the dawn workers

Matthew 20:1-16

For me, the story of the vineyard manager is one of the most intriguing parables in the Bible. We know the story: the owner goes out early in the morning and hires the available workers for his vineyard. He then goes out again at nine, noon, three, and finally five o'clock. It's only with the first ones that he negotiates the daily wage; the rest he tells he will pay what is "fair".

Everyone lines up at the end of the day to be paid… and that's when it goes all wrong. What was he thinking? One of the first rules of management is the privacy of salary. It's why Christmas bonuses come in sealed envelopes. You don't walk around handing out the money so everyone can see what everyone else got. Because obviously the ones who work the hardest and need it the most get the least. We know that. We call it seniority. Or hierarchy. Or whatever. It's well ingrained. I was here first. I get the perks.

Only not in God's economy. The first will be last and the last will be first. Not fair! we scream.

I can relate to both groups because I have been in both positions. I have been the first to arrive and the last to leave from my job and was still fired because of someone's ridiculous political agenda. In my religious community I came very late in life, yet have been accorded the same honor as those who entered in their teens.

Not fair, we whisper. But do we ask why? Why is it fair after all is said and done?

time is on our side

Mark 10:17-31

Our celebrant Sunday was all over the place with his thoughts on the Gospel... maybe because it was one of those "hard teachings", the ones where Jesus tells us something we really don't want to hear. Sunday's Gospel was the one about the rich young man who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life. We've probably all heard it a million times: first, the man is reprimanded for calling Jesus good, then he says he'd already kept all the ten commandments. But then there's something like an aside: it says next that Jesus loved him.

We don't know why he loved him, but apparently there was something... some spark, some gesture, a look... and then Jesus said the worst thing the guy could have heard: Go sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. And the fellow went away grieving because he was very rich.

Grieving. He didn't go away mad. That's telling, don't you think? Usually when I hear something I don't like, my reaction is to take offense. Who do you think you are to tell me what to do with my money, my life? And our celebrant seemed to think that was significant as well.

"Time is on our side," he said. Because there will be other opportunities. In elementary school it's called a do-over, and I've had enough of them in my life to agree. I quit college in my third year. But when I was thirty I went back to school and did it over and graduated. I mustered out of the Navy three months before I was eligible to sew on my third class crow. But six years later I joined the reserves, took the test again, passed again, and was able to eventually rise to the rank of second class petty officer. Do overs. They are everywhere.

We don't know what that young man did after he grieved. He may have thought about it and figured Jesus was on to something. Maybe not. The Bible leaves us hanging... but time was on his side.

Christ the King

Our celebrant mentioned that she felt it was fitting that Christ the King Sunday come at this time of year, when the nights are long and the days cold. "We need some hope, some light in the darkness—to be reminded of who is actually in charge", she said.

This week is the end of the church year; next Sunday we'll start all over again with Advent, when we focus directly on the bleakness of our world and our hope for some heavenly intervention that will bring us comfort and joy.

Wars still rage in several parts of the globe, starvation and disease are commonplace, if not here in the United States, certainly in Africa and other third world countries. Our own economic recession-going-on-depression is reason enough to look for meaning that doesn't come from money or possessions. 

Today's Gospel (Matthew 25:31-46) speaks of a God who values acts of kindness and charity to the least likely suspects in which to see the face of Jesus. To serve those we don't even recognize as Christ... that is what God values. 

the low-risk spiritual life

Today's Gospel reading (Matthew 25:14-30) is yet another of those parables I never liked. (You might wonder, if I hate so many of Jesus' parables, why I'm even a Christian...) Yeah, I know. Just consider it a Gospel mystery.

Our celebrant this morning gave one of the standard explanations for this parable. I've heard it before, but it's always good to be reminded of truth. I sometimes like to forget the truth, stretch the truth, bend it, make it suit my own desires. (What... nobody ever does that but me?)

"Why do you suppose," our celebrant asked, "Jesus was so rough on the one-talent-person?"
He went on to describe a typical one-talent-person... and came to the conclusion that most of us are exactly that. There are not so many gifted people in the world that are going to make the cover of Time, win a Pulitzer prize, or be remembered into the next century. Most of us are average. That's what average means. But the anonymity of being average can lead to the incorrect conclusion that whatever we have to offer is so small, it won't be missed.

I won't use my talent badly, but neither will I risk it. (After all I only have one.) So we play it safe, don't hurt anybody, keep a low profile, get by with minimum effort and minimum trust. He talked of the low-risk spiritual life: "where we neither sin nor love much, acting not with faith, but with prudence." These are the people Jesus is concerned with reaching in this story.

For myself, I always figured the poor guy got a bum rap. If telling your master you think he's "a hard man, reaping what you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter." isn't taking a risk, I don't know what is. "I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours." That sounds pretty gutsy to me. But after all, he's backed into a corner by the other two highly successful (and talented) servants, what does he have to lose now? 

I was afraid... That's the crux of the problem. We have too many tales of a wrathful and vengeful God that we forget the part about mercy. (Not that this story shows much mercy either.) But God is essentially saying that our faith in His mercy is what will produce it. That rings a bell, doesn't it? How many times does the word faith play a part in Jesus healings, stories, and rebukes? O you of little faith... if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you faith has made you well. Seems like he's trying to tell us that faith, in and of itself, is mighty important.

So the point of the parable, then, is to use what we have, whether we have a lot or a little. Hoarding won't work in the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, it will get you thrown out.

Choose Today

Our celebrant on Sunday took his sermon from the Old Testament Lesson (Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25), rather than from the Gospel. I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief. I'm sick of that Gospel about the five wise virgins pitted against the five foolish virgins... I don't care how you spin it, there's just something wrong there. 

I'm currently reading The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault. She mentions this Gospel and describes it as more of a koan than a parable, explaining that these teachings are not about the outer activities they describe, but are about inner transformation. Of course the wise virgins couldn't share their oil, she says, because the oil stands for some quality created inside us "by our own conscious striving." She also goes on to explain that we wouldn't get that connection unless we understood that Jesus is teaching from a specific Hebrew Wisdom Tradition.

Interesting. That falls right into place with another book I'm reading by John Shelby Spong: Jesus for the Non-Religious.

Both authors assert that Jesus cannot be fully understood until we place him in the Jewish context he was born into. Okay, I'm game for that. But... both books are also difficult reading for different reasons. Spong, already in the first chapter, has eliminated the wise men, the virgin Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem and all the singing angels. Just think of all the Christmas carols we'd have to scrap if we all agreed he's accurate in his assessment. Just think of all the amazing music and artwork over the centuries, not to mention my own lame attempts to portray these miracles. We'd probably have to eliminate Christmas too... and that's my favorite holiday. 

Not that I don't believe Spong will give adequate and excellent examples of why Jesus should still be revered as God's son; I have complete faith that he will. I'm just too blown away at the moment by losing all the lovely mythology around the birth of the Christ, (whether it's true or not.)

But back to Sunday's sermon. Joshua charges the people of Israel: "Choose for yourself whom you will serve." And he gives them a lot of choices. There were nearly three thousand minor deities available to them in that time, a time when they believed that the power struggles in the heavenly realms directly affected the outcomes on the earthly plane. The more worshipers a god could command, the more powerful he or she would be. As I was listening, I realized just how awful a choice Joshua was asking at that time. The God of Israel, by His own admission, was a jealous God. God was a green-eyed monster? You read some of the Old Testament accounts and that's not too far-fetched. Makes you want to think twice if this is the one you will serve. Yet they all agreed. The faithfulness of Israel, whatever their motivations, has given us the world we now inhabit. 

We too, have that choice. The words choose today ring the truest, though. It is a daily choice. Every day. Day-in and day-out. Saying yes once won't cut it. It has to be a vow renewed with every breath. Choose today whom you will serve.

reinventing the wheel

I've heard a couple of good sermons over the past few days... 

We don't usually have mass on Saturday, but one of our Bishop Visitors was here last week and it was All Saints Day, a major feast day in the liturgical year. A sermon about saints and prayer and time travel... pretty interesting stuff. 

The lessons for yesterday, the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, most people probably didn't get to hear, as our celebrant pointed out. Most people in church yesterday were hearing Saturday's lessons because most churches were celebrating All Saints Day. Yesterday was really All Souls Day, which some will celebrate today, but we (in my community) won't celebrate it until tomorrow, because we have today off. (How's that for time travel?)

The Gospel (Matthew 23:1-12) comes smack dab in the middle of all the "Woe to You" warnings... Jesus warning the Pharisees and scribes about how they will be judged in the Kingdom of God. But in this passage he stops and says essentially, Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because the Pharisees aren't practicing what they teach doesn't mean their teachings aren't valid.

It's a good point to remember any time. Not exactly the same as Don't shoot the messenger, but in that vein. The third cliché that comes to mind in all of this is reinventing the wheel.

Both celebrants talked about our church's preoccupation with the past. When we celebrate the saints of Christian history, we dwell in their faithfulness and glories. What does it have to do with us? Our past is pretty flawed, our saints were pretty flawed... why not just ditch it all and start over? 

Some are, in fact, doing this. Starting over. It's not surprising or fresh news that membership in churches and religious communities has dwindled over the past decade. Church attendance is down across the board. Monastic communities are dying out. Yet there are also movements to build new communities, based on new rules, new ideals. There is ample evidence that the hunger for spirituality is as strong as ever. But whatever is on the menu of the institutional church is simply not what people can swallow.

Everything has a life cycle. Joan Chittister wrote volumes about the life cycle of monastic communities. She had some excellent insights and warnings of her own when it comes to the need for transformation of stale and outdated practices and beliefs. 

As a community, we begin again to grapple with our corporate identity, as we also remain focused on individual ministries and obligations. It's a fine line. The company of saints provide not just a background, but a "cloud of witnesses" for our struggles today.

Hard lessons

Last Sunday I attended mass at my old church in Jacksonville, Florida. The new rector, who I'd just met two days before at the rehearsal dinner, sidled up to me and said "I don't really like today's lessons. Why don't you preach the sermon?" I laughed. I actually hadn't read Sunday's lessons yet, so I was curious to hear them, and then to see how he preached them. 

Ah yes ... the vineyard owner, both versions: the original from Isaiah, and the one Jesus told as a parable. It's always good to hear his source material in context with the Gospel reading. I often forget Jesus drew from Torah for many of his stories. He didn't operate in a holy vacuum, making up everything he said from scratch.

The preacher began by talking about prescription drugs and their possible side effects... how Madison Avenue has made a killing with advertising for prescription medications of all kinds, (not just the ones to enhance your physical abilities in bed.) The theory is you'll go to your doctor and ask for the drug. If the doctor prescribes it, then you'll also get a large piece of paper with all the possible side effects: nausea, headache, diarrhea (he didn't use that word) and muscle pain. It comes down to the fact that you're betting that the meds will do their job without you having to deal with the side effects. His analogy was that everything in the lessons for Sunday dealt with choice and the side effects of those choices.

In the Isaiah vineyard story God built, planted and took great care to tend His vineyard. But instead of getting a nice crop of grapes, he got sour ones. In that version it's clear that Israel, the people, are the grapes. They've entered into a relationship with God based on a covenant, where both parties have made promises, have responsibilities. God keeps His side of the covenant and expects His people to keep theirs. But they don't. Instead they are wild grapes, a people who rebel and don't honor the relationship.

While the imagery is the same for the Gospel, it's now a case of vineyard owner versus tenants. Still, there's the underlying idea of covenant: it's his vineyard after all, and the owner expects to collect his share of the harvest. But... when he sends his servants to collect, the tenants beat them up, and some servants are actually killed. After all this, the owner says to himself, "I'll send my son. Surely they will respect him." But they don't.

Let me stop right here and spin off on a tangent. Am I the only person who's ever thought the owner is naive? These tenants have just killed his servants. He did nothing. They think the place is theirs. Why would they even hesitate to kill the son? I must be missing something historical, contextual, huge... because I don't get it. 

Except of course, I do. 

The analogy that God is patient and forgiving and loving and full of mercy, giving us the benefit of the doubt time after time is clear. But both these lessons have a warning. In both these stories, there's an end to the mercy. In the first, the vineyard is trashed and allowed to be overrun with weeds. In the second, it will be given to new tenants. In the early Christian movement, they probably thought they were the new tenants. A lot of us probably still think that's the case. But the truth remains that Christians behave with the same rebelliousness, greed and self-absorption as Israel did in Isaiah's time.

Our priest said, "These are hard lessons." 

Why? Well, first of all nobody likes to admit guilt. "Not my responsibility" or "I didn't know." are two of the standard excuses when a catastrophe occurs. Take your pick... the latest debacle on Wall Street will do. "I'm not greedy like those guys. I'm just trying to get along in this dog-eat-dog world, make a decent living, give my kids a better life." 

Except... we've all bought into some pretty lame substitutes for a better life. Our kids sit in front of TVs that tell them they'll be prettier, more popular more in... with anything and everything from designer jeans to the latest Barbie, and adults will be happier, more attractive, more successful... with a bigger house, a cushier car and prescription drugs to enhance our physical abilities in bed. We didn't have to buy that story. But we all did (and do) to some degree. So here come the side effects.

"The Kingdom of God will be taken away and given to others." In our day and age, how does that work? On Sunday, the priest had his own idea about how it happens. He thinks it won't be a drastic thing... more like erosion. Certain things lapse and ethics become lax. He wondered aloud how many people ask themselves "What does God want from me?" rather than "What do I want?" Not so many. I know that even in the convent it's an issue. We, who have given our lives to God are still plagued with the "I wants" instead of the "God wants" or even worse, we pretend that God wants what we want. 

And yet, in times of disaster, it seems to me easier to hear the hard lessons, to swallow the medicine that will make us well again. We are a greedy people. Yet when that greed is paying off, who wants to hear it's wrong? Only when the house of cards begins to tumble do we buck up and get clear about our priorities. Maybe now is the best time to hear these lessons.

set up

(Matthew 20:1-16) Our celebrant reminded us this morning, that any time we hear Jesus saying "The kingdom of heaven is like..." (fill in the blank), he really means: this is what the world would be like, our world, if we acted according to God's purpose and not our own. And Jesus' mission, he said, was to bring God's kingdom to earth.

I always feel a little differently about that. Whenever I hear Jesus say "The kingdom of heaven is like..." I know to look out, because he's going to say something that makes no sense, does not seem fair, and will take me a whole lot of contemplation to finally get it. If I ever do finally get it.

Today's Gospel is a prime example. The vineyard manager goes out early in the morning to hire day laborers. After a bit, he sees he needs more help so he goes looking, and hires a few more. And again, and again throughout the day, right up until an hour before quitting time, he hires the last ones he can find. So far so good.

Then he sets them up. Really. He deliberately sets them up, calling them in reverse order to be paid. No sealed envelopes in this company, everybody gets to see what everybody else gets paid. Well look at that! Those guys who only worked one hour just got an entire day's wages. Wahoo! Whoopie! We're gonna get a bonus, nyah nyah nyah..

Only that doesn't happen. The final payout for everybody is one day's pay. Grumble, grumble, grumble. So what's with this? You give those slackers the same as us? And the vineyard owner says, "What? I can't do what I like with what belongs to me? You feel cheated? We contracted for a day's wage for a day's work. That's what you got. Take your money and scram."

Then he proceeds to rub salt on the wound by saying "Maybe you're just jealous because I'm generous." Okay. Intellectually I get it. His money, he can do what he wants. And if I had been one of the five o'clock workers I'd be ecstatic. Maybe feel a little guilty about the other guys with the sunburns, but nevertheless ecstatic.

But what about the dawn workers? I think they have a legitimate gripe. If they had been paid first and sent home none the wiser, wouldn't that have been easier to swallow? Of course word would have spread, but it's going to spread now anyway. 

With my protestant-work-ethic-mentality, all I can think is if I can sleep til noon and I'll still be paid for the whole day, why should I kill myself to get there on time?

Our celebrant told a story from his own experience that helped with an answer. When he first came to New York, he had seen men early in the morning, waiting... They were mostly immigrants, day laborers, waiting for construction foremen to come by in their trucks. A truck would pull up and the driver would roll down his window and hold up two or three fingers, to indicate how many workers he needed. The men would start running. The first ones to the truck were the ones who got the jobs. Jobs were scarce. These men had families to feed. They could not afford to be picky, or late, or slow to move. 

That's a good point. If the whole story is a metaphor for God's abundant grace... and the emphasis is on grace, then none of us can afford to be picky. Or late. Or slow to move. Our souls are on the line. 

If the emphasis is on abundance, though, then gratitude is the only appropriate response. I may have been up since dawn today, but there were times when I grossly overslept. I cannot begrudge another that same grace.

How many times?

(Matthew 18:21-35) This is the parable about forgiveness. Peter asks Jesus how many times must we forgive someone who hurts us? Seven? And... (depending on which translation you read,) the answer is either seventy-seven or seventy times seven,  which would be four hundred and ninety. Either way, the answer certainly implies a bunch of times. That goes against the grain in our society. Someone who keeps forgiving and forgiving and forgiving is usually seen as a pushover. There's an expression: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. That puts the burden on the victim to make sure the consequences fit the offense... an eye for an eye and all that.

But today's Gospel has left a bitter taste in my mouth for other reasons. Ever since I participated in a Bible study class in my early years as a novice, I've had doubts that Jesus actually said this.( Not the part about seven times seventy, but the part about the king going back on his word and tossing the "wicked slave" into the torture chamber.

Here's why: One of our group posed the question: If the human king in this parable is the stand-in for God, and God can just take back his forgiveness in anger... where does that leave us? I'd never thought of it that way. I'd always thought it was just a story, an object lesson, like my Nana would say the boogyman would get me if I didn't behave. You don't forgive your neighbor and God will get you.

But her question brought up a lot of discussion at the time. In this particular story, the king has already forgiven the first slave his debt. Period. It's only when the other slaves turn him in for not forgiving his own debtor that the king goes berserk and has a hissy-fit... puts all the debt back and sends him to be tortured until he can pay it. This is nonsensical. If the man is in the torture chamber, he's not going to be working off his debt. It's vindictive. Is our God vindictive?

Our celebrant this morning took a different tack. He opened with the acknowledgement that some things are easy to forgive and other things really test us. As he spoke, I thought of all the people who lost friends or family members on 9/11/2001. How each anniversary brings it up all over again... the pain, the loss. Some have been able to forgive, some may never be able to.

He spoke of "the grim burden of not being able to forgive" and I thought of the expression "carry a grudge" in light of his words grim burden. Of course. We carry it. The torture chamber is one of our own making, even though in the parable the king imposes it as a penalty. Perhaps the penalty has always been in place as part of the human condition, and until we can learn the simple but maddeningly difficult lesson, we will continue to blame and accuse and expect payback. And, when it is not forthcoming we will live tortured lives. And even if there is payback... the death penalty for murder, for example... it will never be enough. An eye for an eye never replaces the first eye.

But he went on... "We should always be forgiving," he said, "because we are always in need of forgiveness." Now that's different. Way different. It's different  because it comes from the heart of who we are, no matter how wonderful we'd like to be. And it's is not a threat from a vengeful God, it's a statement of compassion and hope, instructions from a God who wants to help.

Forgive, not because we have been forgiven, but because we'll need to be forgiven. And soon. He asked just how high each of us rated forgiveness. As compared with justice in a world full with violence and evil. That's a sticky one. Both are two sides of the same coin if we are to improve the human condition globally. But our celebrant believes that forgiveness is central to all of it. I agree. 

not now and not me

...Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
and then again: "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" (from Exodus 3:1-15)

Our celebrant reminded us this morning that the whole idea of meeting God face-to-face is not necessarily the pleasant and profoundly uplifting exchange we (naively) think it will be. No, she said, encounters with God happen in unexpected places, at unusual times and in odd ways. The story of Moses and the burning bush can be a paradigm for us: God's will for Moses was not an easy job. And Moses' conversation with God was mostly argument. I think of the line in the Lord's Prayer Thy will be done and my own subsequent response, just not right now, and just not by me. 

In the Gospel reading (Matthew 12:26) Jesus tells his disciples the hard truth about discipleship: What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? In most of the versions the word soul is used; in some it's substituted by life, meaning the true life. In the Contemporary English Version it says: What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? 

Your soul, your life, your self... these are called forth in encounters with God. Difficult. Uncomfortable. Because God recognizes qualities in us that we cannot recognize. Don't especially want to recognize. Whoever thinks that believing in God is the easy way out of this life is mistaken. But definitely worth the effort.

dancing with weeds

Today's Gospel was another agricultural parable... (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) We had one last week too. Last week's was about the idiot sower who tossed his seeds every which way and only a portion landed in the field. The rest ended up in the rocks, on the gravel, in the bushes with the thorns. Our celebrant last week explained the agricultural inconsistencies with the concept that God will not fit into our preconceived tiny, safe, careful or frugal opinions... nor of our misguided beliefs that there is only so much grace and glory to go around, so we'd better place rules and restrictions on its distribution. God breaks all the rules we make for Him/Her in our efforts to understand.

Today the Gospel is about the sower who plants wheat (this time in the field) only to discover someone else has also planted tares (weeds) and now they're growing up together. "Should we weed the garden?" his laborers ask. " Nah... Just let them grow up together and when it's time for the harvest, sort them out."

I'll admit I know just enough about gardening to be dangerous, but in our little plot out back I'm weeding all the time. Doesn't seem to bother the flowers and herbs at all. So what's with waiting until the harvest?

I was blessed again today to go out for church and the preacher explained things a whole lot better by going back to the King James language: Tares. While most of us think weed of the common vetch variety, there was a specific plant called the bearded darnel which looked almost exactly like wheat throughout the growing stages, and produced seeds which were poisonous. That at least makes sense of the no-weeding-edict.

But he went on to elaborate, and came to many of the same conclusions that I heard last week. First of all, he set aside the entire second half of the Gospel... the part where Matthew has Jesus (supposedly) explain this parable for the disciples... that the angels will come and sort us all out at the end of time and the good folk will all get gathered into the barn and the bad folk will all go off to burn in hell. His take on the second half was that this interpretation was just one more of our own human projections... just another attempt to put God in the scarcity box... another way to keep score.

And Jesus was not one to keep score. At least not in this sermon. No, the focus was on enjoying the Kingdom of God which is at hand, the one Jesus spoke about as a reality now.

And who belongs in this Kingdom? Who gets to enjoy it? Who qualifies?
Anybody. Anybody who loves as they have been loved. Anybody who loves as they want to be loved.

As an aside, the music today was from Missa Luba, a Congolese Mass, arranged by Guido Haazen. As the opening strains of the Kyrie soared up into the dome above our heads, my body swayed with an inner urge to dance. Of course I didn't. I'm a nun and an Episcopalian... we don't normally dance in church.

As part of his sermon, our preacher talked about re-education as unlearning or discarding much of the stuff we learned in our childhoods. He also mentioned that the world could be made up of two kinds of people: those who are dancing and those who are complaining about the dance. I'd add a third... those who aren't dancing but wish they could.

politics and religion

I'm finally getting around to posting about Sunday's Sermon. Yes, I realize it's Wednesday. As they used to say in my youth: "the hurrier I go, the behinder I get." That's not about to change any time soon. Life in the geriatric zoo muddles on and we muddle (and meddle) right along too.

But back to Sunday... we had no priest to celebrate over the holiday weekend. In fact we have a dearth of Sunday priests this month. Many are on vacation, and those who are not, are substituting for those who are. So at least two of us got Get-out-of-jail-passes last Sunday to visit an outside parish church. Of course I went to my home-away-from-home... the church I work for two days a week. In the summer the music ramps up as they continue to promote their "Summer Festival of Sacred Music". This past Sunday was Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, as well as an incredible piece from The Peaceable Kingdom by Randall Thompson. Harp and timpani added extra depth, as did the sweet clear voice of the treble soloist. Just the music alone is reason enough to attend St. Bartholomew's on Park and 50th Street, but the sermon was excellent too.

The preacher noted that any sermon preached on a national holiday has its special pitfalls. Any fool knows that mixing religion and politics could get you killed, (Jesus, the first example that comes to mind) but he launched right in anyway... with the observation that Jesus was not an early American patriot, he was a Palestinian Jew. He went on to suggest that if we are not aware of how our faith informs (or more likely does not inform) our politics, we will fall prey to the arrogant assumption that "God is on our side."

He also laid out a few major differences between the expectations of national patriotism and the expectations of Christianity, differences we are quite likely to forget when we pledge allegiance to the flag. (Or does anybody still do that?)

• Patriotism calls us to protect ourselves; Christ calls us to lose ourselves.
• Patriotism calls us to provide for our own... (our own families, cities, states, nation); Christ calls us to provide for the least of these... the poor, the marginalized, the immigrants.
• Patriotism calls us to amass wealth, Christ calls us to give it away... all of it.
• Patriotism calls us to retaliate when attacked; Christ calls us to turn the other cheek, to forgive our enemies.
  

In closing, he said, "Christ calls us to be more than good Americans." Reflecting on his list of differences, I wonder how we can be good Americans with the prevailing sense of what a good American is... I thought to myself, any people setting themselves up as a light to the nations are damned to failure.

good questions

Our celebrant yesterday always says something to trigger my own questions, my own issues with this religion I profess to love, and have supposedly devoted my life to. She's the chaplain for a prestigious New York University and I suspect her students have plenty of questions of their own to trigger her own internal debate.

Yesterday's readings alone are enough to put a damper on anyone's admiration of a God who asks the impossible... just to test us? I always go back to my own deep-seated belief that I agreed to whatever tests I have to take before I was even born... that God and I sat down and had a conversation and what happens in this life is a result of that conversation and those agreements. (It may be fairy-tale thinking, but it works for me.)

In the Old Testament lesson (Genesis 22:1-14) poor Abraham, after proving several times that he was willing to obey God's outlandish directions, was asked to kill his only remaining child. He'd already thrown out his first-born... left him and his mother to fend for themselves in the desert... Now, God says, "Go kill the only one left, the child of your heart, the promise for your future generations." God does not say: "this is a test, this is a drill, you will be graded on your response." Besides, you have to wonder just how traumatized Isaac was after being tied up, laid on a stack of wood, seeing a knife in his father's hand. "Hey Mom, guess what Dad tried to do to me while we were away!"

And then there's Pauls letter to the Romans: (Romans 6:12-23) He's going on and on about the tremendous difference between being a slave to sin and a slave to obedience. Hey, either way, it's still slavery.

Last, there's the Gospel of Matthew... (Matthew 10:40-42) the end of the passage where Jesus has come to bring the sword and not peace... trying to get some justice into mix. If you do these things you will be rewarded... give a little child a drink of water, for one thing. For most of us that sounds pretty reasonable. In America we carry our bottled water everywhere, whether we buy it new or keep refilling from the tap. In backpacks and purses, you see water bottles of every shape and size.

But in Jesus' time and place, our celebrant explained how outrageous a command that might be. In the desert "Water is Life and Life is Water." In the culture of the day, water was scarce, and only the strong and the useful were allowed just enough to survive. There was no concern with so many ounces a day to promote good hydration and regular bowel movements. You got just enough, no more. Children and the elderly did not work, could not carry heavy loads; they were disposable because they were not useful. It was not cruelty that prompted this outlook, it was survival.

So for Jesus to suggest that you pour out your precious water by the cupful for a child was just as outlandish as God's command to Abraham. (Like Father, like Son.)

In closing, she asked us the exact same question that our celebrant of a week ago asked: What is the Scripture saying to us NOW? What does Christ call us to know/to do in this generation? Knowing the context of the words does help us to make better sense of what was written and why. Knowing that child sacrifice was a common practice in Abraham's time helps us understand that the need for this kind of sacrifice was being overturned, not promoted. Knowing that slavery was a normal part of life in Paul's time helps us understand his language. Understanding that water was more precious than gold helps us understand how important it was to Jesus that a new kind of justice be understood.

But we can't leave it there. What is the Scripture saying to us NOW? What does it mean to us? How will we change because of any new meaning we take away? She gave an example: the things/people we thought were disposable are precious to God. Another thought: The culture of sacrifice is alive and well even now. Scapegoats abound in every walk of life. Why is that? And if it is a part of the nature of God, what must we give up? Perhaps it is only our idols we must abandon? And if so... what are our idols?

As always... good questions. Need time and meditation to grasp the answers.

Hurling peace

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. ~Matthew 10:34-36

In his sermon today, our celebrant used the words "not to hurl peace... but to hurl swords" I've just googled all the English versions available on Bible Gateway and couldn't find "hurl peace" anywhere. I found send peace, bring peace, put peace, and make life cozy, but no hurl peace. Our celebrant is a renown Bible scholar; I doubt he made it up, although he could have. It got my attention, (and not just for the multiple meanings of "hurl").

This is a tough passage for a lot of us. At Christmas we sing of Christ as the "Prince of Peace" and make much noise about "Peace on Earth, good will to everyone." Even Jesus said "Blessed are the peacemakers." Yet here he is, in Matthew's Gospel, saying that's not what he's about?

I love it when this particular preacher asks all the obvious questions and then comes up with the not-so-obvious answers. Well some are obvious, but most of his answers are too difficult to face much of the time. Today was no different. He first explained about context... that Matthew's Gospel was written in a period where the reality of being put to the sword was all-too-common for Christians. To the people of their day they were the lunatic fringe, subversives, a blasphemous sect, a bunch of crazies. They were hated by Orthodox Jews and pagans alike... for their abominations and mysterious superstitions. What we call today "deprogramming" back then meant death, not psychiatric counseling.

As Matthew's Gospel goes on to say in the following verses: He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. In the context of the times, to be a Christian required total commitment. There was no room for conflicting commitments to family, no compromise for someone looking to save his skin.

That was then; this is now. What about now? We are not now persecuted for our beliefs, and we bear the name of Christ without having to pick up his cross. In fact, many of us are quite reluctant to say we "stand with Christ" when it's politically offensive or personally inconvenient.

But the point was this: we (as Christians) are not supposed to be the ones hurling the sword. (Uh oh.) To stand with Christ means to be the victim as He was. (Double uh oh.) I think of 9/11... and our haste to wage war on someone... anyone so we could feel better about ourselves. The few lone voices of reason and compassion and desire for reconciliation were quickly shushed up in the headstrong rush for retaliation. We asked the wrong questions. We went to war for the wrong reasons and with the wrong people. We learned nothing.

Our celebrant concluded: "The Christian message is not to be advanced by killing, but by dying." How many Americans are willing to die? How many Christians world-wide are willing to die? I see plenty willing to kill.

Easter V: Show us the Father

"Show us the father and we shall be satisfied." This time it's Phillip who chimes in with Thomas.

Poor Jesus... once again confronted with the fact that his disciples, as much as they loved, respected, and trusted him, were absolutely clueless. These men lived with Jesus. They were privy to all his intimate/personal teachings. Unlike you or me who must do with a handful of stories and a smattering of sayings that are still being argued over and twisted in their original meaning... yet they still weren't quite sure of Who he was or what he was really talking about.

I've listened to people (who distinguish themselves as "Believers") speak with contempt and pity about the people who actually met Jesus in his lifetime and couldn't recognize the Son of God. Personally I bet it's easier to imagine the Divine Countenance than to be faced with someone who looks just like everyone else.

Our preacher this morning pointed out one of the Divine Mysteries that we are always faced with... division vs. unity. In the Book of Acts, Stephen announces that he sees the heavens opened and the Risen Christ "standing at the right hand of the Father". This proclamation gets him stoned to death. So in Stephen's vision Christ was standing. That's not what we proclaim in our creed. We say he's sitting. (Maybe he got tired by the time Constantine called the Bishops together in Nicaea.) Either way, we express a division. God has not received His Son back into His Eternal Glory... they are still somehow separate.

We humans understand separateness only too well. I have always thought this sense of separateness (otherness) to be a condition of the physical matter that makes up our created world. The sub-atomic levels of our existence may blip in and out of being, but we are trapped within the physical form. A chair is a chair, not a table, and I am me, not my sister or my child. Neither am I God, although a certain longing tells me I once was part of God.

"The purpose of our human pilgrimage" said our celebrant this morning, "is to bring us into the presence of God." I don't doubt that, but neither do I understand it. Just like Phillip saying: "Show us!" I also want to "see". He went on to expand on this thought by saying that the way of Christianity is not just a way of life. It's not just another way of life, but the way to life. We also hear that the way to life is through death. (Another Divine Mystery.)

If I were to preach on the story of Stephen's stoning, I would no doubt gloss over the part about him seeing the heavens opened, and focus instead on his last words before his own death: Do not hold this sin against them. That tells me more about his understanding of Jesus than any vision of heaven. This was real. His last breath closed the divisions between heaven and hell, between matter and spirit. That was when the heavens truly opened.

serendipity

"Some of us have been reading your blog... to get to know you better."
(Oh dear)
"Well, I haven't been writing much lately because I've been focusing on the retreat."

Those words were said in the context of a conversation I was having with one of the Oregon conveners. Since I'll be leading an Associates' retreat there in just under two weeks, there were aspects of the schedule (and my responsibilities) that needed to be discussed. That's the easy part. What do I do? When do I do it? Where do I stand?

My own internal response to the fact that this is a huge responsibility and that time is ticking away, has been less manageable. I vacillate between humility and arrogance, fear and excitement, trusting completely that the Holy Spirit will give me the right words at the right time, and thinking that if I don't plan every single talk in specific detail I'll fall flat on my face and fail them. I have reason to be concerned. The Oregon associates are used to Sr. Lucia (one of their own) and more recently, Sr. Leslie, the Sister-in-charge of associates. They don't know me. I'm new. And not just new to them, new to the life. Is there anything I could say of any importance or interest to them?

My friend and mentor Barbara Crafton sits down, looks around at her audience, and starts talking. Or so it seems. She makes such things as meditations and homilies and retreat addresses look like child's play. She's done it a long time and can draw on a vast store of wisdom that I never feel I have.

Our celebrant this morning is another one who speaks without notes and just rattles it off, always astounding me with her deep understanding of the Gospel stories, always able to relate her message to something in my life, to this 21st century world. Amazing.

She spoke today about "another Shepherding Sunday, another comforting Sunday" and she asked the rhetorical question "Why do we need to be comforted? It's Easter!" I always rise to the bait and start answering the question for myself, when her words stop me midstream as she gives yet a deeper, more profound answer to her own question.

She also gave an interpretation of this specific Gospel lesson (John 10:1-10) that I can own and run with. These particular words of scripture have been used so many times to exclude people... those of other faiths, those who, though they profess Jesus Christ, aren't the right kind of Christian... words that can turn me off and leave me wondering which historical agenda was being hammered with them? Yet historical agendas aside, one of the profound beauties of the Word of God is that it lives.

So today's living and life-giving message was essentially this: Jesus says in today's Gospel: "I am the gate." Not the barrier gate that we immediately imagine, but the open gate, the pathway gate, the all-inclusive gate that makes crystal clear that the power of resurrection lies in the fact that everything is restored. And... the shepherd also had a shepherd. He was not alone.

Many, if not most of us, recite the 23rd Psalm in the old King James language. It's the way we learned it as children, and even though the actual words themselves may have made little or no sense at the time, it's still the most comforting version when we are in distress. It's said at funerals, and in our prayer book the burial rite uses the old language. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. David, the shepherd-king is attributed with these words. He had been a shepherd as a boy, but then he was anointed King. Not the kind of king who was set up to rule, but the kind who was enthroned to protect and defend his people. Huge difference. And yet we say... the Lord is our shepherd. It is He who defends us, protects us, looks after our best interests, whether we can know it or appreciate it or not. Serendipity? One of my retreat themes deals with this very thing... We have nothing to fear.

Lazarus! Come out!

Today's Gospel was the Lazarus story. Our celebrant reminded us that it's probably the longest story (21 chapters) and contains the shortest verse (Jesus wept.) He went on to make an analogy with the ever-popular "books for dummies", in that the Gospel of John could easily be called "The Gospel for Dummies" because it includes everything we need to know about the nature of God and the nature of Jesus. He also noted that this central chapter, the raising of Lazarus, would probably qualify as one of the Top Ten Moments in Salvation History.

I've read a few commentaries this past week on the Lazarus story, in preparation for this, the 5th (and last) Sunday in Lent. Some writers have specifically commented on the part where Jesus is "deeply disturbed"... Always a popular theme... wondering why... speculating on all the various reasons that the Son of God might be disturbed.

Okay, I'm no different. I think we're all guilty at some point of looking to our sacred texts for justification of our own particular slant on the way life works, or ought to work. I'm in the camp of those who believe Jesus didn't always have all the answers, that he spoke off the cuff, ad libbed, and sometimes made it up as he went along.

I interpret the story of Lazarus this way: whether he planned to be so late or not, his delay caused a number of consequences. For one, sweet Mary and faithful Martha were both overcome with grief, and neither could help but add the dig "if you had been here..."

Knowing that his action (or inaction) had caused their grief was bad enough. But he was really late, and the body had already begun to decompose. How much physical reversal would be required for a body that had not had breath nor blood supply for four days? Of course he would be deeply disturbed. All his previous resurrection miracles had occurred prior to entombment. This would be very different. Still... Jesus went for it.

As I've noted before, the faith of those wishing to be healed, (or of others... friends or relatives) has been documented over and over as practically indispensable to the miracles that Jesus worked. Martha didn't disappoint him. "Yes, I believe that you are the Son of God..."

"Lazarus! Come out!" And the rest is history. Except there is no recorded history about the man who emerged from the tomb after four days of decomposition. Was he a mess? Did he have severe brain damage? Was he disappointed to be alive again after experiencing the mystery of the other side? Why is nothing ever mentioned about Lazarus again?

First Sunday in Lent

Most excellent sermon this morning! Sometimes everything fits together... old knowledge, new information, additional questions, sudden insights. When that happens I get a chill.

Our celebrant this morning compared the stories from the Old Testament (Genesis 2: 5-17, 3: 1-7) and the Gospel (Matthew 4: 1-11)

Adam and Eve, sucked in by the serpent's promise that they could "be like God." And Jesus' encounter in the desert... where the three temptations were really the same thing. Turn these stones into bread... (transmute elements) Jump from the pinnacle... (defy the law of gravity) and become the ruler of the world (take God's throne.) It was this conscious (and different) response on Jesus' part that set him on his path to a different kind of ministry: that he accepted his human limitations, and agreed to cooperate with the Father.

She suggested that the desire to be like God is at the crux of most, if not all, of our problems as human beings. As her spiritual director advised her to remember: "God is God and I am not." Meditating on that, rather than focusing on what you can give up for Lent, unless that giving up points you to that understanding, is at the heart of the Lenten message. Especially this first Sunday in Lent.

Learning to cooperate with God, rather than escaping or thinking we can overrule Him is the unexpected, counter-intuitive way into freedom. She urged us to "put ourselves at God's disposal". Interesting choice of words... disposal.

Of course she was talking about the power to use something or someone, rather than a kitchen appliance for eliminating garbage, but so much of our language can be metaphoric. How many times do we "bewail our manifold sins" and as a result consign ourselves to the garbage heap? It would seem that too much emphasis on sin only creates more sin. Everything in moderation is my motto for Lent. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

the moment passes

The feast of the Transfiguration is actually celebrated in August, yet we always hear the story again the last Sunday before Lent:

Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." —Matthew 17:4

As many times as we Christians read this story, do we ever stop making an idol of familiarity? I cannot count the times church people have responded to a new event — from contextual crisis to their own individual angst — by grasping at familiarity: declare the new wrong because it is new, fit the new into old categories, greet the new by reenacting old conflicts, treat the Word as an icon to be treasured because it never changes, rather than as a lance to the heart bringing God into this very day. —Tom Erich

The Transfiguration is many stories within the story... deeply packed, full of different meanings for different people. (Or different meanings at different times for the same people, or all of the above.) For Jesus perhaps it was an anchor, what self-help seminars call a resource state. Our celebrant this morning had a different take on the story than Tom's. Both are important, I think, as we move forward into Lent.

"If the picture is in a frame. it goes on the wall." she said. She was relating a story from her own childhood, her own heritage, where, because of humidity and culture, in her grandparents' home, all framed photographs were hung up high, near the ceiling. "You had to look up," she went on, "much as the disciples had to look up to the scene of Jesus talking with Elijah and Moses." She went on to point out that in Matthew's Gospel, Peter is not scolded for wanting to memorialize the event he has just witnessed. The moment passes, and Jesus is there alone with them again.

The moment passes. So much of my dealings with God and Spirit can be summed up in those three words. I am honored with glimpses, blessed with instantaneous understandings, given the benefit of peaceful moments... but they are gone before I am sometimes even aware they were there. Coming back to earth isn't easy; of course we want to frame the picture, the feeling, the remembrance of who we knew ourselves to be in that moment.

But even a framed picture is only a two-dimensional reminder of whatever experience we had which suffused every particle of our being. As Barbara Brown Taylor has said, "...reality is not flat, but deep."

And it is this very depth that familiarity cannot capture. So, as Tom says above, we resort to what we know in our fear of what we cannot know fully. To embrace the new will mean to embrace the cross. To understand the Word of God to be an organic, evolving, transforming process, rather than words on a concrete tablet is to see the safety nets removed as we venture forth on the precipice. "...a lance to the heart bringing God into this very day" is what we can find during Lent... if we're willing.

a clone from a clone

Another blogger (I wasn't familiar with) recently commented on one of my posts. I followed the link to her blog and liked what I read there, so added her to my list of "To Read"s. This woman is Jewish and brings a unique perspective to her writing using the Hebrew language: words and translations. She does something a bit like my Sunday sermons, but with inspiration from her rabbi. Cool. That's how it works in the bloggy world... word of mouth through cyberspace. It's one of the things about our generation (and yes, I'm including myself here) that gives me hope.

My sisters and I watched a DVD this afternoon featuring several scholars who are offering a program on religion and violence at Trinity Institute. Three of our sisters are actually attending that conference. One of the interviews was with James Carroll, who wrote the bestseller: Constantine's Sword. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list. One of the things he mentioned was "boundary setting" by the monotheistic religions... using the analogy that original sin is our tendency to differentiate ourselves at the expense of someone else. I am good/you are bad. I will go to heaven/you will be damned. He believes that these are boundaries which are finally (if slowly) breaking down. I hope he's right.

He talked about the language of our sacred texts... not that we need to change it, but that we need to read it in the light of historical context, not only the writer's context, but the context of subsequent generations of readers who shaped and reshaped the meanings that influence us today. Our challenge is to stay open to interpretations that will be relevant now.

I think a lot about the whole "God made humankind in his image" concept. In what way? Physicality? Intellect? Soul?

What we have done, is make God in our image instead... and there's been a horrendous degradation as a result... sort of like cloning from a clone. With each step from the original, you lose important pieces of the DNA. Because of our technology, we have learned how to successfully clone some things, and more are coming. It seems we ought to be able to reinterpret the language of our scripture in light of that new understanding. Most of the time we just use the old understanding to condemn the new technology.