LA on its own terms and not to compare it to NYC where I grew up or other cities I worked or lived. I lived into this mantra in a way that changed my life and opened up opportunities for me that I never had before. Since LA I have lived in affluent Cambridge, just outside of Boston, then in working class Manchester, England and now in Reno – three very different places with very different people and customs.
After living in LA though I began to see people in their contexts in a different way. I judged their way against the measure and standard of my way less frequently. In January I will travel to India to give a scholarly paper. It will be the most dramatically different place I have ever been to in my life. I am excited and also a little anxious. Yet I am going to India with a deep sense of trust that I never had before in any of my previous travels. The trust I have is that God goes before me. God is within me. And now I am confident that God is on the other side in people who look different than me. In a way it has been like learning to float. If you think about it too much you sink. If you relax then your entire body, mind, heart and soul can enjoy the calm of otherwise turbulent waters.
I have a confession. I don’t know how to swim but on occasion my wife lets me lay my body against her body in the water and for a moment I feel the extraordinary calm in my body as I rest in God’s waters. I intend conflation here – as I rest against my lover I discover I am also in the hands of God. The disciples thought about it too much and they thought they were going to sink. I often think about it too much and feel like I am sinking too, but than Stefani and or God is there to keep me afloat.
Jesus is calm on both sides of the boat and also in different places. His center is not Bethlehem or Nazareth or even Jerusalem, but life with his Father and through the Holy Spirit preaching and living the Gospel.
What have you learned from your pilgrimage to the other side or with the other side? Are you impatiently waiting to get back to your comfortable routines without the other or do you have a deeper awareness that God abides with you on both sides of the street?
I hope you have had at least a glimpse that God dwells deeply on both sides of the street. I hope you have partially witnessed God in different customs and rituals. The Good News of today’s Gospel is that when we can trust God on God’s terms than we are freer to go beyond just the other side of the street. Then our cherished church rituals become a means and much less our ends. The triumph of going to the other side is having the privilege to encounter God in a new and different place. The other side may be mysterious to you and I but God dwells on all sides.
When we live with the conviction that God dwells on both sides then we can hear and embody Jesus’ words -- Peace, be still. In the years ahead wherever you are on whatever side of the street or on the other side of the world, remember that God is with you. But God is not just with you. God is on all sides, in all places and conditions of life. If you trust and accept God on God’s terms you will never sink, but rather you will live a glorious life of unexpected and abundant grace and blessing. This is God’s gift to us today, next Sunday and throughout our lives. God everywhere is our grace and blessing, so let us live into God on all sides.
F. D. Maurice Feast Day - April 1
F. D. Maurice was born into a family of a Unitarian minister whose life was marked by intense religious controversy due to the non-reformer tradition versus the Church of England, the Anglican tradition. Maurice’s theology was shaped in large measure by the way he had to come to terms with both the Anglican tradition of the English nation and the non-reformer, Unitarian tradition of his family.
F.D. Maurice was contemporaries with the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson wrote a poem to F.D. Maurice to honor his friendship. Maurice was also friend to another poet, Samuel Coleridge. Coleridge and Maurice both often wrote about the notion of polarity. Polarity is another name for the Anglican concept of the Via Media.
The English Reformation, specifically the Church of England has often been described as the Via Media – or the middle way between Roman Catholic and the Puritans extremes. Maurice and Coleridge attempt to redefine Via Media for as time passed the Via Media became more associated with a compromise position.
Coleridge argued that polarity is holding the tension between opposites. Paul Avis, a contemporary Anglican theologian writes about this notion of polarity as “a quality of thinking, an approach in which elements usually regarded as mutually exclusive were seen to be in fact complementary. These things were held in a living tension, not in order to walk the tight-rope of compromise, but because they were seen to be mutually illuminating and thereby to fertilize each other.”
F.D. Maurice referred to polarity as a union of opposites. Maurice rejected the idea that the English Settlement of the Reformation was either a cowardly or cunning compromise that lacked the courage to side either with the Council of Trent and Rome or the most radical Puritan reformers. Rather Maurice believed that Elizabeth I united within herself the extreme elements of the catholic and reformed elements of the nation.
This notion of polarity in Coleridge or union of opposites in Maurice is an important one as both attempt to capture what is distinctive about Anglicanism, that is, what it means to be an Anglican. As Episcopalians we have a share in this Anglican heritage and legacy, as The Episcopal Church is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
This union of opposites is a difficult concept for us to live in our lives and in the life of the Church. In the larger Church we do not often see Maurice’s union of opposites or Coleridge’s polarity at work but more often polarization between two sides. It is good for the church to recall this dimension of Maurice’s in the midst of its various global controversies.
Even without trying to understand all the nuances of these controversies today, we can all understand what Maurice was talking about by considering the various elements of our workplaces. I am sure in your workplaces you meet many very different people. I am confident that you need to find ways of working together that honor one another and acknowledge your differences without achieving what Coleridge and F. D. Maurice called a false unity. In work situations there can often be a dominant desire to go one way and not another. Yet I am sure you would agree that good team leaders know how to bring everybody along to get the project done.
It is in this way that the most authentic sense of being an Anglican also attempts to hold together very different people. Anglicanism is not about simple unities but rather about acknowledging the complex richness of God’s world.
So F. D. Maurice may have written in the mid 1800’s but his theology is as relevant today as it was in his time. If anything we would do well to cherish his union of opposites as a fresh alternative approach to our life in community in the church, our families and workplaces.
F.D. Maurice was contemporaries with the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson wrote a poem to F.D. Maurice to honor his friendship. Maurice was also friend to another poet, Samuel Coleridge. Coleridge and Maurice both often wrote about the notion of polarity. Polarity is another name for the Anglican concept of the Via Media.
The English Reformation, specifically the Church of England has often been described as the Via Media – or the middle way between Roman Catholic and the Puritans extremes. Maurice and Coleridge attempt to redefine Via Media for as time passed the Via Media became more associated with a compromise position.
Coleridge argued that polarity is holding the tension between opposites. Paul Avis, a contemporary Anglican theologian writes about this notion of polarity as “a quality of thinking, an approach in which elements usually regarded as mutually exclusive were seen to be in fact complementary. These things were held in a living tension, not in order to walk the tight-rope of compromise, but because they were seen to be mutually illuminating and thereby to fertilize each other.”
F.D. Maurice referred to polarity as a union of opposites. Maurice rejected the idea that the English Settlement of the Reformation was either a cowardly or cunning compromise that lacked the courage to side either with the Council of Trent and Rome or the most radical Puritan reformers. Rather Maurice believed that Elizabeth I united within herself the extreme elements of the catholic and reformed elements of the nation.
This notion of polarity in Coleridge or union of opposites in Maurice is an important one as both attempt to capture what is distinctive about Anglicanism, that is, what it means to be an Anglican. As Episcopalians we have a share in this Anglican heritage and legacy, as The Episcopal Church is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
This union of opposites is a difficult concept for us to live in our lives and in the life of the Church. In the larger Church we do not often see Maurice’s union of opposites or Coleridge’s polarity at work but more often polarization between two sides. It is good for the church to recall this dimension of Maurice’s in the midst of its various global controversies.
Even without trying to understand all the nuances of these controversies today, we can all understand what Maurice was talking about by considering the various elements of our workplaces. I am sure in your workplaces you meet many very different people. I am confident that you need to find ways of working together that honor one another and acknowledge your differences without achieving what Coleridge and F. D. Maurice called a false unity. In work situations there can often be a dominant desire to go one way and not another. Yet I am sure you would agree that good team leaders know how to bring everybody along to get the project done.
It is in this way that the most authentic sense of being an Anglican also attempts to hold together very different people. Anglicanism is not about simple unities but rather about acknowledging the complex richness of God’s world.
So F. D. Maurice may have written in the mid 1800’s but his theology is as relevant today as it was in his time. If anything we would do well to cherish his union of opposites as a fresh alternative approach to our life in community in the church, our families and workplaces.
Catherine of Siena Feast Day - April 29
Since I was a little boy I have always wanted to know more about Catherine of Siena. Catherine was my mother’s patron saint whom she often prayed. It was a delight for me to learn more about her.
Catherine of Siena is listed among Lesser Feasts and Fasts as well as being a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. The difference for Episcopalians as stated in the Preface of Lesser Feasts and Fasts is one of tone: “In the saints we are not dealing primarily with absolutes of perfection but human lives in all their diversity, open to the motions of the Holy Spirit”. Before we continue with an Anglican reflection on Catherine’s life, it is worth our time to consider the Roman Catholic recognition of Catherine as a saint as it reveals to us the remarkable woman she was and the model she can serve to both Roman Catholics and Anglicans in different ways.
Catherine lived in the fourteenth century. She was canonized in 1461, but did not become part of the Roman Catholic calendar of saints until 1597. In 1940 she was made patron saint of Italy sharing this privilege with St. Francis of Assisi. In 1970 Pope Paul VI gave her the recognition of the Doctor of the Church. The Roman Catholic Church has been making doctors of the church since 1298. There are only 33 doctors of the church and Catherine of Siena is one of them. Pope Paul VI in 1970 made the first two women ever doctors -- Catherine of Siena and Theresa of Avila. Then in 1997 Therese of Lisieux was made a doctor of the church. There are only three women doctors of the church.
But Catherine was not always so popular. In her time many people thought she was crazy. One Dominican priest trusted her spirit and it was due in part to his affirmation of her that she was able to trust her call from God.
Catherine is recognized for being a confessor and advisor to popes and a mystic of the church. Her major piece of writing is called the Dialogues and includes 381 letters and 26 prayers. The Dialogues is Catherine’s journal documenting her relationship with God. From a very young age she had an extraordinary friendship with God. In the course of the 33 years of her life she had three visions – one at age 6, another at age 12 and the last just before she died. In each vision she saw Mary and Jesus. In one vision she was given an invisible ring by Mary that Catherine describes as her betrothal to god as God’s special servant.
In one of the letters that Catherine wrote to God, she says to God when she experienced God’s distance, “Now is no time to sleep”. Isn’t that such a great line? The next time we feel God’s distance in our prayer, we might think of Catherine’s words. Her words suggest to me a profound intimacy that she had with God as a friend.
Catherine’s vision of the church was very Anglican. She believed that the church was a commonwealth where there is room for all in humanity and none are excluded. In one of her most powerful journal entries she gave an account of being present to a man about to be executed. Catherine often visited prisons. She met this one man in prison who did not believe. He was so ashamed of his life and his criminal acts that he doubted that he would ever receive God’s forgiveness. Catherine reassured him that before he died he would experience God’s love and forgiveness.
On the day of his execution Catherine went to the prison. Before he came in to the room where the execution was to be carried out, she prayed for him. In a most loving way she even laid her face on the table where the man was to meet his death as if to share her spirit with him. When the man laid down on the table he smiled, then laughed and confidently said to Catherine God is with me. Let us hold the image of Catherine laying her face upon the harsh reality of the table that would bring death to this man. What tables are we called to bear our bodies transforming fearful people into those who spontaneously laugh? May we be inspired by the way this man who suffered so much, in the lasts seconds of his life profoundly felt God’s love, dying in peace. Finally let us pray in thanksgiving for Catherine of Siena’s courageous love that transformed the hearts of all she encountered that we may do so in the ways to which we are each uniquely called.
Catherine of Siena is listed among Lesser Feasts and Fasts as well as being a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. The difference for Episcopalians as stated in the Preface of Lesser Feasts and Fasts is one of tone: “In the saints we are not dealing primarily with absolutes of perfection but human lives in all their diversity, open to the motions of the Holy Spirit”. Before we continue with an Anglican reflection on Catherine’s life, it is worth our time to consider the Roman Catholic recognition of Catherine as a saint as it reveals to us the remarkable woman she was and the model she can serve to both Roman Catholics and Anglicans in different ways.
Catherine lived in the fourteenth century. She was canonized in 1461, but did not become part of the Roman Catholic calendar of saints until 1597. In 1940 she was made patron saint of Italy sharing this privilege with St. Francis of Assisi. In 1970 Pope Paul VI gave her the recognition of the Doctor of the Church. The Roman Catholic Church has been making doctors of the church since 1298. There are only 33 doctors of the church and Catherine of Siena is one of them. Pope Paul VI in 1970 made the first two women ever doctors -- Catherine of Siena and Theresa of Avila. Then in 1997 Therese of Lisieux was made a doctor of the church. There are only three women doctors of the church.
But Catherine was not always so popular. In her time many people thought she was crazy. One Dominican priest trusted her spirit and it was due in part to his affirmation of her that she was able to trust her call from God.
Catherine is recognized for being a confessor and advisor to popes and a mystic of the church. Her major piece of writing is called the Dialogues and includes 381 letters and 26 prayers. The Dialogues is Catherine’s journal documenting her relationship with God. From a very young age she had an extraordinary friendship with God. In the course of the 33 years of her life she had three visions – one at age 6, another at age 12 and the last just before she died. In each vision she saw Mary and Jesus. In one vision she was given an invisible ring by Mary that Catherine describes as her betrothal to god as God’s special servant.
In one of the letters that Catherine wrote to God, she says to God when she experienced God’s distance, “Now is no time to sleep”. Isn’t that such a great line? The next time we feel God’s distance in our prayer, we might think of Catherine’s words. Her words suggest to me a profound intimacy that she had with God as a friend.
Catherine’s vision of the church was very Anglican. She believed that the church was a commonwealth where there is room for all in humanity and none are excluded. In one of her most powerful journal entries she gave an account of being present to a man about to be executed. Catherine often visited prisons. She met this one man in prison who did not believe. He was so ashamed of his life and his criminal acts that he doubted that he would ever receive God’s forgiveness. Catherine reassured him that before he died he would experience God’s love and forgiveness.
On the day of his execution Catherine went to the prison. Before he came in to the room where the execution was to be carried out, she prayed for him. In a most loving way she even laid her face on the table where the man was to meet his death as if to share her spirit with him. When the man laid down on the table he smiled, then laughed and confidently said to Catherine God is with me. Let us hold the image of Catherine laying her face upon the harsh reality of the table that would bring death to this man. What tables are we called to bear our bodies transforming fearful people into those who spontaneously laugh? May we be inspired by the way this man who suffered so much, in the lasts seconds of his life profoundly felt God’s love, dying in peace. Finally let us pray in thanksgiving for Catherine of Siena’s courageous love that transformed the hearts of all she encountered that we may do so in the ways to which we are each uniquely called.
Paradoxical Love - April 19, 2009 at St. Catherine of Siena, Reno
Holy Week and Easter are very bodily feasts of our faith. On Maundy Thursday we are invited to wash each other’s feet. On Good Friday we had an opportunity to venerate, that is, kiss the cross, as a means of honoring the body of the crucified Jesus. On Easter we must contend with Jesus’ bodily resurrection. From Maundy Thursday to Easter morning our faith is being tested and each of us are challenged at different times and in different ways. Yet for all of us it is a faith that cannot be fully experienced without a deep and intimate connection with our own bodies. Yes, it is a paradox of faith.
To believe in Jesus’ resurrection, we must first walk in our own bodies and believe we are made in the image and likeness of God. The journey of our faith draws us from initial contempt for our bodies to being transformed by washing another’s feet, kissing the crucified body and ultimately believing in the resurrected body and life everlasting.
Thomas the apostle was a believer before Jesus’ death, but with Jesus’ resurrection he and we are being called into a deeper level of faith. Thomas was unprepared for Jesus’ resurrection. Apart from the beautiful pageantry of the Easter celebrations are we any better than Thomas? Do we really believe in the words of the Nicene Creed? “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”?
We know from the Emmaus Gospel story that some of the disciples did not recognize Jesus until he made breakfast for them. The story goes that they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. Our story this morning tells us that Thomas did not believe until he could place his finger in Jesus’ wound. Where are you in your journey of faith? Do you empathize with Thomas’ story?
There is a wonderful painting done by the Italian painter, Caravaggio called “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas”. As I read today’s Gospel several times I also looked at this painting to see what more I could learn about this text. Initially, the painting struck me as odd with these men all staring at Jesus’ open side. I wondered how Thomas’ examination of Jesus’ wound was going to help him believe.
When I placed myself in this painting I was profoundly moved by the privilege of touching Jesus’ body. As I touched his body I thought about the healing touch of doctors. I thought of the many times I have visited the dying at their bedside and prayed with their families when I was a Chaplain. I also thought of the time I worked as a nurse’s aide at a hospice in NYC as part of my formation to be a priest.
As a nurse’s aide at the hospice I bathed, dressed, fed and diapered the dying. When people died I dressed their bodies for the morgue. Dressing the body really means undressing the body, washing it down, rubbing it with oil and covering with a sheet for the undertaker. Initially I was horrified by the expectation that I would dress the body. One nurse’s aide told me to care for the dead like I care for myself. She asked me, how do you wash your own body? She said you must care for their bodies as you care for your own. If you are afraid of your living body you will be afraid of their dead bodies. If you love your body, you will cherish the body of the man you bathed yesterday who today is dead.
In time I moved beyond my horror of touching a dead body. I began to recall the person’s family and their last words to each other. As this happened I moved from my own bodily fears of touching a dead body to cherishing the person whom I had bathed just a few days before. Each time I went through this process of transformation moving from my fear of a dead body to recalling the person to sensing the privilege of this intimate and holy moment. Of all the jobs I have had in my life this was without doubt the most meaningful one for me on the deepest level. This experience of caring for the body is one that I am confident that doctors and nurses in this congregation are quite familiar with too. As adult caregivers some of you may have had the experience of caring for your parents’ frail bodies with Alzheimer’s or cancer.
Thomas is looking at Jesus’ wound but he is not looking at Jesus. We might have greater empathy for Thomas if we enter this scene also. So this morning I invite you to meet Jesus in this scene and if you wish to touch his wound. How does such an invitation strike you? Do you feel timid, cautious, fearful or at all hesitant? Do you sense yourself moving towards Jesus? Do you directly look at him or do you stare at his wound? How long will it be before you place your finger into Jesus’ wound? Are your hands trembling as you touch him? Is the wound clean or messy? Do you even think about the condition of the wound? Do you readily place your finger in Jesus’ side or are you squeamish about touching possibly some dried blood?
What are you doing with you other hand? I was struck by the way Thomas has placed his finger in Jesus’ wound. But do you also see in the painting how Thomas has his other hand on almost exactly the same side of his own body as he does on Jesus’ body? As I looked at the painting I found myself looking at Thomas’ left hand placed firmly on his own side as much as I was drawn into the extension of his right hand to Jesus’ body.
Do you see that Jesus’ body is fully engaged in Thomas’ examination? Jesus pulls his cloak back with his right hand revealing his wound. And it appears his other hand is placed on Thomas. Perhaps Thomas is trembling and Jesus is helping him hold his hand still enough to touch the wound. As you know my hands tremble and people often have to help me steady my hand at certain times.
Look closer now and you will see that all eyes are on Jesus’ wound, but Thomas’ eye seems to look beyond Jesus. My sense is that there is far more to the story of Thomas than just his doubt and inability to believe in Jesus. Perhaps like the disciples at Emmaus who did not believe until they saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread, Thomas must first do something in order to recognize Jesus. Thomas says all he must do is touch Jesus to believe, but this painting does not convey a story of a believing Thomas.
Yet Thomas at least in Caravaggio’s painting averts his eyes from Jesus’ wounded body. I wonder what is going on in Thomas’ life. Clearly Thomas appears distracted. He is in front of Jesus and he is distracted looking away. I turn back to Thomas’ left hand and wonder if his hand and eyes might serve as clues leading us to a deeper meaning behind his story. I wonder if Thomas is distracted by his own concerns. Is it possible that Thomas’ own body hurts? All look at Jesus’ wound, even Jesus looks at Jesus’ wound, but Thomas, he looks away. Of all the men in the scene, Thomas looks the most frail. Is it possible that Thomas is ill?
A friend of mine at seminary, who for this sermon I will call Bill, was HIV positive. He was an African-American who was very articulate about the times he was the recipient of racism on various occasions throughout his life. This fellow was a great preacher and loved the ministry. He started his own church before he was 20 years old. Then in his late forties after his church flourished he went to seminary to get a Masters of Divinity.
He was famous for telling fellow classmates that Jesus is dead. He would say the stories of Jesus are great, but he is dead, oh so very dead. Jesus did not rise from the dead. He would laugh, and just keep saying, no Jesus is dead. All his closest friends were shocked when he would say this too. When I read this morning’s text and saw Caravaggio’s painting, I thought about Bill and remembered his story.
Bill’s story and Caravaggio’s painting help me hear the story of Thomas differently. I wonder if like the disciples at Emmaus who believed when they saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread, if Bill will see and believe only when his own body ceases to serve as a distraction. To what extent has Bill’s HIV or even racism served to condemn his body? Can the condemned body really believe in Jesus? Can Bill believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection?
I wonder if a little bit of Bill’s story might be also be a part of Thomas’ story and our own stories too. Can Thomas really see, touch and believe Jesus while his own body causes him shame or even hurts? What about us? Do the wounds of our own bodies impede us from looking directly at Jesus’ wound? Do we touch Jesus’ wound like a healing doctor or as a lover does or are we distracted by our own wounds, turning away in shame, anger or self-condemnation?
Some will recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread like the disciples at Emmaus did. Some of us will only recognize Jesus when we have recognized our embodied selves as Jesus own beloved. I think when we see ourselves as very members incorporate of the Body of Christ, sharing in the story of our salvation, specifically in Jesus’ resurrection that we will be able to say, Jesus, you are Lord.
Until then Jesus abides with us as we move from a place of distraction to when we are ready to encounter Jesus face to face. Until then Jesus pulls back his cloak to reveal his most intimate self and he steadies our trembling hands so that even when we are too fearful to look we may still touch his wound.
Do we see our wounds as means that bring us into greater communion with God or are our wounds distractions from the deepest expression of our Easter faith? Like the nurse aide who instructed me some twenty years ago, my advice to you today is to love your body as God’s own. As we paradoxically love our human bodies and those of our neighbors we then may be able to look directly at Jesus, touch his wound and believe in his divinity manifested through the resurrection.
To believe in Jesus’ resurrection, we must first walk in our own bodies and believe we are made in the image and likeness of God. The journey of our faith draws us from initial contempt for our bodies to being transformed by washing another’s feet, kissing the crucified body and ultimately believing in the resurrected body and life everlasting.
Thomas the apostle was a believer before Jesus’ death, but with Jesus’ resurrection he and we are being called into a deeper level of faith. Thomas was unprepared for Jesus’ resurrection. Apart from the beautiful pageantry of the Easter celebrations are we any better than Thomas? Do we really believe in the words of the Nicene Creed? “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”?
We know from the Emmaus Gospel story that some of the disciples did not recognize Jesus until he made breakfast for them. The story goes that they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. Our story this morning tells us that Thomas did not believe until he could place his finger in Jesus’ wound. Where are you in your journey of faith? Do you empathize with Thomas’ story?
There is a wonderful painting done by the Italian painter, Caravaggio called “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas”. As I read today’s Gospel several times I also looked at this painting to see what more I could learn about this text. Initially, the painting struck me as odd with these men all staring at Jesus’ open side. I wondered how Thomas’ examination of Jesus’ wound was going to help him believe.
When I placed myself in this painting I was profoundly moved by the privilege of touching Jesus’ body. As I touched his body I thought about the healing touch of doctors. I thought of the many times I have visited the dying at their bedside and prayed with their families when I was a Chaplain. I also thought of the time I worked as a nurse’s aide at a hospice in NYC as part of my formation to be a priest.
As a nurse’s aide at the hospice I bathed, dressed, fed and diapered the dying. When people died I dressed their bodies for the morgue. Dressing the body really means undressing the body, washing it down, rubbing it with oil and covering with a sheet for the undertaker. Initially I was horrified by the expectation that I would dress the body. One nurse’s aide told me to care for the dead like I care for myself. She asked me, how do you wash your own body? She said you must care for their bodies as you care for your own. If you are afraid of your living body you will be afraid of their dead bodies. If you love your body, you will cherish the body of the man you bathed yesterday who today is dead.
In time I moved beyond my horror of touching a dead body. I began to recall the person’s family and their last words to each other. As this happened I moved from my own bodily fears of touching a dead body to cherishing the person whom I had bathed just a few days before. Each time I went through this process of transformation moving from my fear of a dead body to recalling the person to sensing the privilege of this intimate and holy moment. Of all the jobs I have had in my life this was without doubt the most meaningful one for me on the deepest level. This experience of caring for the body is one that I am confident that doctors and nurses in this congregation are quite familiar with too. As adult caregivers some of you may have had the experience of caring for your parents’ frail bodies with Alzheimer’s or cancer.
Thomas is looking at Jesus’ wound but he is not looking at Jesus. We might have greater empathy for Thomas if we enter this scene also. So this morning I invite you to meet Jesus in this scene and if you wish to touch his wound. How does such an invitation strike you? Do you feel timid, cautious, fearful or at all hesitant? Do you sense yourself moving towards Jesus? Do you directly look at him or do you stare at his wound? How long will it be before you place your finger into Jesus’ wound? Are your hands trembling as you touch him? Is the wound clean or messy? Do you even think about the condition of the wound? Do you readily place your finger in Jesus’ side or are you squeamish about touching possibly some dried blood?
What are you doing with you other hand? I was struck by the way Thomas has placed his finger in Jesus’ wound. But do you also see in the painting how Thomas has his other hand on almost exactly the same side of his own body as he does on Jesus’ body? As I looked at the painting I found myself looking at Thomas’ left hand placed firmly on his own side as much as I was drawn into the extension of his right hand to Jesus’ body.
Do you see that Jesus’ body is fully engaged in Thomas’ examination? Jesus pulls his cloak back with his right hand revealing his wound. And it appears his other hand is placed on Thomas. Perhaps Thomas is trembling and Jesus is helping him hold his hand still enough to touch the wound. As you know my hands tremble and people often have to help me steady my hand at certain times.
Look closer now and you will see that all eyes are on Jesus’ wound, but Thomas’ eye seems to look beyond Jesus. My sense is that there is far more to the story of Thomas than just his doubt and inability to believe in Jesus. Perhaps like the disciples at Emmaus who did not believe until they saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread, Thomas must first do something in order to recognize Jesus. Thomas says all he must do is touch Jesus to believe, but this painting does not convey a story of a believing Thomas.
Yet Thomas at least in Caravaggio’s painting averts his eyes from Jesus’ wounded body. I wonder what is going on in Thomas’ life. Clearly Thomas appears distracted. He is in front of Jesus and he is distracted looking away. I turn back to Thomas’ left hand and wonder if his hand and eyes might serve as clues leading us to a deeper meaning behind his story. I wonder if Thomas is distracted by his own concerns. Is it possible that Thomas’ own body hurts? All look at Jesus’ wound, even Jesus looks at Jesus’ wound, but Thomas, he looks away. Of all the men in the scene, Thomas looks the most frail. Is it possible that Thomas is ill?
A friend of mine at seminary, who for this sermon I will call Bill, was HIV positive. He was an African-American who was very articulate about the times he was the recipient of racism on various occasions throughout his life. This fellow was a great preacher and loved the ministry. He started his own church before he was 20 years old. Then in his late forties after his church flourished he went to seminary to get a Masters of Divinity.
He was famous for telling fellow classmates that Jesus is dead. He would say the stories of Jesus are great, but he is dead, oh so very dead. Jesus did not rise from the dead. He would laugh, and just keep saying, no Jesus is dead. All his closest friends were shocked when he would say this too. When I read this morning’s text and saw Caravaggio’s painting, I thought about Bill and remembered his story.
Bill’s story and Caravaggio’s painting help me hear the story of Thomas differently. I wonder if like the disciples at Emmaus who believed when they saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread, if Bill will see and believe only when his own body ceases to serve as a distraction. To what extent has Bill’s HIV or even racism served to condemn his body? Can the condemned body really believe in Jesus? Can Bill believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection?
I wonder if a little bit of Bill’s story might be also be a part of Thomas’ story and our own stories too. Can Thomas really see, touch and believe Jesus while his own body causes him shame or even hurts? What about us? Do the wounds of our own bodies impede us from looking directly at Jesus’ wound? Do we touch Jesus’ wound like a healing doctor or as a lover does or are we distracted by our own wounds, turning away in shame, anger or self-condemnation?
Some will recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread like the disciples at Emmaus did. Some of us will only recognize Jesus when we have recognized our embodied selves as Jesus own beloved. I think when we see ourselves as very members incorporate of the Body of Christ, sharing in the story of our salvation, specifically in Jesus’ resurrection that we will be able to say, Jesus, you are Lord.
Until then Jesus abides with us as we move from a place of distraction to when we are ready to encounter Jesus face to face. Until then Jesus pulls back his cloak to reveal his most intimate self and he steadies our trembling hands so that even when we are too fearful to look we may still touch his wound.
Do we see our wounds as means that bring us into greater communion with God or are our wounds distractions from the deepest expression of our Easter faith? Like the nurse aide who instructed me some twenty years ago, my advice to you today is to love your body as God’s own. As we paradoxically love our human bodies and those of our neighbors we then may be able to look directly at Jesus, touch his wound and believe in his divinity manifested through the resurrection.
God's Indiscriminate Love for All - March 27, 2009
How is your Lent going? When it comes to Lent it is so easy to get caught up with what we are doing, giving up something or as today’s Gospel suggests that we “hate our life”. Lent for many can become a time of sacrifice. Another way of thinking about Lent is as a time for us to align ourselves with God. What does this alignment look like?
Is Lent about convincing God of our worthiness for God’s love? Or is Lent a time to acknowledge that God abides with us, so that when the Word becomes flesh in our lives we will abide with others as God abides with us?
Abiding with others as God abides with us is the challenge of Lent and indeed of our whole life. No matter where we are on our journey of faith – God abides with us.
For example, for quite a number of years I abstained from “the imposition of the ashes” part of the Ash Wednesday service. I had been hearing, “Joe, remember you are dirt NOT “Joe, remember you are dust”. Growing up as a Roman Catholic at home and at our church I was taught that as dust the purpose of my life was to purify my mind and body so that I might be pure enough to receive salvation in the next world. God abides with us.
Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador Oscar Romero’s life was shaped by his interpretation of certain words. Before he became a bishop, Fr. Romero’s focus was on the power of his priestly office. He served the sacramental needs of his people but paid little attention to their justice needs. The hierarchical church had taught him that the justice needs of the Salvadorian people were the concerns and responsibilities of the state and the political system not that of the church or its priests.
Therefore Romero never questioned the oppressive actions of the country’s power elite. Given his own fascination with power Romero was trusted by the nation’s political leaders as their ally and confidante. During these times in contrast Roman Catholic theologians like Leonardo Boff and Jon Sobrino were asking justice questions that were disturbing the peace of the country and of the Vatican. Romero and these other theologians interpreted the words of the scriptures differently. The Vatican made Romero the Bishop of El Salvador because they were confident that he would not disturb the fragile peace of the country.
In a way that could not have been anticipated by either Romero or the Vatican Romero fell in love with his people. His diaries do not tell us when he precisely changed but over time the people’s story became Romero’s story. As Romero’s interpretation of the words of the Gospel changed the way he practiced his priestly vocation changed too. All of a sudden Romero felt the oppression of his people as if it were his own. As Romero served the bread and wine to his people they like the elements he consecrated on the altar became for him as precious as the Body and Blood of Christ. As a result he cared for them differently and he cherished them with his life.
Eventually Romero was placed on a political subversive watch list. Why? Bishop Romero’ s love for his people led him to seek justice for them. These actions made Bishop Romero a very dangerous man for the status quo leaders of El Salvador. This past Tuesday was the 29th anniversary of Bishop Romero’s bloody execution.
Due to the way Bishop Romero stirred up the people he had been warned to stop celebrating the Eucharist at the Cathedral. Yet on March 24, 1980 Bishop Romero was killed while celebrating the Holy Eucharist. In his last sacramental act the Word became flesh through Romero’s proclamation of justice and the celebration of the Eucharist with the people he loved.
Young Fr. Romero and older Bishop Romero lived out very different interpretations of the Gospel. Yet I suspect that God abided with Fr. Romero as God abided with Bishop Romero. God did not change. Romero changed the way he practiced his priesthood, but God’s presence remained constant. Still we can get caught up in the way Romero changed. The change in Romero was important, but what is underrated is the way God abided with Romero before and after the changes he made in his life.
I resonate with Romero’s journey in the way my interpretation of words have changed the way I live my life. Yet I tell the story I am about to tell you to underscore the way God has abided with me before and after these changes.
I recall going to Washington DC in the late 70’s as a young man with a friend. On our first evening in DC we had pre-ordered tickets for a concert at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. When we got to the concert we quickly realized that it was a Gay Men’s Benefit Chorus. As Roman Catholics growing up in the sixties we had been raised to believe that homosexuality was wrong. So at the intermission confident that we were living out our family values we demanded our money back from the sponsors.
The sponsors said no and a battle of words ensued between us. We were finally asked to leave without our money. A week later I received a call at my office from the sponsor’s lawyers with a threat of a slander lawsuit. The threat of a lawsuit has an interesting way of helping one to change their conduct, but we did not change our minds. If anything we were more self-justified in our beliefs.
God abides with us.
In the early nineties I made friends, and met men and women who transformed my heart. Yes, with the gay men and lesbian women friends I made I could no longer continue to live following my parents’ interpretation of homosexuality as my heart had been broken open. As time passed I found that my dinner table was more diverse than the church where I worshipped. For a period of time I stopped going to church for the gulf between my changed values and my church had become so deep.
God abides with us.
Then in 2000 some twenty years after the DC incident I was drawn to All Saints Church in Pasadena where for the first time I heard the words “whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcomed at this table.” At last I had found a church home where I would not be ashamed to bring my friends and where my friends would be welcomed.
God abides with us.
There is a way this refrain can sound self-centered not caring about justice, but quite to the contrary. In the past I have preached in a way that condemns the younger Romero in order to celebrate the older Romero. Yet I don’t think the first priority of our faith lives is the interpretation of the words. When God’s word is made flesh in our lives our hearts are broken open.
Still more hopeful than an open table is the knowledge that God abides with us where we are. To pick up on Jane’s sermon last week we cannot do anything to deserve or lose God’s love. When we can say no matter what is going on in our life that God abides with us, then it is possible for the Word to become flesh in our lives. When the Word does become flesh in our lives the way we live and the way we love begins to change. I don’t think that Lent is about getting the words right or about our sacrifices.
Many people now want to canonize Bishop Romero. Some of these people are ashamed of Romero the priest who enjoyed power without justice. I believe though that God made space in God’s heart for both the younger and the older Romero. God abided with the younger and older Romero. God has certainly abided with the younger Joe Duggan and the older Joe Duggan. I wonder are we jealous of a God who loves our neighbor as much as God loves us.
In The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion different interpretations of the words of the scriptures have divided good people. In the course of these debates too many of us have lost sight of God’s divine inclusion. God abides with all.
The Good News is that Christ’s love is unconditional. God indiscriminately abides with us. Christ abides with us no matter where we are on our journeys of faith. St. Paul says as Christ increases in me, I decrease. It is pretty clear that in the end that Christ had overtaken the life of Romero. He had ultimately forgotten himself in his selfless act of love transforming his selfish concerns into God’s cares and Jesus’ ministry. As Romero forgot his desire for power he entered the transformative power of the Gospel. The Word had become flesh in Bishop Romero’s life.
When we hear the words today, “hate your life” let this not mean that we are inconsequential as dust or just mere grains. Rather we are Christ’s beloved. As Christ’s beloved we are called to abide with one another as Christ abides with us.
We are called to abide with one another as Christ abides with us.
The journey of Lent and of our lives is letting our hearts be broken open that we may abide with one another. When the Word becomes flesh in our life it is possible for us to abide with even those who may initially offend us. Then like Romero we will love unconditionally as God loves us. Until then let us be patient with one another as our faith life journeys intersect with our different interpretations of the words and the unfinished ways we live out our love of God and neighbor.
As Easter draws near may God abide with us so that the Word will become flesh in our lives and like Bishop Romero open our hearts to indiscriminately love one another.
Is Lent about convincing God of our worthiness for God’s love? Or is Lent a time to acknowledge that God abides with us, so that when the Word becomes flesh in our lives we will abide with others as God abides with us?
Abiding with others as God abides with us is the challenge of Lent and indeed of our whole life. No matter where we are on our journey of faith – God abides with us.
For example, for quite a number of years I abstained from “the imposition of the ashes” part of the Ash Wednesday service. I had been hearing, “Joe, remember you are dirt NOT “Joe, remember you are dust”. Growing up as a Roman Catholic at home and at our church I was taught that as dust the purpose of my life was to purify my mind and body so that I might be pure enough to receive salvation in the next world. God abides with us.
Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador Oscar Romero’s life was shaped by his interpretation of certain words. Before he became a bishop, Fr. Romero’s focus was on the power of his priestly office. He served the sacramental needs of his people but paid little attention to their justice needs. The hierarchical church had taught him that the justice needs of the Salvadorian people were the concerns and responsibilities of the state and the political system not that of the church or its priests.
Therefore Romero never questioned the oppressive actions of the country’s power elite. Given his own fascination with power Romero was trusted by the nation’s political leaders as their ally and confidante. During these times in contrast Roman Catholic theologians like Leonardo Boff and Jon Sobrino were asking justice questions that were disturbing the peace of the country and of the Vatican. Romero and these other theologians interpreted the words of the scriptures differently. The Vatican made Romero the Bishop of El Salvador because they were confident that he would not disturb the fragile peace of the country.
In a way that could not have been anticipated by either Romero or the Vatican Romero fell in love with his people. His diaries do not tell us when he precisely changed but over time the people’s story became Romero’s story. As Romero’s interpretation of the words of the Gospel changed the way he practiced his priestly vocation changed too. All of a sudden Romero felt the oppression of his people as if it were his own. As Romero served the bread and wine to his people they like the elements he consecrated on the altar became for him as precious as the Body and Blood of Christ. As a result he cared for them differently and he cherished them with his life.
Eventually Romero was placed on a political subversive watch list. Why? Bishop Romero’ s love for his people led him to seek justice for them. These actions made Bishop Romero a very dangerous man for the status quo leaders of El Salvador. This past Tuesday was the 29th anniversary of Bishop Romero’s bloody execution.
Due to the way Bishop Romero stirred up the people he had been warned to stop celebrating the Eucharist at the Cathedral. Yet on March 24, 1980 Bishop Romero was killed while celebrating the Holy Eucharist. In his last sacramental act the Word became flesh through Romero’s proclamation of justice and the celebration of the Eucharist with the people he loved.
Young Fr. Romero and older Bishop Romero lived out very different interpretations of the Gospel. Yet I suspect that God abided with Fr. Romero as God abided with Bishop Romero. God did not change. Romero changed the way he practiced his priesthood, but God’s presence remained constant. Still we can get caught up in the way Romero changed. The change in Romero was important, but what is underrated is the way God abided with Romero before and after the changes he made in his life.
I resonate with Romero’s journey in the way my interpretation of words have changed the way I live my life. Yet I tell the story I am about to tell you to underscore the way God has abided with me before and after these changes.
I recall going to Washington DC in the late 70’s as a young man with a friend. On our first evening in DC we had pre-ordered tickets for a concert at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. When we got to the concert we quickly realized that it was a Gay Men’s Benefit Chorus. As Roman Catholics growing up in the sixties we had been raised to believe that homosexuality was wrong. So at the intermission confident that we were living out our family values we demanded our money back from the sponsors.
The sponsors said no and a battle of words ensued between us. We were finally asked to leave without our money. A week later I received a call at my office from the sponsor’s lawyers with a threat of a slander lawsuit. The threat of a lawsuit has an interesting way of helping one to change their conduct, but we did not change our minds. If anything we were more self-justified in our beliefs.
God abides with us.
In the early nineties I made friends, and met men and women who transformed my heart. Yes, with the gay men and lesbian women friends I made I could no longer continue to live following my parents’ interpretation of homosexuality as my heart had been broken open. As time passed I found that my dinner table was more diverse than the church where I worshipped. For a period of time I stopped going to church for the gulf between my changed values and my church had become so deep.
God abides with us.
Then in 2000 some twenty years after the DC incident I was drawn to All Saints Church in Pasadena where for the first time I heard the words “whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcomed at this table.” At last I had found a church home where I would not be ashamed to bring my friends and where my friends would be welcomed.
God abides with us.
There is a way this refrain can sound self-centered not caring about justice, but quite to the contrary. In the past I have preached in a way that condemns the younger Romero in order to celebrate the older Romero. Yet I don’t think the first priority of our faith lives is the interpretation of the words. When God’s word is made flesh in our lives our hearts are broken open.
Still more hopeful than an open table is the knowledge that God abides with us where we are. To pick up on Jane’s sermon last week we cannot do anything to deserve or lose God’s love. When we can say no matter what is going on in our life that God abides with us, then it is possible for the Word to become flesh in our lives. When the Word does become flesh in our lives the way we live and the way we love begins to change. I don’t think that Lent is about getting the words right or about our sacrifices.
Many people now want to canonize Bishop Romero. Some of these people are ashamed of Romero the priest who enjoyed power without justice. I believe though that God made space in God’s heart for both the younger and the older Romero. God abided with the younger and older Romero. God has certainly abided with the younger Joe Duggan and the older Joe Duggan. I wonder are we jealous of a God who loves our neighbor as much as God loves us.
In The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion different interpretations of the words of the scriptures have divided good people. In the course of these debates too many of us have lost sight of God’s divine inclusion. God abides with all.
The Good News is that Christ’s love is unconditional. God indiscriminately abides with us. Christ abides with us no matter where we are on our journeys of faith. St. Paul says as Christ increases in me, I decrease. It is pretty clear that in the end that Christ had overtaken the life of Romero. He had ultimately forgotten himself in his selfless act of love transforming his selfish concerns into God’s cares and Jesus’ ministry. As Romero forgot his desire for power he entered the transformative power of the Gospel. The Word had become flesh in Bishop Romero’s life.
When we hear the words today, “hate your life” let this not mean that we are inconsequential as dust or just mere grains. Rather we are Christ’s beloved. As Christ’s beloved we are called to abide with one another as Christ abides with us.
We are called to abide with one another as Christ abides with us.
The journey of Lent and of our lives is letting our hearts be broken open that we may abide with one another. When the Word becomes flesh in our life it is possible for us to abide with even those who may initially offend us. Then like Romero we will love unconditionally as God loves us. Until then let us be patient with one another as our faith life journeys intersect with our different interpretations of the words and the unfinished ways we live out our love of God and neighbor.
As Easter draws near may God abide with us so that the Word will become flesh in our lives and like Bishop Romero open our hearts to indiscriminately love one another.
Knowing When to Tell - February 15, 2009 at St. Catherine of Siena, Reno
Mark I: 40-45
Knowing When to Tell…
What do you make of that last line – don’t tell? Honestly I have shrugged off these words over and over as just an arcane add-on. I have also thought that this is an odd statement for Jesus to make and out of sync with the abundance that I have come to recognize through the Gospel stories.
More recently I have acknowledged that I did not understand the final line and I chose to just sit with it. To abbreviate the text and to cut out the last line changes the entire message. It certainly makes the text much easier to understand. Ah a healing story – great! Isn’t Jesus great? Yes and this morning I want us to take time to ask if there is also another message we need to hear.
Mark’s Gospel is filled with don’t tell instructions from Jesus to his disciples and then the Gospel ends with a disappointment that the women don’t go and tell the apostles that Jesus has risen. No doubt the women like you and I are confused with how to read this text and more importantly when to tell and when not to tell the Good News. The people of Mark’s Gospel always seem to get it wrong – telling when they have been told not to tell and not telling when it would have been the right thing to tell.
What is going on here? Is Jesus being humble here? So he heals but then does not want credit for it? That does not make sense given all his other healings before and after this story. Scholars refer to this not telling in the Gospel of Mark as the Messianic Secret. Of course scholars cannot agree on what the Messianic Secret means nor do we need to agree today, but it is still good to ponder this conflict between telling and not telling.
The Messianic Secret has to do with the timing of revealing Jesus’ mission as the messiah. Historians say that there were many self-proclaimed Messiahs at the time and Jesus did not want to be confused with these.
Scholars have also argued over the extent to which Jesus knew his mission from his Father and that he anticipated going before Pilate, being crucified, dying, buried and rising. In such a reading Jesus’ primary work is not all the miracles he performs during his public life. In such a reading Jesus primary purpose for becoming human was to share in our humanity, a part of which is participating in our fleshy struggles and rising from the dead. Then Jesus’ kingdom is not just a new and better Roman Empire that is more friendly and gentle or even inclusive. Jesus kingdom is that we are blessed, anointed and loved into new life through his death and resurrection. This is the Good News!
As some readers have wished to erase the last lines from the Gospel text all of us may at one time or another many have also wanted to erase the mysterious resurrection. Yet we have been taught to accept the resurrection on faith based on the tradition that has been given to us. Even before Lent begins in two weeks time we know how the story is going to go. One more time we will hear the story of the passion on Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the early services of even Easter. We do know the story, but do we really know the story? Do we really know how to discern the Good News from the great news and when to tell the Good News and to whom?
Isn’t the story different every year? Don’t we hear the story differently every year depending on where we are in our life? In one of the darkest moments of my life I just could not do the passion and so I skipped Palm Sunday through Lent and went straight to Easter. Although I skipped it I realize now that more than any other year perhaps in my life God was with me in an even more profound way that Lent in my lonely isolation from the light. In my darkness Jesus was at my side.
In other years the passion story was less painful for me to enter and also less real and I could participate in Lent. Isn’t that ironic? Collectively through all my times of absence and presence God continues to weave through my story as he does yours too. I have learned so many times that we can try to leave God, but God never leaves us. His Holy Spirit lives within you and me. Yes the Spirit dwells within us, but do we recognize the Spirit working within us?
How do we know when to tell? We discern. Discernment is a process of listening to the Spirit working within our lives. We discern by paying attention to our hearts, minds and bodies – are we drawn closer to Jesus’ story or caught in our own stories?
Our Anglican theology says that the three sources of authority - reason, tradition and scripture. Contrary to popular belief, reason does not mean that Episcopalians get to do anything we desire and the Roman Catholics have to obey the Pope. No, our reason is to be informed by the Gospel, nurtured by the sacraments and strengthened by our experience of community with one another. Through a combined listening and nurtured reason we know when to share our faith with others and when to receive care from others.
We are human and sometimes we are not attentive to the Spirit working within us. Sometimes our selfish needs get in the way of our listening. Returning to today’s Gospel the leper wants to tell the Good News of his healing, but Jesus asks him not to do so. If the leper does not listen to Jesus and he hears his voice then what can we expect of ourselves who must discern the Spirit working within us. Clearly we have the more challenging task.
Fredrick Beuchner wrote a book called Telling Secrets. Well obviously you don’t tell a secret – right? The book is a true story about Buechner when his daughters were diagnosed with anorexia when they were teen-agers. Buechner told absolutely nobody his secret even though he was burdened by the isolation he felt by his daughters’ illnesses. He did not know how to tell others of his need. He was ashamed and resisted asking for help from others.
I mentioned Buechner’s story to a man in exactly the same situation, a man who was struggling with his own daughters who were diagnosed of anorexia to read the book. The man wrote to me and said, “Joe, I don’t understand this book. I have no secrets.” Buechner did not want to tell his secret, but this man did not even know that he was keeping a secret. Both men were so isolated that they could no longer hear the Spirit working within them, losing sight of the Good News.
It seems to me that these men in their pre-occupation with themselves did not recognize their needs for care. Was either man listening to the Spirit? Was the healed leper listening to the Spirit? Are we listening to the Spirit? One way of knowing if we are listening to the Spirit is asking if we are growing in the gifts of the Spirit – are we more loving, more patient, more gentle?
So as we anticipate Lent how do we use today’s lessons as our spiritual food? I think the Messianic Secret challenges us to listen to God working in our life so we will know when to tell others. But not just listening for ourselves but listening in a way that opens us up to be attentive to the needs of another, their comfort and their care.
The way I read the Gospel story this morning is that Jesus is inviting the leper, you and me into something greater than our own story. The Gospel calls us not just into one healing but the healing of all humanity. Perhaps the leper missed the wider significance of his healing. The leper celebrated his own healing wanting to tell his friends the Good News. But perhaps his healing was not the Good News. Don’t get me wrong – it was great news, but was it the Good News still to come?
Would you have heard Jesus’ instruction in the same way as the leper and emailed your friends or would you wait to share the Good News of Easter? Is there news in our life that we tell when we should not or we should speak when otherwise we choose to be silent?
We have received the Good News already and yet we are not free from the task of discerning when to tell and when to be silent. Our telling is not just about us as the healed leper or the men with anorexic daughters appeared to think. If this were so then we would become spectators to the Gospel story rather than people who are called to be in dynamic relationship with God.
Telling follows our listening and discerning thus knowing when to invite others to bless us. Then the one who receives the blessing and the one who blesses are both healed by the Good News of Jesus words. When the time is right to tell, then Jesus’ story and our story become intertwined as one.
Even in our darkest struggles when we are deaf and blind to God’s healing hand working in our lives, even then we are called to listen, to discern and to tell the Good News.
Listen – Have you recognized the Good news in your life?
Listen – Is Jesus calling you to tell the Good News today?
Let us listen to Jesus and then, let us all go out and tell the Good News.
Knowing When to Tell…
What do you make of that last line – don’t tell? Honestly I have shrugged off these words over and over as just an arcane add-on. I have also thought that this is an odd statement for Jesus to make and out of sync with the abundance that I have come to recognize through the Gospel stories.
More recently I have acknowledged that I did not understand the final line and I chose to just sit with it. To abbreviate the text and to cut out the last line changes the entire message. It certainly makes the text much easier to understand. Ah a healing story – great! Isn’t Jesus great? Yes and this morning I want us to take time to ask if there is also another message we need to hear.
Mark’s Gospel is filled with don’t tell instructions from Jesus to his disciples and then the Gospel ends with a disappointment that the women don’t go and tell the apostles that Jesus has risen. No doubt the women like you and I are confused with how to read this text and more importantly when to tell and when not to tell the Good News. The people of Mark’s Gospel always seem to get it wrong – telling when they have been told not to tell and not telling when it would have been the right thing to tell.
What is going on here? Is Jesus being humble here? So he heals but then does not want credit for it? That does not make sense given all his other healings before and after this story. Scholars refer to this not telling in the Gospel of Mark as the Messianic Secret. Of course scholars cannot agree on what the Messianic Secret means nor do we need to agree today, but it is still good to ponder this conflict between telling and not telling.
The Messianic Secret has to do with the timing of revealing Jesus’ mission as the messiah. Historians say that there were many self-proclaimed Messiahs at the time and Jesus did not want to be confused with these.
Scholars have also argued over the extent to which Jesus knew his mission from his Father and that he anticipated going before Pilate, being crucified, dying, buried and rising. In such a reading Jesus’ primary work is not all the miracles he performs during his public life. In such a reading Jesus primary purpose for becoming human was to share in our humanity, a part of which is participating in our fleshy struggles and rising from the dead. Then Jesus’ kingdom is not just a new and better Roman Empire that is more friendly and gentle or even inclusive. Jesus kingdom is that we are blessed, anointed and loved into new life through his death and resurrection. This is the Good News!
As some readers have wished to erase the last lines from the Gospel text all of us may at one time or another many have also wanted to erase the mysterious resurrection. Yet we have been taught to accept the resurrection on faith based on the tradition that has been given to us. Even before Lent begins in two weeks time we know how the story is going to go. One more time we will hear the story of the passion on Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the early services of even Easter. We do know the story, but do we really know the story? Do we really know how to discern the Good News from the great news and when to tell the Good News and to whom?
Isn’t the story different every year? Don’t we hear the story differently every year depending on where we are in our life? In one of the darkest moments of my life I just could not do the passion and so I skipped Palm Sunday through Lent and went straight to Easter. Although I skipped it I realize now that more than any other year perhaps in my life God was with me in an even more profound way that Lent in my lonely isolation from the light. In my darkness Jesus was at my side.
In other years the passion story was less painful for me to enter and also less real and I could participate in Lent. Isn’t that ironic? Collectively through all my times of absence and presence God continues to weave through my story as he does yours too. I have learned so many times that we can try to leave God, but God never leaves us. His Holy Spirit lives within you and me. Yes the Spirit dwells within us, but do we recognize the Spirit working within us?
How do we know when to tell? We discern. Discernment is a process of listening to the Spirit working within our lives. We discern by paying attention to our hearts, minds and bodies – are we drawn closer to Jesus’ story or caught in our own stories?
Our Anglican theology says that the three sources of authority - reason, tradition and scripture. Contrary to popular belief, reason does not mean that Episcopalians get to do anything we desire and the Roman Catholics have to obey the Pope. No, our reason is to be informed by the Gospel, nurtured by the sacraments and strengthened by our experience of community with one another. Through a combined listening and nurtured reason we know when to share our faith with others and when to receive care from others.
We are human and sometimes we are not attentive to the Spirit working within us. Sometimes our selfish needs get in the way of our listening. Returning to today’s Gospel the leper wants to tell the Good News of his healing, but Jesus asks him not to do so. If the leper does not listen to Jesus and he hears his voice then what can we expect of ourselves who must discern the Spirit working within us. Clearly we have the more challenging task.
Fredrick Beuchner wrote a book called Telling Secrets. Well obviously you don’t tell a secret – right? The book is a true story about Buechner when his daughters were diagnosed with anorexia when they were teen-agers. Buechner told absolutely nobody his secret even though he was burdened by the isolation he felt by his daughters’ illnesses. He did not know how to tell others of his need. He was ashamed and resisted asking for help from others.
I mentioned Buechner’s story to a man in exactly the same situation, a man who was struggling with his own daughters who were diagnosed of anorexia to read the book. The man wrote to me and said, “Joe, I don’t understand this book. I have no secrets.” Buechner did not want to tell his secret, but this man did not even know that he was keeping a secret. Both men were so isolated that they could no longer hear the Spirit working within them, losing sight of the Good News.
It seems to me that these men in their pre-occupation with themselves did not recognize their needs for care. Was either man listening to the Spirit? Was the healed leper listening to the Spirit? Are we listening to the Spirit? One way of knowing if we are listening to the Spirit is asking if we are growing in the gifts of the Spirit – are we more loving, more patient, more gentle?
So as we anticipate Lent how do we use today’s lessons as our spiritual food? I think the Messianic Secret challenges us to listen to God working in our life so we will know when to tell others. But not just listening for ourselves but listening in a way that opens us up to be attentive to the needs of another, their comfort and their care.
The way I read the Gospel story this morning is that Jesus is inviting the leper, you and me into something greater than our own story. The Gospel calls us not just into one healing but the healing of all humanity. Perhaps the leper missed the wider significance of his healing. The leper celebrated his own healing wanting to tell his friends the Good News. But perhaps his healing was not the Good News. Don’t get me wrong – it was great news, but was it the Good News still to come?
Would you have heard Jesus’ instruction in the same way as the leper and emailed your friends or would you wait to share the Good News of Easter? Is there news in our life that we tell when we should not or we should speak when otherwise we choose to be silent?
We have received the Good News already and yet we are not free from the task of discerning when to tell and when to be silent. Our telling is not just about us as the healed leper or the men with anorexic daughters appeared to think. If this were so then we would become spectators to the Gospel story rather than people who are called to be in dynamic relationship with God.
Telling follows our listening and discerning thus knowing when to invite others to bless us. Then the one who receives the blessing and the one who blesses are both healed by the Good News of Jesus words. When the time is right to tell, then Jesus’ story and our story become intertwined as one.
Even in our darkest struggles when we are deaf and blind to God’s healing hand working in our lives, even then we are called to listen, to discern and to tell the Good News.
Listen – Have you recognized the Good news in your life?
Listen – Is Jesus calling you to tell the Good News today?
Let us listen to Jesus and then, let us all go out and tell the Good News.
Ministry That Breaks Open God's Heart - August 14, 2005 at St. Paul's Church, Ventura, CA
Mt: 15:21-28
We are seeing a side of Jesus this morning that we don't often get to see. Jesus usually says just the right word. Maybe the difference here is that he's tired after a long day of ministry. He may even be a little irritated by his disciples who have just been urging him to send the Canaanite woman away. While all or some of this may be true, these circumstances alone do not justify or explain his harsh response to this woman. Jesus literally calls her a dog, addressing the woman with the words, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs", implying that the woman is a dog.
What I want to do this morning with you is create a space where we can fully enter into this story.
To access the Good News in this text, we need a more contemporary story. The story I am about to tell you may initially be disturbing for you; it was for me. The story has artistic and theological overtones. While I am not much of an art enthusiast, I do know that I tend to appreciate art much more when I can enter into a particular artistic expression without making a premature judgment. Art as you know is sometimes intentionally disturbing to help us "get" what we would otherwise possibly miss. So I hope you will let the artistic expression in this story touch all of your sensibilities.
A few years ago I was taking a theology class at Claremont School of Theology. Our term project assignment was to research how a community uses sacred symbols to identify themselves with God, as God's own. One student had interviewed a homeless woman who lives underneath a bridge in Los Angeles. For the purpose of telling this story, let's call this woman under the bridge, Mollie.
Mollie has been living under the bridge for many years. Mollie self-identifies herself as a trans-gender woman. So that we all have a common understanding of what this means, trans-gender persons experience a gender disconnection between how they understand themselves to be today from the physical sex in which they were born. Honestly, it would have been much easier for me to leave out this particular detail, but I don't think that the parallel to the Canaanite woman would have been made as effectively.
By using Mollie's story, particularly as a trans-gendered person I am hoping to evoke for us how Mollie and the Canaanite woman are experienced as foreigners within their social context; for few affirm their humanity or wish to include them as they are, even in our most inclusive communities. In our contemporary culture, trans-gender persons are frequently misunderstood and often disregarded as emotionally disturbed, mostly due to our own biases.
Let's return to Mollie's story. It had been Mollie's spiritual and artistic practice to collect other people's garbage; specifically, their once sacred objects. Mollie searched for and collected broken crosses, torn holy pictures, broken rosaries, cracked statues, burned bibles and similarly scarred materials that once bore for others God's sacred image. Mollie organized her collection of objects in the form of the Stations of the Cross. Mollie's stations are another version of the stations you put up during Lent around this church to help you meditate on Christ's passion, death and resurrection. Mollie organized these discarded objects in a way that reflected and embodied the Jesus who she has come to know at the center of her life's story.
Mollie is no different than you or me in this regard, in that her images of God and of Jesus reflect her life history and her experience. Not unlike you and me either, Mollie's images of God also reflect her image of herself.
The student at Claremont asked Mollie to help her understand and appreciate the meaning behind Mollie's tattered Stations of the Cross collection. Mollie said I have been told throughout my life that "I am just garbage". "People treat me like garbage". Mollie said "most of the time I feel like garbage too; except when I am in the presence of Jesus." Mollie then said, "I know that God loves me even as I am and that he became garbage to be with me in this mess". Mollie perhaps more eloquently than any seminary professor or theologian I have known completely understands the essence of the theology of the incarnation. Even though her garbage-like image may initially be offensive to us, what a gift that she senses God's presence where others have rejected her and even ostracized her. And what love Jesus has for Mollie to enter the mess of her world in a way that Jesus would be recognized by her on her terms, in the very circumstances of her life.
You can hear Jesus' words to the Canaanite woman, echoed again to Mollie - "Woman, great is your faith!" Pointing to the Canaanite woman's faith is the traditional interpretation for this text and that is indeed Good News. And yet as I prayed over these texts there was something else which I sensed the Holy Spirit leading me to share with you this morning.
The first reading and the Gospel came together for me during my prayer, in the line of Isaiah where the prophet writes "And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants - these I will bring to my holy mountain." "To minister to him", I don't ever recall hearing this line before. Mollie broke open Jesus' heart. Yes she ministered to him because she loves him. Like Jesus who emptied himself for us, Mollie and the Canaanite woman emptied themselves for Jesus because they love him.
Mollie and the Canaanite woman have turned around the condemning words of society that have objectified them as garbage and as the equivalence of dogs. They have dared to stand outside of the social labels that diminish and discard persons with the same ease as we discard our useless holy objects. Mollie and the Canaanite woman break open God's heart because they are no longer perplexed by the worldly paradox. And that paradox is that we are made in the image of God, even though we may be misunderstood, labeled or excluded by others. Now few of us have been excluded like Mollie or the Canaanite woman, yet we still often fall into similar paradoxical traps when we cannot claim and cherish God's image imprinted on us.
When we think of ministry, we don't usually think about ministering to God's heart. Rather we think of Jesus ministering to our hearts. Ministry then must be daring to break open our hearts and sharing our vulnerability, so that we may open ourselves up to the transforming presence of God and be a transforming presence to others too. When Mollie cherishes the broken objects in her sacred collection, she is cherishing her brokenness, she also cherishes the broken Body of Christ, in the same way, as she is cherished by God. It is in this inter-personal if you will, Trinitarian act of cherishing what appears to be less that we become more, just as Jesus does for the Canaanite woman in the Gospel story.
See how the Canaanite woman does not respond with anger to Jesus' harsh remark to her, but rather with love and then as a result of her love, she breaks open Jesus' heart and his demeanor towards her instantly changes. Mollie and the Canaanite woman cherish what appears to be less and doing so they become more and those in relationships with them, like you and I are also transformed by her story.
This is a very way to live because for us to do the same for others, we must become like Mollie and the Canaanite woman and minister to God's heart, in a way that breaks open God's heart and each other's hearts. We must be vulnerable enough to trust that which we often prefer to keep hidden. To live this way, we must first, also resolve the worldly paradox that impedes and paralyzes us from flourishing in God's love and service. Like Mollie and the Canaanite woman we must be convinced that we are made in the image and likeness of God and that nothing can separate us from being God's own beloved.
The Good News for us today is that God enters fully into our life circumstances, to transform us into Godly images that God cherishes as God's beloved. When we shamelessly unlock our hearts, take off our masks and claim the fullness of our humanity, then and only then, can we have a glimpse of the full humanity and divinity of Jesus, a glimpse of God's image reflected to us in our tattered and imperfect lives.
Charged and inspired with this Godly wisdom, then we will build the City of God and come into God's reign. Then in shared intimacy with God's heart, we will see Mollie as more than garbage and the Canaanite woman as more than a dog, and in so doing we through our particular life's story and ministries will transform all God's world into God's very own beloved. Reversing the paradox of the world, daring to live radically open lives which lead to transforming one another, even transforming Jesus at the end of a long day of ministry - this, this is the Good News for us today and always!
We are seeing a side of Jesus this morning that we don't often get to see. Jesus usually says just the right word. Maybe the difference here is that he's tired after a long day of ministry. He may even be a little irritated by his disciples who have just been urging him to send the Canaanite woman away. While all or some of this may be true, these circumstances alone do not justify or explain his harsh response to this woman. Jesus literally calls her a dog, addressing the woman with the words, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs", implying that the woman is a dog.
What I want to do this morning with you is create a space where we can fully enter into this story.
To access the Good News in this text, we need a more contemporary story. The story I am about to tell you may initially be disturbing for you; it was for me. The story has artistic and theological overtones. While I am not much of an art enthusiast, I do know that I tend to appreciate art much more when I can enter into a particular artistic expression without making a premature judgment. Art as you know is sometimes intentionally disturbing to help us "get" what we would otherwise possibly miss. So I hope you will let the artistic expression in this story touch all of your sensibilities.
A few years ago I was taking a theology class at Claremont School of Theology. Our term project assignment was to research how a community uses sacred symbols to identify themselves with God, as God's own. One student had interviewed a homeless woman who lives underneath a bridge in Los Angeles. For the purpose of telling this story, let's call this woman under the bridge, Mollie.
Mollie has been living under the bridge for many years. Mollie self-identifies herself as a trans-gender woman. So that we all have a common understanding of what this means, trans-gender persons experience a gender disconnection between how they understand themselves to be today from the physical sex in which they were born. Honestly, it would have been much easier for me to leave out this particular detail, but I don't think that the parallel to the Canaanite woman would have been made as effectively.
By using Mollie's story, particularly as a trans-gendered person I am hoping to evoke for us how Mollie and the Canaanite woman are experienced as foreigners within their social context; for few affirm their humanity or wish to include them as they are, even in our most inclusive communities. In our contemporary culture, trans-gender persons are frequently misunderstood and often disregarded as emotionally disturbed, mostly due to our own biases.
Let's return to Mollie's story. It had been Mollie's spiritual and artistic practice to collect other people's garbage; specifically, their once sacred objects. Mollie searched for and collected broken crosses, torn holy pictures, broken rosaries, cracked statues, burned bibles and similarly scarred materials that once bore for others God's sacred image. Mollie organized her collection of objects in the form of the Stations of the Cross. Mollie's stations are another version of the stations you put up during Lent around this church to help you meditate on Christ's passion, death and resurrection. Mollie organized these discarded objects in a way that reflected and embodied the Jesus who she has come to know at the center of her life's story.
Mollie is no different than you or me in this regard, in that her images of God and of Jesus reflect her life history and her experience. Not unlike you and me either, Mollie's images of God also reflect her image of herself.
The student at Claremont asked Mollie to help her understand and appreciate the meaning behind Mollie's tattered Stations of the Cross collection. Mollie said I have been told throughout my life that "I am just garbage". "People treat me like garbage". Mollie said "most of the time I feel like garbage too; except when I am in the presence of Jesus." Mollie then said, "I know that God loves me even as I am and that he became garbage to be with me in this mess". Mollie perhaps more eloquently than any seminary professor or theologian I have known completely understands the essence of the theology of the incarnation. Even though her garbage-like image may initially be offensive to us, what a gift that she senses God's presence where others have rejected her and even ostracized her. And what love Jesus has for Mollie to enter the mess of her world in a way that Jesus would be recognized by her on her terms, in the very circumstances of her life.
You can hear Jesus' words to the Canaanite woman, echoed again to Mollie - "Woman, great is your faith!" Pointing to the Canaanite woman's faith is the traditional interpretation for this text and that is indeed Good News. And yet as I prayed over these texts there was something else which I sensed the Holy Spirit leading me to share with you this morning.
The first reading and the Gospel came together for me during my prayer, in the line of Isaiah where the prophet writes "And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants - these I will bring to my holy mountain." "To minister to him", I don't ever recall hearing this line before. Mollie broke open Jesus' heart. Yes she ministered to him because she loves him. Like Jesus who emptied himself for us, Mollie and the Canaanite woman emptied themselves for Jesus because they love him.
Mollie and the Canaanite woman have turned around the condemning words of society that have objectified them as garbage and as the equivalence of dogs. They have dared to stand outside of the social labels that diminish and discard persons with the same ease as we discard our useless holy objects. Mollie and the Canaanite woman break open God's heart because they are no longer perplexed by the worldly paradox. And that paradox is that we are made in the image of God, even though we may be misunderstood, labeled or excluded by others. Now few of us have been excluded like Mollie or the Canaanite woman, yet we still often fall into similar paradoxical traps when we cannot claim and cherish God's image imprinted on us.
When we think of ministry, we don't usually think about ministering to God's heart. Rather we think of Jesus ministering to our hearts. Ministry then must be daring to break open our hearts and sharing our vulnerability, so that we may open ourselves up to the transforming presence of God and be a transforming presence to others too. When Mollie cherishes the broken objects in her sacred collection, she is cherishing her brokenness, she also cherishes the broken Body of Christ, in the same way, as she is cherished by God. It is in this inter-personal if you will, Trinitarian act of cherishing what appears to be less that we become more, just as Jesus does for the Canaanite woman in the Gospel story.
See how the Canaanite woman does not respond with anger to Jesus' harsh remark to her, but rather with love and then as a result of her love, she breaks open Jesus' heart and his demeanor towards her instantly changes. Mollie and the Canaanite woman cherish what appears to be less and doing so they become more and those in relationships with them, like you and I are also transformed by her story.
This is a very way to live because for us to do the same for others, we must become like Mollie and the Canaanite woman and minister to God's heart, in a way that breaks open God's heart and each other's hearts. We must be vulnerable enough to trust that which we often prefer to keep hidden. To live this way, we must first, also resolve the worldly paradox that impedes and paralyzes us from flourishing in God's love and service. Like Mollie and the Canaanite woman we must be convinced that we are made in the image and likeness of God and that nothing can separate us from being God's own beloved.
The Good News for us today is that God enters fully into our life circumstances, to transform us into Godly images that God cherishes as God's beloved. When we shamelessly unlock our hearts, take off our masks and claim the fullness of our humanity, then and only then, can we have a glimpse of the full humanity and divinity of Jesus, a glimpse of God's image reflected to us in our tattered and imperfect lives.
Charged and inspired with this Godly wisdom, then we will build the City of God and come into God's reign. Then in shared intimacy with God's heart, we will see Mollie as more than garbage and the Canaanite woman as more than a dog, and in so doing we through our particular life's story and ministries will transform all God's world into God's very own beloved. Reversing the paradox of the world, daring to live radically open lives which lead to transforming one another, even transforming Jesus at the end of a long day of ministry - this, this is the Good News for us today and always!
Pentecost Sunday, June 4, 2004 - St. Paul's Church, Ventura, CA
It is good to be at home here at St. Paul's! This feels like home to me. I cherish the privilege that I have been given by Father Kahler to preach at St. Paul's on this Pentecost Sunday and I am also very grateful to Deacon Ed for generously sharing and shepherding me through some of his diaconal responsibilities.
Like the disciples Pentecost for me is about the interconnection between my paralyzing fears and God's desire for me to experience inner freedom in ways that release me and you from the locked rooms in which we dwell while we wait for the Lord to come. Though many have become suspicious of Pentecost due to their exclusive reliance on media hearsay about what it means to be a Pentecostal Christian, with some risk at being misunderstood I claim a Pentecostal identity for myself.
As I claim a Pentecostal identity I am making a commitment to participate in what has always been and always will be a radically unsettling and disturbing experience of the Divine transforming individual lives and human communities. By Pentecostal I do not mean that I am a fundamentalist or even that I speak in tongues; though for some this is a test of who truly is Pentecostal and a way to exclude me.
I am publicly reclaiming Pentecostal to mean that my Trinitarian relationship to God has always been rooted in and through the Spirit. When I have trusted the Spirit the most , it is then that I have found myself at odds with institutional expectations of me in my family, church and workplace. The inspiration to take back the word Pentecostal began for me when an Anglican Primate at a Bible study in Canterbury in October 2003 said, "it is possible for the Spirit to be up to different things in different places." These words gave me a legitimate space to stand when I have been at odds, feeling out of step with the compliant desires of others.
The earliest Pentecostal root is through the ministry of Charles Fox Parham in 1900. A subsequent root is through William Seymour in 1905. William Seymour was a member of Charles Parham's church in Kansas; but as a black man in an all white church he could only listen to Parham's sermons by sitting near a window on the other side of the church walls. Deeply infused by the Holy Spirit and God's abundance, Seymour knew that all are welcomed at God's table. Seymour left Kansas and traveled to Los Angeles to found the Azusa Street mission.
Parham's identity was rooted in a theology of scarcity informed by his fear of God while Seymour was convinced of the abundance of God's love for all and unashamedly and courageously preached this Good News. Parham's theology has been more frequently remembered and Seymour's theology but for a handful of communities in Latin America has been forgotten. There is little irony that William Seymour's theology has been forgotten and that what has been remembered is fear.
Fear -- that's exactly where the disciples are in this morning's reading, that's exactly where the Episcopal Church is in these pre General Convention days and that's exactly where many of us struggle to keep hope alive and not let fear dominate our lives. "Peace Be With You" - how do Jesus' words this morning coexist with William Seymour's Pentecostal theological vision in a way that you and I can claim a Pentecostal identity as Episcopalians? I want to extend Seymour and even Anglican inclusiveness beyond local hospitality. You can get a glimpse of what I mean by unpacking the Anglican Primate's words, "It is possible for the Spirit to be doing different things in different places." This Pentecostal image may sound a little chaotic to our Episcopalian/Anglican ears. These words hardly describe the unity we imagine for the Episcopal Church in these pre-General Convention days. Rather the Primate's words attempt to replace our desire for a comfortable consistent unity with contingency, difference and struggle.
I want to tell you two stories to amplify what it is I am about this morning. There were two non-negotiables for my parents - unity and respect for authority and all the privileges that come with both. Simply in my family and the church I grew up questions were not welcomed; particularly questions directed at those in authority. Most kids ask their parents why based questions that relate to how things work, for example, cars, airplanes or they ask questions about science like how ice forms or weather patterns. I on the other hand at a tender age of seven began to ask questions that I have come to see since are thoroughly related to power relations.
My uncle was a Roman Catholic clergy person; but my dad, his brother would always call him Brother Patrick, which was his name in religion rather than Willie which is what my dad called him until he entered the religious life. One day when Brother Patrick was coming for a visit I asked my mother why we call Brother Patrick, Brother Patrick, if he is dad's brother, shouldn't we call him by his first name. My mom snapped back at me and said, Joseph that is what you do to show your respect for a man of God. My mom knew me very well and said, "And further Joseph there will be none of this discussion when Brother Patrick visits us later." Brother Patrick and I that evening had a great conversation on the whole matter, deciding between the two of us that I would call him Uncle Willie. Until the day he died I called him Uncle Willie and on his death bed he thanked me for the privilege of finally being recognized as an uncle to one of the Duggan children. For me this is a sweet story that demonstrates what it means to be a Protestant with a Pentecostal identity in the Episcopal Church, the one who is inspired to ask questions that others prefer to silence out of respect for privilege.
I want to tell you another story of what happened a few years ago on a Pentecost Sunday morning. In an increasing number of churches, on Pentecost morning, the first lesson from Acts (2:1-11) is read simultaneously in as many languages as are represented by the members' cultural traditions. At All Saints Church in Pasadena, there are often 12-15 languages instrumental in reading the Acts text. I remember on this one particular Pentecost Sunday when a newcomer to All Saints Church was alarmed and disturbed by this practice. It is never announced beforehand what will happen, so newcomers experience readers dispersed throughout the congregation getting up one by one to read the text in their native language. When you first hear this, it sounds disruptive; at the very least it has a chaotic feel. This one man became indignant at one of the 15 people who had stood up to read and demanded that he sit down and show some respect to the Lector designated with the apparent authority to speak at the front of the church.
I believe that this man's instinctive, un-reflected and reactive response to the embodiment of Divine spontaneity symbolizes our own desires to bring order to Divine chaos. Divine unity is often initially felt as chaos. The cost of insisting upon our human unity as a means to ordering the chaotically felt Divine unity is that people are frequently silenced. The incalculable risk here is that usually people who have the least power are silenced first and most often.
Therefore I have come to believe that claiming a Pentecostal identity is about how we as Christians live reflectively with our power. This means living with our power in a way that welcomes self-critique as well as a communal critique so that our collective power that has historically silenced others may be transformed by the Spirit of God. Simply put, power is about the privileges which some have and others do not. Are we recognized for who we are as Uncle Willie or for our privilege as Brother Patrick? To wrestle with a Pentecostal identity as I see it is to live in a way that maintains reasonable doubt about how our collective power and privilege silences people.
The unity of Pentecost does not mean that in fear we lock the door to the room where the Spirit descended on the disciples, so that we can keep safe the treasure of the Spirit's descent for our exclusive use. The unity of Pentecost is in its dispersive nature. This dispersive-like Divine unity is counter-intuitive for most of us are stuck in our human notions of rigid order, unity and coherence. As long as we seek to control this dispersive-like quality, the Divine unity of Pentecost will continue to evade us as a church and as a culture. We must learn how to trustingly participate in the whirlwind of God's free, borderless love. This means that we will always live with risk as our comfortable consistent expectations and desires for unity will be destabilized by the movement of the Spirit that disturbs our comfortable lives.
As we receive the Spirit in community this morning, let us unlock the doors to our hearts and minds as well as to our church and all the places we live and work. This may mean as it is said later in John's Gospel "going to places where we would rather not go" and asking questions others would prefer we would not ask. The Spirit may be inspiring you to ask questions about a community or workplace matter in which many are talking about, but little is being done because it requires that you take a courageous stand. Hannah Arendt, a twentieth century, Jewish German philosopher writes "Power ultimately resides not in what we may imagine for ourselves but in what we make happen in the divided world we share with others."
Like the disciples Pentecost for me is about the interconnection between my paralyzing fears and God's desire for me to experience inner freedom in ways that release me and you from the locked rooms in which we dwell while we wait for the Lord to come. Though many have become suspicious of Pentecost due to their exclusive reliance on media hearsay about what it means to be a Pentecostal Christian, with some risk at being misunderstood I claim a Pentecostal identity for myself.
As I claim a Pentecostal identity I am making a commitment to participate in what has always been and always will be a radically unsettling and disturbing experience of the Divine transforming individual lives and human communities. By Pentecostal I do not mean that I am a fundamentalist or even that I speak in tongues; though for some this is a test of who truly is Pentecostal and a way to exclude me.
I am publicly reclaiming Pentecostal to mean that my Trinitarian relationship to God has always been rooted in and through the Spirit. When I have trusted the Spirit the most , it is then that I have found myself at odds with institutional expectations of me in my family, church and workplace. The inspiration to take back the word Pentecostal began for me when an Anglican Primate at a Bible study in Canterbury in October 2003 said, "it is possible for the Spirit to be up to different things in different places." These words gave me a legitimate space to stand when I have been at odds, feeling out of step with the compliant desires of others.
The earliest Pentecostal root is through the ministry of Charles Fox Parham in 1900. A subsequent root is through William Seymour in 1905. William Seymour was a member of Charles Parham's church in Kansas; but as a black man in an all white church he could only listen to Parham's sermons by sitting near a window on the other side of the church walls. Deeply infused by the Holy Spirit and God's abundance, Seymour knew that all are welcomed at God's table. Seymour left Kansas and traveled to Los Angeles to found the Azusa Street mission.
Parham's identity was rooted in a theology of scarcity informed by his fear of God while Seymour was convinced of the abundance of God's love for all and unashamedly and courageously preached this Good News. Parham's theology has been more frequently remembered and Seymour's theology but for a handful of communities in Latin America has been forgotten. There is little irony that William Seymour's theology has been forgotten and that what has been remembered is fear.
Fear -- that's exactly where the disciples are in this morning's reading, that's exactly where the Episcopal Church is in these pre General Convention days and that's exactly where many of us struggle to keep hope alive and not let fear dominate our lives. "Peace Be With You" - how do Jesus' words this morning coexist with William Seymour's Pentecostal theological vision in a way that you and I can claim a Pentecostal identity as Episcopalians? I want to extend Seymour and even Anglican inclusiveness beyond local hospitality. You can get a glimpse of what I mean by unpacking the Anglican Primate's words, "It is possible for the Spirit to be doing different things in different places." This Pentecostal image may sound a little chaotic to our Episcopalian/Anglican ears. These words hardly describe the unity we imagine for the Episcopal Church in these pre-General Convention days. Rather the Primate's words attempt to replace our desire for a comfortable consistent unity with contingency, difference and struggle.
I want to tell you two stories to amplify what it is I am about this morning. There were two non-negotiables for my parents - unity and respect for authority and all the privileges that come with both. Simply in my family and the church I grew up questions were not welcomed; particularly questions directed at those in authority. Most kids ask their parents why based questions that relate to how things work, for example, cars, airplanes or they ask questions about science like how ice forms or weather patterns. I on the other hand at a tender age of seven began to ask questions that I have come to see since are thoroughly related to power relations.
My uncle was a Roman Catholic clergy person; but my dad, his brother would always call him Brother Patrick, which was his name in religion rather than Willie which is what my dad called him until he entered the religious life. One day when Brother Patrick was coming for a visit I asked my mother why we call Brother Patrick, Brother Patrick, if he is dad's brother, shouldn't we call him by his first name. My mom snapped back at me and said, Joseph that is what you do to show your respect for a man of God. My mom knew me very well and said, "And further Joseph there will be none of this discussion when Brother Patrick visits us later." Brother Patrick and I that evening had a great conversation on the whole matter, deciding between the two of us that I would call him Uncle Willie. Until the day he died I called him Uncle Willie and on his death bed he thanked me for the privilege of finally being recognized as an uncle to one of the Duggan children. For me this is a sweet story that demonstrates what it means to be a Protestant with a Pentecostal identity in the Episcopal Church, the one who is inspired to ask questions that others prefer to silence out of respect for privilege.
I want to tell you another story of what happened a few years ago on a Pentecost Sunday morning. In an increasing number of churches, on Pentecost morning, the first lesson from Acts (2:1-11) is read simultaneously in as many languages as are represented by the members' cultural traditions. At All Saints Church in Pasadena, there are often 12-15 languages instrumental in reading the Acts text. I remember on this one particular Pentecost Sunday when a newcomer to All Saints Church was alarmed and disturbed by this practice. It is never announced beforehand what will happen, so newcomers experience readers dispersed throughout the congregation getting up one by one to read the text in their native language. When you first hear this, it sounds disruptive; at the very least it has a chaotic feel. This one man became indignant at one of the 15 people who had stood up to read and demanded that he sit down and show some respect to the Lector designated with the apparent authority to speak at the front of the church.
I believe that this man's instinctive, un-reflected and reactive response to the embodiment of Divine spontaneity symbolizes our own desires to bring order to Divine chaos. Divine unity is often initially felt as chaos. The cost of insisting upon our human unity as a means to ordering the chaotically felt Divine unity is that people are frequently silenced. The incalculable risk here is that usually people who have the least power are silenced first and most often.
Therefore I have come to believe that claiming a Pentecostal identity is about how we as Christians live reflectively with our power. This means living with our power in a way that welcomes self-critique as well as a communal critique so that our collective power that has historically silenced others may be transformed by the Spirit of God. Simply put, power is about the privileges which some have and others do not. Are we recognized for who we are as Uncle Willie or for our privilege as Brother Patrick? To wrestle with a Pentecostal identity as I see it is to live in a way that maintains reasonable doubt about how our collective power and privilege silences people.
The unity of Pentecost does not mean that in fear we lock the door to the room where the Spirit descended on the disciples, so that we can keep safe the treasure of the Spirit's descent for our exclusive use. The unity of Pentecost is in its dispersive nature. This dispersive-like Divine unity is counter-intuitive for most of us are stuck in our human notions of rigid order, unity and coherence. As long as we seek to control this dispersive-like quality, the Divine unity of Pentecost will continue to evade us as a church and as a culture. We must learn how to trustingly participate in the whirlwind of God's free, borderless love. This means that we will always live with risk as our comfortable consistent expectations and desires for unity will be destabilized by the movement of the Spirit that disturbs our comfortable lives.
As we receive the Spirit in community this morning, let us unlock the doors to our hearts and minds as well as to our church and all the places we live and work. This may mean as it is said later in John's Gospel "going to places where we would rather not go" and asking questions others would prefer we would not ask. The Spirit may be inspiring you to ask questions about a community or workplace matter in which many are talking about, but little is being done because it requires that you take a courageous stand. Hannah Arendt, a twentieth century, Jewish German philosopher writes "Power ultimately resides not in what we may imagine for ourselves but in what we make happen in the divided world we share with others."
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