bernard mizeki and proper seven

one of the great advantages of the liturgy is that it is not dependant on great sermons to be great worship. the hymns, the readings from holy scripture, the psalmody, the intercessions, and especially the prayer of great thanksgiving are so powerful that one can sit through a so-so sermon not so much in boredom as in anticipation of what comes next. i have, i admit, sat through many of those so-so sermons, and if i am truthful, i must confess i have preached some of them.

lately, however, i have been hearing very good sermons, sermons which take the role of proclaiming the word of the holy one today as a serious part of the work of the people called to be holy.

yesterday was no exception. chuck used as an example of the life to which jesus calls us in the gospel the story of bernard mizeki, who was killed for loving christ jesus and his followers more than the local religion. and even as chuck challenged us to take seriously jesus' call, he reminded us how easy it is to deny jesus, not in the dramatic ways which we might fantisize--"would i be faithful if faced with likely martyrdom?"--but in the little times, illustrated by an instance within his own life when he realized he had denied jesus without even noticing it.

chuck's confession of faltering faith made me wonder if we don't often deny jesus in a big way, also without noticing it. in the life (and martyrdom) of mizeki, it is easy for us to see his having abandoned what david l. veal calls in saints galore "that superstition and ignorace" of the local religions.

but we do not even recognize the the consumerism in which we so often worship for the religion which it is, a religion in the true sense of tying our world together, with which me have easily made peace, and from which we are very reticent to cut loose with the sword which jesus brings. our witness has been so easily neutralized that it would be silly to consider ourselves potential martyrs. again and again we have chosen "greed, which is idolatry," over the self-denial to which we are called. as often as not the cross we take up is a piece of jewelry. and we never notice that what we give up is the way that leads to true joy.

"Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

re-entry chattiness

after being away from bellingham for a year and two weeks, i am finding re-entry somewhat difficult. when living as a semi-hermit in the gentle hills of the ozarks, amidst slabs of ancient limestone, my life fell easily into a rhythm that i found deeply satisfying.

now i am back to the city, where at any given moment it seems there are more cars whizzing down squalicum parkway, the quiet street beyond my deck, than there are in the whole of eureka springs on a busy weekend.

i am trying to find another rhythm, one that keeps me centred on the holy one in our midst but which makes me available in "the conversation that leads us to new acts as todays apostles" in real time and not just on this blog.

so, i am adding two other sets of links, one commotions under the big steeple, the other groans of emmergence, and will try to engage some of the questions and issues that confront us in the noisy city. the blog about the mouse in the living room is part of that effort.

the mouse in the living room

jesus, so far as we know, said nothing about homosexuality. it is said that he loved two men (the rich young ruler and john--i know, agape not eros, a distinction to which i will return). but he did say a lot about economic injustice (and when he needed a coin for the empire, he never seemed to have one).

if i may paraphrase g.k. chesterton, it would be possible to develop a huge cloud of blog tags about whether jesus thought homosexuality is a sin (chesterton said whether he believed in fairies) but about whether jesus said that the rich are in deep shit (i don't remember what more polite victorian/edwardian phrase g.k.c. used) there is no room for debate.

earlier this week, i sat in on what the local congregation with which i most often worship in bellingham calls its "alms ministry." for one hour a week, people are allowed to come into the church building and beg. the beggars are treated well, and the people who distribute the alms are much like peter and john in the temple in that they offer the beggars jesus christ. but they are not like peter and john when they tell the beggars that there is only $150 a week to give out.

this is a lie. the church has much more money than this. the lease payments on some of the mercedes i see in the parking lot on sunday mornings are more than $600 a month. the truth is that we as the church--and not just in this congregation--love our toys more than we love our brothers and sisters in need. we choose to give only $150 a week in "alms." i understand the lure of toys: i have been tempted the past few weeks by a new bicycle. the ones i've been looking at cost between $600 and $1000. fortunately i personally have about $3.50, and no credit card, so i can't go out and indulge my temptation.

that one hour tuesday morning has been almost the only time since returning to bellingham that i have been engaged in any discussion or activity about an issue jesus seemed to think is important. (i mean, in the daily office last night we read again about his feeding of the multitudes, but we don't discuss this "in church".) instead, i hear about "the question:" homosexuality.

last week i went to a movie night at some friends' house, and the movie was "inlaws and outlaws." last night i went to a birthday party, and one of the other men there was a pastor of a local congregation of the church of god of andersonville, indiana, and he asked me, "what's the deal with homosexuals in the episcopal church?" (his was not a coy question. his own take is that there is sin in our lives, some of it heterosexual, some of it homosexual, but just as paul writes to the roman, we all are sinful, and so have no room to condemn each other.)

with tens of thousands of children starving to death each day, largely the result of the actions of the empire as much as the death of the holy innocents of bethleham was an impirial action, with the world's "only superpower" using its powers to destroy governments and people throughout the world, with corn prices so high that the poor of south american are doing without tortillas as the rich of north america are burning the corn in their chevrolet denalis, the upcoming lambeth conference will be reported throughout the world as a debate about how sinful it is for the american episcopal church to have selected and consecrated gene robinson as a bishop.

one of the more insightful essays about the wider implications of the debate expected at lambeth was in the july 2008 harpers, which puts it within the context of imperialism and its aftermath. it is of course much easier for us to say "tush, tush" about good old gene robinson, "isn't it a shame he started packing fudge?" than it is to look at our own responsibilities for the greed and suffering in our world.

it is much easier to talk about the mouse in the living room, to shriek and look for a better mouse trap or say how harmless the mouse really is, than to deal with the same issues jesus found important enough to talk about so forcefully that the empire found it necessary to try to silence him.

so, back to jesus and his love for at least two men. i confess i find the term "homosexuality" an oxymoron. sexuality is about reproduction; it is one of the ways diversity is kept within a species. but in our modern culture informed more by the scandalous magazines at the check-out stands of the grocery stores than by careful formation by the church in the real implications of the scandal of the cross, there is not much room for love, only for sex, and sex is no longer about reproduction but about lust and appetite-fulfillment.

as my friend from the church of god and i talked last night, i tried to encourage him to look at what happens between two men, between gene robinson and mark, for instance, as not about sex but about love. why do we define people by something that my friend said "takes about three minutes every two weeks?" is this the only time he loves his wife? is this all that there is between any two people who love each other? and if it is, should we split the church yet again over this small act while ignoring the huge acts of sins we ourselves commit? (i seem to remember jesus saying something about splinters and logs.)

it is fascinating that although all of the evangelists speak of the bridegroom, it is only john, in both his gospel and in his revelation, who speaks of the bride. (and paul speaks of neither.) i suspect such imagery, although very important in the mystical tradition of the church, east and west, and celebrated in the popularity of the song of songs and explored in carmelite spirituality particularly, makes many of us good old boys, whether mega-church pastors in colorado or cardinals in rome, uncomfortable. if we follow the imagery even paul does use about the submission of the bride to the husband, which he says is a mystery and is about the church, it means that we must die daily to our own will, to seek not power but knowledge, and not knowledge we can express on wikipedia but knowledge of the most intimate and personal sort.

knowing the holy one, the father who is revealed in the son, is eternal life. and it is also the way we come to love god, whom if we do not know we cannot love. and loving god prepares us to love our neighbor as ourself. and when we truly do that, fulfilling the first and great commandment, then our living rooms will be freed of pesty intruders small and great.

a good day for singing

today is the feast of st. ephrem of edessa, sometimes known as ephrem of syria, a fourth century deacon who is responsible in large part for the beginnings of hymnody in the church. he is also patron of spiritual directors.

as i have been adjusting to life in bellingham again, i have realized that the most consistant part of my practice lately has been drinking coffee. therefore i find this prayer of blessed ephrem, used especially during lent in the eastern church, to be particularly helpful to me:

(making a prostration)

"o lord, master of my life, grant that i may not be infected with the spirit of slothfulness and inquisitiveness, with the spirit of ambition and vain talking.

(making a prostration)

"grant instead to me, your servant, the spirit of purity and of humility, the spirit of patience and neighborly love.

(making a prostration)

"o lord and king, grant me the grace of being aware of my sins and of not thinking evil of those of my brethren.

"for you are blessed, now and ever, and forever. amen.

"lord jesus christ, king of kings, you have power over life and death. you know what is secret and hidden, and neither our thoughts nor our feelings are concealed from you. cure me of duplicity; i have done evil before you.

"now my life declines from day to day and my sins increase. o lord, god of souls and bodies, you know the extreme frailty of my soul and my flesh. grant me strength in my weakness, o lord, and sustain me in my misery.

"give me a grateful soul that I may never cease to recall your benefits, o lord most bountiful. be not mindful of my many sins, but forgive me all my misdeeds.

"o lord, disdain not my prayer - the prayer of a wretched sinner; sustain me with your grace until the end, that it may protect me as it is your grace which has taught me wisdom; blessed are they who follow her ways, for they shall receive the crown of glory.

"in spite of my unworthiness, i praise you and i glorify you, o lord, for your mercy to me is without limit. you have been my help and my protection. may the name of your majesty be praised forever. to you, our god, be glory. amen."

the visitation: women and children first

the story of the visitation reads like an opera. all the spoken lines are poetry, but beyond the sheer beauty of the language, a lot of rather surprising things are going on.

would it have been unusual "n those days" for "mary" to "set out and [go] "with haste to a judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of zechariah and greeted elizabeth"?

"when elizabeth heard mary’s greeting," not only did "the child [leap] in her womb," but "elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry." in other words, elizabeth is described as a prophet. her words became the beginning of the marian praise song we call the hail mary:

"blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

mary responds in song as well, with the magnificat, often set to wonderful music:

“my soul magnifies the lord,
and my spirit rejoices in god my savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
he has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
he has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
he has helped his servant israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to abraham and to his descendants forever.”

how often outside of musicals and the gospel according to luke do women speak in such song? but of course they are speaking of a very great event indeed. the newly-conceived messiah, jesus, is making the first of many fateful trips to jerusalem if indeed that is where elizabeth and zecheriah reside, and he whom the universe cannot contain is contained in the womb of a young women about whom elizabeth says, "blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the lord.”

but it is not only the women who know and are beginning to understand the profound significance of this visit between cousins. elizabeth says, "as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy."

this first visit of jesus to jerusalem is a very different event from his last, when the children will still greet him as the king (see the gospel for palm sunday), but the king and priests and roman government will not greet him with joy. is it any surprise that the first one to meet the risen lord will be another woman, mary magdalene?

women and children seem better to understand the nature of real power than do those who consider themselves the powerful.

the second sunday after pentecost: musings

it's a little later in the week than usual for this post: i have been settling into my new town and digs and surroundings. being back in bellingham has been quite wonderful, with long coffee sippings with friends i hadn't seen for a year, and with the mysts of mystery every morning draping the bay and mountains.

it has also been a time of experiencing in a very wonderful way the gospel for the sunday. when i arrived i had no idea where i would live or how i would pay for my food or any of the things that make life easy. but i was not worried. i knew that our father knew what i needed, and would provide. and he did. i walked into the living room of a friend who works with recovering addicts who would otherwise be homeless people, providing lodging and food while they get back on their feet. "would i go to work?" yes. and she had a tiny loft apartment over the garage, with a little deck hanging over squalicum creek. sunday morning my shoes fell apart. in the corner, a little spider-webby, was a pair my size, abandoned. thanks be to god.

whitsunday: the alan parsons project - la sagrada familia

what can one say about pentecost? perhaps the most important is that "they were all gathered in one place with one accord."

Peter Gabriel - Here Comes The Flood

whitsunday is the english name for pentecost: the day when the rivers were warm enough for baptism. baptism, our death and burial.

4 may: the sixth sunday of easter: the koan returns

i can scarcely do better than to quote the whole gospel:

"these words spake jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, father, the hour is come; glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true god, and jesus christ, whom thou hast sent. i have glorified thee on the earth: i have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. and now, o father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which i had with thee before the world was. i have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. for i have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that i came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. i pray for them: i pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. and all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and i am glorified in them. and now i am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and i come to thee. holy father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are."

"and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true god, and jesus christ, whom thou hast sent." (17:3) in the great arch-form of john's gospel, we are nearing the climax. here he concludes the theme begun at chapter 3, verse 16: eternal life. jesus' answer to philip from the fourth sunday is repeated within this great prayer, the eucharistic prayer of the last supper, as it were. and then the intent of the prayer: "holy father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are."

as i look at the claims of the church to be divided, the attempts we make to excommunicate one another, i cannot help but think we might do well to recover the use, throughout the church, of the book of common prayer's "prayer of humble access:

"we do not presume to come to this thy table, o merciful
lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold
and great mercies. we are not worthy so much as to gather
up the crumbs under thy table. but thou art the same lord
whose property is always to have mercy. grant us therefore,
gracious lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son jesus christ,
and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him,
and he in us. amen."

if we truly dwell in him, the dear son, we cannot help but to dwell in the father also.

ascension: theology vs. incarnation 1.

yesterday, the feast of the ascension of our lord jesus christ, i helped a friend clean out a house he had rented for six and a half years to someone who seems to me to epitomize a miserable sinner.

how can i say that? you might ask. am i not being judgmental? no. merely observant.

sin is what makes us miserable. for six and a half years through i have no idea how many different boy friends and different drugs the occupant of that house had been surrounding herself with the detritus of a life lived ugly. the furniture, a collection whose unifying style was filthiness and odour, we put on the curb to be picked up as garbage, along with boxes of beer cartons and candles stubs and forks, remnants of some kind of business and broken pieces of once-useful objects.

like most cities in the united states, eureka springs is a collection of cultures, different outlooks, with little mutual recognition or understanding. tourists driving by the little yellow victorian cottage we were emptying would have no idea that the inhabitants were not living happy, fulfilling lives in this tourist haven. nor would the inhabitant of the little yellow house have any obvious reason to doubt the lives of the tourists passing in their new suv's were less than the joyful events vacations advertise.

the joyless artifacts i carried to the curb, as i found myself being covered with the dust and filth of the misery which passes unobserved and approved by modern life, made me especially aware of what we pray on ascension day:

"grant, we pray, almighty god, that as we believe your
only-begotten son our lord jesus christ to have ascended
into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend,
and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with
you and the holy spirit, one god, for ever and ever. amen."

and they made me wonder why we so easily settle for lives of quiet, filthy desperation when the kingdom is at hand.

ascension day

this ascension day is the 22nd anniversary of "my first celebration of the eucharist," an event the synchronicity of which has gained significance for me over the years as my understanding of the place of the ascension in the liturgy has grown. celtic daily prayer from the northumbrian community has added another glimpse of understanding: the ascension as a marriage. of course! and of course this is part of the implicit orthodox understanding of the liturgy, but which i seldom remember explicitly.

the northumbrian "liturgy combines material from a variety of sources: . . . traditional scottish prayer . . ., the imagery of jewish betrothal custom and catherine de hoeck doherty's vision of the bride as a 'servant of the poor.' the scriptures used are from the song of solomon and st john's gospel.

"jesus betrothed his followers to himself. he offered his love. his own body and all his kingdom. he looked for our love, our willingness to follow him, our promise to be his alone, to wait for him.

"you have not chosen me', he said, 'but i have chosen you. receive my love. do not be afraid. drink from my cup as the sign of your betrothal to me. trust in my love and believe in me. if only you could see me for who i am!'

"'my father is rich in houses and land. i am going to prepare such a wonderful place for you, so where i am you can be with me. when all is ready, i will return and take you to myself.'

"'walk as my own in the world, and remember how i have loved you. it is better that i leave you now--for time is short, and you have much to do as you prepare for my returning.'

"clouds of heaven covered him as he was taken up out of their sight.

"when the people of heaven welcomed their heart-love, mary's beautiful son broke into tears before them.

"'i am my beloved's,' he said, 'and she will be mine. my desire is towards her, and she will not fail me. soon she will shine as brightly as the sun, reaching out for me, urgently as a mighty army, radiant and terrifying. my sister, my bride, she is mine!'

"the spirit of promise gave this vision, the spirit he said would lead us deeper into truth. it is a vision of what we, as his own, can become.

"there she stands, above the treeline, shining in the rays of the noonday sun.

"she is beautiful and simple, with her doors wide open: and into her stream the rich and poor alike.

"she is the bride of christ. she is his beloved and he is all tenderness, all love, towards her.

"not only is she his beloved, but she serves the people whom he loved, the poor. the people whom he fed with loaves and fishes, she now feeds with bread and wine.

"from her heart rises an immense cry of adoration:

"'my lord has died,
jesus, my lord is risen.
jesus our lord will come again to take us to himself--that where he is we may be also.'
. . .
"lord, hasten the day when those who seek you in every nation will come from the east and west, from north and south, and sit at table in your kingdom."

--from celtic daily prayer (harpersanfrancisco, 2002), pp.281-283.

36 and counting: the sixth sunday of easter

the gospel for this sunday is john 14:15-21. the church knows that forty days after the resurrection jesus ascended to the father, a fact that is celebrated thursday of this week. but she remembers that jesus promised he would not leave us orphans, that he would send, "another comforter, that he may abide with you forever."

for a number of years my favourite read for pentecost (after of course the daily office readings for this season) has been annie dillard's holy the firm. this year i have a new favourite: cormac mcarthy's the road. it profoundly recognizes that we are living in the last days, but it is also a profoundly hopeful book, a pentecostal book in all meanings of that word. in it a loving father takes his son through the wilderness, telling him all along the terror-filled way that they are "some of the good guys," that they "carry the fire," even though the existence of other "good guys" is an act of faith, and the fire is constantly challenged. at last the father dies just as the son meets some of the other good guys: one man, one woman, two children, one boy, one girl.

"the woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. oh, she said, i am so glad to see you. she would talk to him sometimes about god. he tried to talk to god but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget. the woman said that was all right. she said that the breath of god was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all time.

"once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. you could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. they smelled of moss in your hand. polished and muscular and torsional. on their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. maps and mazes. of a thing which could not be put back. not be made right again. in the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." (p. 241)

koan on the creekside

i sat on the banks of a creek wednesday as it flowed into the impounded waters of the white river, it's enlarged surface reflecting early springs green leaves and the still-white trunks of the sycamores.

i was reading nikolai gogol's the divine liturgy of the russian orthodox church, and i interspersed bits and pieces of psalms which occur in the liturgy as i read, especially psalm 103. i found myself humming them to melodies from the orthodox liturgy, and i was saddened that there is no community here to sing with.

and i understood perhaps some of how brother andre of taize felt. he stopped celebrating eucharist because the whole church would not celebrate together.

today i am reading s. l. greenslade's schism in the early church (london: scm,1964), which includes these words:

"[the early church] was not undivided, but it was much less divided than we are to-day, and it hated division and worked hard, if sometimes by unhappy means, to heal it. it did so, not because it was uneconomical in manpower or money to have a novatianist chapel and a catholic church on opposite street corners, nor even because disunion was mocked at by the pagan. it was because disunion is in itself sin, and therefore to be fought against." (p. 33)

lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep thy law.

fifth sunday of easter: way, truth, life

this post is another one of those times i feel like i have a good answer to an excellent question quite a while after the question has been asked. knightr4 said in response to the previous post, "folks still want revealed truth but are not sure where to find it because they are not finding it in the books that they used to." i rose to the bait of books and said, " i have noticed that many of the books "'they are used to' use orthodoxy as the big-bad-word." but it's not about books, but about our search for, amongst modern-thinking folk, infallibility, and among post-modern-thinking folk, what ryan calls "revealed truth." neither are really found in books, except, i would suggest, in the very specific way which the bible reveals the word of god.

yesterday's gospel, john 14:1-14, takes place in the room where jesus and the disciples met on the thursday before the crucifixion. philip, who a bit before had been asked by some greeks to show them jesus, now asks, “lord, show us the father, and we will be satisfied.” jesus responds, "whoever has seen me has seen the father."

this is leading up to one of the conclusions as it were of john's gospel. we so often read the gospels in little bits and bobs, which we sometimes fancy up with the term "pericopes," that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that they are excellent works of writing. everyone knows john 3:16, more or less. i was confronted saturday with a flock of youngsters in red t-shirts that said in big black letters "3:16" only saturday. but seldom do i find t-shirts that say "17:3": "and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true god, and jesus christ whom you have sent."

in a rather famous interview, theresa of calcultta was asked what she and her sisters did that was so successful, since people were flocking to them, and not only the dying to whom they particularly ministered. she replied, "we give them jesus." the interviewer thought she was being coy, so insisted, "but you must do something special." theresa replied, "we give them jesus."

it is the person of jesus who reveals the way, the truth, the life, indeed the very nature of god. anything else, books or sermons or even this blog, can only point to him or away from him.

jody's question: orthodoxy?

i am leading a reflection on the old testament readings of the easter vigil at the local united methodist church on wednesdays during the great 50 days. usually it is only on thursday that i am able to think of good answers to the very good questions people have asked.

jody asked last wednesday, "what do you mean by orthodoxy?" i had said rather off-handedly that if one has not experienced orthodox worship, one has no idea of what real worship is like. by that i mean, at the least, that orthodox worship happens in heaven. we ascend with christ as christ's body to the heavenly realm. most western worship, especially in the reformed tradition, is definitely worship here on earth.

but there is the bigger meaning of "orthodox," and as i thought about that, i came to the conclusion that i mean the church as described in the second chapter of acts: "and they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." (v. 42) certainly many folks who consider themselves christians have consciously departed from the apostles' doctrine. indeed another person in the group was rejoicing that modern united methodists have a wide variety of teachings and practices from which to choose.

that this is a source of rejoicing rather than repentance comes, i think, from our adoption of the a modern (in the sctrict hobbesian/lockian sense)worldview, in which god perhaps cannot but certain does not actually reveal his self to us. the scriptures, the liturgy, the church, are all human inventions, not gracious gifts from the holy one. the thanks that we give in the liturgy of sts. addai and mari, which i have received in my apostolic tradition, for the "form of worship which we have received from you [the father] does not make sense to many modern christians.

therefore for many modern christians it does not seem possible that what orthodox christians consider stedfast continuity is even possible. yet it also seems that many modern christians have accepted some sort of infallibility that comes not from god but from our own imaginations.

we reject the possibility of there being real access to truth in the orthodox traditions of the holy catholic church, but we put our faith in the "institutes" of calvin or luther's single-minded rejection of a millenium and a half of tradition, even accepting his shortened canon of scripture. or we consider the bible infallible, confusing a book about the word of god for the incarnate, eternal word of god himself. how odd that some who hold that position find the infallibility of the pope incomprehensible.

so i find myself often seeming to be the fogey, the silly old man who thinks god loves us enough to self-reveal to us. i find not only great comfort but great truth in the oft-repeated address in the orthodox liturgy, "thou art a man-befriending god." i find continuity between the holy one's desire to be friends with moses and his desire to be friends with us. this i think is a completely orthodox understanding of the beloved one. thanks be to god for his unspeakable gift!

the fourth sunday of easter: all we like sheep

it is not popular to be sheep these days. we seldom use the old confession,

"almight and most merciful father; we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. we have offended against thy holy laws. we have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us. . . ."

the in the gospel for this week (john 10:1-10) jesus suggests we are indeed his sheep, because he is our shepherd. when we so proudly think of ourselves otherwise, we are listening to the voices of those who are thieves and robbers. i was reminded of a hymn from my childhood:

"savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need thy tender care;
in thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use thy folds prepare.
. . .
early let us seek thy favor, early let us do thy will;
blessèd lord and only savior, with thy love our bosoms fill." (dorothy a. thrupp)

but there are times when we, too, are called to act as shepherds. that is when the other image of jesus in this gospel becomes important. he is the door. whenever we would bring anyone into the fold any other way, we fail.

as usual, william temple sums it all up quite well, saying,

"the pastoral office, like all other offices in the church, is a localisation, so to speak, of a function of the whole church and its members. . . . we are called to be christ's witnesses. but by what right do we date to attempt the direction of a neighbour's life, or even of a child's? and . . . the answer is that we approach him through the door.
"i have no right to call men to adopt my traditions or to follow my manner of life. but i may call them to accept the truth and to follow the way which is life." (readings in st. john's gospel (new york: st. martin's press, 1968), p. 159)

tribute to a friend

i received a letter yesterday from one of my several friends who are exploring ordination--not any of the ones who have commented on this blog, and this post is in tribute to him.

it has been an odd week, in that a greater than usual number of my friends who are in the business, as it were, ordained ministers in various brands of the church, have talked to me about their discomfort with the church, questioning whether they can continue to work within it as they have been. none of them is questioning his or her own calling to priesthood, merely whether the church allows them to exercise it.

my immediately, if not spoken, reaction, is that the calling and imposition of episcopal hands is itself the empowerment and indeed necessitating--is that a word--to exercise it. but that's easy for me to say. i'm ordained in a branch of the church that follows without ever noticing it roland allen's idea of priesthood without remuneration. i can be as prophetic as i wish, and there is no loss of what we call "livelihood" to me or my family.

so, into this week comes my friend's letter, saying "that i do genuinely feel called to out of the idea of the joy of service. . . . but is the job ready for me?" the problem, you see, is that my friend is "a queer."

hence my post. i wrote to him of my experience when i resigned my charge in the united methodist church, which had decided not to ordained "practicing self-professing homosexuals." i knew i should be truthful, so although i had had no practice, i self-professed. the response was one of those bureaucratic horrors that eviscerates the power of the gospel to save this horrible broken world in which we live. i don't remember whether it was the district superintendent or the elder who was in charge of keeping everyone on the next page in the notebook with the checkmarks to fill out for full membership in the conference who answered, but the answer was, "gosh, dale, we don't care what you do, so long as no one knows."

i assumed that my ordained life was over. it was therefore an amazing surprise when i discovered a weird branch of the church whose discernment process was not based on either fear or current politics, but on what the spirit is speaking to the church (and what he had spoke to the church in the earliest days, before it got all entangled with the empire). as i began to go through enquiring about possible ordination, i was delighted and surprised that my phone would ring and it would be a bishop from somewhere or another who did not have a notebook with check mark blanks but with questions about my spiritual experiences and practices and understanding of the holy.

so, i told my friend, "the bigger question is not if the church is ready for you, but how it necessarily requires you. think of how the big shots in the temple thought they weren't ready for jesus. and of course they weren't."

and i am delighted to find someone who recognizes that the call to ordination is the call to the joy of service, and delighted that he has found that in a parish which serves.

and i want to make sure that i am not dishonest online. as i wrote to my friend, i am celebate, but it is to simplify my life, not because i think there is something worse about what i prefer to call homophilia than homosexuality. anyone who goes through the checkout lane of any grocery store in this country can see on the covers of the weeklies that heterosexuality is not necessarily a good thing, either. despite what television and people magazine say, there is more to life than sex.

third sunday of easter: heartburn

usually on monday mornings i try to post something about the previous sunday's gospel. this post is no exception, but it is a little more personal than some.

the gospel is the story of the first supper: unrecognized jesus and two disciples meet on the road. they hear him tell of all the scriptures that testify of him, and then recognize him in the breaking of the bread. "did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us along the way, while he opened the scriptures to us?"

i was delighted that an old friend was in town, a priest with whom i had worked twenty-five years ago. bob was at the parish breakfast. then at the bible study after breakfast, another friend said, "i like this guy," in reference to something bob had said. "i like him, too," i said, "but when i was a substitute teacher, i found that anyone can be brilliant for three days." in my mind was, "but i worked with bob for years, and his brilliance lasts." but those words were not said.

afterwards, after i had probably been too anxious to agree with bob--not that i disagreed with him--i had a bit of heartburn. i realized that i was jealous. bob has had a very easily-defined career: rector, canon-to-the-ordinary, rector, head of a dioscesan taskforce. at breakfast i had been called once again a prophet. what has my career been? semi-pelagian semi-prophetic semi-ornamental semi-hermit. how does that look on a resume? indeed i had started to call this post "the loneliness of the long-distance prophet." in my better moments i am happy to recognize my calling; blessed even (macarius has both meanings, after all.) i know that

"the measuring line marks out delightful places for me,
for me the heritage is superb, indeed." (psalm 16:6)

before the day was over, it had become one of my better times. edie reminded us in her sermon that "every good and every perfect gift comes down from the father of lights" (james 1:17), and as we broke the bread, we sang:

"one bread, one body, one lord of all,
one cup of blessing which we bless.
and we, though many throughout the world,
we are one body in this one lord." (john b. foley, after paul of tarsus)

of course! bob's gifts are mine, and my gifts are his; or rather, bob's gifts are ours and mine are ours. apart from the vine, the one lord, whose branches and members we are, we are nothing.

"so my heart exults, my very soul rejoices,
my body, too, will rest securely,
for you will not abandon my son to sheol,
nor allow the one you love to see the pit;
you will reveal the path of life to me,
give me unbounded joy in your presence,
and at your right hand everlasting pleasures." (psalm 16:9-11)

the koan: a (perhaps) last remark

i have discovered in my old age roland allen, whose insistant idea of what constituted "church" was based on pauls' missionary methods, not ours. when a local group of believers have received the bible, the creeds, the sacraments, and the ministry, they are as much church as rome or canterbury or constantinople or antioch, or even jerusalem. of course his continuing problem with "the church" as it already existed was that there was no willingness for bishops to share "their" ministry--or at least the ministry which is often seen seen as "theirs" rather than the church's.

there are two things that strike me full-in-the-middle-of-the-forehead about his writings.

the first is that what he sees as constituant of the church is exactly the contents of the chicago-lambeth quadrilateral.

the second is his insistance, in which i find he is painfully correct, that we fail to trust the holy spirit.

in defense of thomas, no doubt

eight days after easter sunday has come, since at least as early as the sixth century, comes “thomas sunday.” then is read the gospel which says, “thomas, called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when jesus came. when the disciples said, ‘we have seen the lord,’ he answered, ‘unless i see the holes that the nails made in his hands, and can put my fingers in the holes they have made, and unless i can put my hand into his side, i refuse to believe.’ eight days later the disciples were in the house again. . . . jesus came in . . . . then he said to thomas, ‘put your finger here; look, here are my hands. give me your hand; put it into my side. soubt no longer, but believe.’ thomas replied, ‘my lord and my god.’” (john 20:24-2, jerusalem bible): “doubting thomas.”



although matthew’s gospel records that even forty days after the resurrection, at jesus’ ascension, “some doubted” (28:17), this sunday thomas’ doubt will be spotlighted. In many hundreds of pulpits, we will be reminded, “happy are they who have not seen yet believe.” (john 20:29)



in what do we who “have not seen” believe? it is the witness of thomas’ insistence on actually touching the physical body of our risen lord (along with luke’s homely inclusion of jesus' question, “have you anything to eat?”—a ghost perceivably could have been lying [24:41]) that establishes the certainty that the resurrection was indeed physical.



there are always those who want to reduce the resurrection to “a spiritual event,” or to suggest that the disciples were having some sort of mass hallucination. this idea is very much alive today among those who talk about “christ consciousness,” or who say “we are not religious, we are spiritual.” biblical christianity is always more than spiritual. the creed merely expresses the teaching of the psalms, the gospels, the letter to the hebrews and the first letter of peter: “we believe in the resurrection of the body.”



death is the separation of the soul from the body. the life in the world to come is the reunion of souls and bodies. the souls of the faithful underneath the heavenly altar in the revelation to john (6:9-10) cry out “how long?” waiting for their bodies!



this allows for true religion. religion literally means to rebind together things that are or have become separated. the reconciliation of god and mankind; the union of hebrew and greek, of male and female, of slave and free, are not merely spiritual events. nor is what we usually call morality merely a spiritual matter. james wrote of this when he said, “pure, unspoiled religion, in the eyes of god our father is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world” (1:27).



it is his insistence on touching the lord’s wounds that allows dear thomas to recognize jesus as both lord, and god, and that founds our religion, in which we can offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a living sacrifice.