(originally written before going away for a week)
Twice now in a month I've run up against a serious problem with the hymns in church.
In general, I think hymns are some of our greatest theological stuff. Written on the cover page of my prayer book/hymnal is this quotation from one of my seminary professors: "in thirty years of ministry, I've never once heard the congregation walk out the door of the church humming the sermon."
Part of the stealth evangelism of hymns is that we don't memorize them, and they're complicated, and so we find ourselves carried along by the music, not paying particularly careful attention to the words.
But I do sit down and pay careful attention. If I'm going to lead the congregation in worship, that includes singing. I've got a big voice, and I love to pray while singing. But, for the pre-written parts of the order of worship, I want to know ahead of time what prayers I'm leading, and I study them in advance of Sunday.
At St. Thomas, in July, we're basically taking requests from the congregation. We put voting cards in the pew sheet one day, and the music director tallied up the votes. The end result has been fun, since we've been able to sing a bunch of old favorites. It's also been funny at times...we did Christmas hymns, Easter hymns, lenten hymns... and only occasionally would they directly correlate to the lectionary texts for the week. That's okay. It's been fun.
Until this morning.
This morning, the congregational choices were hymns 561 and 562.
stand up, stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey
forth to the mighty conflict in this his glorious day
ye that are his now serve him against unnumbered foes
let courage rise with danger, and strength to strength oppose.
and this:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
um...yes, acually, we are divided. And it's doctrine we're divided about.
This morning, before we got up to go gather as the church, the nation of Israel (funded and supplied by the United States) dropped bombs on Qana, killing 54 people, including 19 children. And it's at least in part a religious war. A war we're participating in, secondhand. More about that later.
I've always been able to justify the words to "Onward Christian Soldiers" this way:
the first verse clearly describes a liturgical procession. And that makes the theological statement a reversal of worldly values, i.e., the only kind of war Christians wage is in church, by opening the doors to anyone who would come in, by proclaiming the gospel of the one who said to turn the other cheek. It's an anti-battle.
But this morning, it was too much. The words to the hymns seemed to say "we're going to come kick your butt in the name of Jesus."
Instead of singing, I hung my head and walked in and out of the church in silence.
and wept, just a little, even though I tried not to.
30 July, 2006
14 July, 2006
Writing sermons is hard, Part 5
Sometimes, I just don't have any guts.
For example:
This week's gospel reading, Mark 6:14-29, tells the story of Salome dancing so provocatively before the king that he makes a rash and exorbitant promise.
In today's world, something in the neighborhod of $60 billion is spent on pornography each year, $3 billion on child pornography. Over 10% of all web sites host pornographic material.
and I'm not going there.
This week's gospel also tells the story of John the Baptizer, thrown into prison by the king for being a danger to the state, and left there without possibility of parole. There are now approximately 450 people held at Guantanamo Bay--some have been there for years--with the Supreme Court only recently granting the possibility of their release after trial.
Since I live in San Antonio, Texas, I'm not gonna go there, either.
Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me.
For example:
This week's gospel reading, Mark 6:14-29, tells the story of Salome dancing so provocatively before the king that he makes a rash and exorbitant promise.
In today's world, something in the neighborhod of $60 billion is spent on pornography each year, $3 billion on child pornography. Over 10% of all web sites host pornographic material.
and I'm not going there.
This week's gospel also tells the story of John the Baptizer, thrown into prison by the king for being a danger to the state, and left there without possibility of parole. There are now approximately 450 people held at Guantanamo Bay--some have been there for years--with the Supreme Court only recently granting the possibility of their release after trial.
Since I live in San Antonio, Texas, I'm not gonna go there, either.
Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me.
04 July, 2006
in order to form a more perfect union
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This weekend's holiday is called "Independence Day." It's a day that celebrates something more than an event, something more than the historical memory of the founding of our country, something more than fighting for own government separate from the British crown. I think this holiday celebrates something far deeper, something that is at the heart of American values and American character.
Independence is almost a part of the DNA of Americans. We teach independence to our children. We teach it in our schools, and we teach it in our homes. We teach that this is a land of freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of choice. As long as we abide by the laws of the land, we can go anywhere we want to go and do anything we want to do. We can do wise things and we can, if we wish, do foolish and destructive things.
This is a country where a man born in a house with a dirt floor can, and has, become the President of the United States, so beloved to our national understanding that we carved his face on the side of a mountain. This is a country where a young man with little more than an idea, and ambition, and some luck, can and has become the richest man in the world.
But our freedom has its dark side. If we are free to do anything we want to, we are also free to leave undone some things which ought to be done. We are free to walk past the poor and the homeless. We are free to ignore the sick. We are free to ignore the children without parents. We are free to ignore anything we choose. You and I live in a society where we are free to not even know our neighbors.
So, how are we to govern this great collection of autonomous individuals?
Enter democracy. The great experiment. The great pride of America, and some would say our most valuable contribution to the world.
I'll admit it, I grew up in this country. I only know one way to live. And that is a democratic way. A way that acknowledges the basic freedom and basic worth of everyone else. A way that allows every person to have a say in how we live our lives together. It's slow. It's cumbersome. It's frustrating sometimes. But it's what we have.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My first real experience with democracy was not a particularly pleasant one. Now, to tell you this story, I have to make a bit of a confession. When I was a kid, I was, well, something of a geek. A nerd. A dweeb. A dork. At the tender age of 12, I was one of the founding members of the local junior high school Star Trek club.
Keep in mind this was before "Star Trek: the Next Generation" and all of its spinoffs were created. We had old trek: ridiculous overacting, cardboard sets, aliens made of flashy blinking lights. There were a couple of movies out, and a series of paperback fiction books set in the star trek universe. The members of the club would gather and watch old episodes, reruns which aired at 10:00 at night on weekdays, and play a board game called "star fleet battles," and... well...you know what Trekkies do. And for those of you who don't, maybe it's better that I stop right there.
But of course, if we're a club, we have to have officers with funny titles. I was one of the founding members, and since we used Space-navy vocabulary so as to be spiritually closer to our galactic heroes, I was the Rear Admiral. Or something. This, of course, allowed us to send coded messages to each other and sign them with our appropriately grand titles, which I'm sure caused no end of amusement to the math teacher who confiscated a note that I had been passed, intending to read it to the class, only to find that it consisted of a string of coded gibberish signed impressively at the bottom by "Vice Admiral Morgan." I seem to recall my friend John ordering me to make up an entrance exam for the club, testing prospective members on their devotion to the cause by their knowledge of the inner secrets of Trek.
It was fun for awhile, but then we grew, and attracted more members... and there was grumbling in the ranks. Grumbling that swelled into a full-blown hostile takeover. I don't remember what the argument was about, frankly, it was probably just something silly, or else just arguing for the sake of arguing, which is not unheard of among teenaged boys. But I do remember that, being Americans, freedom and democracy and all that, we finally decided that we would do was to take a vote to elect the fleet admiral of the club, whose word was thereafter to be obeyed instantly and without question. And nobody thought that was weird.
So we took a vote, and, lo and behold, my friend John was out. And I also suffered the indignity of demotion. And it was sorely tempting to take our, um, phasers, and go home, so to speak. But what could we do? We'd voted, like we agreed to, and lost. But...we still liked Star Trek. So we stayed in the club. And we still stayed up late and watched reruns, and still played games and practiced our Spock-isms. Live long, and prosper.
I learned that year that sometimes democracy is a pain. Especially when you lose, or feel like you've lost, and you have to live with what the other side wants.
But then I grew up, and learned that we do that all the time. The modern American political system is pretty much evenly divided into two major political parties. I'm an independent voter, myself, which means that my candidate loses with distressing regularity, or the vote on the bond issue, or the change in the law, or the amendment, goes the opposite of how I wanted it. The thing is, I never stop being proud of my country. (and if that pride is a sin, then so be it.) I am occasionally ashamed of the behavior of my government representatives, sometimes even people I voted for, but I don't stop being proud of America.
And, more importantly, I never stop needing the people I live with, even when I disagree with them.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Listen to some wisdom from Paul, written to Christians in Corinth.
Let's be clear: Paul is talking about the church at Corinth, not about the current government of the United States, or about the problems the church is having in convention trying to decide on which road to take. I don't think we can read Paul's letter, from another time and another culture, addressed to somebody else, and read it as if it were written to St. Thomas in San Antonio. But I do think that Paul says something wise, something that we can hold on to: we need each other.
Here's the truth: the church is divided on the issue of human sexuality. Good people of faith, sincerely trying to discern God's will, do not hear the same thing. Bishops, priests, deacons, and laity, all four orders of ministry in the church, are in the same boat. And while I might wish for the discussion to be easier, it's just not. So what do we do about it?
First:
we acknowledge that we disagree on something. There were recently votes taken in convention, and resolutions passed and failed, but by narrow margins rather than by overwhelming majorities.
Second:
as a part of the realization that we do not see a clear way forward, we continue in discussion. Bishop Lillibridge has clearly stated that we in West Texas will continue to be a part of the Windsor process, which means that we continue in dialogue.
Third:
we realize that, while the way forward is ambiguous, we all are invited to be a part of the kingdom of God revealed here. This is the difficult part.
When I came down here, just over a year ago, to interview with Chuck and with the vestry to see if I might be a good fit for St. Thomas, this question came up. Chuck has given me permission to share my answer to the question back then with you today; I think I said something to the effect that until we hear the Holy Spirit speak clearly and decisively, until our Bishop asks us to move decisively one way or the other, or until convention speaks with something more clearly approaching a unanimous voice, that we have to realize that this is an unsolved issue. And while it is unsolved, I think our doors have to remain open to anyone who walks through. Old, young, gay, straight, rich, poor, black, white, brown, green, and chartreuse, everybody gets a seat at the table, and everybody plays nice. And we have to do the difficult thing of living and working alongside people who are believers in the gospel of Christ Jesus who don't agree with us on the details.
Now, I don't know, but I believe, that the founders of our country would approve of that. The writers of the Constitution were all religious people, of varying denomination. They knew what is was to argue and lose. The wording of the constitution itself bears the marks of reasoned discussion and disagreement. But they had read the words of St. Paul to Corinth, and I think that they understood that they needed each other, when they began the Constitution with we, the people...in order to form a more perfect union.
There is something in the noblest part of the American character that knows this. There is something in us that wants to reach for the great society where hunger and poverty and sickness and abuse and neglect are no more.
This is our chance, as the church, to remind the nation what the noblest aspects of freedom are, and to disagree with one another with honor,
acknowledging that all people are created in God's image,
treating all people with dignity, respect, and courtesy,
and, as Paul says, outdoing one another in showing love.
This holiday, join me
in giving thanks to God for the freedoms we enjoy,
in giving thanks to God for the peoples of many lands and cultures who have come together to create, out of their differences, this great nation.
In giving thanks to God for the richness and diversity of our heritage.
Let us remember that our work is not yet done, and rededicate ourselves to difficult work--the formation of a more perfect union.
This weekend's holiday is called "Independence Day." It's a day that celebrates something more than an event, something more than the historical memory of the founding of our country, something more than fighting for own government separate from the British crown. I think this holiday celebrates something far deeper, something that is at the heart of American values and American character.
Independence is almost a part of the DNA of Americans. We teach independence to our children. We teach it in our schools, and we teach it in our homes. We teach that this is a land of freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of choice. As long as we abide by the laws of the land, we can go anywhere we want to go and do anything we want to do. We can do wise things and we can, if we wish, do foolish and destructive things.
This is a country where a man born in a house with a dirt floor can, and has, become the President of the United States, so beloved to our national understanding that we carved his face on the side of a mountain. This is a country where a young man with little more than an idea, and ambition, and some luck, can and has become the richest man in the world.
But our freedom has its dark side. If we are free to do anything we want to, we are also free to leave undone some things which ought to be done. We are free to walk past the poor and the homeless. We are free to ignore the sick. We are free to ignore the children without parents. We are free to ignore anything we choose. You and I live in a society where we are free to not even know our neighbors.
So, how are we to govern this great collection of autonomous individuals?
Enter democracy. The great experiment. The great pride of America, and some would say our most valuable contribution to the world.
I'll admit it, I grew up in this country. I only know one way to live. And that is a democratic way. A way that acknowledges the basic freedom and basic worth of everyone else. A way that allows every person to have a say in how we live our lives together. It's slow. It's cumbersome. It's frustrating sometimes. But it's what we have.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My first real experience with democracy was not a particularly pleasant one. Now, to tell you this story, I have to make a bit of a confession. When I was a kid, I was, well, something of a geek. A nerd. A dweeb. A dork. At the tender age of 12, I was one of the founding members of the local junior high school Star Trek club.
Keep in mind this was before "Star Trek: the Next Generation" and all of its spinoffs were created. We had old trek: ridiculous overacting, cardboard sets, aliens made of flashy blinking lights. There were a couple of movies out, and a series of paperback fiction books set in the star trek universe. The members of the club would gather and watch old episodes, reruns which aired at 10:00 at night on weekdays, and play a board game called "star fleet battles," and... well...you know what Trekkies do. And for those of you who don't, maybe it's better that I stop right there.
But of course, if we're a club, we have to have officers with funny titles. I was one of the founding members, and since we used Space-navy vocabulary so as to be spiritually closer to our galactic heroes, I was the Rear Admiral. Or something. This, of course, allowed us to send coded messages to each other and sign them with our appropriately grand titles, which I'm sure caused no end of amusement to the math teacher who confiscated a note that I had been passed, intending to read it to the class, only to find that it consisted of a string of coded gibberish signed impressively at the bottom by "Vice Admiral Morgan." I seem to recall my friend John ordering me to make up an entrance exam for the club, testing prospective members on their devotion to the cause by their knowledge of the inner secrets of Trek.
It was fun for awhile, but then we grew, and attracted more members... and there was grumbling in the ranks. Grumbling that swelled into a full-blown hostile takeover. I don't remember what the argument was about, frankly, it was probably just something silly, or else just arguing for the sake of arguing, which is not unheard of among teenaged boys. But I do remember that, being Americans, freedom and democracy and all that, we finally decided that we would do was to take a vote to elect the fleet admiral of the club, whose word was thereafter to be obeyed instantly and without question. And nobody thought that was weird.
So we took a vote, and, lo and behold, my friend John was out. And I also suffered the indignity of demotion. And it was sorely tempting to take our, um, phasers, and go home, so to speak. But what could we do? We'd voted, like we agreed to, and lost. But...we still liked Star Trek. So we stayed in the club. And we still stayed up late and watched reruns, and still played games and practiced our Spock-isms. Live long, and prosper.
I learned that year that sometimes democracy is a pain. Especially when you lose, or feel like you've lost, and you have to live with what the other side wants.
But then I grew up, and learned that we do that all the time. The modern American political system is pretty much evenly divided into two major political parties. I'm an independent voter, myself, which means that my candidate loses with distressing regularity, or the vote on the bond issue, or the change in the law, or the amendment, goes the opposite of how I wanted it. The thing is, I never stop being proud of my country. (and if that pride is a sin, then so be it.) I am occasionally ashamed of the behavior of my government representatives, sometimes even people I voted for, but I don't stop being proud of America.
And, more importantly, I never stop needing the people I live with, even when I disagree with them.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Listen to some wisdom from Paul, written to Christians in Corinth.
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
Let's be clear: Paul is talking about the church at Corinth, not about the current government of the United States, or about the problems the church is having in convention trying to decide on which road to take. I don't think we can read Paul's letter, from another time and another culture, addressed to somebody else, and read it as if it were written to St. Thomas in San Antonio. But I do think that Paul says something wise, something that we can hold on to: we need each other.
Here's the truth: the church is divided on the issue of human sexuality. Good people of faith, sincerely trying to discern God's will, do not hear the same thing. Bishops, priests, deacons, and laity, all four orders of ministry in the church, are in the same boat. And while I might wish for the discussion to be easier, it's just not. So what do we do about it?
First:
we acknowledge that we disagree on something. There were recently votes taken in convention, and resolutions passed and failed, but by narrow margins rather than by overwhelming majorities.
Second:
as a part of the realization that we do not see a clear way forward, we continue in discussion. Bishop Lillibridge has clearly stated that we in West Texas will continue to be a part of the Windsor process, which means that we continue in dialogue.
Third:
we realize that, while the way forward is ambiguous, we all are invited to be a part of the kingdom of God revealed here. This is the difficult part.
When I came down here, just over a year ago, to interview with Chuck and with the vestry to see if I might be a good fit for St. Thomas, this question came up. Chuck has given me permission to share my answer to the question back then with you today; I think I said something to the effect that until we hear the Holy Spirit speak clearly and decisively, until our Bishop asks us to move decisively one way or the other, or until convention speaks with something more clearly approaching a unanimous voice, that we have to realize that this is an unsolved issue. And while it is unsolved, I think our doors have to remain open to anyone who walks through. Old, young, gay, straight, rich, poor, black, white, brown, green, and chartreuse, everybody gets a seat at the table, and everybody plays nice. And we have to do the difficult thing of living and working alongside people who are believers in the gospel of Christ Jesus who don't agree with us on the details.
Now, I don't know, but I believe, that the founders of our country would approve of that. The writers of the Constitution were all religious people, of varying denomination. They knew what is was to argue and lose. The wording of the constitution itself bears the marks of reasoned discussion and disagreement. But they had read the words of St. Paul to Corinth, and I think that they understood that they needed each other, when they began the Constitution with we, the people...in order to form a more perfect union.
There is something in the noblest part of the American character that knows this. There is something in us that wants to reach for the great society where hunger and poverty and sickness and abuse and neglect are no more.
This is our chance, as the church, to remind the nation what the noblest aspects of freedom are, and to disagree with one another with honor,
acknowledging that all people are created in God's image,
treating all people with dignity, respect, and courtesy,
and, as Paul says, outdoing one another in showing love.
This holiday, join me
in giving thanks to God for the freedoms we enjoy,
in giving thanks to God for the peoples of many lands and cultures who have come together to create, out of their differences, this great nation.
In giving thanks to God for the richness and diversity of our heritage.
Let us remember that our work is not yet done, and rededicate ourselves to difficult work--the formation of a more perfect union.
18 June, 2006
Mustard seeds and cedar trees
Friends, I’m stuck this week.
On the one hand, General Convention is going on as we speak. The next Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church will be elected later today, a person whose name we will hold up in prayer together each week for the next nine years. On the other hand, I have instructions from Bishop Lillibridge not to add fuel to the fire if at all possible. Can’t talk about it, can’t not talk about it.
So today, I want to tell you something that God has been telling me, quietly, over the last two years. Something that gives me an odd sort of comfort in these days.
Two years ago, my parents moved to Kerrville from a suburb of Houston, where they had lived for the past twenty-five years. They bought a nice little house on the top of a hill outside of town, a place with great potential. It’s a small ranch-style house, horse corral and a barn in the back, and the property includes a section down the slope of the hill on two different sides.
Sounds really nice, doesn’t it? Well, when they moved in, it had great potential, except for one thing. The guy who owned the property before them hadn’t done any landscaping or maintenance of the property for about ten years. And the property was covered, absolutely covered, with scrub cedar trees. You know what those look like? 6 to 10 feet high, mostly more bush than tree. Dark green and prickly. When you cut them down, there’s sticky sap if it’s the growing season, and the little barbs get everywhere. In the right season, cedar pollen floats like a yellow fog over the Texas hill country. And, most importantly, they were blocking the view off the top of the hill. You couldn’t see the barn from the house, you couldn't see the corral from the house, and, most importantly, you couldn’t see what was probably a very nice view, which is why people build houses on the tops of hills in the first place.
So, about two years ago, right after my parents moved in, I began an offensive campaign on the cedar trees. Cutting them down, loading them in the back of the truck, piling them in the horse corral, and burning them in a series of bonfires. Currently, this little arboreal altercation has cost me about ten weekends, two pairs of loppers, a hedge trimmer, and three chainsaw blades. I’m happy to tell you that the view from the top of the hill is indeed gorgeous.
And at the end of each day, I go get a glass of cold water, and unlace my work boots, and sit down on the porch with my back aching and my hands still buzzing from the chainsaw and my arms all cut and scratched and prickly, with the smell of cut cedar still lingering in the air, and I sit there and feel the breeze, and gaze out over a couple of miles of vista, and I think: Yes, this is better. I accomplished something today.
And that’s when God comes and whispers in my ear. The breeze blows through the remaining trees, and rustles the leaves, and whispers:
Eventually, the cedar will win.
* * * * * * * *
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus uses an odd image for the Kingdom of God.
An image that’s also familiar. Maybe even too familiar. The Kingdom of God, he says, is like a mustard seed.
Now, we all know that mustard seeds are little bitty things. Hard to see, in fact. And, as the gospel text tells us, from such a small thing, such a small seed, comes a fairly big plant. You usually hear this parable explained, or understood, as a tiny thing becoming a big thing. That the tiny church can, and has, and will, do big things from small starts.
In fact, that’s the theme of General Convention this year—"come and grow." Come, and have some faith, and believe that God can, and has, and will, continue to do great things.
But there’s another thing about mustard seeds. The tiny little seed grows up and turns into... remember what a mustard bush looks like? 6 to 10 feet high, prickly branches, it tastes bad (remember what mustard tastes like), if you cut it down it just grows back, the tiny little seeds are everywhere... in other words, it’s a weed.
Now, if you’re expecting Jesus to use some arboreal metaphor for the kingdom of God, you expect him to say that the Kingdom of God is something grand and glorious. If we’re in California, you expect Jesus to say that the Kingdom of God is like the giant sequoia, the greatest of all trees, the largest of all living things, something so majestic and grand that when you stand in the presence of the tree you feel small and insignificant, and your eyes and your soul both rise up and up and up.
If you're in West Texas, you expect that Jesus is going to say that the Kingdom of God is like a mighty oak tree, 150 years old, great thick branches spreading out as big as a house, so wide that all the community can come together under its branches for a barbecue, a tree that can weather any storm.
And I think those images might be true about the kingdom of God. But that’s not what Jesus says. No, Jesus looks at his disciples and says "you’re a weed."
And I’ve been thinking about that for two years.
* * * * * * * *
Remember that when Jesus first said that, it was to a small group of disciples, walking about the countryside, preaching and teaching. They didn’t really know who Jesus was. Remember the story about how Jesus called his disciples to him and asked, "who do people say I am?" and they respond 'some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, some say you’re a prophet...' They really don’t begin to figure out who Jesus is until after the resurrection.
And when the gospel was first written down it also meant something else. Scholarly consensus is that the document that we call the Gospel of Mark that became a part of the collection we call the Bible was first written down in about 70 AD, two generations after the resurrection. At that time, the number of followers of Jesus was still pretty small, and many of us were Jews. Viewed from the outside, some people had difficulty telling the Jesus-is-the-Messiah believers from the traditionalist Jews. And there was an argument going on within the synagogues between the people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and the traditionalist Jews. Right about the time the gospel was written, there were murmurings going on between these two factions, and one of them was beginning to say, "I’m sorry, but what you believe is just too weird. You’re going to have to leave the synagogue. You can’t be a part of us any more."
It is to those people that the writer of the Gospel of Mark speaks. He says, remember what Jesus told us. Remember what the Kingdom of God is like. You’re a weed. You can’t be cut down. You can’t be causally picked, because your roots go deep into the soil. If they dig you up, your seeds go everywhere and grow ten more in your place. If they turn their back on you, you’ll be everywhere. The Kingdom of God will not be contained.
I’ll tell you the reason I cut down all that cedar at my parents’ house. It’s because I like a certain sense of order. I like things the way I like them, and I like things that make sense. For example, if you build a house on the top of a hill, I think you ought to be able to see the view. I’m a good Episcopalian that way—for the most part, Episcopalians like things orderly.
Right now, in General Convention, the best and the brightest of us are meeting in convention to try to order our common lives, doing their best to bring a certain sense of order out of chaos. And they’re doing their best. But sometimes I despair at what goes on at convention. At how slowly we move, when we move at all.
And when I despair, I remember what Jesus said.
The Kingdom of God will not be contained.
in spite of our best efforts, if necessary.
On the one hand, General Convention is going on as we speak. The next Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church will be elected later today, a person whose name we will hold up in prayer together each week for the next nine years. On the other hand, I have instructions from Bishop Lillibridge not to add fuel to the fire if at all possible. Can’t talk about it, can’t not talk about it.
So today, I want to tell you something that God has been telling me, quietly, over the last two years. Something that gives me an odd sort of comfort in these days.
Two years ago, my parents moved to Kerrville from a suburb of Houston, where they had lived for the past twenty-five years. They bought a nice little house on the top of a hill outside of town, a place with great potential. It’s a small ranch-style house, horse corral and a barn in the back, and the property includes a section down the slope of the hill on two different sides.
Sounds really nice, doesn’t it? Well, when they moved in, it had great potential, except for one thing. The guy who owned the property before them hadn’t done any landscaping or maintenance of the property for about ten years. And the property was covered, absolutely covered, with scrub cedar trees. You know what those look like? 6 to 10 feet high, mostly more bush than tree. Dark green and prickly. When you cut them down, there’s sticky sap if it’s the growing season, and the little barbs get everywhere. In the right season, cedar pollen floats like a yellow fog over the Texas hill country. And, most importantly, they were blocking the view off the top of the hill. You couldn’t see the barn from the house, you couldn't see the corral from the house, and, most importantly, you couldn’t see what was probably a very nice view, which is why people build houses on the tops of hills in the first place.
So, about two years ago, right after my parents moved in, I began an offensive campaign on the cedar trees. Cutting them down, loading them in the back of the truck, piling them in the horse corral, and burning them in a series of bonfires. Currently, this little arboreal altercation has cost me about ten weekends, two pairs of loppers, a hedge trimmer, and three chainsaw blades. I’m happy to tell you that the view from the top of the hill is indeed gorgeous.
And at the end of each day, I go get a glass of cold water, and unlace my work boots, and sit down on the porch with my back aching and my hands still buzzing from the chainsaw and my arms all cut and scratched and prickly, with the smell of cut cedar still lingering in the air, and I sit there and feel the breeze, and gaze out over a couple of miles of vista, and I think: Yes, this is better. I accomplished something today.
And that’s when God comes and whispers in my ear. The breeze blows through the remaining trees, and rustles the leaves, and whispers:
Eventually, the cedar will win.
* * * * * * * *
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus uses an odd image for the Kingdom of God.
An image that’s also familiar. Maybe even too familiar. The Kingdom of God, he says, is like a mustard seed.
Now, we all know that mustard seeds are little bitty things. Hard to see, in fact. And, as the gospel text tells us, from such a small thing, such a small seed, comes a fairly big plant. You usually hear this parable explained, or understood, as a tiny thing becoming a big thing. That the tiny church can, and has, and will, do big things from small starts.
In fact, that’s the theme of General Convention this year—"come and grow." Come, and have some faith, and believe that God can, and has, and will, continue to do great things.
But there’s another thing about mustard seeds. The tiny little seed grows up and turns into... remember what a mustard bush looks like? 6 to 10 feet high, prickly branches, it tastes bad (remember what mustard tastes like), if you cut it down it just grows back, the tiny little seeds are everywhere... in other words, it’s a weed.
Now, if you’re expecting Jesus to use some arboreal metaphor for the kingdom of God, you expect him to say that the Kingdom of God is something grand and glorious. If we’re in California, you expect Jesus to say that the Kingdom of God is like the giant sequoia, the greatest of all trees, the largest of all living things, something so majestic and grand that when you stand in the presence of the tree you feel small and insignificant, and your eyes and your soul both rise up and up and up.
If you're in West Texas, you expect that Jesus is going to say that the Kingdom of God is like a mighty oak tree, 150 years old, great thick branches spreading out as big as a house, so wide that all the community can come together under its branches for a barbecue, a tree that can weather any storm.
And I think those images might be true about the kingdom of God. But that’s not what Jesus says. No, Jesus looks at his disciples and says "you’re a weed."
And I’ve been thinking about that for two years.
* * * * * * * *
Remember that when Jesus first said that, it was to a small group of disciples, walking about the countryside, preaching and teaching. They didn’t really know who Jesus was. Remember the story about how Jesus called his disciples to him and asked, "who do people say I am?" and they respond 'some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, some say you’re a prophet...' They really don’t begin to figure out who Jesus is until after the resurrection.
And when the gospel was first written down it also meant something else. Scholarly consensus is that the document that we call the Gospel of Mark that became a part of the collection we call the Bible was first written down in about 70 AD, two generations after the resurrection. At that time, the number of followers of Jesus was still pretty small, and many of us were Jews. Viewed from the outside, some people had difficulty telling the Jesus-is-the-Messiah believers from the traditionalist Jews. And there was an argument going on within the synagogues between the people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and the traditionalist Jews. Right about the time the gospel was written, there were murmurings going on between these two factions, and one of them was beginning to say, "I’m sorry, but what you believe is just too weird. You’re going to have to leave the synagogue. You can’t be a part of us any more."
It is to those people that the writer of the Gospel of Mark speaks. He says, remember what Jesus told us. Remember what the Kingdom of God is like. You’re a weed. You can’t be cut down. You can’t be causally picked, because your roots go deep into the soil. If they dig you up, your seeds go everywhere and grow ten more in your place. If they turn their back on you, you’ll be everywhere. The Kingdom of God will not be contained.
I’ll tell you the reason I cut down all that cedar at my parents’ house. It’s because I like a certain sense of order. I like things the way I like them, and I like things that make sense. For example, if you build a house on the top of a hill, I think you ought to be able to see the view. I’m a good Episcopalian that way—for the most part, Episcopalians like things orderly.
Right now, in General Convention, the best and the brightest of us are meeting in convention to try to order our common lives, doing their best to bring a certain sense of order out of chaos. And they’re doing their best. But sometimes I despair at what goes on at convention. At how slowly we move, when we move at all.
And when I despair, I remember what Jesus said.
The Kingdom of God will not be contained.
in spite of our best efforts, if necessary.
03 June, 2006
Pearson-Horany wedding sermon
Sermon at the wedding of Elizabeth Michelle Horany and Christopher Lynn Pearson.
I used an outline and notes, rather than a manuscript; this is what I can remember of what I said.
Posted by request of the bride.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When we were little kids, Sweetmama taught us to dance.
(Elizabeth and Meg and I call our mother's mother "Sweetmama." For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting her yet, the name tells you most of what you need to know.) I remember it was in the kitchen of their house in LaMarque, on Westward. That kitchen, when I remember it, always smells like spaghetti and meatballs. And in my memory, it's always crowded with family.
I remember being a little boy, putting my feet on top of Sweetmama's feet, and she held my hands, and we swayed and moved together. A few years later, Elizabeth was born. And I also remember Papa and Sweetmama doing the same thing with her that they did with me. And then I wanted to play, so I put her cute little toddler feet on top of my big old clodhopper teenager feet, and we danced around the kitchen.
Everybody dances. There's something universal about moving to music. It's funny, most people don't think of themselves as good dancers, but everybody does it, in some way or another. Maybe all you do is tap your feet to the rhythm, or drum your fingers on the steering wheel while you're listening to the radio while you drive. But that's still a way to dance, to move yourself with the music.
But while dancing by yourself, just moving to the music, is easy, I'm here to tell you that dancing with a partner is hard.
Dancing with a toddler is its own unique brand of difficult. Toddlers are not the most graceful creatures God ever created, and for the adult, it's hard to move with thirty or forty pounds on your toes. When I grew up, and started taking dance lessons, I learned that dancing with an adult partner isn't really any easier than dancing with a toddler. It's just a different kind of hard.
First of all, you've got to learn to deal with another person inside your personal space. You know that we all have that polite zone of personal space that we like to maintain. Well, your partner is inside it. Pretty much constantly. Ribcage to ribcage. And while that, in itself, is its own brand of fun, it's also something unusual that you have to learn to deal with.
Then you have to learn to step together. You have to learn to move your body in such a way that you don't step on your partner, but instead step with your partner. Dance teachers call those steps "patterns," which become second nature after a while, but at first require a great deal of concentration.
Then you have to learn a whole new way of communicating. Yes, you can talk on the dance floor. But there's usually not time for verbal cues, especially in the fast dances, so you have to learn a whole new language of communication, using hands and eyes and balance and gestures.
You have to learn what steps your partner likes to do, and what steps your partner doesn't enjoy as much.
And, most of all, you have to learn grace. Not as in gracefulness, as in dance floor coordination, but as in graciousness, in forgiving one another's mis-steps and bumps and missed signals and forgetfulness.
Some of you have known our family for quite a while; a few of you were even present at my wedding to Kristina, some ten years ago. Last night someone was kind enough to remember that we had done a choreographed first dance, and to say that they remembered how nice it was. What you probably don't remember was what happened not fifteen minutes later--in the middle of another dance, with lots of people on the dance floor, I kicked my newly minted bride so hard that I broke one of her toenails, and she limped her way through the honeymoon.
Like I said, grace and forgiveness.
Now why am I telling you this?
Because, being intelligent and perceptive people, you know that I'm not just talking about dancing.
Also because tonight, if you know where to look, you can catch a glimpse of the glory of God.
The first place will be right here, in just a few minutes, in front of the altar. Two people, in the middle of a selfish world, will invoke the name of God and will vow to be together, whatever might come, for the rest of their lives. The church calls Holy Matrimony a "sacrament," which is a fancy church word for something that is a visible sign of God's grace. When we see these two pledge faithfulness to each other, we remember God's faithfulness to us, God's faithfulness to a broken and sinful world, and we remember that God is always ready to forgive and welcome us back into the relationship that God desires for us.
And, if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, as these two people make promises of faithfulness, you will see a flash of the glory of God.
The second place will be just after the vows. We could, in the tradition of the church, end right there, and everyone go home. But Chris and Elizabeth wanted that the first thing they did as a married couple would be to share the covenant meal with all of you. The communion meal that we celebrate is rooted in ancient covenant-making tradition. When two parties made a covenant together, they would eat together as a part of sealing that covenant. When Jesus first shared the covenant meal with his disciples, and commanded us to continue it, it was at a celebration of remembrance of how God saved us from slavery and bondage and claimed us as God's own. Jesus bound the disciples together into a family, and tonight we bind these two families together.
As you come to the table, as you receive the elements from the parents of the bride and the groom, if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, you will see a flash of the glory of God.
The third place will be over at the reception, following the service. The Horany family is Lebanese and Italian by ethnicity, and every year the Lebanese side of the clan gathers for a huge family reunion. And at that reunion we always do a traditional dance, called the dubke. It's a simple step: right, left, right, stamp, kick, repeat. One of those long lines where you catch hands and follow along.
The Eastern Orthodox church, whose thought greatly influenced our ancestral homeland, describes the nature of God as a dance. One being, three persons, in an endless circle dance of joy and love and mutual respect and honor. And into that dance, God invites humanity. God reaches out a hand and invites one of us, and another, and another, to join in the dance of joy, until all creation echoes with the pounding of feet and the laughter of children.
Tonight, as we celebrate, as Dad leads us in the dance, I encourage you to get up and join in, even if you think you can't dance, even if you only walk. And as you reach for a hand, as someone else reaches for yours, remember that God invites you to join in the dance of all creation. And if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, as we dance, you will see a flash of the glory of God.
In the readings from the Bible that Chris and Elizabeth chose for today, Jesus says to his disciples, "I came that my joy may be in you, and joy your your may be complete." And this is God's desire for you: that your joy may be complete.
I used an outline and notes, rather than a manuscript; this is what I can remember of what I said.
Posted by request of the bride.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When we were little kids, Sweetmama taught us to dance.
(Elizabeth and Meg and I call our mother's mother "Sweetmama." For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting her yet, the name tells you most of what you need to know.) I remember it was in the kitchen of their house in LaMarque, on Westward. That kitchen, when I remember it, always smells like spaghetti and meatballs. And in my memory, it's always crowded with family.
I remember being a little boy, putting my feet on top of Sweetmama's feet, and she held my hands, and we swayed and moved together. A few years later, Elizabeth was born. And I also remember Papa and Sweetmama doing the same thing with her that they did with me. And then I wanted to play, so I put her cute little toddler feet on top of my big old clodhopper teenager feet, and we danced around the kitchen.
Everybody dances. There's something universal about moving to music. It's funny, most people don't think of themselves as good dancers, but everybody does it, in some way or another. Maybe all you do is tap your feet to the rhythm, or drum your fingers on the steering wheel while you're listening to the radio while you drive. But that's still a way to dance, to move yourself with the music.
But while dancing by yourself, just moving to the music, is easy, I'm here to tell you that dancing with a partner is hard.
Dancing with a toddler is its own unique brand of difficult. Toddlers are not the most graceful creatures God ever created, and for the adult, it's hard to move with thirty or forty pounds on your toes. When I grew up, and started taking dance lessons, I learned that dancing with an adult partner isn't really any easier than dancing with a toddler. It's just a different kind of hard.
First of all, you've got to learn to deal with another person inside your personal space. You know that we all have that polite zone of personal space that we like to maintain. Well, your partner is inside it. Pretty much constantly. Ribcage to ribcage. And while that, in itself, is its own brand of fun, it's also something unusual that you have to learn to deal with.
Then you have to learn to step together. You have to learn to move your body in such a way that you don't step on your partner, but instead step with your partner. Dance teachers call those steps "patterns," which become second nature after a while, but at first require a great deal of concentration.
Then you have to learn a whole new way of communicating. Yes, you can talk on the dance floor. But there's usually not time for verbal cues, especially in the fast dances, so you have to learn a whole new language of communication, using hands and eyes and balance and gestures.
You have to learn what steps your partner likes to do, and what steps your partner doesn't enjoy as much.
And, most of all, you have to learn grace. Not as in gracefulness, as in dance floor coordination, but as in graciousness, in forgiving one another's mis-steps and bumps and missed signals and forgetfulness.
Some of you have known our family for quite a while; a few of you were even present at my wedding to Kristina, some ten years ago. Last night someone was kind enough to remember that we had done a choreographed first dance, and to say that they remembered how nice it was. What you probably don't remember was what happened not fifteen minutes later--in the middle of another dance, with lots of people on the dance floor, I kicked my newly minted bride so hard that I broke one of her toenails, and she limped her way through the honeymoon.
Like I said, grace and forgiveness.
Now why am I telling you this?
Because, being intelligent and perceptive people, you know that I'm not just talking about dancing.
Also because tonight, if you know where to look, you can catch a glimpse of the glory of God.
The first place will be right here, in just a few minutes, in front of the altar. Two people, in the middle of a selfish world, will invoke the name of God and will vow to be together, whatever might come, for the rest of their lives. The church calls Holy Matrimony a "sacrament," which is a fancy church word for something that is a visible sign of God's grace. When we see these two pledge faithfulness to each other, we remember God's faithfulness to us, God's faithfulness to a broken and sinful world, and we remember that God is always ready to forgive and welcome us back into the relationship that God desires for us.
And, if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, as these two people make promises of faithfulness, you will see a flash of the glory of God.
The second place will be just after the vows. We could, in the tradition of the church, end right there, and everyone go home. But Chris and Elizabeth wanted that the first thing they did as a married couple would be to share the covenant meal with all of you. The communion meal that we celebrate is rooted in ancient covenant-making tradition. When two parties made a covenant together, they would eat together as a part of sealing that covenant. When Jesus first shared the covenant meal with his disciples, and commanded us to continue it, it was at a celebration of remembrance of how God saved us from slavery and bondage and claimed us as God's own. Jesus bound the disciples together into a family, and tonight we bind these two families together.
As you come to the table, as you receive the elements from the parents of the bride and the groom, if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, you will see a flash of the glory of God.
The third place will be over at the reception, following the service. The Horany family is Lebanese and Italian by ethnicity, and every year the Lebanese side of the clan gathers for a huge family reunion. And at that reunion we always do a traditional dance, called the dubke. It's a simple step: right, left, right, stamp, kick, repeat. One of those long lines where you catch hands and follow along.
The Eastern Orthodox church, whose thought greatly influenced our ancestral homeland, describes the nature of God as a dance. One being, three persons, in an endless circle dance of joy and love and mutual respect and honor. And into that dance, God invites humanity. God reaches out a hand and invites one of us, and another, and another, to join in the dance of joy, until all creation echoes with the pounding of feet and the laughter of children.
Tonight, as we celebrate, as Dad leads us in the dance, I encourage you to get up and join in, even if you think you can't dance, even if you only walk. And as you reach for a hand, as someone else reaches for yours, remember that God invites you to join in the dance of all creation. And if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, as we dance, you will see a flash of the glory of God.
In the readings from the Bible that Chris and Elizabeth chose for today, Jesus says to his disciples, "I came that my joy may be in you, and joy your your may be complete." And this is God's desire for you: that your joy may be complete.
23 May, 2006
The 2nd-coolest thing that happened on Friday
The coolest thing that happened on Friday was that my sister graduated from college. Margaret Ann Horany was awarded (or will be, after her summer internship) the degree of Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology, Health Promotions, and Fitness, with a minor in Biological Sciences, Cum Laude, from the University of Texas at Austin.
That was Friday at noon. Closely followed by the 2nd-coolest thing to happen that day.
Friday morning, we held end-of-school-year worship for our local parish school with the staff and teachers. I gave a short sermon, in which the names of my elementary school teachers were invoked with a certain degree of thankfulness. Three hours later, at graduation, one of those teachers walked right past my nose. I had no idea I would ever see her again in my life. Dr. Dorothy Lambdin now teaches at the University of Texas.
Nobody asked for a copy of the sermon, but I'll violate my self-imposed rule this time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sermon at Eucharist at the end of the school year, St. Thomas Episcopal School, May 19, 2006.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Nora Garcia
Sharon Black
Bettye Lumpkins
Nancy Wade
Elaine Rushing
Elaine Peterson
Susie Jenkins
Sharon Wilson
Dolly Lambdin
Lucy Nazro
These are names which will mean nothing to you. But they mean everything to me. These are the names of my teachers and principals and chapel leaders, from kindergarten through fifth grade.
Some of you know that I attended an Episcopal school as a child. St. Andrew's, in Austin, through the 5th grade. And then we moved away. I remember 25 children in a class, two classes per grade, but that may not be right. It felt small. I felt known, and loved.
What you saw when you looked at me was an enthusiastic but slightly odd child. My mother and father showed up to drop me off or pick me up with smiles on their faces, they dutifully came to field day wearing their school-logo T-shirts. What you didn't know was that my family was in the process of going through a divorce and remarriage, and at home I was not the nicest child in the world, particularly to the step-parents. Not because they were bad people, not at all. In fact, they were both wonderful people, but people who had taken my parents away, people whose very presence cemented the brokenness of the world.
At school, from my teachers, I found nothing but love. Nothing but encouragement. It might have helped that I was an exceptionally bright little boy. I made straight A's all the way through 5th grade, with a single B in long division that marred my otherwise spotless elementary school resume.
Never, never underestimate the impact of love on a child.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
In today's reading from Acts, Philip encounters a court official from Ethiopia. This is a man who's the court advisor to the queen, the treasurer of the country. One of the best and the brightest the country had to offer, and probably a little boy who made straight A's in school. When Philip runs up to him, he is reading. Searching. Searching to understand the world, searching to understand himself, searching to understand the God he is drawn to across a thousand miles of desert. Philip's question is gentle, and is exactly the right one: do you understand what you're reading? And, in a flash of the profound and the blindingly obvious, the official says, "How can I, unless someone guides me?"
Isaiah 53 is a puzzling passage from late in the work of the prophet. My servant, in whom I delight, says God, will be despised. Viewed in hindsight, viewed from the foot of the cross of Jesus, the description of the suffering servant in Isaiah sounds like someone we know. But viewed from somewhere else, it's not easy to tell who the prophet is talking about.
And, just as before, Philip meets him where he is. Starting from the text he's reading, he begins to tell the story of Jesus. And somewhere along the way, Philip saw in the court official's eyes the same flash of insight that you have seen in the eyes of your students, the same moment when the world opens up and becomes larger and more beautiful than before.
Never, never underestimate the impact of love on a child.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is the end of a long year. We're all tired, all ready for a break. Well, I'm here to tell you that being tired because you've spent your year pouring yourself out into the lives of God's children is a good thing. A noble thing. You've earned the right to be tired.
When members of the church began to come to me and tell me that they thought I should be a priest, my thoughts went back to memories of school, memories of people who loved me without condition and wanted the best in the world for me. People who gave, sacrificially, of their lives, knowing that they would never see the full return.
And I thought: I can do that.
Never, never underestimate the impact of love on a child.
Amen.
That was Friday at noon. Closely followed by the 2nd-coolest thing to happen that day.
Friday morning, we held end-of-school-year worship for our local parish school with the staff and teachers. I gave a short sermon, in which the names of my elementary school teachers were invoked with a certain degree of thankfulness. Three hours later, at graduation, one of those teachers walked right past my nose. I had no idea I would ever see her again in my life. Dr. Dorothy Lambdin now teaches at the University of Texas.
Nobody asked for a copy of the sermon, but I'll violate my self-imposed rule this time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sermon at Eucharist at the end of the school year, St. Thomas Episcopal School, May 19, 2006.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Nora Garcia
Sharon Black
Bettye Lumpkins
Nancy Wade
Elaine Rushing
Elaine Peterson
Susie Jenkins
Sharon Wilson
Dolly Lambdin
Lucy Nazro
These are names which will mean nothing to you. But they mean everything to me. These are the names of my teachers and principals and chapel leaders, from kindergarten through fifth grade.
Some of you know that I attended an Episcopal school as a child. St. Andrew's, in Austin, through the 5th grade. And then we moved away. I remember 25 children in a class, two classes per grade, but that may not be right. It felt small. I felt known, and loved.
What you saw when you looked at me was an enthusiastic but slightly odd child. My mother and father showed up to drop me off or pick me up with smiles on their faces, they dutifully came to field day wearing their school-logo T-shirts. What you didn't know was that my family was in the process of going through a divorce and remarriage, and at home I was not the nicest child in the world, particularly to the step-parents. Not because they were bad people, not at all. In fact, they were both wonderful people, but people who had taken my parents away, people whose very presence cemented the brokenness of the world.
At school, from my teachers, I found nothing but love. Nothing but encouragement. It might have helped that I was an exceptionally bright little boy. I made straight A's all the way through 5th grade, with a single B in long division that marred my otherwise spotless elementary school resume.
Never, never underestimate the impact of love on a child.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
In today's reading from Acts, Philip encounters a court official from Ethiopia. This is a man who's the court advisor to the queen, the treasurer of the country. One of the best and the brightest the country had to offer, and probably a little boy who made straight A's in school. When Philip runs up to him, he is reading. Searching. Searching to understand the world, searching to understand himself, searching to understand the God he is drawn to across a thousand miles of desert. Philip's question is gentle, and is exactly the right one: do you understand what you're reading? And, in a flash of the profound and the blindingly obvious, the official says, "How can I, unless someone guides me?"
Isaiah 53 is a puzzling passage from late in the work of the prophet. My servant, in whom I delight, says God, will be despised. Viewed in hindsight, viewed from the foot of the cross of Jesus, the description of the suffering servant in Isaiah sounds like someone we know. But viewed from somewhere else, it's not easy to tell who the prophet is talking about.
And, just as before, Philip meets him where he is. Starting from the text he's reading, he begins to tell the story of Jesus. And somewhere along the way, Philip saw in the court official's eyes the same flash of insight that you have seen in the eyes of your students, the same moment when the world opens up and becomes larger and more beautiful than before.
Never, never underestimate the impact of love on a child.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is the end of a long year. We're all tired, all ready for a break. Well, I'm here to tell you that being tired because you've spent your year pouring yourself out into the lives of God's children is a good thing. A noble thing. You've earned the right to be tired.
When members of the church began to come to me and tell me that they thought I should be a priest, my thoughts went back to memories of school, memories of people who loved me without condition and wanted the best in the world for me. People who gave, sacrificially, of their lives, knowing that they would never see the full return.
And I thought: I can do that.
Never, never underestimate the impact of love on a child.
Amen.
17 May, 2006
Ashram Cats
When the guru sat down to worship each evening, the ashram cat would get in the way and distract the worshipers. So he ordered that the cat be tied during evening worship.
After the guru died the cat continued to be tied during evening worship. And when the cat died, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be duly tied during evening worship.
Centuries later learned treatises were written by the guru's disciples on the religious and liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.
--"The Guru's Cat" from The Song of the Bird by Anthony De Mello
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A dear friend of mine got in trouble this year at seminary. No, not theological trouble. No, not academic trouble.
She wore red shoes to church.
As an acolyte.
For those of you who don't tie up this particular cat outside your sanctuary so that God can hear you, Episcopalian liturgical ministers tend to wear funny dresses to church. There's a long white one called an alb (or a cassock-alb), and a black one with a white thing worn over it called a cassock and surplice (or cota), and a red one called a chimere--we seem think it's even more stylish and hip to give them funny names than to just wear them and call them dresses.
The funny dresses are one of my favorite pet ashram cats. They were originally designed to keep people warm during long, cold, rainy, English winters, and I put one on every Sunday for worship. In San Antonio in the summer, the temperature reaches 110 in the shade. So we air-condition the building where the church meets. And I sit there and sweat in my dress, and wonder whether Jesus thinks we've gone quite mental.
Another of my favorites are candles. At my current parish, there are two on the table (or altar) where I preside. There are also, mounted on the ceiling, a set of theater-style stage lights. Lights so bright, in fact, that when I step up to the table, I can't see the back of the room because of the glare off the white cloth on the table (the student who fussed at my friend would want me to call the cloth a "fair linen"). I've taken to casually turning the lights down when it's my turn to preside at the liturgy, so I can see who I'm worshipping with. (I'm not kidding that I can't see, by the way. A couple of months ago, somebody fainted in the back, and I never saw her) Then I went on vacation, and when I came back, it wasn't a sliding rheostat on the table spotlights, it was a standard off-on light switch. oops.
But maybe my favorite of all is the gospel procession. Long before America was colonized, there were no electronic sound systems, and the gospel book was carried out into the congregation before it was read so that all could hear the good news of Jesus. But if we're going to have a parade, we have to carry the cross on the stick, and carry the torches so we can see where we're going...
At my current parish, we do indeed do a gospel "procession." A cross, two torches (placed where they wouldn't help even if the church was dark), and a fourth acolyte to hold the Bible while I read from it. This requires, of course, that four different families get up early and get to campus early so their kids can put on their funny-looking white dresses, so that we can do the gospel procession. But here's the best part: the building is in a cruciform shape, meaning it looks like a cross to the birds flying overhead, and the table where the Bible rests is more or less in the middle to begin with. So the gospel procession moves....wait for it.....
three feet.
The congregation in California that encouraged us to go be priests takes many of these things far more casually, but the cats are still there. (Maly, if you're reading this, I still say a gospel procession three steps to the left so you're at the top of the stairs is goofy looking. Just read the gospel from the dang lectern.)
If we were making up liturgy from scratch, we probably wouldn't do any of those things. In fact, to deliberately overuse a metaphor, you can't swing a dead cat in an Episcopal church without hitting an ashram cat. We do them because we value the long tradition of the church at worship, because we value the sense of being connected to something far older and wiser than we are, something that transcends our experience and lengthens our perspective. At our best, we're honoring the Holy Spirit speaking through the centuries of Christian worship that preserved the good news of Christ Jesus for us.
Now, back to my friend.
She's a second-year student at seminary, sponsored by the same congregation that sponsored me. At every seminary, there are people from literally all over the world, who come together to worship on a very regular basis. And you want that to go smoothly, so to establish a certain amount of orderliness in what could easily be a chaotic mess, you agree on a general standard of 'this is how we do it here.' At its best, it's a relatively short document giving guidelines so that all can get beyond the "how do we do this" mechanics and focus our hearts and minds on worship.
and then sin begins to happen.
The reality of seminary life is that the rules are complicated, because trying to learn all the liturgical traditions is a complicated business. At my seminary, the customary was over 60 pages long, single-spaced. At the beginning of every year, the first-year students have to learn the traditions of that particular place. And, unfortunately, observance of the customary often means that the focus is on the rules, on the method of worship, rather than the God who we worship.
And when my friend wears red shoes to chapel, the first thought that goes through people's minds isn't "swell shoes, Julie." Nor is it to giggle at her as she gently pokes fun at tradition. Nor is it to notice, then to notice that it irritates us, and then to ask ourselves why we give a damn and whether it's important. Instead, what often happens is that we think, and then say, "that's not in the customary," or "we don't do it that way." And that's part of the environment in which future clergy are trained for leading worship.
Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.
When it was my turn to do chapel duty, I often found myself peering through the customary trying to make sense of it. My first time to preside at worship was at choral morning prayer (a service I'd be willing to wager a week's pay you've never participated in if you haven't been to a seminary), which was a harrowing experience just because it was unfamiliar, and I had to lead, and I had to sing solo in public...and afterward one of the third-year students criticized me for not following the customary on a couple of details that (trust me) you wouldn't have noticed. And this was a friend of mine. I damn near ripped his head off.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Now, here's why this drives me crazy. The western world is, ever more increasingly, a culture that is post-institutionalized religion. To Julie's and my generation, the goofy dresses aren't beautiful tradition, they're just plain goofy. At best, since you see them in church, in the company of other unexplained symbols, they get lumped in with the transcendent. At worst, they get in the way. They are a stumbling block to proclamation of the gospel in this generation.
Julie knows this. Her kindling passion is to proclaim the transforming grace and love of Christ Jesus, and she gets impatient with people and things that get in her way. In that impatience, she rubs people the wrong way. (Including me.) But she's right a lot more than she's wrong, and when she speaks, I listen.
After the guru died the cat continued to be tied during evening worship. And when the cat died, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be duly tied during evening worship.
Centuries later learned treatises were written by the guru's disciples on the religious and liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.
--"The Guru's Cat" from The Song of the Bird by Anthony De Mello
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A dear friend of mine got in trouble this year at seminary. No, not theological trouble. No, not academic trouble.
She wore red shoes to church.
As an acolyte.
For those of you who don't tie up this particular cat outside your sanctuary so that God can hear you, Episcopalian liturgical ministers tend to wear funny dresses to church. There's a long white one called an alb (or a cassock-alb), and a black one with a white thing worn over it called a cassock and surplice (or cota), and a red one called a chimere--we seem think it's even more stylish and hip to give them funny names than to just wear them and call them dresses.
The funny dresses are one of my favorite pet ashram cats. They were originally designed to keep people warm during long, cold, rainy, English winters, and I put one on every Sunday for worship. In San Antonio in the summer, the temperature reaches 110 in the shade. So we air-condition the building where the church meets. And I sit there and sweat in my dress, and wonder whether Jesus thinks we've gone quite mental.
Another of my favorites are candles. At my current parish, there are two on the table (or altar) where I preside. There are also, mounted on the ceiling, a set of theater-style stage lights. Lights so bright, in fact, that when I step up to the table, I can't see the back of the room because of the glare off the white cloth on the table (the student who fussed at my friend would want me to call the cloth a "fair linen"). I've taken to casually turning the lights down when it's my turn to preside at the liturgy, so I can see who I'm worshipping with. (I'm not kidding that I can't see, by the way. A couple of months ago, somebody fainted in the back, and I never saw her) Then I went on vacation, and when I came back, it wasn't a sliding rheostat on the table spotlights, it was a standard off-on light switch. oops.
But maybe my favorite of all is the gospel procession. Long before America was colonized, there were no electronic sound systems, and the gospel book was carried out into the congregation before it was read so that all could hear the good news of Jesus. But if we're going to have a parade, we have to carry the cross on the stick, and carry the torches so we can see where we're going...
At my current parish, we do indeed do a gospel "procession." A cross, two torches (placed where they wouldn't help even if the church was dark), and a fourth acolyte to hold the Bible while I read from it. This requires, of course, that four different families get up early and get to campus early so their kids can put on their funny-looking white dresses, so that we can do the gospel procession. But here's the best part: the building is in a cruciform shape, meaning it looks like a cross to the birds flying overhead, and the table where the Bible rests is more or less in the middle to begin with. So the gospel procession moves....wait for it.....
three feet.
The congregation in California that encouraged us to go be priests takes many of these things far more casually, but the cats are still there. (Maly, if you're reading this, I still say a gospel procession three steps to the left so you're at the top of the stairs is goofy looking. Just read the gospel from the dang lectern.)
If we were making up liturgy from scratch, we probably wouldn't do any of those things. In fact, to deliberately overuse a metaphor, you can't swing a dead cat in an Episcopal church without hitting an ashram cat. We do them because we value the long tradition of the church at worship, because we value the sense of being connected to something far older and wiser than we are, something that transcends our experience and lengthens our perspective. At our best, we're honoring the Holy Spirit speaking through the centuries of Christian worship that preserved the good news of Christ Jesus for us.
Now, back to my friend.
She's a second-year student at seminary, sponsored by the same congregation that sponsored me. At every seminary, there are people from literally all over the world, who come together to worship on a very regular basis. And you want that to go smoothly, so to establish a certain amount of orderliness in what could easily be a chaotic mess, you agree on a general standard of 'this is how we do it here.' At its best, it's a relatively short document giving guidelines so that all can get beyond the "how do we do this" mechanics and focus our hearts and minds on worship.
and then sin begins to happen.
The reality of seminary life is that the rules are complicated, because trying to learn all the liturgical traditions is a complicated business. At my seminary, the customary was over 60 pages long, single-spaced. At the beginning of every year, the first-year students have to learn the traditions of that particular place. And, unfortunately, observance of the customary often means that the focus is on the rules, on the method of worship, rather than the God who we worship.
And when my friend wears red shoes to chapel, the first thought that goes through people's minds isn't "swell shoes, Julie." Nor is it to giggle at her as she gently pokes fun at tradition. Nor is it to notice, then to notice that it irritates us, and then to ask ourselves why we give a damn and whether it's important. Instead, what often happens is that we think, and then say, "that's not in the customary," or "we don't do it that way." And that's part of the environment in which future clergy are trained for leading worship.
Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.
When it was my turn to do chapel duty, I often found myself peering through the customary trying to make sense of it. My first time to preside at worship was at choral morning prayer (a service I'd be willing to wager a week's pay you've never participated in if you haven't been to a seminary), which was a harrowing experience just because it was unfamiliar, and I had to lead, and I had to sing solo in public...and afterward one of the third-year students criticized me for not following the customary on a couple of details that (trust me) you wouldn't have noticed. And this was a friend of mine. I damn near ripped his head off.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Now, here's why this drives me crazy. The western world is, ever more increasingly, a culture that is post-institutionalized religion. To Julie's and my generation, the goofy dresses aren't beautiful tradition, they're just plain goofy. At best, since you see them in church, in the company of other unexplained symbols, they get lumped in with the transcendent. At worst, they get in the way. They are a stumbling block to proclamation of the gospel in this generation.
Julie knows this. Her kindling passion is to proclaim the transforming grace and love of Christ Jesus, and she gets impatient with people and things that get in her way. In that impatience, she rubs people the wrong way. (Including me.) But she's right a lot more than she's wrong, and when she speaks, I listen.
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