Notes from the Undercroft

A New Story is Born - A Christmas Homily

2011-12-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

Below is the text of my Christmas Eve Homily (Listen Here):

My dear friends, we have gathered here this evening because our hearts long for a new story. We have gathered here this dark, December evening because our ears yearn to hear a new word. We have gathered here this evening because we have wandered too long in the growing darkness of these days, following stars and stories that have led us far off course. We have gathered here this evening because a new star has arisen and whispered rumors have revealed that the old stories of power, fear, and lust are about to be dispelled by a new word – a word which will bring glad tidings of great joy to all people. We are gathered here in this cave-cum-stall on the outskirts of this little town of Bethlehem because we are ready for this new story to be born.

We need this new story that is to come to overcome the story of coercive power that has formed our world and even our very own souls. We all know story of power all too well. This is that old story that is stamped on every coin, advertised across the buildings of every city in the empire, and heard with each footfall of every marching boot. I know that you’ve heard this story, how Lady Atia – kin of Julius Caesar – was impregnated as she slept by the warrior sun god, Apollo, and how her son, Octavius, became the lord and savior of the world by defeating his rivals and conquering the world through the might of his legionary troops. We know this story too well – it’s been told about every king and conqueror from the days of Cain and Abel to this very night. Octavius, who is now hailed as Caesar Augustus, is just the current bearer of the story of power. But we, who are burdened and beaten down by this story of power - we long for a new story to be born.

We yearn for this new story because we are haunted by the story of fear that has also shaped our lives. Take, for example, our “great” king, Herod. His soul has been so deformed by the story of fear that he now haunts his palace like a poltergeist. The story of fear has so taken hold of Herod that his anxieties of have been bent and twisted into paranoia. It was this very story of fear, you remember, that drove Herod to execute his own son – the flesh of his flesh. And, we also know this story all too well; it has been our story too. And so we yearn for a new story that will cast out our fear and comfort out anxiety. We yearn for this new story to be born.

But of course, if we are honest, our own lust has led us down into the story of deformed desires. Who among us has not secretly wished that God would come and shatter Caesar’s throne through an act of divine power? Who among us has not secretly desired to see the Messiah come and lead an army to the gates of Herod’s palace and give old Herod something to truly fear? Who among us has not lusted after the power of Caesar and feared the loss of what little power we wield in our daily lives? We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, though these desires were held captive by the story of our own self-centeredness. But now, this night, here in this little town of Bethlehem, we feel the weight of the fetters forged by our own lusts. Still, somehow the gathering gloom has been pierced by a desire we’d long forgotten – the desire for a new story to be born.

These old stories of power, fear, and lust have left us unhinged, floating up further and further into the darkness of the night sky – up to the abode of demons and dragons. We need a new story to plant us down in God’s good creation once again. We need a story of faith, hope, and love. And the rumors whispered from the lips of the Lord’s prophets have led us here tonight, to Bethlehem. For God has spoken Her eternal Word, and that Word is a new story being born of a peasant woman here in this cave-cum-stable – a new story that is borne upon the very flesh of this newborn child. See how the Creator and Sustainer of the whole universe now lies helpless in his mother’s arms. See how the one who’s flesh will one day nourish us unto everlasting life is now nourished by his mother’s milk. Every fragile limb of this little baby bears the story of Faith, which is the only true and divine power. And, now listen, do you hear that high, nasally cry coming from the child – that is the sound of hope bursting in upon the deafness of our fear. And look how he is wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in the manger, the great God now known to us as a little baby draws all our desires to him, breaking the spell of our self-obsessions and granting us the grace to know God’s love and to love God in return.

This new story for which we and the world have pined is now being born before us and within us! And we see that, in fact, this story is not new at all but as ancient as the first act of creation. Indeed the true story of faith, hope and love that is incarnate in this little child of Bethlehem is the most ancient of all stories, and yet also as new as the babe himself this night.

Late have we heard thee, O story so ancient and new. Thou didst call and cry out to us to break open our deafness, and thou didst send forth thy beams and shine upon us and chase away our blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrance upon us and we drew in our breath and do now pant for thee. Thou didst become a child of full humanity, that we might be born again as children of God.

The ancient story is born anew this night: Come, let us adore him!

Hi, haaaaave you met Mary . . . .

2011-12-22T08:15:00.000-08:00

So, another Church Year has begun, and Advent is quickly coming to its completion. But before we say goodbye to Advent, let me offer to you this sermon I preached last Sunday (18 December). The Gospel text was Luke 1:26-38 (The Annunciation); however, my sermon was written more in conversation with Mary's Magnificat (from the Visitation). Below is the text (& you can Listen here):

There are sermons that are meant to teach the congregation. There are sermons that are meant to delight the congregation. And there are sermons that are meant to move the congregation. These are the three ancient ends of rhetorical speech. But honestly I can’t say that I know in which of those three categories this sermon falls. You see, the purpose of this sermon is an introduction – or, for some, a reintroduction. And I don’t mean an introduction to a theological concept or a doctrine of the Church, but an introduction to a person. In other words, there’s someone I’d like y’all meet.

I suspect you’ve overlooked her here this morning. I don’t blame you. She doesn’t really fit in here – or now – and so she often gets overlooked and ignored. But I believe that the time has come for us to give her a little recognition. This is, in many ways, her season, after all. And, to be honest, we as a Church and a people called forth from the nations as a wild shoot and grafted into the ancient olive tree of God’s chosen people, Israel – we owe her much. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Certainly, we wouldn’t know her importance just by looking at her. All we might gather about her from a glance would be that she is a Jewish peasant from a time not our own.

Perhaps it is because she is such a stranger to our time that this young woman I’d like to introduce you to now needs an introduction. But her present obscurity is, actually, consonant with the veil of anonymity in which she was wrapped in her own time, two thousand years ago. The cry of peasants, in general, and peasant women, in particular, is almost never heard over the hum of history’s hymns to great men. And historians have certainly spilt much ink over the mighty on their thrones at the time this young peasant girl worked the land of ancient Palestine. We expect history to remember Caesar Augustus who secured military peace by the might of his arm and became Rome’s first emperor, or Herod the Great, appointed by Caesar as Rome’s client-king over Palestine, whose pride and conceit led him to rule the land with an iron fist. But we would not expect to know the story of a Jewish peasant girl from the upper part of Palestine, who lived at the same time that these great men sat upon their thrones and directed the political, economic, and cultural currents of their day. And yet, now we know these great men only as they are interred in the life-less ink inscribed in the history books or as background characters to the story in which she is one of the main characters. But we know her – this poor, obscure Jewish girl – alive anew and present in our world through the warmth of words spoken aloud as her story is told and retold among that people who owe her so much.

But, again, I’m getting ahead of myself. This wouldn’t be a proper introduction if I didn’t tell you a little something about this Jewish peasant girl whose inspiring presence has persisted undiminished over two millennia down to our present times. So, let me tell you a little of her story. She was born around 18 BC – give or take a couple of years – in the Galilee, in the small hamlet known as Nazareth. Tradition tells us that her parents were named Joachim and Anne, an older couple who had had difficultly conceiving. As a peasant, she would have been out in the fields during the seasons of sowing and harvest with the other inhabitants of Nazareth - many of whom were probably kin. And during her lifetime, she would have watched as the changing political and economic situations that accompanied Roman occupation and Herod’s obsession with building cities tore family households apart and left a growing number of peasants destitute, without their ancestral lands and homes. The man she would eventually marry would be from one of those families that had lost their land to Roman agri-business, leaving him to pick-up the trade of a carpenter.

She would also have witnessed the lives of those who were less fortunate when they lost their lands and had to resort to begging or joining up with the bandits hiding out in the hills, only coming down from time-to-time to steal grain, grapes, and figs from the farms they once owned and worked. As a peasant alive in that tumultuous time, she would have watched as the rich grew richer and poor lost what little they had. She would have watched as the lowly were cast down even further and left hungry, while the wealthy and powerful went away with the good things of the land.

But as a Jew, as a daughter of the chosen people, she would have known that God could not be pleased with the way the world was being run. As a Jew, she surely knew that God would not allow the darkness of injustice and oppression, of violence and sin, to overwhelm his beloved creation. Surely she heard and knew by heart the stories of olden days when God’s chosen people suffered under the weight of the world’s great men and their ambitions. Surely she heard and knew by heart how God did not abandon his beloved creation and his chosen people when the foundations of the world were shaken by the pride and might of great men. Surely she heard and knew by heart how God had bestowed his mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

And surely she wrapped herself in these stories, clothing herself in the virtues and examples of God’s chosen people and prophets, and engraved upon her heart the law and covenant of her people.

Like Puah and Shiphrah, the midwives who saved the baby Moses, God granted this Jewish peasant girl the grace of faith and foresight. Like Deborah the Judge, God granted her the grace of wisdom. Like Jael, the tent-maker’s wife, God granted her the grace of courage. Like Esther the queen, God granted her the grace of compassion. And like Judith the widow, God granted her the grace of commitment to justice. Like all of the prophets whose stories surely shaped and formed the substance of her own soul, this Jewish peasant girl was given a share in God’s redeeming work, she was made an actor and agent in the deliverance God would bring not only for His people but for the whole world. She carried once and continues to carry God’s eternal Word of truth and salvation in her actions, on her lips, and in her heart.

Allow me to introduce to you this morning this young Jewish woman of yester-year who continues to witness to the Word of God now and always, the highly favored of the Lord, whom all generations shall call blessed: Mary of Nazareth.

Birds Have Nests & Foxes Have Dens . . . .

2011-06-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning we packed up our things, cleaned up after ourselves, and said goodbye to the place that we've been calling home for the past week. As you can see from the photos, the house we've been staying in - called Jericho House - was spacious and beautiful. Even those rooms and parts of the house that had been redone and made more functional for large groups passing-thru with little or no eye for aesthetics still hold the charm of the place. As one of our project leaders said, "That place is the Hilton of volunteer housing."

Jericho House, which is right behind Christ Church Cathedral in the Garden District, is used primarily by the Episcopal Community Services of the Diocese of Louisiana for volunteer groups and as office space for the Diocese's Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative.

The Garden District is a more affluent area of New Orleans, and like the French Quarter, it was largely untouched by the deluge poured into the city by Katrina. The houses one which we worked during the week, on the other hand, were in areas of a more modest economic strata. For the sake of privacy, I'm not posting the the photos I have from our work sites. However, you will notice that I have posted a photo of the (90-Day, temporary housing) FEMA trailer that served as home for five years for the woman on whose

house Charles, Kay, Eleis, and I worked for the second half of the week. I suspect that you'll find the juxtaposition between the two dwelling places as striking as I did. It is even more jarring when one considers that the Jericho House is a small bungalow compared to some of the houses in the Garden District.

Work Pilgrimage Update - Tiling, Bowling, and Zydeco

2011-06-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

"I would never normally go bowling on a Friday morning in New Orleans . . . ."

Well, technically, it was Friday morning as Jonathan, Julia, Charles, William, Meredith, Eleis and I wrapped up a round of bowling at Mid-City Lanes' Rock'n'Bowl. That is to say, we we're bowling until just past midnight. But I'm jumping ahead too far . . . .

In my last post, I recounted how we had arrived in New Orleans famished and found the perfect spot for dinner. That was Sunday evening. Monday morning saw the first of us up around six o'clock with the rest of the worker pilgrims rolling in to the kitchen sporadically thereafter. We ate breakfast, packed our lunches, and then piled into the van and Fit to drive across town for work - a ritual we repeated each morning this week.

For the first few days, we all worked together at the same site - tiling the floor of a house in the neighborhood of Lakeview. The house is owned by a wheelchair-bound woman who evacuated the city when Katrina hit. At the time, her husband was hospitalized for an illness, and she had to leave the city without him. He survived the storm and floods, and they were reunited - only for his illness to take him a year later. Before he died, her husband had begun restoration work on the house. And, for a while, she would not allow anyone to come in and complete the work he had done, to make any changes to his last project. But eventually she did invited the Episcopal Community Services of the Diocese of Louisiana to help her complete her husband's last effort and restore their house.

We all began our work at that house in Lakeview, but by mid-week our project leader grabbed four of us - Charles, Kay, Eleis, and I - and took us to another house in a nearby neighborhood. The owner of this other house had been living in a FEMA trailer for about the past five years. She moved into the temporary trailer as soon as she returned to New Orleans after the disaster, and she just moved out of the trailer a week ago because FEMA notified her that they were coming to reclaim it. So, some priority had been given to her house, and we were brought over to do more tiling and some other flooring.

Each day we would arrive at our work sites around 8am and would leave about 3:30 in the afternoon. Such good, hands-on work in the heat of the Louisiana summer left us all pretty exhausted each evening, but we went out a few times, nevertheless. And that is how we ended up at Rock'n'Bowl last night for a little recreation, bowling, and dancing to the music of Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas. Having a good time and bowling until Thursday night had become Friday morning.

(And, yes, that first line of this post is a quote from the song "I love you goodbye" by Thomas Dolby . . . the man who's famous for "She blinded me with Science.")

Our Daily Bread during this Work Pilgrimage

2011-06-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

When we arrived in the Crescent City around 7 o'clock on Sunday evening, we were all ready for dinner. So, we unloaded our luggage and settled in at the big, old Garden District house that the Diocese has set aside for groups like ours, and then we went in search of dinner. For a while we bounced around the Garden District before a local directed us to Franky & Johnny's on Arabella Street.

We have a only a few meals out since arriving, but this dinner has been - by far - the best meal we've enjoyed on this trip. We had 'gator soup, softshell po' boys, catfish, boiled shrimp, crawfish pie, and more. And it was all profoundly delicious.

The only downside of this wonderful meal is that it set the bar high, and none of our other meals - though good - have compared to our Franky & Johnny's feast. Also, we were all wishing we had another couple of hours to sleep it off when 6 o'clock Monday morning rolled around and we had to be up and getting ready for our first day at the works site. But these amounted to a small price to pay for such a great feast shared with such good company.

(Sunday, June 12) Day 2 - Pentecost on the Work Pilgrimage

2011-06-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

It was about 8:30 in the morning yesterday when we left Gadsden, Alabama for the final half of our road trip to New Orleans. But we weren't on the road more than about an hour before we made a slight detour to visit Birmingham. And so we made our way through town until we reached Kelly Ingram Park - across the street from the Civil Rights Institute and across the intersection from the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Jonathan added this stop to our Pilgrimage because of the important role of the park in the history of the Civil Rights movement. This park had been one of the primary battlegrounds of the struggle. And, as Jonathan pointed out, the death and destruction that Katrina wrought in New Orleans was not simply a matter of natural disaster, technological failure, and bureaucratic bungling; it was also a Civil Rights disaster and a moral failure that revealed the work that still needs to be done.

So, we followed the Freedom Walk around the park, and then we gathered at the centre for a celebration of Holy Eucharist. Our readings, in addition to the lectionary, included an excerpt from one of Martin Luther King's sermons and a excerpt from Charles Marsh's The Beloved Community. During our worship, we were joined by others who found themselves in the park that morning. Then, with a paper plate as a paten and a plastic cup as a chalice, we gave thanks to God, the Father of all, through his Son our Savior Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And we shared in those holy mysteries whereby we are strengthened and assured that we are, together, members of His body - in whom there is no discrimination, segregation, or violence.

That our Work Pilgrimage would begin with a celebration of the Eucharist in that place, on the day of Pentecost, seemed providential to me. Pentecost, of course, is the day that Christians celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, and Her inspiration of the first followers of Christ after his Ascension (see Acts 2). Because of Her inspiration, the disciples of the Lord were drawn together and emboldened to go out into the world to do the work Christ had given them to do - to be His Body in the world. At Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama we remembered a more recent communion, a beloved community of the Lord's friends, who were inspired by His Spirit to be his Body in a world that was still all too ready to crucify Him. And we confessed the complicity of our own church - and ourselves - in being with the World rather than with Christ.

Or, in the words of Charles Marsh from The Beloved Community (2005:208, 207):

"While the church as a worshipping community exists for the specific purposes of confessing, proclaiming, and worshipping Jesus Christ as Lord, the beloved community quietly moves from its historical origins to new and unexpected shapes of communion and solidarity. To be sure, the church has an obligation to nurture and fortify the beloved community, even though it often fails in this task. But the church;s failure, it's concessions to expediency and comfort, does not limit God's action in the world. At such times when the church chooses the easy way over the narrow way, God may nurture and fortify the beloved community through the activity of the Holy Spirit. Beloved community may then become a source of knowledge and conviction for the church, which the church in turn must acknowledge and appropriate in humility. But beyond humility, Christians should rejoice in the fact that when the church defaults on its mission in the world, the Spirit places the beloved community in the embracing arms of the kingdom of God. . . . The beloved community may then finally be described as a gift of the kingdom of God introduced into history by the church, and thus it exists within the provenance of Christ's mystery in the world."

Work Pilgrimage - The Journey Begins

2011-06-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

At about 10:00 yesterday morning (EST), a group of eight parishioners left the parking lot of St Paul's Memorial Church for a Work Pilgrimage to New Orleans, LA. Jonathan Schnyer, organizer and co-leader of the pilgrimage, drove his minivan, and I, my little Honda Fit - splitting the team of worker pilgrims between us. Two of our fellow worker pilgrims have taken the train down and will be meeting us in the Big Easy. In fact, they have already arrived at the site, whereas we stopped in Gadsden, Alabama last night and will not arrive until this evening.

I refer to New Orleans as the "site" to which we're traveling instead of our "destination" purposefully. Similarly, Jonathan was intentional about calling our endeavor a Work Pilgrimage. The usual parlance of the Episcopal Church (and some other mainline denominations) names such trips, during which parishioners travel to offer help with social and building projects, "Mission Trips." And, since the interest in Pilgrimages has been growing in the mainline denominations over the past decade or so, many have felt the need to insist on maintaining different language for trips of service and trips of spiritual edification. Those who insist on this distinction are rightly afraid that in our culture of never-ending work and productivity punctuated by bouts of extreme leisure, the ancient and medieval notion of Pilgrimage may be lost if wedded to a service project.

But Jonathan and I did not feel that the label “Mission Trip” captured our aspirations and expectations for our trip. While the ten of us will be working each day in the rebuilding efforts in the Ninth Ward, we have not embarked on this journey with a mission to help rebuild. In other words, our work in the Ninth Ward is no more our telos than eating is the telos of a dinner party. Rather, it is in this work (and all of the other aspects of this trip) that we seek communion with our Lord, Jesus Christ. We seek communion with Christ in the work and in the fun. We seek Christ in our little community and in all of God’s people that we meet along the way. We seek Christ and we hope others find Christ with us by His Grace. That is our telos. That is our destination. And so we travel with the hearts of pilgrims and the hands of workers. We travel as worker pilgrims on our Work Pilgrimage.

A Holy Saturday Reflection

2011-04-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

Holy Saturday

Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Which way has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? (Song of Songs 6:1)

It is no happenstance of history that Holy Saturday is a Sabbath Day.

Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath – Shabbat Adonai – (Mark 2:28). He is the embodiment of the Sabbath, and his life proclaimed and enacted, in word and deed, the everlasting Jubilee Year – the Sabbath of the Sabbath years. For it is on the Sabbath when God provides our daily bread (Exodus 16:23-29) and all people – Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free – are made equal and one (Exodus 20:9-10). In him is our Sabbath rest (Matthew 11:28).

Jewish tradition speaks of the Shekhinah – the abiding presence of God – as the Sabbath Bride, Shabbat Hamalka, who returns from her earthly wanderings to her Lord on the Sabbath. In Christ, the Sabbath Bride was united to the Lord of the Sabbath for an everlasting lifetime. But on this Sabbath, she rises to search; she goes about the city, in the streets and in the squares; she cries out:

I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer (Song of Songs 3:1).

On the Sabbath, all work is ceased and the people rest. In the Sabbath year, the earth, itself, is allowed to rest as the land lies fallow (Leviticus 25:2-5). On Holy Saturday, the Lord of the Sabbath’s work has ceased and his body has been returned to the fallow earth – to the depths of sheol. Hence the passage according to which God rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done (Genesis 2:2).

A Good Friday Reflection

2011-04-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

Good Friday

Everybody has a story to tell. But, more profoundly, every body tells a story. Even before a person begins to develop a story about who they are, their body has already begun to bear their story. From birth -- the moment their body is distinct from their mother’s body -- a person carries in and on their body the story of their inheritance. And not long after birth, that body begins learning language by which their story is expanded beyond the body and brought into the broader matrix of stories. The flesh becomes word.

However, in Jesus Christ, the Word became flesh. For the story of Jesus Christ is not just the embodied story of the son of Mary, but also the eternal Story of the Son of God, through whom and for whom the Father speaks the story of all Creation (Colossians 1:16). Therefore, the story of the invisible, Triune God is revealed in the embodied story of Jesus of Nazareth -- the Gospel. But in the gospel texts that story changes as it approaches the cross. He whose words bring life is muted (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 14:61). As the passion story unfolds, the narrative overtakes Jesus and constricts around his body and its pain. The Word is nailed to the flesh irrevocably.

The point of the crucifixion was the silencing of the story through the obliteration of the body. The goal was not simply death, but the complete eradication of the body (which made crucifixion one of Rome’s three Supreme Penalties). The powers and principalities of this world destroy the body and extinguish the story of Jesus of Nazareth, co-opting the cry of dereliction (Mark 15:34) into their story of violence and domination. With a loud cry (Mark 15:37), the Word is exhausted; the peaceable story, silenced.

Do You See What I See? - A Homily

2011-04-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

Preached the Fourth Sunday of Lent (3 April 2011) on 1 Samuel 16:1-13:

I take as my text this evening, the lesson from First Samuel. Now, you may have forgotten the lesson from First Samuel after that never-ending Gospel reading. But fear not! – for I will give you the Nik’s Notes version of the First Samuel reading. And the theme – or, better, the image – that I see to preach on from First Samuel is sight or seeing. And the line from the First Samuel reading that I’d like you to keep your mind’s eye on is this: “for the Lord does not see as mortals see.”

So, first, to the Nik’s Notes recap of the First Samuel reading. Let me provide you some narrative context so you can see this text more clearly within story of salvation. You all know the story of the Exodus, right? The Hebrew people are slaves in Egypt, they cry out to God for liberation, God sends Moses with a bag full of plagues, Pharaoh lets the Hebrews go free, Moses parts the Red Sea, God gives the Hebrews the Ten Commandments (along with about 600 other commandments that you never see displayed in courthouses or classrooms), they take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and end up wandering through the dessert for forty years, and, finally, the Hebrews make it to the Promised Land, which – whoops! – already has people living there called the Canaanites. Then, after some fighting and fornicating, the Hebrews and Canaanites eventually merged into a kind of confederacy of tribes – a people without a king, or royal courts, or any kind of military. And God was pleased.

But after a while of really getting beat on by neighboring nations and Empires, the people of the Promised Land asked God to give them a King. They wanted someone who could unite and lead them in military campaigns. They wanted someone who could lead them in fighting back. So, God sent his servant Samuel to the people to tell them that kings really aren’t so great. You see, God could see what his people could not. Kings create royal courts of people who don’t work, but live off the labor of the majority. And Kings create a military class – a standing army – not just to fight back invaders, but also to enforce their rule over their own people. Nevertheless, the people persisted in their prayers and insisted that God give them a king, for mortals do not see as the Lord sees.

So, God sent Samuel to anoint a great warrior named Saul to be Israel’s first king. And the people were pleased. Saul led great campaigns against Israel’s attackers, and he attained many victories. However, Saul lost sight of his role as servant of God and the people, and he became despotic. Saul came to embody all that God had foreseen when he warned the people about kings. Seeing the need to once again liberate his people from an oppressive ruler, God sent Samuel in search of Saul’s replacement, and that is where our reading begins today.

God sends Samuel to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse. And Samuel asks to see Jesse’s seven sons. Jesse has each son pass before Samuel’s eyes, so he may see the one that God has chosen to be the new king. And when the oldest of Jesse’s sons, Eliab, enters Samuel’s line of sight, Samuel thinks he sees a man fit to be king of Israel. Eliab is tall as a tower and solid as a rock. Samuel sees in Eliab the stature of a king. But God says to Samuel: “Do not look on Eliab’s appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

And it turns out that God does not see a new king in any of the seven sons of Jesse. So, Samuel asks Jesse if he happens to have one more son hiding up his sleeve. And Jesse says, “Oh yeah, I think I do have one more son – David. He’s the youngest, a runt, really. I sent him out to go watch my sheep.”

(A quick little aside, tending sheep was not a good summer job for a kid in the ancient world. Shepherding involved days and nights of sleeping on the ground, eating what you could find or kill, and – of course – loneliness. So, being a shepherd was not fun – unless you really like sheep. But, more than that, being a shepherd was very dangerous. It was very dangerous because the primary task was to protect the sheep from predators – predators that wouldn’t be too worried about distinguishing between the sheep or the kid protecting the sheep.)

Samuel commands Jesse to call David back from the fields, and so he does. And, of course, it is David that the Lord chooses to be the new king of Israel.

So, that’s the story. But before we move on to matters more sublime, I’d like to take a look at how the text narrates David’s arrival on the scene. Remember that God critiqued Samuel for being too superficial as he looked upon sons of Jesse for the new king. Remember, God said to Samuel, Don’t be so superficial; don’t look at appearances – for the Lord doesn’t see as mortals see. But, then, what is the only description that the text gives for David: “Now David was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.” And God says: That’s him! That’s my new king! That kid there, the one who looks like Justin Bieber. I choose him!

What about all that stuff about not being superficial and judging by appearances, God? I thought that the Lord doesn’t see as mortals see!

Well, let’s give God the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it wasn’t the Justin Bieber looks that God saw when he looked on David. Maybe God saw something else. Maybe God saw something that neither Jesse, nor the other sons of Jesse, nor even Samuel could see. Maybe – just maybe – God saw something of his very own Son in David. Maybe God saw in the very heart of David the line of descendants that would one day bring forth the King of all Creation. Maybe God saw in this young shepherd the good shepherd who would lay down his life for his flock. Maybe God saw in this king-to-be the King who would rule as a servant – not by violence and force, but by justice and compassion.

I hold up to your sight this evening this truth: The Lord does not see as mortals see. To the eyes of God, the mortal sight must appear as blindness. But like the blind man healed by Jesus in the Gospel lesson, we, too, are healed of our mortal blindness by the son of David, the shepherd-king. And, healed of our mortal blindness, we are invited to see ourselves, to see others, and to see the world around us as Lord sees.

TAKING TIME FOR DEATH - An Ash Wednesday Homily

2011-03-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

Remember that you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.

Today, we – the Church, the people of God – tell the truth about Death. Today, we bear witness to the reign and power of Death in the World. Death has such power in the word, in part, because the World is not truthful about Death. And to the extent that we remain in the World, we seek to avoid the truth of Death. We fail to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

Most of the time, we don’t have time for Death. We don’t have time for Death because we have a limited amount of time before we die, and if we took the time to acknowledge Death, then we might lose some of the precious time we need for the great projects that distract us from the truth of Death. But Lent is a time framed by Death. Lent begins with this day on which our foreheads are marked by ash – a sign that each one of us will one day be overcome by Death. And Lent ends with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday – the Triduum – an intense three day meditation on the that time when the very Son of God was overcome by Death. Lent is the time that we – the Church – recommit ourselves to being truthful about Death.

That there is a people who can take the time necessary to be truthful about the power and pall of Death over the World is exceptional. Such a people can only exist across time if Death has ultimately been overcome by one who, though subject to time and death, proved to be their Lord. This one who has proven to be the Lord of time and death is Christ Jesus. In him, we see that the power of God is more fundamental and determinative than the power of Death. We can only be truthful about Death because of the Resurrection. In other words, there is no Lent without Easter. There is no truthfulness in the World about the power of Death without an Easter people. We are an Easter people, which means that we can take the time to face Death truthfully.

Truthfully facing the power of Death in the World involves uncovering the desires and practices of the World that are under the sway of Death. Under the sway of Death is the practice of our consumer economy to always possess the latest, greatest things that the Market can produces or even to eat when we aren’t hungry. Under the sway of Death is the practice of our politics to always seek our own self-interest over the common good. Under the sway of Death are our relationships – the ways we neglect and use others. Under the sway of Death is our objectification of our bodies – subjecting the body to both overindulgence and molding to obscure the processes of aging. Under the sway of Death is the busyness of our lives, by which we preoccupy ourselves so we needn’t be truthful that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

But with these words – that we are dust – we reorient ourselves to the truth and we begin Lent. With these words, we begin that time in which we take the time to own up to the power of Death in the World. We own up to the power of Death over our economics of consumption by taking time to fast. We own up to the power of Death over our politics of conflict and competition by taking time for Confession and Reconciliation. We own up to the power of Death over our relationships by taking the time to nurture Friendships. We own up to the power of Death over our bodies by taking the time for self-denial. We own up to the power of Death over the busyness of our preoccupying schedules by taking time for daily Prayer.

We take the time for these disciplines to be truthful about Death in a World under the reign of Death. And by taking time for these practices, we’re not only being truthful about the power of Death but we’re also bearing witness to the greater power of the Resurrection.

THEOLOGICAL THURSDAY - Questions From a Confirmand

2011-02-24T20:00:00.001-08:00

Q: (Sent to me by e-mail from a young Confirmand).

I've done the assigned reading on the Bible, Church History, and the Creeds, but what I don't understand is:

1. Why should I come to Church? Can't I just search for God on my own? If I can talk to god without a priest, then why come to Church?

Before we explore an answer to these questions, it may prove helpful to parse the questions a little and, thereby, bring to light the ideas they presuppose. In other words, let's go all-in and lay our cards on the table. Just looking at these three questions together, I would summarize your view of Church in the following way.

Church is the place where one goes for assistance by a priest in their personal search for God or in their attempt to communicate with God.

I am sure that this summary is a gross oversimplification of your view, but I think it essentially reflects the ideas behind your questions. And, honestly, if that is what Church was, I would have the same questions that you have articulated.

But, of course, I'd like to suggest that is not what Church is.

So, what is Church?

First, and foremost, the Church is a body. And not just anybody, but the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27 - read it!). Now, it might be tempting to read this as a metaphor for the Church - like saying that the Church is my rock in the stormy sea of the world (or something). But calling the Church the Body of Christ is not a matter of just using another metaphor for the Church. In fact, calling the Church the Body of Christ is a way of calling the Church by it's true and most descriptive and determinative name. What do I mean by that?

To answer that question, let's start by going back to the notion (found in your second question) that the Church is a place where one goes if they are searching for God. This is a phrase that gets used pretty regularly these days, but I have to admit that it makes me a little uneasy. It seems to me to suggest that God (whatever we might mean by that word) is like extraterrestrial life or the cure for cancer. If we just look in the right place or if we just do the right experiments, we'll find God. And, if that is the case, why look for God in the first place? If God is an object or hypothesis that we might (or might not) find, why search?

Abraham was not searching for God, when the Lord called him and his family into a covenant and led them from home to embark on a new way of life. Moses was not searching for God, when he encountered the Lord in Burning Bush (that didn't burn). Instead, God sough out Moses. And when the Lord addressed Moses, He did not simply say, "Hi, Moses, I'm God" - (because then Moses would have surely asked, "Which God?") - but He Named Himself as the God of Moses' ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Christian claim is that this very same God - the God of Abraham and Moses - became a baby, born from a peasant girl named Mary in the small province of Palestine during the reign of the first Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus.

Jesus of Nazareth, then, is God become human, in search of us, to call us into covenant and communion with Him. But this covenant and communion to which He calls us is not simply a community or social organization which is bound together by geographic proximity or shared interests (like a neighborhood or a sports team). The community that forms around Christ is actually brought into his very body (read John 15:4-5). But how is this true?

After Jesus was killed by crucifixion, he - though truly dead - was raised into new life, resurrected. This was a fulfillment of God's promise to ancient Israel that when His Kingdom came, the dead would be resurrected - body and soul. Jesus - it turns out - would be the first (Paul call him the "first-fruits") to be raised. And it is by and through Him that we will be raised up - body and soul - to new life after we die. You see, the resurrected body both the same (in continuity) and yet radically different than the body we have on this side of death (read 1 Corinthians 15). Death would have the final say for all of us, but Christ has overcome the power of Death by his own death and resurrection. When we are baptized, by the Grace of God, we participate in Christ's death and resurrection. In this way, we become truly members of His resurrected Body (Romans 6). And this participation in Christ's Body is deepened and sustained by sharing in the sacred meal (that remembers his Last Supper) by which we consume his Body and Blood (via the consecrated bread and wine of communion).

So, to wrap this answer up, the Church is not a place to which someone comes. You and me and thousands of others are the Church - for we are the members of the Body of Christ. We are members of Christ's Body because he has called us to die with him and be raised with him through our Baptism. And we gather together to be visible as His Body in the World - first, by deepening our participation in him and the community we have in his Body through the Eucharist, and then by working together in the World in such a way that shows forth his profound love and his divine justice and his peace which passes all understanding.

THOMAS TUESDAY - Don't Fear the Preacher

2011-02-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

"I am not afraid of the priests."

-Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Horatio Spafford

THEOLOGICAL THURSDAY - Uncle Witty's Spiritual Exercises

2011-02-17T18:29:00.000-08:00

I call for cabaret to be spoken in tongues . . . for one giant symphony to be made of all the Irving Berlin songs . . . and let there be an upbeat animated Disney production of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. We need all this, I think it must happen, we need for this to happen . . . .

-E L Doctorow, City of God

Q: When Wittgenstein says "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," what does that sentiment mean to you?

A: This maxim frames the Tractatus and is, I think, it's ultimate point.

Between his first articulation of this principle at the beginning of the Tractatus and his reiteration of it at the end, Wittgenstein develops a theory and approach to language's relationship to what "is the case," or reality. (Or, perhaps, the Real - but that's a whole other conversation). Starting from empiricism (as opposed to Kant's concept of a priori knowledge) and logic, Witty builds his way up from the "atom" of language (namely, facts) to (true) propositions (via conceptual pictures in the mind).

What is interesting, of course, is that each of the seven main sections begins with a proposition that is simply proclaimed (as if each were a truism, complete unto itself). For example, the first proposition is that the World is everything that is the case. But what are the atomic facts logically held together and reflected in that proposition?

So, really, he doesn't say much that's new, rather he articulates many of the philosophical ideas floating around Vienna and Cambridge at the time in a very terse yet painfully intricate way. That is until he gets to the sixth proposition, in which he declares that propositions that are built on atomistic facts that are held together in logical thoughts are essentially the only truthful statements that can be made. This is so because these are the only statements that reflect "what is the case."

Then, just at the end of the section under Prop 6, Witty takes an unexpected turn. He starts talking about God and the Will and other metaphysical-type subjects. And then he says what we might expect him to say after climbing our way up his ladder of propositions - namely, these metaphysical subjects cannot be spoken of meaningfully based on the theory of language he has just provided. But then he does the unexpected and curious thing, he tells us that once you've ascended the ladder, you have no more use for it . . . .

And then he gives us his seventh proposition, just in case we've missed the point of this whole exhaustive exercise. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof on must remain silent.

The whole dang thing was - in a sense - a spiritual exercise.

The point was to climb the ladder so that you could dispense with it. There is no language - philosophical, logical, atomistic, even mathematical - that reflects "what is the case." Only silence can do that.

But the real question is when can we expect that upbeat animated Disney production of the Tractatus . . . ?

The Mystery of the Missing Baptism - A Sermon

2011-02-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

A little late but better than never.

Here is the Sermon I preached on the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany (1/16/2011) on John 1:29-42.

You can listen to an Mp3 of the sermon here.

There’s something missing in today’s reading from John. I’m not sure if you noticed it, but there’s an important scene in this story that seems to have been misplaced. Some of you may know what’s missing, some of you may not. So, for those who haven’t noticed anything important missing from the story, we should take a quick look back over the beginning of John’s Gospel. The Gospel according to St John begins with the beautiful and poetic prologue:

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God,

and so on . . . .

You know it. I don’t need to go on. And you might remember that the poetry of that prologue is broken, briefly, by a few lines that introduce John the Baptist and assure us that the Baptizer is not the Word of God but that he came to testify to the Word. Then, after the Prologue wraps-up, the scene focuses in on John the Baptist baptizing his fellow Jews at the Jordan River and proclaiming the coming of Messiah. Some silver-tongued politicians, lawyers, and clergy come out to see John the Baptist and give him the third-degree, but the ol’ Baptizer doesn’t flinch or fall-back. John the Baptist reiterates that he is not the Messiah, but he’s the one who’s come to prepare for and testify to the Christ.

So, now we’re caught up to the point in the Gospel where today’s reading begins. Pay extra close attention. The very next day after the Baptizer’s showdown with his interrogators, John catches sight of Jesus walking his way. And John’s immediate response to seeing Jesus is to say:

“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And John continues testifying, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him . . . . And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

And that’s it – at least for that day. The verse right after John the Baptist says his spiel takes us now to the next day. So, Jesus comes back the very next day. And, the Gospel says, as Jesus is strolling by the Baptizer again, John elbows a couple of his disciples and says, “Hey, look, the Lamb of God.” Now, the camera turns from John the Baptist to follow his two disciples as they up and leave him. Finally, the camera comes to rest on the face of Jesus, who has always been kept in the unfocused background up till this point. But now the camera has focused and zoomed in on the star of our show, leaving John the Baptist to show up in a few cameos later on in flashbacks.

So, were you fooled by the narrative misdirection again, or did you notice the one, pretty important scene that John’s Gospel has forgotten to mention? Well, for those who have succumbed to the story’s sleight-of-hand again, I will end the suspense and tell you what’s missing from John’s Gospel. Jesus never gets baptized. Jesus shows up at the Jordan. John the Baptist recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and even says that he saw the Spirit descend on Jesus like dove. But we never read anything about Jesus getting baptized by John. This is a pretty big omission. Too big of an omission, I’d venture, to blame on forgetfulness. So, why did the Gospel writer choose to leave out the story of Jesus’ baptism?

The common answer given by Biblical scholars to the question concerning John’s decision not to mention Jesus’ baptism is that the Gospel-writer was embarrassed by it. The gospel-writer was embarrassed by this story of Jesus getting baptized by John the Baptist – so the scholars say – because the story of Jesus’ baptism by John seems to suggest that Jesus was John the Baptist’s disciple, or Teaching Assistant, or Associate rector. In other words, scholars think that John the evangelist left the story of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist out of his Gospel because he felt like the story made Christ somehow inferior to the Baptizer.

Now, I don’t disagree with the scholars on this point. There is a lot of uneasiness and trepidation in all four of the Gospels about how to portray the interaction between John the Baptist and Jesus – particularly when their stories come to the point where John baptizes Jesus. But I think we’re letting ourselves off too easily if we let that explanation do all the work. I think we’re really missing an important point that John’s Gospel is trying to make if we blame the missing baptism all on embarrassment. I think John the evangelist had a more positive reason for not narrating the baptism of Jesus.

So, what makes me think that? Well, there’s another important scene in the life of Jesus that John has chosen not to narrate. Think, for a moment, about the title John the Baptist uses for Jesus. In John’s Gospel – and only in John’s Gospel – John the Baptist refers to Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the word.” Now that little phrase should be ringing some bells for y’all. Lamb of God, in Latin, is Agnus Dei. It’s Eucharistic language. It’s Passion language. When we hear or read John the Baptist proclaim Jesus to be the Lamb of God, we should automatically think of the Last Supper. But, wouldn’t you know, John’s Gospel doesn’t narrate the Last Supper. John tells us what happens immediately before the Last Supper and immediately after, but he never tells us the story of Jesus’ Last Supper. Just like he never tells us the story of Jesus’ baptism. This is no mere coincidence.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ Baptism and Jesus’ Last Supper may both take place off stage, but the presence of these two events is palpable throughout the Gospel. Baptismal and Eucharistic imagery pervades the text. And this should speak to us. Many of us – most of us, I suspect – cannot remember our baptisms. We were too busy experiencing the world for the first time and dirtying our diapers to remember baptism. And there’s now, since the 1979 prayer book came out, a generation or two who won’t be able to remember a time when they weren’t receiving the Body and Blood of Christ at the Eucharistic table. Our baptisms and, now, our first reception of communion are events that happen off stage in our memories – like in the Gospel of John.

But whether we remember our Baptism and First Communion, or we rely on the community to provide us with these memories, either way, our lives, like the Gospel of John, are to be built upon, filled with, and transformed by our remembrance and reaffirmation of our Baptisms and our weekly participation the Eucharist. Our Baptism, by which we were brought into the new creation that is the Body of Christ, must so saturate our bodies, minds, and lives that we, together as a community, come to be the new creation of Christ’s Body in the world. Our regular participation in the Eucharist, by which we consume the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, must so consume our selves – our souls and bodies – that we may be a living sacrifice by which the love of God is made known to all people. These two – Baptism and Eucharist – are inextricably intertwined in the Gospel, in the Sacramental life of the Church, and in the souls of every single one of us. It is because of our Baptism that we come to the Eucharistic table to share in the Feast of the Lamb with all the saints past and present – from St Paul to Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, Jr. It is because of our Baptism that when we come to the Eucharistic table we can proclaim that in this communion feast we see revealed the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The Dream of St Nicholas of Myra

2010-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

Today is the Feast of my patron saint, St Nicholas of Myra - Wonderworker, Defender of Orthodoxy, and Patron of Sailors and Children.

Now, of course, Saint Nikolaus is best known via the legends and traditions of Santa Claus - Jolly Old Elf, Drinker of Coca-Cola, and Patron of Consumer Capitalism. The supersession of the 4th Century Saint by the modern Santa has led some to abandon the Bishop of Myra entirely - feeling that he is beyond redemption for Christians who try to seek first the Kingdom of God and His Justice rather than being committed to the Kingdom of Consumer Capitalism and the myth of "secular" peace that accompanies it.

For example, New Testament scholar and cultural critic, Richard Horsley, suggests Christians dispense with the St Nicholas/Santa Claus traditions altogether, writing: "The anti-commercial commercial icon of Santa Claus mystified relations of mass-production with the pretense that gifts were hand-crafted and freely-betowed by the jovial, avuncular embodiment of free grace." According to Horsley, the consumerist "free grace" that Santa embodies is directly at odds with the free Grace proclaimed by the Gospel.

While I am sympathetic to Dr Horsley's diagnosis, I disagree with his prescription.

As an undaunted admirer of St Nikolaus, I am not yet ready to abandon him to his secular fate. Rather, I believe that this is a matter of competing narratives. Many TV shows, Movies, and Books produced in the past 100 years have begun retelling the origins of Santa Claus in such a way that he has been completely divorced from the historical bishop who is especially remembered for always giving to those in need, standing up against those who would hurt others for their own gain, and for his faithfulness to his Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe the following poem (which I found in Msgr Vincent A Yzermans' book, Wonderworker: The True Story of How St Nicholas Became Santa Claus) is a good starting point for those of us who would like to out-narrate the Consumer Capitalist stories of Santa with another story - a story grounded in (without supplanting) the Gospel and the Church's memory of one of her most beloved saints.

Msgr Yzermans writes that he first encountered this poem "in the December, 1993, issue of America." Enjoy.

Nicholas the Dreamer

by Charles A Brady

The great council was over. The bishop was weary.

Two months – and a week to travel – had left him homesick

For Myra, his see, and his own trundle bed.

Eight full weeks of wrangling about words!

Words he did not fully understand

Any more than most of the three hundred odd bishops

Who sat in mute conclave under Constantine,

Leaving the arguing to Alexander,

Spyridion of Cyprus, from Cordova Ossius.

And, most of all, Archdeacon Athanasius

Whose words winged upward as no one else’s did.

One Word he did understand: the Word made flesh,

The Word the Father spoke when time was not:

And so he mastered the Greek formulas

Marking the hub of the mighty wheel that moved

This new thing under the sun, the Christian church’s

First universal council in history.

Homooousios, which means consubstantial,

Of the same essence with the Father, that is.

Homoiousios; of like substance –

One iota separated those words,

And, oh, what a difference that one iota made!

Like a jeweled dagger, envenomed, it struck home

And wounded the Incarnation mortally!

It robbed the Babe of his godhead with that I.

No longer would Omnipotence go swaddled.

Anger rose in Nicholas’s breast as he remembered

That presbyter from Alexandria,

Arius, talk, dark, supercilious,

A popinjay of logic, skilled in reason

To fell the ivory tower of Mary’s Child

With the battering ram of his accursed iota.

Particles were important, Matthew had said,

Defending jots and tittles in the Law.

Well, this yod was evil. It would destroy

The Nativity’s great Feast of Little Things,

And Mary’s Babe, the littlest thing of all,

Little Lord of the Birthing Feast that was so great.

Remember what the name, Nicaea, meant:

Victorious City; and his name, Nicholas:

Conquering Army, the Bishop of Myra rose

And smote the heresiarch on his learned nose.

Bright red it gushed before the labarum’s gold Chi-Rho.

Constantine had a herald read aloud:

Ye servants of God, put away all cause of strife,

Unknot all discord in the Father’s peace.

So the council ended in tumult, half-glad, half-sad.

Nicholas tossed and turned in the bed he would leave next morning,

Too tired to sleep, and too humiliated.

In July, the Emperor month, Nicaea was torrid.

No wind. The whining of mosquitoes only,

And the iron clank of camel gear outside.

His mind turned to his rustic see of Myra.

To the dowries he gave so that the maidens there

Might pay their lawful dues to a Christian eros.

To the children he served, his chosen apostolate.

He thought also of his single servant, Thorkel.

The man was a Northman, one of the northern soldiers

One came across here and there in the ranks of Caesar’s legions.

A Christian now, he told amusing stories,

That Nicholas prized, about the old northern gods.

How hard it is not to sleep! A dream would be better.

Nicholas spoke aloud, from the Book of Job,

Word’s he loved in the Mass’s Ordinary:

Your old men shall dream dreams,

your young men shall

See visions. Well, he was old enough for dreams,

Wasn’t he? Mirabile dictu! It worked!

As in all dreams, he woke. He woke in a sleigh

Cunningly carved into whorls and grinning faces.

He was a passenger. The charioteer

A brawny giant with a wild red beard

Who brandished an ancient hammer, and every time

Thunder roared all about. He was consubstantial –

The council’s word still rang in Nicholas’ head –

With the wildness of the night. The songs he sang,

In his barbaric northern tongue, were wilder yet.

The team he drove were goats, no horses at all.

It came into Nicholas’s mind; here was Thorkel’s god,

Thor of the Red Beard, wild hammer of heaven.

Somehow he wasn’t afraid. Then that charioteer

Bowed with wild courtesy and handed him

The reins. Red beard streaming in the wind,

He was gone. And what a wind! The sleigh rode

On the wings of the wind. Like Isaiah’s seraphim

That wind had six wings, white pinions of air,

Each one driving the sledge on, on, on.

And up! Up! The bishop was air-borne now,

High above the world below where other

Seraphim of snow, not air, robed trees

In glistening white surplices for

The Feast of the Baby God of Bethlehem.

Strangely enough – and yet it didn’t seem strange!

Thor’s goats were gone and, in their place, horned deer,

Their horns like candelabra to hold stars.

Thorkel had told him once these came from Lapland

Where the Sami pastured them on the Hyperborean

Marches of Norway. How they raced through the skies!

His sled – yes it was his sled now –

Had a curious cargo Myra’s children would love:

Dolls, sweetmeats from Persia, toy helmets, horns.

Joy filled the heart of Nicholas at the sight,

Life and love and a giant’s energy.

Faster and faster fell the natal snow,

Softer than baby cheeks or a kitten’s fur.

The reindeer coursed through the night like the steeds of the gods.

A northern incense of firs fumed white on the air.

Nicholas woke in the dawnlight ruefully.

Sunt geminae Somni portae, as Vergil wrote,

Constantine’s favorite poet. Sleep has two gates.

He knew what Constantine would ask.

“Your dream,

was it out of the Gate of Horn? Or of ivory?

In a word, was it true or false? Nicholas sighed.

He couldn’t ask Constantine. He was out of favor.

Besides, as a Celt, Vergil knew. Romans didn’t.

He sighed once more. All he knew was this:

he’d like

To have that dream again. Once every year.

Another sigh. He supposed he was getting old.

If Nicholas could have known, he really grew

young that night.

As all the world grows young at Christmastide.

He didn’t know then. We know, to our fortune,

however,

All honor to St. Nicholas forever!

As it says in Paul’s Epistle for his Mass:

He was a prelate, the end of whose teaching was

Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and the same forever.

He was not led away with any strange

doctrine.

So Christmas is and stays our world’s

great dream.

And Nicholas’ part therein? What shall one say?

Not alta fantasia, no, Ah no,

No matter how high that gift-sleigh’s altitude.

A homlier fantasy, and most endearing,

The only tale of faery that’s true.

Christ the King of Abundance - A Sermon

2010-11-24T21:50:00.000-08:00

Below is the sermon I preached this past Sunday - 21 Novemeber - the Feast of Christ the King. (Listen here).

We have a little bit of a long and winding road ahead of us in this sermon, so let me begin by telling you our destination. The point of this sermon, the main thing I’d like you to take away, is this: Jesus Christ dispels the story of scarcity that drives our lives by proclaiming the Gospel of God’s abundant Grace, establishing God’s Kingdom of abundance, and living a self-emptying life, even unto death on a cross.

When I was a kid, I was no fan of broccoli. My mom had one heck of a time getting me to eat the green stuff whenever it found its way to my dinner plate. She would insist that I eat the broccoli, I would refuse, and a battle of words would ensue. Eventually, after my many justifications for fasting from the vegetable were voiced, my mom would play that one, old familiar card; she would say to me: “Now, Nicholas, you’d better finish everything on your plate – even that broccoli – because there are poor, starving children in Africa!” I suspect you’ve all heard this momism before. (And I suspect some of you moms have used some form of this momism before). I once thought there must be a book – like a manual filled with momisms – that some secret order of mothers passes on to each new mom. But since some of my good friends have become parents, I’ve had the opportunity to interrogate them on this matter. And these new mothers have all assured me that there is no manual, no book, no website, no downloadable app of motherly maxims. So my new theory is that momisms like this one are memes so deeply embedded in our cultural milieu and collective worldview that we’ve all heard them often enough to take them for granted. And moms, moms internalize those memes and mannerisms and maxims of mommyness even before becoming mothers, then – as they become mothers – moms start to live into these expectations of motherhood. And the next thing you know, a new mom finds herself saying to her broccoli-refusing rug-rat: You better finish your veggies. There are poor, starving children in Africa.

Similarly, in first century Palestine, there were beliefs about and expectations for the Messiah – the Christ – that were just as much a part of the air and water as the beliefs about and expectations for mothers. And, just as moms live into that collective view of motherhood, the would-be Messiahs tried to live into the collective expectations for God’s Anointed One. I say that those would-be Messiahs tried to live into the Messianic expectations because those expectations were a tall order to fill. First and foremost, the people of Israel expected the Messiah to be a King – and not just any king but the King of kings. They expected the Messiah to be a king who would wield the power God with the strength of David and the wisdom of Solomon, while commanding the angelic army of the heavenly host. The Messiah would throw off the yoke of the Roman dominion and replace the Empire of Rome with a Kingdom ruled from Jerusalem. And it was assumed, by many, that the Messiah would accomplish all of these things through military might. In other words, the Messiah would be more than just a monarch, he would be a conqueror – like Augustus Caesar and Alexander the Great and King David. And, of course, the Messiah would work miracles – but these miracles would be like the militaristic miracles that occurred when the Maccabees fought back the Greek oppressors or when the Hebrews fought against the surrounding nations as they wandered through the wilderness. In other words, the miracles of the Messiah would be miracles that testified to his power and established his kingdom over the other kingdoms and empires of the world. Like I said, the expectations for the Messiah were a tall order to fill. But these expectations reflected the deep, unspoken and even unconscious assumptions and desires of the Jews of first century Palestine.

Now think back to that momism that we began with. You should eat your dinner, whether you like it or not, whether you’re hungry or not, because there are poor, starving children in Africa. This motherly maxim is more than meets the ear. Like the messianic expectations just named, this momism reflects deep, usually unspoken and often even unconscious assumptions that our society shares.

Almost every child, I’m sure, has wondered at the logic of this momism. What do starving children in Africa have to do with my untouched broccoli, anyway? How does refusing to eat everything on my plate hurt those starving kids in the developing world? And yet, the logic of this motherly maxim is the logic upon which the politics of our economics is built. The prime lesson of this maternal proverb is that resources – even food – are scarce; therefore, we have a duty to consume as much as we can, when we have the opportunity, so we don’t waste anything. Let me repeat that: The prime lesson of the proverb is that resources are scarce; therefore, we have a duty to consume as much as we can so we don’t waste anything. Eating your broccoli doesn’t help the starving children of Africa, but you have to do it so you don’t waste this precious resource. This is the story of scarcity – the story that underwrites our society’s high value on competition and over-consumption. This is the story of scarcity – the story that there is not enough, never enough, so we must always be ready to compete and we must never let anything go to waste. This is the story of scarcity, and it’s Economics 101.

We’ve even come to read our national history in light of this story of scarcity. The Pilgrims of Plymouth, MA were wasting away from the scarcity of food in the colony and so, when they finally had a harvest that yielded a decent crop, the Pilgrims joined with the Native Americans who had helped them farm for three days of feasting. And now we continue the national celebration of consumption each year in response to this story of scarcity.

The story of scarcity rings so true because it is based on some truth. There are starving children in Africa and other parts of the developing world. So too, the story of the Messiah that gave rise to those kingly expectations mentioned earlier were based on true desires for justice and peace from an oppressed people. Particularly the poor, the peasants and the growing number of homeless throughout Roman occupied Palestine felt the scarcity of justice and true peace. I can just imagine a Roman mother saying to her child: You had better eat your olives; there are poor, starving kids in Palestine. But just as the situation is today, the scarcity of daily bread and land in Roman occupied Palestine was not due to a true scarcity of resources. Just as the situation is today, the scarcity of daily bread in Roman occupied Palestine was due to human programs of distribution. And so the people Judea and Galilee and all of the Roman province of Palestine truly yearned for the coming of the Messiah, the promised King, to drive out the Romans, to rule as a mighty monarch, and to restore the wealth and splendor of ancient Israel. And into this atmosphere, thick and heavy with these expectations, Jesus comes.

The problem is, Jesus never really fulfills any of the expectations of the messianic monarch. Jesus never lives up to or into the expectations for Christ the King. Jesus does work miracles, like expected, but not the military miracles that were expected. Jesus’ miracles are healings and exorcisms and feeding thousands with the scarce and scant resources of a fish and a few loaves of bread. Again, Jesus does resist Roman oppression and violence, like expected, but not with the military might and angelic violence that were expected. Jesus resists Roman oppression with parables, stories, acts of imagination – as well as healings and shared meals. Jesus does travel to Jerusalem, the heart of collaboration between the Roman rulers and the Judean aristocracy, to reclaim the world for God and God’s kingdom, like expected, but Jesus does not accomplish the task by taking the throne of power by violence and might, like expected. Jesus ultimately accomplishes this task of reclaiming the world for God not be ascending the throne of power, but by being tortured by the powers-that-be and lifted up on a cross. And this is one of the great mysteries of our faith, that Jesus is most clearly recognizable as Christ the King when he is being crucified by the violent powers of this world. Jesus is most clearly recognizable as Christ the King at his crucifixion. So, St Paul writes: The crucifixion is a scandal and a stumbling block.

Jesus Christ dashes the expectations of the messianic story, and transfigures the very notion of Christ the King. The expectations for the Messiah that had become so taken-for-granted in first century Palestine were born of fear.

Fear of pain.

Fear of struggle.

Fear of violence.

Fear of starvation.

Fear of becoming homeless.

Fear of becoming a beggar.

Fear of forgetting the God of who freed them from slavery in Egypt.

Fear of too much debt.

Fear of not-enough-food.

Fear of scarcity.

But Jesus Christ was free of these fears. He knew this fear, for sure. But his life was grounded, not in fear, but in the fullness of abundant life and love. Jesus lacked nothing for he knew the fullness – the abundance – of his Father. And lacking nothing, being grounded in the abundance of his Father, Christ could give freely. Christ could give wastefully. Christ could give thankfully.

Because he embodied God’s abundant love and Grace, Christ could give himself fully as a self-emptying servant.

Because he embodied God’s abundant love and Grace, Christ could bring healing instead of violence.

Because he embodied God’s abundant love and Grace, Christ could feed the multitudes instead of leading them to rebellion and war.

Because he embodied God’s abundant love and Grace, Christ could eschew the power of the world and the fear and violence that underwrite that power.

Because he embodied God’s abundant love and Grace, Christ could give himself fully, never resisting the evil done to him, but taking that evil, violence, and fear in its fullness upon the cross.

Because he embodied God’s abundant love and Grace, Christ could go to the cross trusting in the abundant life, love, and Grace of his Father.

And in his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ – Christ the King – exposed the violence and fear that feeds the powers and principalities of this world. And now we are freed from the stories of fear and violence that keep us from giving of ourselves with the reckless abandon of Christ.

We are freed from our story of scarcity through the proclamation of the Gospel of God’s abundant life, love, and Grace – given freely, given wastefully – for us.

We are freed to give out of that abundance, knowing that it will never run out.

We are freed to give of ourselves, knowing that our lives are only truly found when we give them away.

We are freed from competition and over-consumption.

We are freed not to eat everything on our plate, and even to fast when so called.

We are freed to eat our meals – both our Eucharist and the dinner we will eat this Thursday – in true thanksgiving for God’s abundance.

Jesus Christ dispels the story of scarcity that drives our lives by proclaiming the Gospel of God’s abundant Grace, establishing God’s Kingdom of abundance, and living a self-emptying life, even unto death on a cross.

You Are Healed Healers - A Sermon

2010-10-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

A Sermon on the occasion of the Feast of St Luke, observed - 17 October 2010 (Listen here):

Today, may this scripture, which we have heard, be fulfilled. Amen.

It’s been a quiet season in the Galilee. Even the harvest – now underway – hasn’t heightened the excitement and hopes of the folks who work the land and dwell in the villages and towns around Lake Gennesaret. The harvest has come but the festive spirit that attends the season still hasn’t ripened. Some say that it’s dying on the vine. Take, for example, the hamlet known as Nazareth. The peasants who populate the little village of Nazareth have seen too many funerals this year, too much violence, too much sickness, too much debt. They’ve seen their elders disabled by disease and their children emaciated by malnutrition. They’ve seen their families buckle and break apart from lack of resources, and they’ve watched the youth of Nazareth leave to search for day-labor or to join the bandits in the hills. Hope has become the scarcest of their scarce resources. These peasants of Nazareth are a people in need of healing.

And it is to these people, at this time when the season allotted for the crops to mature has been fulfilled, that Jesus returns from his wandering in the wilderness. Many seasons have passed – harvests come-and-gone – since the son of Mary has been seen in Nazareth. But now he’s back and gathered with the assembly of town elders – sometimes called a synagogue by the Greek-speakers. Jesus is invited to address the assembly who are eager to hear word of the wider world or tales of raids by the bandits. Instead, Jesus stands before them and recites, as best he can, words from the prophet Isaiah:

The spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to announce pardon for prisoners

and recovery of sight to the blind;

to set free the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s amnesty.

Jesus pauses. He looks around at the weary eyes that stare out from the worn-out faces of his neighbors and kin – weary eyes that are fixed on him. What words could he – the Word – call forth for these weary eyes that are watching him?

“Today,” Jesus says, “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It’s been a somewhat quiet season in Charlottesville. Of course, there’s been the excitement that comes with the Fall semester, but there’s a somber stillness hanging in the air, as well. Take, for example, this parish of St Paul’s Memorial Church. The members of this faith community have seen too many funerals this year and too much violence in our area. We’ve heard of too many attacks and abuses around us. We’ve heard of too many who have been bullied and abused to the point of taking their lives. We’ve heard of too much animosity toward and prejudice against other faith traditions and communities. We’ve heard of too much loneliness and neglect. We’ve seen too much unemployment and homelessness. We’ve seen too much money poured into political commercials so vitriolic that members of both parties should be ashamed. We’ve seen and heard too much of war and rumors of war. We are a people in need of healing.

And so, Jesus – the healer, he comes to us. Jesus comes to us in many ways. But today he comes to us through the scripture; he comes in our hearing. Jesus stands before us – the assembly, the ecclesia, the church – here at St Paul’s. The Word offers to us the words of the prophet Isaiah:

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me . . . to proclaim the year of the Lord’s Amnesty.

And then Jesus says to us: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

When Jesus spoke these words so long ago in Nazareth, no one knew what to make of them. No one knew how to even approach such a wild statement from the carpenter’s son. What Jesus was saying with those weighty words was that the Kingdom of God was present. The season had come, the harvest of hope was abundant, God’s Kingdom – God’s reign – had arrived. Perhaps it had always been there, hidden like the seed in the soil, but the time had come to gather in the harvest for the benefit of all. And how did Jesus know that the time was right? How did Jesus know that the crop was ripe? Jesus knew because he was – and is – the first-fruits of the harvest. Jesus Christ is the reigning God made flesh as a servant. In Christ is the Kingdom of God, the hoped for abundant life, and the healing that we need.

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

A community began to form around Jesus, an assembly began to gather around Christ to participate in the Kingdom of God and to receive the healing that they so desperately needed. To receive Jesus’ healing was to enter into God’s Kingdom. And to enter into God’s Kingdom was to become a member of Christ’s Body. The healed were sent out as healers – to spread God’s Kingdom and draw others into the healing that comes through participation in Christ’s Body.

Sometimes the stories in the gospels make us think that the disciples of Jesus followed him around from town to town like groupies. But the New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan suggests, instead, that we imagine the (men and women) disciples of the Lord receiving healing from him and then being sent out – probably in pairs – to take that healing to others. Creating a network of healed healers who would offer healing and then break bread with the ones they healed. And that gift of healing and shared meal, that coming together of people to share the spiritual and material basics of life, that was the Kingdom of God, the true Body of Christ in which we are all called to participate. So that each disciple who brought healing and shared a meal could say: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

But, of course, that was then and this is now. And there are still so many people who are in need of healing. Indeed, we are people in need of healing. But what do we make of Jesus’ words now? Well, I assume that we who are gathered here, this assembly of the St Paul’s Memorial parishioners, have come together because we have heard Christ proclaim the year of the Lord’s amnesty through the words and deeds of each other, we have been healed by Christ, and we have come to know him through that healing and through the breaking of the bread. We then are not different from those disciples of old. We have received Christ’s healing, and now we are being sent out by him to heal others. We are being sent out to build up his Body, to bring kingdom, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s amnesty.

We are not being sent out to work miracles; we are being sent out to be healed healers. The healing we bring can come in many ways – indeed, in as many ways as people are hurt, broken, or in pain. And we need not worry that we don’t know how to heal – what to say or what to do – because the healing does not come from us. The healing comes through us. It is Christ who heals by his holy Spirit working in and through us. And I think we will find, if we are willing to be sent, if we are willing to bring Christ’s healing to the diseased, the depressed, and the downtrodden, I think we will find that Christ is continuing to heal us too. Surely, we are all a people in need of healing.

Know this: You are healed in Christ Jesus. So go forth, disciples, bring the healing of God’s Kingdom to a sin-sick world, build up Christ’s Body by caring for one another and breaking bread together, and proclaim with Jesus, our Lord:

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Amen.

YOU'RE NO ANGEL - A Homily on the Occasion of Ben Shelton's Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate

2010-10-12T13:55:00.001-07:00

Here is the homily I preached at Benson E Shelton's Ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons (transitional) in the Episcopal Church on The Feast of St Michael the Archangel and All Angels, 2010:

Before I begin, I’d like to note just how providential it is that Ben is being ordained on this day, the Feast of the Archangel Michael and All Angels. One of the most important influences on Ben’s thought has been the theologian, John Milbank. And Milbank once said, in response to the lack of belief in angels among the clergy of the Diocese of Nottingham, “It’s a scandal! They shouldn’t even have been ordained, if they can’t give a cogent account of the angelic and its place in the divine economy.” Well, Dr Milbank needn’t worry about this ordination. If there is anyone I know who can provide a cogent account of the angelic and their place in the divine economy, it is Ben Shelton.

Benson, my dear friend and brother-from-another-mother, you’re no angel, but by the Grace of God, the support and consent of the Church, and your own blood, sweat, and tears, you’ve reached this long-sought threshold of your journey.

From the days when Gnostic Ben and Heretic Nik were undergrads, sitting on the porch of the Radford U. Canterbury House, trying to discern through long and late-night conversations this thing called a calling,

through the trials and tribulations of seminary, where we were working out our salvation with fear and trembling - and sometimes a glass or two of scotch - to this day and this hour of your ordination, I have had the privilege of being your friend and fellow pilgrim on the path.

And it is a profound honor to have been asked to search out the scripture texts this Michaelmas for the word the Holy Spirit holds for you.

To write this sermon, I thought – at first – that I might draw on my long and vast experience in the ordained ministry . . . all three months of it. But Holy Wisdom sent an angel to persuade me otherwise. Instead, I decided to sit with these texts for the feast of St Michael and all Angels, to scour them, to scratch-and-sniff these sacred stories until we come to see what the Spirit is saying in and through them. The texts for this Feast of All Angels feature, of course, the heavenly host. And, in particular, the Gospel reading reaches back, by allusion, to play off the image of an angelic escalator in the story from Genesis.

Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, has left home and kin to search for a wife. He travels light – carrying with him only the shirt on his back, the blessing of his father, and the hopes of his mother. After a weary day of walking through the heat of the Middle Eastern Sun, evening comes to close the curtains on the daylight, and Jacob rests from his wandering. Resting his head against a stone mysteriously marked by the sacred, Jacob quickly slips from the realm of waking life to the little death of sleep. And in his dreams, Jacob sees a ladder set upon the earth, the top reaching to the highest heavens, with the angels of God ascending and descending. Then and there, Jacob receives a blessing from the Lord, and he wakes to the recognition that he has reached a threshold – a gate of heaven.

You, Ben, are no angel, but like Jacob before you, you have been following the path that the eternal God set for you from eternity. And, like Jacob before you, you have come to a threshold – at this place in time, you have come to a gate of heaven. I don’t know if tonight, when your head hits the pillow, you’ll dream of angles ascending and descending, but you will leave this place in time with the blessing of the Lord.

You’re no angel, Ben, but from here on out the angels of the Lord will be among your closest companions. As Richard Hooker wrote in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity:

“Between the throne of God in heaven and his Church upon earth here militant if it be so that Angels have their continual intercourse, where should we find the same more verified than in these two ghostly exercises, the one Doctrine, and the other Prayer? For what is the assembling of the church to learn, but the receiving of Angels descended from above? What to pray, but the sending of Angels upward? His heavenly inspirations and our holy desires are as so many Angels of intercourse and commerce between God and us."

Now, Ben, knowing you as I do, a disciple of St Augustine, I suspect you may say: “I’m no angel that God should send his heavenly inspirations to descend the ladder to me. I’m no angel that my prayers should take wing and fly to the throne of the Lord.”

In the words of the angels, Ben: “Fear not.” For Jesus tells us that the angels of heavenly inspiration and prayer are ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. And in your baptism you died to yourself and were raised in Christ, so that, by your participation in him, the angels are now ascending and descending upon you. So, pray and listen for heavenly inspiration whispered gently in your ear. These angels will continue to be your close companions on the journey as you leave this gate of heaven with God’s blessing.

But make no mistake, Benson, even though you bear God’s blessing, you’re no angel. And when Bishop Powell places his hands on you, and ordains you as a transitional deacon, you won’t be more angelic. You see, the angels, St Augustine tells us, are spirits. These spirits can be the intercourse and commerce between us and God, but without flesh, the angels cannot embody the Gospel or bear the yoke of God’s Kingdom.

However, as a Deacon, you are called to embody the Gospel – the Good News for the poor, the lost, the sin-sick, and the oppressed.

As a Deacon, you are called to bear the yoke of God’s Kingdom.

As a Deacon, you are not called to be a messenger only, but to be the message.

As a Deacon, you are not called to be an angel, but to be a servant, in imitation of the Word made Flesh, the self-emptying servant and Son of the Living God.

This is your charge and sacred duty Benson – not to be an angel, but to be a servant. And the angels of the Lord are rejoicing. Keep those angels as your close companions as you serve the Church and the World in the ordained ministry. Amen.

Ken Cuccinelli vs Thomas Jefferson - Round 1

2010-10-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

Below is a section of an opinion piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education. It's nice to see that Mr Jefferson's University still takes a stand for intellectual freedom.

"Them's fightin' words!" ~TJ

October 7, 2010, 04:00 PM ET

Ken Cuccinelli, Enemy of Freedom

By Kevin Carey

Elected as Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia in November 2009, Cuccinelli wasted little time before demanding that the University of Virginia turn over a trove of documents and private correspondence related to former UVA (and current Penn State) professor Michael E. Mann's research on climate change. UVA rightly refused and a Virginia judge dismissed the request. Undaunted, Cuccinelli re-submitted his subpoenas this week, this time on the pretext that, in the course of applying for a state-funded grant to support research on the African savannah--research that had nothing to do with climate change--Mann included his C.V., which referenced research on climate change. The Post reacted with an editorial titled "Ken Cuccinelli seems determined to embarrass Virginia."

It's hard to overstate the level of outright thuggery involved here. Ken Cuccinelli doesn't believe in man-made climate change, not because he has any specific knowledge about the subject, but because climate change denialism is a plank in the ideological extremist platform circa 2010 and Cuccinelli is a politician with ambitions. If this were 1967, Cuccinelli would be railing against miscegenation. If this were 1956, Cuccinelli would be explaining why Virginians should support massive resistance to desegregation. Since it's 2010, Cuccinelli wants to deny life-saving health care to poor people, force women to give birth against their will, and let the planet Earth boil to death in a stew of human waste. And that's his right, it's a free country. He can run for Congress and vote against cap-and-trade if he wins.

Instead, Cuccinelli is blatantly abusing the power of his office to wage a campaign of legal intimidation against not only the University of Virginia but free inquiry and higher education generally. I fully expect that UVA will never, under any circumstances, buckle under to this kind of attack. In that sense Cuccinelli is the most useful idiot imaginable for the cause of tenure, proof positive that controversial scholarship really does need protection from the forces of economic and political power. By no means am I suggesting that the current tenure system shouldn't be substantially reformed. Refusing to fire employees for bad reasons doesn't necessarily imply an inability to fire them for any reasons. But I have to admit that Cuccinelli's shocking actions have heightened my appreciation for the principles of academic freedom that tenure protects.

The complete article can be found at:

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Ken-Cuccinelli-Enemy-of/27527/

Is There Life After Parable? - A Homily

2010-10-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Below is the Homily I preached at the Sunday evening Eucharist on 26 September:

The Gospel According to St Luke, Chapter 16, verses 19 thru 31:

Jesus said, “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house – for I have five brothers – that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

We look for the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. + Amen.

Well, once again we’ve been given a set of readings that stress economic justice, and rightly so, since economic justice stands at the heart of the Good News of God’s Kingdom. But you may be feeling that sometimes all of this talk of economic justice sounds more like a political platform than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Where, in all of this talk of peasants and debt and equal distribution of wealth, where is that comfortable word we sometimes long to hear about Heaven and harps and the hereafter?

For centuries Christians have sought such a word of comfort from the Gospel. Sometimes we’ve even sought to simplify the Gospel down to that word of comfort. So, the Gospel can be summed up to fit a bumper-sticker: “Be a good person, and you’ll get to heaven.” Or the other iteration: “Believe in Jesus, and you’ll get to heaven.” And sometimes it seems to me that one of these two slogans is what most folk feel the whole Gospel is all about. So, when we hear a parable, like the one we’ve just heard, we’re tempted to read it as a description of the afterlife. Fight this temptation.

This parable of the poor man, Lazarus and the rich man who neglects him is a parable.

This parable of poor Lazarus being carried away to Abraham by angels is a parable.

This parable of the miserly rich man who died and descended to torment in Hades is a parable.

This parable is not a revelation or description of the afterlife.

This parable is a parable.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with wondering about what happens to us when we die. Nor is there any sin in hoping to see our deceased loved ones once again. God knows that there is no hurt like the hurt we feel when death and violence tear apart the relationships that give our lives meaning. I suspect that some of you participated in the Day of Dialogue on Grounds this past Friday. And some of you were here on Wednesday when we joined with the members of other faith communities from the University and Charlottesville to acknowledge the grief that still weighs on us after the violence and violent deaths of the past year. At that stirring and beautiful Interfaith Gathering, we shared with one another the words of comfort from across cultures and traditions. But, again, you may be asking, where is that word of comfort that Christians seek from the Gospel.

Because we are acutely aware of our own experiential ignorance on the matter, many Christians and Christian leaders have shied away from talk about the afterlife. An old spiritual quips: Ev’rybody talkin’ ‘bout heav’n ain’t goin’ there. Yet, there is a time for hearing that comfortable word from the Gospel. But because of our reticence to speak, sentimentality has slid on its snake-belly and wrapped itself around the tree of truth and obscured our view. TV shows and Hallmark cards have convinced us that somewhere up there is a Heaven filled with disembodied souls that spend their immortal lives sitting around strumming harps, or else smiling incessantly and hugging people they couldn’t stand here on earth. This picture is not the comfortable word of the Gospel.

We proclaim the comfortable word of the Gospel hope whenever we affirm our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed: We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the word to come. Life – all life – is a gift from God. The life we receive in birth is a gift given by God in Creation. When we proclaim our faith in the resurrection of the dead, we acknowledge the truth and power of death to end that gift of life that God gave us. Just as Jesus Christ, our Lord, actually died on the Cross, we too will truly die – body and soul. But just as Christ was raised from the dead, we believe that we too will be raised in him. We will be given a new gift, the gift of resurrection in Christ. We do not earn this gift of new life in Christ, just as we did not earn the gift of life that we received when we were conceived. But just as Christ who was truly dead was raised – body and soul, so too will we be raised – body and soul.

The comfortable word of the Gospel is not about individual and immortal souls, but about the resurrection of the all the dead, in Christ Jesus. Christ is the first fruits of the harvest, as St Paul said. Moreover, the resurrection of the dead is but one aspect of the redemption of all creation. We will not be raised into a world still ravaged by sin and violence. We will be raised into the fullness of the Kingdom of God, which we only see in fleeting glimpses now.

And in the Kingdom of God, there is no sin or violence.

In the Kingdom of God, there is economic justice, & everyone shares in the feast.

In the Kingdom of God, people like poor Lazarus have all they need and more.

In Kingdom of God, victims of violence are healed and made whole.

In the kingdom of God, we are given the gift of new life, body and soul, in a renewed creation.

But perhaps the truest comfortable word of the Gospel is that we need not wait until we die to lead resurrected lives in the Kingdom of God. We can and are challenged to lead resurrected lives in the Kingdom of God now and always. AMEN.

From the Point-of-View of the Poor - A Homily

2010-09-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

Below is the Homily I preached for the 5:30 Eucharist last Sunday (Luke 16:1-13):

Over the past week or so, I have begun to feel that shift that signals the end of summer and the beginning of Fall. We’re still a couple of days away from the Autumnal Equinox, but the oppressive heat of the summer – particularly this summer – seems to have lifted. A few mornings have had to await the warmth of the now subdued sun to break their chill. And just last evening, I caught on the breeze what seemed to me to be the smell of autumn. And I confess that the change in seasons puts my mind to more ethereal and spiritual things. But the lectionary readings resolutely refuse to allow my personal predilections to get in the way of the Gospel. For the message from the Gospel this day is this:

No servant can be the slave of two masters. You can’t be enslaved to both God and a bank account.

You can’t serve both God and a bank account.

So, while I would love to talk to you about doctrines, archetypes, and elementary principles of the perennial philosophy, the Gospel stubbornly insists that we discuss economics. The Gospel insists we get down-and-dirty about money. You see, the Greek word from which we get the word economy – oikonomia – means household-management, and all of us who have become participants in God’s economy of salvation are, by default, involved in the way God’s household is managed. In other words, the Kingdom of God has economic implications.

Now it might come as a surprise to some that God’s Kingdom has something to do with economics. However, in the first century, when Jesus walked to dusty roads of Galilee, everyone assumed that the Kingdom of God had economic implications. And in the world in which the words of the Gospels were written, everyone assumed that the Kingdom of God had something to do with economics. In fact, it’s really only been in the past few hundred years that we’ve privatized religion, exiled the Kingdom of God to the afterlife, and seem to have forgotten that God is concerned with the way we manage our money – how we got it and what we do with it.

But there’s no denying Jesus words: You can’t be enslaved to both God and a bank account.

And if that’s not enough to convince you that God’s Kingdom has economic implications, then consider exhibit B – the “parable of the unjust steward” we just heard read. This is one of my favorite lectionary texts because I love to see priests and preachers duck-and-cover when it comes around. If you love the Old Testament, make sure you come to Church when this reading in Luke comes up. This is one of those rare Sundays when you’ll hear a whole sermon on anything but the Gospel reading. The reason for this textual evasion by preachers in pulpits far-and-wide is that this is one of Jesus’ parables that hasn’t become platitudinous over the past two-thousand years. This parable is still parabolic. This parable still packs a punch.

Heck, even Luke wasn’t sure exactly what to do with this parable. The Gospel writer provides two interpretations to the parable that attempt to soften the blow. Luke’s interpretations of the parable can be instructive and good lessons, but the parable itself defies domestication.

The parable begins by telling us that a rich man has placed a manager over his estate. (The rich man has placed an oikonomos over his oikonomia). But eventually this rich man gets word that he’s being ripped off by his manager. Apparently, the manager is using a few tricks that they don’t teach over at the Darden School of Business. This sly steward has been cooking-the-books and padding-his-pockets for a while. He knows that this kind of behavior would be frowned upon by his old business ethics professor, but it’s easy to look down on others from that ivory tower, right? This is the real world – cut-throat and dog-eat-dog. There are bills to pay and debts to drown and dreams to chase down. Besides, it’s not like the rich man is innocent. This sly steward has been washing that rich man’s dirty laundry every day for years now. He knows that there isn’t an innocent penny in the rich man’s piggy bank. It might all be legal, but it ain’t – none of it – ethical.

But now the rich man knows that he’s being bamboozled by his estate-manager. He’s been found out. So, the rich man calls the manager into his office and tells him to sit down. Then the rich man straightens his ridiculous toupee, looks squarely at the sketchy steward and says: You’re fired!

The manager is given two weeks to tie-up loose ends, pack up his desk, and get the heck out of Dodge. And for the first few days, he just mopes around, depressed and anxious.

“What am I gonna do?” he says. “I can’t do manual labor; I’m a college grad!” And then a light-bulb flicks on over his head, and he says: “I’ve got an idea.”

One-by-one, the embezzling manager calls upon those indebted to the rich man, and he rewrites their invoices so that their debt is reduced.

And this, Jesus tells us, this is what the Kingdom of God is like.

So, do you see it? Do you see why this parable might make preachers run-and-hide when the lectionary cycle brings it around? A rich manager rips off his even richer boss, and this, Jesus says, is what the kingdom of God is like.

But before I go on, let me remind you that a few weeks ago I preached that Christians are called to identify with the poor, the outcastes, the weak, the marginalized, and the mistreated. So, before you go and identify with the rich man of the parable or his steward, let me suggest that there is another perspective in the parable that you might should identify with. Perhaps this parable might make a little more sense from the perspective of the mass of unnamed people who are in debt to the rich man.

In Jesus’ day and time, there were the haves and the have-nots. The have-nots far out-numbered the haves – something like 85 to 90 percent have-nots to ten percent haves. And if you take a look at the socio-economic situation of our modern world, you might notice that things aren’t altogether different these days. Now, the names for these have-nots throughout history are peasants and beggars, the poor and the destitute. And these peasants are probably that unnamed group who find themselves in the rich man’s debt.

What made peasant life particularly tough wasn’t living at subsistence level, only just being able to feed yourself and your family with the little bit of produce you had left after the elites taxed the majority of it out of your hands. What made peasant life particularly tough was that a famine or a flood or a blight or a particularly pernicious swarm of locusts could push you over the edge. Any one of these or several other unpredictable and uncontrollable situations could force you to have to take out a loan from rich men like the one in today’s parable. And, of course, your land was collateral. The land of your ancestors, passed from generation to generation, was now collateral. And, of course, deep down you’d know that there would be almost no way for you to pay off that debt. Deep down you’d know that the land of your ancestors, passed from generation to generation, would end up in the ownership of that rich man to whom you were in debt.

If you’ve ever been by the Haven – the homeless day-shelter just downtown – you may have noticed that the guests there have a similar story to tell. Many of the guests at the Haven work at least two jobs and still can’t get their heads above water. “Minimum wage is not a livable wage.” So, many of the guests at the Haven, despite possibly working longer and harder hours a week than you and I have ever known have, nevertheless, lost their homes, their cars, and the lives they had hoped to lead.

And for people like the peasants of Jesus’ day and the guests of the Haven, this parable does, in fact, point to the good news of God’s Kingdom. You see, in God’s kingdom, the schemes of those who would betray their brothers and sisters in pursuit of wealth finally collapse. In God’s Kingdom, the rich man and his sketchy steward both lose their grasp on their ill-gotten gains. In God’s Kingdom, the poor, the peasants, the over-worked and under-paid, find that their debts have been cut-in-half or wiped away as the economic systems of the powerful elite turn inward and implode under their own weight.

You can’t be enslaved to both God and a bank account.

So, as some of you open your own checking and savings accounts,

and as others of you begin to build your credit,

and as all of us become more and more aware of the economic forces that determine so much of our social and political life,

remember this parable.

Remember the good news of the Kingdom of God.

You can’t serve two masters:

You can’t serve both God and the invisible hand of the Market.

You can’t serve both God’s Kingdom and kingdom of wealth.

You can’t serve both the Gospel and the Bottom line.

You can’t serve both Christ and the Credit Card.

Can you feel it? The economic season is changing. Let this seasonal shift put your mind on the good news of God’s Kingdom – the Gospel that proclaims:

You can’t be enslaved to both God and a bank account. Amen

Mr MESSIAH'S MEAL-TIME MANNERS - A Homily

2010-09-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here is my homily from the 5:30 service at St Paul's last Sunday (29 August):

Let me begin with a warm Welcome-Back to all returning students, and Welcome for all students who are here joining us for the first time. You should know that this Eucharist we celebrate has three parts: the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Sacrament, and - after communion - the liturgy of the dinner table (back in the parish hall). With that in mind, the Gospel for this first Sunday of our academic year, seems providential.

Like a letter to Miss Manners, the gospel text for today talks of table etiquette. You see, once again, we find Jesus at a dinner party. Once again, Jesus has been invited to the home and table of a Pharisee – a leading member of the community. But Jesus isn’t the only guest at this dinner. In fact, Jesus watches as a crowd filters in and sits around the table. And Jesus notices how each of these other guests follow the normal and acceptable table etiquette and social conventions that define and reveal who’s-who and who’s-not. Jesus watches as each of these guests come in and take their places at the table – each of these guests who have come not just to dine and socialize but also to hear Jesus speak. For Jesus has become known far-and-wide as a teacher and a teller-of-tales, a preacher-of-parables and a man of many maxims and aphorisms. So, you can imagine the disappointment among the guests when Jesus finally speaks up and says:

When you’re invited to a wedding banquet, don’t sit at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited; and the host may come and say to you, ‘Give this other person your place,' and then in disgrace you’d have to make the walk-of-shame to the lowest place. But when you’re invited, go sit at the lowest place, so when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher;’ then you’ll be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

A pin drops.

Crickets chirp.

Throats clear.

No one wants to say it, but they’re all thinking:

Really, Jesus? That, that’s the best you can do? Really? We’ve heard that old proverb before. My grandmother used to say that! That saying’s been around since Solomon sat on the throne. Those are really your words of wisdom for us this evening? Really?

But Jesus isn’t done. He turns to the host and the honored guests. He turns and looks squarely at them in their fine robes, eating the fine meal set before them. Jesus turns to these fine and respectable folks and says:

When you throw a party or have folks over for a meal, don’t invite your friends or your brothers or sisters - (I think that one was aimed at the frats and sororities) – and don’t invite your relatives or your rich neighbors. They’re probably gonna invite you in return, so you’ll be repaid. But try this. When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you’ll be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Bam! I betcha they didn’t even know what hit’em.

First the parry and then the zinger.

When you throw a party invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. The outcasts. The high-maintenance-folks. You know, the least of these.

So, I wonder, when we hear this story, who do we identify with? Did the zinger zing you just a little bit? Well, there’s good news: the zinger wasn’t meant for you – (at least not this lectionary cycle). The zinger was aimed at the wealthy and powerful host and his honorable friends. But Christians aren’t called to be wealthy and powerful. We’re called to be the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the least of these. If, in the story, you identified with the Pharisee and his friends in their finery, you might should be wondering why.

All who exalt themselves will be humbled,

and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

When we enter the body of Christ, we let go of our grasp on wealth and power.

When we put-on Christ, we no longer identify with the wealthy and the powerful, but with the least of these.

When we live by Christ’s Holy Spirit, we no longer exalt ourselves, but take the lowest place.

For Jesus Christ, himself, took the lowest place and humbled himself.

Jesus Christ himself eschewed wealth and power and became one with the least of these.

Jesus Christ, himself, is the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

So then, we who are the members of Christ’s body, are the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and the least of these.

It is Jesus Christ who waits to be invited to the table. And we also wait to be invited to the table.

And the Good News is that, in Christ, we are invited to the table by the true King, the bridegroom, our Lord, who says to each of us: Friend, move up higher.

Honoring the Sabbath - A Sermon

2010-09-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

To any and all readers of this blog, my apologies for the general lapse in postings and the specific delay in sermon/homily postings. This is a busy time for university chaplains.

To the professor of Homiletics I had in Seminary (who passionately taught and instilled in me the conviction that "I" should not show up in my sermons), my apologies for the personal anecdote that begins the sermon below.

Anyway, here it is - the sermon I preached at all three Sunday services at St Paul's Memorial Church at the University of Virginia on 22 August (Listen here):

Blessed are You, Sanctifier of the Sabbath. + AMEN.

When I was an undergrad at Radford University, I was a committed member of the Canterbury Student Fellowship. But I often also liked to float around to the other campus ministries when the meetings of those other campus ministries didn’t conflict with Canterbury. I could occasionally be found among the Catholic student group, the Presbyterian student association, and few others from time-to-time. I never had any trouble dropping in on these groups for two main reasons. The first reason was that each of these campus ministries seemed hungry for members – despite denominational affiliation. The second reason for the ease of my campus ministry crawl was that I stuck to the mainline, and we’re not really all that different. Anyway, the student leadership of each group tended to consist of my classmates in the Philosophy & Religious Studies Department, and they, themselves, could be found hopping around campus ministries when time allowed.

The exception to this scenario I’ve just described were my visits to Hillel – the Jewish student group. The Radford Hillel was the smallest of the groups I would visit. And neither the student leadership nor any of the student membership of Hillel claimed a place in the Philosophy & Religious Studies Department. Furthermore, Hillel didn’t have the desperate hunger for members that the Christian groups all seemed to share. Of course, Hillel was interested in attracting more of the Radford U Jews, but they weren’t quite sure what to do with the goy who kept crashing their meetings. However, over time, the members of Hillel got to know me and slowly came to be convinced that I wasn’t there to evangelize. As a result, the members of Hillel began to invite me to many of their activities – trips to Temple or Synagogue on the High Holy Days, their Hanukah party toward the end of the Fall Semester, and their occasional Friday night Shabbat dinners.

The Friday night Shabbat – or Sabbath – dinners held by the members of Hillel were a wonderful experience for me. About half-an-hour before sunset, we would arrive at the apartment of the student, or house of the professor, where the Shabbat meal was to be eaten. Two candles, towering over wine and bread on the table, would be lit before the setting of the sun while a Hebrew blessing was recited over them. Then, a little later, before the meal would be served, someone would recite another blessing – the Kiddush – over the wine. An English translation of the words of the Kiddush is:

[Evening became morning]: The sixth day.

And the heavens and the earth and all that filled them were complete.

And on the seventh day God completed the labor He had performed, and He refrained on the seventh day from all the labor which He had performed. And God blessed the seventh day and He sanctified it, for He then refrained from all his labor - from the act of creation that God had performed.

Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine. (Amen)

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who sanctified us with His commandments, and hoped for us, and with love and intent invested us with His sacred Sabbath, as a memorial to the deed of Creation. It is the first amongst the holy festivals, commemorating the exodus from Egypt. For You chose us, and sanctified us, out of all nations, and with love and intent You invested us with Your Holy Sabbath.

Blessed are You, Sanctifier of the Sabbath. (Amen)

After the Kiddush would come a ritual hand-washing and then a blessing over the challah – the special bread baked for the Shabbat. And after that would always come a wonderful dinner. The dedication to and reverence for the Shabbat that these Jewish students had deeply impressed me. The simple beauty of their liturgical preparation for their Sabbath meal made me feel honored to be there in attendance. And, of course, I was struck by the fact that some variation of this observance was part of the weekly life of our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth.

The Gospel reading for today finds Jesus in conversation with a group on the Sabbath. He has, perhaps, just watched as the candles were lit and heard as the blessing was intoned. Now comes the setting of the sun and his eyes behold the vesper light. He is amid an assembly – a synagogue – of the village’s citizens, all gathered in the courtyard of a house that is home to a large extended peasant family. Many have come to hear the words of this teacher from Nazareth. And the conversation is as lively as ever. But the elder patriarch of the host family calls out for quiet, so he might recite the Kiddush over the wine. Everyone soon becomes transfixed by the words of the blessing. Then, as the old man reaches that part of the prayer that speaks of Shabbat as the first among the holy festivals commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, a crippled woman drags her bent body into the courtyard and nearly collapses before Jesus. Despite the interruption, the old man chants on until he ends the prayer, Blessed are You, Sanctifier of the Sabbath.

At his beckoning, the woman comes closer to Jesus and tells him that a spirit has twisted her body and held her crippled for some eighteen years. Jesus embraces her and then, as if her body were clay, he begins to mold her twisted frame, forming her body into the upright posture first granted to Adam and Eve. And as he does this, Jesus says to her: Woman, you are set free from your ailment.

But just as the woman begins to praise God for bringing her to healing hands, a prominent, pious, and opinionated person from the village grumbles: There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.

You pious poser! Jesus responds, Don’t you take care of your animals on the Sabbath? Shouldn’t this woman, a daughter of Abraham and Sarah whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?

But all that the woman, herself, can say is: Blessed are You, Sanctifier of the Sabbath.

Jesus Christ is the blessed sanctifier of the Sabbath.

For the Sabbath is God’s eternal view of His creation’s Time.

The Sabbath contains the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

The Sabbath is the fullness of time that breaks into our divided, moving time.

The Sabbath is the Time of God’s Kingdom, God’s reign.

As human creatures, we cannot enter the Sabbath, but we must always stand before the setting sun, with our candles lit, ready to receive the gift of the Sabbath.

And, inasmuch as he is fully human,

Christ stood before the setting sun with his candles lit.

Like us, Christ was subject to the changes and chances of time,

Like us, Christ was looking with expectation toward the fulfillment of Time.

Like us, Christ was a recipient of the gift of the Sabbath & bound by covenant to observe & keep it.

But inasmuch as he is fully divine, Christ is Lord of Time.

Inasmuch as he fully divine, Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of Time.

And inasmuch as he is fully divine, Christ is the creator & sanctifier of the Sabbath.

Therefore, Christ can bring the healing, reconciliation, and wholeness of the Sabbath in himself, despite the day and despite the time.

Jesus Christ is the blessed sanctifier of the Sabbath.

And so we gather on this Sabbath to pray:

Blessed are You, Sanctifier of the Sabbath. AMEN.

"God's Philologist"

2010-08-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Birthday of Paulus Johannes Tillich (20 August 1886 - 22 October 1965).

For all of my Virginia Seminary friends and readers (who graduated anytime in the past ten or fifteen years), Tillich was that other theologian from the first half the twentieth century, besides Karl Barth, that you'll sometimes hear theologians and clergy who went to seminaries not dominated by Yale thought talk about.

Below is a short excerpt from E L Doctorow's novel City of God, quoted in honor of Dr Tillich:

"All right, that wise old dog Tillich, Paulus Tillichus - how did he construe the sermon? Picked a text and worried the hell out of it. Sniffed the words, pawed them: What, when you get right down to it, is a demon? You say you want to be saved? What does that mean? When you pray for eternal life, what do you think you're asking for? Paulus, God's philologist, that Merriam-Webster of the DDs, that German . . . shepherd. The suspense he held us in - bringing us to the edge of secularism, arms waving. Of course he saved us every time, pulled us back from the abyss and we were okay after all, we were back with Jesus. Until the next sermon, the next lesson. Because if God is to live, the words of our faith must live. The words must be reborn.

Oh did we flock to him. Enrollments soared.

But that was then and this is now.

We're back in Christendom, Paulus. People are born again, not words. You can see it on television."

A New Kind of Christian Putting Away Childish Things

2010-08-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I finished reading Marcus Borg's new book, Putting Away Childish Things: A Tale of Modern Faith. This new Borg book can claim novelty not only because it is the most recent publication by the good professor, but also because it is his first novel. And it is this second reason that enticed me to read it. I first came across the work of Oregon's favorite Fellow of the Jesus Seminar as a high school student in the mid-to-late nineties. The first of his books I read was the one he co-wrote with his friend and fellow Biblical scholar, N T Wright - The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. And since, I have read much of what Borg has written - both before and after that publication. So, had Dr Borg written another non-fiction book, I might have read a review of it, but I probably would not have bought a copy and begun reading it the very day I brought it home from the bookstore. But when I discovered he had written a novel . . . .

The first and most important thing I should say about Marcus Borg's new novel is that I enjoyed it.

I have read novels by professional novelists that I did not enjoy. And I have read novels by wanna-be novelists that I did not enjoy. This novel did not fall into either of those two categories.

As I read the novel, I couldn't help but think of Brian McLaren's first foray into fiction - A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey.

The stories are very different. But both novels treat similar themes in similar ways. Both novels are good, quick, and easy reads. And both novels are a

first attempt at fiction by a well-known, widely-read, contemporary Christian thinker. Moreover, each book could be classified as a novel of ideas. And, of course, both writers are aware of this. McLaren admits that A New Kind of Christian began as another nonfiction work, but he was challenged by a review of one of his earlier books to place the ideas within a narrative frame. And Borg states in the Preface to Putting Away Childish Things:

"I candidly acknowledge that this is a 'didactic' novel, a teaching novel. It is the only kind of novel I can imagine writing."

However, it is the humble opinion of this blogger that writing a decent story that is a novel of ideas is particularly difficult. The temptation is always to create two-dimensional characters who are little more than sock-puppets for the ideas being explored. Certainly, this need not always be the case - just look at Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza. And, sometimes the ideas so overwhelm the plot and characters, that they seem to lend them the depth that would be otherwise lacking (for example, Atlas Shrugged). But I suspect the temptation to create 2D-puppet-characters is especially tempting for a scholar who is writing fiction for the first time. And both writers give in - particularly with secondary characters - to that temptation.

Pastor Dan Poole and his new-found friend, Neil Edward Oliver are fleshed out over the three novels that begin with A New Kind of Christian. Similarly, Kate Riley and Martin Erikson - the two main characters of Putting Away Childish Things - are given fairly good depth. However, Kate's students seem to play similar role as St Anselm's Boso. Other characters also ask the right questions of the main characters or translate Kate and Martin's scholar-speak into the vernacular.

Based on descriptions, every female character in Borg's narrative world is beautiful and intelligent. Most of the men go without description. And Kate's gay friend Geoff is uncomfortably close to be stereotypical. (There's also a large and bizarre amount of flirtation and innuendo between the two that feels far too much like a first season episode of 'Will & Grace').

In terms of the ideas explored: anybody who has read two of Borg's previous books will not find much new. But it's fun to see how he imaginatively approaches the issues raised by his work. The theologians cited are the usual suspects of liberal protestantism. An exception is that Karl Barth is actually quoted once by one of the main characters . . . but - it turns out - only to justify why both of the main characters smoke incessantly.

Which brings me to my final observation. I appreciated the honesty of Borg's two main characters. They both were lonely, middle-aged academics who couldn't seem to connect the content of their scholarship with their way of life (even though they both seemed intent on that being more important than simply 'believing' the content to be true). But then one wonders whether the Christianity these characters represent is a Christianity worth embracing. If it does not change the characters lives (they live like most other stereotypical academics I've ever met), then where is the Gospel?

RELIGION @ UVA, Part 2: Battle of the Buildings!

2010-08-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

This morning, I joined clergy from around Charlottesville for coffee at Carr's Hill - the home of the UVA's president. Apparently, it is a regular practice for the president to invite the clergy of c'ville to Carr's Hill just before the beginning of each academic year.

If this had been a tradition instituted by Mr Jefferson - (which it most certainly was not, seeing as how Mr Jefferson was fond of neither clergy nor the idea of a "president" of his University) - then I would suspect that the purpose would be to keep an eye on us who practice priestcraft. If it had been a tradition instituted by Mr Jefferson, then it would have certainly been a very southern and Virginian way of meeting the enemy.

"The advocate for religious freedom," Mr Jefferson wrote to Mr Levi Lincoln in 1802, "is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy]."

As it was, coffee this morning was simply a courteous gesture from the University leadership, a chance for the clergy to come together and - in this particular case - to meet the new president and her husband.

But afterward, as I was walking down Carr's Hill to St Paul's at the top of the Corner, I looked over across University Avenue to the Grounds and my sight fell upon the UVA Chapel. And looking over at this out-of-place, neo-gothic, brown-stone structure, I thought back to that feeling I had a few weeks ago about the ever-so-slight betrayal of Jefferson's dream for a University free from the intrusion of chaplains, missionaries, Bishops, pastors, and evangelists. In a sense, this chapel stands as monument to that betrayal, a rock-and-stained-glass-window embodiment of it.

In planning his Academical Village, and drafting it's architecture and landscaping, Thomas Jefferson made an intentional decision to exclude any type of chapel. Mr Jefferson chose to place at the head of the Village a library - housed in the Rotunda. And the Rotunda, you may recall, he designed after the fashion of the Pantheon in Rome.

However, after TJ's death, when they knew they'd have a better shot of accomplishing their goals, a group worked for the establishment of a Chapel on Grounds. In fact, they wanted the Chapel on the opposite end of the Lawn, facing the Rotunda. The advocates of a Chapel on Grounds had to accept a less prominent place for their monument-of-betrayal, close but not part of the Academical Village proper. However, they reveled in their triumph. After the completion of the Chapel, on the day of its dedication, Maximilian Schele de Vere

proclaimed:

"Behind us, rise in cold though classic beauty the outlines of a pagan temple . . . . Before us . . . the pointed window, the flying buttress . . . aspiring to heaven."

It seems that Mr Jefferson's fears about the clergy and those who are not convinced of the need for a wall of separation between Church & State were justified that day.

Faith: Substance and Evidence - A homily

2010-08-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

Here is the homily I preached at the 5:30 Eucharist on Sunday, August 8.

Proper 14, Year C, RCL:

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Luke 12:32-40

The author and essayist, E L Doctorow, has described writing as being something like driving through the darkest of nights. The driver can only see as far as the beams from his headlights.

But that’s all the light necessary to make the whole trip. Doctorow’s metaphor for writing seems similar to the description of faith in today’s reading from Hebrews. In the King James Version, the Hebrews passage begins with the words:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

After this description of faith, the text then gives a roll call of the patriarchs and matriarchs who walked by this faith.

According to Hebrews, Abraham and Sarah walked by faith.

Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah also walked by faith.

And, Jacob, the son of Isaac also walked by faith.

And, by the way, ‘walking by faith’ was not a metaphor for these matriarchs and patriarchs of old. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob were always on the move, itinerant, traveling through foreign lands. These matriarchs and patriarchs were always walking through foreign lands ruled by foreign gods. For every land in the ancient world was under the dominion of a deity. And each of the ancient gods was as powerful as the nation over which he reigned. But the faith by which the patriarchs and matriarchs of old walked was the faith that their God was Lord of every land and ruler of the whole world.

The matriarchs and the patriarchs walked by their faith in the reign of God.

The matriarchs and patriarchs walked by their faith in the Kingdom of God.

In the words of Hebrews, the matriarchs and patriarchs confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Like the matriarchs and patriarchs of old, we too walk by faith. Like Abraham and Sarah, we too are driven by faith to leave our homeland. And like Isaac and Jacob, we too are pulled by our faith into foreign land ruled over by foreign gods. We are strangers and foreigners – we are resident aliens – who walk by the faith that our God is Lord of every land and the ruler of the whole world. But sometimes walking by this faith can be hard. Sometimes our faith may seem to be in vain. Sometimes we can’t see why we should even have faith.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen, says the epistle of Hebrews. But the very thing we cannot see is that better country, that city that God has prepared for us, that Kingdom that it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us.

The evidence appears to be against the truth of God’s reign.

The evidence appears to be against the presence of God in our world.

When we look at this foreign land in which we walk,

when we look at the world around us,

the evidence appears to be for the nations and corporations,

the kingdoms and powers

that oppress and exploit.

The evidence appears to be for violence and coercion.

The evidence appears to be selfishness and sin.

The evidence appears to be for despair.

The evidence appears to be for hopelessness.

Nevertheless, we have been pulled by our faith to gather here this evening to listen to the words of the Gospel:

Do not be afraid, little flock, Jesus says, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Moreover, faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Like the matriarchs and patriarchs of old, the things for which we hope are a homeland, daily bread, forgiveness of debt and sin. We hope for God’s Kingdom to come and his will to be done here on earth, just as it already is in heaven. But the good news is that our faith is the substance of those things hoped for. Our faith is the substance of God’s reign.

This very faith that draws us here this evening;

this very faith that pulls us together as the Church;

this very faith that drives us to live as resident aliens in this foreign land;

this very faith that compels us to follow Christ;

to participate in Christ;

and to imitate Christ;

this very faith by which we walk is the substance of God’s kingdom.

This very faith is the substance of and the evidence for that better country, that city that God has prepared for us, that Kingdom that it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Amen.

All Kinds of Greed (or, If I were a Rich Man) - A homily

2010-08-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Below is the homily I preached at the 5:30 Eucharist yesterday. Proper 13, Year C, RCL: Luke 12:13-31.

Take care, Jesus says, Be on your guard against all kinds of greed;

For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

And then Jesus begins to tell the crowd a story – a story about a rich man.

A what? someone asks.

A rich man, Jesus replies.

Oh, says the person from the crowd, a rich man.

Someone else shouts out, We know all about rich men.

Jesus nods and then continues: The land of this rich man was good, and the rich man’s fields produced a bumper crop.

A voice from the crowd interrupts Jesus to ask: How did the rich man get his land?

I know, comes another voice from the crowd, the rich man probably took the land from its rightful owner – just like Jezebel tried to take Naboth’s vineyard.

But someone else in the crowd cries back: You don’t know that. You don’t know that the rich man took the land from its rightful owner.

I know, says the first voice, I know that that is what rich men do. Rich men take our crops. Rich men keep us indebted to them. And then, when have nothing left to give, when we cannot pay our debts, the rich men come with their lawyers and take our land.

Jesus raises his hand to regain the attention of the crowd. Then Jesus picks his story back up:

The land of the rich man produced so abundantly that the rich man thought to himself, ‘What should I do?’

I know what he should do, someone yells to Jesus. But Jesus presses on with the story:

The rich man thought to himself, ‘I have more produce than my barns can hold, and I don’t know where to put the surplus.’

I know where he can put it, someone shouts. And a group of young men at the back of the crowd begin to laugh and holler.

So, the rich man, Jesus continues, the rich man said, ‘I know what I’ll do: I’ll tear down all of my barns and build larger barns so I can store all my grain and all my goods. Then I’ll be able to say to myself, ‘Self, you’ve got plenty put away for years to come, so take it easy – eat, drink, and be merry, as they say.’

Jesus looks out at the crowd. They’re silent now. They wanna know how this thing ends. Some in the crowd look anxious, some look angry, and some, some even look envious. Still looking out at the crowd, Jesus beings to speak again:

The rest of the day, the rich man’s thoughts dwelt on his bumper crop and his larger barns. Late into the evening, the rich man’s thoughts dwelt on his bumper crop and his larger barns. As he prepared for sleep that night, the rich man’s thoughts dwelt on his bumper crop and his larger barns. And just before sleep was about to take the rich man off to dream of his bumper crops and larger barns, the Lord God came to him. God said to the rich man, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded back from you. And the things you have prepared – all this stuff you’ve collected – whose will it be now?

Take care, Jesus says, Be on your guard against all kinds of greed . . . .

In the socio-economic world of first-century Palestine, the world in which Jesus told the stories that have been passed down to us by the Church, the vast majority of people were either peasants or less-than-peasants. The word “peasant,” by the way, is not a demeaning or fancy term for a farmer. The word “peasant” is a precise description of an agrarian worker who is bound by law or coercion to give up almost all that they produce to a rich man, who probably lives in the nearby city. The rich men of that day often gained and maintained the land that made up their wealth through a process of debt and foreclosure. The peasants would fall into debt and the rich man would foreclose on the land. Often the rich man
would then hire the peasant that he just dispossessed to work the land that the rich man took from him. So, when Jesus tells a story about a rich man, the crowd would not have had much sympathy for that rich man to being with. Even worse, the rich man in Jesus’ story makes no effort to share his bumper crop with those who worked the land. The rich man does not extend his good fortune to the peasants and day-laborers who have sown and harvested the crop. The peasants from whom he may have taken the land.

Take care, Jesus says, Be on your guard against all kinds of greed . . . .

Fortunately, in the socio-economic world of twenty-first century America, the world in which we remember and recount the stories that Jesus told of old, we’ve solved that problem of miserly greed. Right? I mean, our consumer culture has trained us not to store up our treasures or hoard our things. Our consumer culture has trained us to throw things out when they brake or go bad or we’ve gotten bored with them. Our consumer culture has trained us to always be ready to drop what we’ve got for the latest model or the newest thing. We have been taught us not to cling to material things, or store up our treasures where moths destroy and thieves steal but to constantly throw our things away and seek ever-new creations. We have been taught that when the nation is under attack or our economy can bear the weight of debt, then our moral duty is to throw out our old stuff and then go shopping.
So, there it is. Problem solved. Keep consuming and you won’t be a miser. All that ol’ rich man needed was a dose of consumer capitalism. AMEN.

But wait . . . . What’s that buzzing in my ear?

Take care, Jesus says, Be on your guard against all kinds of greed . . . .

Maybe we too often miss the point. Maybe there’s another side of the story we forget to face. Maybe we shouldn’t be so proud of our inclination to throw things out. Maybe we need a bit more materialism these days. Indeed, God’s acts of creation and incarnation are the ultimate acts of materialism. And, if by the grace of God, we begin to take this material world more seriously, maybe we will see it all as gift.

The material world is God’s gift to us. Food and clothes and shelter – and even the toys that entertain us – all of this stuff is part of God’s great gift of creation. God has given us the gift of stuff neither for hoarding (like the rich man did) nor to be consumed and then thrown away (like we do). If we take this stuff seriously as gift, then we will be concerned with how we got it and who produced it and what we will do with it. God has given us the gift of stuff that we might share in his generosity by giving that stuff away, to others in need. God has given us the gift of stuff that we might imitate him in his giving of himself in the Incarnation. God has given us the gift of stuff that through our own self-emptying and sharing we might be remade in his image.

For one’s life does not consist in the abundance – or consumption – of possessions.

RELIGION AT UVA, Part 1: Haunted by the Ghost of Jefferson

2010-07-29T14:20:00.001-07:00

Last Friday, I found myself on the Grounds of UVA as a representative for the United Ministries here, sitting behind a table decorated with fans of pamphlets entitled, "Religious Life at UVA: the UVA Student's guide to religious organizations on Grounds (2010-2011)." This table, with this display, was part of a stationary parade of organizations erected to assist and appeal to the interests of incoming transfer students. I was accompanied by other UM reps from two of the other religious organizations - both Christian. As a UM rep, I felt it my duty to hand out the pamphlets and answer questions without trying to sell my organization to the students. Some of my fellow Um reps apparently had a different opinion of the role.

Toward the end of the hour assigned to us, a thought was whispered into my brain - perhaps by the ghost of Mr Jefferson - that this table at which I sat represented an ever so slight betrayal of the vision of the father of this University. Hadn't Thomas Jefferson written to Richard Rush in 1813 these words:

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle."

Even though I heartily disagree with Mr Jefferson's determination to privatize religion, I couldn't help but think,

If TJ were alive today, he'd roll over in his grave!

(To be continued . . . )

Theologian Sarah Coakley on the "Sex Crises"

2010-07-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

Anglican priest and systematic theologian Sarah Coakley has written an excellent three-part opinion-piece on "Rethinking the Sex Crises in Catholicism and Anglicanism."

Using the work of St Gregory of Nyssa, Coakley deftly avoids many of the modern presuppositions and biases that obscure (if not distort) our views of sex, sexuality, and celibacy. Moreover, she challenges her readers to think about these topics in a different way - a Christian way.

I commend this piece to anyone who wishes to think about these topics in a careful and serious manner. And I make only one request: please read the entirety of the piece - part 1, part 2, & part 3.

Lord, Teach us to Pray - A homily

2010-07-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

Below is the homily I preached for the 5:30 Eucharist at St Paul's Memorial on 25 July 2010.

Proper 12, Year C, RCL

Genesis 18:20-32 & Luke 11:1-13

Lord, teach us to pray.

The Gospel reading for this day begins with this request from Jesus’ disciples:

Lord, teach us to pray.

Such a simple petition, it almost seems insignificant.

With Jesus there before them, why would the disciples seek instruction on prayer?

Lord, teach us to pray.

Don’t the disciples know how to pray? We all know how to pray, right? I mean, who needs to be taught to pray? Who needs to say, Lord, teach us to pray?

But maybe – just maybe – prayer is not as instinctual we might first believe. Certainly there a many blessings and curses that come naturally to the tongue in situations of stress or deep emotion. Like when you stub your toe, or when you find ten dollars on the sidewalk, or when someone cuts you off in traffic, or when your friend is released from the hospital with clean bill of health. But Maybe – just maybe – prayer is something more than these exclamations of anger, pain, and gratitude.

Of course, these feelings, which give rise to such exclamations, may well be the emotional drive behind a prayer.

But perhaps prayer is something more.

Perhaps prayer must be passed on.

Perhaps prayer must be taught.

Perhaps prayer begins with: Lord, teach us to pray.

And I pray that you forgive me for the following example:

We may all come from the womb pooping,

but we have to be potty-trained before we start going to the bathroom.

So, perhaps learning to pray is like being potty-trained.

Perhaps we have to be prayer-trained.

And if you stop to think back, I’ll bet you can remember the person or people who first began to teach you how to pray.

Maybe it was a parent.

Maybe it was a grandparent.

Maybe it was a godparent.

Maybe it was another family member.

Maybe it was a friend.

Maybe it was Sunday school teacher.

Maybe it was a priest – God forbid.

Maybe you began to learn to pray just by going to church on Sunday morning.

Whoever gave it to you, learning to pray was a gift that you received.

Prayer is a gift that is passed on to us by the Church. And the Church first received the gift of prayer when the disciples turned to their friend and said, Lord, teach us to pray.

Because Jesus is the Word incarnate,

he alone is poised to present the gift of prayer to the Church.

Because Jesus is the Word incarnate,

he is the prayer of God for the World.

Because Jesus is the Word incarnate,

he is the source of Truth, and the words of our prayers are true inasmuch as our words are suspended from Him, the Word of Truth incarnate.

Indeed, the gift of prayer is the gift of truthful speech. From the moment we learn to speak, we also learn to use speech to get what we want.

To that end, we learn to speak in ways that sometimes abandon truth.

We learn to speak in ways that are sometimes even counter to the truth.

We learn that we cannot always speak truthfully.

We learn that we cannot always speak the complete truth.

We learn to speak in half-truths because we fear to speak the whole, naked truth.

And, along the way, we forget how to speak truthfully.

But the gift of prayer is the gift of truthful speech. In learning to pray, we learn to speak truthfully. For God knows everything we are going to say before we say it. God even knows those things we cannot yet bring ourselves to speak aloud. In learning to pray, we learn to speak truthfully because the one to whom we speak is the Truth.

In prayer, we have no need for lies or embellishments or half-truths.

In prayer, we can give voice to every truth buried deep in our souls:

our needs,

our desires,

our hopes,

our joys,

our fears,

our anger,

our weaknesses,

our confessions,

our thanksgivings.

In prayer, we learn to speak truthfully because we speak to the Truth, and we know that there is nothing we can say that is not already known. We know that there is nothing we can say that can separate us from the love of God. For we would not even be able to pray – to speak truthfully – if God had not first given us the gift of prayer.

As St Paul says,

We do not even know how to pray as we ought,

but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

So, like the disciples before us,

we turn to the Word-made-flesh for the words we are to pray.

Like the disciples before us,

we turn to the Word-made-flesh and pray: Lord, teach us to pray. Amen.

Remembering an Apostle on her Feast Day

2010-07-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the feast day of Saint Mary of Magdala. So, I figure I should take minute to talk about her. Particularly, I'd like to clear up a few confusions about the Magdalene.

First, she should not be confused with Mary of Bethany, whose sister was Martha (according to Luke & John) and whose brother was Lazarus (according to John). Mary of Magdala came from Magdala; Mary of Bethany came from Bethany. (Is there an echo in here?) I mention this very obvious fact first since my immediately previous post was a sermon I preached on the hospitality of Mary and Martha of Bethany. (More on that later).

Second, she is not the unnamed woman who anointed Jesus with expensive nard for burial (while he was still alive) as he was reclining in the house (in Bethany) of Simon the Leper in Mark 14:1-9.

Third, she is not the woman, "who was a sinner," that wet Jesus' feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them with myrrh in the house of Simon the Pharisee (according to Luke 7:36-50). It's clear that Luke was being very creative with the story he got from Mark (14:1-9), perhaps combining it with a separate tradition that he knew independent of Mark. But there's no connection between either story with the Apostle from Magdala.

*NOTE: You might still have some confusion over who did what. That's because John - who was familiar with Mark & Luke - took the story from Mark 14:1-9 and moved the dinner from the house of Simon the Leper to the house of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary of Bethany, but John also holds on to elements from Luke's story. So, in John's Gospel, Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus feet and wipes them with her hair, similar to the actions of the woman "who was a sinner" in Luke's story.

Fourth, there is no reason to connect Mary Magdalene with the woman caught in adultery found in John 8:1-11. That story isn't even in the oldest manuscripts of any of the Gospels.

Fifth, Mary of Magdala was not a prostitute. Okay, Okay, I don't know everything she did in her life, and it is possible - although, improbable - that she mighta, coulda been a prostitute at some point. But there's just no evidence for it. Anywhere. At all. (This legend has been traced back to a sermon given by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th Century - over 500 years after she lived!)

Sixth, (and finally!) she was not Jesus' wife (and/or the mother of his children). This legend has been traced back to a poorly written novel published in 2003.

There's nothing written anywhere that the Messiah couldn't get married and have sex (in that order). In fact, this was an expectation and even a duty of young Jewish men and women in the first century. Those who chose the celibate life, like the Essenes, were exceptions, and they did so because of their belief that the end-of-the-age was at hand. Jesus may have made a deliberate choice to have remained unwed and celibate or he may have just been too dang poor to start a family (ask me about that some other time). But there is no reason, fi he had gotten married, for the Gospel-writers and the early Christian leadership to have covered it up.

Now, there may be some grumbling out there in cyber-space that I'm not doing justice to the "Divine Feminine" or the wisdom revealed by feminist readings of texts.

For example, in my sermon in yesterday's post, I refused to exalt Mary of Bethany over her sister Martha. And feminist readings of this passage have often noted that Mary is lauded by Jesus for acting like a disciple while Martha keeps trying to yank Mary back down to domestic concerns. However, this reading is flawed. It is Martha who is acting like the disciples - in fact, the Greek word for her domestic busy-work, diaconian, is actually the word that is used for the work of the disciples. It is the word from which we get the ecclesiastical title, deacon. Furthermore, Martha is engaged in the work of the deacons appointed by the apostles in Acts 6:1-6. Indeed, Martha may be doing even more than diaconal duties, since - as the apparent hostess - she is presiding over this whole meal of thanksgiving. Luke, who has gained a (now questionable) reputation for writing favorably about women, is probably trying put women leaders of his day back in their place by telling a story in which Jesus sides with a woman who is quiet and sits at the master's feet over woman who presides over a thanksgiving (or eucharistic) meal.

But back to the "Divine Feminine" . . . .

There is a breakdown of logic in Dan Brown's little book. The characters repeatedly state, matter-of-factly, that Jesus was a man . . . and not God. The characters also reveal (or learn, in the case of the one female character) that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that she became the mother of his child. Therefore, as the wife of Jesus and mother of Jesus' child, Mary Magdalene should be worshipped as the embodiment of the goddess, the "Divine Feminine."

Did you catch the logical break?

Jesus is human, not divine (and shouldn't be worshipped); therefore, his wife (and the mother of his child) is Divine (and should be worshipped).

Huh?

But even if we fix this logical conundrum with a little High Christology, things still don't come out much better for Mary Magdalene. That is to say, even if we replace Dan Brown's view of Jesus with a thoroughly Christian view of him (a la Chalcedon) - namely, as fully God, and fully human - then Mary Magdalene is still only important inasmuch as she is Jesus' wife and the mother of his child. Or, to put it much more bluntly, Mary Magdalene is only important because she had sex with Jesus.

(We're back to the whole Pretty-Woman-virtuous-prostitute-stuff again).

But this isn't the end of the story. A more accurate historical view of Mary Magdalene would note that she was probably healed by Jesus from some affliction and became one of his disciples (Luke 8:1-3). In John Dominic Crossan's reconstruction of the early Kingdom Movement, those who were healed often became healed-healers - itinerant prophets of the Kingdom who brought healing in exchange for a meal. There is ample evidence that women were on both sides of the itinerant-householder dialectic that embodied the Kingdom of God. Mary Magdalene may well have been one of the itinerant prophets, traveling with Jesus or another itinerant prophet (as the seemed to go in pairs).

(I suspect Luke's description of the women as financial contributors who followed Jesus like groupies is another example of his attempt to put women in their place).

Furthermore, Mary of Magdala is often referred to as the Apostle to the Apostles. This title can, unfortunately, easily become a way to put her back in her place. She received the revelation of Jesus' resurrection first (depending on the Gospel you read), and like a good secretary, she passed it on to the men. But, in fact, what the resurrection stories truly reveal about the Magdalene was that she was too important to be forgotten (like the unnamed woman who anointed Jesus feet in Mark or Cleopas' female companion in Luke 24:13-35). She was too important to be forgotten because she was at least as important a leader to the early Church as Peter, James, John, and Thomas were.

That is, Mary Magdalene was an Apostle.

(And she didn't have to sleep with anyone to get that title).

So, here's to you Saint Mary Magdalene, healed-healer, itinerant prophet, Apostle, and Apostle to the Apostles!

2010-07-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

Below is the sermon I preached at St Paul's Memorial Church this past Sunday, July 25. It is my first sermon at this church and in this new ministry. (If you're an auditory person , like myself, you can listen here or at by clicking the link on the St Paul's website.)

Proper 11, Year C, RCL

Genesis 18:1-10a & Luke 10:38-42

Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

It is great a pleasure and an honor to begin my ordained ministry here at St Paul’s Memorial Church at the University of Virginia. I don’t know how to even begin saying thank you to everyone for the warm welcome and helping hand that y’all have extended to my wife and me. We have been overwhelmed by how hospitable everyone here at St Paul’s has been to us.

Hospitality is a dear and central virtue of the Church. For hospitality is very close to the heart of the good news of God’s Kingdom. And, it so happens that hospitality is the theme that threads through the texts today. The Gospel reading recounts how Jesus received hospitality from his two disciples, Martha and Mary. And Genesis tells of the hospitality that Abraham extended to his mysterious guests.

The scene is this: the sun has climbed to the height of the Mesopotamian sky. And seated on its ethereal throne, the midday sun sears the sea and sands and the skin of all in its sight, below. In other words, this particular day is a hot day. And, even more, this scene takes place during the hottest part of that hot day. The heat of the day is so stifling that old man Abraham has reclined in the shadow of his tent and the shade of oak tress with no plans of getting back up anytime soon. Looking out in the distance, Abraham spots a dark blur,

shimmering,

growing larger,

coming closer.

Is the blur one person or three? Abraham wonders until the strangers are only several feet from him. Abraham lifts his old frame from the ground and approaches the strangers.

“It sure is a hot one,” Abraham says to the strangers. “Y’all oughta come take a load off here in the shade.”

And Abraham leads the strangers out of the heat. He brings them water. He washes their feet. And he busies himself with the many tasks of a hospitable host.

Abraham practiced hospitality in two ways. Abraham practiced hospitality by serving the strangers as their host. But Abraham practiced hospitality, first, by welcoming the strangers. Hospitality always begins with welcoming the stranger. Even when we practice hospitality toward our neighbors, our friends, and our family, we begin by welcoming the stranger. There is no other person that we know so well that we know that person completely.

Even if the other person is our

closest friend,

our life-long partner,

our parent,

or our child,

we can never see

every moment of their life,

know every thought that crosses their mind,

or feel every emotion that moves their heart.

In this sense, we are all strangers to one another, to a greater or lesser extent.

Therefore, hospitality always begins with welcoming the stranger.

Abraham welcomed the strangers and then he began to serve them as their host.

Like Abraham, Martha practiced hospitality by welcoming a stranger.

Like Abraham, Martha practiced hospitality by serving the stranger.

Like Abraham, Martha busied herself with the many tasks of a hospitable hostess.

And like Abraham, Martha exemplifies the virtue of hospitality.

Moreover, Martha’s sister Mary also practiced hospitality toward the stranger.

The temptation of this story is to hear Martha as a foil for Mary. The customary reading of the story exalts Mary over Martha. But there’s no need to denigrate Martha to appreciate Mary. In this story, Martha and Mary – together – embody the virtue of hospitality. But Mary and Martha embody hospitality through very different practices. Martha embodies hospitality through service. And Mary embodies hospitality through the practices of presence and attentiveness. Mary practices hospitality by listening to the stories of the stranger. Mary allows the stranger to be a stranger with his own set of stories to tell. Mary allows the stranger to be more than simply her guest. But Mary’s hospitality is not at odds with Martha’s hospitality. Mary and Martha’s practices of hospitality are complimentary.

From the days of Genesis to the present day, God’s people have practiced hospitality as a sign of the Gospel.

Abraham was called to practice hospitality.

Martha and Mary were called to practice hospitality.

And St Paul’s Memorial Church is called to practice hospitality.

St Paul’s is challenged by the Gospel to provide hospitality to

the strangers of the university community,

the strangers of the Charlottesville community,

and the strangers of St Paul’s own parish community.

We, Christians, are challenged by the Gospel to welcome the strangers in our own families, friends, and church. And we are challenged to welcome the strangers from beyond our community, who we do not know. Like Abraham and Martha, we are to serve these strangers. And, like Mary, we are to listen to stories of the stranger.

Sometimes the stories of the stranger will comfort us.

Sometimes the stories of the stranger will challenge us.

Sometimes the stories of the stranger will scare us.

And sometimes the stories of the stranger will anger us.

Sometimes

the stories of the stranger contradict

our religious beliefs

or our political opinions

or our views of the world.

And when the stories of the stranger offend us, we may be tempted to abandon hospitality and remake the stranger in our own image. However, the Gospel challenges us to resist that temptation. The Gospel challenges us to follow the example of Mary and respect the stranger. The Gospel challenges us to hold hospitality as dear and central virtue of the Church.

As the epistle to the Hebrews exhorts:

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,

for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

2010-07-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

Having recently been hired as the Associate rector for Young Adult Ministry at St Paul's Memorial Church at the University of Virginia, I find myself an Episcopal chaplain to the young scholars of Mr Jefferson's Academical Village. I also find myself in an office in the undercroft of this beautiful church - situated just across University Avenue from the Rotunda.