3 Lent

Readings are here here.

This week we have the 10 commandments, Paul wondering about wisdom, and Jesus clearing out the temple courtyards. The collect prays "Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul." It seems that all our lessons point us towards one function of Lent - which is to examine our whole being so that we can make space in our lives for God to show forth through us.

The commandments can be seen as limiting us or freeing us. Often we think of any strictures in our lives as bad - in the west we sing "Give me land lots of land under starry skies above - don't fence me in." We exult in the freedom to go where we want when we want. But on the other hand there is the story of cattle who graze near a cliff - without a fence - they fall to their deaths. The psalmist calls the law - a lamp unto our feet - that is it is not THE path but the commandments help to make the path more clear.

In the cleansing of the Temple - those selling are not technically breaking the law. In fact, they are using the law which forbids images to justify their business. Images are forbidden by the first commandment. In order to bring one's gifts to the Temple - the money with the image of Caesar has to be exchanged for image-less money.

So it seems that the Law can be an instrument of helping us to find the way but it can also be used to do things that are not at all in the Spirit of the Law.

Maybe we all need Jesus to come into the temple that is our body, mind and spirit - to help us sort this out.

2 Lent

Readings are here.

Paul makes me laugh sometimes when I read his letters. This line from this week is an example:

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

As good as dead. Paul thinks that being old is the same as dead but praises Abraham's faith nevertheless.

How many times do I limit myself by thinking I am "good as dead" or "too barren" to take on one more thing. All through the Bible we have examples of people who don't think they have what it takes to do a new thing. Moses thinks he can't go to Pharaoh because he has a speech impediment. Gideon thinks his tribe is too small, too week and too insignificant to accomplish anything. David's family thinks he is too young to be the one chosen to be anointed king.

There are people in our world who might allow themselves to think this way - too small, too insignificant, too handicapped, wrong color. Stephen Hawking could have given in to his disability but still he uses his mind and communicates his thoughts that affect the whole world of science. Beethoven became deaf but continued to write music.

On a chilly windy day at the Chicago Marathon on Sunday October 22, Amy Palmerio-Winters, of Meadville, PA shattered another marathon record for female amputee runners. Running on two broken toes not completely healed on her non-amputated leg, and spending Thursday and Friday in the hospital due to anaphylactic shock, Ms. Palmerio-Winters finished the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon in a time of 3 hours 4 minutes and 16 seconds placing 34th in her age group and 148th in the entire field of able-bodied female marathoners.

Our new president and his wife could have allowed themselves to be limited because of race but with support from those around them they are now in the White House. Other names come to mind, Lance Armstrong who overcame cancer, Jim Brady who was wounded by a gun shot, Nelson Mandela who spent years in a South African prison did not emerge bitter but became a statesman who continues to try to lead people in the ways of compassion.

Bishop Tutu was born in a township of South Africa - with out much chance of attaining anything in life. He thought as a child that life was just that way. Black people were down and white people were up. One day he was looking out the window and his mother was down on the street sweeping the step. A white clergyman walked by and tipped his hat - the action of seeing his mother treated as an equal changed his life.

These stories make me think that there are two parts to overcoming our limitations. One is not accepting limits but the other is our role in encouraging those who might feel limited by their life circumstances. This is not to say there are not real limitations that cannot be overcome. Before 1974 women could not become priests in the Episcopal Church no matter how much they believed themselves called. People worked for years to make it possible for women to become priests and 20 years ago this week Barbara Harris became the first woman bishop. Black children were not allowed to attend schools with white children before many people died and struggled to open that door. Gay men and lesbians are still struggling to have their relationships honored and upheld in the same way as others. But these examples testify to the need of the community to help open the doors for all to use the gifts the creator has given to each of us.

Faith is what Paul commends and is the source of Jesus' rebuke to Peter. Faith to see that we often limit ourselves and others unnecessarily. As individuals we are invited to step into a world where all things are possible and as a community we are called to make that happen.

Image from Georgia Cawley.

And someone sent me this video from youtube.

I am an Episcopalian

Reflecting on the psalms

If I could only have one book of the Bible it would be the psalms. Brother Abraham at St. Gregory's Monastery reflects on praying the psalms on a regular rotation at the Abbey:

The main activity here at St. Gregory’s consists of public corporate prayer in the Abbey Church, and the main part of that prayer takes the form of recitation of the Psalms. Through the course of a week, the entire book of 150 Psalms is recited. That seems like a lot, and in most places it would be. In his Rule for Monasteries, St. Benedict laments the fact that although his monastic predecessors recited the entire Book of Psalms each day, “May we, lukewarm that we are, perform it at least in a whole week!” I do not share Benedict’s grief; once a week works well for us. Many monasteries use a monthly schedule for reciting all the psalms, and others use a two-week scheme. Those schedules are good too, because they work well for them. Besides monasteries using the Book of Psalms in prayer, many churches offer public morning and evening prayer throughout the week, and most of that prayer also involves psalmody.

However, most people do not live in monasteries, and most people do not live close to a church that offers daily public prayer, but many of those people still want to be involved in the psalmody going on in monasteries and churches around the world, so they adopt their own method of praying the Psalms. All in all, there are a lot of psalms read, prayed, sung, and chanted around the world every day.

Often, people who first encounter the Psalms, whether in public or private prayer or reading, find some of them surprisingly bloodthirsty. This category of psalms includes laments from the oppressed and cries for vengeance on the oppressors. Some individuals and groups simply omit these violent psalms from their prayers. Others find ways to soften these psalms by using them as analogies for inner struggles within themselves. Others deal with the brutality of the Psalms by acknowledging it for what it is; the Psalms come from a violent time (a good reminder of the violent brutality of our own society). The competing empires and kingdoms of the Iron Age from which the Psalms come were made up of real people who really prayed, and even if our understanding of God has changed and become less vengeful and ethnocentric, we can still use their prayers as bases for our own. We can also use them as prods to see if our understanding of God really is less vengeful and ethnocentric than Iron Age attitudes.

With experience, most people find ways to pray the psalms that express the laments of the oppressed, because even if they are not being oppressed at the time, they can pray with and for all those around the world who are suffering.

That is how I approach these psalms. I had a wonderful childhood surrounded by people who loved me, and as a middle class American I am one of the richest persons in the world with the best in medical care and educational opportunities at my fingertips. Even as a monk who has no personal possessions, my community provides me with all I could need, and more than I should want.

So I pray the psalms of lament for all those around the world whom I read about in the newspaper or see on news broadcasts that are suffering from natural or manmade disasters. Even when I am feeling slightly oppressed by others or by work waiting to be done, these psalms serve to remind me of how good my life really is and how I need to stop whining.

The discomfort occurs when the psalmists ask God to bring disaster on the oppressors. Such an attitude does not fit well with our call to go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, and charitably bless those who hate us. Perhaps the most famous examples of cursing in the Psalms occur in what are otherwise considered by some to be two of the most beautiful songs in the world: Psalm 137, in which homesick exiles explain how they have put away their musical instruments because they are too heartbroken to sing anymore; and Psalm 139, in which a poet expresses wonderment at his own being and amazement at God’s infinite nature. Yet near the end of both of these, bloody curses are added: the homesick exiles bless anyone who will dash their oppressors’ children on the rocks, and the poet declares his hatred for those who do not share his attitudes toward God. These examples are only two of many such curses interspersed throughout the Psalter. Some other psalms seem to be an almost unbroken stream of hateful desires and hopes for retribution upon enemies, and it is not surprising that many people find them difficult to pray.

I have found a way to use the cursing psalms as an aid to foster my own prayer. It might not be the most proper use of these psalms, but so far it has helped me, and maybe that in itself makes it a proper use. When one of these bloodthirsty verses comes up as we pray in the monastery church, I remind myself that I am not the innocent person cursing the sinner; I am the sinner making life miserable for the people around me. I need to change. I need to ask not only for forgiveness, but also for the strength to repent — to really change and make the love of God the center of my life rather than keeping myself in that position. The people I come in contact with everyday are the psalmists crying out for deliverance from the oppression I bring them because of my selfishness. I cause them to sin by driving them to curse me.

This realization of my own oppressive behavior does not derive from an overly scrupulous sense of unworthiness. I am a beautiful Child of God created to love and be loved, just like everyone else. But I have allowed my own pettiness to hurt myself and the people around me. I am not the only one who is guilty of this. The tiny, daily misdemeanors we all commit in order to get what we want when we want it are not fair to anyone, including ourselves.

Knowing this should not drive us to despair. Rather, it should prompt a firm resolve to change, knowing that even though only God can transform us, only we as individuals can allow God to do that, and only we can purposefully use the gifts that God has given us as tools to change. We are worth the effort it takes to grow into the mature individuals we are created to be.

Changing one’s perspective from oppressed to oppressor might not help everyone pray these psalms as it has helped me, but that’s OK. It is good to heed the advice to pray as we can, not as we can’t. Maybe the one thing to avoid is putting ourselves in the position of God and presuming that it is our right to carry out the curses.
~~Br. Abraham

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The Annunciation

A friend sent me this poem on the Annunciation - the conception of Jesus and Mary's response. It is a Mary I can embrace:

It seems I must have been more fertile than most
to have taken that wind-blown
thistledown softly-spoken word
into my body and grown big-bellied with it.
Nor was I the first: there had been
rumours of such goings-on before my turn
came - tales of swansdown. Mine
had no wings or feathers actually
but it was hopeless trying to convince them.
They like to think it was a mystical
encounter, although they must know
I am not of that fibre - and to say I was
'troubled' is laughable.
What I do remember is a great rejoicing,
my body's arch and flow, the awe,
and the ringing and singing in my ears -
and then the world stopped for a little while.
But still they will keep on about the Word,
which is their name for it, even though I've
told them that is definitely
not how I would put it.
I should have known they'd try to take
possession of my ecstasy and
swaddle it in their portentous terminology.
I should have kept it hidden in the dark
web of my veins...
Though this child grows in me -
not unwanted certainly, but
not intended on my part; the risk
did not concern me at the time, naturally.
I must be simple to have told them anything.
Just because I stressed the miracle of it
they've rumoured it about the place that I'm
immaculate - but then they always were afraid
of female sexuality.
I've pondered these things lately in my mind.
If they should canonise me
(setting me up as chaste and meek and mild)
God only knows what nonsense
they'll visit on the child.

Sylvia Kantaris

Painting by Ma´ire Gartland

G-dcasting

Parshat Va'eira from G-dcast.com



More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com

5 Epiphany

Readings are here

Looking at the reading from 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about becoming all things to all people so that they might hear the gospel. I wonder about that. Does it mean I have to give up all I have learned and believe? Do I become a Republican to reach Republicans, a Democrat to reach Democrats, a racist to reach racists, etc? I can't think that is what Paul is saying - give up your personality - become whatever others are to tell them the gospel? Can't see that happening.

I think it has more to do with not coming in with a prepackaged program for others - thinking I have God all wrapped up for them - instead listening to what they are saying and doing and connecting where the Spirit is moving in our midst. Sort of like going to another country to "help" - but not listening to what the people there dream and hope - then seeing where I can serve rather than "know better" and give them something that is not useful or cannot be sustained. For me it is about doing some deep listening rather than talking all the time. Hard to do for a preacher!

Often when I have read the Mark passage I get stuck on the fact that the first thing Peter's mother-in-law (was the first "pope" married?) does when getting healed is jump up and wait on everyone. Seems like the rest of them might have said - oh, no, I can do that -- you rest up a bit. Perhaps it is a statement about not holding one's healing to oneself - a privatized religion - you and me Jesus - but a statement that once we have come to a certain point - we are to move out into the world doing as Jesus does. The part right after this where they are looking for Jesus to do some more for them is a reminder that we don't have to do it all. We can take time for rest and prayer and renewal before moving on to the next activity.

Perhaps all this is the point of the Collect - set us free to see:
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Some other bits to ponder from Something to Stand On:

Party, party, party
You hit the ground running,
Ready to go,
Fleeing as an infant refugee
Preaching to your elders before your bar mitzvah
Then out to the desert
Partying before your baptism
A brief interlude, jousting with the devil
And then you hit those streets
And that beach, those villages and towns
Showing folk how to live, not merely exist.
And the buttoned up zipped up killjoys didn’t like it one bit
They’d long forgotten what it was to enjoy themselves
How to celebrate
Even though the history of their culture was one of feast and
celebration
Even though the God they worshipped so religiously
Was a God of laughter and lovin’
And now the Son, sent to show the nature of God
Was livin’ it up
With undersirables
Prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners
The shunned and the outcasts
What did you think you were playing at?
Didn’t you know you would ruffle their feathers?
Or didn’t you care?
Too busy living life to the max to care whose sandal shod feet you
trod on
And did it do any good?
Did it make any difference?
Certainly not to those religious high heid yins
They sorted you.
Saw you off.
But, as they were dusting off their hands,
Ironing the wrinkles out of their creased smug faces
There was a whole batch of the really holy
The ones you had consecrated by including in the party.
Who were gutted at your sudden departure
But who could never be undesirable again
Because you had taught them how to really party
How to focus on what really matters
You had loved them back to life
And no amount of religious posturing could ever rob them of that love
With you, there’s always an excuse to party
Always an excuse to throw off the rules and get down to it
The real business of life
Which is love
But we have to hit the streets running with you
And party, party, party.

And more on Peter's MIL here.

Don't divorce my friends

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

A sermon

I have been playing with utterli - a social networking tool that can send audio and video to your friends. I recorded a sermon of one I preached a few years ago. The church had sent me the audio so I tried it on utterli. I also recorded me reading a book to the grandchildren - but won't drive you nuts with that. One of these days I will get the showing the book and reading to the camera thing down!

John Updike 1932-2009

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

H/T to Bishop Alan's blog and Episcopal Cafe

3 Epiphany

Readings are here.

Thoughts toward a sermon:

The story of Jonah is about someone who is so sure he knows what is right he even disobeys God. Sort of an odd story to have in the Bible. Jonah is supposed to go tell the Nineveh-ites that they are going to be destroyed because they have been so bad and worship idols. Jonah chooses to go somewhere else and not until he is tossed into the sea and swallowed by the fish does he end up where is supposed to be. Oh well he seems to say to himself I will tell them that they will be destroyed. They are so stupid they won't listen - they can't even tell their right hands from their left. (a very dumb think in the desert where the right hand is for eating and the left for dirtier jobs)

Then even worse they repent and God forgives them. Jonah says I knew it, I knew it, you are way to soft on these sinners. And goes off to pout. Jonah is so caught up in his idea of what is right he stays with his way of being and his own knowledge - that he worships righteousness - even when God shows compassion.

Now Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, is sure the end of the world is coming soon - very soon - so soon that people don't need to bother with possessions -including wives.

In our Gospel today, Peter and Andrew are doing what generations of their families have done - fishing. Unlike Jonah or Paul - they are not so set in continuing to keep the traditions of their families. Jesus calls to them - offering a new career with the skills they already have -- fishing for people.

For all the readings people have a revelation about a new future but the reaction of each differs. I think it is like being in a long running play. We have learned our lines perfectly - and we go out on stage each night to perform our role. One day we go out on stage and discover we are in a totally different play with a totally different plot. Our response might be to resist - like Jonah - this is not the role I have worked for all my life. Or it might be to try to force the play into something familiar - like Paul. Or taking our cue from Andrew and Peter - say - all right - let's do it.

This is the story of the call from God in our lives. How will we repond?

Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.

Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
– Walt Whitman

H/T to Edge of Enclosure.

Image from He Qi.

Oh what a day...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Congressional Quarterly has a transcript of the inaugural poem written and read by Elizabeth Alexander.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer consider the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.