A reflection on Proper 10B: Amos 7:7-15, Psalm 24, Ephesians 1:3-14, and Mark 6:14-29 by Janine Goodwin
I love the Gospel stories that point to healing, that call us to hope and teach us to trust God. I have been taught by wise people to place myself in the Gospels, to imagine myself as the person healed or called by Jesus, and that has brought me much growth and joy. In this week’s scriptures, I am nurtured and strengthened by the Psalms and by the reading from Ephesians. After that, I’m out of my comfort zone and moving toward things I really don’t want to face. The calling of Amos has its disturbing notes, particularly when God tells Amos he will lose everything and his (nameless) wife will become a prostitute, a life women have always been blamed for “choosing” when the fact is that women turn to prostitution when they have been enslaved, tricked, coerced, or have no other choices available to them. Then comes the Gospel, and there seems to be no good news anywhere.
This passage from the Gospel of Mark is an ugly story, a story of unjust power used for destruction. How can it be part of the good news when its bad news is still so familiar, still playing out daily in different places under different names? Is my faith strong enough to face an ugly story and survive? Can I look not just at what is clearly being redeemed, but at what remains unhealed, at the injustices that call me to speak with a prophetic voice and risk the losses prophets face? Can we, as church, face the ways we have misused power and claim our calling to be a prophetic voice? Can we accept the task of calling our world to change?
I invite you to walk into this story with me. Let’s consider each character in turn and see what about her or him we may see in ourselves. It will not be easy or comfortable. It may not be reassuring. If we find Jesus is using this story to heal of our wounds and call us to repentance, it may become redemptive.
The one we’d most like to identify with is the obvious victim, John the baptizer. He is imprisoned because he speaks out against a ruler’s marriage and dies because the ruler dares not lose face in front of his guests. It is an ignoble and unnecessary death, but it is always easiest to imagine ourselves as the prophetic martyr than as the persecutor. John, like many other prophets before him and like Jesus after him, is killed because he presents a threat to the power structures and cultural assumptions of his time. While scholars disagree about whether the details of the story are historically correct, in this account John is imprisoned because he has told Herod it was not right for him to take his brother’s wife, Herodias.
Over the centuries, the story of Herod’s banquet has been shaped into a narrative with two female villains, the seductive Salome and the destructive Herodias. The seductive daughter, who may be either Herod’s daughter or his stepdaughter, exerts sexual power to cloud Herod’s judgment, and the destructive wife, who controls the daughter, uses her child to demand John’s death. We are used to seeing the daughter as Salome, a full-grown, though young, woman who does the “dance of the seven veils,” and conspires with her mother to destroy John. We are used to the idea that she is attracted to John, whom she cannot seduce, and that she chooses to have power over him by having him killed. None of these ideas or details are actually present in the Gospel stories, either here or in the account in Matthew (neither Luke nor John does not mention the circumstances of John the Baptist’s death).
There is one similarity between the daughter of Herodias and Mary Magdalene, and it is this: both of them have been persistently sexualized throughout the centuries. They have become objects for male sexual fantasy rather than characters in a story. The other aspects of Mary Magdalene’s life—her healing, her roles as friend and student of Jesus and first witness to the resurrection—are all replaced with the picture of the beautiful penitent who is still a sexual object, and lately with the hypothesis that she was the wife of Jesus. She is not seen as a person. The same process has taken place in this story.
We are used to seeing the Salome of legend, opera, painting, and film as a mature young woman using sexual power to manipulate powerful men, and it may be hard for us to see through that stereotype and understand that even such a young woman may have no other power, no real choices, and men may project their desires on her without ever knowing who she is or what she wants. She is blamed for using sexual power and denied her full humanity, while the men who use her need not repent; they can blame her for their actions. She may sin; if she does, she should repent, and she is not the only person who is to blame. Many women can recognize themselves in that situation. It is something our culture glorifies and mistakenly names as sexual liberation, though historically the seductive young woman has been a dangerous figure. Both sets of assumptions lose sight of this fact: when the only choice is to be a sexual object, the humanity and freedom of the person is always lost.
The daughter of Herodias has no name in either of the gospel accounts, though some read the Greek as saying that her name was also Herodias and the historian Josephus calls her Salome. Herodias did have a daughter named Salome, who lived out her adult life as the wife of her own grand-uncle, but it is uncertain whether she was the dancer in this story. The unnamed dancer is a girl: she is called a korasion. That word appears only one other place in this gospel. It is used as a translation for the Aramaic words Jesus uses it to call the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus back from the dead. In our English versions, korasion is translated as “little girl” in that passage. No translation I can find uses “little girl” when the daughter of Herodias is called a korasion. Some sources say the girl could be of marriageable age—which could be as young as twelve in the time and culture of this story.
When we see the dancing daughter as a girl who may be as young as twelve, as someone who might be called a “little girl,” another image may emerge for us. Though the dance is not the “dance of the seven veils,” a late addition to the legend, and although the verb for Herod’s being pleased with the dance is not one that necessarily carries sexual overtones, the possibility of sexual exploitation can’t be ruled out. It does not seem to have been usual to have the daughters of minor royalty in the first century Roman empire perform for their fathers’ guests. When we see a young girl summoned by her father or stepfather to perform at what appears to be an all-male party while her mother waits outside (the girl has to leave the banquet in order to consult her mother about what she should ask of Herod), the picture gets darker. It is entirely possible that the dancing daughter is as much a prisoner as John the baptizer. Since one in four women has been sexually abused before the age of 18, many of them in the homes where they grew up, some of us may recognize within ourselves what it is like to be a dependent girl with no good choices and no place to go. Many of us know what it is like to be a girl who is used either overtly or covertly by powerful men and men related to us, and to be controlled by women who do not protect us. This is not just feminine knowledge, either: boys, too, are abused in every way. Sexual abuse of boys may be less common, but it is still all too common, and boys, too, face emotional and physical abuse in a culture that tells them not to feel and not to go for help.
Whether or not she is being used as a sexual object, the girl is certainly being used as a political pawn by her mother. When Herod makes his surprising promise to grant her anything she wants up to half his kingdom, she doesn’t know what to ask for and she dares not ask for anything she might want. She cannot take the power Herod seems to offer. She runs to her mother, who tells her to ask for John’s head, and she runs back into the banquet to make her request. She has been used by her mother to manipulate her father, another situation many of us can remember, another way of using and abusing a child. When we take away the fantasies and projections of the ages and glimpse a young person caught in a sick family system and a power structure that offers no freedom or hope, how do we respond?
Herodias wants John dead; she probably wants it more because Herod respects John and listens to him. Herodias has little power in the system: she controls her daughter and manipulates Herod through him. She does so well that her daughter, given a chance at power, runs to her to ask what she should want rather than trying to gain power over her mother. Herodias is not a free adult in her society, but she does have choices. If we put ourselves in her place, we must confront the times we have responded to our feelings of powerlessness by acting destructively toward others. We may have been the instigator of destruction in indirect ways, the wife who chose manipulation over confrontation, the one who stood by in silence when someone less powerful was abused, the sabotaging employee, the spreader of rumors, the one who could not get into the group that had power but could make sure we kept down those who had even less than we. As adults, we need to face the Herodias in ourselves. What innocent parts of ourselves, what innocent others, are we using unjustly in our struggles for power? What kind of power do we want: the power that heals and makes right, or the power to destroy?
Herod is a powerful man and a complicated character. He respects John the baptizer despite John’s open opposition to his actions and he listens to John, though the listening makes Herod confused. Herod seems to have enough self-awareness and courage to hear himself criticized, but not enough to change. In an impulsive moment, he makes an oath that gives away his power. He cannot question the obligation to keep that oath, no matter how foolishly he made it; he cannot do the right thing if the right thing will threaten his power over the men he rules. He can see what is right, but he cannot risk. Like Pilate later on in the story, Herod will save face, but he dares not save a life. How many times have we made such choices? How many times have we refused to use our power for good because we feared losing it? How many times have we chosen to do what is expected rather than what is right? How do we substitute listening for action, and excuse ourselves for letting things slide? How do we kill the voice of the prophet within us, and how do we silence those around us if and when they call us to repentance?
Herod’s guests represent the society around us, the status quo, the group that both follows and limits its leaders. They uphold the assumptions and the rules they have been taught. Herod’s power is affected by their expectations. They are the voices that say, “But we’ve always done it this way,” and, “We can’t follow those crazy idealists, or listen to those wild prophets. It will threaten our security.” How do we perpetuate the stereotypes we have been taught, accept the rules without questioning whether they are right or just, assume the prophets are crazy? How often do we accept the sacrifice of others as a sad necessity and move on with our self-centered lives?
It is hard to see this story as part of the Good News. I hate watching it play out. I want it to be a different story. I want Jesus to break into the palace, rescue John, save the little girl, confront and heal Herod and Herodias, convert the people in power. Jesus does not do any of those things: he does not even appear in this story. He is somewhere else, healing another child, talking to other people. His time to meet the ruler has not yet come. He was not invited to the banquet. If we want to find Jesus, we must leave this story, taking what it teaches us about ourselves, and invite him into our own. When he comes to us, what will he find?
Friday, July 10, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Proper 8B
Reflection on Mark 5:21-43 by The Rev. Dr. Kate Hennessy
Mark’s Gospel begins with the words, ”The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. And indeed, Mark takes no time with genealogies or birth stories but brings us immediately into the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, into this unfolding good news of God’s Kingdom in the person of Jesus, for the people of that time and for us who hear it today.
When we encounter Jesus in the Gospel this morning, he has been traveling. He has just returned from the territory of the Gentiles in the land of the Gerasenes. In the Gospel we heard last week, Mark tells us about the trip across the lake and the disciples’ fear of perishing in the storm. He tells of Jesus calming the storm and Jesus’ response to the disciples “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
While in the land of the Geresenes, on the other side of the lake, Mark tells us that Jesus healed a man of a legion of demons, giving us another story of faith and fear. The man who was delivered of the demons was transformed by this encounter with Jesus and filled with faith. The people around him reacted in fear of Jesus and asked him, with some insistence, to go away from their place. So back across the sea he came, leaving in his wake both faith and fear.
This morning’s Gospel is closely connected in time and theme with these two. All three tell us the story of this Jesus, the Son of God who has broken into time to overcome evil and bring new life. The one who was foretold through history is making his way from Jerusalem and back in Mark’s Gospel, calling disciples, casting out demons, healing the sick, and overcoming death with life.
Two stories. Jairus. A leader in the community. Probably a man usually in control of the situation, in command of his resources. But not today. Today, he is desperate. His only child is near death. “Jesus, if you will come.” A woman bleeding for twelve years. Her condition had separated her from the community, devastated her resources, caused her endless suffering and struggle and now she too was desperate. “if I but touch his clothing.”
Fear, desperation, faith, longing for healing, for life to triumph over death….hoping against hope for a miracle. And Mark gives us not one but two miracles in this Gospel. Jairus’ daughter is restored to her physical life and the woman is given back her life as well as she is healed of her disease, restored to wholeness and community as Jesus says to her, “Daughter your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed…” and he comforts Jairus on the way with “do not fear, only believe.”
What is the message we are to take from this? Is this what we are to think of as signs of true faith? Are we to pray for miracles? And if they happen, or don’t, what does this mean? We know that we have a different context for the way the world works than the way Mark’s hearers did. At some level this matters in the way we hear this Gospel. And yet in another, it really does not. Because for Mark, the message of the Good News is about what happened to people when they encountered Jesus. Inevitably they were transformed and set free. Mark’s message is about how Jesus came into history to manifest the transformative power of God’s love to liberate people from powers that oppress them. People encounter God in the person of Jesus and they are transformed. Perhaps this is the real miracle.
In her book, Home by Another Way, theologian Barbara Brown Taylor tells the following story about her seven year old granddaughter named Madeline who just happens to be Madeline had a birthday party one summer. There were four people gathered around the table to celebrate. There was Madeline, Madeline’s recently-divorced mother, grandmother Barbara and Barbara’s husband, Madeline’s grandfather. As the candles burned down on the cake, Madeline listened as everyone sang the birthday song. She then leaned over and blew out the candles, but she didn’t make a wish. Her mother asked her, “Aren’t you going to make a wish?” Her grandfather said, “You have to make a wish.” Madeline looked as if someone had just run over her cat.” I don’t know why I keep doing this,” Madeline said.” Doing what?” her grandmother asked.” This wishing thing,” she said. “Last year I wished my best friend wouldn’t move away but she did. This year I want to wish that my mommy and daddy will get back together…”“That’s not going to happen,” her mother chimed in. “I know it’s not going to happen,” Madeline said, “so why do I keep doing this?”
Taylor then says: “Since the issue was wishing, not praying, I left her alone that afternoon, but I know that sooner or later Madeline and I are going to have to talk about prayer. I do not want that child to lose heart. I want her to believe in a God who loves her and listens to her, but in that case I will need some explanation for why it does not always seem that way.” Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “One day, when Madeline asks me outright whether prayer really works, I am going to say, ‘Oh, sweetie, of course it does. It keeps our hearts chasing after God’s heart. It’s how we bother God, and it’s how God bothers us back. There’s nothing that works any better than that.”1
Which brings us around again to ask ourselves why Mark is telling us this story? Barbara Brown Taylor says, "They are not stories about how to get God to do what we want, which is just another way of trying to stay in control. Instead, they are stories about who God is, and how God acts, and what God is like. Mark wrote them down for one reason and one reason alone: 'This is no ordinary man,' he tells us every way he knows how. 'This man is the son of God. Believe it.'"
She had been bleeding for twelve years. In addition to all of the ways we can think of as far as how awful this would be, in her culture it made her an outcast, probably cutting her off from the daily ebb and flow of community life, silencing her voice to all but herself. Being able to come to Jesus and tell him her “whole truth” must have meant so much to her, that moment of connection, of relationship…that may indeed have been her real miracle moment.
For Jairus, though the waiting was not as long, we can be sure the feelings were no less intense. He was forced to endure the interruption as Jesus stops to deal with the woman. Then he is told it is too late, his daughter has died. But again, that moment of encounter…”do not fear, only believe.” Was that Jairus’ miracle? When he understood God’s power to transform was right there before him in the person of Jesus?
Jesus broke into history as the great both/and. He came to show us who God is and who and whose we are. God is God and we are not, thanks be to God, as Father Ken used to say. Prayer is not simply about going to God and asking for what we want and need, but it is about relationship with God, chasing after God’s heart and allowing God to chase ours in return. Anytime this happens, there is no doubt that miracles will occur.
1Taylor, Barbara Brown. Home by Another Way. Minneapolis: Cowley Publications, 1999.
Mark’s Gospel begins with the words, ”The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. And indeed, Mark takes no time with genealogies or birth stories but brings us immediately into the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, into this unfolding good news of God’s Kingdom in the person of Jesus, for the people of that time and for us who hear it today.
When we encounter Jesus in the Gospel this morning, he has been traveling. He has just returned from the territory of the Gentiles in the land of the Gerasenes. In the Gospel we heard last week, Mark tells us about the trip across the lake and the disciples’ fear of perishing in the storm. He tells of Jesus calming the storm and Jesus’ response to the disciples “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
While in the land of the Geresenes, on the other side of the lake, Mark tells us that Jesus healed a man of a legion of demons, giving us another story of faith and fear. The man who was delivered of the demons was transformed by this encounter with Jesus and filled with faith. The people around him reacted in fear of Jesus and asked him, with some insistence, to go away from their place. So back across the sea he came, leaving in his wake both faith and fear.
This morning’s Gospel is closely connected in time and theme with these two. All three tell us the story of this Jesus, the Son of God who has broken into time to overcome evil and bring new life. The one who was foretold through history is making his way from Jerusalem and back in Mark’s Gospel, calling disciples, casting out demons, healing the sick, and overcoming death with life.
Two stories. Jairus. A leader in the community. Probably a man usually in control of the situation, in command of his resources. But not today. Today, he is desperate. His only child is near death. “Jesus, if you will come.” A woman bleeding for twelve years. Her condition had separated her from the community, devastated her resources, caused her endless suffering and struggle and now she too was desperate. “if I but touch his clothing.”
Fear, desperation, faith, longing for healing, for life to triumph over death….hoping against hope for a miracle. And Mark gives us not one but two miracles in this Gospel. Jairus’ daughter is restored to her physical life and the woman is given back her life as well as she is healed of her disease, restored to wholeness and community as Jesus says to her, “Daughter your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed…” and he comforts Jairus on the way with “do not fear, only believe.”
What is the message we are to take from this? Is this what we are to think of as signs of true faith? Are we to pray for miracles? And if they happen, or don’t, what does this mean? We know that we have a different context for the way the world works than the way Mark’s hearers did. At some level this matters in the way we hear this Gospel. And yet in another, it really does not. Because for Mark, the message of the Good News is about what happened to people when they encountered Jesus. Inevitably they were transformed and set free. Mark’s message is about how Jesus came into history to manifest the transformative power of God’s love to liberate people from powers that oppress them. People encounter God in the person of Jesus and they are transformed. Perhaps this is the real miracle.
In her book, Home by Another Way, theologian Barbara Brown Taylor tells the following story about her seven year old granddaughter named Madeline who just happens to be Madeline had a birthday party one summer. There were four people gathered around the table to celebrate. There was Madeline, Madeline’s recently-divorced mother, grandmother Barbara and Barbara’s husband, Madeline’s grandfather. As the candles burned down on the cake, Madeline listened as everyone sang the birthday song. She then leaned over and blew out the candles, but she didn’t make a wish. Her mother asked her, “Aren’t you going to make a wish?” Her grandfather said, “You have to make a wish.” Madeline looked as if someone had just run over her cat.” I don’t know why I keep doing this,” Madeline said.” Doing what?” her grandmother asked.” This wishing thing,” she said. “Last year I wished my best friend wouldn’t move away but she did. This year I want to wish that my mommy and daddy will get back together…”“That’s not going to happen,” her mother chimed in. “I know it’s not going to happen,” Madeline said, “so why do I keep doing this?”
Taylor then says: “Since the issue was wishing, not praying, I left her alone that afternoon, but I know that sooner or later Madeline and I are going to have to talk about prayer. I do not want that child to lose heart. I want her to believe in a God who loves her and listens to her, but in that case I will need some explanation for why it does not always seem that way.” Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “One day, when Madeline asks me outright whether prayer really works, I am going to say, ‘Oh, sweetie, of course it does. It keeps our hearts chasing after God’s heart. It’s how we bother God, and it’s how God bothers us back. There’s nothing that works any better than that.”1
Which brings us around again to ask ourselves why Mark is telling us this story? Barbara Brown Taylor says, "They are not stories about how to get God to do what we want, which is just another way of trying to stay in control. Instead, they are stories about who God is, and how God acts, and what God is like. Mark wrote them down for one reason and one reason alone: 'This is no ordinary man,' he tells us every way he knows how. 'This man is the son of God. Believe it.'"
She had been bleeding for twelve years. In addition to all of the ways we can think of as far as how awful this would be, in her culture it made her an outcast, probably cutting her off from the daily ebb and flow of community life, silencing her voice to all but herself. Being able to come to Jesus and tell him her “whole truth” must have meant so much to her, that moment of connection, of relationship…that may indeed have been her real miracle moment.
For Jairus, though the waiting was not as long, we can be sure the feelings were no less intense. He was forced to endure the interruption as Jesus stops to deal with the woman. Then he is told it is too late, his daughter has died. But again, that moment of encounter…”do not fear, only believe.” Was that Jairus’ miracle? When he understood God’s power to transform was right there before him in the person of Jesus?
Jesus broke into history as the great both/and. He came to show us who God is and who and whose we are. God is God and we are not, thanks be to God, as Father Ken used to say. Prayer is not simply about going to God and asking for what we want and need, but it is about relationship with God, chasing after God’s heart and allowing God to chase ours in return. Anytime this happens, there is no doubt that miracles will occur.
1Taylor, Barbara Brown. Home by Another Way. Minneapolis: Cowley Publications, 1999.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Proper 7B
A reflection on Mark 4:35-41 by The Rev. Terri C. Pilarski
The cover page of New York Times Magazine last week carried the title, “INFRASTRUCTURE” in bold black capital letters highlighted in fushia on bright orange paper with a pencil drawing of buildings, highways, hot air balloons, cars, trains, and so forth.
I read the NY Times magazine every week, but this one was particularly enticing as I wondered what spin the Times was taking on this topic. Inside the magazine was an article titled, “Datatecture” covering the infrastructure of our world via the internet and our interconnectivity through Facebook, MySpace, iTunes, Gmail, and so forth.
Another article looked at the remaking of Paris while another one looked at high-speed rail issues and a fourth article discussed the merits of more humane prisons with cells that are like mini apartments.
I was particularly drawn to an article on the price of chicken, where the author bought a chicken at a farmers market and then wondered by he, or anyone, would spend $35 to buy a farm raised chicken from a farmers market. This article included a recipe from the author for his homemade chicken meatballs. For this author the price of chicken is an indication of an infrastructure gone haywire. More to the point, I think, was an article about the high number of shopping malls in America: some 20 square feet of shopping space for every human being in this country. America tops the list, compared to 13 square feet per person in Canada, 6.5 square feet in Australia, and 3 square feet in Sweden, according to a study conducted by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson. The fact that many of the malls in this country are abandoned or built but never used, is an indication of a country whose infrastructure is over-retailed. You might say that this article looked at an infrastructure of misused abundance, defeating the purpose, according to this magazine, of a well-designed infrastructure whose function is never separate from form.
Like the society we live in, Christianity has an infrastructure. On the one hand one might say that the infrastructure of the Church was modeled on the hierarchical structure of the Roman Empire. On the other, at its most basic level one might say that the Christian faith is as simple as “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” Of course what this actually means varies greatly across the spectrum of Christianity and history.
Many years ago when I was in seminary, and when he was still alive, Jim Griffiss, my theology professor said that Episcopalians are an Incarnational people. And so I would add, “Christ was born,” to the other three phrases. For it is in the birth of Christ, in the Incarnation that all else became possible. It is in the incarnation that God chose to work in and through human flesh to bring forth God’s greatest desires for humanity, perhaps for all creation. Generally speaking I define that great desire of God as love. For me this love is not romantic, although that may be a feature of tis expression. It is not necessarily warm or fuzzy, even though those characteristics may pop up in God’s love from time to time. The love that I think of as God’s love poured out for us in the Incarnation is a love of great depth, compassion, hospitality, kindness. It’s the love the lives in between the words that Jesus uses to summarize all the commandments: to love God, to love self, and to love others. This is a difficult to love to do, if we do it well, as God intends. It’s a love without limitations. It’s a love that if we live it well will result in radical openness of Spirit.
Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland, was the commencement speaker at Mount Holyoke College this year. She had this to say in her speech: “Over 40 years ago, when I was in my midteens, I announced at home that I had decided to become a lawyer. The first words I hear in response were, ‘You can’t because you are a woman.’ It was the voice of our parish priest. The next voice I heard was my mother’s saying, ‘ Don’t listen to him.’ To my mother’s surprise I heeded her advice. A couple of years later, the same year that the first human walked on the moon, I started law school and our first textbook was called, ‘Learning the Law’ by a very eminent jurist, Prof. Glanville Williams. In a chapter ominously entitled, ‘Women,’ he stated his views that law school was no place for women and that our voices were to weak to be heard in a courtroom. That man had clearly never met my mother. “ (From the New York Times National section, June 14, 2009, page 18)
Who embodies the Incarnation in your life and helps you weather the stormy waters? Whose voice calls you to your greatest self, the self God would desire you to be? Whose voice stills the waves that would otherwise silence you? These are perhaps good questions to ask ourselves as we ponder the infrastructure of our lives, our church, our world, and how the actual function of that infrastructure lives in relationship to the shape and form of our lives.
The cover page of New York Times Magazine last week carried the title, “INFRASTRUCTURE” in bold black capital letters highlighted in fushia on bright orange paper with a pencil drawing of buildings, highways, hot air balloons, cars, trains, and so forth.
I read the NY Times magazine every week, but this one was particularly enticing as I wondered what spin the Times was taking on this topic. Inside the magazine was an article titled, “Datatecture” covering the infrastructure of our world via the internet and our interconnectivity through Facebook, MySpace, iTunes, Gmail, and so forth.
Another article looked at the remaking of Paris while another one looked at high-speed rail issues and a fourth article discussed the merits of more humane prisons with cells that are like mini apartments.
I was particularly drawn to an article on the price of chicken, where the author bought a chicken at a farmers market and then wondered by he, or anyone, would spend $35 to buy a farm raised chicken from a farmers market. This article included a recipe from the author for his homemade chicken meatballs. For this author the price of chicken is an indication of an infrastructure gone haywire. More to the point, I think, was an article about the high number of shopping malls in America: some 20 square feet of shopping space for every human being in this country. America tops the list, compared to 13 square feet per person in Canada, 6.5 square feet in Australia, and 3 square feet in Sweden, according to a study conducted by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson. The fact that many of the malls in this country are abandoned or built but never used, is an indication of a country whose infrastructure is over-retailed. You might say that this article looked at an infrastructure of misused abundance, defeating the purpose, according to this magazine, of a well-designed infrastructure whose function is never separate from form.
Like the society we live in, Christianity has an infrastructure. On the one hand one might say that the infrastructure of the Church was modeled on the hierarchical structure of the Roman Empire. On the other, at its most basic level one might say that the Christian faith is as simple as “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” Of course what this actually means varies greatly across the spectrum of Christianity and history.
Many years ago when I was in seminary, and when he was still alive, Jim Griffiss, my theology professor said that Episcopalians are an Incarnational people. And so I would add, “Christ was born,” to the other three phrases. For it is in the birth of Christ, in the Incarnation that all else became possible. It is in the incarnation that God chose to work in and through human flesh to bring forth God’s greatest desires for humanity, perhaps for all creation. Generally speaking I define that great desire of God as love. For me this love is not romantic, although that may be a feature of tis expression. It is not necessarily warm or fuzzy, even though those characteristics may pop up in God’s love from time to time. The love that I think of as God’s love poured out for us in the Incarnation is a love of great depth, compassion, hospitality, kindness. It’s the love the lives in between the words that Jesus uses to summarize all the commandments: to love God, to love self, and to love others. This is a difficult to love to do, if we do it well, as God intends. It’s a love without limitations. It’s a love that if we live it well will result in radical openness of Spirit.
Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland, was the commencement speaker at Mount Holyoke College this year. She had this to say in her speech: “Over 40 years ago, when I was in my midteens, I announced at home that I had decided to become a lawyer. The first words I hear in response were, ‘You can’t because you are a woman.’ It was the voice of our parish priest. The next voice I heard was my mother’s saying, ‘ Don’t listen to him.’ To my mother’s surprise I heeded her advice. A couple of years later, the same year that the first human walked on the moon, I started law school and our first textbook was called, ‘Learning the Law’ by a very eminent jurist, Prof. Glanville Williams. In a chapter ominously entitled, ‘Women,’ he stated his views that law school was no place for women and that our voices were to weak to be heard in a courtroom. That man had clearly never met my mother. “ (From the New York Times National section, June 14, 2009, page 18)
Who embodies the Incarnation in your life and helps you weather the stormy waters? Whose voice calls you to your greatest self, the self God would desire you to be? Whose voice stills the waves that would otherwise silence you? These are perhaps good questions to ask ourselves as we ponder the infrastructure of our lives, our church, our world, and how the actual function of that infrastructure lives in relationship to the shape and form of our lives.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Proper 6B
A reflection on Proper 6-B: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, Psalm 20, 2Corinthians 5:6-17, Mark 4:26-34 by The Rev. Jacqueline Schmitt
Simon’s 5th grade class had a science fair this week. Two of the children experimented with plants: did a plant grow faster if one played classical music, rock music or rap music next to it?
The children were convinced rap music did the trick. In one boy’s experiment, one plant was kind of shrunk down compared to the others. The other boy said that the rap music one was taller – the classical music one looked vigorous and healthy to me – but the rap music one had broken its stem on the way to school. But I was skeptical. Maybe I had today’s parable in mind: we sow the seed, but it sprouts on its own – it grows tall – we know not how. It grows to tall, ripe grain, or to become a shrub so might that the birds nest in its branches. Even controlling for variables in a scientific experiment, it is still God’s seed, God’s mystery, God’s power, God’s time.
That is kind of what is meant by “the kingdom of God.” That kingdom is not necessarily a place, with border guards and boundaries, but a sense of God’s power. God’s dominion. God rules here. God’s rules rule here. The seeds sprout and grow into plants. The sun rises and sets. We work, we sleep, we rise. We see God’s kingdom at work in the world around us.
Following the rules of God’s kingdom is a balancing act between the work God calls us to do, and an utter detachment from the results of that work. In every way, God wants us, I think, to participate in the work of that kingdom: to plant seeds. What are the seeds God has given you in your life? How do you think God wants you to participate in the kingdom of God?
What was God looking for when he chose David out of all the warriors offered to him, David, the youngest, to be the one chosen and beloved of God? What could David have possibly done to deserve such a blessing?
In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul encourages the believers. “The love of Christ urges us on,” Paul says. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away.”
There are moments in our lives when we just can’t make things fit. Try as hard as we can, something just doesn’t work. A relationship, a task, a problem to be solved. Aren’t we just prone to worry ourselves sick? Don’t we just want to get this right, that perfect, to please ourselves, to please God? Is this what God would want? How do we know what is the right thing to do? What if we just worked a little harder, fixed this thing a little better, dug a little deeper, stayed up a little later? Wouldn’t there be more justice in the world? Wouldn’t there be more mercy? Wouldn’t things be RIGHT?
One of my favorite summer stories is set in New York City, in an indeterminate decade sometime in the middle of the 20th century. It’s a story of boys playing marbles on the street, in the deepening dusk. The narrator is Buddy, shooting marbles with his friend, Ira. Buddy’s brother, Seymour, comes up to them.
One late afternoon, at that faintly soupy quarter of an hour in New York when the street lights have just been turned on and the parking lights of cars are just getting turned on - some on, some still off- I was playing curb marbles with a boy named Ira Yankauer, on the farther side of the side street just opposite the canvas canopy of our apartment house. I was eight. I was using Seymour's technique, or trying to - his side flick, his way of widely curving his marble at the other guy's - and I was losing steadily. Steadily but painlessly. For it was the time of day when New York City boys are much like Tiffin, Ohio, boys who hear a distant train whistle just as the last cow is being driven into the barn. At that magic quarter hour, if you lose marbles, you lose just marbles. Ira, too, I think, was properly time-suspended, and if so, all he could have been winning was marbles. Out of this quietness, and entirely in key with it, Seymour called to me. It came as a pleasant shock that there was a third person in the universe, and to this feeling was added the justness of its being Seymour. I turned around, totally, and I suspect Ira must have, too. The bulby bright lights had just gone on under the canopy of our house. Seymour was standing on the curb edge before it, facing us, balanced on his arches, his hands in the slash pockets of his sheep-lined coat. With the canopy lights behind him, his face was shadowed, dimmed out. He was ten. From the way he was balanced on the curb edge, from the position of his hands, from - well, the quantity x itself, I knew as well then as I know now that he was immensely conscious himself of the magic hour of the day. 'Could you try not aiming so much?' he asked me, still standing there. 'If you hit him when you aim, it'll just be luck.' He was speaking, communicating, and yet not breaking the spell. I then broke it. Quite deliberately. 'How can it be luck if I aim?' I said back to him, not loud (despite the italics) but with rather more irritation in my voice than I was actually feeling. He didn't say anything for a moment but simply stood balanced on the curb, looking at me, I knew imperfectly, with love. 'Because it will be,' he said. 'You'll be glad if you hit his marble - Ira's marble - won't you? Won't you be glad? And if you're glad when you hit somebody's marble, then you sort of secretly didn't expect too much to do it. So there'd have to be some luck in it, there'd have to be slightly quite a lot of accident in it.'
There are no accidents in the kingdom of God. We sow the seed, we shoot the marble, we reach out to the friend in need. The seeds sprout, we know not how, and when we turn around, a great tree has grown up in our midst, and the kingdom of God is here.
Simon’s 5th grade class had a science fair this week. Two of the children experimented with plants: did a plant grow faster if one played classical music, rock music or rap music next to it?
The children were convinced rap music did the trick. In one boy’s experiment, one plant was kind of shrunk down compared to the others. The other boy said that the rap music one was taller – the classical music one looked vigorous and healthy to me – but the rap music one had broken its stem on the way to school. But I was skeptical. Maybe I had today’s parable in mind: we sow the seed, but it sprouts on its own – it grows tall – we know not how. It grows to tall, ripe grain, or to become a shrub so might that the birds nest in its branches. Even controlling for variables in a scientific experiment, it is still God’s seed, God’s mystery, God’s power, God’s time.
That is kind of what is meant by “the kingdom of God.” That kingdom is not necessarily a place, with border guards and boundaries, but a sense of God’s power. God’s dominion. God rules here. God’s rules rule here. The seeds sprout and grow into plants. The sun rises and sets. We work, we sleep, we rise. We see God’s kingdom at work in the world around us.
Following the rules of God’s kingdom is a balancing act between the work God calls us to do, and an utter detachment from the results of that work. In every way, God wants us, I think, to participate in the work of that kingdom: to plant seeds. What are the seeds God has given you in your life? How do you think God wants you to participate in the kingdom of God?
What was God looking for when he chose David out of all the warriors offered to him, David, the youngest, to be the one chosen and beloved of God? What could David have possibly done to deserve such a blessing?
In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul encourages the believers. “The love of Christ urges us on,” Paul says. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away.”
There are moments in our lives when we just can’t make things fit. Try as hard as we can, something just doesn’t work. A relationship, a task, a problem to be solved. Aren’t we just prone to worry ourselves sick? Don’t we just want to get this right, that perfect, to please ourselves, to please God? Is this what God would want? How do we know what is the right thing to do? What if we just worked a little harder, fixed this thing a little better, dug a little deeper, stayed up a little later? Wouldn’t there be more justice in the world? Wouldn’t there be more mercy? Wouldn’t things be RIGHT?
One of my favorite summer stories is set in New York City, in an indeterminate decade sometime in the middle of the 20th century. It’s a story of boys playing marbles on the street, in the deepening dusk. The narrator is Buddy, shooting marbles with his friend, Ira. Buddy’s brother, Seymour, comes up to them.
One late afternoon, at that faintly soupy quarter of an hour in New York when the street lights have just been turned on and the parking lights of cars are just getting turned on - some on, some still off- I was playing curb marbles with a boy named Ira Yankauer, on the farther side of the side street just opposite the canvas canopy of our apartment house. I was eight. I was using Seymour's technique, or trying to - his side flick, his way of widely curving his marble at the other guy's - and I was losing steadily. Steadily but painlessly. For it was the time of day when New York City boys are much like Tiffin, Ohio, boys who hear a distant train whistle just as the last cow is being driven into the barn. At that magic quarter hour, if you lose marbles, you lose just marbles. Ira, too, I think, was properly time-suspended, and if so, all he could have been winning was marbles. Out of this quietness, and entirely in key with it, Seymour called to me. It came as a pleasant shock that there was a third person in the universe, and to this feeling was added the justness of its being Seymour. I turned around, totally, and I suspect Ira must have, too. The bulby bright lights had just gone on under the canopy of our house. Seymour was standing on the curb edge before it, facing us, balanced on his arches, his hands in the slash pockets of his sheep-lined coat. With the canopy lights behind him, his face was shadowed, dimmed out. He was ten. From the way he was balanced on the curb edge, from the position of his hands, from - well, the quantity x itself, I knew as well then as I know now that he was immensely conscious himself of the magic hour of the day. 'Could you try not aiming so much?' he asked me, still standing there. 'If you hit him when you aim, it'll just be luck.' He was speaking, communicating, and yet not breaking the spell. I then broke it. Quite deliberately. 'How can it be luck if I aim?' I said back to him, not loud (despite the italics) but with rather more irritation in my voice than I was actually feeling. He didn't say anything for a moment but simply stood balanced on the curb, looking at me, I knew imperfectly, with love. 'Because it will be,' he said. 'You'll be glad if you hit his marble - Ira's marble - won't you? Won't you be glad? And if you're glad when you hit somebody's marble, then you sort of secretly didn't expect too much to do it. So there'd have to be some luck in it, there'd have to be slightly quite a lot of accident in it.'
There are no accidents in the kingdom of God. We sow the seed, we shoot the marble, we reach out to the friend in need. The seeds sprout, we know not how, and when we turn around, a great tree has grown up in our midst, and the kingdom of God is here.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday June 7, 2009
Reflections on Relationships and the Trinity by The Rev’d Margaret R. Rose
When I took the General Ordination Exams some 28 years ago, there was a question about the Trinity. I can’t remember exactly if I had to delineate the various controversies or map out my own theological arguments. In those days, one had to write things out and then hire a typist to put it all together. Though the exam was “open book”, there was no quick enumeration of the various controversies which I have just checked out on Wikipedia—(I wanted to log in and edit, but didn’t) In order to prepare, since I had not gone to an Episcopal seminary, I took a class on the early church at Episcopal Divinity School whose main focus had been the Trinity. So when it came up on the Ordination Exam I was thanking my lucky stars. More than that, however, I have great memories of the class and its loud and lively discussion. Yes, we went over the controversies: Aryanism, the Monophosite issues, Monarchianism, the writings of the “Church Fathers”: Novation, Clement, Origin, Ireneus, the Gregories, Eusebius, and Athanasius. We were reminded of the “wrong” ways to understand the Trinity: One substance, different properties—water, steam, ice. Or the first among equals idea, where one person of the Trinity was just a little better than another. There were the discussions about Adoptionism. In the midst of it all, I was struck not by how outdated these issues were. But rather how current. I had the same questions these old boys had. Moreover, one day I leaned one direction and another found a different answer which seemed to reveal the truth and mystery of God as Trinity of persons. Though some would say these questions were settled by the Councils of the Church or the magisterium, I am convinced that faith is made vibrant and alive when the questions remain. It is unfortunate that too many had to burn at the stake when one or another was declared heretical.
The class and the professor, luckily, encouraged our questions, and when we got to Augustine, I knew we were on the right track. His was not the didactic answer bur rather invited us to look at who and how of the three in one, invited us into cosmic thinking. It is pretty standard theology now but for me then, it was a classic AHA! The fundamental truth of the Trinity is that the very nature of God is Relationship. Three in one, one in three and all interdependent.
And that is also the fundamental truth of human being. And our call is to live into that interdependence in a way that mirrors God, in a way that calls us into relationship with one another, with God and all of creation.
This past weekend I was the celebrant at a family wedding. (Actually, it was the family of my ex husband…) In the homily in addition to dutifully mentioning the texts they had chosen, I noted a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine which related a 40 year study following the lives of 250 men. What makes people ( men in this case) happy?, the question was asked. The results are what most of us know in our heads and hearts but too often forget. It is not wealth, not stuff, a nice house, education or even travel or health. But relationships---friends, family, lovers, husbands, wives-- who sustain us. That is it, said the scientific study, as if we didn’t know it already. That is what matters in life-our connections with other people. I went on to remind the congregation that they were there precisely because of their connection with the bride and groom and having made a promise to support the couple in their life together had made a vow as indelible as the couple themselves.
The morning after the wedding, I was up before dawn, to drive three hours to attend a baptism. This one was a great niece, the granddaughter of my sister who died a few years ago. A number of family members had flown great distances to be there.
Back at work, I had to face the hard task of working with colleagues whose positions are about to be eliminated. And to whom I had been the bearer of the news. Later, catching up on emails, there were a number of announcements, a death among colleagues’ families, or some need for prayer. I found myself writing notes of condolence to mail. What was happening I wondered, that I was stopping in the middle of the day to connect with friends or colleagues.
Somehow I had listened to my own preaching and knew that these connections are somehow as fundamental to wholeness as any task I could complete.
I might have avoided the wedding, avoided that difficult situation of meeting the new wife, decided I needed sleep rather than make a predawn drive, or simply ignored my colleagues who soon will have no job. But if I take my words or what I know about the Trinity seriously, I belong to these people and they to me, even when it is not easy to do so or we don’t quite understand how we fit.
This morning as I listened to the speech that President Obama gave in Cairo, I thought he must understand that too. His words about Muslims and Christian and Jews being indelibly related to each other by our common humanity seemed to be much more than pie in the sky wishful thoughts for peace. His call for all to respect the dignity of every human being hearkened to our own baptismal covenant. And his proclamation that there is more that binds us together than separates us proclaimed that we belong to each other beyond nation or tribe in ways we have not yet imagined. It is our relationships that matter—within the family and across the globe.
It may be a stretch to bring in the Biblical texts for Sunday here. But they seem to be about figuring out how to belong to God in a web of relationships. The prophet Isaiah, in fear and trembling answers God’s call: Here am I! Send me. Nicodemus in John’s Gospel comes to Jesus furtively by night to ask him who he really is. Later we see that Nicodemus plays a role in the band of followers. In Romans 8, as this new community of Christians discovers how its members are not just related by blood in their own families but as a diverse group who transcend family or tribe or nation, they claim their oneness in the spirit, bound together as children and heirs of God.
If only we could make that claim real, knowing that like the Trinity we are one when we are three or indeed many.
Reflections on Relationships and the Trinity by The Rev’d Margaret R. Rose
When I took the General Ordination Exams some 28 years ago, there was a question about the Trinity. I can’t remember exactly if I had to delineate the various controversies or map out my own theological arguments. In those days, one had to write things out and then hire a typist to put it all together. Though the exam was “open book”, there was no quick enumeration of the various controversies which I have just checked out on Wikipedia—(I wanted to log in and edit, but didn’t) In order to prepare, since I had not gone to an Episcopal seminary, I took a class on the early church at Episcopal Divinity School whose main focus had been the Trinity. So when it came up on the Ordination Exam I was thanking my lucky stars. More than that, however, I have great memories of the class and its loud and lively discussion. Yes, we went over the controversies: Aryanism, the Monophosite issues, Monarchianism, the writings of the “Church Fathers”: Novation, Clement, Origin, Ireneus, the Gregories, Eusebius, and Athanasius. We were reminded of the “wrong” ways to understand the Trinity: One substance, different properties—water, steam, ice. Or the first among equals idea, where one person of the Trinity was just a little better than another. There were the discussions about Adoptionism. In the midst of it all, I was struck not by how outdated these issues were. But rather how current. I had the same questions these old boys had. Moreover, one day I leaned one direction and another found a different answer which seemed to reveal the truth and mystery of God as Trinity of persons. Though some would say these questions were settled by the Councils of the Church or the magisterium, I am convinced that faith is made vibrant and alive when the questions remain. It is unfortunate that too many had to burn at the stake when one or another was declared heretical.
The class and the professor, luckily, encouraged our questions, and when we got to Augustine, I knew we were on the right track. His was not the didactic answer bur rather invited us to look at who and how of the three in one, invited us into cosmic thinking. It is pretty standard theology now but for me then, it was a classic AHA! The fundamental truth of the Trinity is that the very nature of God is Relationship. Three in one, one in three and all interdependent.
And that is also the fundamental truth of human being. And our call is to live into that interdependence in a way that mirrors God, in a way that calls us into relationship with one another, with God and all of creation.
This past weekend I was the celebrant at a family wedding. (Actually, it was the family of my ex husband…) In the homily in addition to dutifully mentioning the texts they had chosen, I noted a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine which related a 40 year study following the lives of 250 men. What makes people ( men in this case) happy?, the question was asked. The results are what most of us know in our heads and hearts but too often forget. It is not wealth, not stuff, a nice house, education or even travel or health. But relationships---friends, family, lovers, husbands, wives-- who sustain us. That is it, said the scientific study, as if we didn’t know it already. That is what matters in life-our connections with other people. I went on to remind the congregation that they were there precisely because of their connection with the bride and groom and having made a promise to support the couple in their life together had made a vow as indelible as the couple themselves.
The morning after the wedding, I was up before dawn, to drive three hours to attend a baptism. This one was a great niece, the granddaughter of my sister who died a few years ago. A number of family members had flown great distances to be there.
Back at work, I had to face the hard task of working with colleagues whose positions are about to be eliminated. And to whom I had been the bearer of the news. Later, catching up on emails, there were a number of announcements, a death among colleagues’ families, or some need for prayer. I found myself writing notes of condolence to mail. What was happening I wondered, that I was stopping in the middle of the day to connect with friends or colleagues.
Somehow I had listened to my own preaching and knew that these connections are somehow as fundamental to wholeness as any task I could complete.
I might have avoided the wedding, avoided that difficult situation of meeting the new wife, decided I needed sleep rather than make a predawn drive, or simply ignored my colleagues who soon will have no job. But if I take my words or what I know about the Trinity seriously, I belong to these people and they to me, even when it is not easy to do so or we don’t quite understand how we fit.
This morning as I listened to the speech that President Obama gave in Cairo, I thought he must understand that too. His words about Muslims and Christian and Jews being indelibly related to each other by our common humanity seemed to be much more than pie in the sky wishful thoughts for peace. His call for all to respect the dignity of every human being hearkened to our own baptismal covenant. And his proclamation that there is more that binds us together than separates us proclaimed that we belong to each other beyond nation or tribe in ways we have not yet imagined. It is our relationships that matter—within the family and across the globe.
It may be a stretch to bring in the Biblical texts for Sunday here. But they seem to be about figuring out how to belong to God in a web of relationships. The prophet Isaiah, in fear and trembling answers God’s call: Here am I! Send me. Nicodemus in John’s Gospel comes to Jesus furtively by night to ask him who he really is. Later we see that Nicodemus plays a role in the band of followers. In Romans 8, as this new community of Christians discovers how its members are not just related by blood in their own families but as a diverse group who transcend family or tribe or nation, they claim their oneness in the spirit, bound together as children and heirs of God.
If only we could make that claim real, knowing that like the Trinity we are one when we are three or indeed many.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Pentecost
A reflection on the readings for Pentecost Year B
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
By: Janine Goodwin, M.S. Ed., M.A.
Pentecost is often called “the birthday of the church.” The meaning of birthdays has changed for me since the giddy early days when a birthday meant the presence of loved ones, cake, brightly wrapped gifts, and an increase in my allowance and responsibilities. As my fifth decade draws to a close, the love, cake, and gifts are still a delight, but along with them comes a sense of time passing and some disquieting questions: How am I growing toward spiritual maturity? How will I afford to retire? Am I using my gifts in God’s service? Will I still have a job on my next birthday? Am I ever going to get started on that novel?
My response to the birthday of the church has changed, too. As a child and a teenager, I listened to the story of Pentecost with awe and wonder, and believed firmly that the Spirit would indeed lead us into all truth, which meant that the problems of the church and the world would be solved within my lifetime. I was a child of the 1960s, when even adults said such things, and it seemed reasonable to me to expect that with God’s help we could eliminate such problems as war, hunger, pollution and prejudice in a matter of a few years. Why, I could see some of the solutions as a bright child! Never mind that the nations were busy waging conventional war and preparing for nuclear war, that quite a large portion of humanity didn’t see their prejudices as anything they needed to change, and that many people could only see accepting more pollution as the necessary tradeoff for survival. In the church, I saw signs of unity and hope everywhere. All kinds of Christians were in closer communication than ever before, Vatican II had opened new dialogues between Catholics and Protestants, dialogue between religions was opening up as well—I couldn’t understand why the wary, cynical adults around me didn’t respond to my bright predictions with immediate enthusiasm.
Now I do. A few decades later, with war, prejudice, hunger, and pollution still noticeably present in the world, I look at the Christian churches and see that they are having increasing trouble communicating with each other, and that old conflicts between religions are being expressed in familiar, ugly ways. I see churches plagued by conflict, schism and scandal—indeed, I can’t think of any that aren’t. People aren’t going to churches as much as they used to, and the churches I’ve loved and been a part of are shrinking even as the population increases. There are dioceses stuck in interminable arguments between factions, parishes caught in dysfunctional patterns they don’t want to examine. I’ve spent time away from churches at some points in my life, looking for the healing that will allow me to function as a healthy member and neither add to the church’s problems nor be hurt beyond endurance by difficulties within the church.
Trying to ignore doubts and disappointments doesn’t work. Experience has taught me that the attempt to be positive without facing the negative leads straight into denial, which leads me away from God. Shall I dismiss my early hopes, as I felt dismissed by the adults around me, or examine my assumptions to see what errors I may have made and what change I may make in my responses? Dismissing my hopes would allow me to be cynical, to avoid further risk, to quit trying, but it would also make the future a dead end. Examining my assumptions can be disorienting, scary, and sometimes painful, but it leaves room for hope—and, come to think of it, for a certain wise wariness.
My early hopes were based on my limited experience of time. I had, then, no sense of how long it can take to work out one’s own problems, let alone work with others to make changes in institutions that are many centuries old. As an adolescent influenced by those who that predicted the end of the world in our time, I lacked not just a sense of the past, but a sense of the future as well. I could not see how brief my own life was in the scale of history. Now, I can look at the tragedies and the achievements of salvation history, and face the fact that both are partial; growth has come out of the tragedies, and the achievements are still unfinished.
I also lacked humility and discernment, and worked from an unexamined perfectionism. Because I saw possible solutions, I failed to see the efforts others had made and the difficulties they had faced. I did not always respect the people to whom I was speaking, nor consider what their experience taught them or what ideas their temperament might favor. I was long on ideas, short on empathy; ready to explain, but not to listen. Time alone does not change such shortcomings: they must be realized before we can change them, and change takes work. Perfectionism must give way to the desire to do as well as we can and the knowledge that the best we can do may, and probably will, fall short of perfection.
Groups of people can also have difficulties with time, humility, and discernment which affect their ability to understand what God is saying and doing in their lives. In studying John’s Gospel, I become aware of characteristics within it that correspond to things I need to watch in myself: the need to be right and the related need to have others be wrong, the sense of being a resentful outsider, the idea that I have a secret intimacy with God that others do not share. John’s poetry and spiritual exaltation of this gospel come with harsh words toward a “world” that opposes Jesus and toward a people that has cast the writer’s community out—“the Jews.” Early Christians were often excluded from the communities where they were raised and sometimes persecuted by those communities. The misreading of the texts that resulted has led to centuries of anti-Semitism from Christians, an evil Jesus does not prophesy about in John’s gospel. If we feel in any way embattled, persecuted, or misunderstood—and it is always possible for us to do so, no matter how much power we actually have and use or misuse—we may fall into the tragic error of using John’s insider/outsider language not as a record of old griefs but as a shield against our own insecurities and as a weapon against those we feel have hurt us, instead of as a guide into a wider truth. John is one of four gospels included in the conversation we know as Scripture, and must be read alongside the others for the sake of balance. Its high poetry needs to be set beside the bluntness of Mark, its exclusions must be tempered by the inclusiveness of Luke/Acts.
It is far too easy to condemn “the world” and mean by it whatever we do not like in our time and place, while fostering the illusion that we do not participate in the injustices practiced by the organizations we support, the corporations to which we give our money, the nation where we vote. It can be very painful to see the ways in which we are part of a corrupt and wasteful world, the ways in which we mirror that world in our own lives. We are seldom as separate as we would like to believe from the things we dislike about our church or secular culture. Dismissing “the world” and exalting a small group which will be led into all truth can lead to smugness and insularity, the failure to recognize our own shortcomings. Rereading the gospel passage, I begin to see what Jesus does not say. He does not say, “The Spirit will lead ONLY you into all truth IMMEDIATELY and INFALLIBLY and NOT lead those other people with whom you may disagree.” This leaves me free to appreciate the ways in which we are all still working to hear the Spirit, all still failing at times to hear what the Spirit is saying.
When I read this passage alongside Paul’s words about patience and discernment, I begin to understand that my hope for specific changes in the way and time that I want them can slip easily into an attempt to control others and God. I must work for what I believe in, but understand that my hope goes beyond what I can see and understand. All of us must leave room for God to work in ways we cannot yet guess at, without invoking the Spirit as an excuse for failing to do the work we dare not face. It is a delicate balance, and one that shifts constantly. It is work whose first requirement is to practice the prayer of listening before we speak, and whose second is to speak humbly and prayerfully, even when we speak passionately.
Having acknowledged doubt and disappointment, conflict and sin, and the limits of our vision, we can still rejoice in the birthday of the Church. The Spirit falls upon the disciples, Jesus’ promise is kept, and the church is born. Peter’s preaching in Acts is clearly inspired by the Holy Spirit, even though he will later become part of a movement to try and make new Gentile Christians adopt practices appropriate only to Judaism, and will be voted down by a council whose words begin, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” In later centuries, churches will learn, slowly, to repudiate slavery, to begin the long conversation on sexism. The passage Peter quotes from Joel clearly envisions equality between men and women, yet centuries passed between the last women priests of the early church and the first ones of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; still, the leadership of many Spirit-filled women, recorded or forgotten, has made the prophecy come true in various circumstances. The Spirit does lead the church into truth. It’s not quick, easy, or certain, and it depends on our willingness to listen and to let the Spirit of God speak with in us in ways we may not yet fully understand. Paul’s “sighs too deep for words” can be very hard to breathe. God may not be on our side in every detail of every argument, yet God is working in the depths of our souls, in ways we can’t understand. Churches are inspired and fallible, broken and healing. Sometimes we are drunk on the sound of our own voices; sometimes we are speaking as the Spirit gives utterance. We are never going to be immune to error or difficulty.
In the reading from Romans, the image of creation groaning in labor mirrors a passage a few verses beyond our Gospel reading: in John 16:21-22, Jesus gives the disciples a vivid image that gives hope and meaning to the difficulties of history and of our time.
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
This image gives me a comfort that is entirely different than the uneasy smugness of denial. It acknowledges the pain of the past and our present griefs and losses, but assures us that our pain is indeed the necessary and fruitful pain of labor, that something good will be born of it, and that, in the end, we will rejoice. On the birthday of the church, we understand that the pain of the church will help to bring forth the wholeness and joy for which we long. Happy birthday, church: labor well.
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
By: Janine Goodwin, M.S. Ed., M.A.
Pentecost is often called “the birthday of the church.” The meaning of birthdays has changed for me since the giddy early days when a birthday meant the presence of loved ones, cake, brightly wrapped gifts, and an increase in my allowance and responsibilities. As my fifth decade draws to a close, the love, cake, and gifts are still a delight, but along with them comes a sense of time passing and some disquieting questions: How am I growing toward spiritual maturity? How will I afford to retire? Am I using my gifts in God’s service? Will I still have a job on my next birthday? Am I ever going to get started on that novel?
My response to the birthday of the church has changed, too. As a child and a teenager, I listened to the story of Pentecost with awe and wonder, and believed firmly that the Spirit would indeed lead us into all truth, which meant that the problems of the church and the world would be solved within my lifetime. I was a child of the 1960s, when even adults said such things, and it seemed reasonable to me to expect that with God’s help we could eliminate such problems as war, hunger, pollution and prejudice in a matter of a few years. Why, I could see some of the solutions as a bright child! Never mind that the nations were busy waging conventional war and preparing for nuclear war, that quite a large portion of humanity didn’t see their prejudices as anything they needed to change, and that many people could only see accepting more pollution as the necessary tradeoff for survival. In the church, I saw signs of unity and hope everywhere. All kinds of Christians were in closer communication than ever before, Vatican II had opened new dialogues between Catholics and Protestants, dialogue between religions was opening up as well—I couldn’t understand why the wary, cynical adults around me didn’t respond to my bright predictions with immediate enthusiasm.
Now I do. A few decades later, with war, prejudice, hunger, and pollution still noticeably present in the world, I look at the Christian churches and see that they are having increasing trouble communicating with each other, and that old conflicts between religions are being expressed in familiar, ugly ways. I see churches plagued by conflict, schism and scandal—indeed, I can’t think of any that aren’t. People aren’t going to churches as much as they used to, and the churches I’ve loved and been a part of are shrinking even as the population increases. There are dioceses stuck in interminable arguments between factions, parishes caught in dysfunctional patterns they don’t want to examine. I’ve spent time away from churches at some points in my life, looking for the healing that will allow me to function as a healthy member and neither add to the church’s problems nor be hurt beyond endurance by difficulties within the church.
Trying to ignore doubts and disappointments doesn’t work. Experience has taught me that the attempt to be positive without facing the negative leads straight into denial, which leads me away from God. Shall I dismiss my early hopes, as I felt dismissed by the adults around me, or examine my assumptions to see what errors I may have made and what change I may make in my responses? Dismissing my hopes would allow me to be cynical, to avoid further risk, to quit trying, but it would also make the future a dead end. Examining my assumptions can be disorienting, scary, and sometimes painful, but it leaves room for hope—and, come to think of it, for a certain wise wariness.
My early hopes were based on my limited experience of time. I had, then, no sense of how long it can take to work out one’s own problems, let alone work with others to make changes in institutions that are many centuries old. As an adolescent influenced by those who that predicted the end of the world in our time, I lacked not just a sense of the past, but a sense of the future as well. I could not see how brief my own life was in the scale of history. Now, I can look at the tragedies and the achievements of salvation history, and face the fact that both are partial; growth has come out of the tragedies, and the achievements are still unfinished.
I also lacked humility and discernment, and worked from an unexamined perfectionism. Because I saw possible solutions, I failed to see the efforts others had made and the difficulties they had faced. I did not always respect the people to whom I was speaking, nor consider what their experience taught them or what ideas their temperament might favor. I was long on ideas, short on empathy; ready to explain, but not to listen. Time alone does not change such shortcomings: they must be realized before we can change them, and change takes work. Perfectionism must give way to the desire to do as well as we can and the knowledge that the best we can do may, and probably will, fall short of perfection.
Groups of people can also have difficulties with time, humility, and discernment which affect their ability to understand what God is saying and doing in their lives. In studying John’s Gospel, I become aware of characteristics within it that correspond to things I need to watch in myself: the need to be right and the related need to have others be wrong, the sense of being a resentful outsider, the idea that I have a secret intimacy with God that others do not share. John’s poetry and spiritual exaltation of this gospel come with harsh words toward a “world” that opposes Jesus and toward a people that has cast the writer’s community out—“the Jews.” Early Christians were often excluded from the communities where they were raised and sometimes persecuted by those communities. The misreading of the texts that resulted has led to centuries of anti-Semitism from Christians, an evil Jesus does not prophesy about in John’s gospel. If we feel in any way embattled, persecuted, or misunderstood—and it is always possible for us to do so, no matter how much power we actually have and use or misuse—we may fall into the tragic error of using John’s insider/outsider language not as a record of old griefs but as a shield against our own insecurities and as a weapon against those we feel have hurt us, instead of as a guide into a wider truth. John is one of four gospels included in the conversation we know as Scripture, and must be read alongside the others for the sake of balance. Its high poetry needs to be set beside the bluntness of Mark, its exclusions must be tempered by the inclusiveness of Luke/Acts.
It is far too easy to condemn “the world” and mean by it whatever we do not like in our time and place, while fostering the illusion that we do not participate in the injustices practiced by the organizations we support, the corporations to which we give our money, the nation where we vote. It can be very painful to see the ways in which we are part of a corrupt and wasteful world, the ways in which we mirror that world in our own lives. We are seldom as separate as we would like to believe from the things we dislike about our church or secular culture. Dismissing “the world” and exalting a small group which will be led into all truth can lead to smugness and insularity, the failure to recognize our own shortcomings. Rereading the gospel passage, I begin to see what Jesus does not say. He does not say, “The Spirit will lead ONLY you into all truth IMMEDIATELY and INFALLIBLY and NOT lead those other people with whom you may disagree.” This leaves me free to appreciate the ways in which we are all still working to hear the Spirit, all still failing at times to hear what the Spirit is saying.
When I read this passage alongside Paul’s words about patience and discernment, I begin to understand that my hope for specific changes in the way and time that I want them can slip easily into an attempt to control others and God. I must work for what I believe in, but understand that my hope goes beyond what I can see and understand. All of us must leave room for God to work in ways we cannot yet guess at, without invoking the Spirit as an excuse for failing to do the work we dare not face. It is a delicate balance, and one that shifts constantly. It is work whose first requirement is to practice the prayer of listening before we speak, and whose second is to speak humbly and prayerfully, even when we speak passionately.
Having acknowledged doubt and disappointment, conflict and sin, and the limits of our vision, we can still rejoice in the birthday of the Church. The Spirit falls upon the disciples, Jesus’ promise is kept, and the church is born. Peter’s preaching in Acts is clearly inspired by the Holy Spirit, even though he will later become part of a movement to try and make new Gentile Christians adopt practices appropriate only to Judaism, and will be voted down by a council whose words begin, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” In later centuries, churches will learn, slowly, to repudiate slavery, to begin the long conversation on sexism. The passage Peter quotes from Joel clearly envisions equality between men and women, yet centuries passed between the last women priests of the early church and the first ones of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; still, the leadership of many Spirit-filled women, recorded or forgotten, has made the prophecy come true in various circumstances. The Spirit does lead the church into truth. It’s not quick, easy, or certain, and it depends on our willingness to listen and to let the Spirit of God speak with in us in ways we may not yet fully understand. Paul’s “sighs too deep for words” can be very hard to breathe. God may not be on our side in every detail of every argument, yet God is working in the depths of our souls, in ways we can’t understand. Churches are inspired and fallible, broken and healing. Sometimes we are drunk on the sound of our own voices; sometimes we are speaking as the Spirit gives utterance. We are never going to be immune to error or difficulty.
In the reading from Romans, the image of creation groaning in labor mirrors a passage a few verses beyond our Gospel reading: in John 16:21-22, Jesus gives the disciples a vivid image that gives hope and meaning to the difficulties of history and of our time.
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
This image gives me a comfort that is entirely different than the uneasy smugness of denial. It acknowledges the pain of the past and our present griefs and losses, but assures us that our pain is indeed the necessary and fruitful pain of labor, that something good will be born of it, and that, in the end, we will rejoice. On the birthday of the church, we understand that the pain of the church will help to bring forth the wholeness and joy for which we long. Happy birthday, church: labor well.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Easter 7B/Ascension
A reflection on the lectionary readings for Easter 7B/Ascension by The Rev. Jacqueline Schmitt
Lately I have felt trapped by the Episcopal Church. It’s probably not just the Episcopal Church’s fault; I think any kind of parish ministry demands the “jack of all trades/master of none” kind of busy-work that precludes sustained thought, reflection and prayer. There is hardly any time to answer that old Marvin Gaye question, “What’s going on?”
Just before I woke up this morning I had a dream about the Episcopal Church. The radio comes on at 6 a.m., and in that nether land of quasi-consciousness, my dreams are often laced with news reports. Maybe this one was. I saw (in my dream) a picture of the Presiding Bishop, in those lovely blue-green vestments; I think it was some kind of communion service, some big service, and a tall, blond woman in an alb was coming toward the congregation with a chalice. The news report (in my dream) said that the Presiding Bishop had started her tenure with such promise of productivity, activity, good things, and now, ironically, because of unforeseen conditions (calamities unstated but known to everyone hearing the report), this early promise would be unrealized. Aha, my dream-self said to myself, how true, how true. Now it makes sense.
Well, as dreams go, it didn’t make any sense at all, and here and now I’m not about to delve into all the analysis the dream offers. It does, though, have something to say about what made me eager to write this entry about Ascentiontide and its sister observance, Rogation.
I think we women were promised something by the church, as our employer, that it has not always delivered on. Jesus gets us into this business, alluring us with the power of prophecy, of justice, of mercy. The kingdom of God is among you, Jesus would say to us; join up! So we do; well, we hang our hat on the institutional church, which nearly always disappoints us, nearly always falls short of that prophecy we first heard Jesus shout from the rooftops or whisper in our ears.
Yet in this season of Ascension, we remember that Jesus has delivered on those early promises. Human institutions may sin and fall short of the glory of God, but Jesus knows that. Jesus walked these streets with us, and now where has that gotten us? Into heaven, with God.
The Ascension is the taking of our human nature into the territory where we were never allowed to go. Our created nature -- our kind of people -- were cast out of paradise, and God posted cherubim at the gates to keep us out. Now, with Christ, our status is raised higher than the angels.
Celebrating Ascensiontide was important to early Christians, celebrating this new reality of not only God with us, but us with God. In the 5th century, times were tough: plagues, pestilence, economic uncertainty – sound familiar? A devastating earthquake struck Vienna. The Bishop got active. On Ascension Day in 470, he sent the clergy and people out into the streets, into the fields, to offer prayers for God’s grace, for relief from these bad events, for abundant crops and a return to prosperity. As the years went by, this custom of processing around the town and countryside became very popular – by the 8th century it was the practice in England, and the association of the ascension of Jesus with springtime prayers (rogations) for deliverance from pestilence and abundance in the fields was set. In England, the Ascension procession became known as the beating of the bounds – the people of the community would walk the boundaries of the parish, and boys would be bumped, or beaten, at markers along the way so they would into their old age remember the boundaries of the common lands. At the end of the procession, there would be a community party, with lots to eat and drink, to make sure everyone, poor and not-so-poor alike, would remember the occasion as one of community spirit and abundance.
These sorts of community events are sort of archaic – this one has these old, English roots, kind of quaint and kind of quirky. When I was reading up on them, several of them would end with the disclaimer, “This kind of thing isn’t needed any more. It comes from the days when people could not read, when maps were not accurate, when boundaries would be frequently in dispute.”
But I think “beating the bounds” is a very important custom for a community, today, especially a community like the one which surrounds my church – a poor, not very well developed community, a community whose landowners neglect their property, who provide poor housing for their tenants and who allow trash and blight to collect. Communities like ours forget where our boundaries lie at our peril.
I went to college in Washington, DC, where massive sections of the city were devastated by riot and fire after the assassination of Martin Luther King. For decades those neighborhoods, and others, were left to languish, and decay. Middle class people moved out; poor people moved in. The other day on the radio I heard people talking, not too happily, about “the Plan” for redevelopment of parts of the District of Columbia. “Things happen without our even knowing about them,” one woman said. She named several elementary schools. “They closed them for renovation, they told us, but then they were opened up as expensive condos. Of course there are no children left. They moved us out, and moved in rich people. That’s the Plan.” A neighborhood loses its memories of its boundaries, of its heart and soul, at its peril.
The Presiding Bishop recently released a report about an Episcopal campaign to combat domestic poverty. The Episcopal Church IS IN poor neighborhoods, she said, in and among and of them, by virtue of the buildings that were built there years ago. Can the church deliver on that promise? Can the Episcopal Church be with us in our neighborhood? Can the Episcopal Church make a difference? Can the Episcopal Church remember that the boundaries of our parish include the poor, the poorly housed, the homeless, the forgotten, the not-so-worthy needy, the crazy, the abuser, the criminal, the liar, the lonely, the lost and the unloved? Who do we have to beat to get them to remember THOSE boundaries?
During this Ascensiontide, we remember that not only is God among us, in the person of Jesus, but through the ascension of Jesus into heaven, WE are now among God. Jesus, who has walked these very neighborhood streets – Pleasant Street and Green Street, Warren Avenue and Main Street – has now taken all of this reality of our neighborhood, and neighborhoods like it, with him. Through Jesus, this is now God’s reality, too. God KNOWS PleasantGreen, just as God knows you, and me.
Lately I have felt trapped by the Episcopal Church. It’s probably not just the Episcopal Church’s fault; I think any kind of parish ministry demands the “jack of all trades/master of none” kind of busy-work that precludes sustained thought, reflection and prayer. There is hardly any time to answer that old Marvin Gaye question, “What’s going on?”
Just before I woke up this morning I had a dream about the Episcopal Church. The radio comes on at 6 a.m., and in that nether land of quasi-consciousness, my dreams are often laced with news reports. Maybe this one was. I saw (in my dream) a picture of the Presiding Bishop, in those lovely blue-green vestments; I think it was some kind of communion service, some big service, and a tall, blond woman in an alb was coming toward the congregation with a chalice. The news report (in my dream) said that the Presiding Bishop had started her tenure with such promise of productivity, activity, good things, and now, ironically, because of unforeseen conditions (calamities unstated but known to everyone hearing the report), this early promise would be unrealized. Aha, my dream-self said to myself, how true, how true. Now it makes sense.
Well, as dreams go, it didn’t make any sense at all, and here and now I’m not about to delve into all the analysis the dream offers. It does, though, have something to say about what made me eager to write this entry about Ascentiontide and its sister observance, Rogation.
I think we women were promised something by the church, as our employer, that it has not always delivered on. Jesus gets us into this business, alluring us with the power of prophecy, of justice, of mercy. The kingdom of God is among you, Jesus would say to us; join up! So we do; well, we hang our hat on the institutional church, which nearly always disappoints us, nearly always falls short of that prophecy we first heard Jesus shout from the rooftops or whisper in our ears.
Yet in this season of Ascension, we remember that Jesus has delivered on those early promises. Human institutions may sin and fall short of the glory of God, but Jesus knows that. Jesus walked these streets with us, and now where has that gotten us? Into heaven, with God.
The Ascension is the taking of our human nature into the territory where we were never allowed to go. Our created nature -- our kind of people -- were cast out of paradise, and God posted cherubim at the gates to keep us out. Now, with Christ, our status is raised higher than the angels.
Celebrating Ascensiontide was important to early Christians, celebrating this new reality of not only God with us, but us with God. In the 5th century, times were tough: plagues, pestilence, economic uncertainty – sound familiar? A devastating earthquake struck Vienna. The Bishop got active. On Ascension Day in 470, he sent the clergy and people out into the streets, into the fields, to offer prayers for God’s grace, for relief from these bad events, for abundant crops and a return to prosperity. As the years went by, this custom of processing around the town and countryside became very popular – by the 8th century it was the practice in England, and the association of the ascension of Jesus with springtime prayers (rogations) for deliverance from pestilence and abundance in the fields was set. In England, the Ascension procession became known as the beating of the bounds – the people of the community would walk the boundaries of the parish, and boys would be bumped, or beaten, at markers along the way so they would into their old age remember the boundaries of the common lands. At the end of the procession, there would be a community party, with lots to eat and drink, to make sure everyone, poor and not-so-poor alike, would remember the occasion as one of community spirit and abundance.
These sorts of community events are sort of archaic – this one has these old, English roots, kind of quaint and kind of quirky. When I was reading up on them, several of them would end with the disclaimer, “This kind of thing isn’t needed any more. It comes from the days when people could not read, when maps were not accurate, when boundaries would be frequently in dispute.”
But I think “beating the bounds” is a very important custom for a community, today, especially a community like the one which surrounds my church – a poor, not very well developed community, a community whose landowners neglect their property, who provide poor housing for their tenants and who allow trash and blight to collect. Communities like ours forget where our boundaries lie at our peril.
I went to college in Washington, DC, where massive sections of the city were devastated by riot and fire after the assassination of Martin Luther King. For decades those neighborhoods, and others, were left to languish, and decay. Middle class people moved out; poor people moved in. The other day on the radio I heard people talking, not too happily, about “the Plan” for redevelopment of parts of the District of Columbia. “Things happen without our even knowing about them,” one woman said. She named several elementary schools. “They closed them for renovation, they told us, but then they were opened up as expensive condos. Of course there are no children left. They moved us out, and moved in rich people. That’s the Plan.” A neighborhood loses its memories of its boundaries, of its heart and soul, at its peril.
The Presiding Bishop recently released a report about an Episcopal campaign to combat domestic poverty. The Episcopal Church IS IN poor neighborhoods, she said, in and among and of them, by virtue of the buildings that were built there years ago. Can the church deliver on that promise? Can the Episcopal Church be with us in our neighborhood? Can the Episcopal Church make a difference? Can the Episcopal Church remember that the boundaries of our parish include the poor, the poorly housed, the homeless, the forgotten, the not-so-worthy needy, the crazy, the abuser, the criminal, the liar, the lonely, the lost and the unloved? Who do we have to beat to get them to remember THOSE boundaries?
During this Ascensiontide, we remember that not only is God among us, in the person of Jesus, but through the ascension of Jesus into heaven, WE are now among God. Jesus, who has walked these very neighborhood streets – Pleasant Street and Green Street, Warren Avenue and Main Street – has now taken all of this reality of our neighborhood, and neighborhoods like it, with him. Through Jesus, this is now God’s reality, too. God KNOWS PleasantGreen, just as God knows you, and me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
