Scripture for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost includes Song of Solomon 2:8-13; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
As today’s leaflet reports, I aim to give not a sermon, but a homily—which, customarily, is shorter than a sermon. Traditionally, a homily attempts to be practical and spiritually illuminating, while a sermon by tradition gives an exposition of religious doctrine. (Put it that way, and I should prefer to give a homily rather than a sermon every time I preach.) Homiletics is the academic discipline that teaches seminarians how to preach. (Somehow, I got through seminary without taking a homiletics course—something I’ve never admitted to Thomas Mikelson, who taught homiletics at Harvard Divinity School.) The funny word “homiletical” sounds like “omelette”, which suggests that if it takes three eggs to create a sermon, a homily requires just one. A single text, a single point.
I will choose the Letter of James, because he writes about the importance of doing, not just hearing, the Word of God. His letter pokes a very sharp point into the inflated self-importance of people who claim they believe earnestly but fail to show it by their actions. He hits this nail firmly on its head in this passage:
“But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder… For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” (2:18-19, 26)
Here is the flip side to that famous story of two sisters, contemplative Mary and activist Martha, in which Jesus appears to value them both but favors listening Mary over bustling Martha.
James comes down on the side of results. “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (2:14-17)
That was the outlook of the Northern Berkshire Interfaith Action Initiative, a mouthful to say and much about filling empty stomachs. With community service their common denominator, this team of allies filled a vacuum created when the Community Action food pantry lost its funding. On the order of 600 families are now finding assistance and respectful welcome at the Friendship Center on Eagle Street.
I recall a vestry meeting just before summer started. Several members said, “Wouldn’t it be great if St. John’s had a vegetable garden and the produce went to the Friendship Center?” Three of those members, with one spouse and one dog, tilled the northwest corner of the rectory yard and planted chard, squash, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, cabbage, broccoli— just as the fig tree put forth its figs in the Song of Solomon, this garden has produced plentifully!
And I’m reasonably confident that these volunteers would tell you they have been blessed in their doing.
What I notice about James’s discourse (let’s call it a homily) is how he defines religion. It isn’t defined by saying things, or by believing in a certain way, or by worshiping in one way or another, but by the kind of doing that cares for people and contributes to the integrity of the doer, the worker.
Labor Day gets us reflecting on work, reflecting on ourselves as workers, and considering what it means to be unemployed, under-employed, and formerly-employed. Later in this service, as we present objects which symbolize our work, we hope to hear results of such reflecting. Which is why I am serving up a one-egg omelette, not the usual three.
Keep James in mind. Work can be downright holy, work that cares for people, work done with care for the people involved, work that contributes to the integrity of the worker by (to paraphrase Jesus in today’s Gospel) stimulating the human heart to intend what is good, and (to sum up James) achieve it.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Surviving the Rites of Succession
Scripture for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost includes I Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
It may be with some relief that we hear today that David has gone to sleep with his ancestors. It has been a long summer hearing his royal saga. And no wonder: he ruled Israel for forty years. That’s a lot of material. Today we’re reminded that David passed the baton—or the crown—to his son Solomon, and thus was born a dynasty.
That may be a more practical model of governance than electing a president every four years. On the down side, dynastic rule does tend to entrench the bad ideas and mistakes of the past; but even in a democracy those seem to have a long shelf life. And even in a democracy we occasionally get dynasties, however short-lived.
But at the rate of David’s tenure, his dynasty would be a long one. And sure enough, Solomon also ruled Israel forty years. His reputation vies with that of his father. It was Solomon who built the great temple in Jerusalem that David wanted to build for God. Among Solomon’s wives was the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, which gave commerce a boost and made the good times roll. Solomon is celebrated for his wisdom and his wealth. Jesus used his name as a benchmark when he urged us to recognize God’s superabundant blessings in life, calling us to admire the lilies of the field, which Solomon in all his glory could not out-dress—a famous sermon which makes the point that we should choose gratitude as an antidote to anxiety.
Solomon’s prayer to God, early in his reign, is strong in gratitude for all that God had done to secure the reign of his father David. Solomon saw this as God’s approval of David’s faithfulness, righteousness, and uprightness of heart towards God. Huh? Wait, there’s more: Offering Solomon access to that same covenant mutuality, God says to him, “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”
Now, hold it. Hear the umpire’s whistle on that play. Is this the same David, now being saluted by God, the same David who went way beyond coveting his neighbor’s wife, stealing the lovely Bathsheba, eliminating Bathsheba’s husband by the dirtiest of deeds?
Yes, but when you’re King you get to tell the story, and, Bathsheba being Solomon’s mother, he puts the best of faces on his royal history and hers, the ends justifying the means.
And yes, there is one more aspect for which Solomon is remembered: his wisdom, his wealth, and his women. So many wives we lose count. And through them, Solomon was drawn to dabble in the religious practices of their native cultures. While this put the King at odds with the orthodox, the criticism in today’s reading represents a soft landing: “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.” Lesser mortals would have been drummed out of Israel for that offense, but again, the King gets to tell his own story… and, after all, he kept the economy brisk, those forty years.
What endeared Solomon to his own and subsequent generations appears to have been his humility before God. Again, from his inaugural prayer: I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. I don’t know everything and I’m not going to pretend I do. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. I don’t know how to do this without you. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; I am not always going to know which is which. And who can govern this your great people, without your guidance?”
Humility, understanding, ethical discernment… doesn’t that sound like a winning package in a head of state? When you hear these signs from a candidate this fall, vote for that person!
And read the whole story in the First Book of Kings. This royal succession was not as smooth as we might imagine. Solomon’s older step-brother wanted to be King, even declared himself enthroned moments before Solomon’s backers gave him the title. You’ll find that Solomon could be ruthless, not above having his step-brother and his father’s chief general executed in order to secure his throne. While we expect there to be blood along the campaign trail, in our day it’s metaphorical; in Solomon’s day, it was actual.
Notice the blood in our Gospel today. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ..”
I remember the deep offense felt by a parishioner, hearing these verses. I remember telling her, Yes, it’s meant to offend us, to catch our attention and wrestle with its meaning. But the King gets to tell his own story, and sometimes it’s not pretty.
And what is it Jesus is talking about here? Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on the altar, we heard today. Now, there’s blood. Jesus spoke to a first-century culture that still believed God required and delighted in the blood sacrifice of animals, though by the time the Gospel-writer John put these words on parchment, the temple had been shut down, obliterated by the Roman emperor’s army as the final blow to the Jewish movement to free Israel. Ceremonial cultic blood sacrifice was a thing of the past by John’s time. By then, for Jews and Christians alike, worship was centered in homes around kitchen tables and in upper rooms for fellowship among neighboring households.
For Jews and Christians, worship was intimately related to mealtimes. The defining ceremony for Christians melded the Jewish Passover supper with all that Jesus did with that liturgy to convey the great and steadfast love of God in the present moment—not just in one historical moment, but now.
But he isn’t describing here the sacramental act of eating the bread and drinking the wine of the eucharist. He digs deeper, into the heart of what that last supper means. His flesh and blood is what God chose to enter and occupy in the Incarnation. In Jesus’s flesh it is God who washes the feet of the disciples, even the treacherous one. The pulsing of Jesus’s blood through the chambers of God’s pure compassion always sustains our Lord’s reach to touch the sick with healing and the obsessed with freedom.
To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus is to want God, to need God with the earnestness of young Solomon. It is to take into ourselves the matter of God on the frontier where divine Spirit must meet our flesh, right in our gut. It is to say, God, we cannot manage our day to day life without you. We’ve tried, and it doesn’t work.
It is, to quote the writer to the Ephesians, being careful—full of care—how we live, as wise people making the most of the time, choosing to be filled with the Spirit that dwells in the flesh and knows how to guide and inspire from within.
We are what we eat. Let it be God. Let it be what is good. Paraphrasing Jesus in his sermon that mentions Solomon, our daily diet will result in either an anxious heart or a grateful one, isolation or communion, pointlessness or mission.
In the vortex of political campaigning swirling around us more and more intensely, we are being asked to swallow a lot, much of it fibs and nonsense. We need the antidote of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Prince of Peace, the King of kings, the way, the truth, the life, the Word made flesh.
It may be with some relief that we hear today that David has gone to sleep with his ancestors. It has been a long summer hearing his royal saga. And no wonder: he ruled Israel for forty years. That’s a lot of material. Today we’re reminded that David passed the baton—or the crown—to his son Solomon, and thus was born a dynasty.
That may be a more practical model of governance than electing a president every four years. On the down side, dynastic rule does tend to entrench the bad ideas and mistakes of the past; but even in a democracy those seem to have a long shelf life. And even in a democracy we occasionally get dynasties, however short-lived.
But at the rate of David’s tenure, his dynasty would be a long one. And sure enough, Solomon also ruled Israel forty years. His reputation vies with that of his father. It was Solomon who built the great temple in Jerusalem that David wanted to build for God. Among Solomon’s wives was the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, which gave commerce a boost and made the good times roll. Solomon is celebrated for his wisdom and his wealth. Jesus used his name as a benchmark when he urged us to recognize God’s superabundant blessings in life, calling us to admire the lilies of the field, which Solomon in all his glory could not out-dress—a famous sermon which makes the point that we should choose gratitude as an antidote to anxiety.
Solomon’s prayer to God, early in his reign, is strong in gratitude for all that God had done to secure the reign of his father David. Solomon saw this as God’s approval of David’s faithfulness, righteousness, and uprightness of heart towards God. Huh? Wait, there’s more: Offering Solomon access to that same covenant mutuality, God says to him, “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”
Now, hold it. Hear the umpire’s whistle on that play. Is this the same David, now being saluted by God, the same David who went way beyond coveting his neighbor’s wife, stealing the lovely Bathsheba, eliminating Bathsheba’s husband by the dirtiest of deeds?
Yes, but when you’re King you get to tell the story, and, Bathsheba being Solomon’s mother, he puts the best of faces on his royal history and hers, the ends justifying the means.
And yes, there is one more aspect for which Solomon is remembered: his wisdom, his wealth, and his women. So many wives we lose count. And through them, Solomon was drawn to dabble in the religious practices of their native cultures. While this put the King at odds with the orthodox, the criticism in today’s reading represents a soft landing: “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.” Lesser mortals would have been drummed out of Israel for that offense, but again, the King gets to tell his own story… and, after all, he kept the economy brisk, those forty years.
What endeared Solomon to his own and subsequent generations appears to have been his humility before God. Again, from his inaugural prayer: I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. I don’t know everything and I’m not going to pretend I do. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. I don’t know how to do this without you. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; I am not always going to know which is which. And who can govern this your great people, without your guidance?”
Humility, understanding, ethical discernment… doesn’t that sound like a winning package in a head of state? When you hear these signs from a candidate this fall, vote for that person!
And read the whole story in the First Book of Kings. This royal succession was not as smooth as we might imagine. Solomon’s older step-brother wanted to be King, even declared himself enthroned moments before Solomon’s backers gave him the title. You’ll find that Solomon could be ruthless, not above having his step-brother and his father’s chief general executed in order to secure his throne. While we expect there to be blood along the campaign trail, in our day it’s metaphorical; in Solomon’s day, it was actual.
Notice the blood in our Gospel today. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ..”
I remember the deep offense felt by a parishioner, hearing these verses. I remember telling her, Yes, it’s meant to offend us, to catch our attention and wrestle with its meaning. But the King gets to tell his own story, and sometimes it’s not pretty.
And what is it Jesus is talking about here? Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on the altar, we heard today. Now, there’s blood. Jesus spoke to a first-century culture that still believed God required and delighted in the blood sacrifice of animals, though by the time the Gospel-writer John put these words on parchment, the temple had been shut down, obliterated by the Roman emperor’s army as the final blow to the Jewish movement to free Israel. Ceremonial cultic blood sacrifice was a thing of the past by John’s time. By then, for Jews and Christians alike, worship was centered in homes around kitchen tables and in upper rooms for fellowship among neighboring households.
For Jews and Christians, worship was intimately related to mealtimes. The defining ceremony for Christians melded the Jewish Passover supper with all that Jesus did with that liturgy to convey the great and steadfast love of God in the present moment—not just in one historical moment, but now.
But he isn’t describing here the sacramental act of eating the bread and drinking the wine of the eucharist. He digs deeper, into the heart of what that last supper means. His flesh and blood is what God chose to enter and occupy in the Incarnation. In Jesus’s flesh it is God who washes the feet of the disciples, even the treacherous one. The pulsing of Jesus’s blood through the chambers of God’s pure compassion always sustains our Lord’s reach to touch the sick with healing and the obsessed with freedom.
To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus is to want God, to need God with the earnestness of young Solomon. It is to take into ourselves the matter of God on the frontier where divine Spirit must meet our flesh, right in our gut. It is to say, God, we cannot manage our day to day life without you. We’ve tried, and it doesn’t work.
It is, to quote the writer to the Ephesians, being careful—full of care—how we live, as wise people making the most of the time, choosing to be filled with the Spirit that dwells in the flesh and knows how to guide and inspire from within.
We are what we eat. Let it be God. Let it be what is good. Paraphrasing Jesus in his sermon that mentions Solomon, our daily diet will result in either an anxious heart or a grateful one, isolation or communion, pointlessness or mission.
In the vortex of political campaigning swirling around us more and more intensely, we are being asked to swallow a lot, much of it fibs and nonsense. We need the antidote of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Prince of Peace, the King of kings, the way, the truth, the life, the Word made flesh.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Members One of Another in a World Going Mad
Scripture for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost includes II Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33; Psalm 130; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51
We’re nearing the end of King David’s saga. Today we hear and feel the raw pain of a father’s grief. You may recall that the prophet Nathan, many years before this, confronted David in his moral collapse when he stooped to arrange the convenient death of his loyal soldier Uriah so as to take to himself Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. Nathan foretold future anguish for David, rising from the mess he had made of things. Today’s portion shows very dark storm clouds rolling in.
There is civil war, David’s grip on his kingdom threatened, and his own son Absalom has joined the rebels. We witness a slaughter in the forest of Ephraim, and in the course of that mayhem Absalom is trapped, caught in the limbs of a great oak. It’s such a bizarre incident: it’s as if the mule Absalom rides colludes with the oaks (remember how the Bible uses that tree as a symbol of righteousness), as if nature itself defies the treasonous Absalom. No mercy is shown him as David’s men arrive on the scene.
David has been torn between the demands of his kingship and the reality of his indelible love for this hotheaded son. David’s heart is torn open by this news from the front. As we’ve seen before, the royal house of David is not the House of Windsor. There’s no hiding behind a stiff upper lip here. David is plunged deep in grief. He expresses what has been felt by many parents in anguish after the death of a child: “Would I had died instead of you, my son…”
It is out of this deep dark place that today’s first lesson speaks. The psalmist echoes the theme: “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.” Tradition ascribes authorship of the psalms to David (though that’s taken with a grain of salt, much like claiming Moses to be the author of the first five books of the Bible). The salt on these verses is the residue of bitter tears, and whether or not they bear David’s DNA, they echo his pain.
In our long summer of senseless mayhem, and with sacred texts like these, perhaps our own pain can be laid open. Was it just two Sundays ago that we were reeling from the slaughter in a movie theater in Colorado? Then, last Sunday, Sikh worshipers were targeted in a brutal assault in their temple in Wisconsin.
This latest shooting suggests a similarity to King David’s plight. Perhaps we too are witnessing a civil war, a torn union. In our present moment, the rebels are not well organized. But while Aurora shooter James Holmes seemed to be a deranged individual, Wade Michael Page appears to have been a committed and highly networked White supremacist, a frustrated neo-Nazi , an American who felt compelled to take action to save his country from perceived threat.
He played in bands called Blue Eyed Devils and Definite Hate, and in 2005 created a group called End Apathy. The BBC reported that in 2010 Page talked about the lyrics of the songs he wrote, songs about how “the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy…” As vague as that sounds, Page’s lyrics are precise in their reference to killing Jews, black people, gay people, and minorities. He apparently longed for a racial holy war.
Like Holmes, Page’s style was one of a lone ranger; but Page’s background makes it clear that his action was the outbreak of a movement, not so much, as with Holmes, the breakdown of a human being. When authorities spoke of this incident as domestic terrorism, they used language that suggests a guerrilla war in which Page was both commanding officer and foot soldier. His vision of what this nation should be was not the isolated view of one person. He represented many more.
White Supremacy is active in many other nations. Other brands of ethnic supremacy spawn guerrilla violence in yet more countries. In worst cases on this fragile earth governments sponsor ethnic cleansing—and seem to get away with it with impunity. From a God’s-eye perspective, the human race is in civil war against itself.
Some years ago, you may remember seeing the billboards of a religious ad campaign. One memorable display, white letters against a black background, bore this quote, allegedly from God: “Don’t make me come down there…”
Given the role that religion often plays in ethnic supremacy-- distorted religion, extremist religion, ignorant religion—such a threat of violence from God, even if tongue-in-cheek, would fit right into a world going mad.
Which is why the Christian Gospel needs to be heard clearly and creatively. Imagining God looking out onto our world of strife, Madeleine L’Engle gave us her version of what God might have said.
“In my mind’s ear I can hear God saying to God, ‘Can I do it? Do I love them that much? Can I leave my galaxies, my solar systems, can I leave the hydrogen clouds and the birthing of stars and the journeyings of comets, can I leave all that I have made, give it all up, and become a tiny, unknowing seed in the belly of a young girl? Do I love them that much? Do I have to do that in order to show them what it is to be human?’
L’Engle answers that question: “Yes! The answer on our part is a grateful Alleluia! Amen! God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son…”
And our Gospel today sums up his global mission: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Our mission, in a nation rife with divisions and in a world gone mad, is expressed perfectly in our reading from Ephesians.
Put away falsehood. Speak the truth to all neighbors, make clear that we know that we and they are members one of another.
Let our message build up and give grace to those who hear, dispelling rather than feeding anger.
And this in an election year: Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as you have been forgiven by God.
Imitate God as beloved children.
This mission, this code of holy behavior, rises from Christ’s self-offering but is spacious enough that it shares much common ground with other religions, and offers a radically gracious vision to counter toxic worldviews that tear people apart.
For we are members one of another.
So we remember six beloved children of God, and tell the truth that, as far away as Oak Creek, Wisconsin, is from the Berkshires, and however like and unlike St. John’s Church is to the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, out of the painful depths of this violence we affirm that these six people were our neighbors.
Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, temple president who was shot as he tried to fend off the shooter with a butter knife.
Ranjit Singh, 49, and his 41-year-old brother, Sita Singh, two priests whose families were back in India and whose lives in America revolved around their faith.
Suveg Singh Khattra, 84, a former farmer in India who was a constant presence at the temple.
Prakash Singh, 39, a priest who was remembered as a fun-loving personality who enjoyed telling jokes.
Paramjit Kaur, 41 who worked 66 hours a week to provide for her family, but also found time to pray every day for at least an hour.
We are indeed members one of another.
In that unity, we are called to use the tools of peace to disarm those who want civil war, ethnic war, racial war. Those tools of peace include safeguarding rights of all to religious assembly, respecting the rights of all to freedom of conscience and speech, achieving intelligent gun control, fostering interfaith relationship to dispel fear, and education to detoxify prejudice.
And because foot-soldiers of ethnic war are also our neighbors, understanding what motivates them is among our responsibilities in a civil society, where all are members one of another in a world that all too often appears to be going mad.
(Madeleine L'Engle's words are taken from her "Penguins and Golden Calves".)
We’re nearing the end of King David’s saga. Today we hear and feel the raw pain of a father’s grief. You may recall that the prophet Nathan, many years before this, confronted David in his moral collapse when he stooped to arrange the convenient death of his loyal soldier Uriah so as to take to himself Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. Nathan foretold future anguish for David, rising from the mess he had made of things. Today’s portion shows very dark storm clouds rolling in.
There is civil war, David’s grip on his kingdom threatened, and his own son Absalom has joined the rebels. We witness a slaughter in the forest of Ephraim, and in the course of that mayhem Absalom is trapped, caught in the limbs of a great oak. It’s such a bizarre incident: it’s as if the mule Absalom rides colludes with the oaks (remember how the Bible uses that tree as a symbol of righteousness), as if nature itself defies the treasonous Absalom. No mercy is shown him as David’s men arrive on the scene.
David has been torn between the demands of his kingship and the reality of his indelible love for this hotheaded son. David’s heart is torn open by this news from the front. As we’ve seen before, the royal house of David is not the House of Windsor. There’s no hiding behind a stiff upper lip here. David is plunged deep in grief. He expresses what has been felt by many parents in anguish after the death of a child: “Would I had died instead of you, my son…”
It is out of this deep dark place that today’s first lesson speaks. The psalmist echoes the theme: “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.” Tradition ascribes authorship of the psalms to David (though that’s taken with a grain of salt, much like claiming Moses to be the author of the first five books of the Bible). The salt on these verses is the residue of bitter tears, and whether or not they bear David’s DNA, they echo his pain.
In our long summer of senseless mayhem, and with sacred texts like these, perhaps our own pain can be laid open. Was it just two Sundays ago that we were reeling from the slaughter in a movie theater in Colorado? Then, last Sunday, Sikh worshipers were targeted in a brutal assault in their temple in Wisconsin.
This latest shooting suggests a similarity to King David’s plight. Perhaps we too are witnessing a civil war, a torn union. In our present moment, the rebels are not well organized. But while Aurora shooter James Holmes seemed to be a deranged individual, Wade Michael Page appears to have been a committed and highly networked White supremacist, a frustrated neo-Nazi , an American who felt compelled to take action to save his country from perceived threat.
He played in bands called Blue Eyed Devils and Definite Hate, and in 2005 created a group called End Apathy. The BBC reported that in 2010 Page talked about the lyrics of the songs he wrote, songs about how “the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy…” As vague as that sounds, Page’s lyrics are precise in their reference to killing Jews, black people, gay people, and minorities. He apparently longed for a racial holy war.
Like Holmes, Page’s style was one of a lone ranger; but Page’s background makes it clear that his action was the outbreak of a movement, not so much, as with Holmes, the breakdown of a human being. When authorities spoke of this incident as domestic terrorism, they used language that suggests a guerrilla war in which Page was both commanding officer and foot soldier. His vision of what this nation should be was not the isolated view of one person. He represented many more.
White Supremacy is active in many other nations. Other brands of ethnic supremacy spawn guerrilla violence in yet more countries. In worst cases on this fragile earth governments sponsor ethnic cleansing—and seem to get away with it with impunity. From a God’s-eye perspective, the human race is in civil war against itself.
Some years ago, you may remember seeing the billboards of a religious ad campaign. One memorable display, white letters against a black background, bore this quote, allegedly from God: “Don’t make me come down there…”
Given the role that religion often plays in ethnic supremacy-- distorted religion, extremist religion, ignorant religion—such a threat of violence from God, even if tongue-in-cheek, would fit right into a world going mad.
Which is why the Christian Gospel needs to be heard clearly and creatively. Imagining God looking out onto our world of strife, Madeleine L’Engle gave us her version of what God might have said.
“In my mind’s ear I can hear God saying to God, ‘Can I do it? Do I love them that much? Can I leave my galaxies, my solar systems, can I leave the hydrogen clouds and the birthing of stars and the journeyings of comets, can I leave all that I have made, give it all up, and become a tiny, unknowing seed in the belly of a young girl? Do I love them that much? Do I have to do that in order to show them what it is to be human?’
L’Engle answers that question: “Yes! The answer on our part is a grateful Alleluia! Amen! God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son…”
And our Gospel today sums up his global mission: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Our mission, in a nation rife with divisions and in a world gone mad, is expressed perfectly in our reading from Ephesians.
Put away falsehood. Speak the truth to all neighbors, make clear that we know that we and they are members one of another.
Let our message build up and give grace to those who hear, dispelling rather than feeding anger.
And this in an election year: Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as you have been forgiven by God.
Imitate God as beloved children.
This mission, this code of holy behavior, rises from Christ’s self-offering but is spacious enough that it shares much common ground with other religions, and offers a radically gracious vision to counter toxic worldviews that tear people apart.
For we are members one of another.
So we remember six beloved children of God, and tell the truth that, as far away as Oak Creek, Wisconsin, is from the Berkshires, and however like and unlike St. John’s Church is to the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, out of the painful depths of this violence we affirm that these six people were our neighbors.
Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, temple president who was shot as he tried to fend off the shooter with a butter knife.
Ranjit Singh, 49, and his 41-year-old brother, Sita Singh, two priests whose families were back in India and whose lives in America revolved around their faith.
Suveg Singh Khattra, 84, a former farmer in India who was a constant presence at the temple.
Prakash Singh, 39, a priest who was remembered as a fun-loving personality who enjoyed telling jokes.
Paramjit Kaur, 41 who worked 66 hours a week to provide for her family, but also found time to pray every day for at least an hour.
We are indeed members one of another.
In that unity, we are called to use the tools of peace to disarm those who want civil war, ethnic war, racial war. Those tools of peace include safeguarding rights of all to religious assembly, respecting the rights of all to freedom of conscience and speech, achieving intelligent gun control, fostering interfaith relationship to dispel fear, and education to detoxify prejudice.
And because foot-soldiers of ethnic war are also our neighbors, understanding what motivates them is among our responsibilities in a civil society, where all are members one of another in a world that all too often appears to be going mad.
(Madeleine L'Engle's words are taken from her "Penguins and Golden Calves".)
Follow Your Reality
Scripture for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost includes II Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Psalm 51; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35
Our summer cycle of stories about King David is hard for a preacher to avoid speaking about. I mean, it’s tough to steer around this material—it’s so raw and compelling. For those of you who are tiring of this reality series, it has just two more episodes after today.
David’s story illustrates the adage that power corrupts. Back when the prophet Samuel had the task of anointing a king for Israel, David didn’t have a place even in the primaries. You remember how all his brothers passed before Samuel, but the prophet recognized no spark of inspiration in their eyes until he met the youngest, who was living the humblest life of them all, a shepherd tending his father’s flock. Instantly, David was chosen.
But by the time we meet him today as King, he is sorely compromised. He has let a great gulf settle in between himself and his people, between himself and God, between himself and the truth. That distance marks the trajectory of his ethical collapse.
And he hits bottom today in his encounter with another of Israel’s great ancient prophets, Nathan. Nathan tells David what may be the first and oldest parable in the Bible. It is a story compressed as hard as diamond, pressed by truth.
Every animal lover, anyone who has ever had a soulmate in a cat or a dog (or a lamb), laps up this parable, fully gets it on an emotional level, a spiritual level, and certainly on the level of social injustice.
So does David. That’s a sign of hope, isn’t it? “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die!” David explodes.
In fact, what explodes is the lie that David has believed, that there was a vast moral gulf between himself and any rich man who could exploit his advantage as did the fellow in Nathan’s parable.
“You are the man!” cries Nathan.
To quote Pogo Possum, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
It is in that spirit that we have recited the penitential Psalm 51. We are here not to point the finger at David, but to let his story resonate in our own—probably less dramatic—betrayals and failings.
The silver lining in this story is David’s repentance. This is a story of what the Greeks called “metanoia”, turning about, conversion, remorse leading to a changed mind and heart, renewal in the ever-new embrace of God. Since it is a Hebrew story, it conveys the sense that sinning against a compatriot is also sinning against God, an awareness that such a betrayal does not happen when one is in right relationship with God—therefore what needs changing, renewing, is relationship with God.
In keeping with ancient Hebrew thought, times of national defeat and disgrace were marked with the silver lining of a call to repentance. So David hears Nathan describe the peculiar terms of David’s coming public shaming, and recognizes it is time to take responsibility… and repent. He is still the King. And now he is to become Israel’s King who fell, and rose again.
In that respect, paradoxically, David is a precursor of the Christ. Though the Christ would fall, not under the burden of his own sin, but under the sins of the world. He would fall, not because of any falsehood in himself, but because the church of his time and the civil government of his time were so far from the welfare of their people and so distant from the compassion and mercy of God.
The falling of the Christ would lead to the rising of the Christ, and the author of the Letter to the Ephesians writes, in language that sounds like both creed and praise, how this dying and rising is to fill all creation with his Spirit and his gifts. That Spirit and those gifts, in partnership with our commitment to speak the truth in love, will cause the whole Body of the renewed creation to grow and build itself in love.
How central in our relationship with God is Jesus Christ. Central to us, and central to God. God has centered God’s self in Jesus Christ. You and I are becoming centered in Christ beginning with baptism and opening more and more, day by day. That centering and opening is not just a result of our daily practice; it is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit, who may be well at work even when we may not be much impressed by our own centeredness or openness.
As central as the Christ is, our Gospel today illustrates how far from that mark we can get. The setting of this story is that rolling hillside where Jesus took five fish and two barley loaves, belonging to a little boy and offered with a disciple’s comment, “But what are they among so many?” What Jesus did with them is known to imitate the Eucharistic action: he took, he blessed, he broke, he gave. What happened next is largely unknown, except for the Church’s recollection that there were many leftovers. This is a story told consciously to remind the Church (and teach the world) that we have a God of superabundant love, One who repeats in daily life the archetypal wonder of sending manna from heaven.
But notice how today’s narrative begins. The people who remained after the feeding suddenly realized that Jesus was not there. We get the sense that they simply hadn’t been paying much attention to him, once they’d had their lunch. They lingered at the site, as if hoping that on the heels of such a wonder, another would come. So they kept their eyes on the disciples (who had organized them prior to their windfall meal), but they saw no movement among the twelve and didn’t think to notice where Jesus himself was— there were still lots of people milling about on that hillside, and besides (yawn) they were sleepy after such a meal and it was siesta time.
But the real reason, as he tells them later, is that he could slip away unnoticed because they just didn’t get it, that the feeding was a sign from God that they are to find their deepest feeding in him, the Son of Man, the Christ, and on him they were to set their hope and fix their attention, and keep up with him when he moves.
The abundant life is enjoyed in closeness to him. He is central to relationship with God. Allowing a gulf to open and widen between ourselves and him is to risk the loss of our passion, our compassion, and our sense of right and wrong. Losing track of Jesus is to lose our supply, our sustenance, and our part in building up the whole Body of the renewed creation.
Writing about the Olympics, New Yorker critic Louis Menand says that, “The motto of athletic competition should not be ‘Follow your dream.’ It should be ‘Follow your reality.’”
That observation comes from Menand’s discovering the hard way that as a five-foot-something teenager he might not be cut out to become the next Houdini of the Hardwood, like his idol, Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics. Painfully, Menand came to realize that achievement in sports complies with the laws of physics. “You can dedicate your life to the sport, but, if you are under six feet tall and weigh less than two hundred pounds, you are never going to throw the discus seventy metres. The motto of athletic competition should not be ‘Follow your dream.” It should be ‘Follow your reality.’”
That comment may highlight the contrast between our two stories today, one about the King, the other about the Christ.
Imagining he could erase the distance between his own royal rooftop and that of his neighbor Uriah, David gained Bathsheba in his bed but lost his soul and, by his own treachery, lost his valiant soldier Uriah, and with that loss lost also the approval of God. All this in the name of following a shepherd boy’s dream of someday having everything.
A dream is followed in our second story, too. Those who have tasted the goodness of God have stayed on, hoping not so much for God but for more magic. And if this Jesus could serve up bread and fish out of seemingly nothing, why, he might turn copper to gold and Israel’s helplessness under Roman occupation into a bloodbath of retribution.
Instead, they—and we—are called to repent of some of our dreams, and follow our reality, utilize and offer who we are and what we have, practice, train, develop the gifts we’ve been given. What we are cut out for by our baptism is to follow Jesus closely, to grow into maturity, into the measure of the full stature of Christ.
So it is in another sense also that we are to follow our reality, Jesus Christ, in whom all the fullness of God has come to dwell, in whom we all have been planted, like seeds, to grow up in love.
Our summer cycle of stories about King David is hard for a preacher to avoid speaking about. I mean, it’s tough to steer around this material—it’s so raw and compelling. For those of you who are tiring of this reality series, it has just two more episodes after today.
David’s story illustrates the adage that power corrupts. Back when the prophet Samuel had the task of anointing a king for Israel, David didn’t have a place even in the primaries. You remember how all his brothers passed before Samuel, but the prophet recognized no spark of inspiration in their eyes until he met the youngest, who was living the humblest life of them all, a shepherd tending his father’s flock. Instantly, David was chosen.
But by the time we meet him today as King, he is sorely compromised. He has let a great gulf settle in between himself and his people, between himself and God, between himself and the truth. That distance marks the trajectory of his ethical collapse.
And he hits bottom today in his encounter with another of Israel’s great ancient prophets, Nathan. Nathan tells David what may be the first and oldest parable in the Bible. It is a story compressed as hard as diamond, pressed by truth.
Every animal lover, anyone who has ever had a soulmate in a cat or a dog (or a lamb), laps up this parable, fully gets it on an emotional level, a spiritual level, and certainly on the level of social injustice.
So does David. That’s a sign of hope, isn’t it? “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die!” David explodes.
In fact, what explodes is the lie that David has believed, that there was a vast moral gulf between himself and any rich man who could exploit his advantage as did the fellow in Nathan’s parable.
“You are the man!” cries Nathan.
To quote Pogo Possum, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
It is in that spirit that we have recited the penitential Psalm 51. We are here not to point the finger at David, but to let his story resonate in our own—probably less dramatic—betrayals and failings.
The silver lining in this story is David’s repentance. This is a story of what the Greeks called “metanoia”, turning about, conversion, remorse leading to a changed mind and heart, renewal in the ever-new embrace of God. Since it is a Hebrew story, it conveys the sense that sinning against a compatriot is also sinning against God, an awareness that such a betrayal does not happen when one is in right relationship with God—therefore what needs changing, renewing, is relationship with God.
In keeping with ancient Hebrew thought, times of national defeat and disgrace were marked with the silver lining of a call to repentance. So David hears Nathan describe the peculiar terms of David’s coming public shaming, and recognizes it is time to take responsibility… and repent. He is still the King. And now he is to become Israel’s King who fell, and rose again.
In that respect, paradoxically, David is a precursor of the Christ. Though the Christ would fall, not under the burden of his own sin, but under the sins of the world. He would fall, not because of any falsehood in himself, but because the church of his time and the civil government of his time were so far from the welfare of their people and so distant from the compassion and mercy of God.
The falling of the Christ would lead to the rising of the Christ, and the author of the Letter to the Ephesians writes, in language that sounds like both creed and praise, how this dying and rising is to fill all creation with his Spirit and his gifts. That Spirit and those gifts, in partnership with our commitment to speak the truth in love, will cause the whole Body of the renewed creation to grow and build itself in love.
How central in our relationship with God is Jesus Christ. Central to us, and central to God. God has centered God’s self in Jesus Christ. You and I are becoming centered in Christ beginning with baptism and opening more and more, day by day. That centering and opening is not just a result of our daily practice; it is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit, who may be well at work even when we may not be much impressed by our own centeredness or openness.
As central as the Christ is, our Gospel today illustrates how far from that mark we can get. The setting of this story is that rolling hillside where Jesus took five fish and two barley loaves, belonging to a little boy and offered with a disciple’s comment, “But what are they among so many?” What Jesus did with them is known to imitate the Eucharistic action: he took, he blessed, he broke, he gave. What happened next is largely unknown, except for the Church’s recollection that there were many leftovers. This is a story told consciously to remind the Church (and teach the world) that we have a God of superabundant love, One who repeats in daily life the archetypal wonder of sending manna from heaven.
But notice how today’s narrative begins. The people who remained after the feeding suddenly realized that Jesus was not there. We get the sense that they simply hadn’t been paying much attention to him, once they’d had their lunch. They lingered at the site, as if hoping that on the heels of such a wonder, another would come. So they kept their eyes on the disciples (who had organized them prior to their windfall meal), but they saw no movement among the twelve and didn’t think to notice where Jesus himself was— there were still lots of people milling about on that hillside, and besides (yawn) they were sleepy after such a meal and it was siesta time.
But the real reason, as he tells them later, is that he could slip away unnoticed because they just didn’t get it, that the feeding was a sign from God that they are to find their deepest feeding in him, the Son of Man, the Christ, and on him they were to set their hope and fix their attention, and keep up with him when he moves.
The abundant life is enjoyed in closeness to him. He is central to relationship with God. Allowing a gulf to open and widen between ourselves and him is to risk the loss of our passion, our compassion, and our sense of right and wrong. Losing track of Jesus is to lose our supply, our sustenance, and our part in building up the whole Body of the renewed creation.
Writing about the Olympics, New Yorker critic Louis Menand says that, “The motto of athletic competition should not be ‘Follow your dream.’ It should be ‘Follow your reality.’”
That observation comes from Menand’s discovering the hard way that as a five-foot-something teenager he might not be cut out to become the next Houdini of the Hardwood, like his idol, Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics. Painfully, Menand came to realize that achievement in sports complies with the laws of physics. “You can dedicate your life to the sport, but, if you are under six feet tall and weigh less than two hundred pounds, you are never going to throw the discus seventy metres. The motto of athletic competition should not be ‘Follow your dream.” It should be ‘Follow your reality.’”
That comment may highlight the contrast between our two stories today, one about the King, the other about the Christ.
Imagining he could erase the distance between his own royal rooftop and that of his neighbor Uriah, David gained Bathsheba in his bed but lost his soul and, by his own treachery, lost his valiant soldier Uriah, and with that loss lost also the approval of God. All this in the name of following a shepherd boy’s dream of someday having everything.
A dream is followed in our second story, too. Those who have tasted the goodness of God have stayed on, hoping not so much for God but for more magic. And if this Jesus could serve up bread and fish out of seemingly nothing, why, he might turn copper to gold and Israel’s helplessness under Roman occupation into a bloodbath of retribution.
Instead, they—and we—are called to repent of some of our dreams, and follow our reality, utilize and offer who we are and what we have, practice, train, develop the gifts we’ve been given. What we are cut out for by our baptism is to follow Jesus closely, to grow into maturity, into the measure of the full stature of Christ.
So it is in another sense also that we are to follow our reality, Jesus Christ, in whom all the fullness of God has come to dwell, in whom we all have been planted, like seeds, to grow up in love.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Gun Control: A Religious Issue
A verse in our psalm today may sound excessively cynical, but in light of the moral failures of King David it resonates with a certain understandable world-weariness:
“Every one has proved faithless; all alike have turned bad; there is none who does good; no, not one.”
Do you recall how, in last week’s installment of our summer reality series “David, Shepherd King”, God was heard to say to the young King, “Are you the one to build me a temple to dwell in?” David’s moral failings lend an explanation to that divine hesitation.
And speaking of world-weariness, isn’t there a hint of it in those opening words, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle…” It’s as if we’re chained to a recurring cycle of violence. The narrator suggests that even illustrious David gets lumped into the downward-sliding failure of imagination that finds it easier to fight wars than to build peace. Perhaps this endless procession of wars accounts for David being the one able-bodied Hebrew male not on the battlefield, the day his wandering gaze took in the profile of beautiful Bathsheba. He had delegated military command to others. A certain distance was creeping in between his decisions and the actual horrors of the front line, a numbing of the sense of personal tragedy that actually defines the human cost of war.
So we are treated to a tawdry episode in the afternoon of this stay-at-home king. Time seems fast-forwarded as this fling becomes a pregnancy. What follows is heart-breaking. David calls home Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite, who has been fighting at the front. Pretending that he wants to hear about the war, David really wants Uriah to return to the embrace of Bathsheba, to eventually explain this pregnancy. Uriah is too principled, too loyal, too noble to have private pleasure while his brothers are engaging the enemy.
What a contrast between these two men! David slides into moral collapse. One ploy after another fails to get Uriah back in bed with his wife. One falsehood paves the way for the next, until the last dreadful step is taken. We are nearly three thousand years distant from this treachery, but we catch the heartbreak, once as a loyal valiant foot soldier is betrayed by his king, again as that disloyal king sinks into the sewer.
The complaint of the psalmist fits the occasion. “All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good.” The psalm-writer even connects this world-weariness to the cynicism that says, “There is no God,” though he makes it clear that this is a foolish conclusion to draw. Still, he makes his point: in the absence of human goodness, God is felt to be absent.
The psalmist’s complaint gives us language to consider what happened in that movie theater in Colorado. I can imagine two reactions that remind me of what the psalmist says. One is how the victims may have felt the absence of God in those moments of sheer terror and searing pain. The other is how instantly we have seen human goodness in the stories of victims using their bodies to shield their loved ones.
But to my eye, and to my heart, the good that is absent in this tragedy is caused by our national failure to regulate the purchase of assault weapons. When kings go out to battle, when sovereign nations engage on battlefields, when police forces secure dangerous locations, they may need assault weapons. But when activists opposing regulation insist that anyone able to pass current background checks is entitled to own the kind of weapon that James Holmes brought into that theater, we should be worried that we’re in full ethical collapse. To say that current screening is enough is shown to be false with every mass shooting we experience. And if someone wants to try to convince me why would we want to live in a society in which anyone may own such a weapon, perhaps he can also tell me which of the nine circles of hell our society now occupies?
By caring more about the NRA lobby and voter backlash, our lawmakers have been disloyal to the rest of us, and negligent in fulfilling their duty. Isn’t it time to encourage them to take the risk that will, over time, diminish the risk taken by innocent movie-goers, students attending school, mall shoppers, laborers at their workplaces, people walking in their own neighborhoods?
Social commentary like this may not be your favorite style of sermon to hear on a Sunday. I have felt free to offer it today because of the apostle’s prayer in the letter to the Ephesians, that we may have the power to comprehend—or is it his insistence that we do have the power to comprehend--what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love God gives us in Jesus Christ.
That call to comprehension invites, no, it requires us to ask how gun control is a subject that belongs in churches and synagogues and mosques. Is gun control a religious issue? 91,300,000 results from googling that combination of words suggests that it is. Let me sample two.
“The Economist” magazine observed recently that when we Americans speak of our rights, many of us believe they are given to us not only by our Constitution, but by God. That bears some thinking. Does God give rights? Or does God give grace? Either way, does God not also give us responsibilities? That gun control will require careful, creative, political thinking is self-evident. That it deserves careful, creative theological thinking—who knew?
Some Roman Catholic commentators know. Popular Jesuit writer Fr. James Martin wrote recently in “America” magazine that gun control is as much a reverence for life issue as the others that his church consistently addresses: abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty. He also suggested that there’s something wrong with Christians praying for the victims of gun violence, without also using their God-given intelligence and courage to minimize the incidence of gun violence. Within hours of posting his views about gun control as a religious issue on Facebook, Martin had to shut down comments on the page because of the vitriol his views provoked.
As unsettling as that must have been to Fr. Martin, he might have concluded that he’s doing something right, to have caused such a stir. But this issue in this country will always cause sharp reaction. When we try to catch this wind in our sails, we will find it a rough crossing. But it’s time. It’s time that we stop persuading ourselves that our five-fish-and-two-barley-loaves worth of convictions aren’t enough. It’s time to make the crossing.
And I believe we will find Jesus walking right nearby, and will hear him say, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
“Every one has proved faithless; all alike have turned bad; there is none who does good; no, not one.”
Do you recall how, in last week’s installment of our summer reality series “David, Shepherd King”, God was heard to say to the young King, “Are you the one to build me a temple to dwell in?” David’s moral failings lend an explanation to that divine hesitation.
And speaking of world-weariness, isn’t there a hint of it in those opening words, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle…” It’s as if we’re chained to a recurring cycle of violence. The narrator suggests that even illustrious David gets lumped into the downward-sliding failure of imagination that finds it easier to fight wars than to build peace. Perhaps this endless procession of wars accounts for David being the one able-bodied Hebrew male not on the battlefield, the day his wandering gaze took in the profile of beautiful Bathsheba. He had delegated military command to others. A certain distance was creeping in between his decisions and the actual horrors of the front line, a numbing of the sense of personal tragedy that actually defines the human cost of war.
So we are treated to a tawdry episode in the afternoon of this stay-at-home king. Time seems fast-forwarded as this fling becomes a pregnancy. What follows is heart-breaking. David calls home Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite, who has been fighting at the front. Pretending that he wants to hear about the war, David really wants Uriah to return to the embrace of Bathsheba, to eventually explain this pregnancy. Uriah is too principled, too loyal, too noble to have private pleasure while his brothers are engaging the enemy.
What a contrast between these two men! David slides into moral collapse. One ploy after another fails to get Uriah back in bed with his wife. One falsehood paves the way for the next, until the last dreadful step is taken. We are nearly three thousand years distant from this treachery, but we catch the heartbreak, once as a loyal valiant foot soldier is betrayed by his king, again as that disloyal king sinks into the sewer.
The complaint of the psalmist fits the occasion. “All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good.” The psalm-writer even connects this world-weariness to the cynicism that says, “There is no God,” though he makes it clear that this is a foolish conclusion to draw. Still, he makes his point: in the absence of human goodness, God is felt to be absent.
The psalmist’s complaint gives us language to consider what happened in that movie theater in Colorado. I can imagine two reactions that remind me of what the psalmist says. One is how the victims may have felt the absence of God in those moments of sheer terror and searing pain. The other is how instantly we have seen human goodness in the stories of victims using their bodies to shield their loved ones.
But to my eye, and to my heart, the good that is absent in this tragedy is caused by our national failure to regulate the purchase of assault weapons. When kings go out to battle, when sovereign nations engage on battlefields, when police forces secure dangerous locations, they may need assault weapons. But when activists opposing regulation insist that anyone able to pass current background checks is entitled to own the kind of weapon that James Holmes brought into that theater, we should be worried that we’re in full ethical collapse. To say that current screening is enough is shown to be false with every mass shooting we experience. And if someone wants to try to convince me why would we want to live in a society in which anyone may own such a weapon, perhaps he can also tell me which of the nine circles of hell our society now occupies?
By caring more about the NRA lobby and voter backlash, our lawmakers have been disloyal to the rest of us, and negligent in fulfilling their duty. Isn’t it time to encourage them to take the risk that will, over time, diminish the risk taken by innocent movie-goers, students attending school, mall shoppers, laborers at their workplaces, people walking in their own neighborhoods?
Social commentary like this may not be your favorite style of sermon to hear on a Sunday. I have felt free to offer it today because of the apostle’s prayer in the letter to the Ephesians, that we may have the power to comprehend—or is it his insistence that we do have the power to comprehend--what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love God gives us in Jesus Christ.
That call to comprehension invites, no, it requires us to ask how gun control is a subject that belongs in churches and synagogues and mosques. Is gun control a religious issue? 91,300,000 results from googling that combination of words suggests that it is. Let me sample two.
“The Economist” magazine observed recently that when we Americans speak of our rights, many of us believe they are given to us not only by our Constitution, but by God. That bears some thinking. Does God give rights? Or does God give grace? Either way, does God not also give us responsibilities? That gun control will require careful, creative, political thinking is self-evident. That it deserves careful, creative theological thinking—who knew?
Some Roman Catholic commentators know. Popular Jesuit writer Fr. James Martin wrote recently in “America” magazine that gun control is as much a reverence for life issue as the others that his church consistently addresses: abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty. He also suggested that there’s something wrong with Christians praying for the victims of gun violence, without also using their God-given intelligence and courage to minimize the incidence of gun violence. Within hours of posting his views about gun control as a religious issue on Facebook, Martin had to shut down comments on the page because of the vitriol his views provoked.
As unsettling as that must have been to Fr. Martin, he might have concluded that he’s doing something right, to have caused such a stir. But this issue in this country will always cause sharp reaction. When we try to catch this wind in our sails, we will find it a rough crossing. But it’s time. It’s time that we stop persuading ourselves that our five-fish-and-two-barley-loaves worth of convictions aren’t enough. It’s time to make the crossing.
And I believe we will find Jesus walking right nearby, and will hear him say, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Reliance
Scripture for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost includes II Samuel 7:1-14a; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Jesus wants to take his disciples on a retreat. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
Does that sound good to you? Want to go along?
Or are you enough of a Type A person that you might need talking-into going on retreat, even though it’s Jesus who’s inviting you? Type A’s might say, “Last night’s sleep is all the rest I need—I’ve just got too much to do! Put me in a place without electronics for a few days? I’d go nuts.” While some of us might say, Sign me up!
Isn’t it worth noticing that once the apostolic band arrives at their destination, their plans are hijacked? In its own way, this comforts me: that I who often have good intentions to pray more and scurry less, have a Savior who knows what all that is about.
And he is remembered as being eminently accessible. Ahead of time, I mark a day off in my calendar with a great slash, steer clear of the office, and let my calls go to voicemail— but he sees a great crowd, and has compassion for them, because they are like sheep without a shepherd, and poof, he’s calling the circle together, revealing to them the centering presence of God.
And the twelve? “Forget it, boys,” I hear Simon Peter say, in a hushed voice: “No rest for us today.” Blessed are the flexible, for they shall inherit… much more to pray about.
But, you know, retreats come in all shapes and sizes. Our summer Sundays @ 9 offer a short hour of gaining some degree of perspective on ourselves and how we live. And even if a scant hour may not seem to deserve being called a retreat, these gatherings have blessed participants with an opportunity to go deeper in discerning what is essential for living a compassionate life, and to feel the support of kindred spirits in community.
So too did Thursday evening’s sampling of Servant Leadership, a model of adult Christian formation for ministry. Nicole, a lovely young woman from St. Stephen’s, Pittsfield, led us in two hours of reliance on the divine presence to be at the center of our circle, about fifteen people, eight or nine from here, one from All Saints, three or four from St. Stephen’s.
She led us into a centering upon God by some guided deep breathing. She modeled attentive and compassionate listening, and attentive and compassionate silence. She invited us to speak intentionally. She wasn’t leading us by expertise or careful scripting, as much as by trust and courage. She got us talking about our lives, and though sometimes we reverted to talking about our opinions, she kept returning us to our lives.
And when I say “she”, I mean both Nicole and the Holy Spirit she often gently invoked.
This was no small thing, that a perfect stranger should get a roomful of people talking about their lives, not to compete but to support and collaborate.
She introduced us to a concept of serving that goes something like this: If I relate to you by assuming that you are weak, I will set out to help you.
If I relate to you assuming that something in you is broken, I may set out to try to fix you.
But if I want to serve you, I will start with the assumption that there is wholeness in you, and I will respect that becoming wholeness.
I take this to mean that the service to which Christ calls me draws me into relationship that starts with my openness. This was symbolized, that evening, by a gesture Nicole made with her hands. It is an engaging but mysterious gesture (the very same one we make in receiving communion, our hands open to create a place and a moment of meeting).
This was felt by some to be a controversial gesture. Am I begging, when I extend that gesture to you? You could read it that way, even if I mean to commune with you, that is, to communicate my openness to meet your openness, to enter the mystery of giving and receiving that defines our common life in Christ.
If you experience the gesture as begging, you may retreat (as in beat a hasty retreat), for who likes being begged-from?
But Nicole stood her ground, allowing the mystery in what is already a familiar gesture, at least among sacramental Christians. And what does it matter? We’re trying to express an attitude.
You have made this gesture countless times. Approaching Jesus’s table, you have made a table of your hands, an open space for communion through your senses of sight, touch, and taste. If someone makes that sign toward you, you become the priest or the minister of communing, communicating, community-building. Which makes me think Nicole is right to use it as an effective symbol of servant leadership.
Let me quickly dispel the impression that Servant Leadership is about navel-gazing. At Thursday’s gathering, someone said that this model of ministry resembles the Dream Center. Have you heard of that? The Dream Center could be seen as a good example of where Servant Leadership, broadly understood, could take the church. Here is the Dream Center’s story.
Pastor Matthew Barnett assumed the pastorate of Bethel Temple in Los Angeles in 1994 at the age of twenty. After a life-changing encounter with God, he helped Bethel Temple transition from a traditional-style church to a servant driven ministry that grew into what is now known as The Dream Center.
Compelled by a vision to impact all of Los Angeles by addressing people’s physical and spiritual needs spiritual needs in unique and practical ways, The Dream Center has grown into a phenomenon that now reaches more than 40,000 people each week through its multiple church services and various need-centered outreach ministries.
Services and programs offered include residential rehabilitation programs for teens and adults, a shelter for victims of human trafficking, a transitional shelter for homeless families, mobile hunger relief and medical programs, and a foster care intervention outreach. Programs such as adult basic education, job skills training, and life skills counseling continue to establish The Dream Center as a vital community development resource.
The Dream Center’s record of success has led to the launch of over 100 independent Dream Centers nationally, as well as internationally. I hear there is one in Pittsfield now.
The Center’s mission is to directly impact the issues that afflict the community, one square block at a time, by reconnecting isolated people to God and a community of support by providing free human services that address immediate and long-term needs in the areas of homelessness, hunger relief, medical care, mental health and education.
Its vision is a community of resilient people whose lives have been redeemed by God’s love, who share that love with others to transform and restore broken lives to wholeness.
Servant Leadership… the Dream Center… these make me think also of The Friendship Center in North Adams, founded and supported by North County residents (including a growing number from St. John’s), providing food assistance to more than 600 families, instilling this outreach with respect for the wholeness of each person.
When King David proposed building a house for God, a proper temple, it is said that God asked where that idea had come from. A tent had been good enough for many years, that and a traveling tabernacle (you remember that last Sunday we heard the story of David escorting that holy object into Jerusalem with his ecstatic dancing). Besides, says God to David, the whole point of this relationship is that I am making you a house, a people, an ongoing community reliant on my presence.
This is also the apostolic vision we hear in Ephesians, that the holy temple God desires is the reunited human race, a reconciled community with all its warring factions cooperating as one new humanity which has already become flesh and blood in Jesus Christ. His call to serve invites us to recognize and respect the growing wholeness, to participate in the becoming of all God’s people.
This wholeness, this becoming, is fed by the abundance of God’s grace. Still, we may wonder where does it call come from, all that free stuff and food and volunteerism vitalizing the Dream Center and the Friendship Center?
We like to say, Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Where there is God’s will being done, there are many ways— as many as there are servant leaders willing to rely upon God and each other.
Jesus wants to take his disciples on a retreat. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
Does that sound good to you? Want to go along?
Or are you enough of a Type A person that you might need talking-into going on retreat, even though it’s Jesus who’s inviting you? Type A’s might say, “Last night’s sleep is all the rest I need—I’ve just got too much to do! Put me in a place without electronics for a few days? I’d go nuts.” While some of us might say, Sign me up!
Isn’t it worth noticing that once the apostolic band arrives at their destination, their plans are hijacked? In its own way, this comforts me: that I who often have good intentions to pray more and scurry less, have a Savior who knows what all that is about.
And he is remembered as being eminently accessible. Ahead of time, I mark a day off in my calendar with a great slash, steer clear of the office, and let my calls go to voicemail— but he sees a great crowd, and has compassion for them, because they are like sheep without a shepherd, and poof, he’s calling the circle together, revealing to them the centering presence of God.
And the twelve? “Forget it, boys,” I hear Simon Peter say, in a hushed voice: “No rest for us today.” Blessed are the flexible, for they shall inherit… much more to pray about.
But, you know, retreats come in all shapes and sizes. Our summer Sundays @ 9 offer a short hour of gaining some degree of perspective on ourselves and how we live. And even if a scant hour may not seem to deserve being called a retreat, these gatherings have blessed participants with an opportunity to go deeper in discerning what is essential for living a compassionate life, and to feel the support of kindred spirits in community.
So too did Thursday evening’s sampling of Servant Leadership, a model of adult Christian formation for ministry. Nicole, a lovely young woman from St. Stephen’s, Pittsfield, led us in two hours of reliance on the divine presence to be at the center of our circle, about fifteen people, eight or nine from here, one from All Saints, three or four from St. Stephen’s.
She led us into a centering upon God by some guided deep breathing. She modeled attentive and compassionate listening, and attentive and compassionate silence. She invited us to speak intentionally. She wasn’t leading us by expertise or careful scripting, as much as by trust and courage. She got us talking about our lives, and though sometimes we reverted to talking about our opinions, she kept returning us to our lives.
And when I say “she”, I mean both Nicole and the Holy Spirit she often gently invoked.
This was no small thing, that a perfect stranger should get a roomful of people talking about their lives, not to compete but to support and collaborate.
She introduced us to a concept of serving that goes something like this: If I relate to you by assuming that you are weak, I will set out to help you.
If I relate to you assuming that something in you is broken, I may set out to try to fix you.
But if I want to serve you, I will start with the assumption that there is wholeness in you, and I will respect that becoming wholeness.
I take this to mean that the service to which Christ calls me draws me into relationship that starts with my openness. This was symbolized, that evening, by a gesture Nicole made with her hands. It is an engaging but mysterious gesture (the very same one we make in receiving communion, our hands open to create a place and a moment of meeting).
This was felt by some to be a controversial gesture. Am I begging, when I extend that gesture to you? You could read it that way, even if I mean to commune with you, that is, to communicate my openness to meet your openness, to enter the mystery of giving and receiving that defines our common life in Christ.
If you experience the gesture as begging, you may retreat (as in beat a hasty retreat), for who likes being begged-from?
But Nicole stood her ground, allowing the mystery in what is already a familiar gesture, at least among sacramental Christians. And what does it matter? We’re trying to express an attitude.
You have made this gesture countless times. Approaching Jesus’s table, you have made a table of your hands, an open space for communion through your senses of sight, touch, and taste. If someone makes that sign toward you, you become the priest or the minister of communing, communicating, community-building. Which makes me think Nicole is right to use it as an effective symbol of servant leadership.
Let me quickly dispel the impression that Servant Leadership is about navel-gazing. At Thursday’s gathering, someone said that this model of ministry resembles the Dream Center. Have you heard of that? The Dream Center could be seen as a good example of where Servant Leadership, broadly understood, could take the church. Here is the Dream Center’s story.
Pastor Matthew Barnett assumed the pastorate of Bethel Temple in Los Angeles in 1994 at the age of twenty. After a life-changing encounter with God, he helped Bethel Temple transition from a traditional-style church to a servant driven ministry that grew into what is now known as The Dream Center.
Compelled by a vision to impact all of Los Angeles by addressing people’s physical and spiritual needs spiritual needs in unique and practical ways, The Dream Center has grown into a phenomenon that now reaches more than 40,000 people each week through its multiple church services and various need-centered outreach ministries.
Services and programs offered include residential rehabilitation programs for teens and adults, a shelter for victims of human trafficking, a transitional shelter for homeless families, mobile hunger relief and medical programs, and a foster care intervention outreach. Programs such as adult basic education, job skills training, and life skills counseling continue to establish The Dream Center as a vital community development resource.
The Dream Center’s record of success has led to the launch of over 100 independent Dream Centers nationally, as well as internationally. I hear there is one in Pittsfield now.
The Center’s mission is to directly impact the issues that afflict the community, one square block at a time, by reconnecting isolated people to God and a community of support by providing free human services that address immediate and long-term needs in the areas of homelessness, hunger relief, medical care, mental health and education.
Its vision is a community of resilient people whose lives have been redeemed by God’s love, who share that love with others to transform and restore broken lives to wholeness.
Servant Leadership… the Dream Center… these make me think also of The Friendship Center in North Adams, founded and supported by North County residents (including a growing number from St. John’s), providing food assistance to more than 600 families, instilling this outreach with respect for the wholeness of each person.
When King David proposed building a house for God, a proper temple, it is said that God asked where that idea had come from. A tent had been good enough for many years, that and a traveling tabernacle (you remember that last Sunday we heard the story of David escorting that holy object into Jerusalem with his ecstatic dancing). Besides, says God to David, the whole point of this relationship is that I am making you a house, a people, an ongoing community reliant on my presence.
This is also the apostolic vision we hear in Ephesians, that the holy temple God desires is the reunited human race, a reconciled community with all its warring factions cooperating as one new humanity which has already become flesh and blood in Jesus Christ. His call to serve invites us to recognize and respect the growing wholeness, to participate in the becoming of all God’s people.
This wholeness, this becoming, is fed by the abundance of God’s grace. Still, we may wonder where does it call come from, all that free stuff and food and volunteerism vitalizing the Dream Center and the Friendship Center?
We like to say, Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Where there is God’s will being done, there are many ways— as many as there are servant leaders willing to rely upon God and each other.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Makes Me Want to Dance
Scripture for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost includes II Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29
What shall we do with these readings? I see what to do with our second reading, from Ephesians. But what’s to be learned from its bookends, two vignettes from the lives of two very different kings, one so renowned (David) that churches have him in their stained glass windows, the other (Herod) so vilified that (as was said of a particularly tyrannical Roman emperor), who would even name a dog after him?
Both of these action-packed episodes occur at royal occasions of celebration, though there’s a wide gulf between the momentous historic milestone of Israel’s installing the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem, and Herod’s pathetically vulgar birthday party.
At the first of these events, David shows his stuff, his moves. His ecstatic dancing suggests that the Spirit of God is in him. Enthusiasm rules: “en theous”, in God, inspired. But is this how heads of state are expected to behave? Well, this is not the House of Windsor. Nor is it in keeping with Hebrew expectation. This holy break-dancing is pure Canaanite fertility cult behavior, and it’s what you get when a shepherd is made a king, a king savvy enough to know how to impress the locals. That this story has been kept in the Hebrew Bible also says that Israel was quietly pleased that their new king could boogy.
At the other royal event, self-indulgence dominates. Herod is like a feral cat playing with a mouse, John the Baptist, whom Herod has kept alive because of a perverse sort of admiration: John has fearlessly confronted the corrupt king. John embodies the courage of holy convictions which Herod lacks. John claims to know what is good and true and Godly, all categories in which Herod is clueless.
In each story, there is an ice-cold moment, a stabbing sense of uh-oh. David has succeeded to the throne of his late father-in-law, Saul. Saul’s daughter, Michal, was David’s wife earlier in his career until a rift opened between the two men, and though Michal tried to remain devoted to David, Saul broke them up by giving her to one of his allies. It couldn’t have taken long for David to replace her in his affections, and, when Michal sees him doing his splits and twirls, she despises him, setting the stage for more pain to come.
That’s one uh-oh moment. The second, of course, is when Herod loses his control of the Baptizer’s fate by forgetting that two other feral cats are prowling his banquet hall. And when he goes overboard in his gratitude to his daughter Herodias (who also had some remarkable moves and was apparently the entertainer who sprang out of Herod’s birthday cake), when he promises her the sky, she puts a storm cloud in it. Prompted by Mummy Dearest, she asks for the assassination of her mother’s old enemy, John the Baptist, and Daddy, all caught up in pandering to his guests, obliges.
What do we do with these stories? Darned if I know—but they’re so dramatic! How can a preacher not at least nod to them in passing?
In passing to what? I have it in mind to make sure you know some of what happened last week, as the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention met in Indianapolis.
Here is where our second lesson is useful, with its insistence that the inheritance we have gained from God in Jesus Christ is graciously, freely, bestowed—and not to a few, but to all who welcome the embrace of Christ whose work is to gather up all things in himself.
So I’ll start with news that makes me want to dance: As of the first Sunday of Advent, same-gender couples may have their committed relationships blessed in the Episcopal Church.
It is how the Episcopal Church does things to first provide the words, the form, the liturgy by which a previously unrecognized pastoral need may be met, then make that pastoral care available to people who seek it. So not only a really splendid blessing rite, but also materials to help prepare couples, and teaching materials inviting all members into theological reflection were authorized by this General Convention.
Implementation of these provisions will be under the direction of the diocesan bishop, and will occur in parishes that choose to host blessing ceremonies, where they will be administered by clergy who choose to implement them. I so choose!
The resolution (which carried in the House of Deputies by 78% in the clergy order, and 76% in the lay order, and in the House of Bishops by a vote of 111 to 41) states that no one “should be coerced or penalized in any manner, nor suffer any canonical disabilities” for objecting to or supporting such blessings.
It is my hope that St. John’s will choose to host such pastoral care of same-gender couples as we now provide for heterosexual couples, seriously engaging the one, as we do the other, in careful spiritual preparation, focusing their attention not just on a ceremony to take place on one day, but on the resources they will need to fashion and support a lifelong, faithful, monogamous, joyful, fruitful and holy union.
At last week’s Vestry meeting, I proposed, and Vestry approved, forming a small team of Vestry members to work with me to offer opportunities this summer and fall for parishioners to examine more precisely what has been authorized, and to provide a respectful forum for parishioners to express where they are on this subject. I expect that our Vestry members’ participation in these gatherings will help guide them as they discern how St. John’s will choose, as that decision will be in their hands.
The Anglican Covenant, drafted over the past several years with the intention of defining and safeguarding the unity of the international Anglican Communion, and was designed to be ratified by the various national Anglican churches, hasn’t been received with much warmth in a number of countries, now including ours. We declined to take a position on it, but have chosen to remain in the international conversation in other ways.
Positive investment in the Palestinian Territories was overwhelmingly supported. While the Deputies urged vigorous and public corporate engagement with companies in the Church’s portfolio that contribute to the support of Israel’s occupation of the Territories, our Bishops pulled the plug on that.
A pilot student loan program was approved for seminarians who agree to devote three years of ministry in under-served areas of the Episcopal Church.
Convention directed the Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations to initiate dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Mormon Church “for the… purposes of friendship, goodwill, mutual understanding” and in anticipation of our next General Convention to be held in Salt Lake City in 2015.
Approval was given to relocate the Episcopal Church Center, which has long been in Manhattan, though no new location was named and no authorization was given to sell the building at 815 Second Avenue.
And a Development Office for the Episcopal Church was created, to solicit major gifts and other grants (is this one of our last steps before we can claim to have entered the 21st century?).
While many other actions were taken, the last I’ll mention is Convention’s approval of new rites and prayers for the care of beloved animals, providing liturgies (for example) for times of transition, as when a companion animal dies or when a guide dog retires from service. When this resolution was debated in the House of Bishops, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a former oceanographer, commented that she was glad to see that a prayer for whales has been included.
She, by the way, will complete her nine-year term at the next Convention, and a nominating committee was elected last week to prepare for the election of her successor to what is, for sure, a whale of a job.
In a closing press conference on Thursday, our Presiding Bishop gave a message that may sound a bit triumphalistic, but sure is good to hear: “The Episcopal Church is healthy, it’s becoming healthier, and it’s poised for an even more significant impact on the world around us. There’s no stopping us. Watch out, world. We’re coming.”
What shall we do with these readings? I see what to do with our second reading, from Ephesians. But what’s to be learned from its bookends, two vignettes from the lives of two very different kings, one so renowned (David) that churches have him in their stained glass windows, the other (Herod) so vilified that (as was said of a particularly tyrannical Roman emperor), who would even name a dog after him?
Both of these action-packed episodes occur at royal occasions of celebration, though there’s a wide gulf between the momentous historic milestone of Israel’s installing the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem, and Herod’s pathetically vulgar birthday party.
At the first of these events, David shows his stuff, his moves. His ecstatic dancing suggests that the Spirit of God is in him. Enthusiasm rules: “en theous”, in God, inspired. But is this how heads of state are expected to behave? Well, this is not the House of Windsor. Nor is it in keeping with Hebrew expectation. This holy break-dancing is pure Canaanite fertility cult behavior, and it’s what you get when a shepherd is made a king, a king savvy enough to know how to impress the locals. That this story has been kept in the Hebrew Bible also says that Israel was quietly pleased that their new king could boogy.
At the other royal event, self-indulgence dominates. Herod is like a feral cat playing with a mouse, John the Baptist, whom Herod has kept alive because of a perverse sort of admiration: John has fearlessly confronted the corrupt king. John embodies the courage of holy convictions which Herod lacks. John claims to know what is good and true and Godly, all categories in which Herod is clueless.
In each story, there is an ice-cold moment, a stabbing sense of uh-oh. David has succeeded to the throne of his late father-in-law, Saul. Saul’s daughter, Michal, was David’s wife earlier in his career until a rift opened between the two men, and though Michal tried to remain devoted to David, Saul broke them up by giving her to one of his allies. It couldn’t have taken long for David to replace her in his affections, and, when Michal sees him doing his splits and twirls, she despises him, setting the stage for more pain to come.
That’s one uh-oh moment. The second, of course, is when Herod loses his control of the Baptizer’s fate by forgetting that two other feral cats are prowling his banquet hall. And when he goes overboard in his gratitude to his daughter Herodias (who also had some remarkable moves and was apparently the entertainer who sprang out of Herod’s birthday cake), when he promises her the sky, she puts a storm cloud in it. Prompted by Mummy Dearest, she asks for the assassination of her mother’s old enemy, John the Baptist, and Daddy, all caught up in pandering to his guests, obliges.
What do we do with these stories? Darned if I know—but they’re so dramatic! How can a preacher not at least nod to them in passing?
In passing to what? I have it in mind to make sure you know some of what happened last week, as the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention met in Indianapolis.
Here is where our second lesson is useful, with its insistence that the inheritance we have gained from God in Jesus Christ is graciously, freely, bestowed—and not to a few, but to all who welcome the embrace of Christ whose work is to gather up all things in himself.
So I’ll start with news that makes me want to dance: As of the first Sunday of Advent, same-gender couples may have their committed relationships blessed in the Episcopal Church.
It is how the Episcopal Church does things to first provide the words, the form, the liturgy by which a previously unrecognized pastoral need may be met, then make that pastoral care available to people who seek it. So not only a really splendid blessing rite, but also materials to help prepare couples, and teaching materials inviting all members into theological reflection were authorized by this General Convention.
Implementation of these provisions will be under the direction of the diocesan bishop, and will occur in parishes that choose to host blessing ceremonies, where they will be administered by clergy who choose to implement them. I so choose!
The resolution (which carried in the House of Deputies by 78% in the clergy order, and 76% in the lay order, and in the House of Bishops by a vote of 111 to 41) states that no one “should be coerced or penalized in any manner, nor suffer any canonical disabilities” for objecting to or supporting such blessings.
It is my hope that St. John’s will choose to host such pastoral care of same-gender couples as we now provide for heterosexual couples, seriously engaging the one, as we do the other, in careful spiritual preparation, focusing their attention not just on a ceremony to take place on one day, but on the resources they will need to fashion and support a lifelong, faithful, monogamous, joyful, fruitful and holy union.
At last week’s Vestry meeting, I proposed, and Vestry approved, forming a small team of Vestry members to work with me to offer opportunities this summer and fall for parishioners to examine more precisely what has been authorized, and to provide a respectful forum for parishioners to express where they are on this subject. I expect that our Vestry members’ participation in these gatherings will help guide them as they discern how St. John’s will choose, as that decision will be in their hands.
The Anglican Covenant, drafted over the past several years with the intention of defining and safeguarding the unity of the international Anglican Communion, and was designed to be ratified by the various national Anglican churches, hasn’t been received with much warmth in a number of countries, now including ours. We declined to take a position on it, but have chosen to remain in the international conversation in other ways.
Positive investment in the Palestinian Territories was overwhelmingly supported. While the Deputies urged vigorous and public corporate engagement with companies in the Church’s portfolio that contribute to the support of Israel’s occupation of the Territories, our Bishops pulled the plug on that.
A pilot student loan program was approved for seminarians who agree to devote three years of ministry in under-served areas of the Episcopal Church.
Convention directed the Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations to initiate dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Mormon Church “for the… purposes of friendship, goodwill, mutual understanding” and in anticipation of our next General Convention to be held in Salt Lake City in 2015.
Approval was given to relocate the Episcopal Church Center, which has long been in Manhattan, though no new location was named and no authorization was given to sell the building at 815 Second Avenue.
And a Development Office for the Episcopal Church was created, to solicit major gifts and other grants (is this one of our last steps before we can claim to have entered the 21st century?).
While many other actions were taken, the last I’ll mention is Convention’s approval of new rites and prayers for the care of beloved animals, providing liturgies (for example) for times of transition, as when a companion animal dies or when a guide dog retires from service. When this resolution was debated in the House of Bishops, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a former oceanographer, commented that she was glad to see that a prayer for whales has been included.
She, by the way, will complete her nine-year term at the next Convention, and a nominating committee was elected last week to prepare for the election of her successor to what is, for sure, a whale of a job.
In a closing press conference on Thursday, our Presiding Bishop gave a message that may sound a bit triumphalistic, but sure is good to hear: “The Episcopal Church is healthy, it’s becoming healthier, and it’s poised for an even more significant impact on the world around us. There’s no stopping us. Watch out, world. We’re coming.”
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