New Ministry, New Paths

As we prepare for the Bishop's Visit

2012-01-18T14:33:00.000-05:00

Over the years as a priest, both associate and rector, I have seen reactions vary as clergy prepare for the formal Visitation of the Bishop. This is a rite of the Episcopal Church, with each parish in a Diocese receiving a visit from a Bishop at least once every three years. The Visitation can be an occasion of presenting members of the parish for the rites of confirmation or reaffirmation of Baptismal vows, or for reception of new members into this branch fo God's one holy, catholic and apostolic church.

One rector worked himself into a tizzy or nervous energy...nearly spilling a full chalice on the bishop as she prepared to celebrate the Eucharist.

I took an object lesson from that experience. Don't get too nervous, but stay alert. Do be organized, but not so organized that the Bishop wonders if there is anyone else in the parish besides the priest. Make room for the Bishop to actually be the chief pastor he, or she, is to the church you serve. For one Sunday out of three years, a rector gets to take a back seat on a Sunday and enjoy in a unique way just how blessed and special the parish they serve really is. If there is a enough grace in me to get out of the way, I get to see the parish through the eyes of the Bishop...and the Bishop gets to enjoy the parish without filters.

It is a blessing.

So, as St. Peter's prepares for its final visitation from our retiring Diocesan Bishop, we are also in the midst of the first phases of a massive rehabilitation of our property. For the past few weeks, we have had groups of volunteers coming to the Parish Hall to work on the framing and dry wall that will provide the canvas for final dressings and bring our Sunday School back onto the property after the floods of Irene. Our hope is that a "blitz-build" this weekend will get the major part of the work done, so that we can begin to paint, trim and refurnish the rooms for our programs and the chapel for our worship.

We are blessed, chiefly in that all of this work is being accomplished as a result of support given us from communities and individuals from literally across the nation. Were it not for them, we would not be here. Their donations have supported the cleanup, paid forthe remediation of asbestos bearing materials and necessary electrical work, and assured us that we can complete this first chapter of the restoration with the cash and care entrusted to us by their generosity.

The Bishop visits a parish on Sunday that is experiencing renewal in the wake of a storm's destruction. St. Peter's is a church that is indeed built on the firm foundation of a love fully vested in Christ and in a trust firmly placed in the good providence of the Holy Spirit.

God is GOOD!

On this World AIDS day

2011-12-01T07:51:00.001-05:00

Last night I sat down to read our Presiding Bishop's address to the Church regarding World AIDS day. It gave me pause. On one level, I continue to give thanks to God that I am a member of a community in Christ that was one of the first to open hearts, minds and arms to people affected by AIDS. I am also mindful that this disease still carries a social stigma. Those afflicted, around the globe, are a diverse and ultimately representative sample of humanity...not of a particular population. We also are witness to the fact that eternal vigilance is our calling. This disease is with us, and each generation has an incumbent duty to preach acceptance of victim, prevention of spread and care of those affected and afflicted. There is not a country on earth, or a people unaffected, by this disease. It is with us, and the only crime I can see is a willingness on the part of some to turn away from those affected, those who bear a stigma that is more of an affliction to humanity than that disease itself.

As I say my prayers this morning, I remember and give thanks for the witness of faith and grace that people I have known personally with HIV and AIDS. That multitude continue to inform and open my life and ministry with an ongoing invitation to seek and serve Christ in all persons. To Joel, who in his witness as a member of a NY church taught me the Gospel witness of turning to the Church with expectation of mercy that provoked change in his parish and tore down walls of prejudice. To the seventy five year old grandmother, who as a victim of assault was murdered with a slow decline into disease that she bore with hope, forgiving her attacker because, "He is under the same fate as me." For Richard, classmate in seminary, who saw his ministry and art (he was a talented painter), challenged and abbreviated by his own diagnosis. His witness as a priest was too brief, but he continues to preach through all of us who knew and loved him. To the oncology patient during my chaplaincy training who was able to laugh, weep and flirt with all of us, even as his body went to pieces around his gentle soul. To some of my dearest friends, who continue to thrive with this diagnosis, referring to it with the words "conversion" and using it as a sign of life, not death. To the host of humanity, that continue to remind us that Christ's call to us is not to think of home and self first, but to look to those in need, those who are ravaged by disease, those who are orphaned or who grieve the loss of a loved one. We are blessed in so many ways, but chiefly in the opportunity to take this thing that live in our humanity and turn it into an opportunity to grow in wisdom, mercy, mutual love and hope for a time when the first thing we see in any other is a fellow human someone to love in the name of Jesus Christ...regardless of their state of health.

Remember the one you have loved who thrive, who survive, who are sick, who are dying, who have died...and all those you do not know and give thanks to God that we have a chance to learn, love and strive not just for a cure, but for the opportunity as well to grow closer together as humans united by the grace of God's love.

the next steps in flood recovery...

2011-11-21T11:39:00.001-05:00

What a wild autumn!

Over the past couple of months, the Vestry has worked hard on preparing itself and the parish for the next steps in our recovery from the damage caused by the floods brought on by Irene while at the same time reviewing the need to address a large amount of deferred maintenance. After meeting with an historic preservation architect, our Vestry then asked the Captial Concerns Committee to meet and prepare proposals for several ways we might 1) reclaim the Parish Hall basement for space, 2) address any immediate concerns for repair or renovation that are "can't wait" and 3) begin to move us forward down the path to the restoration of our Church, Parish Hall and Rectory buildings.

Contingent on item 3: working on a development grant that will give us access to historic preservation monies that would match funds we raise to preserve our historic structures.

Regarding 2: the Vestry voted to move forward with electrical work in the Parish Hall to upgrade a subpanel and make sure our electrical service can adequately support the demands a refurbished basement will require.

Regarding 1: the Vestry will confer via conference call this Tuesday regarding proposals to renovate and restore the basement of the Parish Hall for Sunday School use with a completion date set as January 13th. This entails reviewing exactly what volunteers can accomplish, what portions of the work will by necessity entail hiring contractors and finally what expense will be required to make sure the space is safe and ready for our children to return. The date is favorable in that we are only making the Sunday School use the VFD a couple more times, as the situation of moving into and out of the hall is wearing on all involved.

The Good News, in addition to God's love for us, is that a bequest from Barbara Rasmussen has come in (actually on the day of our last Vestry meeting! God is GOOD!) that places $227,000 in our recovery fund. This is in addition to the $50,000+ that has been donated for flood recovery from the community. The challenge from God, I am convinced, is for us to rise to the occasion and do the work well so that we don't wind up redoing, or reworking, repairs before a healthy interval of time has lapsed.

Pray for your Vestry, they have a number of crucial, defining choices to make!

Christ the King Sunday

2011-11-19T11:29:00.001-05:00

It's one of those busy weekends here at St. Peter's. The Thrift Shop is open, sorting a HUGE donation that came in while welcoming customers for some early holiday shopping. I just finished a premarital conference in my office with a young couple intending to marry in early September of next year. The youth group is over in the kitchen baking pumpkin cookies and quick breads for distribution tomorrow as a fundraiser for their ministry. The Altar Guild is shining up the vessels for tomorrow's baptism celebration and a volunteer team is working on restoring power to the tower room up at the Church (it's been out since the flood). As well, we are getting ready for our fall cleanup day.

Who ever said church life is quiet? It's on days like these that I give thanks for the gift of being called to parish ministry. So much happens in our lives out in the world that we forget just how wonderful and impacting life in the community of the Body of Christ can be. In every corner of the parish, there is a sense of connection to a wider purpose, an awareness that there is no such thing as something too small that its portion in the wider portrait of church life is not significant!

As we prepare for the last Sunday after Pentecost, the end of the liturgical year, I give thanks for being called as pastor of a church that knows its sovereign. Christ is King!

Praying past cognition

2011-11-15T12:00:00.001-05:00

I had a powerful experience earlier today. This morning, I traveled to a nearby assisted living facility in order to visit with a resident and his spouse in order to bring him communion. His spouse has asked that I come by before I had left for my semi-annual retreat, so this was first moment I had free.

A visit with this gentleman is always a blessing. He is advancing with dementia, and I am sorry for that. From what I have learned of him in the time before this progression began, he was quite the character. A bon vivant sort of person, with talents for business, for the arts (particularly stained glass) and for the life of Christ.

Some of his work, a depiction of the Sacred Heart, lives in my office. He also created a stained glass "sign" that welcomes people to the parish offices. At one point, to fulfill a faith vow to the saint for a prayer that was answered, he created a life-size window of St. Theresa of Avila. On a lighter side, in his room in the home are pictures of him with Johnny Cash and Liberace, for whom he made unique stained glass pieces.

He is the sort of man who can, and did, wear a top hat on special occasions. Not many can "carry" that look in today's age.

Sadly, as his disease progresses, there is a little less of him each time I visit that connects him to the man has has been in the past. The great horror of dementia is that it peels our selves like a carrot, shaving off bits of our person hood while leaving only bits behind. I hate it, and also stand in awe when moments arise when that person emerges for a moment or two of lucid connection. Those moments, while blessings, can also be a cruel tease. Dementia is not about recovery, but about the long journey into loss and grief.

And so, today, as each visit is, was first begun wondering how I would find my parishioner. The good news was that he was in a good mood. The sad news was that his ability to connect was less-than-usual. We walked to an outdoor bench, the three of us, and sat for communion. He picked at a fold in his sweatpants, in a posture of "sort of" listening. Finally, we got to the Lord's Prayer, and I looked up to see his lips moving. It would be a romantic resolution to this post if I told you he was saying the prayer with us. He wasn't. The movement didn't match ours, our words....

...but everything in his manner, his movements, his presence indicated that he was in prayer of some sort. He was quiet. He had stopped picking at the fold on his thigh. He had lowered his head and his lips moved slowly, in not in sync, at least in time with our intonations.

When it came time for him to receive, he offered an "Amen" and a "thank you" before lapsing into quiet, his eyes and his fingers once more finding the fold.

We didn't get his whole self today, but in that moment of prayer, I saw that whatever there is of him here in this world with us, it was connected to God...and to us...in a prayerful interlude I will continue to give thanks for-and carry into-the rest of my day.....

Packing the garden away for winter...

2011-11-02T09:49:00.000-04:00

There a many....blessings....to home ownership: leaky pipes, damp basements, spalling in masonry, landscaping challenges, drippy faucets, cracked plaster...do I need to go on? I am sure you can flesh out the list in some remarkable ways. While there are all these challenges, and more, to owning a home, I can say that many of these challenges teach me a great deal about stewardship-both the effort Laura and I put into caring for our home-but also for the awarenesses of being called to learning new skills and the opportunity to live mindfully and (for me a personal challenge) calmly in the midst of a world that is always breaking down. Nothing in this existence is forever. Buildings are forever crumbling. Every boat is always sinking. Institutions are either growing and evolving or decaying and declining. Good stewardship is about using resources in a godly way to shore up and renew those little constructs of sticks and stones we call homes, even as moth and rust consume.

So, as the summer months fade to memory, and as the recovery from hurricane, earthquake, flood and coastal storms continues, I give thanks for a couple of weeks in which we can engage in some simple maintenance-as opposed to the challenge of rebuilding from scratch the tumbling debris of dramatic cataclysms in our midst.

What does that look like? Last Friday, Laura and I spent time in our garden, removing the spent stalks of Brussels sprouts, the bones of tomato plants, and salvaged the last peppers left on the plants that have now succumbed to frost. We turned the soil, mulched the marigolds and mowed the lawn. Next up is composting the beds, planting a cover crop or mulching and cleaning/sharpening tools before they are stored for the winter. The grape vine needs to be pruned back, the compost pile turned. We will also empty the rain barrel, tie up the hoses and shut off the outdoor spigots. These are all mundane tasks, and yet I find myself experiencing a sense of renewal and hope for the spring that all these preparations are intended for while at the same time giving thanks for the growing season that has passed.

What a year, our first at St. Peter's and the first in this house. So many challenges, so much to learn, so many choices to make as a steward of hearth, home and parish. So many opportunities to give thanks for the blessings of family, friends and parishioners who continue to turn out to work on nurturing this community into new life in Christ.

It has been decades, so many, since I first started to listen to Jesus' parables about sowers, planters, vineyard tenants and the challenges to embracing a life in Christ when so much of that new life is about the pure, physical labor of building, sorting, caring and tendering mindful stewardship of the land and people we are gifted with that create, and recreate, the Church for every generation.

Soon, St. Peter's will begin to not only rebuild from our flood. We will begin to build for a future world that our parish will be called to serve. What will it look like? What will we commit to accomplish in the name of Christ for generations of people we won't meet? What legacy is God asking of us to install? Time, faith and the people of God will reveal that new reality, even as God again calls us to labor in the gardens, fields and vineyards of the Kingdom of the Son.

An unexpected snow...

2011-10-31T11:06:00.000-04:00

What a surprise that we saw coming: a nasty coastal storm made its way through our region over the weekend, dumping a heavy and destructive mix of snow and rain all over us. We have friends north and west of us who had it much worse than we did. They are still without power. Schools are closed and tranit lines are shuttered while cleanup takes place. All of this in October, long before most of us are morally, physically and spiritually prepared for snow, winter and the sort of storms we can expect as a seasonal gift from God.

Instead, this one felt like a heavy, wet slap across the cheek. Granted, it was a slap that took down branches, bent and broke shrubs and left a lot of meesy piles of sluch mixed with leaves, but all the same...it felt like a slap.

I could say that I felt like the weather decided to add insult to injury for us here at St. Peter's, but instead I am counting my blessing on slightly chilled, stiff fingers. After heat waves, an earthquake, summer storms, a hurricane and the challenges of trying to figure out how to raise money for a "million-dollar" cleanup and rebuild, we have a lot to be thankful for after this weekends snowstorm.

Item one: I am thankful for the wonderful, mindful people who ventured out into the storm to care for our Church. The altar was dressed, the sanctuary and Parish Hall were clean and the big challenge of restoring heat to the church with a boiler rebuild was completed quite literally in the nick of time.

Item two: Even with a "cool" church and a lousy weekend stacked up on top of it, our parish's committment to follow through on worship and service to Christ continues. Some folk have pulled back a bit, which is to be expected. These are tough times, and coming to Church to brave continued hardships is not always everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes, it does feel better in the short term to stay home with that cup of tea...but God willing we will continue to keep things moving forward

Item three: People are continuing to support the Church's missions. A record amount of money was raised at the Mayor and Council's pancake breakfast to support the Food Pantry. We are completing and submitting grants to the United Thank Offering to seek funding for expanding our feeding program. Pledges are coming in to support the Church this coming year. Despite high levels of fatigue, leadership is still laughing and giving thanks. We continue to dream about where God is calling us into service.

Item four: When I am weak, people give me some of their strength. When I am fearful, people share their courage. When I am worried, people portion out some of their confidence. When I am strong, I can always find someone to offer a helping hand to...and when I am joyful in the Lord there is always someone just around the corner to share that feeling with, without fail.

As Sunday approaches, we look forward to an observance of All Saints'. The Gospel for the day is one commonly referred to as "the Beatitudes." In that passage, part of a larger section of scripture in Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus blesses all sorts and conditions of people.

I can't think of a better way to start preparing a sermon for Sunday that to kick off with an accounting to God of my own call to give thanks and praise to my Creator for ALL things.

We are blessed, indeed.

Garden Work

2011-10-24T11:19:00.001-04:00

This past few weeks, Laura and I have been rolling up our sleeves and getting back out into the garden again. It seems that the more we accomplish, the more there is to do; but then, that is what life is really all about, isn't it? If I don't put much in, or out there, in life...then it is fair to expect a commensurate return. At the same time, though, just because I am "putting it out there," well, it doesn't necessarily follow that the harvest will be great.

After a bit of reflection, and some wonderfully tragic failures and accidental successes, I am coming to realize that most of life-well lived-entails first learning, then doing.

This is a trial and error experience, and I continue to be impressed by the reality that my own stubborn nature insists on learning that lesson over and over again. I get the opportunity in the garden, when a crop fails, when bugs invade, when my neglect leads to an infestation of weeds, when one plant chooses to overgrow and supplant another...to learn from my mistakes. In fact, I think in the end I learn more from my mistakes than from my successes. Partly because failures tend to find us open to criticism in ways that success does not; and perhaps because of their dramatic negative impact, failures DEMAND our attention. Do you ever want a good tomato? Fine, then look at how the plant died, got infested, suffered from neglect...and learn.

That is a good model for life, in case you didn't realize where this was going. The opportunity to reflect on that came to me today when I ran into my across-the-fence neighbor as he was coming in from his morning run and I was heading out on the morning dog walk. He noted that Laura and I have been more diligent lately with new plantings in the front yard, and bed work in the back. After some chit chat about the pepper and tomato crops, he askd about our church, and how the flood recovery was going.

I responded that is was going, albeit a bit slowly at this point. He understood, and then asked about how this season affects us...as he and his wife had been out to the mall, and Lo, the Christmas Decorations are starting to appear in between the Hallowe'en candy displays....

Thing is, I told him, we are actually getting close to the start of a new liturgical year. The first Sunday of Advent is only weeks away. That means a lot of work, using the metaphor above, in turning earth, choosing programs to plant and getting our mission plans and the budget for same under way. He was a little astounded, noting that he and his wife tend to sit back from that...but conceded that his pastor mus have much the same issues in his church. "Wow," he said, "I guess you have both a spiritual community to lead and a pretty comples institution to administer...."

Yup. Quite a garden.

As the season shifts in the natural world from vibrancy to dormancy, I realize that this is also a season for us in the Church of awakening to a vibrant reality of new growth in Christ. The pause I take today is one of mindful awareness that I would prefer to slow my pace a bit, be a bit more mindful of the ground I am turning, the plants I am seeking to root and the grace of attention and patience needed to see good fruit being nutured into being. The old image has new weight for me, of the vineyard. We can dress the vines, care for the soil, provide water and nutrients...but in the end, it is God and an open, wise heart that means a good harvest-both for our garden in South River...but even more so for this blessed vineyard that is the one our Savior commits to our care.

Psalm 90...Exodus 34

2011-10-20T14:30:00.001-04:00

Not quite sure why, but this coming Sunday's lessons put me in a reflective mood. In the reading from Exodus, God takes Moses to a vantage where he can see the whole of the Land, promised to Israel as an inheritance from God. He was allowed to see it, but God told Moses that he would not cross over. That memorable image provokes not only a biblical reverie; it also reminds us in our present age of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's last speech in Memphis. He, too, on the night before he was killed, called to mind that image of Moses on the mountaintop. Makes me mindful, really, that leaders who truly do lead people are folks who are caught up in seeing a vision while too often being called on to hand that vision onto others for completion. It definitely challenges my ego, my pride and my all-too-ready willingness to be mule-stubborn about getting my own way.

I am the 36th rector of this church. God willing, if I and the leaders of this generation do our work well, there will be a 37th, a 38th...a 90th. I am humbled by the legacy of pastoral care and Christian witness that have preceded me in my tenure as rector. I read the history of this parish and see faithful, passionate, brilliant, fallible, stumbling, wonderful priests who in their generations have done their best to care for, lead and support the people of this parish in their life in Christ. Some of them have chosen this church's yarx as the place to rest their mortal remains. I pass them almost every Sunday on my way to the sanctuary. Fr. Ward served this parish for fifty years. Fr. Cornell cared for this parish at the turn of the 20th century. Both rest here, with family, in the midst of the people served in the name of our patron, Peter, and in the name of Christ.

Fr. Cornell's photo hangs in my office, next to one of Fr. Phillips, who came to St. Peter's after the end of the first World War.

What history. What witness, and yet they did not see this age, will not witness this generation's response to the challenges we face...and yet I am convinced that we were in their prayers' as much as our successors are in mine.

As St. Peter's emerges from our season of flood, loss, grief and stress, I am mindful that real care and stewardship of this or any church is one of being willing to sacrifice a measure of our present assurances in faith and hope that one day another will benefit...one whose name we will never know.
The Collect for this Sunday asks God to increases in us the gifts of faith, hope and charity. If the Church is to live on in the light of God's love and in the Grace of the Holy Spirit, we will not only need a double measure of those gifts. We will also need to be willing to let go of them in order for others to Cary a full share a measure of the same into the future. One wise person taught me once that life in Christ is not so much crossing the finish line, but real "success" lies in running the race well. She didn't so much take St. Paul's line, as to simply say, "You can't attach to outcome...you can only commit to being present and ready as both witness and willing tool of God's intent for the moment we are given to live."

God bless my predecessors. Though gone to glory, they continue to teach, form and inform this community of faith.

Our first Zephyr Class: Reading Bible....

2011-10-07T10:44:00.001-04:00

Wednesdays in October, 7 PM in the upper conference room in the Rectory. All are welcome!

The First Class:

Zephyr Class: Readingthe Bible

Zephyr: Arefreshing west wind. Zephyr classes are intended to offer light, focused andbrief series that are designed to give you tools to further the spiritualdevelopment of you and your household.

Geography of the Bible

The Bible you use will inform your experience of HolyScripture. There are many translations of the Bible, dating in English from thefirst, “Authorized” version commissioned by the English King, James I in theearly 1600s. That Bible is commonly referred to as “The King James Bible” (KJV,or NKJV)and is one of the most popular translations to date. More contemporaryversions used in the Episcopal Church include the Revised Standard Version(RSV), The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the New International Version(NIV or TNIV) and the Contemporary English Bible (CEB). In the end, whateverversion you have, the important thing is to pick it up and read it! J

The basic structure of the Bible includes the Old (Hebrew)Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) books. As well, there is a sectionthat rests between these two books called “The Apocrypha.” This is a collectionof books called “Deuterocanonical,” or, secondary to the main canon (or body)of scripture in the OT and NT.

The Old Testament books include:

The “Books of Moses,” or the “Torah” (Law), also called thePentateuch (which means, “Five Books”)

· Genesis (the story of creation and the beginningof the people who would be “Israel”)

· Exodus (the story of God freeing the Israelitesfrom slavery in Egypt)

· Leviticus (expanding on the journey in thewilderness and the giving of the Law)

· Numbers (expansion of the Law and worshippractices of Israel)

· Deuteronomy (expansion of the Law, worship andIsrael’s arrival in the Holy Land)

Then come the books referred to as the Histories:

· Joshua (the conquering of the Holy Land for Israel’suse)

· Judges (a period of time after the invasion,when Judges led the tribes of Israel)

· Ruth (an “historical novel” teaching us a lessonabout human relationships)

· I and II Samuel (the beginning of the “age ofthe prophets and kings of Israel”)

· I and II Kings (continuing the story of the ageof Kings in Israel and Judah)

· I and II Chronicles (the end of the age ofKings, and the beginning of the Exile)

· Ezra, Nehemiah (books that chronicle Israel’sreturn from Exile in Babylon)

· Esther (another “historical novel” from the ageof the Exile)

The Wisdom literature (also called Poetry):

· Job-an exploration of human existence and human suffering

· Psalms-songs of hope, anger, celebration, lament, praise and consolation

· Proverbs-teachings how to live wisely

· Ecclesiastes-reflections of the writer, called “the Teacher” on life

· Songof Solomon- a collection of hymns, songs and poetry about love and intimacy

The Major Prophets:

· Isaiah-in 3 sections, relating God’s words about Israel’s exile and return

· Jeremiah-a prophet’s experience in Judah leading into the Exile in Babylon

· Lamentations-reflections on the loss of the Temple, Jerusalem and the Holy Land

· Ezekiel-mystical visions of Israel’s place in God’s plan for the world

· Daniel-Daniel’s visions of God’s plans for Israel during the Exile

The (12) Minor Prophets:

· Hosea,Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,Zechariah, Malachi- each minor prophet was from a different era in Israel’shistory. All relate their words to what is going on in Israel at the time oftheir active ministry.

The Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, Esther, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch,Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah, Susanna, Bel and the Snake, I and II Maccabees,I Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, III Maccabees, II Esrdas, IV Macabees(These books reference characters and events in the period of Exile, severalwisdom books, and the history of the Macabean revolt after the invasion ofAlexander the Great, before the Romans entered the Holy Land). They “bridge”the time between the Old and New Testaments.

The New Testament books include:

Gospels(also known as Life of Christ):

· Matthew-a gospel aimed at a Jewish community, explaining Christ as a “Messiah-King”

· Mark-the earliest Gospel, quite “spare” and simply focused on Jesus proclaiming God’skingdom

· Luke-a later Gospel, written more for the wider, Greek-speaking world

· John-the “youngest” Gospel, deeply theological

The Acts of the Apostles:

· Acts(translation of the Greek title of “praxis,” or practice)- the narrative of theformation of the Church from the day of Pentecost to Paul’s journey to Rome; seenas picking up after Luke ends (after Jesus’resurrection and ascension, he tells them to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit’sarrival. Acts begins with the arrival of the Holy Spirit.)

Epistles ascribed to St. Paul:

· Romans-Paul’s“theological guide book” to the Romans, a rich treasury of Christian thought

· Iand II Corinthians- “Disciplinary” Epistles to the Church in Corinth

· Galatians-an exposition on the freedom in Christ given to the Church

· Ephesians-a reminder not to let pride get in the way of faith

· Philippians-encouragement for the church to continue to grow and mature in Christ

· Colossians-the marriage of work and worship, faith in reconciliation

· Iand II Thessalonians- the struggle of the Church to hold on to Christ’steachings

· Iand II Timothy- encouragement to a disciple

· Titus-encouragement and advice to one who follows Christ as an apostle

· Philemon-a short letter to a member of the church seeking clemency for an escaped slave

Epistles “General,” or, to the whole Church:

· Hebrews-a deep exposition to a Jewish community on the nature of Christ

· James-the call to community, and the discipline of life in Christ

· Iand II Peter- Peter’s words to the Church about leadership, and on being anapostolic faith

· I,II, and III John- on Christian Love, and conflict

· Jude-protecting the Church from division, preserving a Gospel under attack

Apocalyptic literature

· TheRevelation to John- referred to commonly as “Revelations,” a vision of Johnreceived while in exile on Patmos about the Church in “latter” days

Using the Bible as a reference library

The Bible is not so much one large book, it is a collectionof books, a whole library of stories, reflections and expositions on humanity’srelationship to God. Often, the Bible is referred to as the guide for us tounderstand “salvation history,” or the effort of God to draw us back intorelationship with the Divine after our departure from that first intimacy weshared with God at the beginning of creation. Humanity was separated from Godafter Adam and Eve choose the fruit of knowledge of Good and Evil, learnedshame and hid from God. For Christians, the experience of Jesus Christ as theIncarnate Son reconciles us to God after that “Great Divorce” for all time. “Asin Adam, all die, so also in Christ are all made alive” (Book of Common Prayer,p. 83)

Using the Bible as a spiritual guide book

The Bible is not only an exploration of how humanity gets alongwith (or fails to get along with) God: it is also a powerful tool forreflecting on how we live with each other. The stories teach us about the bestand worst that we have to offer to each other. Using the Bible to reflect onexperiences we are having now helps us to navigate our way through any existentialwaters…troubled or calm.

Scripture reading as prayer

Ways to use the Bible inPrayer: the Daily Office readings for Morning and Evening Prayer can be foundon page 936 of the Book of Common Prayer. The Psalms can be read on a 30 dayrotation (follow the italics above the numbered Psalms from page 585 on).

To keep the Daily Officeonline:

www.dailyoffice.org

www.missionstclare.com

After the flood...week three

2011-09-15T17:15:00.001-04:00

A letter/email to the parish, to our friends around the church and to the wider community:

Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

This is how St. Paul, more often than not, addressed his letters to the churches he wished to extend greeting to as he traveled the known world in the first century, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God in the name of the risen Christ. After that greeting he usually expresses his own sense of affection for, and recalls his relationship with, that church to which he is writing.

I can't think of a better way to write to you all, after what has been a wonderful, terrible, exhausting and blessed succession of weeks here at St. Peter's. On one level, we have had a wild ride as the many issues that will challenge us over the next months have coalesced with the receding of the waters. We get a better picture, usually on a day to day basis on the breadth of impact that the flood had on the church, parish hall and grounds. The damage is extensive, but at the same time the help, care, support and love of the wider community and the churches that have adopted us as sister parishes continue to remind us that we are not alone. Just as the Israelites received manna in the wilderness, just enough for the day ahead of them as they followed God's direction to the promised land, so also we have gotten what we have needed from day to day in order to keep our lives and ministries moving forward in service to Christ.

To bring you up to date on what is happening: Last Saturday, we had a parish/community workday to do what we could to reclaim the grounds, garden and church yard from the flotsam and debris of the water's onslaught. Over 90 volunteers came-and despite a hornet attack for some, and a good soaking in the stream for others with the removal of a large maple that was blocking the channel-all fared quite well. God bless Trinity, Matawan and Holy Trinity, South River for sending a host of helpers. Bless also all those who came out from the community and our neighboring churches and neighborhoods.

Last Sunday, we had a visit from a building engineer/inspector (arranged with the help of Wayne Hamilton) with the intent to review the state of our electrical panels. In the midst of that visit, he also had a chance to look at the foundation of the church. He found some erosion of the earth berm that supports the center beam under the church floor. The good news is that after a review by an architect and a building historian, the berm will hold until we can get pilings set and columns in place to assume the load that the earth was originally carrying. The church is safe at this point. We still have a lot of work to do on that building. Irene was not kind, and the wind and rain have exposed issues in the siding and roofing that will necessitate extensive repairs.

The Parish Hall recovery effort is preparing to enter into a new phase. Servpro has almost completed its work in cleaning and removing all contaminated debris, as well as drying and preparing the structure for whatever rebuilding we wish to undertake. We still have work to do in the Hall, restoring hot water (hopefully before the end of the weekend), heat and air conditioning. We hope as well to be able to evaluate the boiler and air handlers in the church in order to get heat into the building as the season changes and the days cool.

In our recovery efforts, I am pleased to report to you that we have been blessed with a number of donations that will be going into a special recovery fund that the Vestry established at its meeting on Monday night. That fund will serve as a capital fund apart from our regular operating accounts, focused specifically on providing a way for us to pay for the repairs and improvements we hope to accomplish on the church campus. To date we have received over $40,000 in gifts. Most of these are not large donations. They come from individuals who care for and about the mission of this parish. Daily, people drop by to express support, envelope arrive with notes of encouragement and we continue to hear from our sister parish, St. Peter's in Delmar, CA of online donations given in our name.

Holy Innocents, Beach Haven, has sent us a crate of prayer books to replace those lost in the chapel to the flood. St. David's in Cranbury and St. Peter's, Freehold have both committed second collections during Sunday worship to our relief. We are blessed.

We have also received word that the estate of Barbara Rasmussen, of which we are a "residual" beneficiary is due to come out of probate soon. She had designated St. Peter's in her will, wishing us to receive the remainder of her estate after other heirs had been received their bequests. This is a double blessing, in that it allows us a fund large enough to absorb initial repairs, as well as being a sign of the care and concern for our church's wellbeing that our forebears had for the treasure we will now hand on to our children. We still have a long way to go in pulling together the funds we need to restore what has been damaged, but the first steps have been taken. Barbara's legacy means we have one to offer as well.

There is also a blessing to celebrate in the generosity of the Spotswood Volunteer Fire Department. They are once again stepping up to aid us with the provision of their hall for the use of our Sunday School. A special thanks to Nancy Pertschuk, superintendant of the School, Diane Chiarella the Sunday School Vestry liaison and all the volunteers, teachers and students who are committed to making Christian formation continue-even if it is in exile for a short time. Please let them know that you are praying for and supporting them in this undertaking as they assume the greatest loss (and perhaps gain) in this time of transition and change.

We continue to evaluate and study ways to address the many issue our buildings face. With no insurance coverage for loss, we will have to assume responsibility for much of the costs of the repairs and renovations. Still, we hope to find ways to assuage that impact by reaching out to the state and national historic landmark foundation, local grants and even to explore the possibility of seeking ministry (and capital) development funds from the Episcopal Church's international granting bodies. The Vestry is committed to the study, visioning and eventually offering up to you all a way forward for our parish. Again, it is not whether or not we recover, but how we rise to the invitation from God to emerge from this crisis with more of the same spirit with which we were thrust into it: St. Peter's is a church that knows it has the heart of Christ, and we will continue to serve Christ in our community, whatever and however God chooses to send us.

Bless you all, may we continue to count our blessings as they increase from day to day in the power of the Holy Spirit!

Marshall+

A parish and community partnership to reclaim what was lost during Irene

2011-09-10T15:49:00.001-04:00

We were blessed today, with the presence of a host of volunteers who arrived with chainsaws, rakes, shovels, brushes, rags, powerwashers and hearts full of love and care for an historic church that is striving to continue to serve its community even as it is served in recovering from the recent floods. Some pictures for your viewing of the recovery efforts. It is slow going, but we are getting there!

An update....as of Saturday 9/3

2011-09-03T09:25:00.004-04:00

Dear friends,

To keep you all up to date.

Let me tell you, this has been an....experience. We got the quote from Servpro disaster relief for remediating the flood damage in our buildings. If we get the furnishings out ourselves, the tag is just under $35,000. That is before we address rebuild and repair/replacement of utilities and appliances...and replacement of lost furnishings. I would guess we are going to see a price tag of near $100,000 or more before the final nail is driven.

The good news: the vestry voted unanimously to move forward with the sanitizing of the buildings. This should put us weeks ahead of where we would have been using just our own volunteers, and will conserve our energy and resources for the rebuild.....

We are still waiting on the gas company to confirm that we can rebury the exposed line (and get earth moving equipment in to deal with the ersatz swimming hole that was the west parking lot.

PSE&G has arrived on site to review the washout and the exposed pipeline. The good news is that they are not only committed to covering the exposed line, they are also going to back fill the other washouts that have closed the access road. We are blessed that they are stepping up, beyond and above the call of duty. At this point in the day (5 PM) the back fill is largely completed. The backhoe operator had to quit, as there was an "all stop" order for the company because two workers were severely injured in an accident at a home in Manville. Please pray for all the utility workers as they strive to restore vital services, particularly for their safety....

As the ground dries out, and I only mildly smell of mud and muck, I give thanks and praise to God for all of you. Both for the donations to the discretionary account (it is already buying food, school clothes and supplies, comfort and relief to people affected by the flood. We are still waiting on a FEMA rating that gets folks some support from the Federal Government. Folks are doing well as can be expected, but nerves are beginning to fray. Reports yesterday of people starting to loot homes down where my Junior Warden lives are starting to come in, and there was a pretty riotous meeting with the mayor of that township (of which a parishioner is town business administrator) to which police had to be called.

According to reports in the papers, the person taking things from those homes was apprehended. After several visits to the Fagans and their neighbors, I can tell you that not only is their spirit amazing; but that people from the community around them have continued to assist in the cleanup, as well as distributing water, soft drinks and meals-quite literally from the backs of children's wagons and from the liftgates of their cars.

At this point, I have had reports that after a week, there are field kitchens and support services being set up in the neighborhoods that have been decimated. Life is no where near normal, but the blessings of people caring for each other continues to keep folks moving forward.

As well, the folks coordinating our school supplies drive have reached out to local school principals and teachers to make sure that we can also help any children they become aware of who have lost their back-to-school supplies and clothes. Aside from the gifts from our donors that we have been able to distribute, we have already given out over $400 in assistance in that regard.

There are more blessings that are in process, including a local business that is willing to front us up to $100K as an emergency loan. Though that loan will have to be repaid, it does give us the ability to move forward quickly and stop any greater damage from mold (or other contaminants) that would have built up had we had to wait for the significant monies needed to even start the clean up efforts. God is with us in such an amazing range of ways.

God is good. We have been blessed with great coverage in the local press (thanks to Maria Fergusson's efforts to get the word out), as well as others on Facebook (Mary Ann Grennen, Lorraine Wehrle and a host of others) who continue to share the stories and expand the numbers of people praying for us and who continue to offer to help. Thursday, and yesterday, saw people driving up to the Church in order to express their prayers, their support and as well, making donations. We have received support from United Water, Wells Fargo Bank, the Spotswood and East Brunswick Funeral Homes and other local businesses.

Most of all, I give thanks for Mike Kinman, dean of Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis (a dear friend and colleague group member), mobilizing folks (nationwide) to assist. You really can't know what it means to me personally to have you all supporting us with prayers. Not to mention your gifts...each dollar brings comfort and relief to someone hungry, without shoes, etc. The other night, I was asked by a parishioner who was volunteering with the school supply drive how I can still be smiling after the last few days. "Easy," I said. "I know I am not alone. We have God working for us, and more friends than we can ask or imagine praying for us."

To date, hundreds of dollars have been donated from across the Church, social networks community members and parishes, reminding us that we are one Body in Christ with many members. St. Peter's is blessed to be the recipient of this grace...and this now gives us the opportunity to not only be grateful for such a host of witnesses; but also to be mindful of and committed to the recovery of others as well. God has blessed us with the chance to receive so much, so that we have been able to continue to give generously to the comfort of the lost, the broken and the needy.

I got no troubles. Only blessings to count.

Bless you all.

The Rev. Marshall Shelly

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life." -I John 5:13

A letter to the parish of St. Peter's, September 1

2011-09-01T16:10:00.002-04:00

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I have refrained from writing to the whole parish over the last couple of days in order to make sure that whatever news I shared with you of the impact that the flood waters have had on us as a parish was as clear and concise as possible. Let me begin first by saying how blessed and, yes, fortunate I feel to be able to write to you as your rector. The heart, soul and prayers of this parish have been carrying us all forward through this time of recovery and assessment of damage. St. Peter’s continues to reveal itself to me and to the wider church and surrounding towns as a place where God is not just worshipped, but also where the world is served in the name of Christ.

On Sunday, in the late morning, I received a text and then a call from Rich Goglia and several other parishioners to inform me that there were rising flood waters on the Church property. The church and surrounding buildings had survived for the most part the onslaught of Irene, that was the good news. The bad news was that the flood waters were not only rising, but rising at an alarming pace. Water upstream from Lake Devoe pushed over the dam, overcame the EMS squad and the Devoe Avenue Bridge and rolled onto our property. That same flood also hit the Monroe side of the watershed, affecting and effectively destroying our neighbor’s homes. Included in those homes affected were the Fagans and Pokos. Please keep them in your prayers, and we will continue to work with them as they recover from their own traumas of loss.
By around five o’clock on Sunday, Laura and I were able to get down to the church to see the impact of the rising waters. The Church was effectively an island, the Parish Hall Basement was under water and the line of fence just above our Devoe Ave. Entrance looked like a waterfall. We made our way into the basement of the Parish Hall via the Thrift Shop stairs and discovered that the downstairs toilet was also backing up.
On Monday, as the waters began to recede, we got a look at the damage. It is extensive. We continue to assess the impact as the ground dries and settles.
The Church structure appears to be safe. Water made its way into the basement where the utilities are kept and was over the boiler, the condensers and blowers for the a/c units and about half way up the electrical panel. Whatever was stored there that was vulnerable to water damage is likely a loss. We also had water in the crawl space. Both areas will need drying and mitigation to avoid mold.
There is a dumpster from the restaurant across the street that is lodged on our front lawn. We are working to get that removed soon.
In the course of the waters moving through the property, a 40 foot section of our brick fence was toppled. We also lost a locust tree and a mature maple has fallen across the access road area, and one headstone at least was toppled. No plots in the church yard were compromised, but we do have cleanup work to do throughout the property.
The gravel parking lot is severely damaged. The water washed out a significant area at the entrance, creating a large, approx 25’ pool and exposing a gas line that feeds the church. The area where the guard rails had been installed was undermined by the stream and the rails were compromised. As well, the access road sustained damage and there is a large amount of silt and sand that has been deposited in that area behind the Church. Because of the amount of water and the level of saturation of the ground around and under the Church, we will continue to monitor the building for safety. At present, all appears to be solid and sure.
The Parish Hall took the worst hit. The water was up to a level above the windows of the Sunday School, and every room and system in the building was affected. We lost some food from the storage area, and anticipate that the lives of our chest freezers is compromised. The good news is that our Wednesday night feeding program will continue at the Spotswood Reformed Church until we are able to restore hot water in the building. We are also working to get the Thrift Shop opened as soon as possible.
The Sunday School is another matter. We are still pumping out the basement, and it looks like most of the furnishings and building utilities are a total loss. Once the floor is dry, we will enter the structure and begin to muck out, dry out, clear out and start cutting dry wall in an attempt to assess the damage.
In all of these recovery and repair efforts, we will need your prayers, your assistance and your support. We are blessed that our Wednesday night suppers and the vital functions of St. Peter’s commitment to Community of hope Ministries and the CUP Food Pantry are able to continue with the extension of hospitality from the Spotswood Reformed Church. We were also able to begin distribution of our collected school supplies at the supper last night, and will continue not only doing our best to equip Spotswood families in general with these donations-but also and particularly those children affected by the flood who are getting ready to head off to school next week.
Here now, is the most difficult news for us: our current insurance policy for the church carries a water exclusion. We are not covered for the losses we have experienced. The wardens and I have been in touch with the Diocese with regard to this fact. The Bishop and Canon to the Ordinary, as well as our Diocesan CFO have been wonderful and pastorally supportive, but there is little they can do to help us overcome the expense we now face in repairing and restoring our damaged buildings.
At this point, the Vestry will be considering our options as we move forward. Of course, money is an issue. We have very little right now, and so will need your help. We have been blessed by a number of sister parishes and other church and clergy who have stepped up around the country to offer their assistance. St. Peter’s, Delmar, CA in particular has “adopted” us:
http://www.stpetersdelmar.net/node/341 God bless all who are reaching out to us. God bless them and keep them. They are a model to us as we in turn reach out to those in our community who have lost hearth, home and who are striving to keep a hold on hope.
Our St. Peter’s has been through a lot in its history. We survived the American Revolution, the condemning of an earlier church in 1848 and the closing of our Sunday School to a Scarlet Fever outbreak just a few years later. We survived for years, worshipping in a school house and parish hall until the current church was built in the early 1880s. A tragic fire in 1928 on Good Friday as well failed to break the spirit and resolve of this parish to continue its ministry here in Spotswood. Financial and physical crises have occurred throughout our history. Throughout over 250 years of Christian service to the community, we have moved through times of plenty and times of famine, and yet always we have been willing to express the abundance of God’s mercy and grace. This is a church that has seen hard times come and go, and yet keeps its resolve to be a church that serves Christ…no matter what, be it high waters, winds, earthquakes, fires or loss of any kind.
We will continue our Sunday, weekly and daily worship services as scheduled. We will be starting Sunday School as soon as we secure an alternative location and we will continue to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with the same passion our predecessors worked so hard for in order to claim as our legacy…that same legacy of faith and hope that we will now secure for our children, grandchildren and all those members of St. Peter’s in decades to come.

To view photos of the flood, please see these two links:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113311136730312712785/StPeterSEpiscopalChurch#

http://stpetersepiscopalchurch.shutterfly.com/#:emid=site_addmembers&cid=SHARE3SXXXX
Over the next few weeks and months, I ask you to keep the church, our members and your leadership in your prayers and thoughts. We will only recover from this experience when we are willing to work together, pray together and continue to remember that a church is not made of bricks and beams, pipes and wires. It is the people of God in a place, committed to and serving the world in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank God that to date, the only disruption we have had to face is closing the Thrift Store for a few days. Life is hard right now, not ended. God is good. All the time.
Peace, in Christ’s love….
The Rev. Marshall Keith Shelly
Rector, St. Peter's Episcopal Church
Spotswood, NJ

"Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." -I Cor. 15:58

On holy ground...

2011-08-22T13:09:00.001-04:00

As I look toward this coming Sunday, my usual practice of a Monday is to open up the lessons that the framers of the Revised Comon Lectionary have prepared for me and all the other . It is a good thing, I find, that when it comes to embracing a text first and then seeking to discern and interpret what God is asking me to talk about I am able to avoid the temptation to use the scriptures to my own purposes. In a loose sense, I suppose that might be called "proof-texting." So thanks be to God for the people who work very hard to keep us on our toes...sometimes by offering texts that are quite hard to link thematically, and for often pushing us to think well outside the box of our own personal agendas and expectations.

This coming Sunday is no exception. In one lesson, from the Exodus, Moses has his primary theophany with God...that point whe he is told to go back to Egypt in order to procure the deliverance of the people of Israel from the abject state of enslavement they endure as indentured corvee laborers to Pharoah's public projects. As an aside, I give thanks that this way of creating new infrastructure has fallen to antiquity. Can you imagine people's reaction to our government if it were the case that during the summer our local, state and national governments reserved the right to cashier our time to fix roads, bridges, and to help renovate and/or erect government buildings?

Next on the list is St. Paul giving us a guidebook for life in Christ: chapter 12 in his epistle to the Romans. Instead of God demanding our only a portion of our time and strength as servants to the kingdom, Paul commands that we step up in some surprising and innovative ways by setting a high bar not just on behavioral expectations, but also on the inner motivations of our hearts.

Finally, we find Peter being censured by Jesus for berating him about Jesus' teaching the disciples that, as messiah, he is going to be taken, beaten, killed and raised. Peter can't accept that the messiah should "go out like that," even though just moments before he was being lauded for confessing Jesus' identity as the Christ of God---"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard...." Seems we can't win for losing. Just when we start to get our heads wrapped up around the idea and hope of God's continual promise to send a deliverer to us in times of need, we start to argue about the hows, whys, whats and wherefores of the nature of the messianic functon.

God continually promises that salvation is ours, if we are but willing to trust, have faith. Where we screw up is that moment after the promise is revealed...because in that moment, we start to project put own agendas on God's. I have seen this happen again and again in life and ministry. Sometimes that impulse arises in others, as when on one occassion I witnessed a person who felt that clergy had too much power attempt to quite literally rewrite the Church's ordinal to fit their desire to see clergy have less privilege, as they saw it. Admirable ideal, given the reality of the abuses clergy are too often empowerec to commit...but you don't amend the ordintion before you attempt to heal the broken and call the healthy.... As well, I have seen in myself the root, childish stubbornness of not wanting reality to be one way when I want it to be be another, when there is no way on God's green earth that my desire will come to pass. I am still waiting for that moment when an unending bowl of pasta actually causes one to lose weight instead of gaining it. Just one ofmmy personal conceits. We all have them, some that contend with reality itself while others just challenge the loose impulse we all possess to engage in periodic over indulgence.

Clearly the first and third lessons focus on the nature of the call to messiahship that Moses and Jesus were called to embrace. Harder for us is how human beings actually decided to participate in that heavenly vision. Jesus knows who he is, but we still have to open ourselves up to embracing a "failing" messiah who dies on a cross. Moses is a challenge as well. He is certain that he is a poor choice. He is not a good public speaker. He has a price on his head. He can't go back to Egypt....isn't there someone else who can go.

I guess when it comes to the idea of Moses standing on Holy Ground to receive his commission as the anointed deliverer pf Israel, that God's comand that he remove his sandals is no mean idea. If we are willing to take off our shoes as we enter into sacred spaces or relationships, then can we any less be willing to surrender our personal agendas in light of God's call to us to become full citizens in a kingdom whose sole focus is on the ones who have not yet heard the Good News, or who are yet to receive consolation and comfort from us in God's most holy Name?

A change in light...the days grow shorter....

2011-08-16T15:48:00.000-04:00

I give thanks for being able to work in an office with big windows. The allow me to see that the world continues to roll by outside, and that keeps me grounded in an awareness that my work is not about sitting behind a desk...but about being out in the world. Granted, a LOT of my work life is spent behind a desk...but the focus is OUT THERE.

Another awareness I give thanks for with these windows is the changes that come over the course of the year due to changing light. The days shift in length, and the sun moves across the sky; and this creates ever-evolving patterns in how the light strikes the office, how the beams move across the floor and furniture. The light also gives an organic measure of time passing, reminding me that in addition to the chronos of the hands marching around the clock's dial there is also chairos and the procession of seasons, the march of planets around the sun, the wobble of the earth on her axis. Things are bigger than I am, and I am called on to remember that from moment to moment.

Finally, the changing light makes me aware of another shifting source of light in my life. God's own great phosphorescence, a gracious light that is never static, ever-renewing and eminently demanding of my attention.

That one sunbeam with the dust motes dancing in it? A quiet reminder to lift up your eyes and your heart. God is active in our lives, particularly in those moments of contemplation, dynamic and luminous.

When the waters rise...

2011-08-15T13:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, in the early morning, we saw some remarkable rains move through the area. Late night, the thunder and lightning were impressive and the clamour of rain on the roof and air conditioners (as well as the clatter of water in the downspouts) alerted us to the order of magnitude of the water falling from the sky. For our Sunday morning experience, that meant navigating downed tree limbs and large puddles/spot floods on the roadways to the church. It meant trying to time our getting out of the cars to strive for the driest possible transit to the sanctuary door. It also meant the liturgical staff reaching out pastorally with hand towels for the folk whose timing was less than opportune.

Still, once services were done, the rain continuing meant that for the most part, Laura and I spent the day indoors marvelling at the curtains of raindrops that veiled us from being able to see across the yard to our neighbors. It also meant watching the return of a periodic flash flood on our street. The street where we live is a great place, a wonderful neighborhood with great residents....and a low point down the street that means a mini-flood when the rains outstrip the capacity of the storm sewers.

We watched late yesterday afternoon as the flood waters rose up to the top of the curb in front of our house (about 6-8 inches deep). It was a modest flood, but one all the same that put me in mind of any number of Biblical metaphors about how our hearts cry out for deliverance when the waters rise up. Floods are scary things, especially when they come up in a flash. They crash through our lives and leave not just destruction but also a sense of deep vulnerability in their wake. The certain truth is that once you experience a flood in the vicinity of where you make your home, it is likely to happen again. Sometime, off in the future, another flood will affect you and yours. That is not a reassuring thought.

Still, we were blessed yesterday. The waters outside stayed there. We didn't have a flood in our basement, as some did. We didn't have any apparent leaks in our roof, as some did. We aren't cleaning up downed limbs or broken shrubs from the yard.

Yes, I did leave the windows on the car open....but that is my own fault. I can't blame God or the universe for my own negligence...so I will leave that part out, other than to note that if I had taken the time to check on the windows I wouldn't be trying to dry the car out today.

So, as the sun peaks through today, I took a lap around the Church...and note that as per usual, our riverside location has once again caused us to welcome rising waters on the lowest part of our campus.

Just over the rise our predecessors built up to keep the Church out of the river's path is a vast puddle over 100' square and a few inches deep. I saw an errant fish or two swimming in the shadow of maples that are now islands in the stream, literally. The road is still "dry" but I am sure at some point we will see some intrusion.

I guess the conclusion I find in all these observations is that I can only affect my response to some elements of God's creation at work in my life. I can't make the rain to stop falling. I can't keep flood waters from rising. (I realize that I CAN remember to check and close my car windows....). So, best to observe, give thanks for rain that makes things grow and pray that the clean up and cost in human lives is minimal. Whether metaphorical or physical, floods simply are a part of life. As with most things, our true recovery is determined by the response we make to adversity in the first place.

So, embrace the sanguine....seek the peace of mind....and pick up your brooms and mops. As we clean up, may God bless us with greens refreshed by summer rains....and let us enjoy streets swept relatively clean by the receding waters.....

David's great sin...or, How beautiful is Susan Hayward in the movie, really?

2011-08-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

This morning, with three people and two dogs assembled in the presence of our Lord for prayer, it felt like we had a solid balance and a diverse group. Comments (by human or canine parties) on the scripture readings are really quite rare during our morning prayer sessions in my office.

At this point in the readings from the Hebrew scriptures, we are in the midst of the saga of David and his rise to power as the king of Judah and Israel in the wake of Saul's dramatic, Shakepearean breakdown and death. It is now the spring of the year, in a time after David's rule has been consolidated and his throne is relatively secure. Of course, when it comes to a dramatic story-biblical or otherwise-the calm is always the calm that comes before the storm.

During the spring military campaigns, when his soldiers are out of town, David is taking a midday walk on his roof. At a time when most people are talking a siesta, he is wandering...and he gets an eyeful. A woman, Bathsheba, is bathing on her rooftop. That's all it takes. A king seeing the beautiful wife of one of his soldiers in a compromising position...and the curtain rises on a tragedy.

You may have seen the movie, starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward. Not to mention Raymond Massey as the prophet Nathan and Kieron Moore as Uriah the Hittite. Classic Hollywood casting.

Of course, I am familiar with the story on several levels. I remember it from my childhood Sunday School classes. At that age, the sexual innuendos were, of course, left out...what mattered was the object lessons around desire, deceit, murder and that even kinds are subject to judgement and justice. (It's important to note that this experience came when we were going through the Nixon years in the USA...so we saw this fall from grace at all levels). Later, as a classic film buff, I saw the old biblical epic and appreciated the operatic qualities of the story. Then, as a seminary student, we were given the chance to digest the text from multiple, academic and pastoral perspectives.

Now, though, this morning, I am seeing a new wrinkle. This story is not just about a love triangle ending in tragedy. It is not just about a king being caught out in using his power to not only indulge himself as well as to harm his unaware adversaries.

It is also about the collateral damage that sin can create in the lives of our community.

David, when Uriah refuses to go to his wife after the king's adultery in order to disperse the king's responsibility in the act, orders his general to place the hapless "hero" at the forefront of an attack. All this is laid out in 2 Samuel, the 11th chapter. The plan is to send Uriah out, and then draw back support from his unit, leaving him (them) to fall.

Today, I am thinking about the (them) in this story. What of the soldiers on both sides of this skirmish who died, as well as Uriah, in order to "cover" the sin of the king? For a night of passion with a woman, David arranges not only the death of an innocent man (men), but also puts blood on the hands of his commanders, even his enemies.

We sat in the short silence that follows each reading, and then one person noted aloud how incredibly awful David's behavior was...and how unutterably sad that so many innocent people should suffer and die for the sins of a powerful man charged with protecting their well being.

In a prayerful response, I asked us to recite "A Song of Penitence," Canticle 14-an excerpt from the Prayer of Manasseh.

In reflection after the fact, I continue to struggle with the harsh reality that this passage tenders to us for our consideration. How many times, throughout human history, have the "small" people suffered so that the "great" can indulge themselves in acts of passion, ambition or pride? On this morning's news, the current issues around the funding of the FAA has caused thousands of layoffs and work stoppages. Hundreds of families will not be able to make September's mortgage payments. A significant sector of the national economy is suffering. All this while our political leadership argues uses the moment in an attempt to gain leverage over their opponents over questions of whether or not unions can be organized in a certain sector or how public dollars are used to subsidize local institutions.

Yes, I am drawing a parallel between David's act of adultery and our current leadership's willingness to use working class people as pawns in the much-needed, but ill-timed debates over the general fiscal policies of the nation.

After seeing with new eyes David's poor, lethal choices to cover his desires, I am finding in myself a new awareness of our common need to repent of the decisions that create collateral damage and suffering. Lord knows we have a lot to atone for when it comes to extractive and oppressive economic systems that grind the hungry and poor up again and again....so let's not forget David, nor ever forget the Uriahs of this world. God is continually calling us to those second chances which continually allow us to balance the scales of justice. May there be a time when not only the cannons fall silent, but also a time when the cannon fodder ceases to fall at all.....

Controlling the rhetoric, the war of words and ideas

2011-07-26T12:44:00.000-04:00

This morning, Laura and I were watching the morning news. Catching up on the latest sound bytes flowing out of Washington, we saw redacted clips of the President and the Speaker of the House as they attempted to spin the current state of the debate over raising the debt ceiling for the nation's borrowing practices before a projected early August default.

Without video or sound transcripts to review and without being a fly on the wall of the conference room in the White House where these high level political negotiations are taking place, the truth is that we can only attempt to decode from what is being said by both sides that what is at stake is not so much whether or not to raise the debt limit, but how. As well, not only how, but at stake is the question of to what use the process of raising the debt limit can be accomplished to the political benefit of one party or another. The collateral damage continues to be the people on the fringes of society, the working poor, elderly pensioners and those without the money that creates access to Washington's leadership in today's world.

From what I can see, the Republicans want a staged and gradual increase in the debt ceiling, with the hardest hit coming in the midst of the 2012 presidential elections. I wonder why? At the same time, the Democrats are attempting to stage the limit increase to a one-time hit that will then be reviewed in 2013...AFTER the election. Again, I wonder why?

I may be too cynical in this, but I am beginning to see the heart's core of the issue lying predominantly, it seems, in getting the most bang for the political buck. The parties involved seem focused on how can this crisis create advantage in a battle for control? I also view with no small degree of resentment that it always seems to work into an "us" against "them" mentality. The rich need to take more responsibility, surely' but at the same time all areas of society itself need to be willing to step up and take part in a willing transformation of how we live. We need to traverse a difficult span and alter our way of being from having government administration focused in living through borrowing to a more balanced approach, granted. Still, it takes a GREAT deal of energy, and a willingness to say that what got us here might not be the way to get us out, to make a change in the status quo.

After a lot of years observing "political processes" I am convinced-both from a theological as well as an anthrpological perspective, that the saddest and most illusory of efforts to control people arise from the impulse to control rhetoric and discourse while leaving the opportunity for real, deep structural change out in the cold. I can't tell you how many times I have experienced the effort on the part of a ruling elite to "get the story right" before a planning meeting breaks up so "we can control the way this is going to be heard." One group went so far as to check and make sure that the "elevator speeches" of the membership were close enough on point that they would be taken for gospel. That said, I don't think I had ever been so far away from the gospel as I was in those moments when the group was more focused on control, and controlling the people of God, than bearing witness to God for and to the people....Kind of what we are seeing today work itself out in Washington. Same thing we see working out during Holy Week, as the Sanhedrin struggles with what to do about having now arrested Jesus. If we kill him, then we lose the people. If we release him, then we lose the people. Maybe, if we give him to the Romans, and then push the crowd to condemn, we can get rid of him and THEN it won't be "our fault."

No one wants to take responsibility for the economic crisis coming to a head on their watch, not unless they can lay it off on someone else.

Still, real change, real growth and an authentic life in community aren't won on the rhetorical battlefield. They are achieved by all of us being willing to both hear and speak the truth, beyond sound bytes and engineered spin sessions. Once we adopt that posture, then we are ready to get to work.

Jesus, standing before Pilate is asked if he claims to be king of the Jews-a treasonous and seditious offence-and then is challenged to respond himself, when Jesus turns the question back on him. In the end, the only thing this wily politician and military tactician can offer back as a response is his own interrogative: "What is Truth?"

That is the question...but it requires of us a willingness to quit the war of words and ideas, to let go of controlling rhetoric and get to a place where it isn't about winning or losing (or engineering a win/win where everyone loses). It's about getting the job done and making the right choice, even though it hurts like hell to do so....

Wrestling with God by the riverside, the debt ceiling crisis and the feeding of a multitude...

2011-07-25T10:51:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday we baptized two babies into the life of Christ here at St. Peter's. It was a blessed day, with two little ones that were just about as cute as babies can possibly get; not to mention that they were just as happy to be there as we were to see them. Not a peep or a cry, even in the late-July heat that was curling the leaves of the trees and causing anyone just standing outside to pop a healthy sweat. Thank God for good infant formula and air conditioning. And grace, thank God for grace....

So now I sit in my office, pondering the reading for next week whilst reading the headlines that even after weeks of political posturing and looming deadlines the legislative and executive branches of the United States government continue to bicker and whinge one about how to address the need the US has to increase its own borrowing limit-its debt ceiling. Odd that, as a nation we get to decide just how much money we will are allowed to borrow? How different things are at that level. I think if Laura and I called out bank and informed them that we intended to increase our own debt ceiling we would be greeted with guffaws and concern for our mental health.

This is interesting, really. Of course, people want us to keep borrowing money. Credit card companies are always soliciting our business. Even cards we currently are carrying want to up out credit limits. Still, with all that "ready credit" reality does eventually need some degree of attention. The more we borrow, the more debt payments preclude our economic freedom. The more we owe, over the long run, the more we wind up paying out of pocket.

The macro-model is not that far differentiated from the micro...the nation faces the same issues. Our national debt has increased hand-over-fist through the last five presidential administrations and half-again as many legislative sessions. We owe more than we are worth...and we are worth quite a bit on the world stage, as it turns out.

Still, instead of getting down to brass tacks and being willing to hash out a program that both reduces debt and seeks to preserve services the politicians (and various want-to-be presidents, congress-folk and senators) insist that the other side of the aisle is leading us all down the garden path...and their arguments and eleventh hour brinkmanship is starting to have a seismic impact on world markets. Anxiety and fear are rising, not that we are going to continue to be a debtor nation...but that we might decide to stop being one without a plan in place to get enough cash to meet our obligations when we through inaction wind up being unable to borrow more....

How did we get here? Complicated question...one that my theology degree simply can't being to explain...still, it is my task to preach God's peace, grace a justice to a world that is continually experiencing a deficit overall.

This coming Sunday, we have two water-side events that I think give us something to work with as we watch and wait to see if the garbage throwing in Washington will eventually result in Geo-economic Armageddon. The first is Jacob wrestling with a heavenly being by the riverside as he attempts to travel home from his exile with his kinsman Laban. The second is Jesus commanding the disciples to feed the multitudes who have followed him into the wastes with what turns out to be the equivalent of one person's lunch, five loaves and two fish.

So, two illustrations, one of conflict and the other of abundance being made manifest from scarcity by faith in God's command to care for the hungry, the poor and the less-fortunate.

When Jacob wrestles with the being beside the river, it is a night-long struggle of grunts, sweat and pain with no progress being made on either party's behalf. Stalemate, and human fatigue (along with a dislocated hip) seem to be tipping the scales away from the terrestrial opponent's resolve to gain victory. At least, that is, until the sun is rising...then, the being demands to be released, and Jacob demands a blessing. Jacob is blessed, and renamed Israel (struggles with God). The being is released and goes on its way, both, I am sure a bit worse for wear. In fact, I am pretty sure that Israel limped for the rest of his life. It really is true, we carry the remnant of those struggles like twenty-somethings carry tattoos.

What I think we can learn from Israel's struggle with God at the riverside is that when it comes to creative conflict, it is worth it to take hold of each other and refuse to let go until some form of a solution is attainable. Conversely, it is ultimately destructive to self and other when that conflict is just there for its own sake, driven by ego, agenda and the desire to see the other person vanquished. There is no such thing as "winning" when the idea of resolution is based in gaining a material advantage over and against the benefit of those who have less. "Bless me" says Jacob...even though he is half-crippled by what can only be agonizing pain. I hope the folks who are playing with the well-being of host of the poor and working poor realize that "when elephants fight in the forest, the grass suffers." Victory is going to come at a great cost, first to the most vulnerable and then eventually to the ones who chose power over mercy...just look at Jacob as he limps away from his victory.

Or, for further color, look to Jesus himself. At the shore side in a remote place the people who insist on following him, the sick and lame-the searching and the needy, he has compassion for them and insists that his disciples as well join him in taking responsibility for their well-being. When it is time to eat, and there is not enough food to go around the disciples do the prudent thing and tell Jesus to send the people away so that they can go find food. He tells them not to send them away, but instead give them something to eat. All the disciples can come up with are five loaves and two fish. Not enough to feed their own small group, much less a multitude...all the same, but Jesus gathers them, blesses the food and orders it to be shared. There is enough, with twelve baskets of food left over. More than "just another miracle," I have come to see this feeding of the multitude as a seminal description of what we are called to do as the people of God in a world that is not kind to us-particularly for those who have less, who experience REAL poverty.

The reality is that many hands make light work...but sadly, the current model of our socio-economic culture is really the exact opposite. Those who have want to retain it in order to "create jobs" while those who need are facing reductions in crucial social and economic support. All while financial markets around the world fidget and worry. What happens next?

Anybody got five loaves and a couple of dried fish? We might be needing that boxed lunch multiplied soon to cover 6 billion hungry folks, afore too long....

Loaves and fishes....loaves and fishes.....

Going back into mission mode....

2011-07-19T11:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I wrote my 400th post to this blog, and today as I prepared to take my quiet time with God and the laptop keyboard to continue to reflect on how a call to new ministry, and new paths, has formed this chapter of my work in the church, I went back over some of those old posts. I will confess that the reverie had behind it the desire to revisit some memories of a trip I took several years ago with a diocesan youth trip to Guatemala. I had forgotten some of the details around the trip, some of the images...and after a conversation about that country and the people who make their lives their was done, I was missing it dearly.

So, what a gift it was to "turn back the pages" of this online diary to look at those posts. I heard with fresh ears the voice of the person and priest that I was reflecting on how profound an impact that trip had on us all. I can honestly say that mission trip changed my own sense of my call to serve as a priest to the wider church, and it has continued to shape me to this day. The lay people who continue to be passionate about the life of Christ in Solala, in Chimaltenango, in San Lucas Toliman...and the congregations who continue to mutually serve Christ taught, and teach me, so much. I was challenged there to be my own true self, to preach and speak from the root passions of my call to serve God in the Church and to remember what the call to priesthood is really all about: feeding people in word, sacrament and faithful practice.

It isn't easy to have a redirect in life. Most folks call them "midlife crises," though I posit as a priest charged with offering pastoral care to people of all ages that you don't have to be in the middle ages of life to pull off a good crisis...you just have to be willing, like Dante Aligheri was in his Divine Comedy (Hell), to admit that while getting lost on life's path you have suddenly found yourself in a darkened wood, threatened by anger, pride and fear....

So, to reflect back on that mission trip, for me, is also to look forward. God was able to accomplish many amazing things in my life, and the lives of those who went on that mission trip, and the adventure of discovery of self, call and service to Christ continues to unfold around us. I have seen boys and girls make the transition to men and women because of what they learned and saw there...and they have become very good men and women, indeed. I have seen fellow priests renew their own sense of "why I got into this racket in the first place." I have seen people become lifelong friends. What was a trip intended to help us to give to others has resulted in windfall grace to all of us. Glory to God....

...and thus a call to what will yet come to pass as God continues to make the Divine Will known to us. I now serve another church in another Diocese. I now lead another people and am called to continue to preach and point to where Christ is next calling us to serve....

In all that, I seek to apply something I learned back then and continue to strive to express now...that real service in Christ comes first from being willing to be in one place at a time, fully, completely and lovingly present to the Body of Christ as it is revealed in the here and now.

Look back at some time in your own life...a time when you discovered God in other people as you served with and alongside them...what from that time feeds you in your present journey of service?

A pearl of great price...and the 400th posting to this blog!

2011-07-18T10:28:00.000-04:00

Well, vacation is over and the work of the parish beckons. I was in the office at the latter part of last week, and most of that time was given over to catching up with leadership on the state of the parish. The good news is that people are happy to see us return, and at this point the church is stable and we are starting to look with hope to the new program year. As I sit here in a quiet office-the administrator is out on her well earned vacation break, herself-I find myself musing on the nature and reality of parish work and the unique sort of call and response clergy and lay leadership alike need to see manifest in order for the life of the Church to be both fulfilling and effective in the world.

Getting back to the pulpit after a two-week break reminds me how precious a gift it is to have the honor to preach the interpretation of God's Word to the people of God. The other gift is the opportunity to serve the people who come to the church seeking assistance and support from the assembly. Sometimes that is successful, when I know the answer to the question (or the person to refer the guest to in order to obtain help). Sometimes that is a frustration, when I don't know the answer or can't make an effective referral. Always, it is humbling.

So, back to the title of the post, and today's reflection: the pearl of great price. From this coming Sunday's readings, we are in the midst of a teaching spurt that Jesus is offering up to his disciples and the crowds that cluster around him in the middle chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. Particularly, there are a series of similitudes that Jesus offers up with regard to the nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like a sower who goes out to sow. It is like a sower's field that is planted with both good seed and bad. It is like a mustard seed, like yeast used in small measure to raise a large volume of flour, like the above-mentioned pearl of great price. It is like a treasure discovered buried in a field. It is like a large yield of fish in a net, needing to be sorted-even as we will be sorted at the end of the age.

The kingdom of God is like many things...and yet even if we could, with a poet's heart, absorb all those images and hold them simultaneously in our imagination we would fail to compass the impending reality of God's kingdom breaking in, through and around us. Jesus is trying hard to illustrate his knowledge of what God intends for and through us, the Church; and yet even he is reduced to struggling ways to articulate reality by pointing to it with metaphors. For one who speaks metaphorically a bit too often, I can tell you that though it might work poetically, it fails in the end to accurately and cogently describe reality (even the inbreaking reality of the kingdom of God).

Try it yourself. Tell me what "red" is.

Now, tell me what joy is....or sadness.

Both perception, and state of being, are impossible to communicate other than us saying to one another what they are "like."

So, in the end, even Jesus relates truth through similes, metaphors and in wide parabolic arcs of poetic imagery. You know, perhaps that is the only way to get people to a place of not only understanding the idea of salvation in God's love for us... By alluding to some common experience, by pointing to something that we can touch, smell, feel or in some other way experience, we can take a foretaste of what that anticipated reality will actually feel like.

This brings me back to that pearl of great price. Mind you, I have never been a collector...but I do remember having a serious one as a member of one of my congregations in years past. He was someone who had a great many things, collections of miniatures, fine silks, furniture. Chief among his passions was a love of historic pewter vessels, particularly 16th and 17th century pieces. For decades, he collected, sought out and attempted to collect and retain these objects...and even within that passion were particular loves. One of those was sacred vessels. Ewers, patens, chalices and goblets, pitchers and baptismal bowls....when one rare one came on the market his ears, eyes and spirit would perk up, and he would be on the hunt.

I got to know him at the end of his life. He had developed a terminal disease and I would visit him often while he was in hospice care. One day, when I arrived to bring him communion, I found him in an animated conversation with an agent/friend of his. It seemed that a particular pewter ewer, one made by a well-respected smith in the early 17th century in what would one day be Greenwich Village, was being put up for sale. It had been owned by a family for decades...and it was a piece that was at the same time both incredibly expensive...and incredibly rare. Only two of that ilk were known to exist, one private and the other owned by a museum in the Midwest.

My parishioner was dying. He knew it, and he knew his time on earth and in this life was drawing to a close...and yet, that one piece he had been waiting for his whole life was available. He could have it. It could be his, if only in name before it became part of his estate. Why buy some thing, when you wouldn't be needing things much longer?

I learned from him that it wasn't the object so much as the search. It wasn't the possession of something to the exclusion of other's access to it, but the opportunity to keep something precious from being lost. It was the opportunity to seek, to find, to have and then to bequeath.

He really did brighten up when the sale was pending...while the object was brought to him...when it joined his collection. And yet, he was the first to acknowledge that having something wasn't really ever truly possessing it. He was just borrowing it for a time from time itself.

As the weeks unfolded, I prayed with him as he set his affairs in order. Nieces received his collection of silks. Nephews portions of his many collections. Finally his estate, at his passing, went to his nephew, a museum curator.

Private of public, those pearls of great price are worth riding out in quest for...not in the having, but in the seeking...and then realizing that all other material wealth is merely the resource needed to first obtain that piece, and then find ourselves at the end of days needing to continue to pass it on along to the next seeker.

You can seek the pearl, even give up all you have to purchase it....but it can never truly be possessed. I stand in awe of that collector and the lesson he taught me about material possessing....and I struggle to keep learning how to seek, to find, and then to share those treasures like that pearl of great price.

Sometimes, I have ears that do listen......

Praying means forgiving...

2011-06-21T11:19:00.000-04:00

My little reader for the Church Fathers has as today's reading a selection from Origen's treatise On Prayer. As I chewed on his words, a host of issues rose up in my heart even as a host of images rose up in my mind's eye. He is quite clear that before prayer can be efficacious, it must first be intentional with regard to the one who prays as being willing to forgive...and to seek forgiveness. To forgive others and ourselves for sins committed and considered is paramount. But it is also of equal necessity to seek a model of forgiveness from God in order to extend forgiveness to those who choose (and in my experience, choose not) to seek our forgiveness.

I see that set in our Church's pattern in the offices of Daily prayer. Morning, Noon, Evening and Compline all begin with a general confession and petition for absolution for thing we have done...and for those things we have left undone.

People cannot obtain their requests if they do not pray with the requisite dispositions and faith, and if they do not conduct themselves in a fitting manner before praying. It is not a cas of saying a great deal or coming to prayer with a soul filled with resentments.

As I sat down to my personal devotions this morning, I found my 20 minutes with God in prayer continually intruded upon. A catbird was mewing in the Dogwood tree just off the porch where I do my prayers. A street cleaner seemed to be intentionally doing laps around our block. My own thoughts were flitting around stuff going on in the parish, amongst friends and family and of course the global crises that continue to loom around us. I am not being trite in saying that on any given day that I can find my quiet prayers derailed by ruminations on anything from a cricket chirping behind the door to the imminent threat of global warming and the mass extinction of marine life in our oceans. It can all sweep me away quite literally to the point of distraction.

So, as I opened my book to find this passage from Origen waiting for me, I find myself discoursing on prayer that is true and consecrated to God as the first fruits of a discipline of forgiveness and reconciliation. I can't pray until I am able to forgive myself for my tendency to indulge in distraction (and to seek God's forgiveness in turn for my evanesence). I can't pray until I forgive the agent and let be the morning song of that cat bird. I can't pray and derive benefit for myself or the people under my pastoral charge until I can forgive and release the burdens I am carrying as a result of the inevitable conflicts that arise between faithful, passionate people in community-with Christ or otherwise.

This morning, as I sat quietly with my prayer beads waiting on God, I once again experienced first the distraction and then the gift that Origen points us toward as he counsels us to first invest and express forgiveness as we prepare to pray. I couldn't "focus" on God until I was willing to let go of the cat bird's song, the sweeper doing his job and the multitude of "to do" things on my day's list of work issues. Once those moments of forgiveness and reconciliation were named and consecrated to God, attention to God then opened up for me. Real, true quiet was right there-derived from the greater, silent love God is continually showering on us.

First of all, they who dispose themselves to pray in this manner will have great advantage in adopting an attitude of prayer which places them in God's presence and engages them to pray to him as to someone who is present and looking at them. For just as certain mental images and remembrances of things which are recalled encumber the mind which lets itself be inundated by them, so can we believe that it is useful to recall that God is present and know the most secret movements of the soul. Thus, the soul is disposing herself to please him who is present to her, who sees her, and anticipates her every thought, the one who searches hearts and reins.

I look into my self at this point in my life and realize that real prayer has only been in me (and has come from me) when I am willing to forgive, love and live into life in the way that God forgives, loves and lives through me. Jesus, when confronted with seeing the people around him as like sheep without a shepherd, did not hold them in contempt. It was at that moment that he expressed deep love and compassion FOR them.

When we allow love, compassion and forgiveness to flow into us...it inevitably flows out from us.

Call it satori. Call it grace. Whatever you call it, I believe at my core that prayer is authentic when we are willing to break ourselves open, seeking forgiveness and the willingness to forgive. Once that is in hand, then the liturgy is ready to commence.

As my day stretches out before me, I realize that in this life we are both given the opportunity to, and face the responsibility as well to for forgive before, during and after prayer. Once that muscle is built up, then we begin to walk more faithfully in the paths that God has set for us.

What I am also realizing, is that in forgiving we get the chance to REALLY see ourselves as God sees us; and to see the world as God sees it.

Hands in the soil...

2011-06-20T10:39:00.000-04:00

Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to catch up with a friend in ministry that I had not spoken to in a couple of months for any length of time (other than to say, "Hey" or "Let's make a plan to get together!"). So, with a bit of time on my hands during a drive to a meeting-and using the hands free option on the car's Bluetooth-we took some time to share where our lives were and how things were going in our respective ministries.

In particular, I wanted to share the good news that the parish and our Community Development Corporation has just recently been awarded three 10x10 plots at a local Community Garden. The Garden was celebrating an anniversary, and was doing so by awarding plots to local charities. Our Community of Hope Ministries being one of them. What a grace! What work to do! Five volunteers showed up at the first session to clear out the weeds and attempt to turn the soil after the Garden leadership had generously done the hard work of the first tilling. Then, about nine other folks showed up to plant dozens of seedlings and transplants of cabbages, corn, beans, squash, pepper and tomato plants. Right now, we are in the process of coordinating the care of the plots (watering/weeding), and soon-God willing-the produce will be augmenting our Wednesday night Community Suppers as well as supplying fresh vegetables for the local Food Pantry.

I also spoke about our parish's commitment to ampleharvest.org and its challenge to gardeners to donate produce from their own gardens to food distribution sites in their local communities.

I confess to no small amount of excitement. I love working in the garden, growing food for the table...and to be able to link up that joy with the exercise of good stewardship of resources to the benefit of those who are hungry and in need is a double blessing. So much of church work is "up in the head" and many hours of my work time are spent behind a desk. I give thanks for the times I get to be out, with people visiting, working to get hungry people fed and the needs of people met. It keep my blood flowing and my body from puddling into a lump...and it hopefully makes the church and the world a better place to live in.

My friend pointed out at the end of this soliloquy that as she saw it, this has become a hallmark of my ministry. At my last parish, we started a community garden that grew food for a local soup kitchen and food bank. At the parish before that, I tried rather unsuccessfully to get a garden going-and learned how not to get things done in ways that have helped the latest efforts. In all these places, though, I have seen a growing sense of working to build up links between what we do with our hands and hearts to how we serve others. A little bit of sweat, and the willingness to give something that will grow and bear fruit inspires people...and inspired people are more joyful, keyed in and open to where God is wanting to lead them in life.

My thoughts today, as I made my way in from our own family garden to work, was two-fold. Soon, there will be tomatoes, peppers and perhaps even some squash. We will reduce our own food bill...and as well-perhaps even more importantly...we will be able to give some of those vegetables away. One for me and two for you...it really does make the food we grow taste better. Perhaps because life is sweeter?

Baggage....

2011-06-16T13:51:00.000-04:00

It's a great word, a provocative one. In ancient/olden times, the baggage was all the stuff we needed to drag along behind us when we traveled. Your baggage might be only a sandwich, some water and a few trinkets kept close in a bag tied to your belt. It might be a procession of carts and people in and of itself, moving on alongside a caravan, a processing monarch or an advancing army.

Nowadays, baggage has devolved into two simple concepts. The first relates to economic expense. Airlines place restrictions on the amount of baggage you can carry on board. Too much, and extra costs are assessed If your baggage exceeds specific space restrictions, you might lose easy access to it in the cabin and be required to relinquish it at the gate as you board your flight. In any event, baggage is now the stuff we hope we can carry with us as we travel...and even what goes into our baggage might restricted for security and safety reasons.

On the other side of the post-modern concept, baggage is that history we tote around as we explore how we are to relate to the people we encounter in this mortal lifetime. We get baggage from people who hurt, harm, harry or hamper us in our personal development. Usually, that baggage is exhibited when someone we encounter piques our memory and provokes us into dipping into that seemingly bottomless (yet weighty) bag of past issues that we insist accompany us wherever we go, and with whomever we meet.

I have had many moments in my personal life when my baggage, or someone else's, has impacted my comfort, my ease, my peace of mind. At the same time, I have also been the agent provocateur as other's baggage has wound up on my doorstep, with me kicking through it and setting off old scores or awakening old pain, or scratching old wounds open again. It's not something any of us are happy about doing, yet it is something we continually to each other...and to ourselves, if we are being honest.

A place I see baggage exhibited quite often is in the parish church community. Legitimately, dealing with our baggage and helping others to deal with their own lies at the heart's core of being a community fully vested and invested in living out the life of Christ as the one who redeems and heals us of our wounds. Realistically, that "dealing" with baggage too often degenerates for us as individuals, groups and communities. We get caught up in the stuff as we sort it out. We can't resist pushing our stuff into other people's collections. We make people responsible for stuff we would rather see done away with...but that we can't quite seem to let go of as it comes out into the light of day.

One of the promises in the Baptismal Covenant asks that we "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves." Here's the thing about that: if I am willing to seek and serve Christ in all persons, then what am I doing by putting my stuff onto other people's stuff and then complaining when that stuff only seems to stir up more....stuff?

An old aikido sensei I had talked about how important it was to our personal safety-and to the well being of other people in the dojo-that we be willing to take off our "outside heads" at the door where we traditionally removed our shoes. "Bring nothing onto the mat except your true, honest self; and expect nothing less from your partners that they should do the same." Then, when it was time to go home, he would urge us to take out shoes, but leave our outside heads on the proverbial shelf. Take our true, trained and calm selves home. Leave the junk behind.

So, how much baggage are you dragging behind you right now? Would you be able to get onto a plane with the weight that is in those duffels of your cataloged and hidden past wounds, experiences and provocations? Are you willing to part with a few of those sharp-edged and even poison-tipped objects that are part of your personal arsenal of self-defense and self-abuse?

What does it look like for the church (and after church, for the world) if you are really willing to walk in and offer up to God's healing light the stuff we think God wouldn't want to see, much less receive as an offering?

Honestly, that is the stuff that I think God WANTS US TO GIVE UP. Once we do that, then our bags are ready to be packed for the pilgrimages that God is intending for us. With the past pain, remembrances and umbrages set aside, there is room enough for grace, for peace, for hope and for joy.

And I am sure, just as love "dont' cost a thing," I am sure it doesn't weigh much, at all.

On Christian authority (with a little help from Ignatius of Antioch)

2011-06-15T10:33:00.000-04:00

I have a good friend and colleague who has just been blessed with election to the episcopate. He is now the bishop-elect of the Diocese of Nebraska, and he, his family and his soon-to-be diocese are surely blessed by the Holy Spirit that after a long period of discernment and prayer that God should so powerfully call them together to more deeply explore the life of Christ. That's the poetic and political thought. The more base line I would offer in the vernacular is that I am utterly stoked to see someone I respect and love as a brother be able to both articulate a call to the episcopate, and then have that call ratified with a resounding "amen" from the community that will accept him as overseer in a few short months.

It's a big call: bigger, I think, than most people realize at this point in the church's history. We are once again at a point of flux, perhaps several points of flux, as a community of faith. The Episcopal Church is seeing deep change in its leadership due to the impending retirements of a large generation of clergy and lay leaders. It has also seen an influx of people to the denomination who are converts to the faith, or to the way the faith of the Church catholic is articulated at this point by TEC. On top of that, we are still in the throes of a culture war between folks who remember-and desire to maintain-things "the way they 'always' have been" and folks who are seeking radical and progressive change to systems they perceive as antiquated and sadly, dominated by patriarchal and exclusionary theologies that are out of step with where they see the Holy Spirit guiding us. And, of course, there are the folks who DON'T WANT CONFLICT.

Great time to be called as a leader? Yes. Really.

Because I know the man, and I see in him and in the people of this generation a group of leaders who are able to acknowledge that they are not "all that and a bag of chips" while at the same time being just that. Leaders who can lead people through crazy, changing times have been rare...but are becoming more and more common, and welcome, as the Church begins to evolve into whatever the next generations are called to shape it into in God's good time and in accordance with God's will.

He, and his diocese-to-be are in my thoughts this morning. This is due for the most part because a daily reader of samples from the early Church fathers offers today's reading as an excerpt from a letter of Ignatius (Antioch) to the Trallians. More on Ignatius here.

As he writes to the Trallians, Ignatius opines on the deep connection between the Bishop and the people. This relationship, he holds, is primary to the nature of us being the Church and the Body of Christ. That pastoral bond between the people of God and the person charged with their pastoral care and called to leadership is paramount, and its health exhibits the Church's vitality...first, and foremost. After that, there comes the call to the people to both support and call forth from their presbyters and deacons the very best in virtue, spirit and graceful conduct in ministry:

Reports of your splendid character have reached me: how you are beyond reproach and ever unshaken in your patient endurance--qualities that you have not acquired but are yours by nature. My informant was your own bishop Polybius, who by the will of God and Jesus Christ visited me here in Smyrna. He so fully entered into my joy at being in chains for Christ that I came to see your whole community embodied in him. Moreover, when I learned from him of your God-given kindliness toward me, I broke out in words of praise for God. It is on him, I discovered, that you pattern your lives.

Ignatius his holding up a model of how we might choose to live in Christ, in the Church. What happens in our lives when we live with the support of our leaders in the highest esteem? What happens when we not only expect the best from them, but do our best to lift up, care for and nurture the best in them? What happens when the virtue and health of the parish, the Diocese, the Body itself is the first and chief aim of leaders not over and against the will of the people...but in accord with them? Simple answer, the Church glows with grace and strength.

Sadly, where authority lies, there also resides power...and human beings experience power more often as a drug that intoxicates, rather than one that brings cure and consolation to those who are suffering. I have seen it time and again in the Church. I have seen and felt it time and again in myself. It isn't easy to live in that place where the ability to change things becomes for a person, committee or community a way to dominate and control, instead.

So, Ignatius has reminded me...and my friend's great joy in being called to a new ministry to a wonderful Church in a great Diocese support the same...that as leaders we are called to exhort primarily from our faith and commitment to Christ Jesus as the model and pattern in all things. As well, that we continue to teach the people of God that authority and power in all shapes and sizes can only be holy when it exists within the grace and consolation of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

A blessing on all Christian leaders today, lay AND ordained. We have a lot of work to do, on ourselves and on behalf of the Church for a whole world of need and want as humanity seeks God's mercy and healing light.

Falling in love with Common Prayer all over again...

2011-06-14T10:19:00.001-04:00

At last night's Vestry meeting, I used the devotion time to mark and celebrate the lesser feast of The First Book of Common Prayer. This feast is traditionally kept on the first weekday after the Feast of Pentecost, and as our meeting happened to fall on this auspicious feast, well...what ho!

And so to open, I asked the group to turn to the first page of the BCP (1979). Simple stuff, but still-when was the last time you took your prayer book and, instead of letting it flop open to either page 323 (Rite I Holy Eucharist) or 355 (Rite II) where the dog-eared pages are worn and sticking out, you instead went for a ramble-a walkabout-to places less frequented. When was the last time you took the road less-traveled in a book that has stood as a pillar of our Anglican identity for hundreds of years?

This little treasure has been a companion for me in my walk with God for the entirety of my life. Sometimes it is a road map for my path to Christ. Other times it is the ready voice that offers words I struggle to find in myself. Always, it is a link and tie to something bigger and greater than my own thoughts, ego, sense of self when it comes to recognizing my place in the wider Church and in the world.

If the BCP were a classic car, it would be an old, well-loved 1957 Chevy that my grandfather gave to my dad who then gave it to me...teaching all of us along the way how to care for it, tune it and find parts for it to keep it running. I can feel that, even though I am not (nor is my Dad) a "car guy."

It is that song on the radio that triggers memories of your youth. You know the words and your heart fills with remembrances of emotions and experiences that only serve to accentuate the current moment. It is something that makes the past real while at the same time working to transform the present into a hint, a foretaste, of what may come to be in the days and years ahead.

As a priest, I have only served under one version of the BCP. The previous iteration (1928) was the one I was baptized into the Body of Christ with as an infant...and I have brief memories of the studies and probationary liturgies in the early seventies that would eventually coalesce into the current prayer book. Still, I have been pastor to several people who call even the 1928 revision the "new" prayer book.

This tradition is old, and yet it is always renewing itself, and the Church, as each new generation claims it and the works to reform it into its own gift for those who will follow....

In the church I serve now, the original prayer book given to us around the time of the award of our charter (1774) by the society that supported our application to King George III still rests in our nave beneath glass. It was a singular gift to a small country church, surviving the passage over the Atlantic from England to the colonies, then on horseback and by cart to Spotswood...and now 280 some years later after it was bound in a book bindery in London by some forgotten publisher, it continues to serve as a signpost on our journey to, and with, God. Our prayers have echoed for generation in a common tongue, giving light and consolation to countless throngs of people seeking a way to worship and serve Christ in a tradition that is deeply rooted in a catholic faith that is always being reformed and renewed by the Holy Spirit.

Here's to Common Prayer, and to the host of human souls that have preserved it as a relevant tool to express the grace of Christ to the Church and to the world for generations!

On the Custody and Conservation of Water

2011-06-07T10:01:00.000-04:00

New Jersey is getting ready for another heat wave. We have been high, and dry, and hot for the past couple of weeks. There was a respite or two of cool nights and bright, clear days...but I have a feeling those are gone for a while. Storms, heat and humidity. Lovely.

Lovely, really, for the garden. Our hard work this spring has paid off with the blessings of new beds and plantings of ornamental trees, flowers and shrubs. The raised beds we put if for the growing of vegetables is chock full of goodies. The zucchini is growing fast. Our kale is really looking great. There are buds and flowers (and even signs of early fruit) on the pepper and tomato plants. The lettuce and greens are on their second time around and the peas are starting to recover from the rabbit assaults earlier in the season. We are blessed.

And busy.

All that new growth is needing care and protection from pests. All these young plants need lots of water.

Each morning, after the dog walk Laura and I hit the yards and pull out the hoses in order to make sure the gardens have enough water to make it through the day-sustained for the hard work of turning sunlight and soil nutrients into food, bright colors and beautiful smells. Water is important, paramount, to their health. We draw that water for the most part from the hoses off the house/city supply. Soon, we hope, we'll start using water from a reclamation barrel we put in a couple of weeks ago. All that water, giving life and bringing forth growth. It's been a blessing to embrace that chore of watering as a spiritual exercise...and more and more I find myself meditating during the watering on the sacramental grace of the work. It isn't just about spraying things down and soaking earth. It is about striking a healthy balance in life for living things placed in our custody and care.

As we get ready to mark the Feast of Pentecost with baptisms, I am seeing some strong parallels between what I do each morning in service to the garden and the work of sprinkling a little cool tap water on the uncreased young foreheads of new souls being brought to a life in Christ. The water of Baptism is an apt sign of the grace of the Spirit. As John Chrysostom said in one of the Catechetical Instructions:

"...why did Christ call the grace of the Spirit water? Because all things are dependent on water; plants and animals have their origin in water. Water comes down from heaven as rain, and although it is always the same in itself, it produces many different effects, one in the palm tree, another in the vine, and so on throughout the whole of creation. It does not come down, now as one thing, now as another, but while remaining essentially the same, it adapts itself to the needs of every creature that receives it. In the same way the Holy Spirit, whose nature is always the same, simple and indivisible, apportions grace to each as the Spirit wills."

Simple water: two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Basic, elemental and crucial to life on this planet as we know it. It is so essential...and yet it is not until it is given freely and with abundance that it in itself can give life.

Tomorrow...what about floods?

The perception of investment....

2011-06-06T16:09:00.000-04:00

When I was much younger, still had knees and ankles that could support me and was striving to make a solid contribution to my high school soccer team, there was an incident between my coach and my dad that has become a life lesson to me on any number of levels.

This moment occurred when my dad came to pick me up from two-a-day practices in the pre-season. I had run track the previous spring and had been training quite hard over the summer in order to be in good condition for the fall season. I had put the hard work in, and yet the coach seemed to remain unimpressed by my output. I was leading the sprints, had a good foot on the ball and was doing well in the intra-squad scrimmages. Still, little to no positive feedback.

I had spoken to coach, and he had said that I was "doing just fine...keep working at it." Not much to go on, in that I felt that no matter what I was doing there seemed to be no real change in my status.

My dad approached the coach and asked him what was going on. He told my dad that he just "didn't get" me, in that I was first on the line (and first over the line) and that I seemed to be making solid contributions...but that I just didn't seem to be sweating enough. To my young mind, that made no sense. I got upset that with all I was putting out, the fact that my shirt wasn't wet with perspiration seemed of such little consequence.

With age (and now with no knees to speak of after years of soccer, rugby and martial arts), I am having an Epiphany. The coach wasn't indicting my lack of sweat stains...he was lamenting that I had potential I wasn't living into....I wasn't sitting back on my heels. By no means...but at the same time, I had not committed my whole self to the effort. For his own sake, he wanted to see me break a sweat as a sign of my own willingness to push not only to my limits, but perhaps a little beyond them.

I confess that a great deal of my life is lived withing what I think I am capable of (sometimes that is more than I really am able to deliver, but for the most part I keep a healthy safety margin with regard inside the limits) when it comes to personal abilities. Giving my all is a tough thing for me to tender...in some ways I fear it, because when I get that far into something I often feel myself getting into a dark, competitive place where victory is an all-or-nothing enterprise. In other ways, that sort of commitment also takes me away from being lazy. Another past-time that has plagued me.

What a balance it is, to measure hard effort in proportion to visible effort...to be willing to let people see you sweat as well as being willing to work to and past the point where sweat (both physically and metaphorically) are apparent.

When it comes to relationship, people want to see us as "all-in" in proportion to their investment. Not being perceived as sweating enough is evidence to many of a lack of mutual investment...and sometimes it really is that...

...and sometimes, it isn't. The hard part of that event in my life as I see it now from 30 years out, is that I am finally coming to a place with a two-fold realization...the person to whom my sweat matters the most is myself. I am responsible for finding and then pushing past self-limitations; and as well to be willing to offer up and demonstrate that I am willing to sweat it out with those I love and respect.

...and here we are in NJ, getting ready for several days of 90+ degree heat and high humidity. Sounds like it's time to sweat a little, and show a little love, respect and grace to those around me.

Pardon the pit-stains, folks...really, it means I care. ;)

As the dust settles...

2011-05-23T14:59:00.001-04:00

We are coming off a pretty tumultuous month. In the space of just a few weeks, Laura and I have traveled back to Michigan to mark the death and celebrate the life of her brother Frank-who was killed in a car accident; I have gone on retreat; we have had a death of a life-long member of the parish here at St. Peter's after she weathered a hard passage of illness and pain, and then marked a massive celebration of early communion for our second-grade Sunday School class. I am amazed that all of this has happened, really, in just the past two and a half weeks. Sometimes, life is just-well-overwhelming in the magnitude and intensity of the waves and winds that pull us back and forth. From sorrow to joy, from desolation to consolation and back again.

As the small windstorms that have circled around the Shelly homestead wane a bit and the dust kicked up by them begins to settle, I am working on bringing all of the experiences of the past weeks into some kind of coherent matrix. Perhaps there can be some wisdom to gain from these moments? Perhaps some changes are due in my life to let the impact of the good and the sad we have experienced bring some "added benefit" to my and Laura's existence?

Honestly, I wish I could say that was happening. But, I find myself tripping up a bit, allowing old and bad habits to manifest themselves in my daily walk with God in community with my wife, family, friends and church. I stay up too late distracting myself from rest with books, movies, and petty entertainments. I eat a bit too much, hoping that a slightly over-full feeling in my stomach will fill the empty place in my soul left by people we know and love in their flight to Christ. I let anger, fear, worry or stress cross the threshhold of my life and dwell therein....most times.

And then, today is an instance, I stop the cycles of turning from those opportunities to embrace a bit of quiet, a period of prayer, on behalf of life beyond me. I think that is what is missing when I succumb to indulgence in the face of stress. Instead of distraction, I hone in on the hope and grace evidenced by seeing how people can love, can act, can care for each other even in the midst of grief, loss and the feared-or realized-death of loved ones.

Faith in God also requires faith in the self/community. I know I preached it on Sunday, but I also find that even a preacher who is passionately committed to a shared life of grace needs to remember to dial in to that grace on Monday mornings...much as all else in this life.

Christ give me the grace to eat moderately today, love with abandon and then go to bed early....

When conflict defines us...and what Jesus does about that....

2011-05-05T14:19:00.000-04:00

This past week saw the news that United States Special Forces, namely the SEALs teams, were able to enter a compound just outside of Islamabad, Pakistan where the United States' "Public Enemy Number One," Osama bin Laden was in hiding.

Now, he is dead. Almost ten years have passed since the infamous destruction of the World Trade Center towers, the attack on the Pentagon and the aborted attack on the White House which resulted in the plane crash in a rural field in Pennsylvania.

Any number of feelings have been working their way through my psyche and heart for the past few days. One feeling is a rising sense of frustration with the "ongoing coverge" of the death of a terrorist leader after a decade of the death, destruction and economic stressors of wartime have done more to ravage the planet than he was able to accomplish during his now curtailed carrer as a public enemy of the State. Every news cycle, the media come online with "new details" and want to update us on what is being released, revealed or leaked about the raid, about bin Laden's death, about the various intelligence agencies and governments as they attempt to manage and spin opinion on this event.

In the midst of that frustration there is also a deep sadness. I am saddened by images of people standing at street corners belting out "God Bless America" and waving flags, bottles of champagne and beer cups as they congratulate each other with high fives that we as a nation "finally got him." There is reason to express release, surely. Relief, even, for people who lost, or are losing, loved ones after 9/11. But to celebrate the death of anyone? Even the leader of an "enemy" organization seems to me to only confirm and reaffirm the cycles of violence and hate that created these conflicts in the first place.

Don't get me wrong. I am no pacifist. When someone is attacking you, declaring war on your culture and community, then self-defense is justifiable. What I am saying is that to hunt and kill in order to expunge a blood debt we perceive as being owed us is only to perpatuate the war we did not delcare on itself. The argument is being made, perhaps justly, that this killing was the best justice that could be obtained in a bad situation. It is a marginal effort to find legal justification, but one I respect all the same.

What I fear in the end is that the death of one evil man will fail to do two things: 1) cause us to reconsider and review our choices as a nation over the last ten years, and seek clarity on what was justice and what was outright unjust war; and 2) to learn a lesson that one man's killing often does more to galvanize than to dispell a movement's center.

I am reading a book by a journalist, Christopher Hedges, entitled "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning." In it, he describes war (and violent conflict) as akin to the addictive (and perception fogging) nature of the use and abuse of narcotics. The life we experience in war and conflict becomes an axis of perception that permits our moral compass to spin off kilter, deprives us of a common moral core set of assumptions and blasts our care for fellow humans who are not of our tribe, nation of political inclinations as subhuman.

He is clear, all of us are open to that "high" and all of us are vulnerable to the raw feelings that life in war, or even simple in regular social conflict. Witness the intense, take-no-prisoners political rhetoric of the day. Or, explore your reaction to hearing that a nation has intentionally killed a man. A decade ago, would be we celebrating? In a pre-9/11 world, I am convinced that we would see this week's events as exhibiting a level of barbarity that the United States should be above. Moreover, we would face radical condemnation from the world's community of nations for violating the sovreignty of another country's soil only a few short kilometers from its national capitol.

So, in the midst of this moral ambivalence I am experiencing, I turn to Jesus...fitting in Eastertide, the season of our Lord's Resurrection. He was a rebellious, seditious man whose followers posed a threat to the dominant superpower of the age. They used the most intentionally brutal form of execution known at the time to invoke shock, awe, fear, grief and paralysis to kill him and discourage his followers. How easy would it have been for them to galvanize around their leader in his new life to fight for the kingdom of God and expell the Romans from the Holy Land.

Instead, we learned a new way from the One whome God had raised from the dead:

"Peace I give you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

When we set aside fear, and put down violence and condemnation, what are we left with...Forgiveness? Reconciliation?

Not an easy path...not when the blood of the victims of violence cry out to us for repayment....

But, in Christ, the debt had been paid in full. That is the great challenge of all of this, I am convinced. Can we learn, and relearn, what it really means to be willing to beat our swords into ploughshares? Can we pray for the soul of an unrepentant man, and at the same time seek forgiveness from God for one more killing added to the lists in these terrible and costly wars? Not easy...and yet that is exactly what we are called to do as we strive for justice and peace.

I guess that is my heart right now. I accept that for many the death of bin Laden means release and perhaps peace of mind. My prayer is that perhaps we might someday find our way to a peace that does not require the blood of our enemies to maintain.

Seeing is believing...

2011-05-02T10:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we marked the second Sunday of Easter with a double Baptism. Little Reagan and Morgan we darling, and the liturgy was one that just seemed to bloom around them and their families as we embraced two new souls as fellow heirs of the kingdom of God. This pair entered the life of Christ just eight days after a baptism at the Great Vigil of Easter. This year's marking of Jesus' resurrection has become for St. Peter's a period of celebration, of birth and rebirth. We are blessed, and God bless the families who continue to bring children forward to join the fellowship of the Body of Christ.

This marks the tenth year that I have (or have supported my rector when I was an assistant) set aside this day as one available to families for the rite of Baptism. For many, the Easter Vigil is a tough sell. It is an evening service, right before a major sacred/secular holiday...and though it is considered efficacious, it is often hardly convenient. Still, we are blessed here.

What makes it both relevant to our current state as a Church and a challenge for me as a preacher is that on this Sunday, we mark the witness of Thomas (the Twin, often called the Doubter) as one late to the proverbial party centered around the Disciples' experience of the resurrected Christ in their midst in John's locked, upper room. He wasn't there that first morning, and missed the surprise. He also says, when the testimony is offered that Jesus is raised from the dead, that he won't believe it until he touches the mark of the nails and puts his hand in the wound in the side of our Lord.

What has built up in me over the years, seeking to bridge the grace of Baptism with this apparent marking of the doubt of one of Jesus' closest associates in the face of the greatest Good News of all time is a sense that when it comes to good news, acceptance takes more than hearing. Acceptance for us human beings requires a more profound and sense-based experience. We need more than just hearing the good news to have it matter, to have it transform our lives.

We need to see it; feel it; smell it; taste it; touch it. We need to bring it into the realm of our own senses for it to be real.

Thomas, at least in my imagination, wanted what they all wanted: for the word Jesus' resurrection to be true. Having those tidings related to him is welcome, of course. But the tale is something apart from the experience, and we all need that experience.

For the resurrection to be real to us, it needs to be a physical, sensible reality that we can reach out and embrace.

So, how appropriate that we use this occasion to mark the celebration of Baptisms in the name of our Lord Jesus! In the same way that our little one baptised the night of the Great Vigil was the first, tangible sign of the resurrected Christ in our midst; so also are these two little ones signs to all us Thomasine "need to see in order to believe" folk around the world. In them we witness the new life of Christ that is present, and ancient. In them, all the promises of our inheritance in the Kingdom of God are demonstrated as secure in the promises Jesus made to us and fulfilled in his resurrection.

In them, we see the life of the Church renewed, and the Paschal celebration of new life in the face of death reconfirmed.

Are you smarter than a moth?

2011-03-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

At our Sunday morning Bible Study, we looked at the passages for Transfiguration Sunday and spent some time reflecting on what mountain-top experiences mena for us in our lives. We also spent time with Peter, our patron and "teacher we learn from by NOT doing/saying what he does/says." The story is simple, a short time after Peter confesses that he thinks Jesus is the Messiah, Our Lord takes him, James and John up on a mountain to pray. There, something strange, wonderful and unnexpected happens. The disciples see Jesus transfigured before them-he is literally glowing with grace-and also perceive Moses and Elijah walking and talking with their rabbi. Confirmation of Jesus being anointed, surely...but what to do with that knowledge and experience?

Try to freeze it in time. That's Peter's impulse. "Lord, let me make three booths, one each for you, Moses and Elijah. Let's stay up here on the mountain."

Peter is experiencing the light of God, and yet he is lost in that light. The right thing to do, we find our later, is to follow Jesus' directive to file away the experience. Save it for later. For now, the Son of Man must be on his way to Jerusalem, to be lifted up and crucified...to be killed and laid in a tomb....to rise again. No time to waste.

Jesus' sense of purpose, his awareness of the light within him, is guiding the group at that point. He has clarity in himself and is able to navigate by the light of God the Father's will for him. Makes sense. Like a moth navigates by the light of the moon, that point of reference enables him to go from the mountain top to the Jerusalem road with a sense of purpose that we can only express a desire for in this life.

Peter, sadly, is distracted by sources of light that through his own perceptions are refracted. The light he navigates by right now is not so much the light of God's love. It is more like the odd porch- and streetlights that distract and confuse moths on their own moon-guided paths. It is not so much that light draws moths, I have learned from some nature show on television...it is that when another strong light source eclipses the true light of the moon, they lose their way.

What a metaphor for us as we seek to dial down the noise in our lives, the light pollution of a thousand, thousand sources of light in our lives that are NOT the light of Christ revealed around us.

Time to figure out how to be smarter than a moth.....

Are you qualified?

2011-03-02T11:29:00.001-05:00

A long time ago, when I was a young curate in Southern Ohio I attended a Diocesan Convention at which a resolution was proposed that bascially called on the Diocese to condemn the licensing and buildling of a pulp mill on the northen banks of the Ohio River. In terms of being a radical action based in a gospel-centered interpretation that we are called as the Body of Christ to strive for environmental as well as social justice, to me it made sense.

Imagine my shock when a senior priest of the Diocese who was by the way a former chemical engineer who fully understood the impact a pulp mill would have on the flora and fauna in an already challenged riverway stood up and moved that the resolution be tabled, "because the Church has no business talking about matters like this that pertain to business and the environment. It is a matter for politicians and scientists." The motion was seconded, and the issue was lost somewhere between that year's convention and the next year's distpatch of business. The pulp mill stands, and yes it employs people and makes pulp for manfactured wood and paper products...it also has raised the ambient temperature of the water below the plant an intolerable 5-8 degrees as well as increasing dioxins in the environment.

I can't say whether or not the Church's action that day, communicated to the State House legislatures, would have meant a change to the plans for the installation of that plant. What I can speak to was my outrage that the Church be considered something apart from the world to the point where we are supposed to keep silent on issues that will directly impact our lives, and the lives we have sworn a Covenant to cherish as living icons of God's love for creation.

Are you qualified?

It's a loaded question. I have seen it lasered at any number of issues and people. The assumption by the asker, without hearing any response, is usually that the targeted person or population is not, in fact, qualified. Personally, I have fallen into that trap too many times; and too many times have I wound up the poorer for it.

I am seeing that question work itself out right now in a couple of ways. One is centered around a person I am watching go up for a job. Is she smart? Yes. Is she capable? I think so, but that is my opinion. Is she ready for the work? Are any of us really ready for a new job? Usually not...part of starting a new job is to be willing to step up and out of what we are good at, what we are used to and what we have learned to expect from work and life in order to embrace new challenges and to grow as people called to evolve. By wondering if that person is qualified, by calling on her to equivocate, are they doing that person...or the future of the institution she wants to work for justice?

The problem is the fear we all have of the responsibility of putting the proverbial keys for the carriage of a new life into someone's hands who may or may not have passed their "drivers' test."

At the institutional level, I know what it is like to lead parishes that are always struggling to figure out how to hold on to knowledge, skill and experience even as the challenges mount around us, with the Church overall in decline and with a major generational shift in leadership looming on the horizon.

I think the key to answering the question, "Are you qualified?" is not "yes;" rather it is "I am willing to learn and to submit to formation for as long as it takes."

I would, with hindsight and experience, now hold that the best response to that resolution against the buildling of that pulp mill would have been a recognition that though we still don't know enough to be experts, we do know enough to see a bad thing looming. We also know that we need to know more and to be part of the solution to finding a way to get the work done and the product obtained in cleaner and safer ways.

I think, with regard to my friend, that her opportunity-and the chance the institution has to work with her in it-is to be willing to say, again, that it is time to go back to the foundation and look at the whole formation process. It's not easy, and represents the harder and more difficult path...but it is the one I believe God is calling us to in this life.

I know for myself, again and again, when I get out ahead of my "qualifications" is when I make the greatest mistakes, and where I grow the most profoundly as a servant of the Most High.

Not easy, but it is the truth.

Am I qualified? Today, not so much, if I can just stay faithfully on the outside edge of my own learning curve....and tomorrow I will with God's grace push the envelope of evolution again.....

Why worry?

2011-03-01T14:21:00.001-05:00

This past Sunday I preached on worry, worry on all levels and at almost every magnitude.

First and foremost, let me offer up this confession. I worry, really almost to a fault. It's not a virtue. My penchant for worry is actually a result of a toxic combination of my own tendency to procrastination, my desire to avoid conflict and my deep need to not have crises disrupt my restful and reflective (and false) "zen" of daily life. So it bascially boils down to the fact that when things don't go along with how I expect them to unfold, or when I am confronted with a challenge I did not choose (again, like we can choose...really), I pitch a fit of worry. My worst quality, among quite a few others that populate my shadow-side.

That manifested for my sermon in recounting a recent experience my wife and I had when our basement was slightly flooded during the last thaw we had in early February. There was not a lot of water on the floor, at its deepest it was just over a couple of inches. For the most part, there was a light skim of wet across the floor. All due to a malfunctioning sump pump, the clean up went apace until we found a box that had been left on the floor after our we "finished" moving in a couple of months ago. The box had a varied assortment of pieces of art and framed mementos from our house in PA that we had kept in storage this past couple of years.

In that box, now damp, was a calligraphy print given to me by one of my professors when I was first ordained. It is a simply decorated quote by Irenaeus of Lyons, a quote that has over time become a touchstone of my life as a priest of the church: "The Glory of God is the human being fully alive." On the back, my teacher had written a note.

The water had soaked into the bottom third of the print.

I freaked. Not my finest hour, among many ignominious moments, believe me. The sad thing is that once again my wife had to remind me that God was offering me a lesson, not only with regard to the impermanence of life and "things;" but also in that the piece of artwork now affected by flood was a PERFECT invitation to live out that very motto. I had been given the opportunity to be fully alive in God. Instead, I had chosen to allow worry to dominate my life.

In the end? She took the print and hung it (after drying it out) next to my closet, directly in my line of sight so I see it every morning. The yellow parchment has a slight watermark stain across it, above the slightly blurred citation and below the gilt of the border of the calligraphy. It is a reminder to me that not only can't I add one hour to my life by worrying (and/or crying over a spill); I can really mess up the journey in Christ of others around me when I do pitch a fit.

It isn't easy, not to worry. For so many people who struggle with depression or anxiety (at whatever level) as a clinical disease, it is a state of being. As I ponder it, the truth is that worry is standard byproduct of being mortal, created and self-aware of our place as "already, not yet" in the arms of a loving God who restores all things.

In the blink of an eye, I can let almost anything get in under my skin. Sometimes, I go out seeking those proverbial burrs in order to stuff them up under my own saddle blanket. Just for the effect, the sensation. It is a toxic practice, worthy of repentance, and represents a sad commentary on modern life. How much miasma must exist in our nerve endings, that we should set our souls on fire with worry just to feel something?

Jesus exhorts us to set worry aside. Why? Because God loves us, keeps a promise and follows through on deliverance. We can't force God to give us a peekaboo into the future (to assure ourselves that there is a happy ending before the credits roll on the movie of creation). We can't change what is past. We can only fully and mindfully inhabit the present moment and do with it all we can to glorify, serve and honor God and each other.

Now, if I can just remember where I put my keys.....

We no longer have fear....

2011-02-23T11:31:00.001-05:00

I was listening to an NPR spot this morning on the drive in to work. On it, a man named Gene Sharp was being interviewed. He is being hailed as a leader and scholar of the non-violent resistance movements that are in the process of rapidly reshaping the world's political, social and economic scenes. Something big is happening, and as he reflects on our times, I find myself musing on a pattern that for all intents and purposes seems to be pointing to a new reality for human structures of authority and dominance. Old systems of physical, political and economic repression and oppression are breaking down. Who knows how long this trend will last, or how far it will extend, but what a time to be alive!

Something in the course of the interview struck me, hard. When questioned about what he had learned from the protestors in Egypt (and by extension, from the uprisings in other parts of the world against strong-man dictators), he pointed to the statement that was offered by many of the protestors...that they no longer had any fear. Their fear of the regime, of the possibility that they would personally be subject to reprisals...all of it was gone. The last tool of the oppressor had fallen. Sharp pointed to his guru, Gandhi, who in so many ways adjured his followers to "cast off your fear." Once that is gone, then you simply can't be overcome. You can be harmed, hidden, disappeared....true...but you can no longer be overcome.

Not an easy lesson to learn, when the worldly powers out there insist on reminding us that we are just one person in a sea of humanity. What power can one, or even a hundred, accomplish without force? Without influence? Without power?

Quite a bit, actually.

If our Christian faith is to mean anything, then we have to be willing to embrace that one person can not only change society. One person can, quite literally, redeem Creation itself. Why? Because in our belief, in our faith, we bear witness to the reality that one person did accomplish that supreme act of resistance to oppressive power. One person, even "unto death on the cross" was able to insist on life, on justice...on hope for the redemption of even the worst of what humanity does to pervert God's handiwork.

Fear is a tough thing to let go of, though. In the end, fear is the thing that most often preserves us. It's done that for millenia. That little surge of adrenalin, that prickling of the hairs at the back of our neck....that herd instinct to RUN when the predators lunge out of the bushes. All of that means that we just might live for another day. We might, just might, have a tomorrow.

But, with God's wisdom and the reality of our call to challenge the powers of this world that are not of God, it is time to realize that fear can no longer govern out hearts, our souls.

Sad thing, really...because so much of our lives are still based on fear. Most of our decisions, even here in the richest country on earth, are based out of an overwhelming fear. Don't think so? Turn on the 24 hour news channels. Most of the commentators and talking heads are either propagating fear (we have to fight them, because if we don't we will die and our children will die), or seeking to install a distrust of "the other" whomever that is (who is acting contrary to their agenda). If we seek to challenge that fear factor, either rationally or irrationally, then we are branded (at best) ignorant or (at worst) a traitor. Rhetoric kills, as much as bullets.

Case in point, the adamancy on all sides of the current budget debate raging in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states wherein the desire to link cost-cutting to breaking collective bargaining agreements is generating massive unrest. The unions refuse to release their place at the table, even when indicating willingness to accept cuts in benefits structures. The Governors are pursuing their original agenda. Submit or flush the whole system down the toilet.

This is not Gospel-based striving for justice and peace....even as the violence in Libya is the worst expression of a hope for a new age in that society.

Going back to Sharp's ethos....what matters most is being willing to speak to power with an agenda of liberation without assuming the lexicon/verbage of negotiation that is a pale offer of change. Real change comes from us being willing to meet each other face-to-face, to surrender power imbalances to mutuality. To embrace grace instead of absolutism.

So, my prayers today are with all people who are choosing today to speak to power in an attempt to present an agenda that brings life, peace and opportunity to all....

May God give us the strength to walk the walk, and talk the talk that leads us to that kingdom of grace bought with the price of Christ's blood....for us and for all who strive for justice and peace.....

Change. It's all about the process.

2011-02-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

Over the course of the past two or three weeks, I have been able to participate in two training/reflection events that focus the people of the Church on ways we might go about organizing our communities toward being able to effectively embrace the world as we experience increasingly dramatic changes in our environments...social, physical and spiritual.

The first was an event titled, "The Parson in the 21st Century." It was a collaborative effort by the two bishops of the Dioceses of Newark and New Jersey. The speaker was a representative of the Industrial Areas Foundation, who took it upon himself (with support from the gathered clergy), to challenge us to embrace a community organizing model that focuses on focusing baseline advocacy with some calculated power analysis. Top that with a willingness to embrace a strong, political agenda that insists on being outside established political engines that seek to preserve the status quo, and you get a recipe for innovation.

He also held up to us that as a hierarchical church in the mainline culture, we for the most part are NOT structured to operate in a world where Facebook, Twitter, the "new i-social" and the availability of information to all levels of society frankly denies the old patriarchal, seniority-based, "top of the pyramid" decision making schemes that we seem to express an almost maniacal attachment to for no other reason than that "we have always done it this way."

The challenge is to see the world, not through socialist eyes (modern construct) but instead through Gospel/Kingdom-eyes. Jesus himself worked from, and at, the base of the society. He taught that at the very moment when we have the most (power, wealth, etc), we are at our most spiritually vulnerable. When we cast off oppression and embrace mercy and God's love for the world, then we are beginning to see the power of God triumphing over the powers and principalities of the world. Not easy. The wheels of government and corporate business are greased with the ways of the world. Power is about access to money and the ability to "get things done," usually at the expense of an other. That day, I kept going back to the line from the contemporary Confession..."we repent of the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf."

The power of the IAF presentation was not only that he was showing us a way of getting things done, exhibiting some interesting tools for that aim...he was also talking to us about how we can talk to power, recognizing that the Church sometime in the last century found a way to give up its voice in public debate. When we surrender that responsibility, or allow it to be co opted by social agendas that seek to say "God thinks this...." to the world without assuming first and foremost God's stated sympathy to the poor and oppressed, we GET IT WRONG.

On the other side, of the church/world culture barrier, I attended an event sponsored by the Fund for Theological Education that focused on ways to lead the Church and its leadership into ways of spiritual discernment that focus on getting our bodies, our minds and our spirits into alignment with each other, with God and with our current environment through prayer, the sharing of testimony and then the creation of a generous and open space for the whole group to innovate, collaborate and create while in a state of prayerful expectation of the Spirit being present to us.

All of this culminated in Sunday's Gospel reading:

Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. "You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."(Matthew 5:38-48)

As I read and preached on this Gospel, I was confronted with images of myself as a Rector at my worst. Over-confident and arrogant with my role, forgetting the mercy of my Savior who called me to this work with his mercy, not my greatness, in mind. I also saw so many people around the world, striving from the base of society, to create a space where a new way of being might assert itself. I feel like we are at a place in our evolution as a human race in which the tools of community-building and information-sharing are finally in the hands of the common people...and the Powers are being confronted with a collection of voices that refuse to be contained or manipulated. Not because the many voices are morally superior, but because the old tools of manipulation are failing...the old, old "Bread and Circus" tactic of the Roman Empire is broken. People don't have bread, and they are unimpressed by the circus. Whether it is workers in Wisconsin refusing to give up the right to collective bargaining (even as they accept the requested cuts and concessions proposed by the governor's budget), or people in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and Libya trying to cast off the old culture of the "Strong Man" leader, we are at the cusp of a new thing happening...people at the base just MIGHT be getting a chance to have a say in how the world is ordered......

He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ (Mark 9:35-37)

A Roman solider, Julia Child, Mohandas Gandhi and NJDOT....

2011-02-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

Salt, a common thing to all of us...combine some salts with some proteins, mix them up and life, well, is. As I readied last Sunday's sermon, I found myself leafing back through the pages of my memories while ruminating on the concept of Jesus telling us that we "are the salt of the earth."

It is a bit of the gospel that we often over look, or glide past on our way to rejoicing in being "the light of the world." I share that eagerness, to toss the salt over our shoulder so we can finally get to a rousing chorus of "This Little Light of Mine," complete with hand gestures. At our morning Bible Study, it was a consensus that we would prefer to look toward the light, and not so much to the salt as we explore metaphors for our role in Jesus' inbreaking kingdom.

I think part of that is because being "light" is a pretty easy thing to achieve in our present day. Easy enough, anyway, to cross the room as the sun sets and put your hand to the light switch. A little twitch of muscle against the resistance of the lever and light floods the room. Forget moulding a lamp out of clay, or pressing oil, or trimming a wick, or even sparking a fire with flintrock and a bit of iron. Being light is easy. And with that light comes lightness. An airiness of heart and mind. Light is cheerful, warm, right? Well, for the most part.

What is salt?

Salty. In fact, our culture right now is oversaturated with salt. We are brimming over with too much salt. It is in our food, beyond what might be needed to add flavor or to preserve freshness. The average American exceeds healthy salt intake by something like a factor of four every day, I think I remember hearing. Why should we want/need/bother with salt?

As with all things Biblical, let's take it in context...and with a willingness to follow Jesus where he is leading us in his effort to remind us to be salty people.

Salt was a necessity in ancient days, and a precious commodity. It took effort, resources, to process and produce. The word salary itself, as we popularly know, came from the Roman salaria, a portion of salt cashiered to each soldier as a portion of his compensation for laying down his life to the honor of the Senate and People of Rome. Julia Child reminds us, in the present day when processed foods have for the most part taken over our lives, to eat with a mindful joy and to enjoy the flavor and color brought to food by things we are supposed to be afraid of, like butter, salt and duck fat.

Salt also can be a sign of inbreaking social justice. Gandhi, on his Salt March, found a way to challenge the hegemony of the British Viceroy in the wake of India's Declaration of Independence that served to challenge the oppressive authority of the British while at the same time preserving the movement's nonviolent moral and spiritual core. He walked, from his ashram to the sea-a journey of almost a month-and broke the law. He picked up a handful of salt crystals. He made his own salt, something the British government forbid. They demanded that all people had to buy salt from their government-sanctioned salt merchants. Poor people could not afford to buy salt (when they had made it by hand or bartered for it before), and instead had to expend valuable and essential resources to purchase something that by Gandhi's assessment of Indian identity they had a birthright access to in the first place.

The most important aspect of salt for us, at least as it bears on our comfort and safety, is the salt strewn on the roadways by our traffic departments. This time of year, there is anxiety about having enough rock salt for all. Just go down to the Home Depot, or Lowe's, or your local hardware. Salt is flying off the shelves. We only miss it when we need it.

So, what use to us are Jesus' words, telling us that we are the salt of the earth? They are paramount. Salt brings flavor to life. It sustains life. It is essential to life being able to exist. If we are salt, as the Body of Christ, then why not be paramount, savory, vital and essential?

In an age when the Church is declining in the Western World to a place of ennui and irrelevance, it makes sense to me to remove some of the complicated, over-worked metaphors and attempt to refresh some old ones. After all, don't we wall aspire, in our heart of hearts, to hear from other people that they think we are "the salt of the earth." I don't think there is a higher compliment.

Time to remember that and get our salt reserves into shape.....

Intercession....prayer and action...Egypt and elsewhere

2011-02-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

The faithful folk of our Morning Prayer liturgies in the office each day have for the past two and a half months been hearing a reading from a collection of daily devotions from "A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer," edited by Carla Barnhill for Harper Collins. It is one of those devotionals I picked up a couple of years ago, more out of respect for Bonhoeffer than for anything else. It looked good, but as with most devotionals, my relationship with it was spotty until a few weeks ago. The daily discipline of our morning prayers in the office helps me keep it at hand, and to be frank, Bonhoeffer's "go for the jugular" theology is becoming more and more resonant to what I see happening in the world, and the Church, around me.

Part of his strength is is ability to nail truth to the doors of perception in our lives. A good talent for a German Protestant, but also one that ultimately cost him his life. Being a moral and systematic theologian of uncompromising principles in his era-that of a Nazi-dominated Europe-was at best risky and for most was usually suicidal. Still, he continues to go for broke in his writings, and with that we get the gift of his insight and wisdom. He quite literally writes a "How To" guide for moral discernment in community and in prayer. God bless him and his memory.

Today, particularly, his words tore me up, soul-wise:

"The Hands of Injustice": When the mouths of the world's rulers remain silent about injustice, their hands invariably commit acts of violence. This language of human hands where no justice exists is terrible. It is there that the distress and pain of the body originates. It is there that the persecuted, captive and beaten church belongs for deliverance from this body. Let me fall into God's hands, but not into the hands of others! Do we still hear it? Christ is speaking here! He experienced the unrighteous judgment, he fell into the hands of men. Innocence is accusing the unrighteous world." -from "A Testament to Freedom 279" (page 39)

I have seen injustice in the world, and in some small ways have experienced it in my time. What I have learned is that the old saying is true, that the first casualty of any conflict is the truth. Again and again, in the Church and in the world, I have seen people allow political, or personal, expediency tempt them into permitting injustice to have its way-for people who are frankly evil and self-serving to dominate and hold captive and controlled others who are less strong or more easily manipulated. It doesn't take much. A loud voice, an adamant opinion, a willingness to cloak agendas in half-truths...sometimes even just a mocking thought planted here and there. Then, after this, comes the erosion of truth, of justice and of righteousness.

It's ugly, and we are at our ugliest when we buy into the process. We do that again and again.

Have you ever stepped away from, or outright avoided, a person berating a cashier for an error THEY were responsible for in the first place? Have you ever allowed a louder person to dominate, and perhaps even reorient, people away from healthy conflict to something akin to giving a group toxic reflux? I have, and it makes me mindful of the moments when I have allowed greater moments of injustice in my life. When have I turned away from a fellow being's humanity? Allowed hate, rage, fear, anxiety, etc. to dominate me, even as I use that negative energy to dominate others? Too often.

Nowadays, I am using that experience to soften my own hard edges-perhaps even to offer up some of that softening to others as we go through another set of paroxystic changes in world and Church political configurations. Take Egypt, so much change all at once. A strong man is losing his grip on power. Social and military institutions are grappling with what the country will look like internally after the change comes. The world sits and watches anxiously to see what will happen next. All while factions that were held at bay from each other being to clash, and people begin to get hurt and to die at each other's hands. It's an ugly reality that Bonhoeffer's wisdom on what it means to be accountable for justice, and to God's agenda of justice for the world, hits home as potently today as it did over 70 years ago.

We still have a long way to go, both domestically and abroad. The first thing, I would hope, in our seeking to intercede and pray for the will to act on behalf of the justice of God's kingdom for others is to resolve to embrace the Truth of Christ's love for all people, and our being accountable to treat each other as God's own true gift outside of our personal agendas. I think it also entails a willingness on our own part to listen deeply to others as they exercise their own agendas, and to also be willing to continue to peel back the callouses that we very often encourage ourselves to grow to defend ourselves from pain and injustice. It hurts to care, but care we must. The model for that is Christ, who somehow was able to find the strength to pray for those who were killing him, even with his last breath.

Today, I pray for Egypt. I pray forgiveness from those I have hurt and for the injustices I have perpetrated or benefited from unknowingly. I pray for justice today, even before I pray for peace.

A quick tidbit from 100 years ago for all my colleauges...

2011-01-25T15:51:00.000-05:00

...prepping for, or recovering from, the annual meeting of the parish they are currently serving!

First, a note: I looked for a record of the 1911 annual meeting. It appears that they did not hold one....

Dec 2, 1912 (St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Spotswood, NJ)

The regular Annual Meeting of the Congregation of St. Peter's Church Spotswood was held after a short service, this the second day of December 1912 in the Parish House at 8 o'clock PM. Present: the Rector W.E. Daw and three members of the congregation, all of whom were eligible to vote. The Rector as chariman and the Secty of the Vestry as Secretary of the meeting. The chairman having announced the business of the meeting, the ballot box was declared open at 8:10 PM and closed at 8:45 PM and the result of the balloting announced as follows: Wm. Bissett elected Warden for 2 years; Aug. DeVoe elected warden for 1 yrs; Garner DeVoe elected vestryman for 3 years; Gustav Sager elected vestryman for 3 years; T. Francis Perrine elected vestryman for 2 years; Augustine Connell elected vestryman for 2 years; Chas. H. DeVoe elected vestryman for 1 years. A. DeVoe, Wm. Bissett and E. Underhill elected delegates to the Diocesan Convention. Chas. H DeVoe, Chas. B. Hulit, Jr. and J. Perrine elected alternate delegates to Diocesan Convention. The business of the meeting being completed, on motion moved and seconded the meeting adjourned. Wm. Bissett, Secty of Meeting/W.E. Daw, Rector

So, to the best guess...there were four people present in the Parish Hall on the evening of the first Monday in December of that year. They met at 8 PM, said a couple of prayers, certified a quorum of four people and then proceeded to election, which polls being open for 35 minutes (I assume they had some collation? sherry? port?) and then having attained an election, they adjourned. Now, how is that for a low-stress, simple-beyond-words Annual Meeting?

Not sure if they were even in line with NJ state law, and very sure they were only JUST in line with the Canons and bylaws of the parish at the time....

Oy.

Reflections on the Epiphany

2011-01-10T10:32:00.000-05:00

Having had a very busy Christmas season, with a celebration of new ministry at the parish tacked on to family visits and capped with the sadness of losing a beloved and valued parishioner, I realize that instead of bracing against the commercial tides of the holiday season I have instead been in a state of blessed, even holy, suspension. We were so busy with regard to events demanding both attention and energy during this Christmastide, it is only just now that I feel like the dust is starting to settle on the season. It is an odd blessing, odd on two levels....

The first blessing is that I have had some quiet moments over the past couple of weeks to reflect on being in a new place with new people while observing some very ancient and old ways of marking Christ's incarnation in our midst. Christmas has come, as it does every year; but this year it has felt like it has lingered a bit. I am still feeling the glow of the celebrations, of the family time, of the sense that things-though tumultuous-are at the same time trending toward the deep peace of God. It all just feels "right," all the sadness and all the joy are wrapped up in a fullness of our assenting that God really is in our midst. Christ is born in Bethlehem God does keep God's promises.

The second blessing is a renewed awareness that God, while keeping God's promises, is also always doing a new thing. At the parish, we have closed a "good" year. The budget year ended in a surplus, and we are looking not only at a balanced budget for the coming year, but also one that includes growth and renewal in our ministries. We are able at this point to return energy and resources to growing the Church. At the same time, even as new resources become available, the demands God brings to our doorstep are increasing. People in need are finding their way to the church, seeking assistance from the resources with which God is blessing us. The second blessing is us being called to answer the demand from God that the life of faith is not just a "thanks for the blessing, God" but also a respiratory engagement with a world in need. What comes to us is what is being called from us...breathing in, breathing out. When we get, we are called on to give.

I have seen this worked out materially and spiritually over and over again this Christmas- and Epiphany-tide.

Even as we celebrate the Christ being made manifest in the person of Jesus over the next seven to eight weeks, I am also aware that God is going to be seeking from us that same manifestation through us as well. It's more than just observing Jesus turning water into wine at Cana in Galilee, or witnessing healings or the calling of disciples...it is being a willing participant in the feeding, healing and calling of the world to life in Christ.

Saturated in prayer....

2010-11-24T10:48:00.000-05:00

One of the great graces of this cure (a new parish call for a priest), one that has been a mutual gift from the first day I was in the office here on Main Street in Spotswood, has been Morning Prayer at 9 AM with the staff and anyone else who is interested in joining with us. What began as a spontaneous sharing of prayer between myself and our parish administrator has grown into a steady and welcomed addition to our parish's prayer life: a great witness that small seeds planted with faith in God to give growth do in fact do just that by the power of the Holy Spirit. The congregation ranges in numbers, from three to sometimes as many as seven, but always there are just enough to gather in God's name, pray, read scripture and remember people in need and all things we can be thankful for as the day opens anew.

A benefit of that prayer time, I am finding, is a humbling awareness that much of what I can muster in term of productivity and ability very often flows from the fact that the day begins first in prayer. Sitting down to a to-do list, no matter how short or long, seems to drag on days without prayer being the first item....and on days when prayer is first I find that more gets done, sometimes more than I had on my list in the first place!

Clearly, I can ascribe this blessing to God...for when the day begins in prayer I can pretty much assume that with a little focus I can continue my work in prayer. And thus, better focus! But that is only a portion of the solution, I am finding.

The more I pray, I find, the less I pray about my own concerns. I find myself orienting outwards, and it is almost like the pores on the surface of my soul are actually softening and opening up to what the world's concerns are, and how the Church might actually be of help to it. You might say, "OF COURSE! THAT'S YOUR JOB!" It is. Still, prayer is a discipline and a choice. It only happens when you choose to participate in it, to make it happen in you and around you. Sometimes the ordained are good at choosing to pray actively and with an ongoing focus. Sometimes, the fall away from the practice. It happens to all of us in season.

So, right now, prayer is coming easily to me, and I am working on getting as much of it into my soul's pores as they can hold. That is why I offered that title to this post...as I focus on the day's work after spending another morning first devoted to prayer, I feel like I am well-set with a sense of being at least a little closer to God's presence than I was when I got out of the car this morning and walked into the office to begin the day. May God guide to its end as it began: in prayer.

Reading the parish history...

2010-10-27T13:26:00.000-04:00

One of the honors of serving a parish with a relatively long history is learning about that narrative on a lot of different levels. You can learn the history from the oral traditions the people present, stories about past rectors and clergy, lay staff and folks of singular personality who in their time had an impact on a particular person's life. You can learn from documents, both primary and secondary, that might exist in the parish. You can also see the impact of the years on the church, the campus' buildings and surrounding grounds. Finally, you can learn a lot about a church from the way people in the wider community see it.

All of these experiences have been flowing over me for the past couple of weeks. St. Peter's story goes back quite a ways. There were settlers in the area (Anglicans, for the most part) going back to the 17th century. The crossroads and waterways, what would become the township of Spotswood, dates back to the early 18th. our parish received its formal charter as a mission of the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel in 1773, but services (and a church building) existed years before.

The challenge of being a church in those days was not a small one. There weren't many clergy, and thus the Prayer Book held many rites that were not available to the local population. Still, I am amazed at the stories told of the vestries and clergy that worked to make this church a vital place for the life of Christ in their generations. Not easy. Wars and economic depressions wreaked havoc on the local and regional economies. From the Revolutionary War, up until the present day, you can see the slash marks on the parish from the blows it took during those seasons of hard times.

Still, for what many churches have weathered, St. Peter's has survived its share of challenges.

But the published narrative is only the tip of the iceberg. The roots of this place are deep, I am learning. Having served this town, and made Christ known at the crossroads for many years, I am learning a new humility as I ponder my time here as a rector. There were 35 others before me, and hundreds more wardens, and thousands more of the faithful, who did their part to deliver a church Body to the present day. I wonder where next God is calling us....and God willing, what chapter we will write in the history books? No small challenge.....

Getting scared....

2010-10-25T10:29:00.000-04:00

Last night the SPYO (youth group at St. Peter's) went to a classic fall tradition for many in this part of the world...an annual pilgrimage to a local farm that in the post-harvest season has been converted into a "Field of Terror" !

We drove through the wilds of central Jersey (yes, they do exist-even when they look like ex-urban fields slowly becoming developed bedroom communities) in the early dark, arriving at the farm just before the "hayride of terror," the "haunted cornmaze" and "deserted barn" adventures kicked off in earnest. The youth participated in various combinations of activities...with various actors roaming the common snack bar area in costume. There was a professional-wrestler sized guy dressed like an axe wielding hillbilly, the demon carrying a little hellspawn baby (puppet) and the 6'5" chainsaw swinging ghoul in white face that was traced with "blood" running from a "wound" on the top of his head.

Great fun....

I got home late and started to think about the experience. I remember haunted houses from when I was a kid, mostly experienced during the county fair in the town where I grew up. You know, one of those big, carnival trailer things that folds out and up into a house of horror, a maze of mirrors and dark corners that are booby trapped with foot plates that set off various flashes of light, screaming and lunging skeletons and loud buzzes and explosions...all designed to give you a good, hard start....I loathed and loved those experiences in my youth.

There were a few moments like that last night. Getting chased by a chainsaw-toting Joker doppleganger was right up there on the fright list, as was the moment in a smoke filled room when a couple of dark, hulking shapes loomed up out of a misty silence without warning....

But on the whole, I spent more time being amused and bemused by the spectacle. Not to knock the actors' performances. They put their heart and "undead" souls into their work. Still, the old thrill of being really scared was gone. Why? Believe me, I can still get jumpy when it is "too" dark, quiet, or spooky on a regular night. Being a priest, and serving now at a church with an appropriately spooky churchyard full of ancient burials it isn't hard late at night to feel a little of the creepy crawlies lurking around at the edge of my night vision.

Still, I think there is something to being a little older, and a little more experienced around the sadness of true evil in this world. There is a lot to see, and to be frightened by, in this life when it comes to that-which-is-not-God starts to flew its muscles and make itself known. I have seen it in all parts of life, on the global scale (acts of terror, economic injustice and outright imperialistic manipulation of people by dominant cultures and institutions). I have seen it even in the local churches I have served, when people-good people-after a time of distraction and confusion find themselves on dark paths while they seek their own will instead of God's and choose to cloak it in words that sound holy, but ring hollow. Even places can get a negative and not-God centered charge.

Jesus, in his earthly ministry, confronted those forces that were not of God in both direct and indirect ways. He cast out spirits that distorted people who desperately needed to feel God's healing touch in their lives. He confronted the institutions of his own culture, as well as the invading and dominant Roman Empire, with news of a kingdom that was not going to be won with any other blood being shed than his own.

Even St. Paul faced down the principalities and powers of his own age. Evil's term of influence, he preaches, is coming to an end...even as we prepare to receive Christ in his second coming, we need to be ready to challenge the things that are not of God and the incoming kingdom in order to take our place alongside out forebears in the faith as servants of the One who was, is and is to come.

Can a chainsaw buzzing in my face scare me, much, when these greater issues loom before me in this life? There is a lot of God-service we are called on to offer up as the evil things in this world are overthrown by our God who, loving us, calls us again and again to turn from the shadows in and around us to the great light of the life of the Son, Jesus Christ.

I did enjoy the....startlement....of last night, but I also am aware today of the reality that the things that go bump in the night that really scare me and mobilize me into action are the all-to-real evils of our broken world and its sins against the love that our Creator bears toward us.

So, as we enjoy the pageantry of a find Hallowe'en celebration, let's remember why we do this annual dance with ghasts, ghosts and hobgoblins: the real thing to fear, and face, are the bits of us that hide in the shadows and reject God calling us to repentance, healing and hope in Christ Jesus.....

Sunday's sermon synopsis....

2010-10-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted for a while. The realities of beginning a new call, arriving in a new parish and finding my way around the office, the sacristy and (most important) getting to know the people of St. Peter's has kept my attention for the better part of the last three weeks. Believe me that the dust is far from settling out on the transition; but right now is a quiet moment in the study for me as I prepare for my first Vestry meeting with the leadership of the parish...and I decided to take some time to process and offer up my work on the sermon I preached yesterday. What follows is a synopsis/interpretation of my preaching. I don't work from a script or notes, so keep in mind this is a reconstruction of what I talked about from my perspective. For those who listened, God may have offered up another interpretation.....

The sermon began with a reflection on the recent clergy conference I was privileged to join in the Diocese of NJ this past week, representing St. Peter's as its new rector. My old seminary professor in liturgics and homiletics was our presenter, and he did a blessed piece of work, reporting to us as both a Bishop of the Church engaged in questions of liturgy and leadership and as a pastor offering reflections on the evolution of Common Prayer in our collected lifetimes. That meant a lot to me, and I am excited to see where next God is leading us in worship and the discernment the Church is taking toward the "next" Book of Common Prayer.

On another tack entirely was a meeting that one of our brother priests called us to at the outset of our free afternoon. In the wake of the Tyler Clementi suicide here in New Jersey (and in the notice people are taking of the suicide rate among young people across the nation), a group of us gathered to discuss what our pastoral response might be to young people facing the soul-killing experience of being bullied, teased and rejected for their being different from the norm, whatever that might look like. That, coupled with increases in connectivity techonology, are making our young people's lives a terrifying minefield of risk. There is no safe place, anywhere they might find refuge from those seeking to do them harm on a physical, psychic or spiritual level.

Tyler's plight, heart-wrenching as it is, happens to be only the tip of the ice berg. Young men and women struggling to articulate and express the adults they are in the process of evolving into, face near-insurmountable challenges to their privacy. Couple that challenge with Tyler's sexuality and his roommate's lack of respect for his privacy and a deadly thing happened. Tyler decided to kill himself after an intimate encounter between himself and another man was broadcast over the internet by his roommate and a mutual friend. A young man killed himself because he thought there was no where to go with his shame, his fear and his embarrasment. There lies the greatest sin....not suicide, but the fact that there are so many of us who would have gladly embraced and loved him through this trauma-of only we had known he was in pain; and if only he knew that there was a place to turn.

The outcome of the meeting provided us with a couple of ideas and initiatives. One of those was to go back to our home congregations and use the one thing we all have in common as parish priests, our pulpits, to preach about God's love for all, particularly young people like Tyler who need a double dose of acceptance and support. We are also resolved to discover ways to push the plight of youth being victimized by bullying in any form to the forefront of our consciousness. After years of light-speed development of new technologies to enhance communications between people in our culture, it is time to slow down enough to let our ethics catch up with our capabilities. It is time for us to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in new ways to people who need an effective level against which to judge their choices and how they choose to view our fellow human beings.

In the Episcopal Church, rooted as we are in scripture, prayer and tradition, there are clear markers on this path to ethical and moral renewal. Our expression of the summary of the Law that Jesus commends in the pharisee who visits him by night: "Love God with your whole being; love your neighbor as yourself." is enough for most. On top of that, our Baptismal Covenant also challenges us to "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor as [ourselves.]" Both ideals provide an immediate linkage between what we are called to do in loving each other, and the need to challenge bullying and the senseless and inconsiderate lack of care that lead to the suicide we see among young people like Tyler.

In today's Gospel, there is the story of ten lepers who call out to Jesus for help. He tells them to go and show themselves to the priest (something all were required to do once the signs of leprosy had faded and ritual cleansing had taken place). As they went, all ten noticed they were clean....one turned back to seek the Master, a double-reject in that this leper was also a Samaritan (unwanted "foreigner"). This one, Jesus declared, was because of his faith made whole.

It is time for us to declare the healing that Jesus announced...to get off the stick and onto work of mercy that remind people about who and what we intend to be as a Church....that we offer welcome and sanctuary to all who need it. Doesn't matter what you look like, sound like or who you happen to be....you are welcome here. Period. And we rejoice, you blessed folk needing care and love. We have that to give, with some to spare, because God has seen fit to shower it on us in abundance.

Now, if we can only remember to keep offering it up to ANYONE......

The saying is sure.... (I Timothy 1: 15)

2010-09-08T10:32:00.000-04:00

I am 43 and a cradle Episcopalian. That means that I was born in and to this Church, and that most of my early formation (pre-1979, that is) was from the "old" Book of Common Prayer, circa 1928. For most traditionalists, this book is the first and only one they have known. I have learned "better" in my time as a priest, having had parishioners who remember when the 1928 BCP was "new" and the "old" BCP of 1892 was their first love. All of this is just an effort to provide context. I grew up praying in a syntax that has evolved and changed over time...and yet its roots, the holy scriptures of the Old (Hebrew) and New Testaments continue to inform us in our polity, our prayers and our sense of call and identity as a church.

This coming Sunday, we have as the reading from the New Testament a selection from Paul's first letter to Timothy. These two epistles, regardless of origin (a debate continues as to Paul's actual authorship), are for me a pivotal experience of a young person in the faith being coached as a leader by one who has, proverbially speaking, been there and back. Paul is attempting to remind Timothy, to teach and to exhort him in what it means to be a leader in the church. It is not from a point of pride and power, but from humility and submission to God and neighbor.

As I sat in my study reading this passage from the first epistle (citation of the verse noted in the title of this posting), I heard echoing up from somewhere down deep in my soul a recitation of the old 1928 liturgy's "comfortable words" that the priest would intone after pronouncing absolution over the congregation. This was before the peace was announced and the offertory began. It served as a lynch pin in the Sunday morning Eucharistic experience...and in my memory was always that moment of relief, refreshment and tempo shift I needed as a child kneeling in the pew during the long, and seemingly interminable prayer of the people.

"This is a true saying, and worthy of all men [sic] to be received, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners...." We are all sinners being saved by Jesus, that I could and desired to accept as Good News...but as a priest now I find it odd that the last portion of the verse was left off by the framers of the BCP, "...---of whom I am the foremost." That is something, Paul admitting to his pupil that of all sinners, he is the one who stands first convicted before God. Verse sixteen does a quick follow up,

"But for the very reason I received mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life."

This is a model of Christian leadership and it lays up a way of thinking about life here in the world today, in this collapsed consumer culture, that calls to account our way of doing business, both in the world and in the Church. What is it like to see leaders standing before us, not projecting "strength" and "confidence" but instead "humility" and "meekness?" For one thing, the first casualty is certainty. As I observe the current state of the many controversies that afflict us (most of them are SELF-inflicted, mind you), I am aware that it is out of posturing certainty that most actions are effectively bent to the will of the enemies of God. Burning a Qu-'ran in retaliation for the burning of American flags in retaliation for colonial exploitation in retaliation for....., does that do anything to ring in the kingdom of God? Or, instead, does it assault the very basic underpinnings of what it means to follow a savior in the person of Jesus Christ who exhorts us again and again to love one another above all else save love for God?

Too many times in my own life, when I have felt threatened or afraid, I have reacted with either overt or passive aggression. Punch it, manipulate it, avoid it or destroy it....because it scares me. That is not behavior that is faithful to my God, the one who creates, redeems and sanctifies me on a daily, and for my part undeserved, basis.

A good friend whose father was an Episcopal Priest spent her childhood on the front lines of "Christian" community. She remembers being a little girl and having her father's parishioners come up to her in order to criticize her dad's work as a leader, hoping that she would communicate displeasure to him in his work. When she expressed her frustration and sorrow to her father, his response was consistent..."Remember, honey, that the Church is a hospital for sinners." In other words, why expect a sinner to be a saint just because they are in a place of healing....sick people (sinners) take time to heal (experience and express grace).

Claiming our identity as Christians means, I am learning, to first recognize our plight and reality as sinners-as people who fail to or reject the will of God working in our lives and through us in the world.

Mercy means seeking solutions with your enemies...and being willing to model behavior we would rather see, both in others and in ourselves. It means recognizing when we come up short, again and again, while rejoicing in a God who is with us in success...and rejoices as we learn from our stumblings and defeats.

When will people begin to realize that the true enemy that threatens our "way of life" is not some outsider extremist who lurks at the borders of our homeland like a lion, roaring and slavering as it waits to devour. The true enemy is the lion of pride and certainty that prowls and stalks in and among us...that trait we have in assuming that we are first and foremost among humanity because we are worth it, because we deserve it or own it....

We are "first" only when we accept that prime place in the great line of humanity before God as sinners redeemed by the undeserved love of a savior who was willing to become the least of us in order to deliver us to the greatest of graces, the forgiveness of our God and creator.

So, today I rejoice. I am a sinner, a really, really bad sinner....and God loves me, no more or less than any other...and yet that love is without limit, infinite and never-ending. I pray that one day I might find it in me to surrender completely to its embrace. For now, I continue to repeat the Confession, to seek the Absolution and to attempt to live out the comfortable words that the BCP faithfully reminds me are my true heritage as a child of God.

Kenosis versus self-realization....

2010-09-02T10:54:00.000-04:00

My handy Oswald Chambers this morning offered a handy meditation on a passage from the Gospel of John (chapter 7, verse 38). He talked about the difference drawn in modern life between what God intends for us and what we think God is offering to us. His image, and it is a challenging one, is that God's teaching is and always has been "anti-self-realization." That really flies in the face of most infomercials, doesn't it? It also challenges most of the rhetoric being offered in our day and age. Instead of taking active action to restore our honor (i.e., reclaim our sense of control over others at their expense), we are being asked to embrace humility. Instead of claiming a bigger share of the proverbial pie, we are asked to offer our own slice to those who are hungry. Instead of celebrating how great we are, we are instead being challenged to give all glory to God. It might make sense, but in a world where the individual is the center of all the energy and attention that our common culture can generate, what place is there for a God who asks us to put the spotlight on the Other (particularly God as Other) in our lives?

I once had a difficult conversation with a person who was unhappy with her church, her pastor...really, the whole religion thing from the outset as she was experiencing it. Her complaint was, "Well, I am just not being fed," by all that is going on in the Church. As I meditate on that memory, and ponder Oswald's pearl of wisdom this morning, I find myself responding to that complaint in some personally unsettling ways.

When it comes to eating, I am a professional amateur...I love to eat, and to eat a lot, but really when I look at what, when and how much I choose to eat I see that most of it is just putting food (any food) into my mouth. I am trying to feed myself in order to fill my self up. But food can't do that. In fact, nothing that comes from outside ourselves really can fill us up in this life. We might get stuffed. That's easy in a culture and in a country where two of our major civic holidays (Thanksgiving and Super Bowl Sunday) see a majority of observers eating anywhere from four to five times the average daily caloric intake considered healthy by nutritionists and dietitians.

Filling up is not the problem, feeling fulfilled is; and the person who complained to me was operating under the assumption that her pastoral leaders and her Church were somehow on the hook to serve her a spiritual meal that was 1) to her taste, 2) enough to feed her to her ideal of satiety and 3) a meal that she was not willing to help design or deliver. On top of that, she was expressing more concern that her needs be met, rather than that she might strive to meet the Other's needs instead.

One of the great scandals of Holy Week happens early on, when the Gospel narrative is recounted of a woman who enters the company of the disciples as they are taking a meal with Jesus. She breaks open a jar of wildly expensive ointment and proceeds to use it to anoint Jesus from head, literally, to toe. Shock ensues, and then for some, outrage. The money could/should have been spent on the poor...or at least some more worthy cause! But Jesus rebukes them, telling them that the poor will always be with them. This woman has given her all to him this evening, using her wealth-poured out-to offer him comfort, honor and blessing. "She will be remembered...." is his response to their outrage. And behold, her story open every Holy Week. She is remembered.

Would she be remembered if she had instead chosen to complain about Jesus to her friends that though he seems to be pretty good at his job, she just doesn't really feel "fed" by his parables? Probably not.

I think what God is challenging us to in this day and age of the individual is to first and foremost be willing to offer ourselves up as a libation that is about to be poured out in service to the world for the greater glory of God. We think too often of a God that fills us up first, and perhaps reserves a bit for another. That somehow my spiritual fulfillment matters more to God than God's interest in using me as a vessel for the grace and salvation of others in need.

Of course, I am sure my words outrage most people who approach their journey to God as one of self-realization...but let's be honest. Has there been a moment in life that has drawn you closer to God when it has been "all about you?" In my life, at those moments, I usually am furthest from God.

It is when I am in the act of being poured out in service to the hungry, the poor, the sick, etc....that I really being to feel a sense of God offering "fullness" to me-because that is the sensation of grace flowing through me.

In John, during a little blip in the narrative that is chapter 7, verses 37-39, Jesus is calling out to passersby that "anyone who is thirsty" to come to him, and to let the believer drink. Not to experience an end to thirst, but to be prepared to be poured out. He promises that a river of living water will pour out of the hearts of the faithful.

Even when we are filled up to and over the brim in this life with a sense of God's presence and love, we are not experiencing an end to the process...but the beginning.

Perhaps, the person who complained of not being fed, were I to have her in front of me today, would be someone I might have the courage to remind (and even model the practice) that the point of coming to God is not to get fed, but to be equipped to feed others.

I can't begin to count the number of times when I have experienced this in my life, my priesthood and in my journey to God...that when I think I am empty, there is still just that little bit more to pour out of my being for another's use...that when I am certain I don't have (or don't want to have) one more moment to give....THAT is when God reminds me that I am not here in this life so that I can get mine. I am here so that I can give "it" to others, after having played my part to make "it" about God, the true center of my being and the deep font of refreshment that was in me from the beginning. That, I believe, is what Jesus is promising when he asks anyone who is thirsty to come and drink....because in that moment we become someone who is to bear the cask of living waters to others. Always.

For those who have gone before and for those who follow

2010-08-31T14:57:00.000-04:00

It's been 15 years since my ordination to the priesthood. My actual anniversary is on June 17, but that isn't cogent to this posting. In fact, perhaps it is: many priests are ordained on a day commemorating a saint or a particular feast of the church. To date, June 17 does not possess any commemorative weight in the Church's calendar. "Don't worry," my mother said years ago when I was lamenting that fact, "when they martyr you, perhaps someone 500 years from now will decide that June 17 is YOUR day....."

Hooray, something to look forward to!

Seriously, though, I was thinking about that heritage as I move through my present state of transition. I am between calls, so to speak. One interim is winding down and a new post will soon, God-willing and the people and Bishop consenting, begin. It is a time to reflect on where I have been and what God has done in my life and ministry to date. It is also a time to dream, plan and prepare for a new chapter in my life's path.

Test me, O Lord, and try me;
examine my heart and mind.
For your love is before my eyes;
I have walked faithfully with you. (Psalm 26, 2-3)

This bit of the psalm struck me, hard, this morning over my prayers. The psalmist is actually ASKING to be stretched, tested and tried. I don't know many people who pray that prayer in the morning, but I am experiencing new respect for those to do undertake a willingness to hand themselves and their personal agendas over to God with a request to have God put it through their paces. Not an easy challenge to embrace, at all. Yet, it is really a necessary one, isn't it?

If being a person of faith is going to mean anything, then we have to be willing-with an ongoing openness-to hand ourselves over to God and to open that way of being to all those whom we encounter as students, heirs and beneficiaries. In a world, and at a time, when anxiety, fear and trial make it easy to take what little we have and try to grasp it tightly, to give ourselves...ALL of who and what we are...to God is like stepping out into thin air off the edge of the roof of a high building. It might work in cartoon land, but in the real world gravity always wins. It is too easy to fall, so hold on to what you have now! Really?

This past week saw a rally held in Washington DC that was designed, said its planners, to help Americans "Restore Honor." But, what honor has been lost in recent years that we have not first set aside or given up to the world's expectations? The core argument was that it was time to turn back to God as a nations and to reclaim our place as a chosen people, but I have to confess that what I heard instead was a desire by people who feel disenfranchised to reframe and reclaim control over the basic devices of governance in the nation.

It was an argument more about cultural control and hegemony than it was about helping people to find their faith, to reclaim their sense of wholeness and holiness in the God who creates, redeems and sustains all things and peoples under the sun.

Moreover, I don't hear these folks speaking to what the psalmist is asking of God...to be taken, stretched-perhaps even broken...so that God's greater glory might be manifest. In a world where prosperity means you have God's blessing, that way of thinking doesn't just not make sense. It is heretical.

Think about it...the only nation that God has EVER chosen was Israel. Look at what they have been through. Do you think that the people of Israel would claim that they are blessed by God? They have endured generations in the wilderness, and when they came to their inheritance in the Land of Promise they had to take it from the people who were already living there. They stumbled and fell away from faithful practice again and again...and God both forgave them and then pushed them into diaspora and exile when their apostasy went unchecked. This is what it means to be a chosen nation? Would the people gathered in the Mall in DC think that this is what they were signing up for when invited to take the country back to God?

Remember that at one point, even God tried to talk the people out of covenant at one point. No human being can sustain a relationship with the absolute holiness of God. God is just too....well.....eternal.

As I look back at all those who contributed, and continue to contribute, to my formation as a priest and my work as a minister of the Gospel, and as I ponder my changing role as a leader in the church in light of that reading today from the psalms, I realize that we all in our baptism (and some few in their ordinations as bishops, priest and deacons), have signed on to be stretched and tried by God.

If there is anything we need to "get back to" or "reclaim," then I think it is a willingness to allow God to call the shots for a while, to discern what God's justice is versus our own agendas and hegemonies and to be willing to step back from center-stage once in a while to see what leadership God might offer in God's good time to us as we humbly strive to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before our Creator.

Now, that is an agenda I would be into supporting.....

I realize that most of us, without knowing it, sit below the salt...

2010-08-28T10:21:00.000-04:00

Do you know that expression? In days of old, salt was a precious and valuable commodity. (The word salary comes from the Roman practice of paying soldiers in salt...and to be worth one's salt is a complement even today!) At major feasts and celebrations, a cellar of salt was often placed on the tables as a demarcation between those guests of import and those of, well, less import. To sit above the salt was an honor. To sit below was to be reminded of your place in the feast. There are still those demarcations today, though we have replaced that platter of salt with things like "velvet ropes" and "sky lounges" and "first-and premier-class passenger checkins." The old idea applies, our importance is defined by where we sit in relation to other people. Senior members of legislative bodies sit toward the front of the chamber. Even the Church engages in these practices: in one Diocese I served, the Bishop insisted at large gatherings that the clergy always process in order of seniority-by date of ordination. Easy enough for some, harder for others depending on your generation and tenure as a priest...and it always chewed up time until the order was set. It was important that we figure out who stood where...but the justification, beyond the Bishop's whim, still evades me. Clergy are clergy. People are people. God did not create one human being better than another, that is something that we have engineered over time.

So, today I am working on my sermon relating to a salty story from the Bible. Not salacious (another salt-related word!), but rather something alluding to that all too human ideal of knowing your place on the ladder of social importance. In the 14th chapter of Luke, Jesus is attending a feast at the house of a prominent Pharisee and leader in the community. As a guest of honor and a holy man of some repute, people have their eye on him as he takes his place. What will he say? What will he do? Will there be some tragic faux pas? Will he be witty, wise or provocative? Better yet, what juicy scandal will he cause by saying something-as he is wont to do-about the social and religious mores of the day?

He simply notes that some people enter the feast expecting to go to the head table, to a place above the salt. His teaching is pointed and he tells them this story of what one should do as a guest: Don't take a seat you think you deserve. Take one lower down the ladder of rank and prestige. Be humble and don't expect respect you think you are due. Instead, accept the grace of being invited to a place further up the table...even above the salt, and be thankful and gracious to all around you. Moreover, when YOU hold a feast, he says, don't just invite your family, friends and neighbors. DON'T give a feast expecting to be feted in return! Perhaps, he says, you might consider remembering the poor and the hungry? Those in need?

In other words, instead of taking or claiming honor, give it away!

When I was a young man, I lived in a small college town in rural Ohio. It was a pretty place, but far from the pastoral idyll that many would suppose. This little island of progressive learning was surrounded by smaller communities racked by real, Appalachian-style poverty. There are still places out there that don't have electricity or clean, running water. Great wealth, considerable education and great poverty and lack of the latter were woven into every daily interaction. You never could REALLY know who was the most important person in the room by their dress, their apparent wealth or their level of education. Being humble and choosing to sit "below the salt" was a virtue...and a life lesson I always have continued to struggle to embrace.

I was taken even deeper into this reverie by this morning's reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles (11: 1-18). Peter has returned from his visit to Cornelius the Centurion, a Gentile convert to the Way of Jesus Christ. Some of the circumcised challenge him in taking up with those who do not bear the mark of Abraham or keep the law as it was given to Moses and interpreted by the elders of the tribes of Israel. His response was simple: Jesus was baptized by John, and then gave us the same spirit by which he knew he was the Son, even as we now know it. These people expressed the same spirit. Can we do any less that to recognize and celebrate that reality in them, even as Christ chose to in acting through us?

I am startlingly aware that our society, and most of our churches, have forgotten what it means to give honor to God and to the Other in our midst. On the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech, a group of conservative, mostly white and upper class, people are preparing for a rally in which they plan to "reclaim Honor." Taking honor never did anyone any good. What made the Civil Rights movement transformative was that the people involved sought to give and extend honor to those who for generations had experienced disenfranchisement and dishonor at the hands of a class of people for whom a romantic sense of honor is legendary. Time to look at things as Jesus does? I think so.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu quotes another Archbishop, Temple, when he has preached that the Church should be the one human institution is in existence for those who have not yet become its members. Too often we forget that. We forget it when it matters more what the line order is in procession than the desire to enter a space and be together in counsel and prayer. We forget it when we resent a newcomer who comes in to the Church and sits in "our" pew, forcing us to sit somewhere else in the church. We forget it when we refuse to see the hungry, halt, lame, addicted or homeless as the ones first needing attention. We forget it when we get angry at a baby singing in church, wishing their parents would "do something with that child."

Jesus reminds us again and again that our primary focus and mission in life as the Church is to work for those in need...and to remind the humblest among us that in the Kingdom of God, their place is at the right hand of the author and host of that heavenly feast. Next time you start to feel that you matter more than another, take some time to invite that other to a place above the salt...and prove that you-in the loving eyes of your Creator-are worth your salt in turn....

Giving thanks for marriage....

2010-08-25T11:30:00.000-04:00

I have been traveling lately, with Laura. We went to Michigan for a family wedding, and I got the great, good blessing of being "Uncle Marshall" while sitting next to my wife and my sister-in-law as we watched two wonderful, faithful young people dedicate themselves to the mutual vocation of marriage before God, the Church and the families and friends gathered around them. It put me in mind of weddings I have done, the few I have been a part of and of course, the wedding that Laura and experienced nearly 10 years ago...and for the journey we have shared since. Ups and downs, challenges that led to failures and successes. The vows are true...we have seen each other at our best and our worst, richer and poorer, sick and whole and have known the tidal shifts of what it means to love and to cherish each other in any given moment as those moments accumulate until we are parted by death somewhere out there in the future God has dreamed for us. The marriage rite, in any tradition, seeks to draw us from a particular moment to something that is more eternal and God-centered, and as I ponder 10 years of life with Laura, and look at my niece and her new husband's first weeks and give thanks to a God who will be with them through their own first 10 years.

The pastor talked that afternoon about how in any relationship between any two people of faith there is always a third Person present: God. I confess that one true constant again and again when I counsel people seeking matrimony under my pastoral direction. I strive to remember and live into it as Laura and I live out our lives in our marriage. It is a walk in, and with, faith that enables us to live holy and whole lives in God's presence. Thank God that I get a chance to remember that reality every time I see a young couple (regardless of age!) commit themselves to each other in faith with vows articulated before God and everybody.

I find myself meditating on that ideal as I work through my day, particularly as I prepare to celebrate the marriage of a couple in my parish this coming weekend. New beginnings deserve celebration, and I am blessed to be able to pastor this couple as they affirm a relationship that was, actually, born between them when they were still quite young and comes to fruition at a later season in their lives.

In a world where little seems to offer comfort and assurance of safety and certainty, I see this deep affirmation of relationship being a healthy place to focus. We can't force peace, respect or forbearance on anyone...nor can we engineer solutions to problems anywhere along the spectrum of human life, from personal trials to geo-political conflict, without some sense of mutual care, and forbearance.

People spend a lot of time taking about marriage, and a great deal of energy is going into reserving and protecting it in our culture as something restricted to a union between man and woman, intended for the procreation of children. Still, when I think about the root values of the marital vows, if human beings could see that those vows need not necessarily be restricted to two people in relationship with each other. If we are going to accept marriage as a model of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church (this is lifted straight out of the BCP, by the way), then why not allow ourselves to extend that sense of avowed commitment beyond just one other to compass a larger swath of humanity? Because, in the same way I am called as a husband to see in my wife the life of Christ personified and to strive to personify it myself...so also the world needs us to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons.

Perhaps then, just perhaps, we might see some of the conflicts in which dehumanization is used as a tool to ward and divide as what they are, abhorrent to a God who yearns and rejoices in our willingness to enter into union with our Creator and each other. Just perhaps.....

This is what good looks like....

2010-08-11T10:50:00.000-04:00

This morning, I sat with a friend in a local coffee shop. This has become a routine for us, to first meet for a cup, then conversation and finally for morning prayer. That latter point does, from time to time, create a minor stir of interest. Other groups and folks meet regularly at the shop, but to my knowledge we are the only two who are intentionally meeting for the sake of prayer. I do confess that I enjoy it, both the experience of being with my friend and the witness made as people come to the place where milk, cream, sweetener and sugar are offered, only to hear there the recitation of psalm, scripture, canticle or prayer by a couple of innocuous friends at the adjacent table who have their prayer books open in front of them.

That previous paragraph sets the stage for my relating the heart's core of this morning's conversation. After the catch-up and check-in, the preliminaries, were accomplished, we found ourselves reflecting on passages and transitions in life...the big ones of birth, life and death and the minor one-translations of relationship, changing jobs, etc.

My friend is a chaplain at a local hospital, charged for the most part with offering care and consolation to people going through treatment for cancer. As the conversation centered on dealing with transitions, she offered a thought, something she tenders to most patients and their families as the end of life looms large in their immediate future: "This is what good looks like."

That can be a challenging thing to say, and for some it is impossible to hear. When faced with upheaval, even dying, the temptation is to set our teeth against the cup of suffering being prepared. A person diagnosed with terminal cancer is told that she has weeks to live without treatment, or months to persist in life with treatment. What she may not comprehend is the intensity that "treatment" brings into her life: side-effects from chemotherapy and radiation, etc. The oncologist helping her to discern what choices to make about treatment and care options might not be able to sum up the trials before her...but in the end the greatest challenge is to embrace the present moment, to be aware of and connected to the reality that the person who has cancer is dealing with, here and now.

"This is what good looks like," is a powerful and intensely challenging thing to offer to ANYONE going through a hard time. Healing, growing, dealing, dying with cancer....or just with life itself...is something that few of us would-when told that it will "hurt" regardless-will choose something that means discomfort or smacks of submission to defeat. Yet, choosing what is going to be good (think, in the eyes of God and not of the people around you with their own agendas) is a tougher row to hoe. It might mean coming to terms with a challenging new reality that means you can't/won't be able to do something you love to do (playing violin, running marathons, etc). It might mean making changes in personal habits-giving up fatty foods and sweets because your body can't process these and still maintain a healthy and balanced chemistry. It might mean getting your affairs in order, saying the things you need to say and then ask the doctors to stop talking about treatment that only staves off death while increasing suffering, instead asking them to counsel you on what will bring comfort and enough of a clear head to be able to meet death and dying with open eyes and a spirit that is at peace instead of locked in pain.

"This is what good looks like...." I can't really think of a more powerful and Christ-centered way of being ready to meet the new day. It accepts reality, and at the same time allows me to be a part of forming a considerate and prayerful response to whatever the day is going to bring my way. If I am challenged, this is what good looks like. If I am blessed, this is what good looks like. It isn't up to me to seek any one's opinion of what good should look like, rather it is the opportunity to see the good in the reality around me.

When God created the heavens, the earth and all that is in them (including us, remember), God looked on it all and pronounced it "good." Nothing else, and particularly note that there is not judgment entailed...just a radical and open embracing of ALL things as good.

Can we offer anything less than that, if we are willing to accept ourselves as being formed in the full image of God? Coming to terms with being good, that the day itself is good, that all things in life are GOOD and from God is not easy...because there are LOTS of things in this life which reject the good. There is violence, abuse, objectification, and all sorts of things that are not of God...and when we get enmeshed and mired in them is when we lose sight of being in a "good" place. If I cannot embrace joy in breathing, being, sitting here with the blessing of being able to write and pray and love what God is working through me, then-as Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians-"I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal." I am just noise echoing without purpose into the universe.

But, if I am mindful and aware of the good things I have here in front of me (moments of consolation and desolation), and am able to see that what is before me really is what "good" looks like, then perhaps I can release myself into a role that God has been preparing for us for an eternity...and yearns, achingly, to initiate us into as the fullness of time approaches: To see that the world in God is good and that we are playing our part in it, here and now.

Each breath matters, each moment of life is important...but none of it will mean anything unless we are willing to see it all as a gift that is eventually being returned to the giver, God our creator.

Perhaps the worst image we have as followers of Jesus is the sight of him hanging on the cross, crucified as a victim of the state's power to violently oppress and destroy anyone and anything that represents something outside the party line. And yet, in that death we have now received a new life. In Christ's death on the cross, we are now a new creation.

The justification we experience in our salvation as Jesus' passage from life to death, to life again is not some abstract argument, but a reality that "this is what good looks like." Even the worst thing can, in God's way of bringing all things to completion and fulfillment, create great blessings.

I left that morning coffee pondering those words, and I find that I am still chewing on them even now. Knowing that this way of looking at God's will for us goes beyond how I will form my own response when the doctor says to me (about myself or anyone I love) that there is little else we can do, except perhaps to keep you (them) comfortable....it is an opportunity to build up for myself in the here and now the willingness to see that each day presents an open invitation from God to see that, whatever the challenge is, "this is what good looks like.........."

Confidence in Christ...

2010-08-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

In the daily office this past week, as we work through the book of Judges in the Hebrew scriptures and life around here seems to be in a sustained and grace-filled upheaval, I find myself meditating on how I find my confidence in Christ. Some of that confidence comes from experience. As the psalmist, the apostle Paul and a host of people of faith I have encountered both in person and in scripture attest, in Christ we have a confident and true hope and faith that having seen us this far, we will continue to be supported and guided to our rest at the end of days by the one who creates, redeems and sustains us in this life.

Sure, I can say that, but what does it mean to express it in thought and deed as well as word? First and foremost, it means that I actually make a conscious choice to remain open to Christ being the governor and guide of my life. Sometimes I am really good at that practice and can maintain that discipline of being one who follows the way my savior makes manifest. Often, though, that confidence in Christ twist just a bit out of place and out of shape-like a garment that just doesn't fit right when misaligned...or a car whose tires are out of whack-and instead of holding a true course I start to drift. I think I am pointing straight ahead, but the reality is that I am drifting all over the road that God has placed before me. Not good.

So, part of that realignment comes from being willing to cease trying to use my own muscle, will and perspective to force myself onto the "right" path. If your car is out of alignment, you take it to the shop for correction of the frame's twisted distortions. If your soul is out of alignment, you take it to the Body of Christ and seek counsel and correction of the inner life-same concept in different modalities.

I have seen that theme working itself out this summer in the Sunday readings. For the past couple of weeks, we have been dipping into the Epistle to the Colossians and the apostle's command to align practice with the faith confirmed through him in Christ, while the great prophets holler out to us about the coming Day of the Lord, when God shows up and the great tallying of our reality begins in earnest.

In our home life of late, I have seen that realignment asserting itself in some subtle, and unmistakable, ways. Friends we have not seen enough of in the past years, and whose counsel and teaching we ALWAYS benefit from have suddenly become available to us, even as great choices and changes loom for us and for my parish here in Matawan...God is providing the tools and support we need to get our alignment back into true, "factory-fresh" mode. That is happening over casual meals, celebratory feast and quiet phone conversations. It is occurring through prayer for those in need and as folks pray for us.

The blessing of this time is not that everything is certain. In so many ways, things feel un-certain, due mostly in part to the great variety that our directions in life may take in the coming weeks and months. What brings confidence is the daily, even hourly reminder that we are in this journey to serve Christ...and that as the next chapters unfold our primary focus needs to be on Him...and we need ALL the support and love that can be mustered to discern what is being asked.

Thing is, I realize that need for confidence in, and alignment with, God's will for us is not a sporadic thing-materializing if and when great change looms. What I am seeing now is that need is the true constant, and if I am honest and true I need to focus with integrity and intensity on maintaining that alignment (with regular trips to the correction shop of the counsel of friends, mentors, teachers, etc.) on a day-to-day basis. Right now, during change, is when I am more aware of it...but when the change dials back at some point in the future, I pray that God will continue to exhort me to deep balance, confidence and alignment with the Divine Will for whatever life and ministry hold for us in the future....

Talking to my bishop on the phone....

2010-07-29T11:13:00.000-04:00

Bishops have long hours. I think I once saw a study done on working habits of clergy from just over a decade ago, and whereas regular parish clergy work 50-70 hours a week on average, bishops work around 100-110. Not an enviable job, really, and I can understand why so few individuals are called to that ministry from viewing the time committment alone.

All the more a blessing when I am able to have some time to talk to my pastor and to have his counsel and advice from time to time!

Yesterday was just such a moment. I am working through a period of discernment as a leader in parish ministry, and I hoed for some input from his, his experience and his direction. He was able to call me while enroute from one meeting to another, and we were able to talk.

The take-away from my conversation with him was a reminder that in the Kingdom of God our job as leaders is to work hard not to provide answers, but good and godly questions...and then watch and wait with the people of God for the response. We can't hurry the Spirit, and while God is more than happy to hear our opinion in how things should work out in our lives, the Divine Will is the aspiration and true center of our being. Letting go of my own agendas, my own anxieties and my own desires is hard enough. On top of that, to be called to lead others in that way is a double-down challenge!

Still, if we are going to have any authenticity as leaders of the church, that is just the path set before us-to settle in to discernment and wait on God's good time to reveal the path forward; to seek and embrace ALL the tools and support we can to address the tasks set before us; and, finally to render it all up God as a thank-offering.

In all things, the bishop reminded me, keep praying and asking questions of God, myself and my leadership. That defines a faithful servant-leader...sort of a more theologically grounded version of Ed Koch's famous "How'm I doing?" during his time as mayor of New York City. Continual check in with God, with God's people and in the way of the Holy Spirit is my goal and aim. May God grant me the serenity to seek that out, and the grace and strength to offer it up, when the time is right.....

An interesting thought....

2010-07-28T14:00:00.000-04:00

As I prepare for the close of day, and pastoral visits and meetings, I am reading a book by Ron Susek, titled "Firestorm: Preventing and Overcoming Church Conflict." Right now, chapter 7 is offering an acrostic for focused, faithful pastoral leadership: TRIM-Truth; Relationship;Integrity; Mission. Four pillars of ministry, he identifies how when they are not balanced and equally developed, conflict is imminent. Also, to have one pillar be a strength to hide behind...or another to dispute...creates deficits that will again in turn generate conflict...his counsel is to seek balance in pastoral leadership, realizing that these four pillars lead to most, if not all, spiritual gifts and attention to them will generate balance for the congregation.

Something to ponder. I have seen ALL sorts of acronyms and acrostics that pastors use, mottos and imprecations to define their work...this seems to be one of the more open-ended of the bunch.

More to follow, I need to digest this a bit more....

Solving puzzles...

2010-07-28T11:28:00.000-04:00

I had a class mate in seminary, Amy, who had a passion for crossword puzzles. She was a real master and a fanatic practitioner of the art form. Her puzzle source of choice was the New York Times, whose puzzles increase in complexity and difficulty from Monday to Sunday. After morning prayer in the chapel, a number of us would gather in the student lounge each morning before class for coffee and a bagel...and she would sit with us at table and do her morning crossword with the same passion and devotion she had just offered in the recitations of the psalms. Powerful stuff, to watch her take a ballpoint pen to newsprint and attack the open squares, filling each space in with words culled from a vast vocabulary, years of experience and a quick, sharp mind.

Oh, she was good.

I remember her passion for those puzzles and her description of what it meant for her to take a moment with them over her morning coffee. Some people do yoga to stretch their bodies in the morning. She did those puzzles to stretch her mind.

I know that passion is something many people share. Sadly, I am not one of them. I do enjoy a good crossword every once in a while, but I have learned that this is a discipline that (like prayer!) is something you get better at with practice...and practice is best when it is something you love, something that can become a part of you. I can't imagine Amy (whose priesthood now is to the Church Triumphant-she passed away earlier this year) in a heaven without a crossword in the morning. I can just imagine her answering (yes, answering) Our Lord when he asks for a seven-letter word for love, Lat. She wouldn't even look up, it would just flow out of her!

For me, puzzles have a way of taking my anxiety down a notch. Of late, though my anxiety is no where near levels it has been in the past, I have found Sudoku puzzles to be a balm. After my morning prayers, as the day is ending or just before lights out, I have found my little book of sudoku to be a comfort. I see Amy's point now in loving to work at a puzzle or two before work begins or as it ends. It quickens the mind, stretches thoughts out...patterns emerge. With Sudoku (which I found unfathomable just over a year or so ago!), I am finding that I see other patterns emergent in my life. These things have always been there, I have just not heeded them. Time to line up the numbers in their appropriate boxes, groups and lines....speaking metaphorically in context with life itself! Everything relates to its neighbor...and in the grand scheme of God's plan for life, ministry and the Church, each of us has a role to play out and a place that God intends for it to play itself out in...I just need to keep that in mind!

Still, the thought of taking on the Saturday NYTimes puzzle with a ball point pen, as Amy did without little apparent fear and trembling will elude me for a while...perhaps when I get a chance to enjoy her company again over a morning cup in heaven I will have a chance to watch her do her thing again with that magical pen. For now, I will pray that I will have some of the same clarity visited on me in the time between puzzle-solving sessions that I saw extant in her way of being.

God bless puzzles.....

Psalm 56

2010-07-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

In God the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust and will not be afraid,* for what can mortals do to me?/ I am bound by the vow I made to you, O God;*I will present to you thank-offerings;/For you have rescued my soul from death and my feet from stumbling,*that I may walk before God in the light of the living. (Psalm 56: 10-12)

It was not too long ago that I felt my life and my spirit leeching away. Not to over-labor the point, and honestly this post is not about the past, I am looking at a path forward in life that I see truly as a gift from God. Much, I imagine, in the same way that someone who has survived a great crisis looks at their survival from that point onward as a gift, I am seeing the roads and paths unfolding in front of Laura and myself as a continuing testament to a God who truly is mighty to save. We have been through one of life's "valleys of the shadow of death" and are now wondering at the sunrise...or, perhaps more appropriately, the "Son's rise" of Christ calling us to new and wondrous adventures in ministry and in life. The past year and a half have been a blessing of healing light and energy in the midst of a loving and supportive chapter of the Body of Christ, and now new adventures unfold as the summer ends and our preparation for a new program year and the summation of this interim period arrives with the advent of this parish's search opening for its new rector.

During morning prayer, as I was getting ready for the challenges of today, I came across the above lines in Psalm 56. The psalmist is offering praise to God for deliverance from those who have been attacking him/her, and is in effect offering the remainder of their life to God as a thank-offering, a gift of life to God for the grace of deliverance from harm, grief, sorrow and even death at the hands of those who would have taken their life.

God is indeed good, and that present aid that the psalmist is talking about seems to have been a constant companion in our lives of late. Note, please, that I am not speaking to all the good things that have happened to us in the past year (the renewal of energy in ministry, the returning sense of vitality and joy in work and play, etc.), but also for ALL that this year has brought-even the pain of new growth, struggle, and the challenges of bringing the Gospel to the world as the world both demands more and offers less to the church than ever before.

Psalm 56 reminds me of the taproot of my being, a priesthood to the Church and in Christ that has worked and reworked my being over and over again for the past 16 years. It also reminds me of the vows I have made to God in fidelity to my wife and to my baptism in Christ.

It is no small thing, and I give thanks to God, that I find myself this morning giving thanks-tangible and honest thanks-to God for rescuing my soul from death and my feet from stumbling...for I have died and stumbled all along the way and each time God is there to conduct me back toward new opportunities to walk before the one who creates, redeems and blesses me in the light of the living.

To God be praise, glory and honor. Amen.

The Power, the Efficacy, of Prayer

2010-07-22T11:16:00.000-04:00

Prayer is something that was always a given in my house growing up. We said grace at meals, particularly at Sundays and on the occasion of a holiday celebration. Of course, we were "Episcopalian" in our nature and not given to things like free prayer, or the seeking of divine spirit to give us words. The prayer book tradition granted us that, really, and in spades! That red Book of Common Prayer really does have prayers in it for "all sorts and conditions" of people and their needs to offer thanks, intercession or praise to God. Still, it was not until one very powerful, formative experience in my young life that I started to see that primary resort of prayer as a lifeline for my growth as a person of faith.

When I was a kid, I attended a local summer Bible Camp, at which a youth pastor held an altar call. An altar call, for those relatively unversed in pentacostal and evangelical practices, is an event toward the end of a prayer service in which the leader invites anyone to come forward, be prayed over and then offer their heart to Christ for spiritual conversion. Not a bad thing, but perhaps not the best thing to offer a group of 8 year-olds who are coming from many different religious traditions. His language was pretty specific...if anyone in the group had not yet "received Jesus into their heart" and "wanted to avoid eternal death" they were welcome to come forward. Of course, being a literal-minded child, I was made quite nervous by these two statements. I knew that I had been baptized. I knew God loved me, in the person of Jesus to boot....but had I accepted Him into my heart? I didn't remember ever having done just that in the past...and if not, then did I risk "eternal death?" Of course, I went up....and received Jesus into my heart that night-with a caveat. The preacher told me sotto voce that I needed to say a prayer to Jesus every night before I went to bed so He wouldn't leave my heart. Yikes!

The prayers came pretty easily each evening after that, for a time. I managed a couple of days before my 8 year-old brain ran out of things to say to Jesus. At that point, that one evening, I refused to go to bed. I didn't want Jesus to leave my heart because I did not have anything original to offer up in my prayer. I still remember my dad coming into my room and assuring me that God still loved me, that Jesus was not going to leave my heart unattended. In fact, he even offered up a fail-safe, go-to prayer that I had already learned in Sunday School a couple of years before. In that he was reminding me that Jesus himself had given us words to offer up to God when our own, original words fail: "Our Father, which art in heaven...." (1928-style, remember that this was pre-1979 BCP!)

That memory comes up every time I come across the prayer Jesus teaches the disciples, and us, in Matthew and Luke. In Sunday's readings, the prayer is appended to a passage that also includes Jesus speaking to persistence and perseverance in prayer...."Ask....Seek....Knock...." Simple concepts, and yet the impact on us in our lives can't be reckoned. To take this posture in prayer, to be formed and forged by the willingness to "Ask, Seek, Knock" is to be willing to take ALL our concerns, really our whole selves, to God as an offering and oblation for God to do with as God wills. It is to release our agenda by entrusting to God every single shred of our hopes, desires, needs....fears, hurts, prejudices and anger. When we hand it all over to God...says Jesus...then it will all be handed back to us, transformed by God into righteousness itself.

I think that was the preacher's intent for us...to have us little ones begin to form a practice of praying sacrificially to God...but what does an 8 year old know how to sacrifice? My toys? My baby sister?

It is a long way off for one so immature to realize that real, honest prayer rendered faithfully to God does two things: 1) it reminds us that we are formed by what we say and do, and by what we say we are going to do; and 2) that God is revealed in the heeding and answering of our prayers. It also a great journey for a human soul to come to the realization that ALL prayers are answered by God (just remember that sometimes the answer is a very holy "No.")

There is another wrinkle in this Sunday's Gospel (Luke's version of the prayer taught to the disicples that we know as the "Our Father..."). In Luke's version, much simplified, we are told to pray for the forgiveness of our sins, even as we forgive those with debts against us (after acknowledging God's supremacy and grace, and requesting enough bread for today). One comentator I was reviewing holds this up as a key element of being in prayer to God, and learning both just how much God expects of us, and how much God offers to us, in terms of prayers fulfilled. We ask God to forgive us our sins, sure...but the caveat is that we are committing to forgive the people who owe US debts. Not some debts, and not some people...but, tall those indebted to us. All.

A powerful and demanding call, but in answering that call, we are starting to hold up our end of the promise that God is continually making to us. Ask....Seek....Knock....and it shall be given....even as much is expected of us!

The Collect for this coming Sunday (the prayer offered at the beginning of the liturgy that "frames the day" in worship) speaks volumes about prayer and its place in our relationship to God and to the world as God's followers:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Too often, when it comes to prayer, or really life itself, we look outside ourselves for strength and expect solutions to be provided. Or, we might draw back from anticipated trials and/or exhaustion because we know and fear the feelings that are coming with that draw-down on our souls. The Collect, and Jesus in Luke's Gospel, are reminding us that really nothing can be accomplished without prayer...and that in prayer God becomes a player in the situation and a major force for change in our lives. "God give me strength...words...help....etc," is not just a quick little incantation of support from the One who dwells on high. It is a giving over of our cares, worries and agenda to our creator who is going to shape and form us into something holy and powerful, even as the Divine Will is revealed.

I pray very differently (with regard to intention) than I did when I was 8 years old...all of us do...but I realize that the same words continue to have a powerful effect on me, even as they did when my Dad reminded me of what I already knew about prayer when I thought I had lost it, and my access to God that night long ago. Praying is not about incantation, but about affirmation and truly allowing God, who was invited mind you, to act, to give and to deliver on what we asked for in the first place....

What is it like to drown?

2010-07-15T11:27:00.000-04:00

I am not sure if I have ever written about this event in my life, but I feel a sense of it being relevant to where life seems to be for us as we observe life that seems quite storm-tossed at the moment. Everything seems to be in transition, and changes loom and break over us like waves. What better way to process that than calling to mind a moment in my life when the waves threatened more than just my sense of well-being and confidence, they were actually taking my life away from me.

I was on a mission trip with a Diocesan Youth delegation to my home Diocese's companion, the Diocese of Guatemala. We have traveled around the country, and participated in several projects during our stay-working with a school to develop a dental care program, visiting with congregations and learning more about what it means to be an Episcopalian in Guatemala.

After a lot of work and witness, we had a day off. The leaders took our group down to a small resort on the Pacific Coast. We had to travel down out of the clouds of the highlands, through coffee plantations and small farms.

Getting to the coast, we found a cozy hotel with small huts clustered around an open-air restaurant/gathering place. Changing into our swimsuits, we walked out over a black, volcanic sand beach to where the waves were breaking....and were they breaking.

6-8 foot swell on the smaller waves broke onto a steep banking of sand thrown up by the tide. The most we could do was wade into the foamy wash left by each wave's departure. Of course, as we got more accustomed to the drama of the surf...and as we got careless...we started to venture out further into the water. Soon, we were in up to our knees, and the waves would come and toss us up, higher onto the beach. Great fun, and we thought we were being careful...

...until a single, larger wave took us by surprise. Now, that is a cautionary tale in and of itself, and perhaps worthy of a "lesson learned" posting. Watch out for rogue waves, except that wave caught me from behind as I was pulling someone out of the surf and onto their feet. It knocked me and that other person over and into a couple of other people, prompting two things: 1) I fell over and tumbled across my own arm, dislocating my shoulder and 2) the people around me were distracted as they reached into the foam to pull the people knocked over by our tumbling up and onto their feet and out of harm's way. They stood up, but I was unable to use my now useless arm (out of joint and blindingly painful) to get up and out of the water.

The wave pulled me out and into the undertow, and as wave after wave crashed over me I was tumbled under the water. I couldn't take a breath. I couldn't use my arm and I was slowly being pulled out, and deeper, into the ocean. In that moment, through the pain and the panic, I realized that I was dying. I knew instinctively that I could only hold my breath for so long...and I knew I lacked the strength and ability to stand up, swim or do anything to physically change my current state. I began to drown. No joke, no hyperbole. No drama. I was dying and I was aware of that reality.

These were all things I felt, rather than thought, because all I could think were, "I'm sorry" to Laura, my wife for dying here and, "God, here I am," as I began to make my peace with my life ending there and then....

And then, I felt a pair of legs wrap around my chest from behind, and a voice in my ear said, "Don't worry, Father Marshall, I have you. The wave may take us out, but the two of us will get back together." It was one of the youth from my church. He had run into the wave, seeing me in distress and had been able to get to me and then weight us both down just enough so that the water was forced to give us up and over to the sandy bottom. With others, he was able to get me up onto the beach, and I was able to get my shoulder back into joint. The only "loss" was a pair of prescription sun glasses, an expensive price to pay in terms of the reality of this world, but the thing I learned that day was that God really is with us, even at the gate of death...and by the grace of God there were people of faith and strength there to help me when I couldn't help myself.

I got my life returned to me that day by a young man's heroism and by God's loving grace. I was also given a chance to allow God to transform my priesthood in the wake of that moment of near-death into a ministry that, I pray, points to how God is with us, even when storms or waves threaten to overcome the boats of safety and comfort we rely on to carry us across the perilous waters of life. I have seen God at my beginning, in my living and at my end...and now I see God at work in my life after it was returned to me. I offer that as a testimony that faith in God really does sometimes come to us at the very moment when it seems the world is doing its best to cast us and our memory into oblivion. Thanks be to God who stills the storms....particularly the ones that are IN me, as well as the ones that from time to time surround me on every side!

Yearning for rain...

2010-07-13T09:40:00.000-04:00

This morning I met up with a friend for coffee and morning prayer before work at a local coffee shop. I realized as I got into the car and made my way to the center of town that it has bee quite a while since I had an early morning meeting for which I have to venture off campus. Having my office in the church-and living in the rectory just next to the church, my time "outside" in the morning consists of a few short seconds as I walk across the yard. That translates to something around 200-250 feet...maybe. Often, I am thinking about the day's tasks yet to come, about the last conversation I had with my wife before I left or perhaps working out what I am going to say during the first phone calls of the morning. Often, the dog is with me, and as she is getting older and tends to hang back, I am urging her to keep up.

This was the first morning I have had time to reflect on the world outside of my own little, self-involved reverie in a long time...and it has been a lovely morning.

We have been laboring under hot, dry weather for weeks now. The grass is dry, dormant and brittle to the touch. The trees are starting to shed and our neighborhood sycamores are making the roads and sidewalks look like autumn as they blanket the pavement with shreds of peeling bark and dead leaves. Everything is aching for moisture, and has been for a long time. The town is on water restrictions and folks have been asked to refrain from watering their lawns and excessive use of what is now a scarce resource.

So, as I left the coffee shop and looked up into the sky, I saw rain clouds filling the horizon. What has been an unbroken, azure oppression of dry air for weeks has given way to a hanging tapestry of textured grey clouds that are heavy with moisture. Makes me thirsty, just remembering it as I sit here in my office writing on the computer. All the signs are there...the birds are flying low to the ground, the leaves of the trees are flipping bottom-side up in the wind, which has shifted to a new quarter as a low front blows in. There just might be rain, today....

We need it, both physically and spiritually. Droughts are sneaky things. They build up momentum almost without us noticing, that is if we don't choose to notice! Beautiful, dry days are welcome...at least until there are too many in a row. Then, it starts to get tough. For everyone. Birds and animals become bolder as they look for water and moist soil. Plants start to conserve energy and what was the verdant, green world of late spring becomes a dry, forbidding time of hoping for a soaking just good enough to get us back to square one.

Of late, my prayers have been filled with images of that craving for water and moist refreshment. So many hymns to God in the psalms talk about God being a cool draught of water in a dry waste...or of a moist breeze catching us off-guard during a desert passage. Today, my prayer is for rain...we need it.

I also realize that prayer for rain is not just about getting some water to fall out of the sky to refresh the face of the earth. It is also an invitation to again see God as a refreshment for the heart of the Church and the depth of my soul.....

The heat of the day....

2010-06-23T09:52:00.000-04:00

Of late, the temperatures during the day around Matawan have been hitting 90+ degrees Fahrenheit. Today, there are air alerts, letting people know that "in the heat of the day" there is an increased breathing/stress risk for folks affected by asthma and cardiopulmonary issues. For us, we realized this morning that if we are going to get a good walk in with the dog, get any work done in the yard, etc...it means getting up and out early, before the sun rises too far into the sky and the air becomes too heavy to work, walk or breathe in.

I am always reminded, on days like these, of the area where I grew up. The little corner of Southeastern Ohio that we called home for the greater part of my childhood and teen years was a river valley tributary of the Ohio River. Summers were hot and humid, often with temperatures that hit the 80s late in May, holding a moist heat next to your skin through into September. Late July and the month of August were the most challenging. Heat indexes of well over 100 were the norm, and of course that was the time I had to kick into training for the fall soccer season.

A major portion of that training was the enjoyable (though sometimes painful) tradition my friends and I had of going down to the river on the south side of the local University's campus on Sunday and Wednesday evenings for pickup games with the students and foreign nationals who lived in town over the summer quarter. We would have anywhere from between 15-30 people show up, all with a love for the game of "real" football. Nigerians, Ghanians, Kenyans, Hondurans, Venezuelans, Mexicans...you name it. At any one time, there were at least six languages being shouted out on the practice pitches, a human mosaic of men (mostly, though sometimes women would show up) who had one thing above all in common-a desire to play soccer.

It is a set of memories I treasure. For one thing, it was a time when the competition for starting spots on the local High School team was suspended. All the regular, and debilitating, politics of the competitive game fell away. It wasn't about winning, but about playing well. The people who showed up at these games desired "a good game" and the expectation was that you would play well, play hard and do your level best.

I learned how to enjoy sports on those summer evenings...and learned as well that pursuit of winning for its own sake is not a healthy pursuit at all.

I also learned how to listen to my body...playing an open-ended game in 100+ degree weather can literally boil your brain. Playing with people who grew up in, and were accustomed to, tropical heat meant that there would be little sympathy for losing wind, energy....or consciousness...due to the heat.

One Nigerian graduate student, a Yoruban who had a great left foot and a stunning ability to just keep running all the time during a game used to come over to where we were lacing up our boots and drinking water before playing (to stay hydrated) and chide us for weighing ourselves down with water before a match. He never drank a drop until after the match, he said. It kept him alter.... For us, that would have meant an early death. Still, the lesson learned was that everyone has a different liturgy of preparation for a physical ordeal. His was abstinence....ours was to top off the metaphorical tank like camels getting ready to cross the desert.

All of these images come to mind on a number of levels. The first is the presence of the World Cup in our lives this summer. This global tournament is the largest, most watched event in sports in the world. Bigger than the Super Bowl, the World Series and NASCAR put together. People are watching the matches around the globe, listening to radio broadcasts of matches in the most remote places on earth. All "for the love of the game" and a desire that perhaps this year their country-or favorite-will move up through the groups and into the championship game.

Another set of images is, for me, just as powerful. The Sunday lections of these past two weeks find us in the desert wilderness with Elijah. He has journeyed deep into the waste, running from conflicts with the ruling powers of human society he seeks to hide/die out in the wild. God gives him just enough water and food for a forty day journey to the holy mountain...and even less for the walk home. 81 days out there in the heat, with only his thirst, hunger and the word of God to keep him company. As these days are hot, as the soccer matches on television remind me of salad days playing pick up games in the 100+ heat of river valley inversions, as God seems to press in on us like the humid, hard air that is prevalent after the summer solstice in this hemisphere, I find my self stepping back into those days when I felt closer to my body, to me fellow human beings and often even to God.

Sweat and effort, exhaustion and heat-stress...sometimes we find God at the extreme end of our endurance...and for that I give thanks.

2010 is a tough year for the Church...and the church...

2010-06-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

From my point of view, the past two days have been somewhat memorable for the church at both the global and local level. At the global level, I have seen the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop trade multi-page barbs regarding who has the authority to tell who is welcome at which meetings that will determine the shape the Anglican Communion takes in the next couple of years. At stake are two things, I think: the first is an attempt by those who have enjoyed a "first among equals" status moving toward a more codified place of authority; the second is an attempt by many to frame just how global Anglicanism can be defined-is it liberal and inclusive (allowing many cultures, many perspectives)-or is it trending as many large religious bodies are nowadays toward a more mono-cultural stance? The stinger is not the trading of letters between primates, but rather the action of the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion's office decision to unilaterally dis-invite delegate members of the Episcopal Church from consultation and dialogue groups, challenge the Anglican Church of Canada to clarify their stance toward same-sex unions and open ordination; and then to request clarification from the Primate of the Southern Cone regarding episcopal incursions...all while somehow neglecting to call other primates to task for their own roles in the episcopal incursions. I sit in my office in New Jersey and wonder just how much thought, time and air are being given to these issues. The more I read these news items, and the more I look outside the doors of my church I see a dissonance growing. +++Rowan, ++Katharine, et al...speak first to our mission to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, to care for the poor and to console those in need. Instead, we seem to be spending more and more time and money on the battle of, and over, a new politics of identity. While we are arguing about who we are going to be, we are starting to loose sight of who we are called to be, the Body of Jesus Christ given to the world.

That's the global perspective, but I don't live and work there. I live and work in New Jersey, and I serve a parish that is a member of the Body here in the Diocese of New Jersey. We have our own challenges to address and seek God's guidance to overcome. The Diocese is stressed financially. The Parish is stressed financially. Its members are stressed financially and those are the chief worries of the day. How can we get through this year into next and keep the proverbial ship afloat?

So, politics on the global, economics on the local...and all of us wondering just how we are going to be able to not only BE the church into next year, but also HOW we are going to live out our mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves while striving for justice and peace. Not easy...and Trinity has its challenges. Our ability to lean back into resources (sources of income outside the pledge commitment of our members) is not atypical for churches. Some call those resources "endowments" and others "fundraising" or "rent," but they all amount in the end to a subsidy of material support that prevents us from living out the challenge of being all we are called to be, today, as God's fulfilled dream for the Church, for the world.

Rather than being liberated to do more, I see these outside resources as ways for us to instead enter into dependency and reliance on something outside ourselves. Hence, the tendency toward anxiety. I can "control" what I have, to some extent...but when I depend on someone else for the essential elements of my being, then I lose "control" and thus anxiety and fear take the place of faith and confidence.

How do we resolve this conundrum? Ah, that's the big challenge.

As I sit here ruminating on that question, I keep going back to Israel's first weeks in the wilderness as they journey from the point where they crossed the Red Sea and begin their journeys with God-first to Sinai and then to the threshold of the Promised Land. God promises that they will not be starve, nor will they die of thirst. Still, as the provisions they took from Egypt run out, the anxiety of wondering where the next meals, the next sources of water would be begin to rise. The result is murmuring and dissent, fear and an expressed desire to go back to the slavery they knew before-at least under Egypt's domination they had meat, garlic and oil! God doesn't open up a cornucopia of abundance in the wilderness for Israel. God gives them manna-enough for the day. God gives water, even from flint rock-enough for the day's journey. Each night, the people lay down and were challenged to have faith that tomorrow there would be manna on the ground and enough moisture on the rocks that they could have enough strength to continue on, and on. God doesn't provide us a cushion, a nest-egg that will keep us safe and preserved from harm, anxiety or fear...God gives us enough for today's journey. Our job? Keep moving forward, keep praying, keep on in faith and humility that it is God that provides for us.

In a world that seems to be quickly spinning out of control, it would be easy to fall back on panic...to build high walls, to cut the budget down to bare bones, to cancel work/ministries/services in order to balance out the books. But, once we do all that, will we have anything left to offer up to God for what Jesus continually calls for from us? We are to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, console those who grieve and give comfort to those bound and imprisoned. If we keep what we have to ourselves so that we might survive, what happens to those whose need, really, outweighs our own?

I got word today, in the midst of my own worries and stresses, that a colleague who is the pastor of a church in Guatemala has seen his community devastated by tropical storm Agatha. Members of his own church and family have been swept away in the flood. I can only imagine the expenses of the damage his parish membership have sustained to their homes, their gardens and to the loss of work as businesses recover from the storm. His grief, their losses, cause my own concerns to pale a bit, believe me. For now, in my church, we have a roof over our head, the bills are paid and the ministries are stable and even growing. Attendance is up, giving is stable and we seem to have a moment-if only that-to be able to give thanks as the next hard challenges to our worldly peace are "threatened."

I look at 2010 as a year of evolution for the Church. We can no longer assume that any one else BUT Jesus is at our back. No human plan, resource or skill is a substitution for the grace of God working through us "infinitely more than we can ask or imagine." When challenged with despair, frankly, I choose to put my hope in Christ, because in my life that is the one resource that has gotten me through every desert I have encountered. When I was hungry, he gave me food. When I needed help, he sent the faithful to deliver me to safety. When I was poor, he gave me just enough to continue to serve him....that is my Lord.

It will do well, for me, for Rowan, for Katharine and all of us in leadership in the Church to remember that our greatest sin is committed when we think that we can do anything under our own power, with our own will or under our own steam and forget that it is ALL for Christ.

2010 is a tough year for the Church...and I pray that when we look back on it, years from now, we will see this desert passage like Israel did their time in the wilderness: the hunger, the thirst, all of that formed us into who we are now, today...a people who actually trust in God while working hard for the fulfillment of the promises offered through Jesus Christ that all will find life in God's embrace.

When is enough?

2010-06-02T10:03:00.000-04:00

After this morning's early meeting with our deacon, I find myself wondering about when is enough, enough? For most, when you read these words, you find yourself reflecting on a question of your own endurance. How much (more) can I take? What is my limit, and learning that limit-how can I live within that set of parameters so my life can be as peaceful as it can be? Or, perhaps, you are a person who like to push yourself past your limits. You like to find the edge of your own person and then, just beyond those boundaries, perhaps discover more about yourself, and perhaps others, along the way.

I have a friend who loves to cycle. He is a serious rider, clocking more miles on his bike, sometimes, than I manage in my car on a given day. Performance, and maintaining performance in the face of personal limits, is a serious topic among people like him. He wonders how to push past his fatigue and the physical stress that riding can place on him...as do others in his avocation. How can I do more? When I hit my limit, what will carry me past that moment when I hit the proverbial wall, so I can continue on doing what I want to do?

Oddly enough, one of the answers (after lengthy clinical studies) that allows people to push past their physical limits is....wait for it....pickle juice!

Turns out, pickle juice is so foul (vinegar, pickling spices, salt, etc.) that a good dose literally shocks the body out of its desire to shut things down and get you to STOP doing the things that cause it stress. You jump start your metabolism, because your system is screaming, "DEAL WITH THIS JUNK!" and suddenly the "I'm tired, why can we just sit down for a while" impulse is dead on arrival.

Intriguing concept, but not what I am aiming at, today. When I need that proverbial dose of pickle juice in my life, I know how to obtain it. I rely on some people close to me to jolt me out of my torpor...most importantly, I turn to God. Some of the most powerful prayers I have discovered in the past few years are simple in that regard, "Jesus, get me through this....Jesus, speak through me...Jesus, I can't, but you can through me....etc" Still, this is not a post about that sort of "enough." I am on another tack right now....

How do I know when I am going down a path of distraction? When is enough for me in the sense of being able to stop consuming and start being? To stop doing and instead dwell honestly within my self and in God? This morning's conversation centered on that concept. Changes are always looming for us in life, and for all of us here in this parish at this moment, reality is truly in flux. Dealing with that and the busyness it can trigger is not easy. Prayer and quiet awareness are healthy responses; but they are not always the default-either in ministry or in life. Those responses require a conscious discernment: I will do this instead of that.

For both of us, that idea came to maturity in reflecting on how we distract ourselves with consumption. For her, often, it is information. For me, at least for the past couple of years, it has been food. In any event, the consumption of reality allows us to distract ourselves, both from what God is asking of us and in what reality is offering. She will browse the Internet, clicking from favorite site to favorite site, but really is not studying/doing/acting in any intentional way. I can, easily, eat my way from one end of the pantry to the other. Do I taste and savor the food I am eating...or am I just looking beyond that bite to the next one? The answer to "when is enough" gets lost in the "I wonder what's next" just too often. It is, at least for me, the threshold to sin. Sin is a willing heart to seek distraction from God...and wondering, perhaps even obsessing, about what comes next keeps us from being wholly, and holy, in the present-where God dwells with us.

When transition and change looms, and frankly it is always looming, we are confronted with two things: the first is a heightened awareness of the heavy stream of life in and around us; the second is the need to release our expectations that we can keep things as they are now when we arrive at some point in the future that is "then." Things are getting done and need to get done, people need to be visited with and spoken to, tasks and initiatives need to be managed and deliverables need to be delivered...and suddenly, as moments of ending impose themselves on our being, we see time growing too short to get it all done. Our expectations of ourselves, or of others, can too easily exceed our ability to make things happen as we impose that they are supposed to happen.

So, perhaps, managing the question of "when is enough?" really boils down to being willing to do two things: unplug our selves from the input onslaught that we use to distract ourselves from our present stressors; and to also release our tendency to ramp up expectations of ourselves, of others, of outcome and of God so that we can just BE in the here and now.

Taking in, or on, too much might sound like just another day of all of us living in a type-a society...but as I reflect and pray on that deep question of "when is enough?" I realize that God is not the one pushing us past our limits...we are. God is actually asking of us to choose life, to choose joy and peace in Christ, to (even in the most dire places of despair and conflict) see the Spirit at work in us and in those around us. The greatest sins that unhinge God's dream for us to be mindful of the divine will for us in the present moment? Distraction and worry. Both put us outside the lines of the path God intends to guide us into what will be, next. Jesus counsels again and again..."why do you worry?" "why are you afraid?" "why can't you just be here and now with me? (and watch for just one hour?" Let go of wanting/worrying/seeking the next thing. The future will take care of itself. For now, pray and be, and be aware that at least at this moment if we are breathing, loving and striving for the inbreaking kingdom of God...well, then, we have enough.....

After Trinity Sunday....

2010-06-01T10:15:00.000-04:00

When I was a younger man, I had a chance to visit with my paternal grandparents over a Memorial Day weekend. It was during a season in my life when I was closer to them geographically, and when I had more time in my schedule. I was in between college and seminary and looked forward to having some time with family in Michigan before the summer rush of work and study took hold of me. That was how I found myself awakened early by my grandfather so that we could go down to the local florist ( a family friend as well as a vendor for his funeral home ) to pick up several large flats of geraniums that he later planned to plant on the assorted graves of his and my grandmother's ( and thus my own ) families. This errand was no small project. There were Coopers, Curtises, Wardwells and Shellys...and Hearsts and all such others I can't really remember now. We drove through three counties and half again as many towns to visit all of the gravesites. At each one, my grandmother would tell me a story of this or that ancestor...when they lived, how they died. Sometimes there would be a sad story of early death, like a distant cousin, Leander, who fell off a bicycle in the early days of the last century. Other times, I would hear about how hard it was for the German side of the family in the days of WWI. One great-great-great grandparent had been wounded in the Civil War, and had come home to decades of pain from the bullet that had lodged in his thigh. There was scandal as well. One relative had buried family members at a right angle to others in the family plot thirty years ago. That was a controversy still being discussed, because it had disrupted the order and number of available plots that were remaining in that section of a graveyard in which family had been interred since 1835...an unbroken line of Shellys from one end of the cemetery to the other.

All of these stories worked their way into my own memory as my grandfather drove us from plot to plot, from graveside to graveside. Each geranium was a gift to, and an acknowledgment of, those who had gone before. We are not talking about the "best and the brightest." Most of my ancestors were what most would call simple folk. They were farmers and shop keepers, teachers and merchants. Most had at least a high school education, with my father's generation being among the first to obtain advanced degrees. Still, all of them knew and loved life. Most-good Methodists that they were-also knew and loved God. As I pushed the flowers into the dirt, cleared the stones and traced names and dates with my fingers I gave thanks for their witness. Remembering those who have gone before is important beyond words...because if it weren't for them we would not be here. That is a pretty standard assessment...but I also, then and now, had another thought. Someday, I would be one of those, asleep in Christ, who would perhaps be honored in the way my grandfather chose to lead us that day years ago. A simple geranium, perhaps a few words about what my life was like, where I lived and traveled with my wife. My work and witness in Christ, even.

Memorial Day is not just a day when we remember and give thanks for those who have offered their lives that we might live. Yes, that is paramount to the day's observance...

It is also a day to reflect on our own lives and to wonder a bit about how God is asking great things of us. Large and small, each life matters. My grandfather and grandmother taught me that. It didn't matter that how distant a relative it was to us in terms of blood or marriage. What mattered is that we remembered the whole family as best we could.

The day ended in a remote little section of the county my family had lived in for over a hundred and twenty-five years. Just outside of a small cluster of houses was a deserted burial ground. It was mowed, but not particularly well-kept. We were there to put the last couple of pots of geraniums on the graves of a couple of obscure cousins.

We we walked to the site, white granite markers eroded by wind, water and weather acting as our guides, I became aware of an abundance of small, blue flowers. There was a ground cover that had overwhelmed and choked out the grass. The whole burial ground was covered, an almost indigo carpet. It was beautiful, and lonely...and a reminder. God places life and beauty all around us, even in places where death can accumulate. I was jarred out of my reveries and the Memorial Day ritual for just a second and found myself utterly in the moment.

My grandfather died a few years ago and though my grandmother is in good health, she is no longer able to make that sort of trek again. Still, I realize that today, though I am miles away and years past that moment, I have at least the time this morning to visit those gravesides in my morning prayer time...to take some time to remember, visit, and at least in my heart place a small flower on the place each ancestor has in my own experience of life. May I always remember...and when I am gone, may the grace of God allow one or two to remember our generation as well.

Risk management...a bland concept?

2010-05-26T11:46:00.001-04:00

Something popped into my head this morning as I sat down to write. What am I really risking as I put finger to keyboard here in my office in New Jersey? At root, I suppose I might be risking a great deal. Blogging means being willing to send your thoughts and words out into the wider universe. Each little fragment of a phrase, each turn of a word is eventually referenced and cataloged in search engines that continually troll cyberspace looking for logarithmic connections between concepts. How do I know this? I don't really, beyond seeing the reference keys in the site meter that tells me from what point some visitors to the blog come from out there in the world as they search for such and such idea or sources. I do sense that there might be something bigger out there; but really I just see its leading edge. Like the tip of an iceberg, there is much more beneath the surface than up top. So, as I write and post, write and post my words are going out there; and not just mine...much wiser, better and more powerful writers are putting their stuff out there as well. Thoughts on all of the odd bits of life. Deep philosophy and profound theology...and musings on cats playing with bits of lint in the dining room...it's all out there.

Yesterday, I took a swing at leadership in the Church. A friend who is a better writer and thinker recently went further out on that limb and took on the question of identity politics in our church's national power structures. Years ago, another friend went through a very public discernment process for a leadership position and found her life exhibited in some unhealthy ways as bits and pieces of her resume were lifted out of context in concentric rings of confusion by people commenting on comments on comments on observations that someone had about the choices she had made in her education. There are risks that come with living a life out in public. Some we assume at the outset and some we discover along the way.

I give thanks to God that I live in a time and in a society where I can pretty much write what I wish. The Church is not breathing down my neck. There are other, more important people, out there who demand the attention of the pundits. Even the political leadership is less bothered by mainline religious leadership now than it ever has been before. Our social capital is all but exhausted at this point. Right now in my life, there are no individual strong men, or women, that I am aware of whose will and opinion I have to be careful about offending. I am relatively free.

Does that make things better for me? Safer perhaps, but not necessarily better. As I sit here and look up at my bookshelf, most of the "great works" I see on it relate back to a risk the writer had to assume in order to let their words be known. They faced ridicule, dismissal, censure and perhaps death if the words they wrote wound up offending the wrong person at the wrong time. Even now, out in the world, some voices are being silenced as you read this post because someone in a government or corporation is concerned that if "this got out" there would be trouble for them in the resulting challenge to their authority or control.

Writing is a gift, and a privilege, that brings with it a great and godly responsibility. Even humor has power to unseat tyranny...nothing plagues evil so much as its fear of being humiliated or laughed at, eh? So, how important is it to take that risk?

Would the world be a different place if Dante' never had the courage to publish his Divine Comedy? If Machiavelli never offered up the first manuscript for The Prince? If Gandhi had never penned his autobiography? If Archbishop Romero had decided it was too much trouble, too risky to challenge the systems of encomiendo in his home country? The short answer is, Yes. And yet, all the writers paid a price. I would also argue that their genius came from wedding conscience to risk to spirit...a threefold stool giving support to a resolve to speak, to be heard and to stand up for what might mean real justice for someone out there in the world.

Paul's first letter to Timothy is filled with advice about leadership. Most of the counsel offers up a model of restraint and conservative forbearance. It would seem that Paul is pushing a model of leadership that is based on keeping our head down and avoiding risk. But, as I continue to reflect on the question and wonder what impact my life and words might have on the wider universe on behalf of the kingdom of God, I find myself coming back to a more subtle interpretation.

Save your words, Paul is offering: Save your self, for God has a vision of the Kingdom and a mission for you to play a significant role in its evolution. When the time is right, speak boldly and proclaim God's mercy and love-and justice-to this broken world. Get up, and speak, and know that all the waiting, training and wondering will have their place and the risk will be worth it when the cause is in and of God.

In a world wherein my own personal risk ratio is low; and the links/searches/references that draw people to these pages is a tiny fraction of those that link people to more controversial writers, I sit and pray and wonder where next God is going to call on each of us to speak, to write and to be heard.

What man, counsels Jesus, who when going out to build anything does not first weigh and consider the costs? Still, when it is time to risk, says Paul via his letter to Timothy, don't hold back out of fear. Stride into your role, having conserved your spirit and lived with moderation so that when the time does come to offer it all up to the glory of God we can do so with light spirits and open hearts softened by the love of Christ for both our beloved ones AND our adversaries.

This morning's prayer, and some musings on leadership....

2010-05-25T15:30:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a week-long conference of peers, my annual retreat with nine colleagues in ministry-all of whom are in the same generation of life. We share a lot in common, and a lot makes us different from each other, as a group of priests gathered to ponder this particular point of reference in both our public and private lives. How we are going to continue to be leaders to and in the Church was a dominant conversation. It has been going on since we started meeting, and I anticipate it continuing until only one of us remains alive. At least, that is our covenant with each other. Whatever life brings, we have promised to remain connected.

What matters in the here and now for me lies in this year's debate on what our role in the Church is to be as we enter the middle years of our ministries and careers. At this point, we have been leaders for long enough to have made some serious mistakes and to have celebrated some wonderful moments of success. We have been surprised by the Holy Spirit working gracefully in the counsels of the Church. We have also seen it stumble and trip itself up, obscuring its work of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a sad miasma of controversy and conflict. In other words, we have seen the Church being itself, as much in this generation as in any other. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes it all goes horribly wrong.

I was musing on that reality as I opened up the lessons for morning prayer when I got into work earlier today. Great way to begin the work of the morning, a passage from I Samuel in which God speaks to the prophet at a particular nadir in his experience as a leader in Israel. Saul has, effectively, gone off his rocker. The king Samuel didn't want to install has now become a liability to the people, both with regard to their safety among other nations and more importantly in their relationship with God. Still, God is decent enough to offer some consolation, "How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out....I have provided for myself a king among [Jesse's] sons."

So quickly the mantle passes. It is true of every generation. We get our shot at making things happen. I suppose it helps when you are in the first flushes of the hubris of youth. When you don't realize how powerfully intractable human institutions can be, and when you don't know your own limits of strength and spirit...well, it all seems possible. As we get older, the reality of having to live within these same institutions sets in. Samuel is being sent to anoint a new king. Before the old one dies. God has told him to fill his horn. this won't be a pretty, Hollywood ending at all. Still, Israel has chosen to live with an anointed king, and God will (and always does) provide. The rest of the details we will have to work out.

One of my colleagues offered this as we pondered our roles as change agents in the leadership of the Church: Our greatest mistake as revolutionaries is that we presume that we will be the ones who fix things, once and for all. At best, we can hope to create enough of a ripple in the structures of the Church that we might be able to shift it from some quite unsuccessful ways of being and doing business to some more effective ways of being a missional voice of action for the good of the Kingdom of God.

Samuel took a heifer and his oil and went where God sent him, to Jesse of Bethlehem. Someone among this man's sons was to be the newly anointed king. Which one? The tall one? The smart one? The one with the great speaking voice? The oldest? The most materially successful? God's hand passes over all of them until the baby shows up...a nearly forgotten son who had been sent out to tend his father's sheep in the hills. Could anyone remember the last time he was here around the house? No? By the Name, he has grown! Look at that suntan! It's like he has been sleeping outside for months. Well, really, he has. And those scars on his arms and chest? Claw and bite marks? Check it, though....no marks on his back. He has always faced his dangers head on....

Of course, from our perspective, David is the perfect choice. But it is clear he was the last person anyone was thinking of when it came to wondering who God would command Samuel to anoint as king.

Just when we think we have it all figured out, God opines that-well-we should take a few moments to try and see it from perspective She takes. It is not about easy answers, but about being willing to ask better questions. The glory of God is in the way one major concept can be addressed, modified and innovated upon with nearly infinite variety. Don't get caught up on appearances, certainties or the opinions that what worked best before is the template for what will work well in the future. God is not done speaking; and demonstrates that the one true constant in the life of the universe is change itself.

Take the idea of bread. This came up during my morning walk with my wife. Leadership is something that is infinitely variable in the challenges it presents. Simple enough to assume, cut very complicated in execution. Our arrogance is that we think that we can define it, once and for all as ONE thing. Actually, in the end it is a concept. God and the human spirit will determine its ultimate shape, texture and flavor. Really? Bread?

OK, then, BREAD! A simple thing to make, with a bit of flour, some water and leaven. Perhaps a bit of salt and fat to aid in the leavening and to add flavor. But, from there the variations kick in. What kind of flour? Where does your water come from? Olive oil or butter, or perhaps some animal fat? Sal de mer or simple iodized salt from that blue canister on the shelf? What about the oven? Is it wood-burning? Are there ceramic slabs? What is the moisture content in the air? Etc. etc. There are as many variations on the ideal of "bread" as there are human cultures on the face of the earth...more, even.

So, then, who gets to determine the definition of "bread?" Can anyone? The moment we bind up the concept, we lose creativity. To define bread is to limit it.

Better to ask, "Where will this concept of bread take me today?"

Give us this day our daily bread.....

God is infinite in patience, and is desperate, I believe, to see what we are going to do with the tools we are given in this life to work toward the continually inbreaking glory of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Thing is, we have to be careful-first to avoid getting mired down in certainty; and second to maintain an enthusiastic momentum in seeking to change things enough that God can continue to do good work through us and those who follow. What works for me, what is bread for me...who is "king" for me is not what, or who, will work for those of other generations. Not for those who are ahead of me on life's path, nor for those who follow. My task is to continue to seek God's will in coming up with more variations on "bread," enough that we might, in one of those recipes, find something that will feed us enough today that we might see tomorrow....

Power and Control, Meditations on the Daily Office...

2010-05-06T10:13:00.000-04:00

This morning, as I finished my prayers at my desk, I picked up a devotional that a former parishioner gifted to me. It is a beautiful gift volume of Oswald Chanmbers' book, "My Utmost for His Highest." Really, a classic of a type of daily reader in which Chambers took a passage of scripture and then, for us, broke it open for a snapshot moment of reflection and prayerful meditation on the day's experiences. Of the many books like this one that sit on my shelf, I find myself turning to him on more than one occasion. He has a way of hitting a mark that I admire-and confess as well that his insights often make me more than a little discomforted. I think that was the giver's intent. Inside the cover she inscribed:

"May these readings prove a small light to you on your journey...Sometimes it is not clear to see His rationale. Go in peace and let Him guide your footsteps."

Best to stir things up before settling down into the workday, I think. Keeps me a little more honest. I try to keep her words as well to heart. Many people, particularly those closest to me, work very hard to ensure I maintain integrity-particularly Christ, who for some reason continues to express an interest in the direction my life and vocation take. To God, and my neighbor in Christ, blessings and thanksgivings. I don't say that near enough to people, I realize. Today, I speak openly. Particularly as God stirs me to write and reflect on power and control.

So, today's reading from Chambers is a snip of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Chambers, in today's meditation, selects Galatians 5:1: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free..." His point is to live according to a model of power and authority in Christ that does not seek to control, but to liberate. It is a continual temptation for people of faith, really, for any human, to take a belief of practice that we are passionate about and attempt to impose that template on another person with the hope that our conviction will make them free. Or, perhaps, "free-er" than they were before our enlightening grace entered their lives. I am reminded of a sermon that the parish's deacon gave during Lent this year in which she challenged us to see that the opposite expression of "faith" is not "doubt" or "fear." The opposite of faith is certainty.

Nothing is so dangerous as the idea that I can be so certain about anything as to be right in forcing you to believe, and act, as I would have you do in ministry and life. "Be this way" is a dangerous and life-destroying act. It is as damaging to others as our fear demand that life itself conform to our desire. I can't will the wind to stop because I want a calm...or for wind in a calm. I have to live with the weather I get. Why is it so hard to life the same way with people? Because that sort of flexibility demands more from us that we are often prepared to give up. Our certainties, for the most part, define us. I watch this every day in the world: politicians and public voices in the media offer increasingly strident demands that their way be THE way.

I see that all the time out there, and I feel it often inside myself. If only the world would be as I want it to be, I think with my more reptilian, baser self, then I would be safer/happier/more content. Right? The people in driving in front of me should get out of my way. The people behind me should be patient. After all, as I look out at the universe, aren't I standing at the center of it?

Chambers, Paul, really ANY wise person who has lived in the world for more than five minutes can understand that this perspective might work for an infant-but the reality of life is that we HAVE to take others into account. Being free and at liberty also means respecting and loving others in their liberty as well. Even when these perspective are in conflict. The longer I live, the more I realize that I lack the strength and grace to make that practice real on my own. If I am to be for others in this life, then I have to first allow Jesus to model for me-and work through me-what it means to be someone who is at once both utterly contained and content in being an individual while at the same time being one who is in harmony and alignment with the Divine Will.

This morning's Gospel reading from the Daily Office is a classic of Jesus teaching to let God have the burden of creating meaning while we strive to live within it. Matthew 6: 25-ff, starts off with Jesus telling us not to worry about life, "about what you are to drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Life is "more than food and the body more than clothing." Makes sense...frightening sense.

I look back on life and ministry and realize that my worst offering of leadership and greatest commitment of folly came when I did two things with abandon: I indulged in worry, and judgment. I worried about my ability to control my environment and my relationships with other people to the point that I throttled my connections to them. I judged them, and not myself, when what I expected of them were things I was not willing to ask God to manifest in myself. Power and control became weapons, then, both of defense and attack. Instead of making known the name of Jesus and his mercy; I lived a life and ministry of demand and fear wore me down to a nub. Not a good way to be in Jesus Christ; but through sin and repentance come new life. From persecution and suffering-if taken on in the spirit of Christ-comes resurrection.

So, today anyway, I find myself feeling a little more open to Christ-both in myself and in the people I see out there in a world that is yearning. Yearning not for MY good word or deeds, but for Christ working through US.

The epistolary reading for today is drawn from the opening lines of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, and it illustrates a healthy posture for a growing Christian who struggles with the powers of the world (and with the desire for power to inflict control within them):

We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions which you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also are suffering....To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

So, when it comes to power and control, perhaps today we just might resolve to allow the Other who is Jesus to guide us to grace and peace: "Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." BCP, p. 832-A prayer of self-dedication

Amen.

The Bible Study on John: Ch. 18-20--The Passion

2010-05-05T14:23:00.001-04:00

We started off today with a question: Looking at the Gospel of John, Chapters 18-20, what are your reactions taking our common experience of the Passion narrative in context as a liturgical experience that we share?

I hoped to take us out of the idea that we are reading and thinking about a text. The Good Friday recitation of the Passion (in parts, perhaps even sung/chanted) in most parishes is not so much a reflection on words read from a page but an experience that we share! This is not just a story, but a tale in which we are also players and witnesses. It may be that these events transpired millenia ago, but on Good Friday they are real. We are remembering the common experience of Jesus, crucified. The emotions, reactions and responses are our emotions, reactions and responses-even though we were not then, we are there with Jesus as he makes his way to, and through, the hour appointed for him.

That is the important thing about John's Gospel to me, and one that I am coming to pretty late in life. I have always seen John as a theological position paper, if you will. Someone is attempting to make a case to me for the reality that Jesus is the incarnate LOGOS of God, the Son, the Heir and the one who calls us to a unique relationship with God outside of the way Israel has known God in the past. This is a new thing rising up from the old--there might even be some tinges of super cession involved. The "Jews" come off looking bad, the Romans are mighty pawns to be manipulated and the Disciples are hapless witnesses-soon to be heirs-of Jesus ascending to prominence as Messiah. Soon, according to the Gospel, the Church will be the repository of the Truth in Jesus...at least, that was how I saw it when I was at my most cynical.

Now, I am not so sure about John. His Jesus is certainly the incarnate Word. No doubt about that...but as I read the Gospel again for the first time, I am seeing the crafting of a promise from God fulfilled for a delivering Messiah that is actually able to subvert the systems of a world that is actively seeking to either reject, or control, ANYONE claiming to be a deliverer. The rules are being exceeded, and Jesus is adamantine in his way of being. You cannot avoid either being for, or against, his agenda and the in breaking kingdom of God. If you are for it, then your heart is about to be broken-even as Jesus is about to be broken on the Cross. If you are against him, then you are about to assume that by doing away with this agent of irritation you will be shut of him-and that is a great and serious error.

We moved on from the liturgical reflection to another question-Who is Malchus?

He was a slave in the household of the high priest. Simon Peter, during Jesus' arrest, draws a knife and cuts off Malchus' ear. Jesus chides Peter, and the rest of his disciples. The path of violence will only ignite a firestorm. There won't be deliverance with an armed insurrection. This is Jesus' hour, not Peter's. This is Jesus' cup to drink from, and no one else's. Why?

The answer is a complex one, and we spent a majority of our time talking about how Jesus seems to move and speak with such purpose in these two chapters. He has chance after opportunity to degrade the level of conflict around him. He receives several chances to reject the "fate" we know awaits all enemies of Rome-messiahs who are not Caesar, particularly. He doesn't flinch under the weight of rejection by the religious authorities and he does not bow to the will of the crowd/mob craving his death with cries of, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Instead, he seems to set his spirit firmly on the idea that what God intends for the Word-death and through death, life-should come to pass, even if it means his own earthly end.

How many times, when you have experienced conflict in work, class, family or group of friends, has the yoke of blame/fear/acrimony/etc. fallen on you? How many times have you placed it on someone else's shoulders? This sort of projection allows for a great deal of energy to be released. It is always easier to have someone to blame, to suppress, to dehumanize in order to feel that all is right with the world. Hang all that negativity around someone's neck and send them off into exile and perhaps they will take all that junk with them. One ancient liturgy had the people hanging representations of their sins around the neck of a goat that would then be driven off into the desert. Once the scapegoat is gone...the sins go away too, right? Sure, until they come back again. This is an endless, human cycle. It's how we too often spend our time with the freedom of choices that God has given us. Get rid of the "bad" guy so us "good" guys can live in peace. That works only for a short time; but Jesus is working a line that just might break the cycles of pain and projection forever. That is, if we allow it.

One critical awareness to keep hold of as we move through the Passion: At his arrest in 18: 4-9, Jesus' voice and presence is enough to cause everyone around him to fall back and to the ground. There can be no doubt that he not only chooses this path-despite his might and meekness-he also intends to go it alone. This path is one that will break the cycles of violence; just like an alcoholic coming to sobriety, or a killer confessing so that the truth will be known even after justice is visited on him. Jesus is not subject to the powers of the world, but subjects himself in order that all might be free, forever.

It doesn't explain away the horror we witness in the Passion, and it doesn't really justify it to our satisfaction. What it does do, I am becoming convinced, is open a portal of understanding that just might get us to a place of being able to put off the yokes that the powers of the world would have us think are part of our God-created being (they are not) and instead assume a posture of being committed to a new life in a new creation that is balanced and solely oriented on God's will-versus our own. Jesus is not just challenging "the system." He is rewriting the script from page one.

Examples? Look at Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu...Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth; they, in their generation, came to understand that if systems of oppression are to be broken they can't be broken with the same violence that supports their existence. Gandhi was a lawyer in South Africa who decided that racism and political/imperial oppression were evils to be addressed directly-but without violence. How did he resist the British when he returned to India? He picked cotton, spun it into thread, wove the thread into a garment he wore and refused to accept that Great Britain had power over him to force him to buy his clothes made from cloth in English mills that was woven from cotton picked by his fellow countryfolk. He walked to the sea (rejecting British public transportation) in order to break the law and make salt by hand-challenging the British mandate that salt could only be made under license from the Crown. He didn't blow anyone up. He didn't execute anyone, or demand the death of anyone. He simply insisted on being free from oppression. It could have meant his death, and many did die who refused to resist violence and instead chose nonviolence.

But, as MLK, Jr. and Tutu and all others in this century who "fought" for Civil Rights-Jesus' mandate that freedom comes not from violence but from rising above it-there is a sensibility that is profoundly holy being expressed.

Why the Cross? There is no greater scandal in Roman-or perhaps even contemporary-physical domination. I can show I have power over you by nailing you to a board. You will suffer defeat and anyone who witnesses your suffering will understand my might, and my right to claim power over you and anyone else who challenges my strength. In the Passion, strength is overcome by weakness. Death is overcome, eventually, by life.

Still, we need to address why we have to come back and experience Good Friday over and over again. Well, let's be honest: we need to come back to this awe-full thing because that which is in and of us that perpetuates the insult of the cross continues to this day. In most of our inner portrait galleries where the visages of people we have known hang there is a "rogue's gallery," I am sure. These are the portraits we paint and install of people who have threatened, challenged, upset, hurt or destroyed us. These are the portraits we paint of people whom we THINK have threatened, challenged,upset, hurt or destroyed us. We might even hang some of those pictures out in the world. We also have to be honest and acknowledge that others have our portrait hanging in their galleries.

Jesus' journey to the Cross challenges us to do two things: to put down the cycles of violence and rejection that make filling those galleries such an easy task; and to admit that there is truth in the distorted images of ourselves that we would like to reject-but that people would love to hang on our noses so that the world can see how terrible we really are. The Passion cuts through all of that hot mess and puts us into a new place. as we stand at the foot of the cross and mourn along with Mary and the beloved disciple we also get the opportunity to look through that horror to a grace that was before time, in time and with us through all time. You can kill the Body...but not the Word-not for long, anyway. Simple enough to say...but the challenge is to live that reality out in our lives, even as Jesus did in his death.

Next week...the Resurrection....really!

Saying Farewell...John Bible Study, Chs. 14-17

2010-04-29T11:11:00.000-04:00

As I serve this interim period for Trinity Church, I am reminded yet again of how important, and potent, a good and healthy set of goodbyes are for a faith community. This is a truth at all levels, from the departure of leadership to the decision to move on made by an evanescent parishioner who attends worship and fellowship events only from time to time. To make a good goodbye is more than just an alliterative statement. How we say farewell to each other, particularly when we are bound up in the spirit to each other in worship and service to God, figures in our walk with both the human and divine communities we inhabit no matter where we are, or who we are with in a given moment in life.

Books have been written on the subject, my favorite title being "Praying our Goodbyes," which talks as much about the dying process as it does about "simple" social departures as well.

It isn't easy saying goodbye to anyone, or anything. You can have the most beastly of relationships and experiences in a given community and yet still mourn leaving it. Any person leaving fellowship leaves a human-shaped hole in the heart of the community. There can be no doubt about that. Could it be any different for us and the disciples in the Gospel of John as Jesue begins to speak, quite explicitly, about the hour that is coming and about his imminent fate-a departure that will only be brought to fullness by his own death on the cross?

Shakespeare is right, parting is a sweet sorrow.

This came up in our Bible Study yesterday morning. We were just two, and though small in numbers we resolved to be open to the Spirit and see where God might take us in the conversation on what has been called in the past Jesus' "Farewell Discourse."

My conversation partner stepped off the mark by offering that she is thinking that she might be starting to "get" what Jesus and John are up to in this Gospel account. Something is happening, to Jesus, to the community around him and to us as he prepares to meet a fate WE know means not the end of things, but rather a new beginning.

Still, this section of the Gospel is about endings. It is about taking all the loose, challenging and dangling ends of discourse and exposition that we saw earlier in the text toward what for humanity will be the penultimate denouement in our walk with God.

Jesus is the living bread. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the true vine. Jesus commands us to love one another-not just in word, but also in action. Jesus is the "way, the truth and the life." He is going to his Father in heaven, both to prepare a place for us and also to be able to send the Advocate to be our help and our guide in the years to come; and until he comes again in glory.

All of this plain-spoken truth comes at a price: the life of Jesus, handed over and given up. He spends these chapters attempting to place in us a confidence that what is about to happen is not only bound to happen, but has to happen in order that life, and the Word, can triumph over death and division.

Where our conversation took us was into a deep exploration of the significance of the Cross. The cross that Jesus was hanged on was not just a singular innovation of a crafty Roman governor wondering how best (and iconically) to dispose of an awkward prisoner. It was a well-enginered and effective tool of the public expression of the power of Rome. Resist the Empire, blaspheme the order of the Roman way of being and face the consequence of being lifted up as a sign of what it means when someone chooses to walk apart from the Emperor's and the Senate's will. The Cross was a scandal of the most profound and terrible elements of oppression. Hundreds, thousands of people who resisted Rome were placed in public venues on crosses, with spikes driven through them-bound and broken bodies contorting in agony-as a sign that when it comes to efficient and effective expressions of power and control, no one can beat the legions at their own game.

How does a "king of kings" and "lord of lords" triumph without a host of soliders on his side against that might? There aren't enough human beings on hand in Israel for a Messiah to fight that earthly battle...but really, there never was one in the first place. You don't triumph over the cross by tearing it down, but by taking it and transforming that symbol of scandal and violence into one of reconciliation and new life. And, to dial it up from there, the Cross and Jesus' death on it-as he reframes LIFE for us-is not just overthrowing the ability of Rome of control us, but also the very burden of sin itself is about to be lifted from our shoulders for all time. "For as in Adam, all die; so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Jesus' death addresses and heals the rift between us and God, even as we look at earthly emperor's and realize that they may demand our obedience, but they cannot ever coopt our soul-or our relationship to God and to each other.

So, as the discourse draws to a close, Jesus enters into a prayerful reverie. This chapter (17) is often called the "High Priestly Prayer" in that is mirrors the intercessory prayers offered by the high priest during the annual liturgies of the Temple cleansings. The high priest stands in the gap between the people and God, and prays for them, that God will forgive and restore the nation. Jesus' prayers goes a step and more past that. His prayer is at first on behalf of his disciples, but then expands to include ALL who will follow. This prayer sums up both Jesus' perception of his relationship with the Father and also how John sees him relating to us (and commanding us to relate, and offer love, to one another).

My experience of reading and re-reading these passages gives me a sense of being "topped off" with the love of Christ and the investment of the Spirit. These passages are meant to prepare us for the events to come (both Jesus' crucifixion in the narrative AND the oppression and persecution of the Church by the principalties and powers of the world), and for our benefit as we struggle to be the Church without the physical, human presence of Jesus leading and guiding us.

This is not just a "third-quarter speech" by a divine coach. It is Jesus offering us a grace-filled and graceful assurance that WHATEVER life brings our way, even sin and death, God will never take away the Love and the Word. They are with us always...and not even the Roman cross can destroy or dominate that power, because that power overcomes with love, and leaves violence on the sidelines.

Next week, The Passion.....

Good Shepherd Sunday...musings on the flock and the one who guides them to pasture.

2010-04-21T09:50:00.001-04:00

I have in my ministry offered pastoral care to shepherds. Not a usual thing for most Episcopal clergy. We have all manner of parishioners from all walks of life; but in this one place, I actually had several families that kept sheep. Some were vocational stewards of a rare breed, some bred for market, one kept them as a hobby. All of them learned quickly that shepherding a flock of sheep is a labor-intensive and powerfully challenging, and rewarding, way to be connected to the natural world. Sheep have been domesticated for millenia by human beings, and that relationship shows, believe me. Sheep need human assistance and protection, nearly every minute of every day of their lives. They need help in lambing. They need support in bonding with their offspring. They need protection. They need to be shorn...etc., etc. One predator in their midst and they can harm themselves almost as much as the teeth and claws that tear...because they have a habit of clustering, and then climbing up and onto each other.

What a terrible responsibility. Still, there is a great joy for those shepherds I know. They get as many rewards as they weather challenge. Wool keeps them warm, sold, spun, woven and knitted into garments that help to make clothing for those in need. Food is produced at the market for hungry people. And, frankly, there is as much wisdom to be gained as frustration from sheep. Life is lived at an elemental level. It matters what temperature it is "out there" in the world. Is there too much snow? Frost? Heat? Is there enough water and fodder for the stock? Are they safe? Being a shepherd is entering into, willingly, an other-directed and other-centered life. What wonder that Our Lord would draw a direct parallel between his witness to the world as the light and salvation of the whole fabric of Creation itself with the words, "I am the shepherd."

Jesus knows his sheep, us...the world, and he calls us by name. We are his and in following him, we are kept safe under the protection of God's grace. Not one will be lost. Not one.

Still, are we ready to accept the reality that we are sheep seeking a shepherd? Or, more challenging, that we as the Body of Christ are charged with becoming better shepherds to those seeking the safety of God's divine sheepfold? The reality of the life of faith is that we are both, and need to live fully into BOTH roles.

I remember I once preached a sermon to a committee that was seeking a new pastor for their parish. How fitting that it was "Good Shepherd" Sunday (4 Easter in the Episcopal lection due to the "theme" of the lessons being focused on the imagery of God/Jesus/David as the Good Shepherd to the people). I stepped into the pulpit having prayed on and over the challenge of presenting both a faithful message of the Good News to the congregation, while at the same time attempting to communicate the foundations of how I perceived what it meant to be a priest to a congregation. After all, this was the first, and perhaps the last, time this committee was going to hear me preach.

So, as I worked and prayed, the sermon that formed took me to a place of understanding that though Jesus may want us to see him as the Good Shepherd, we have a LOT of work to do ourselves. Our stewardship of the church, of each other and our obligation to be Christ to the world requires of us sheep a willingness to step up and be good shepherds as well. Time to GIVE care, comfort and protection even as we RECEIVE it from Jesus. Time to step up and offer ourselves in the breech between the flock and the dangers of the world, even as we realize that just like David and countless other shepherds throughout history we have to do that by wit, courage and faith. We have stick and stones and whatever else might be at hand as weapons to fight off attacking predators. We have only our own two hands, a willing heart and the discipline of being open to whatever comes down the pike with which to offer aid and comfort to those who might not be able to articulate what it is that they really need.

The sermon went over well for the congregation, but one of the committee members took issue with me. "I wanted to hear more about the sheep." Years later, looking back on that moment of feedback, I realize that we are not always ready to hear the "good" news that we are called to responsibility-even when we are feeling more than a little sheepish about God's desire to transform us into servant leaders for the kingdom. The critic offered something of merit, though at the time I was-I confess-put out that he didn't "get" my point. Even as we are answering God's call to shepherd work, we are still vulnerable as sheep seeking a shepherd. We are BOTH the crowd on the hillside that Jesus sees, and loves, who are "like sheep without a shepherd;" and, at the same time, we are the called who are even now begin exhorted by our risen Lord ("Peter, do you love me? Then tend/feed/keep my sheep") to take up the crook of the shepherd and begin our never-ending task of leading the flock beside still waters to good pasture.

In that, I think, when we are willing to be "both/and" while at the same time confessing our weak strength and powerful meekness, we begin to model what God knows is within us already...to be good sheep who find the resolve and resources in the Holy Spirit to also become good shepherds....

The Bible Study on John continues with Chapters 8-13

2010-04-20T11:05:00.000-04:00

As the page turns from where we were for the past few chapters-seeing Jesus ascending in both influence and impact on the people around him. The authorities, at least most of them, reject him and his teaching. The crowds respond with an increasing interest and energy. What makes this part of the Gospel different from the other three is that while Jesus seems to be entering into a popular relationship with the crowd in Matthew, Mark and Luke, here there seems to be a separation taking place. Jesus begins to talk about leaving, soon. The hour is coming, he tells them...get ready...but, really, you can't get ready. So, be watchful.

Chapter 8 begins with Jesus' encounter with a crowd that has gathered with the intent of stoning a woman who had been caught in adultery. Most textual scholars agree that this was not an original element of John's Gospel, but that it was added later. Still, this piece has deep roots in the verbal tradition and in its placement in the early chapters of the Gospel speak a great deal to both Jesus' authority as a teacher and judge-and to the radical address he offers to the authorities who live within a dramatically expanded (read, Pharisaic) version of Torah. Still, it has to be said that the woman is guilty of the sin, is liable under the law and this is a "legitimate" judgment-though we might find it repugnant in this day and age. She is condemned. Jesus is challenged by the leaders of the crowd, not to have him offer supportive judgment, but instead to catch him out. This is a recurrent theme, but in this case a woman's life is at stake. He squats down and draws circles with his finger in the dirt...and under continuing pressure responds that the person without sin should cast the first stone. Simple logic...and devastating to the intent of the crowd. Note that he is NOT calling anyone a hypocrite, nor is he contravening the Law. He is simply and in a straightfoward way offering up that judgment is God's when it comes to condemnation...and unless we are willing to accept responsibility for our own sins, even as we seek to visit sentence on those who sin around us, we should be very careful indeed when it comes to choosing to take up stones to hurl at anyone, regardless of guilt.

After this event, and the woman's apparent pardon/release, Jesus enters into a discourse on how he is the light of the world. Again, he is involved in arguments over semantics. One cannot testify on one's own behalf. And yet, Jesus seems to be doing just that...while Jesus challenges them with the invitation to accept not only his teaching, but also his nature as the one who is come down from the Father to teach and to model the life of the kingdom. This exchange resolves, if it can be called that, with claims and challenges of primacy. The Pharisees claim that as descendants of Abraham they are "entitled" as heir of the kingdom. Jesus challenges that assertion of freedom. Anyone can claim anything, but it is in the life they live that they show themselves either worthy or false. The chapter concludes with another ratcheting up of the argument that Jesus is the very Word..."before Abraham was, I am." That nearly gets him stoned. Full circle from the woman who skirts that fate and Jesus who provokes it.

Chapter 9 opens with more arguments at the expense of a human being's comfort and safety. A man, born blind, is brought to Jesus-not so much for healing; but to beg the question about the inheritance of sin and its transferance across generations. If someone is blind from birth; and blindness is the product of sin...who then sinned? The man as an infant...or as an embryon in utero? His parents? Is this the reality of a just God who creates and then visits punishment for one generation's sin on the innocence of the next? Jesus' reply is direct. The man's blindness is not a sign of sin, but a witness to the dynamic power of God and the Word to heal. And so, the man is healed...but can people accept that one who was once blind has now become one who has sight? He had no eyes, and now they are whole and functional inside his head. What/who does that? To what purpose? Can we truly be open to the Son of God alive in our midst and are we ready to accept the changes and transformations that are bound to occur as that incarnation bears fruit and grace?

How many times has someone been transformed before us, healed, and we simply and utterly fail to accept that transformation? The "Jews," the Pharisees, the authorities, bang around the event. He can't be the same man. He can't be healed in a "legitimate" way because he was healed during the Sabbath rest. He can't be sighted now...much less forgiven...because no man can possess the power to do this incredible thing! It all boils down to the basic question: Is Jesus from God? To say "yes" is to accept that God is doing a new thing, and that is John's whole point in a nutshell. This Jesus, incarnate Son, is God's active presence in the world-and thus his actions supercede all that was before. Not a great thing for people who have based their lives on aligning themselves firmly with tradition-and in John's eyes', who have forsaken the dynamism of God's intent to reveal the Son to the world.

Chapter 10 is perhaps the most powerful, and most poignant of exchanges to date in the Johannine Gospel narrative. As Jesus begins to discourse with the great "I AM" statements, the rejection also continue to pile up around him. For those who follow, Jesus is truth...is THE Truth. For those who reject, he is a blasphemer. The middle ground is shrinking fast. Soon, there won't be much left at all. You are either for the Son of Man, or against him...

Chapter 11 takes us to one of the great moments in John. Lazarus, a beloved friend of Jesus and brother to Mary and Martha, is ill. Really ill. Sick to death. Jesus is told to come, quickly...and yet he delays. "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory...." What stands out for me in this story is a two-punch depiction of Jesus who is at once both the Son of Man (who KNOWS what he is doing, about to do and why he is doing it) AND a man who mourns the death of his friend. John is at his best here, as he depicts both a divine agent of life and at the same time illustrates how a person REALLY feels when someone he loves REALLY dies. Lazarus' resuscitation does more than offer witness to Jesus' power as the Son. It also provides the final, galvanizing element that those who opposed him needed to resolve to seek hi death. This sign is the tipping point in way people are going to be reacting to Jesus from this point forward. The debate is past being polarized. Those who "love" Jesus are trying to stay with him as the opposition grows. Those opposed to him are getting their ducks in a row. He won't last much longer....

The Gospel of John, Chapters 1-7

2010-04-14T07:52:00.000-04:00

As the new session of our parish Bible Study gets ready to recommence, we are taking on the Gospel according to John. This Gospel, referred to as well as the "Fourth Gospel" stands apart from the Matthew, Mark and Luke on a number of levels. The latter three are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels, in that there are solid parallels that link them to each other with regard to both the structure and the content of their narrative. Of course, each Gospel is in a sense unique to itself. They were compiled from common sources, but each has a sense of beign written for, or from, a particular perspective. John is no different in this, but the agenda-if you will-of the editor takes us in some different directions from where the synoptics begin...and John challenges us with a Christ that is both transcendant AND immediate in his impact on our lives.

So, to kick things off, we will be taking on chapters 1-7. This session takes us through the opening movements of what I have come over the years to experience from John as something akin to a symphony, with movements, arias and a sense of progression that works on a standard, repetitive and even seductive theme....

Chapter 1: the Prologue....

When I was in seminary and taking New Testament Greek, our instructor got us started off in the texts of the NT with an immersion in the first verses from this chapter. It gave us an opportunity to work on both the conjugation and the context of the "to be" verb in the koine' dialect. It also got us into the poetry and the idiom of a writer who knew the Greek language and wrote for people to read/hear it as native speakers. The Gospel opens, and I can imagine the assembly gathered to hear it in its entirety during some night wathc, with a testimony that this story is about the Word, the divine Logos of the God who creates, redeems and sanctifies us from before the beginning of time. There is no birth narrative, because this Jesus is not "born" in the sense that we are. He was Before, and "through him all things were made." We are hearing testimony, first from the narrative, and then from John the Baptist, that this Jesus is the very light of God coming into the world. Shadows-and people working in the shadows-cannot overcome it/him. It's a bold start, and that start pays off immediately with a Jesus who speaks, walks and acts with an authority that is drawn from an eternal wellspring of love for the world...and is not subject to any human institution. Doesn't matter if it is the Roman occupation, or the Temple priesthood, or the Pharisaic Jews who wind up being a whipping post for both the powers of the world and the agenda of the Johannine communtiy's resolution of its own issues of having experienced rejection and expulsion from the synagogues not too long before the Gospel was compiled.

John the Baptist affirms he is not the Messiah, even when pressed. He is just "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." He points to Jesus, again and again, to any who will observe alongside, that Jesus is the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The first who follow Jesus were before that followers of John...and this points to a sense of succession in the Gospel narrative...as Jesus waxes, John wanes.

We are also seeing in this first chapter that Jesus has a way of being/seeing that goes just beyond the mundane and observable reality we share alongside the rest of humanity (and the disciples). He see Nathanael "under the fig tree" and he renames Peter as Cephas (Rock) before anyone perceives that strength and sense of him being a faithful redoubt for the nascent Church, at all.

Chapter 2: Cana, a wedding and the Temple cleansing...

Jesus begins his earthly ministry right off the bat with his manifestation of power in the turning of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. This event also sets off what in John is a slightly tempestuous relationship between Jesus and his family, with the crowd (in Greek, the okloi, playing wedge). The same tension is ratcheted up in Jesus going to the Temple and making a scene with his angry action of expelling the money changers and vendors from the courts inside the temple walls. So, this Jesus, who is the incarnate Word of God, will serve three functions in this Gospel...he teaches/calls, he astounds and he provokes...all of us, and not just the Pharisees. Hold on to that.....

Chapter 3: Nicodemus, and being born again...

What does it take to enter the kingdom...to be born again to God? Jesus is tested, continually, in this arena. The first to articulate the question is a Pharisee who comes to him by night. A righteous man, Nicodemus is seeking affirmation of Jesus' nature as the messiah-seeing the dynamic acts and hearing the teaching with authority...he still holds back. How can one be born again, when one birth is all we are given in this life? Jesus points to the rebirth found in the spirit of God. There is a difference between spirit and flesh, and the regeneration of the human soul as it draws nearer the incarnation of the Divine is the result of this narrative running its course. It is all about origin right now...and our ultimate destination being the discovery of new life in Jesus Christ. Which draws us to....

Chapter 4: The woman at the well.....Well? Give me some of that water.....

One of the more moving elements of John's Gospel in my experience is the radical way Jesus, as witnessed by those closest to him, radicalizes the call to community between human beings, each other and God. This is epitomized by his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. There are SO many reasons why these two should not even be on the same planet, Jesus and the woman, and yet he engages her. As he sits by a well, waiting for his disciples to bring back lunch from a nearby town, a woman approaches. She is coming to get water in the midday, not a usual time (is she avoiding her neighbors?). There is no one around, except a strange man. She should go...she should avoid speaking or touching him (he is clearly Galilean and Jewish, and male). There should be NO connection. And yet, something in the way he asks for water, something to drink, stirs a response. Jesus chooses to connect, and more...he offers her living water-water that ends thirst for ever. With that, a connection is made. He knows her, she responds and leaves her jug at the well, goes back into town and begins to preach about this man who "told me everything I have ever done!" What feeds us in the kingdom? What gives us something to drink? Relationship with the Divine Word, with God through Jesus. The chapter concludes with a return to Galilee, and the display of another sign, this time of healing as the son of a government official is healed. Jesus heals a woman "below" him. Jesus heals a family "above" him. Jesus heals and breaks down barriers that separate and divide.

Chapter 5: Breaking the Law....

With these signs, the stakes are being raised. Jesus is walking with his students in Jerusalem and winds up healing a man who is lame, telling him on the Sabbath to take up his mat and walk...Two broken rules. He heals on the Sabbath (work), and then commands the man to carry (more work). Breaking the law...by what authority does he perform these works? Why does he flaunt tradition, why does he seem to toss all that means anything to anyone out the window? At the heart's core of this journey is the question of authority. What role will the Son of Man play in this new kingdom, and by whose agenda will he operate. Human beings have a way of projecting onto their leaders (and please remember that there were no distinctions in the ancient world between religion and politics-they were one and the same) their own expectations of action, posture and attitude. Jesus has to deal with their projections, even as he seeks to continue to articulate for us just what it means for him to be in relationship to his Father in heaven, and for us to be in relationship with him.

Chapter 6: You should have eaten before we left.....

What images in this chapter. Jesus and his disciples not only feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish ( a boy's lunch), they also gather up twelve baskets of leftovers AFTER the fact, and after all had eaten their fill. Those listening would hear (as is later evidenced in Jesus discourse on the manna that the people ate when they sojourned with Moses in the wilderness), a hearkening back to the ways God has provided for people in the past. God is "a very present help in time of need." No doubt of that...but Jesus is also challenging the people to understand that he IS the bread. He IS the one come into the world to save, to end the suffering of those who hunger. Even as the Samaritan woman was promised water of life that would end thirst forever, Jesus is offering a repast that puts to an end the NEED people have in this life. The kingdom is a place of plenty, but not in a strictly flesh-based sense. Jesus indicts the sarx, the flesh that withers, ages and dies. He points to the body that is eternal; the one that is, that was and that is to come. Hard teaching, difficult to accept; so hard, in fact that some turn aside. Again, the Johannine community is one split and divided. There are those who remain and those who have departed. Explanations have to be made, and purpose needs to be felt in the wake of these fractures. Some won't be able to accept this teaching, and will depart.

Chapter 7: ...and so it begins....

Jesus enters that city of Jerusalem in secret during the Festival of the Booths. He works his way to the Temple and begins to teach. The result? Continued polarization and rising conflict. If this were the present day, then we would see the press having a "field day" with the controversy. "Talking heads" would be on the air. Some would be supporting him, other vociferously demanding that someone step forward to pull his teeth and make him stop this dangerous, inciting behavior that is upsetting the crowds. Still, what keeps us moving forward is that as he teaches, as he offers truth, and in himself, Truth; then people are bound to be affected by his presence. Those who opposed cannot lay hands on him. They just aren't able to do it, "because his time had not yet come." The conflict is rising around Jesus. Something is going to happen as people become either passionately "for" his teaching, or "against" it.

Next week....

Chapters 8-12