The Reverend Philip W. Dougharty is Rector of St. John's-Grace Episcopal Church. Here you can read some of his thoughts on theology, spirituality, community and church.
March 2010
On Ash Wednesday I talked about a book by psychologist Gerald May entitled Will and Spirit in which he talks about the fine line between Willfulness and Willingness. Both are necessary for our being human: willfulness is the quality that allows us to solve problems, make choices, to map out our courses. Willingness is a spiritual quality that allows us to surrender to something greater than ourselves, to let go to generosity, to embrace being “out of control.” It is this second, willingness, that I see as our Lenten focus: learning how to journey with God by letting go, finding ourselves in something larger than ourselves, and understanding loss.
There is a sense in which our Wednesday night discussions on the importance of work speak to these two elements of will. Our initial willfulness helps us to determine how we spend our time, what our materials requirements are, what kind of atmosphere we choose to spend eight hours + per day in, what kind of company or community we choose to associate with. These are all good considerations – necessary considerations – to make when looking at our life directions. The willingness part comes in when we surrender not to abusive treatment by employers or coworkers, but surrender to making the absolute most of our environments. And, when loss or disappointment occurs, the willingness allows us to embrace them long enough to see where they will lead in the next phase of the journey.
There are at least two ways to look at employment: one is to find what our passion is and figure out how to make a living at it. This is gaining prominence in this economy. People who are losing jobs, being laid off, or being down-sized are taking the opportunity, in many cases, to begin small businesses based on their own interests and passions. The news media reports often on someone who, having lost a job, or having chosen to leave a less-than-pleasant job, finds a way to do what they have always dreamed of! The downturn in the economy has done them a favor! I think that we should always be in touch with the “what if” factor. “What if I could make a living doing what I love?”
The other way to view a commitment to employment is to take what might be tedious or distasteful or boring and transform it into an opportunity for growth, deep relationships or friendships, or new ways of looking at life or work. One way that comes to mind is to transform an office setting by doing anonymous “random acts of kindness.” It drives coworkers crazy for someone to be spreading “niceness” without giving opportunity for gratitude in return. Such a plan might be contagious! The Kingdom of God might bloom in the dreariest of environments if people begin to see the humanity in one another.
We need to use both our willfulness and our willingness. They are essential to who we are as human beings. In the Via Positiva we revel in the abundance and goodness of Creation. In Lent, the Via Negativa, we work on learning to let go of absolute control over our lives in the context of Creation, to surrender ourselves to possibilities of the larger Whole, to embrace generosity for its own sake, and for looking into loss as a doorway to larger life. In my case, I stumbled into the absolute passion of my life. To serve as your rector is the greatest gift of my life – perhaps after my daughter. I hope that I never lose my gratitude to God for leading me into it!
February 2010
“Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we will say on February 17. Somehow that has been distorted in the Church to mean, “You are no good and you’ll never amount to anything. You are lucky that God loves you anyway, you worthless hunk of nothing!” In Creation Spirituality the Via Negativa does not mean that at all. Rather, we come to the season of Lent as Jesus came to his desert experience. It is said that the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert for a season of temptation – I would say “examination.” We all face times of examination: who we are to be, what directions we are to take, who is the right partner for us, how will we use the hours, days, years that we are given to live in this “body of dust?”
Jesus’challenge in these forty days of “spiritual retreat” was to determine what to do with the time his Father had allocated for him on this earth. We might try to say that his temptations covered the entire scope of human experience, but that would probably not be correct. I can think of several of my own temptations that are not recorded in this desert account. What we can be sure of is that the temptations that Jesus faced were those that were serious to him! He really had to struggle to move past these opportunities for material gain, wide-spread attention and political power. Too often we assume that Jesus simply quoted Scripture and the problem was solved. I daresay he had to struggle with those decisions as we do. As a human he had the same physical needs, ego needs, personal dreams and aspirations and the human proclivity to imagine that he knew best how to meet those needs of his while living a productive life.
This is our call to a “Holy Lent:” to boldly confront our own ego and physical needs in light of what we need to do to become authentically who we need to be. This means coming to terms with something we want to avoid: Loss. When Jesus was faced with the possibility of making his life more comfortable by “turning stones into bread,” or short-cutting the redemption of the world through spectacular celebrity, or simply bringing the world to God through a coercive governmental system, he suffered loss of control of his life process. He exhibited a heroic ability to choose Integrity over expediency. “Oh, that’s because we was the only Son of God,” we might say. If that is true then I have no use for him. I really need someone who has had to face the Darkness as I have had to do. I really have no use for a Teacher’s Pet who goes through the motions so that the Bible can say that he did it.
In case you have not had the experience of losing a dream, a person, a lifestyle, a conviction, or even a dearly-held belief, then you have not had the experience of Jesus who spent his Lenten season facing head-on the strongest assaults on his very identity. He came out of that retreat altered (altared?) by his resolve to live with Integrity. What he came to discover was that, as we have become accustomed to saying, “the way of the cross is the way of Life.” May this Holy Lent be for you a time of struggle!
January 2010
This Season of Incarnation in which we find ourselves is deceptively important to our understanding of the Christian faith and our own perception of ourselves and our place in God’s grand scheme for Creation. The idea of Incarnation seems, at first blush, to be one of those ultra-religious terms that we turn off in our minds; you know, those religious “ation” words like sanctification, restoration, (fornication?). In fact Incarnation is packed with meaning that can change our lives!
First, though, we should trace this Season of Incarnation: it begins with the coming of the Christ child in poverty conditions, announced to the leftovers of society, the shepherds whom no one took any notice of anyway. It continues through the Epiphany time of the year when God made known to others what God’s plan was for this child. The Magi represent not only foreign (Gentile/Pagan) audiences for whom the child came, but also some of the most eclectic. These were not, as the carol suggests, kings, monarchs, rulers of nations, but, rather, ancient scientists, astrologers, seekers, if you will.
This season, marked by the Via Positiva in Creation Spirituality, is a time in which God revealed God’s self not only in this specific child, but in the name, Emmanuel: God with us. This is important because for the first time in our tradition we see God as more than “Almighty,” “Omnipotent,” “Omnipresent,” and present in winds, thunder and lightning, judgement and distance. When the eyes of the shepherds and the magi focus on this poor child, a new image of God is born. It is an image that allows Paul, a generation later, to exclaim, “God has chosen to make known to the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory!” (Colossians 1:27) (The exclamation point is mine, but how else can you end a sentence such as this!) Here is the mystery hidden for ages, that Emmanuel, God with us, is actually Christ IN you, the hope of glory.
It is easy to see how this change in perspective can be tied to prophecies that suggest such a coming event. One of my favorite canticles for Morning Prayer reflects such a yearning: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you…. Over you the Lord will rise and his glory will appear upon you. Nations will stream to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawning.” Even this prophecy does not imagine that “the Lord will rise and his glory will appear WITHIN you.”
My recent trip to New Mexico for my daughter’s graduation was partially taken during the holiday travel rush. I was reminded only too often how rude people can be when they are in a hurry, how difficult travel can be during rush times, how easy it is to be inconvenienced by others’ actions and attitudes. And then a child would come on board the plane, wide-eyed and eager for adventure, friendly to strangers, open-faced and open-hearted. At those times I would recall what the season is all about. I remember vividly that Christmas came on March 7 in 1984. That is the day that Christ was born in my heart again in the form of Kristina Paige. Once again Emmanuel, God with us, took on whole new meaning. That is the Via Positiva – God with us.
“…the creation waits with eager longing…” (Article for Journeys magazine, Advent 2009)
By the time I finally pulled my copy of “Original Blessing” off the shelf and took it on vacation with me in the summer of 2004, I was bound and determined to find some new way to talk about God in ways that would produce real transformation not only in the lives of my church members, but transformation in our neighborhood as well. I came home from New Mexico that summer and insisted that all of St. John’s Grace read Matthew Fox’s near-revolutionary book that turns the nature of God and God’s Creation on its head for most Christians. We did, in fact, have six groups reading “Original Blessing over a year’s time. In the five years following we have looked for ways to express personally and in our liturgy, the richness of the phrase, “God created… and it was good.”
I came across “Emerging Word: a Creation Spirituality Lectionary” by Donald Schmidt, and saw that it held out the possibility of linking what we were experiencing spiritually with what we said publicly in our liturgy. It appears that “Emerging Word” is a doctoral dissertation for Schmidt’s work on a DM from Wisdom University, Matthew Fox’s institute. With Bishop Garrison’s permission we have spent our worship together this past year exploring the “Original Blessing” paradigm in our worship. The liturgical year in this system corresponds to the four Vias of Fox’s “Original Blessing:” Via Positiva, (the season of Epiphany), the acknowledging, owning and celebrating the abundance and goodness of God’s creation; Via Negativa, (Lent), coming into contact with God through experiences of struggle, loss, separation, leaving behind, letting go; Via Creativa, (season of Easter), anticipating the birthing of new creation in ourselves and in our communities as a result of the Resurrection, and; Via Transformativa, (season after Pentecost), the New Creation in ourselves, our communities and the world – what I call turning the world right-side-up. These paths fit very well with the liturgical year, and provide a fresh look at a “brokenness/healing” perspective that affirms our innate goodness as made in the image of God, as contrasted to a “fall/redemption” model – a model that affirms our essential “badness,” and that seems to be less life-giving and evangelical, in the best sense of the term.
One of my early observations is that successful lectionaries are a result of collaboration for good reason. The RCL, which I am anxious to resume, is much more cohesive, I am sure because of the richness of many spirits working together. I often thought, “I could have picked a better example than this” for any number of Sundays. I am looking forward to looking at Year C through the lens of the Vias. Schmidt uses some odd lesson combinations – sometimes to interesting, even effective use. One early example was the use of Matthew 1 as a Torah reading, linking Jesus to all of the scoundrels and women in his family tree. Other times he will use lections from the gospels as Torah readings when Jesus is quoted as saying, “You have heard it said… but I say….” A bit more troubling was his use of passages from Acts as Gospel readings, assuming them as an extension of Luke. To say the least this exercise has been exciting for preachers and for our musician simply from the standpoint of breaking us out of expected patterns.
There is a great deal of reliance on what Prof. Trible used to call the “so-called patriarchal so-called era” in this lectionary. I felt that, more than ever before, we were immersed in the stories of Abraham through Joseph – often through episodes that were lesser known. We may have a much better grasp of that tradition through our exposure to those rich “warts and all” stories. Even Potiphar’s wife had her shot at fame for a short moment. One other feature worth mentioning is that the second reading was very often not suitable for a response as our Psalm selections are. This took some imaginative manipulation and sometime substitutions.
Since St. John’s Grace has moved so deeply into the realm of Creation Spirituality we find ways to reflect in our liturgical elements this sense of affirmation and celebration. Again, with Bishop Garrison’s approval, we have used elements from Celtic and Native American sources and, in fact, have developed a liturgy for a Season of Creation largely through the substantial writing gifts of John Schimminger, our communications person. We have celebrated Creation three different years beginning in October and climaxing at Thanksgiving. Having experienced the wonder of the creation we then turn our attention in Advent to the anticipation of the Incarnation of God in human form.
Why bother with a Creation Spirituality liturgy? I am a firm believer that God gifts each of God’s children with practically limitless capacity for loving God and, as a result of that love, sharing the good news of Christ. I have found at times that a theology that brands us as “no damned good” limits our ability to live into this cosmic vocation. The title of this article is part of one of the most glorious sentences in the Bible: “…the creation waits with eager longing,” (on the edge of its seat!), “for the revealing of the children of God… in hope that it (the creation), will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:19-21). Paul is suggesting that the cosmos is waiting to see what God has in store for us as humans because that is what creation wants for itself! That is far from a “fall/redemption” theology. That is a theology that rejoices in our being made in God’s image, pursuing Wholeness – health in body, mind and spirit – and anticipation of what is being birthed as a result of it.
December 2009
As we move into a new season of anticipation of the coming of Jesus into the world it is well to speak again about spirals. There is a sort of conflict connected to the holiday times: it is that, while the holidays give opportunity to rehearse the traditions of the past – often from generations past – we are also invited to look at the ways in which our faith is deepening as a result of our experiences that are pulling us forward. It is the spiral that, I think, speaks most powerfully to this conflict. While the spiral is a circle with no seeming end, it never comes around to the same place.
When I was teaching music I was involved in what was called a “Comprehensive Music” program. The essence of it was that there are several elements of music that are always used: rhythm, melody, timbre and so forth. While you start with very simple uses of these elements you move into more complex uses of them as you learn how to use them. However, the elements themselves never change; you are always working with rhythm, melody, timbre, etc. There is a spiral in which the same elements are allowed to grow and change, though the elements themselves stay the same. This is the way our journey with God works. The “dramatic” story elements of the liturgical year, Advent through Pentecost, stay the same; we hear the same Scriptures read, the same stories told, and perhaps experience the same liturgical elements. However, we as individuals and as a community are called to experience these familiar elements more deeply as a result of the year-long journey we have walked with God and each other.
One of the tools we use to teach children about the season of anticipation, Advent, is an Advent calendar. The idea is to anticipate the coming of Jesus into the world with daily Bible verses, sayings or even chocolate. When we grow out of the need for a structured calendar (though it is impossible to outgrow the need for chocolate!), we need to find new ways to observe this season of anticipation – of pregnancy – that lead us deeper into our need for God to be born in human form in our own hearts. In my own experience I remember that Christmas came on March 7 in 1984. That is the day that my daughter Kristina was born, and I learned in a very new, very intimate way what it was for God to be born as a human. The Incarnation took on a whole new meaning for me – and my experience as a father has continued to lead me on this path of wonder at how God could occupy a human body and spirit.
In what ways does the coming of Christ into the world affect your life this season? Is it something that you anticipate with joy or, in some sense, dread? What difference does it make that God becomes human once again this year? (Or does it?) Maybe Christmas becomes simply a traditional mid-winter festival of light to break up the darkness of the season. Perhaps, on the other hand, it comes with renewed hope for the coming of the Kingdom of God in our hearts, our families, our communities, our world.
November 2009
We near the end of this cycle of the liturgical year as we always do, observing the “End of the World,” with one eye peeking around the corner at Advent, and the anticipation of the coming of God once again into the world. The last Sunday of the year is traditionally known as “Christ the King,” anticipating the time when the world is finally turned “right-side up.” This is almost always portrayed as Jesus coming in majesty (white horse and all), to vanquish evil and save his people, taking them to their eternal reward. It is generally a violent season with scenes of war between the good and the evil with the good winning out finally. My guess is that there is something to be said for the vanquishing of evil (gross understatement – sorry you can’t see my facial expression).
In this year of the Creation Lectionary, however, we are looking at the end of the world in a somewhat different light. The Gospel passage for the day is from Matthew 18: “…unless you change and become like a child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” If we are to talk about the actual coming of the Kingdom, why not talk about what its characteristics will really be? How can we prepare for the endgame? What contributions can we make to the act of turning the world right-side up? The other texts I find equally compelling but I won’t spoil the celebration by giving them away now.
One great aspect of Christ the King this year is that, like at Pentecost, our worship on November 22 will be led by the artists of our community. They are already hard at work with the texts of the day, planning and organizing a truly meaningful worship experience to celebrate the end of the world (imagine!) They would be delighted for you to be part of the planning – and certainly to be involved throughout the worship experience. John Schimminger is chairing this planning. Please contact him, Suzanne Evans, David Mathewson and others to volunteer your own sense of artistic expression for this event.
We also come to a close of this year’s use of “Emerging Word: A Creation Spirituality Lectionary” at St. John’s Grace. It has given us opportunities to hear parts of the Bible we have not heard before and to look at our spiritual journeys through the eyes of “…and God created… and it was good.” I have written a longer reflection on this lectionary and on Creation Spirituality generally which is included in the current issue of the diocesan publication “Journeys.” It is entitled “…the creation waits with eager longing.” I think that this idea of a theology of transformation of self, community, and the world is what Christ the King is all about. The endgame is, after all, the victory of the Kingdom of God, a realm of peace and justice. I look forward to returning in late November to the Revised Common Lectionary with which we are familiar – but with a new appreciation of the “Vias,” or paths, that lead us through a journey of transformation and new life as a result of the Resurrection.
See you in the new year! We will end this year with the heart of a child and begin next liturgical year in anticipation of the coming of God in the person of a child. In the meantime…
The Peace of God be always with You!
October 2009
On September 6, I referred to a one hundred year old book by Friedrich von Hugel entitled The Mystical Element of Religion, in which he suggested that human spiritual growth occurs in three different forms: institutional, critical and mystical. The institutional consists of the things that we learn, that are passed down, that are the traditions of our culture – whether they are accurate or correct or not. The critical is our “head” knowledge, our academic, our intellectual capabilities. The mystical, he suggests, are the things that we know in our hearts because of some intangible “calling” or vocation. This must have been more than cutting edge early in the twentieth century during the heyday of scientific exploration and knowledge.
He does not suggest that any of the three are more to be desired than the others but, rather, that we must seek a balance among the three. History, culture, tradition certainly have a large impact on who we are; our developing ability to reason helps us to critically assess, to a large extent, the tradition and culture. Mysticism, however, we have learned to mistrust. We have been taught by our scientific culture that anything authentic must be provable by some standard of intellectual rigor – “show me the proof!” In a certain sense we equate our deepest feelings, instincts and intuitions with what the Apostle Paul referred to as being “of the flesh.” We just don’t want to trust those deepest parts of us. What we seem to be recovering to some extent is a sense that there is a knowledge deep inside the core of us that requires special listening to discern.
This “mystical” sense of knowledge is probably best identified as the feeling we have when we fall in love. There are no measurables to say why we are attracted to a particular person, or why we feel the way we do about them. In fact, our being in love with a particular person might seem to be against all reason. Another situation involving listening to the heart -- particularly in religious settings -- is the sense of “vocation” or “call” that someone may express that leads to pursue ordination to the diaconate or the priesthood. In fact, we may have the advantage of these guidances on a regular basis to help negotiate the Journey if we learn how to listen to them. The more we listen and test our intuitions or our “gut” feelings the more confident we will be in using them. They will always be tempered, don’t forget, by the other two aspects: institutional and critical knowledge.
We are about listening to these “forgotten languages of God” as we tell our stories in safe contexts, as we disclose what our deepest dreams and desires are to those who are our community of faith. Too long we have been dependent on what we know either from tradition or from our intellect. We venture into the unknown, sometimes frightening sea of mystical knowledge, spoken to us by the same loving God that speaks through tradition and intellect.
September 2009
While I was in New Mexico on vacation in late July and early August I had the opportunity to do a little “road-tripping” with some of my siblings: one to Alamogordo, where my parents are buried, and the other up through Los Alamos and down through the Jemez Valley to the Pueblo of Jemez where a feast day was being celebrated with singing, dancing – and lots of red chile, of course. On both of those trips I found myself taking photographs of the landscapes that were so familiar to me from my childhood and early adulthood. The light and colors in New Mexico are so different from other places; I was entranced.
While there I read a book that I highly recommend entitled Anam Cara, or “Soul Friend,” by the late John O’Donohue of the Iona Community off the coast of Scotland. In it he frequently refers to “thin places,” around the Isle of Iona. They are places where the physical meets the mystical, where the light makes it seem as though one can inhabit both heaven and earth at once. It is these places where we become acutely aware of God’s Presence in creation and, in fact, are able to connect with our own place in creation. It is an awesome feeling of insignificance and power all at once.
I realized on my trip to New Mexico that many of the landscapes there serve for me as thin places – partially because of the limitless skies, “Georgia O’Keeffe” buttes and high desert beauty – but also because those landscapes were so essential to the person I have become. It is in those mountains that I went to Youth Camps, it was on those endless roads that I went to visit relatives, or, in later years, to see my parents or my siblings, it was the wide open spaces that took me back and forth 600 miles to college in Oklahoma. In short, the geography of New Mexico is mystical and profound, but it is also planted deeply in my own spiritual geography.
I think that there are very special physical locations; I look forward to experiencing Iona for myself some day, and I always look for excuses to go to New Mexico to see my daughter and to reconnect in a physical way to a deep sense of self in that Land (of Enchantment, indeed!). However, I think that thin places also exist in the deepest parts of ourselves, and can serve to return us to that sense of connection to God and to God’s creation. This is part of the reason for prayer/contemplation practices like Centering Prayer or meditation practices. The thin places in our lives are where the “real” and the “ideal” meet and hold hands, where we see the possibilities for our lives taking on the texture and feel of what we feel inside to be our true spiritual nature.
You are above me O God
(Prayer from Celtic Prayers from Iona by J. Philip Newell, p. 44)
August 2009
We have been using some liturgical elements from Celtic sources in our worship recently. I am attracted to these materials not specifically because they are Celtic, but because they move past a reliance solely on intellectuality and provide a healing balance that also includes an appeal to the Heart. There is an attempt in them to provide an entry into spirituality and even mysticism. Most notably we have used some pieces for healing services and services of reconciliation.
I am increasingly convinced that God is less interested in what we believe; belief in itself can become an escape hatch that keeps us from entering fully into the Journey with God. “Why,” we might ask, “do I need to do all that ‘soul-searching’ transformation stuff as long as I say the right things, quote the correct creed, have clever answers to questions of religion?” And, likewise, I think that God is perhaps less interested in our “moral” stances; “if we take correct positions on issues then we can lull ourselves into thinking that the murky ambiguities of life will not come near us or the ones we love,” we may say. I am increasingly persuaded that we are called, as God’s People, to enter fully into Life with all of its ambiguities, risks, hurts, unexpected joys, simple pleasures, and arguments with God about Life.
Celtic worship is interwoven with our connection to Creation. There is a religious philosophy that sees Nature as evil, the source of all of our “sinful” nature, (particularly in sexual matters). Celtic worship – and further extended in the “Original Blessing” paradigm of theological life – embraces the fact that we are Created, that we are part of a magnificent work that includes not only the obvious blessings of flowers, mountains and trees, but accepts the whole of Creation that includes the complexities of human existence, our jealousies, passions, sexuality and capacity for immense joy. Creation Spirituality, as it is sometimes called, refuses to box in the human experience to those areas that we have accepted as proper or acceptable. It is this opening of the human spirit and experience that I yearn for in our life together.
One of the Confessions from the Celtic tradition that we have not used yet, but which I think expresses so graphically what we should be about goes like this:
Rag and Bone Confession
There are lumps under our carpet
After some silence the prayer continues:
There’s a pile at the foot of the cross
(Rag and Bone Confession from The Pattern of Our Days: Worship in the Celtic Tradition from the Iona Community by Kathy Galloway, p.111)
July 2009
The St. John’s-Grace Vestry spends a substantial amount of time talking about the life of the church, who we are, and how we express who we are with authenticity. Two opportunities arose lately that helped us to focus in on the mission and ministry of St. John’s-Grace in an attempt to sketch a road map for our future. The first was a day-long retreat held in late February and led by The Very Rev. DeLiza Spengler, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral; the second was a seminar sponsored by the diocesan Congregation Revitalization Team, held in early June, led by The Rev. James Lemler, a consultant from the national church. It was attended by four members of the vestry: Donna Doyle, Ann Dutton, John Schimminger, and David Smith, along with the rector.
It was observed sometime last year by the vestry that, in order for us to continue to grow and thrive we will have to reconsider the way we do things generally. In the words of at least one person, “we have to realize that in five years things may be completely different here.” We are determined to move into the future with integrity, motivated by our desire to be who we need to be.
Both of the opportunities for self-assessment focused not on what is going wrong or what problems we have to solve but, rather, on what strengths we have on which to capitalize. In both instances St. John’s-Grace’s greatest strength emerged as being our worship life together. That seems, in some sense, to be self-evident: a church is, after all, a group of worshiping people! When we began, though, to take seriously the idea of our worship as core to who we are, it opened up possibilities for how our worship can drive the whole of our life together. Face it, not every church is blessed with such a rich worship experience as ours. Why should we not use it as the basis for defining our life together?
As a result, we will be looking at how to attract others, particularly those in our neighborhood, to join us in worship, how to better profile our building for those who pass by on runs/walks, as well as others who may find us here on the western tip of the Olmsted Park System. It may attract some to join us in worship, but it might, as importantly, lead us into some valuable partnerships that will enhance our standing in the community and make us more valuable partners to the neighborhood and larger community as well.
In the final analysis the ministry of St. John’s-Grace is YOU! I have said many times that when the church itself becomes Good News – (and that is YOU!) – we will be irresistible to a world in need of authentic healing and reconciliation. The Vestry is very interested in hearing from you. How do you envision our community engaging the world around us? An exciting and frustrating aspect of this journey into our experience with God is that, while we will find ways to be God’s People on this corner of Bidwell Parkway and Lafayette, we will never reach the end of the journey. Given the opportunity, God will continue to lead us into new areas of ministry and new definitions of what it is to serve God.
June 2009
One thing is sure: [humans] today must be obsessed; if [they are], there is still hope. If [they are] passionate, meaning com-passionate… there is hope. Elie Wiesel
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another. Thomas Merton
I am a part and parcel of the whole, and I cannot find God apart from the rest of humanity. Mahatma Gandhi
What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8
Through three seasons, Christmas/Epiphany, Lent, and Easter we have explored our relationship(s) with God through our relationship with Creation. Now for the payoff! What we have normally called “Ordinary Time” we now call the Via Transformativa, an opportunity to actually make a difference in this world. If we have done our work in the other three seasons, then we are equipped with everything we need (and without everything we don’t need!) to transform God’s Creation into God’s realm of Justice, Compassion and Peace. It cannot be done, however, until we have a sense that we are organically connected to the rest of creation – including being connected to the rest of Humanity.
There are many struggles and issues that demand our attention: climate change, world economy, world poverty, local justice issues, ad infinitum. We are limited and can only do a certain amount, but we can do something. Micah’s admonishment is a sort of “since you are going anyway” statement of purpose for what we do as a result of who we are becoming. “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly” are all products of the work we have done in the first part of this Church Year. We are becoming God’s hands and feet as we journey further into God’s heart for the Creation. We can no longer be apathetic about the condition of this world.
The old stewardship adage of how we use our “time, talent and treasure” takes on new meaning as we move into the world to make a difference. We become aware of systems and institutions that keep people imprisoned, but we are also aware that the difference that we make happens one person at a time, one conversation at a time, one “random act of kindness” at a time. We do this not because we are “good,” but because we have been radically transformed by our journey into the Heart of God. We can only do it as we stay connected to God through our prayer lives and through the community of Jesus followers with whom we are committed to this cosmic dream: the Reign of God (as we pray weekly, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”). This should be “Extraordinary Time,” a time when all of our experiences and changes move us into action. I pray that we will realize this in new ways this Pentecost season.
May 2009
As I mentioned in April’s newsletter the season of Easter is a transformation of the two previous themes, Via Positiva and Via Negativa. Easter’s Via Creativa addresses what is being born as a result of the Resurrection. If there is no difference in us after Easter then we are doing all of this for nothing! What are the ways in which we experience a “New Creation” as a result of what we have experienced to this point? How, as the quotations made clear last time, do we give birth to our new images of God and God’s Creation in our own experience and that of our community and neighborhoods?
The month of May gives several opportunities for “a new thing” to be given birth, and I draw your attention to them merely as examples of how new things can be born out of our life together. You can find more information about each of these expressions of our life together in other parts of the newsletter.
Pluralism Sunday is an event sponsored by The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC), of which we are a member. It is an expression of at least 2 of the 8 points expressed by TCPC: #2, “We recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us,” and #5, “We know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.” We will observe Pluralism Sunday on May 3. Come and join with us as we celebrate the mighty acts of God throughout God’s People on this planet.
On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend we will rededicate our wonderful bell whose voice was restored last year after several years of silence. Its restoration was made possible by several donors, among whom was John Putnam, who specifically made the repair of our bell a priority in his will. We will have the dedication prayer at the beginning of the service, ring the bell, and then process in to a hymn written by John Schimminger for this event.
What has become our annual interdenominational celebration of Memorial Day will again take place on Monday, Memorial Day, at 10:00 a.m. If you have not experienced this moving event I hope that you will take advantage of this opportunity to honor those who have given their lives in the defense of our country. This is done without any attempt to glorify war, but to give context and acknowledgment to the fact that some do answer the call at great sacrifice to themselves and to their families. The service is held in the church with a procession to the war memorial in Bidwell Parkway.
Our Healing Retreat that is normally held at the beginning of Lent has been postponed to the day before Pentecost, May 30. Our themes of Wind and Fire will be played out by resources well versed in Storytelling and Weaving. Suzanne Evans will give opportunity for incarnational expression through movement and, as always, the day belongs to you for your own meditation and enrichment.
Pentecost is the last Sunday of May this year, May 31. Your Liturgy Group and Artists Group are working to make this a meaningful and memorable observance of the coming of the Holy Spirit in ways that make our tongues sing and our hearts respond in ways that reflect our New Creation as a result of Christ’s Resurrection.
We are becoming known as a community in which God is doing mighty things. It is because St. John’s-Grace has begun to allow God to direct us into new and powerful expressions of a New World, a New Creation. Let us celebrate!
April 2009
“You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born….fear not the strangeness you feel….Just wait for the birth….for the hour of new clarity.” Rainer Maria Rilke
“One reason for trusting our images is that we ourselves are trusted images. We are God’s images, and God trusts us with that divine power of imagination.” Matthew Fox
The first two Sundays of April frame the holiest week of the Church Year, Holy Week. It is an important week in the community, giving opportunity for worship, fellowship, grief, communion, suffering, and joy. When Easter comes, having embraced the Creation and its Creator, and having figured out what we can live without in order to make room for that embrace (grief, fear….), we should find that new images of God and God’s reign begin to be born in our hearts. No longer can we be satisfied with the smallness of our previous existence. This is really the time that God bursts the bonds of the boxes in which we have imprisoned [Him]. As a result of our exploration of the Vias Positiva and Negativa, do you begin to feel new nudgings, hear new voices from God, urging us on to new experiences of God and of the world that has been entrusted to us?
The Resurrection is the Myth (in the most powerful sense of the word), for a birth of a new Creation. Through our grappling with Christ we find that we are transformed. “If anyone be in Christ there is a new Creation! Old things have passed away; Behold, all things have become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). (In the Via Transformativa we will follow up with the ensuing verses in which we are given the ministry of reconciliation!) In the Season of Easter we will encounter again Isaiah’s prophecy that, says God, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth…” (65:17), and we are invited to be a part of it! Our Easter Season
will be one in which Resurrection continues to happen – Life out of death!
That is really what we want for ourselves, and what God wants not only for us individually, but for His People who worship at Bidwell Parkway and Lafayette Ave. How will our Resurrection experience affect our neighborhood, our families, our own journey with God – with our city and our world? We have contacts even now in each of those segments of our lives – how will our transformed lives – our Risen Lives – make an impact on each of those communities?
It begins with the images of God’s Kingdom that have been given to us as individuals and as a community. Paul’s words to the Romans are as true now as then, “The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons and daughters….From the beginning till now the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth.” (8:19, 22). The great mystic/scientist Teilhard de Chardin says it like this: “Something is afoot in the universe, a result is working out which can best be compared to a gestation and birth: the birth of a new spiritual reality formed by souls and the matter they draw after them.”
I invite you into the new life of Resurrection!
March 2009
God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.
Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.
Meister Eckhart
As I have mentioned before, we are using an experimental lectionary based on the Creation Spirituality of Matthew Fox’s book Original Blessing during this liturgical year. In Christmas and Epiphany we have been focusing on acknowledging and embracing Creation and our journeys through it. The other side of our embrace of Creation we explore in Lent: the Via Negativa. While the Via Positiva has encouraged us to embrace the abundance of God, God’s Creation, and God’s Love, our Lenten journey will help us to discover what and how to release for the purpose of knowing God in richer and deeper ways.
Our Healing Team is reading and experiencing a book by Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, which leads one through a process leading to Contemplative Prayer or Centering Prayer. One of the first things that Keating suggests is necessary to achieving a union with the Divine is the ability to let go of thoughts and emotions that keep us distracted from our goal of listening to nothing – to simply Be in the presence of God. In our culture we are people of thought. We have so much stimulation through a variety of communication channels that our thoughts crowd out any possibility of silence and contemplation.
We are reminded of Elijah, hoping to experience God in a time of turmoil in his own life and ministry. The text says that he first experiences a violent wind that splits the mountains and breaks rocks; God cannot be found in that wind. Next, an earthquake and a fire, in which God cannot be detected. God is experienced by Elijah, finally, in “the sound of sheer silence.” Silence – sheer silence – is the absolute absence of any kind of distraction. It is what we seek in a divine unity beyond ourselves. This Lenten season offers us opportunities to look beyond the distractions that keep us from meeting God in the sheer silence.
What are some of the things we can expect to release or let go of to achieve our goal of sheer silence? Fox suggests several avenues of letting go that can release us to gain something greater: we can give up our expectations of “how things should be,” how others should act and be and what our expectations of God are to be. Meister Eckhardt’s quotation that, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction” reminds me of our citation during Advent of the phrase from “Joy to the World” that says, “Let every heart prepare him room.” To prepare room for the Christ child requires that something else be removed. Is it our expectations of what we know about this baby, what we expect to gain from his taking up residence with us, what other distractions keep us from welcoming the child into our lives?
The first step is to determine that Christ is to have a place in our hearts. After that the process of “subtraction” is a daily part of the journey. What shall I give up for Lent? Let me start with some of the daily distractions that keep me from pursuing a divine union – found in the “sound of sheer silence.”
January 2009
Happy New Year! Though the Church Year began with Advent, we start this new calendar year celebrating the Via Positiva of Creation Spirituality. Christmas was really the introduction to this way of embracing God’s creation and finding our own places in it. As Jesus was born a vulnerable baby of “low estate,” as the carol says, so we should find ourselves not as conquerors and subduers of creation, but as one with it. In one of those misunderstandings of Scriptural text we have taken the admonition to “fill the earth and subdue it” in Genesis 1as license to, in effect, rape and plunder. We have successfully separated human beings from the rest of creation – a sort of “standing above” the inferior rest of the cosmos.
There is a wonderful passage that Matthew Fox relates from the writings of Frederick Turner, an anthropologist/historian/poet: “To those who followed Columbus and Cortez, the New World truly seemed incredible because of the natural endowments. The land often announced itself with a heavy scent miles out into the ocean. Giovanni di Verrazano in 1524 smelled the cedars of the East Coast a hundred leagues out. The men of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon were temporarily disarmed by the fragrance of the New Jersey shore, while ships running farther up the coast occasionally swam through large beds of floating flowers. Wherever they came inland they found a rich riot of color and sound, of game and luxuriant vegetation. Had they been other than they were, they might have written a new mythology here. As it was, they took inventory.” This sums up humanity’s attitude toward the Creation. Instead of embracing the abundance and beauty of it, we figure out how much it can be sold for!
Our focus in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany is on rediscovering the Earth as our source of nourishment, the atmosphere as the air we breathe, the waters, the skies – the Cosmos – as not only a source for greed and plunder, but as our Divine Home, with God the Divine Parent, holding us gently, providing for our needs. The most striking thing about the familiar creation narrative from Genesis is that, after each stage of creation, God stands back and says, “That’s good!” We are looking to restore the “Goodness” of Creation to our spiritual lives and to see ourselves as part of that Goodness. We are, as often alluded to, “made in the image of God.” That image is a bit fractured, sometimes hard to perceive, sometimes even unrecognizable! Lent gives us the opportunity to explore that disconnect, but for now we lift our hands and our voices and sing with all Creation, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise God all creatures here below, Praise God above, ye heavenly hosts!”
My prayer for us in this season is that we not only rediscover the wonder and magic of Creation, but that we also reestablish our rightful place in it and rededicate ourselves to the stewardship with which we have been entrusted.
December 2008
In Advent we return to the language of Creation Spirituality in our liturgy. During Advent and continuing into next year we will be using, on an experimental basis, an alternative lectionary entitled “Emerging Word: A Creation Spirituality Lectionary.” For those of you not acquainted with the idea of Creation Spirituality it is about acknowledging, embracing and celebrating our place in Creation – created in God’s image and called to be stewards of God’s creation. It is based upon a paradigm offered by Matthew Fox in his important, though not new (20 years old), work, Original Blessing. It is really an invitation to move away from a theological thought that we are basically flawed and worthless except through a sort of sacrificial transaction accomplished 2000 years ago to a viewpoint that God continues to speak and to create and invites us to be part of a movement to transform the world. What a difference in the way we perceive God – and what an invitation to move deeply and richly into the life of God! (I am sitting at my desk listening to a chant that says, “As the deer longs for the flowing stream, so my soul longs for you.” That is really the response to God’s invitation.)
The Sundays in December before Christmas will be an introduction to the four aspects of this way of thinking about God and our relationship with God. The first, which Fox calls Via Positiva teaches us to embrace and celebrate the wonders of God’s Creation. It affirms our belief that God is not “out there” someplace, but, rather, right here in the middle of everything. The Via Negativa gets us in touch with the fact that to move ahead, deeper, higher in relationship with God, we are asked to figure out what to leave behind as we move into new levels of relationship. It is the “letting go” part of our journey. Via Creativa, which we will celebrate more fully in the Easter season, is an acknowledgment that God is doing a New Thing, creating a “new heaven and a new earth” – and that we are invited to the party! Finally, Via Transformativa suggests that in this new heaven and new earth all are invited to partake in the characteristics of our God: justice and compassion. We are called to make these ideals a reality in the world in which we live.
As briefly suggested, each one of these “Vias” corresponds to a season of the church year. In Epiphany we will be embracing the goodness of God’s Creation; in Lent we will figure out what we are willing to lose in order to gain. As mentioned, Easter season is the time for new creation, and our “Ordinary Time,” the time after Pentecost is our chance to learn how to change the world.
Several years ago I invited the whole church to read Original Blessing, and many took me up on it; several of the study/discussion groups read it. The language, then, is one that is not foreign to our vocabularies. This might be a good time, if you have not read it, to get a copy, find some folks to talk to about it (I’ll be glad to help!), or to review it if you have read it before. The fascinating thing to me about this book is the voluminous citations from religious folk through the centuries that had a strong understanding of this concept of God. Our engagement with it is another step into our future as a community of God’s People who are defined not by what we assert intellectually or “believe,” but by who we are as an “inclusive community of faith and compassion.”
November 2008
A reflection on a dark economic and political time.
I have to confess that, like many of you, I am living with a kind of knot in my stomach over current developments in our national – even global – systems. Will my 403B be completely worthless before I can use it – after contributing all that money? Will the church be able to survive financially as people find it harder and harder to meet financial obligations? How do we work if the endowment investments cannot keep up? Will I even have a job in another year or two?! These are only a few of the questions and concerns that live in the not-too-remote reaches of our minds and emotions.
As it happens I am preparing to preach on Oct. 12 from the Exodus text. The Hebrews nation is still in the desert – (weeks for us, generations for them!). They have already faced starvation and death by thirst. They have threatened mutiny on their leaders, and Moses has been up on that mountain for far too long. That is us. We have been suspicious that we do not have enough provisions, our national economy has not been growing for a few years now, and the rich get richer on the backs of the middle class and poor. One of this past week’s Psalms puts it this way: “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy, for we have had enough of contempt, too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, and of the derision of the proud.” (Ps. 123) It appears that things will not be better, and so we resort to a kind of despair that distracts us from why we were called here to begin with.
I see the case of the Israelites and the golden images as a distraction that goes something like this: “We’re tired of waiting to see if anything is going to materialize from the mountain; let’s focus on something that we already have. It will take some effort and some sacrifice, but let’s focus on what is in front of us.” They actually put their faith and their focus in the gold market! Here is the point: They took their eyes off the mountain and settled for something less than they had been promised. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by what may happen because of the stock markets or the elections then we cheat ourselves out of our true calling. If we do not believe that God is bigger than the things that distract us then why do we bother with this “church” thing? Let’s put our faith in stock market clubs or consumer gatherings. Sound familiar? It seems as though that is exactly what our culture has lured us into doing!
If we assume that our existence as the People of God in this place is dependent on the stock market performance, we lose. And when we lose everything – our purpose, our motivation, our mission – we are in Moses’ position before God; our opponents will be in a position to say, “See, their God is not that great. Their God was toppled by the economy, manipulated by the “indolent rich.” We must find a way to wait on our Great God (the events of the mountain), to bring us to the other side of temporal, in-your-face distractions that keep us from the main message: THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS HERE!
October 2008
Lessons from my trip – you perhaps know that I spent the first two weeks of September on an extensive trip, something that I rarely do. I knew that I had at least two challenges facing me in this journey: 1) I was traveling alone in a country in which I have only the most rudimentary knowledge of the language and 2) I was driving a rental car in a foreign country. I have this irritating habit of reflecting on everything that happens in my life, so I began to think of what I was learning as I progressed through this pilgrimage through French cathedrals. Here are some of my reflections.
1) What your mother told you a long time ago still holds true: the two most important phrases you can know in any language, and in my case French, were “s’il vous plait” and “merci.” I found that people overlooked a lot of my language barriers if they knew that I was truly and genuinely thankful for their help. “Please” and “thank you” work miracles in so many uncertain situations.
2) Not speaking the language very well gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time in silence. I was not able, as I often wished that I could, to jump into free-flowing conversations with people I met. I did miss that, but I also began to realize how much time we spend in senseless chatter when language is easy. I really appreciated the time to think and reflect.
3) I don’t really know what I thought was going to be so alien about driving in a foreign country. As it turned out the expressways were easy, the signage was clear – and even driving in Paris was no more frightful than driving in New York City, which I had done quite a bit. What I realized was that what I already knew served me well in navigating unknown territory. We really know more than we think we do.
4) I wish that I had followed my “gut” a little more and made room for serendipitous events. For instance, in one location there was a music festival beginning the day I left. I had no reservation for that night, but somehow did not give myself permission to stay over and enjoy an experience that might have been transformational. I did, on at least a couple of occasions, change plans at the last moment to go somewhere I had not planned. It was rewarding on both occasions.
Since Genesis and Exodus have had me thinking in terms of Journey for the last several months, I tried to think in universal terms. What difference does our personal or corporate journey make if we live with gratitude as the first words out of our mouths? Do we take enough time individually and as a group to shut down noise and excessive chatter to listen to what God may be saying to us? We should trust what we know. God has not given us the gifts and knowledge that we have for naught. Every new experience simply builds on what has come before. Finally, we need to leave enough room in our own plans to accommodate the unexpected blessing. If we are too wrapped up in our own agenda we may miss (Will miss!) some of the best stuff.
These things apply to our individual journeys, but also to our life together as God’s People on Colonial Circle. Please be part of the “Journey” conversations that are being led by the vestry and others, and find your own place in this community of faith.
September 2008
I have been talking lately about journeys as a model for the spiritual life. This is also the theme for the upcoming Healing Retreat at the beginning of Advent. The stories of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs come to us in the context of their being called to leave the familiar and venture – by faith – to someplace new. Abraham’s journey to Canaan, his journey with Isaac to the mountain of sacrifice, Rebekah’s journey into the unknown of this strange, alienated family, Jacob’s journey through his less-than-ideal nature to a name change that reflected a character change, Joseph’s journey into slavery for the sake of his family’s survival – they are all symbols of the kinds of journeys we are called upon to make.
I have mentioned before that I see “faith” as trusting that God will do what God promises. So, when God calls us into some kind of movement our faith trusts that we are being called into something richer, greater, and more profound than our experience so far in this life. It is hard to embrace the possibility of change. We like the familiar, and are secure living with what we know. However, it is the rare person who goes through an entire life without encountering experiences that demand the breaking open of the shell of familiarity to allow something greater to grow.
There are two ways that come to my mind in which journeys of the spirit are represented in terms of spiritual growth: through stories such as we encounter in Genesis and Exodus – along with our own stories of journey – and through the use of labyrinths. The actual writers of the mythologies of the Bible were very clear as to their interpretations of the stories. Joseph, after being sold into slavery by his brothers, says to them, “God has sent me before you to preserve life.” His understanding of God’s leading had taken away any bitterness that might have lingered over their treachery. Likewise, it is probably well for us to do that kind of reflection on the stories of our own lives. Are there instances in which difficult – even painful and traumatic – experiences worked to produce beneficial transformation in the lives of others or of ourselves? What are the times in our lives that have caused discomfort, sorrow, or deep pain that proved to be times of growth? As I quoted from “Try to Remember” a few weeks ago, “Deep in December it’s nice to remember without the hurt the heart is hollow.”
In the next few weeks I will personally be exploring the world of labyrinths in preparation for the Advent Healing Retreat. We always offer the opportunity to walk the labyrinth during this retreat, but I am hoping to add some new insights to the experiences some are already having. Stay tuned. . .
It seems as though we spend our whole lives figuring out how to avoid hurt or change from what is familiar. I am always chagrined at religious movements or leaders that try to convince us that if we are living “in God’s will” or some variation of that phraseology we will be trouble-free. The fact is that it is the hard times that make the pleasant times recognizable. It is the “dusty road” of the journey that makes the new destination (or even just the occasional oasis!) so welcome. It is not popular to preach or encourage embracing of the distasteful or difficult, but that is, indeed, what we are called to do in this life! God’s richest blessings on you as you journey with God on a daily basis – and
The Peace of the Lord be always with You!
August 2008
As I write this I am spending time with the dream story of Jacob’s “gate of Heaven” from Genesis 28. In it Jacob experiences the connection of Heaven with Earth, and celestial beings moving back and forth between them. God speaks, renewing the covenant that promises that his line, the line which stretches back to Abraham, will be a blessing to all people. This story is a wonderful example to me of what worship can and should be. In this case the angels provided the music as they processed up and down the staircase and God preached the sermon, promising not only to bless Jacob’s line, but also promising God’s divine presence wherever Jacob was to go. However the content of the service is only the beginning of the real worship.
Most interesting to me is Jacob’s response to the experience: his first reaction is to say, “Wow, I think that I was just in the presence of God.” This is followed by fear! In the vernacular of today he said, “This place is awesome! It has to be the place where God lives, and I am standing in the gateway to Heaven!” How often do we actually experience the presence of God in our worship – to the point of being afraid, of trembling in the presence of the Holy? Does it depend upon angel choirs and the voice of God to cause such a reaction? Probably, but many of us have had that experience, though the angel choirs sounded suspiciously like the one we hear every Sunday, and the sermon was one in which God’s voice could be heard in spite of the fragile attempts by the preacher.
I have said before that I would love to see us approach worship as an event that has the power to transform us in the same way it did Jacob. We enter in and, through the various liturgical elements, are led to a threshold – a gateway – to Heaven, to a new vision of God’s plan for us individually and as a congregation. Dare I say it – is it possible to experience true fear as a result of an encounter with God in a seemingly ordinary “work of the People,” the Liturgy?
One more element of this story is of interest to me: Jacob finds a way to physicalize the experience he has had. He takes the actual stone he had used for a pillow and sets it up as more than a reminder of what had happened. He performs a sacramental anointing of the place, much as we do when we dedicate a sanctuary or an altar, and names the place Bethel, or “The House of God.”
I don’t think that we can expect every service of worship to be a direct encounter with God. If that were to happen they would become too commonplace, and would lose the power to transform. However, it is important to come back by our own places of transformation to remind us what they are like, to recall what the messages were that we received, and to lay our eyes on the actual “things” that remind us of the encounter. Do you recall transformational times of worship on your journey? Do you recall the words that touched your heart, the hymn that was being sung, who you were with? Is there a place that you can visit to renew a sense of commitment to a “call,” a “vocation” that you have received from God? It may not have been in a formal service of worship, though we pray each week that that opportunity will be given. The prayer that I say each time we meet for Holy Communion is: “be known to us in the breaking of bread.” Many people recall a service of Holy Eucharist in which their own lives were dramatically changed.
This is our own personal mythology – the witness that we each bear to the healing, transforming power of God. For this reason it is important to show those “altars” to others and tell the stories of what happened to us in those places.
July 2008
We have begun a journey through what my Old Testament professor, Dr. Phyllis Trible, referred to as the "so-called patriarchal so-called period." It is the story of the beginnings of a People, the Children of Abraham and Sarah. We began on June 8 with God's call to Abram to leave his tribal home to establish a new community B don't you know Sarah was excited about that! The promise of God is that Abraham's obedience will result not in personal gain for Abraham, but that generations to come would be blessed by this act. For an ancient the promise of unlimited progeny would have been the same as immortality! Something of a person would live forever!
This trek through Genesis will last until the middle of August. In that time we will become acquainted not only with Abraham and his wife Sarah, but their son, Isaac, born when Abraham and Sarah were well advanced in age (Abraham was 100!). We will follow these very human heroes through the ages, Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, to Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and Jacob and Rachel's son, Joseph. Recalling their decisions, their uncertainties, their faithfulness, their foibles we will discover, hopefully, something about our own journey through the world with God who leads through good and difficult times.
As you know I am less interested in these stories as historical fact-preserving than I am in their value as mythology to help explain who we are and why we are who we are. If they are simply "believable" as sacred stories we have the ability to shelve them away under things that we "believe," whatever that means. If, however, we engage them as personal stories of how God works in the lives of individuals and communities we are forced to acknowledge the work of God or the lack of the work of God in our own experiences. We are the ones who are called to move from the familiar to the unknown, to accept the possibility that God can make us fruitful and productive at whatever stage of life we may be, to trust our lives to the possibility that God can surpass our own limitations to accomplish God's reign in our world and our experience.
Besides, good story-telling is much more interesting and engaging than simple "head work" of intellectualizing theology. It is this telling of our own stories - our own mythologies - that I am trying to move us toward. We have all had experiences in which, in looking back particularly, we were able to see the hand or voice of God calling us into new, exciting, sometimes uncomfortable areas of life. As I have said before, it is the intersections where our story touches another's story that God lives. We recognize who we are as a People and as individuals on the endless journey of God's leading. If we stop growing, learning, reaching then we become lifeless, joyless, bitter persons who despair of life's meaninglessness.
Don't make summer your time off from worship; be sure to join us through this humorous, tragic, exciting journey through the lives of some of our spiritual heroes. There's no telling what we will learn about ourselves!
June 2008
On Pentecost I talked rather more at length than I have before about Mythology and what it really means in our lives. If we are to really believe the Bible – in the most transformational sense – we cannot be satisfied with reading it as an historical or scientific or even creedal document. To do so allows us to, in a way, “cop out,” to say, “Oh, yes I believe,” for instance, “ that the people at the first Pentecost experienced a violent wind and fiery hairdos,” and then to put that information back on the shelf for future reference. We are not required to wrestle with what the Myth means. It is the Myth that has the power to change us, to form us into God’s People.
I tried to turn the story of that event around so that the emphasis was not on the ability of the apostles to be understood in different languages, but, rather, the listeners’ ability, perhaps for the first time, to hear God speaking to them in their own “heart language.” We are invited to hear God’s call, God’s voice, in the stories of our own – the stories that have shaped, and continue to shape, who we are. In my own case, some of the personal mythology that has shaped who I am in the past several years has to do with personal loss of loved ones. It began in January, 2004 with the death of my father, continued only six months later with the death of my partner of almost 12 years, and most recently experienced in my mom’s death in March of this year. While these are not events that I anticipated they each taught me so much about God’s power in relationships, in the mystery of death, in the power a loved one has even after death. I can’t help but tell these stories because for you to hear them is for you to know who I am.
As I mentioned on Pentecost, I would go a step further to say that God lives in the place that our stories touch one another’s stories. I think that, in a most profound way, when we respond to something in someone else’s experience God is awakened in the lives of both – or all – involved. I tell stories because I have been changed by them and hope that, in the telling, you will be changed as well. We are woven into a tapestry in which each intersection is alive with the God that inhabits us all.
All of this is to say that we need to begin to identify the stories that have shaped who we are; they may be stories that have happened to us, dreams that have changed the course of our lives, spiritual experiences like labyrinth walks, stories that we have read or heard, or stories in other peoples’ lives that have made an impact on us. Let’s learn to tell them with power, revealing the effect these Myths have had on us.
One more step I think that we need to take is to think in terms of ritualizing our personal Mythologies. This is a bit more esoteric, but I am suggesting that we find ways to “sacramentalize,” if you will, to make “outward and visible signs” of these “inward and spiritual” journeys that God is providing, to make our lives rich and full of meaning. This is certainly a subject to be dealt with in the future, but I believe that such a process will connect us more deeply to one another and to the needs and concerns of a broken world outside our own. We are traveling toward a realization of God’s Reign in our own experience!
May 2008
I often find myself looking for a “bottom line” that encapsulates what my own ministry is about and what I hope to accomplish among you. The bottom line changes according to where I see us headed, what we are experiencing together, what my new learnings are and how I am attempting to share that journey of mine with you. That being true I sat down and wrote a simple statement a few weeks ago that has been the core of my reflections on all of those aspects of late. It says, “It is my sole intention to lead you to hear and to respond to the working of God as individuals and as a community.”
As I write this I am preparing to preach (the Fifth Sunday of Easter) on the text from The First Letter of Peter: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, IN ORDER THAT (my capitals), you may proclaim (witness to) the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (2:9) While these words were written to Jews in Diaspora – double Diaspora if you count those followers of Jesus who had been expelled from the synagogues – I think a case can be made for, as John’s Revelation suggests, a holy priesthood made up of “every family, language, people and nation” including Us! This idea is seminal to the meaning of the Church: the realization that we are a holy (think “wholly”) nation with a specific purpose. That purpose is to witness to the profound works of God among his Creation.
We are faced with many obstacles to being that holy nation. There are still some who haven’t seen the vision of who we are as God’s People. We have limited resources as a community of which we must be stewards, resources of finances, people, and buildings. We are having to figure out how to authentically attract people to this community because of their needs and because of our need to have them as part of our tapestry. We are needing to figure out how to remain financially viable in light of a downturn in the (external) financial market, too much dependence on our endowment, and changing demographics in our congregation. Rather than seeing these as sources of despair I suggest that we see them as the challenges that help us to live out our calling as “God’s own people, in order that,” in confronting and resolving our challenges, we will witness to “the mighty acts of him” who not only leads us out of darkness but, indeed, holds our hand in the darkness itself.
If it seems as though I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy harping on this idea of hearing and responding to the work of God in ourselves and our community. Please know that I see it as what we are about in this time and this place. I have said many times before, when the church becomes the redeeming, reconciling Body of Christ it is constituted to be it will be an irresistible force for transformation in this world. I am honored to be part of this project with you!
April 2008
Thank you for the many expressions of sympathy you have shown at the death of my mother, Margaret Dougharty, on March 3. It was wonderful to receive your cards and calls – even in New Mexico!
My mother was a “dyed in the wool” Southern Baptist from way back. A cousin of mine wrote a paper on the faith of the Vaughter (her maiden name) women, citing my mother as the clearest example he knew of a certain strain of followers of Jesus who took literally the call to devote their lives totally to Him. You could not have a conversation with her without her relating, in some way, what that meant in her walk with “the Lord.” In her last hours, one of my siblings asked her, “Are you looking forward to seeing Dad?” to which she answered, “Jesus first.”
Over the years I have come to realize that the focus of so-called “frontier” Christianity of which my mom (and I as well) was a product was not sacramental, but, rather, surprisingly, educational. The church of the “wild west” became, more than anything else, a vehicle to teach about God, the only thing left to do after the “born again” experience. Consequently, my mother’s religious life was centered on Christian Education – particularly for adults. She probably spent fifty years teaching teachers of adults how to teach – always from chosen Bible passages. It was the center of her religious life, so to speak.
Needless to say, she knew the Bible well enough that it was very hard to argue with her…. It was generally fruitless to argue with her anyway….
Her “Adult 5” Sunday School department at First Baptist Church in Alamogordo had as many as fifty participants at a time, all adults above the age of sixty – and many in their eighties and nineties! She had one friend and regular participant who was 105!. It was clear that Christian Education, particularly in the form of Sunday School, was a major part of her life. Often she would go to Sunday School if she could not attend worship – a near reversal of what we would normally expect of ourselves.
On her last day of lucidity my mother was visited by one of the younger members of her Adult 5 department who said some remarkable things to her: most notably, at least to me, he said, “My wife and I chose this church not because of the music program or the youth program, but because of the strength of its ministry to its elders.” In a time when we are struggling to advance our ministries to the young, to attract young adults, to promote our Sunday School for children, it was remarkable to hear a relatively young man saying that his faith had been transformed by the strength of a church’s commitment to its “elders.”
It would not be a surprise to you to know that much of my faith journey has been and is being shaped in reflection to the values and priorities that my mother held. As I have wrestled with, moved away from, returned at times to those principles that so clearly defined who she was – friend to many, counselor, teacher, mentor – I am reminded that, as different as my journey is from hers, I have a long way to go to accomplish as much as she did for the Kingdom of God. May her soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
March 2008
Joseph Campbell's famous book The Power of Myth, written at least twenty years ago, raised the possibility that "myth" or "mythology" in its richest sense holds a power that requires more of us than other types of literature might. Since first discovering Campbell I have pursued this idea; in fact I wrote my master’s thesis, "Re-Membering the Body of Christ," on metaphorical language that expresses, simply, the inexpressible. I always cringe when I hear someone refer to something as "only a myth" or "just a myth," meaning "something made up, untrue or not worthy of regard." I think of fables as fictional stories created for the purpose of teaching some kind of moral, but not myths. Myths are stories -- factual or not -- that describe who we are, how we got here, and offer possibilities for the future. They require a response from us.
A familiar example of mythology for the Christian is the set of "children’s" books, The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis. We read it and recognize archetypes of Christian thought articulated circumspectly, but with power. In the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver want to introduce the children to Aslan, the great lion, and the children are understandably anxious. "'Then he isn’t safe?' said Lucy. 'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver…. 'Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.'" As adults reading that – those who have found our walk with Jesus to be not safe, but good -- we register a profound recognition of what is being said in this mythological account.
What seems to be true in reading mythology is that we are more prone to recognize the mythological power in stories other than our own sacred writings. Somehow we have attached a literalism to our own Holy Scriptures that suggests that mythological readings of them are somehow disrespectful, if not blasphemous. Many of the internet "forwards" that we receive are stories of kindness or generosity and we respond to them with a deeply felt "Yes!" because they reach something deep inside us that we do not allow from our own sacred writings. Our tendency to make Bible stories historically or scientifically true often allow us to overlook deeper Truth that lies in the text on a metaphorical level.
The Gospel texts for Lent are all opportunities for us to either take the easy way -– "these are literal events that prove that Jesus was God," demanding no further response than for us to believe that premise – or to see the events in the experience and ministry of Jesus as signposts to something beyond what is actually reported, something that demands a response from us. From the temptations in the wilderness right through to the raising of Lazarus – even the mythological power of the Passion itself! - we are given the opportunity for "aha" moments that see beyond the obvious to look into the larger world and work of God for our times. Seen as myths whose symbolic language draws us deeper into the heart of the Gospel, the Scriptures come alive with possibilities for us and for our communities. Preaching, at its best, is an Event that cracks open the purest sense of mythology in the Scriptures, allowing God's grace and power to rush into our lives in transforming ways, drilling us deeper into the heart of God's plan for creation – particularly in the experience of God's own image, Humanity.
February 2008
“It is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” attr. St. Francis of Assisi
I have known people who completely rearranged their lives to care for a loved one who needed special care of some kind. They made special changes in their living arrangements, career, and daily schedule for the specific purpose of caring for someone else. In one case, a person that I know made all of these changes, including moving to a different city, for a total stranger! What is often said regarding this kind of sacrifice (making sacred!) is that the giver is generally the recipient of the blessing – more than the one receiving the care.
I write this as an introduction to a response to the most asked question I receive regarding Lent: What shall I give up? Matthew Fox suggests that Christianity’s embrace of asceticism – a sort of “beating up” of ourselves in search of holiness – was an attempt to rein in passions and desires, which often allows for abuse of power by those in (religious) authority. This is exactly what Jesus objected to in the practices of the pharisees : “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to move them.” (Matt. 23:4). Fox’s idea of via negativa, as described in his book Original Blessing, rather suggests a more organic, dynamic sense of “letting go” that produces new life. It is this “dying to rise” approach to life that, I believe, truly reflects the season of Lent, and, in the spiral of our journeys, deepens our experience with God, with others, and with this human existence generally.
In January we explored, to some extent, the idea of “discipleship” – of figuring out what it is to follow Jesus – and to do it. We began with the experience of baptism, our taking and renewing of a covenant that includes faithfulness to the community of faith, the sharing of our faith experience, the active respecting of all human persons and the recognition of Christ in each of them, and the commitment to work for justice and peace for all of God’s Creation. It is this commitment that leads us to “give up” anything that keeps us from pursuing the goals of the Baptismal Covenant. That Covenant should be the beginning point for how we observe Lent. It may mean letting go of attitudes of superiority or vengeance; perhaps it will call us to true grief over a broken relationship or humanity’s abuse of other people, of the Earth and all of God’s Creation. True “giving up for Lent” should involve some letting go for the purpose of experiencing true Resurrection. In what way will grief over some human brokenness result in the healing of that situation? That is the question to ask in determining what to give up. Is it possible to enter so fully into this type of repentance, to relinquish our own pride or dignity, our own “rightness” in order to experience real pain and grief that leads to transformation of ourselves and our surroundings? The Confession of Sin in our worship should be a call to such an experience, so that the Absolution is a sign of real healing of the brokenness of Creation.
As we approach Lent yet again this year, spiraling deeper or higher into our relationship with God, let us keep in mind the possibilities that “it is in giving that we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned, in dying that we are raised.” I invite you into a Holy (wholly) Lent.
January 2008
In this short season between Epiphany and Lent – particularly short this year, as Lent and Easter are very early – we experience some pivotal events in Jesus’ life and ministry that have serious implications for our own walk with Jesus. This year the Feast of Epiphany, the Manifestation of Jesus’ meaning and ministry to the world, falls on Sunday, January 6, giving us an opportunity to celebrate the coming of the Wise Men who traveled from outside the provincial world of Israel to see this new expression of God that had come among humans.
In the following four weeks we follow the course of Jesus’ ministry. There is a particularly telling statement (from God!) that occurs at Jesus’ baptism and again in his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, the events that frame this season, that gives us a hint as to what we are about: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.” The revelation on the mountaintop adds the admonition, “Listen to him!” Between these two events we follow Jesus as he calls those who become his disciples. Who knows – maybe we will be among those that he calls to teach on an ongoing basis – the ones to whom the admonition, “Listen to him!” will apply most.
This is a season of responding to a call to follow Jesus, to be among those chosen as disciples – a difficult response to make, since we know that he is about to embark on the journey to Jerusalem and the Cross early in February this year. As we have come to realize in past years, it is a call not to be taken lightly because it demands that we sort carefully through our priorities, sometimes being asked to leave the dearest of those relationships and securities behind as we strike out on our own roads to Jerusalem. Why would we do such a thing? We have been taught to seek happiness and comfort at any price! Why would we deliberately choose a life path that embraces uncertainty and loss? Perhaps those questions and others can be partially answered as we enter the “journey inward” as symbolized by the labyrinth. More about that later, as we enter the journey to Jerusalem. In the meantime, the month of January invites us to acknowledge the call of Jesus to be disciples, to respond to the call, and to look with faith into the future of our relationship with this subversive rabbi.
In the Gospel text for January 20 Jesus says to some “looky-lou’s” “What are you looking for?” “Where are you staying?” inquire the aspirants. “Come and see,” says Jesus. Our website quotes this as being the question and response asked by those interested in St. John’s-Grace, perhaps. It is the initial, hesitant response to a call to follow.
I have often used this quote from Albert Schweitzer’s inquiry into the historic Jesus to describe the answer to call: “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow me!’ and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.” That is the invitation of January ’08, and the short season following Epiphany. We respond, as always, in a spiraling depth different from our answers in previous years.
November 2007
As we move into the “harvest” season of the year, I offer a few more observations from my gardening experience that has meant so much to me since about May of this year. You recall that I was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty that my small efforts produced – the result of the plants of my choice simply BEING as beautiful and extravagant as they are naturally. My appreciation of my simple plot of dirt has deepened as our relationship has moved through the season of growth, blossoming, few disappointments, and even drastic changes.
As I write this, on October 22, everything is still in bloom! This quirky autumn that we are experiencing has encouraged everything to keep working after the time I had expected to see anything out there. Even this morning’s showers are sort of warm, and will, I am sure, result in an explosion of color in the next day or two. We are at a time when I expect any day to walk out and find the whole plot blanketed in snow. In the meantime I sit out and drink coffee every morning in the dark, letting my eyes adjust so that I can see each plant still being itself.
One plant, from the only seeds I sowed, was really late in coming up. It is a Morning Glory; I planted a whole package and only one showed. It was pretty fast in making its way up the trellis, but it was all green until very late – blooming, in fact, while I was away at my mom’s in late September. It has taken over the fence that separates my space from my neighbor’s. He, fortunately, likes the plant and is glad that it is so healthy. I said to him in about August, “I think that this is not going to bloom this year; we’ll have to wait until next year.” Now as we near November we are both enjoying this “late bloomer.”
I had plants scattered about the patio all summer, enjoying the variety of colors and textures in various places, but lately decided to combine them all into one space. I had read an article about planting that suggested that each planting space needed three “styles” of plants: “thrillers,” “fillers,” and “spillers,” each supplying to the garden a needed visual focal point. In the past couple of weeks I have transplanted some fairly substantial plants into a relatively smaller space. I was worried that such a dramatic change would hinder their growth – even lead to their decline, the possibility that I might lose some of my favorite varieties. What I found, though, is that the change made them stronger – they actually took on a whole new stage of growth and productivity as a result of moving them to a new place!
I know that winter is coming; I don’t look forward to seeing my little plot of dirt covered in snow, but I knew it would happen back in May when I planted to begin with. I am sort of anxious, though, to see if anything survives to be resurrected in the spring. I am already preparing myself for big changes to appear when the warm weather returns in 2008.
It is interesting how people assign human characteristics to animals that “keep them” as pets. I have found myself doing the same with the plants that have allowed me to share space with them this season. As with pets, a garden allows for reflections into the nature of life, opening new perspectives, calming the spirit, and even solving problems at times. At this point the most profound reflection that I am experiencing regarding my little garden is the fact that, despite change and uncertainty, it is ALIVE! Its little roots are hard at work all the time nourishing, growing – and every once in a while it shows me how clever it is, and brings me joy.
Let the one with ears, hear.
October 2007
September seems like a resurrection season with people back from summer vacations. Our education programs are back in swing. (As I said one Sunday, our education programs are substantial, though low-profile). There is a new energy that I have grown to look forward to when school starts again. The Food Fair is right around the corner. People are talking about what they are preparing and how – the place is coming to life again!
Don't get me wrong: I really enjoy the slow pace of the summer. More people take advantage of the early service so that they can get out on the lake for the rest of the day or spend the day together with family. Summer is often a time from which a faith community must recover financially since people are gone so much. This is not the case this year – our pledges have been coming in, as you have seen in the bulletins, at 100% for most of the summer. Remarkable!
There is more good news! On October 1 our new Parish Administrator will be in the office for the first time. Her name is Alice Brown, and she comes to us from St. Matthias in East Aurora where she has occupied the same position since 1996. She is very professional and competent, and we are fortunate to have someone of her skills and abilities to serve with us here at St. John's-Grace. We will be announcing plans to welcome her formally, along with getting a chance to meet her family.
I hope that you will make plans to participate in the diocesan-wide Holy Eucharist on Thursday, October 4, at 7:00 p.m., celebrating St. Francis Day and emphasizing the Millenium Development Goal that relates to sustainability of the earth. It will be held here at St. John's-Grace, the Bishop will celebrate the Eucharist, and The Rev. Judith Lee of St. Andrew's, Burt, and St. John's, Wilson, will preach. The liturgical elements, to a large extent, are those composed for our Season of Creation by John Schimminger.
On Sunday, October 7, we hold Salvator and his family in our hearts with a fund-raiser on board the USS Little Rock. Details concerning these and so many other happenings around here can be found throughout this newsletter.
It seems as though every September or October I depart from my usual meditations and reflections to sort of rhapsodize on what I see happening here for the new program year. I hope that it is enough to make you want to get involved for yourself!
As I write this I am preparing to go to New Mexico for a week to be with my mother as she starts treatment for a small, slow growing pancreatic cancer. We have been in touch daily for the last several weeks as the medical teams have offered advice and encouragement. As of today we are very encouraged that, with a low dose of self-administered chemotherapy, she has the possibility not only of more time despite the disease, but a good quality of life as well. I do appreciate all of your prayers and expressions of love and concern for her and for me.
August 2007
I received a call last Friday saying that Carmen Conner, my mentor from my early days in ministry, had died. On the same day I received an e-mail from his wife, Dorothy, telling me of his last days in hospital following his third major stroke. Besides spending the rest of the day simply missing Carmen, it gave me opportunity to reflect on his influence on me, and the reasons that I began this journey into full-time ministry to begin with.
Carmen was a Southern Baptist minister for 35 years and, at some point, became disillusioned by how many churches were obsessed with how many "souls" were being saved, how many people were being baptized, how big the budget was, and how successful the programs were. He entered into a reexamination of the Gospel and how the life and ministry of Jesus should define the mission and ministry of the Church.
In the seven years that I worked at Heights Baptist Church in Albuquerque where Carmen was the pastor, he was deeply immersed in what he saw as the revolutionary message envisioned in the Letter to the Ephesians. As I studied this book under his leadership my heart was changed as I read phrases like, "He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ," or "With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will." Of course, you know that my favorite passage presently is found in the third chapter: "... grace was given to me to bring ... the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might be made known..."
It is this sense of a larger vision of God -- far above any vision we can imagine for ourselves -- that I yearn to see manifested in the Church -- what I called "The Cosmic Church" when I taught Ephesians a few years ago. This vision of restoring Creation and humanity's place as the image of the Creator seems to monopolize all of my teaching and preaching.
Carmen taught me at least one other thing as well, not so much in what he said as in how he conducted his ministry at HBC. He realized that this grand vision was so foreign to everything that we know, understand, and embrace that there was little chance of our realizing its impact in our lifetimes. However, in the face of declining programs, shaky finances and other portents of seeming failure -- when success was everything -- he was firm in his commitment to the vision he had glimpsed of what the Church could and needed to be in the world. I hope that I can be as steadfast in my faithfulness to the vision I have seen in Ephesians and other texts.
In the years since Carmen's first stroke I had the opportunity to visit with him in his home at least once. He was full of Greek translations and new insights into the Gospel which he was anxious to share with an eager student. And when I became rector of this church I received a letter from him which I have shared a time or two. It says, most notably, "Phil, don't forget to tell them about the Church and God's dream of creating a People to the Glory of God's name." And so that is what I try to do ...
July 2007
For the first time since I was in high school I have claimed, as The Secret Garden puts it, "a bit of earth" on the patio of my townhouse. Actually, the patio is concrete, so the bit of earth had to be brought in. While my mom was here in May we visited several nurseries and other sources of growing plants, and came up with a very pleasant plan for the little bit of space that is there. In cultivating my little garden I have been reminded of several wide-ranging (if not universal) lessons – valuable to individuals and churches everywhere.
First, the plan that I see in my mind for the garden is several weeks away from being seen with my eye. I planted small bedding plants and seeds that are only now beginning to take shape. I have a hope that the final product will look something like I envision it, but there is no guarantee. These plants sometimes have a life of their own, and they may take over the design and produce something very different than I had planned. One thing I do know, I chose plants and seeds that have the nature of being very pleasing to the eye, and I trust that however they form themselves into the whole garden the nature of their beauty will be predominant. It is in their nature to be beautiful.
Second, I am surprised every day by some new revelation that my garden has for me. Some days I am dazzled by the intricacies of the blue flossflower clumps that seem to hold an infinite number of tiny tentacles reaching for the sun, and other days the sheer extravagance of the red geraniums captures my attention. My favorite changes from moment to moment, and I sometimes just sit looking from one place to another, in awe of the miracles unfolding in that little space.
It has not happened yet, but I fully anticipate that something in my little garden will not survive. It may be that I don't pay the right kind of attention to it, or some disaster may befall, like hail or heavy winds, or maybe it will just die. In any case, I cannot, I think, expect for everything that I have planted to survive and thrive.
Perhaps most miraculous of all, these beautiful flowers are not visibly doing anything but Being. Now I know that, internally, they are working their little stems, taking in moisture and Miracle Grow Potting Soil nutrition, but when I go out and sit they are simply Being beautiful, giving me pleasure, being themselves, living peaceably on my patio.
I have continually said that the Church will be irresistible when we are truly Good News. It will not happen because we set out deliberately to accomplish some program of growth, but it will happen when we as individuals, and as a community, simply reveal the beauty of God's love and healing power to the people around us looking for something more than the aridity of their own existences. In this season of the Holy Spirit, it is the revealing of the God Breath that awakens and resurrects, and it must happen in us before it can happen to those around.
June 2007
I am very proud to have been one of fifty churches, nationally and internationally, to have celebrated Pluralism Sunday on Pentecost Sunday this year. In the past decade or two we have seen a change in approach and attitude in global relations from one of tolerance, which sounded very forward-looking, to one of celebration for the many and diverse ways in which God has chosen to make God's self known to humanity on the planet. Our celebration of Pluralism Sunday was made more meaningful through the always well-thought-out words and thoughts of John Schimminger in the very special Collect that he provided, as well as the arrangement of readings from other faith traditions.
The readings from Acts during this Easter Season have, more than ever before, led me to think and pray and meditate on this idea of God having been at work in the human species since long before we had words for it. Jesus, always a Jew and never a "Christian," who tried to lead his scruffy band of followers to live lives of authenticity in relation to God without concern for the hardships and empty promises of the prevailing culture, was, to most, a huge failure. It was not some magic, show-stealing Houdini-style resurrection that changed the world; most of the world did not seem to notice. Rather, it was Jesus' resurrection in the hearts of his followers and their subsequent movement into the wider world that made the difference. It is these exploits that Acts retells so effectively, showing the ripples beyond the Nazareth countryside and into the then known world.
As the reading on May 13 (Acts 16:9-15) told us, however, God was already at work outside the small world of Jesus and his disciples, and those who had never heard of Jesus or his disciples heard echoes of God's work in the words of those early missionaries. The collection of readings from other faith traditions reveals that the essence of God's work among humanity is not "owned" by any one people or tradition, but is found in the wisdom of all cultures.
Here is the challenge: to celebrate the work of God among all people with abandon and grace and, at the same time, to embrace and make more meaningful our own relationship with our Episcopal and Anglican traditions. The point of observing and celebrating God's work globally is not to diffuse, make all the same, the traditions of the world. We are not about "melting pot" theology. We are about "jazz band" theology, with each player bringing to the "set" all of the wonderful, unique aspects of their own gifts, backgrounds, understandings, rituals, so that the whole world marvels at the greatness of such a Creator. I remind you once more (at least) of one of my favorite passages from the letter to the Ephesians: "this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church [not necessarily structurally, but organically], the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to [all Creation!] (Eph. 3:8-10)
What a vision into which we may live!
May 2007
My favorite picture of God found in the Bible is found in Isaiah 25: "On this mountain, the God of the Angel Armies will throw a feast for all the people of the world, a feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines, a feast with seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts." (From The Message paraphrase by Eugene H. Peterson.) This really describes the God that I desire to know -- a God of abundance and generosity, overwhelming generosity!
Recently I was asked to preach for a service of Holy Eucharist at our cathedral in support of the Millennium Development Goals. The service music was that of Bono and his band, U2, (thus, a "U2charist"). In addition to the Isaiah text above, I chose the Gospel passage from Mark where Jesus clears the temple of the bankers and merchants who had set up shop there. I think that, in a sense, Jesus was illustrating the picture of God that I have come to cherish so much. In fact Jesus' own words reflect his dismay at the barriers that had been placed in the way of the feast's being truly for everyone. "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people!" The feast of worship that was being enjoyed by the few at the temple had to be made accessible to all.
It seems as though this is a theme throughout Jesus' ministry: the people who most opposed him and his disciples were those who wanted to be in control of who was invited to the party. The leaders of his own religious community not only kept a tight rein on who could participate because of their moral qualifications, but enabled others to exclude "foreigners" by making them subject to rigid sacrificial laws and, in the process, enriching themselves (and the temple leaders, one could conclude).
What does that have to do with us now and, more particularly, the MDGs? There are many ways in which we have bought into a system that keeps all the best parts of the meal for ourselves through our ability to consume and the power that we implicitly hold in the capitalistic system -- even when we think we are poor! When we think about the resources that God has given this planet and its inhabitants it is hard to think that two billion of those inhabitants live on the equivalent of $1.00 per day or less! Is there simply not enough, or do we need to find ways to spread the wealth around? I would submit that there is, indeed, enough. We have too much in many cases.
The MDGs suggest that a contribution of .7% of each individual's revenue be given to some project that in some way brings others closer to the table of that great feast. .7% is not very much -- less than 1%. In my case it equals $331. Many of us have made our mark in Africa by our support of our own Salvatore Sabushimike, a Burundian who, while unemployed in his own country, spends his time organizing and coordinating volunteer efforts that relieve the devastation of his countrypersons because of flood, war and general disenfranchisement from the feast of God. We certainly invite your participation in this project!
There are many ways to help people in this world obtain clean water, begin and sustain businesses, farm and make food available for families and communities. I urge you to do some research for yourself and figure out your own place in making accessible this feast of finest food and vintage wines for all of God's People.
April 2007
"If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, (Behold!), everything has become new! All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."
As we go through the intense "awe-fulness" of Holy Week (one of the most devastating experiences for me is the stripping of the altar on Maundy Thursday) we are letting go of life itself in anticipation of the Resurrection on the third day. The symbolism of the Resurrection is what Paul describes in this passage from the second letter to the church at Corinth. Resurrection is for us a restoration of Creation, a recovery of the Wholeness intended by God in the first Creation. It is well, then, for us to consider what it is to be "Easter People."
When we gathered together for the Lenten Healing Retreat at the beginning of the season I was asked to review why we place so much emphasis on Healing Ministry in our church. It is well worth the time every so often to remind ourselves what that is all about. There is a Hebrew term, Tikkun Olan, or, literally, "repairing the world." This is our mission as Easter People, to work for the restoration, the repairing of the world one person, one situation at a time. When we lay hands on and anoint in prayers for healing we pray for healing of fractured lives, relationships, for world situations in which the original Goodness of God's Creation is fractured and broken.
The word "reconcile" means to bring back together two entities that have been separated for whatever reason. In this passage Paul suggests that, through Christ, everything in heaven and on earth that has been broken or separated has been brought back together, and that our purpose is to make that restoration a reality. What a responsibility! This opportunity, in fact, defines completely who we are as a community. The ministry of reconciliation is what motivates any of the church's programs or activities, including outreach, worship, evangelism, education -- all of it! We are a People called to "repair the world," and we do it one relationship at a time, one project at a time, one letter to a legislator at a time, one kind word to another Child of God at a time.
The thing that we most keep in the front of our minds as we go about our repairing is what the Healing Team mentions just about every time we are together: we make ourselves vessels for the Holy Spirit to work through. We are called to use all of our own unique gifts and abilities, but to stand aside and make them available for the ministry of reconciliation through Christ.
So, that is why we are big on the ministry of healing at St. John's-Grace. It seems as though it is the place to start our journeys individually -- and our journey together -- into repairing our own little piece of the world.
March 2007
I want to call your attention particularly to the conversations that are happening during Lent on Wednesday nights. After a simple supper we are discussing "The Eight Points" by which are defined Progressive Christianity. We are calling it "Christianity for Today" and seeing if this is a movement we can find ourselves a part of. One of the assumptions of such discussions is that God has made us, among other things, a thinking people with a hunger to know God in dynamic ways so that our experience with God is an organic, vital journey rather than just a following of prescribed thoughts and actions.
The eight points include these statements:
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who
-- have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
-- recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.
-- understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all people.
-- invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable.
-- know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.
-- find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, and in the questions than in the answers.
-- form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers.
-- recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil and renunciation of privilege.
While each of these is potentially a series in itself we are trying to touch on two elements each Wednesday night. If the discussions take us beyond Holy Week we will perhaps extend the series. Our thanks and acknowledgement to The Center for Progressive Christianity, Fred Plumer, President, for the materials used in this series.
As your rector I want to encourage you to be part of these discussions regarding our faith; they are really what we are about beyond the "exteriors" of the church.
February 2007
As the Bible 101 group watched the first episode of "Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth" one Thursday morning this month it brought up the subject of "liminality" that I think is really important to our lives and our worship. "How is that possible?" you ask. Liminality has to do with threshold experiences in our lives; those times that we find ourselves profoundly changed by an experience so that we can see the difference as a result of it. I suggested at that time an exercise in which we make a time line of our lives and denote the "threshold" experiences from which a "new" person emerged from a particular experience. The classic example is the Native American "sweat-lodge" experience in which young boys make the transition from their mother's house of childhood to the world of adulthood. The experience may be the loss of a loved one, graduation from school, the birth of a child -- the list is endless. Just the acknowledgment of those experiences that have shaped us as individuals is an important exercise in charting where we are headed.
Also our worship should be a liminal experience -- a transforming experience. This is how I see it happening: we come into a sacred space, leaving behind the noise and clutter of the outside world -- symbolically and really leaving behind the cares and concerns of the world as well. We come in as a collection of people from different walks of life -- maybe even strangers to one another. As we proceed through the worship experience we gain a commonality through the reading of the Word, the music that we sing together and that is offered by organist and choir. We stand together and kneel together. Our minds and hearts are focused together as the preacher reflects on the readings. We pray together and confess together. Even the announcements serve to bring us together as a community. In the celebration of the Holy Eucharist we are bound together in a prayer of thanksgiving for the work of God through the life and ministry of Jesus. At some point in this process we are changed. We are perhaps changed as individuals, but we are changed from that collection of strangers into the mystical Body of Christ that leaves the sacred space "to love and serve the Lord," as one Body in one Spirit. One might even see the Coffee Hour as a celebration of our new-found community, an exploration through the discussions as to how this new community will be lived out in the upcoming week.
It is always in my mind to provide this kind of transforming experience, but I rarely take the chance to express to you my hope for our worship together. We are, first and foremost, a worshipping people. That is why we gather and all of the rest of our activities are outgrowths of that purpose.
You are beneath
You are in air
You are in earth
You are beside me
You are within.
O God of heaven,
you have made your home on earth
in the broken body of Creation.
Kindle within me
a love for you in all things.
that the vacuum won’t vanquish.
There are cats tied in bags
would be off like a flash.
Skeletons in the cupboards
tap tap on the doors.
There is nothing hidden
but that’s going to get out,
so let’s get it over with, God.
of the things we could do without.
Make us glad we brought them to you,
who carries away the sins of the world,
and grant in their place
pardon and grace
and your call to be following always.