tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-222304832024-03-12T21:23:29.381-07:00The Book of Common Momentsa place to view the ordinary not by looking at its surface, but by letting the eye pass through it to see beyondFrankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.comBlogger292125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-72714702774430958672019-11-15T11:20:00.001-08:002019-11-15T11:20:41.019-08:00The Point Of It All<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In almost half century as a priest of the Church, only three
people have trusted me enough to ask me to preach when they were celebrating
their new ministries in congregations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pan, thank you for your trust, because, to be honest, preaching on this
particular occasion is somewhat like preaching on Thanksgiving Day, to my mind
the hardest of all occasions on which to say anything fresh and new, the
message inevitably being precisely what most people expect, so obvious is the
point. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Or is the point so obvious?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Lots of things can be said about the priest-congregation
relationship, too many, in fact, to fit into one sermon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But of all the things that seem most relevant
to this occasion is that we need not to miss the point of it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the point is not that a parish has a
rector or that the pastor is now officially with her flock in a new way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point is what the entire ministry is
about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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One clue is captured by the title of tonight’s liturgy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is a renewal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If ministry is not constantly renewing
itself, it is not ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know
what it is, but it isn’t ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ministry is about life and living people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is about living things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed it is so much about life that it is
not afraid to face and talk about and deal with death, because there is no life
on this planet apart from death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Take a look at the gospel [for tonight].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As
the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s
commandments and abide in his love.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
setting for these words, you might remember, is the night in which Jesus was
handed over to suffering and death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>John’s gospel presents this as the heart of Jesus’ farewell discourse
with his disciples. It is the night we call “Maundy Thursday,” marked in the
church by recalling Jesus’ outrageous parable-in-action of washing his
disciples’ feet, a unique, revolutionary idea then and now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is saying in effect, “If you haven’t
caught on by now, let me be clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
point is love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the way and the only way you have a
part of me and I of you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is the
way it’s done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stoop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way up is the way down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Plumb the depths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t push to
get ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t puff yourself up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You already have everything you need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Give.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now that is
not just John’s peculiar gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
the point of the entire thing, the heart of the message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now compare
that with your experience of church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
might well be that you find getting down on your knees, literally or
figuratively, and submitting to others is exactly what you experience [at St.
Alban’s]. Or maybe not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me tell you
what I often see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I see
congregations that are split apart by strife, dominated by competing egos both
of clergy and laity, generally over things like the color of the carpet, not
the color of somebody’s skin, though there’s that too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see congregations that are in a high state
of anxiety because they’re not what they used to be, or not what they’d planned
on being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re shrinking and they
think that is a terrible thing. So they say they want to grow without realizing
that there is no growth without change and no change without conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fairness, I see some congregations that
are filled with joyful people, joyful even while broken, glad to be together
and even gladder to welcome the stranger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What makes the difference?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I would
suggest that what makes a church healthy and happy is exactly what works for an
individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Learning new things,
rejoicing in others, giving lavishly and prodigally, being open to novel ideas,
swapping anxiety for the art of being vulnerable, owning the parts of ourselves
that we find most difficult and challenging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What would happen if we understood the church as a school for actually
following the example of Christ?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
would it be like to acknowledge that the only reason we exist is to practice,
practice, practice love in every possible way we can?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if we constantly recalled ourselves to the
one commandment that Our Lord gave us, “Love one another as I have loved
you”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine a church that opened every
meeting not with a perfunctory prayer but with a brief time of sharing things
such as when you’ve had a moment close to Christ, or when you learned something
from a mess you made, or how you climbed down a few minutes from the strain of
trying to do everything perfectly and laughed at your own imperfection? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">You get the
picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even at our best and wisest, we
have a long way to go and a long way to grow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You might say, “Well, that’s not the church I want. That’s an
extrovert’s dream, not mine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I invite you to consider
that a renewal of ministry is more than a restarting yet again of something
that has gone on for years but a willingness to ponder anew what it means to
love one another, and to experiment with as many ways of loving as we can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can you be most natural, most true to
your core self, your soul?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, it
seems to me, is the point of all this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s fascinating
to me that when I listen to the words from the Book of Joshua, for example,
with this point of view in mind, suddenly everything begins to fall into
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Book of the Law” that Joshua
references is not the Bible as we know it, and certainly not the Bible used as
a club to clobber people into social conformity or religious bigotry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately that “Law” boils down to one
word:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there is anything new in the commandment
that Jesus gives to his community, it is this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Love one another <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as I have loved
you</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ah!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the hard part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t ever believe anyone, including
yourself, who says that love is a piece of cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what powers every atom in this body of
God called the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what we
are created for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we humans have
evolved in such a way that our very ability to be a conscious species gets in
the way of our exercising anything like the love that Jesus models for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His is no sickly sweet kind of love, but one
of amazing courage with arms outstretched at once to embrace the outcast and
off-scouring of society and simultaneously ready to tussle with the powers of
oppression found in the collusion of religion and State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That love is the kind of love that can fully
embrace mortality as he did on the cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So we’re talking about real fire here, an awesome energy that is
anything but tame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The average
parish church, even the spectacular parish church, is a microcosm of the
Earliest Church we know of, beset with differences of opinion over hot-button
issues, uncertain as to how to practice a new-found freedom in Christ, torn
between custom and tradition on the one hand and the impulse to be inclusive on
the other. There is no disconnect but rather continuity between how nations
behave and how individuals and organizations like the church behave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the ever-present issue of clashing
interests fueled by fears of not being enough or having enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A simpler way of putting it may be, in the
words of Ella Wheeler Wilcox a century ago,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So
many gods, so many creeds,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many paths that wind and wind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While just the art of being kind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Is
all the sad world needs.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The only way
to get there is in fact the work of ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is to persist in practicing the process that St. Paul describes for
the Romans:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 76.5pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Do
not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,
so that you may discern the will of God—what is good and acceptable and whole.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So there again
is the point of it all:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the continual
process of transformation, an endless spiral of renewal, learning how to be
like Jesus, or, as he once put it, becoming children so that we can live in
union with our Creator, creating and spreading love as if there’s no
tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To love like that is to renew
ministry from its roots to its blossom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A sermon preached at the
Renewal of Ministry and the Celebration of the Reverend Dr. Pamela Conrad as
the 11<sup>th</sup> Rector of St. Alban’s Church Episcopal, Glen Burnie,
Maryland, November 14, 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “Voice of the Voiceless,” on the
internet at </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.ellawheelerwilcox.org/poems/pvoiceof.htm"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.ellawheelerwilcox.org/poems/pvoiceof.htm</span></a>,
accessed November 14, 2019.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Romans 12:2, translation mine.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-607543429534320182019-09-12T17:00:00.000-07:002019-09-12T17:00:09.432-07:00In Memoriam: 9/11/2001<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The following are remarks I made on Sunday, September 16, 2001, at a gathering in the plaza of the D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. <br />
<br />
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I speak in the name of God, the
Creator of all, the Redeemer of all, the Sanctifier of all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<h1 style="line-height: 69.05pt; mso-element-frame-height: 69.05pt; mso-element-left: 91.05pt; mso-element-linespan: 4; mso-element-top: 2.6pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: dropcap-dropped; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">
<span style="font-size: 93.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-text-raise: -8.5pt;">W<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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hen the nation was clamoring
for revenge and retaliation for civilian American lives tragically slaughtered
by the enemy, and every avenue to avert war had been exhausted, the President
of the United States signed the Declaration of War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then he put his head down on the cabinet
table and wept.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The President was Woodrow Wilson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The year was 1917.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the day was Good Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">America entered a war that had begun with a
terrorist act: an organized assassination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was the cruelest and ghastliest of all wars this planet had ever
known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can read the Books of
Remembrance in British churches and see page after page of names of young men
who were slaughtered in the trenches of France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Literally a generation of the young was wiped out in the horror that
ensued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I don’t know why the President wept on that Good
Friday afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he weep for
himself?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he weep for America?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it was because he knew, as he told a
veteran news correspondent and editor, “Once lead this people into war, and
they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance….”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or was it because he sensed the deep irony
that on that very day when the Christian world was remembering the death of
Jesus, he was signing the death warrant for Christ to die all over again in
young doughboys who would lie beneath crosses in places like Flanders Field?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We meet today at the monument of the turning point
of another great war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We meet in a town
where an incredible number of young lives were wiped out in an invasion that
ultimately would mean liberation from a regime of unprecedented horror and
evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America entered that war only
when, on a quiet sunny morning, enemy bombs had made mincemeat of The United
States fleet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Roosevelt was
outraged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The country was shocked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>December 7, 1941, is still a day that lives
in infamy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Today we are faced with another momentous
occasion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This time, another sneak
attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This time, an act of obscene
hatred and violence carried out again against unarmed citizens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this time, a complicated enemy hard to
detect, difficult to pin down, capable of cloning its own violence hundreds of
times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And an enemy convinced in
righteous indignation that it has God on its side; that its acts of terror and
destruction are not only justified but also holy; that its program of
retaliation is compelling enough for its warriors gladly to yield their lives
to fiery deaths, so right they are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I talk today about history because human history is
exactly what the Judeo-Christian tradition understands to be the sphere of
God’s activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if we are going to
speak about God, we have<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to look at
history, God’s lesson book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What have we learned?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One lesson that we have learned is that
violence breeds more violence, and terror begets more terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cannot play into that!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If, in the best judgment of our leaders, this
nation must engage in military action, no doubt the country will support
them—no doubt at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But do not be
deluded into believing that that violence will not come at great cost!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far more than the lives we will lose in any
one military action, the cost will spiral into an ever-broadening wildfire of
hatred and revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through our cries
for retaliation and revenge, in so many throats this week, we need to hear and
heed the words of Ghandi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, “If
we live by the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the whole
world will be both blind and toothless.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pour out instead your prayers for peace and healing as you have never
done before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Envision a world wrapped in
its Mother’s arms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this dreadful
attack is a wake up call, let it rouse us to double our efforts for peace:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>peace in our hearts, peace in our homes,
peace in our nation, peace for our planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What have we learned?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have learned that religious intolerance
and hatred, no matter of what stripe, are tools of evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hear me carefully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I speak in the name of the Prince of
Peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we, individually and as a
nation, turn against one another in disrespect and outright hatred, we are
replicating the same bigotry and self-righteousness of the terrorists
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no difference
between Islamic fanaticism and Jewish fanaticism and Christian fanaticism
except the labels. All are life denying and peace shattering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God calls all people of this world into unity
with God and one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let there be
no place in this society, under attack in part because of our openness and
acceptance, for finger pointing and blame laying and scapegoating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reach out in support to Arab Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Join with Muslims as with all others in the
family of religions and assure them of your good will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Live with courage the words of the hymn, “Who
loves the Father as his child is surely kin to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What have we learned?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have learned that God shows up at the
least likely of times and in the worst stenches imaginable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Julia Ward Howe wrote that we have seen God
in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, this week we have seen the face of God:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in exhausted firefighters, in strangers
reaching out to hold the grieving, in physicians and nurses and technicians
aiding the wounded, in hands digging down into the rubble to clear a path for
life where there is life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where charity
and love dwell, God is truly there.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the Persian Gulf War, when some Iraqi soldiers finally came out of their
bunkers expecting to be killed by Americans, they found themselves instead
washed and fed and treated humanely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is the spirit of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
is the face of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What we have yet to learn is that Jesus was not
joking when he said, “Love your enemies.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who
persecute you, pray for those who abuse you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is the lesson that the world needs to hear, and that is the way to
the healing that we so deeply seek.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Whatever the reason, President Wilson was right to
weep, just as he was right to sign the Declaration of War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes we have to do what we most
fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, in the end, if we are as
open, as humble, as loving as we can be, then, in the long march of history the
world will become as God created it to be:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>free, and whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-65724308014004910932019-08-10T17:55:00.004-07:002019-08-10T18:07:43.217-07:00Good Faith<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Faith. If only I had more.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Have you ever heard yourself saying
that? Or somebody else saying it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Let me ask you something. If you
had more faith (assuming you want more), what would you do with it? What would
it do for you?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7T_43EwXJfk9KDRhUekfUUedzKqgEFs9rLwcnUTgztH_6EPYOKmQroEmUZfivJUJ2s9brAP1BZ6k1hffaW9pmKPtdDzO6pm2_lnEkz4fnXReKDS-aNoxBOl0BvhyphenhyphenPW89PTSX6w/s1600/Chagall-Abraham+and+Sarah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1187" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7T_43EwXJfk9KDRhUekfUUedzKqgEFs9rLwcnUTgztH_6EPYOKmQroEmUZfivJUJ2s9brAP1BZ6k1hffaW9pmKPtdDzO6pm2_lnEkz4fnXReKDS-aNoxBOl0BvhyphenhyphenPW89PTSX6w/s320/Chagall-Abraham+and+Sarah.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marc Chagall, Abraham and Sarah</td></tr>
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Once upon a time, according to
Luke, though not in today’s gospel, the disciples asked Jesus: “Lord, increase
our faith.” And he answered them, “If you had the faith of a mustard seed you
could say to this mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the middle of the
sea,’ and it would obey you.” Another version of that story appears in
Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is provoked at his disciples for having so little
faith. They have tried unsuccessfully to perform an exorcism. After Jesus
upbraids them and takes over the project himself, the disciples ask Jesus why
they weren’t able to cast the demon out. “Because of your little faith,” he
said. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you
will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and
nothing will be impossible for you.’”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So is that what we want if we want
more faith? To be able to do the impossible? Or is faith something else?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The writer to the Hebrews clearly
had some idea of faith, and I am not sure that his was exactly what Luke’s
Jesus had in mind. That writer (whose identity we do not know and can only
speculate about, but who was most certainly not St. Paul) wrote out a long,
sustained argument, the longest in the whole Bible. He set out to demonstrate
conclusively that Jesus on the cross had performed once and for all the
sufficient sacrifice that had never been done and could never be done in the
Jerusalem Temple. The writer with good reason takes his time in recounting what
might be called the “faith history” of Israel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD8YFMHsvo3TAzSM8UN_9np12AKg3xrQSN2ruScj_fb2R8KmHf8c3XeXWIx1cZqB1LASq-B4lU_5U46F_h4Aa0r6aAVha3IZPHIincWPEe8eePAXd-0Qf6AEtxYaawW0FAVtaIIQ/s1600/Jesus+Healing+Epileptic+Boy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD8YFMHsvo3TAzSM8UN_9np12AKg3xrQSN2ruScj_fb2R8KmHf8c3XeXWIx1cZqB1LASq-B4lU_5U46F_h4Aa0r6aAVha3IZPHIincWPEe8eePAXd-0Qf6AEtxYaawW0FAVtaIIQ/s1600/Jesus+Healing+Epileptic+Boy.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Icon of Jesus Healing the Epileptic Boy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
We do not have to guess what was in
his mind. He tells us. Christ is the great High Priest who has made atonement,
unlike any “high priest” that there ever had been. By a single offering Christ
has reconciled humanity and God. Sins are forgiven. There is no need for any
more sacrificial offerings for sin. Christ’s sacrifice is thoroughly effective.
“Therefore,” states the writer, we have confidence to enter the sanctuary (that
is, the presence and life of God) by the blood of Jesus. And we can approach
with a “true heart in full assurance of faith, simply because all the barriers
to our being with God and living in God have been removed by Jesus. But there
are some precautions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(How could it be
the Bible and there not be?) We must know that if we willfully persist in ego-driven
behavior after having received knowledge of the truth, we will effectively be
acting contrary to the indwelling God. Still, the author calls his audience to
remember the struggles they have been through, the abuse, the persecution. He
exhorts them not to shrink back, but to live in full confidence that the loss
of nothing is nearly as great as what God has promised. This, he says, is how
the righteous live and have always lived: by faith. He begins calling the roll
of those who in the holy history have been examples of faith: Abel, Noah,
Abraham, Sarah. “All of these,” he says, “died in faith without having received
the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.” They were, he
says, like foreigners on earth. They knew that they belonged to a different
land, a different reality. They could have looked behind and moaned
sentimentally about all that they had lost and left behind, and could even have
returned. But they kept pressing on towards a better country, a future with
God, a heavenly country. And indeed God had prepared a city for them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
What is his point in all this? It’s
to get his Christian audience to take heart! He wants to inspire them to keep
on moving, going, growing; not to give up; to follow the examples of their
forebears, not to mention the example of the pioneer and perfecter of their
faith, Jesus, who pressed on through cross and shame and suffering to be seated
at God’s right hand in glory. “You can do it!” he says. “Lift your drooping
hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet….” Faith
is the quality, very closely related to hope, that keeps people from giving up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJsxsI40Q7Q8ZO1p9fkXSviXZVBu6XjknR_xt7VSOl2LAqDdY4-8L39RyWK0l9k5ZNFbXQedBYeFhukg3VQoTGDsjCL-8D_03gPrtGYp7JWJwjq1sVXYYyt2MkwH89P2yPfdh7Q/s1600/sojourner-truth-1797-18832c-originally-isabella-van-wagener-photo-by-mpigetty-imagesjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJsxsI40Q7Q8ZO1p9fkXSviXZVBu6XjknR_xt7VSOl2LAqDdY4-8L39RyWK0l9k5ZNFbXQedBYeFhukg3VQoTGDsjCL-8D_03gPrtGYp7JWJwjq1sVXYYyt2MkwH89P2yPfdh7Q/s320/sojourner-truth-1797-18832c-originally-isabella-van-wagener-photo-by-mpigetty-imagesjpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sojourner Truth</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
But that’s not the only thing that
faith is. Not, at least, according to the Bible, which is something of a
textbook on faith and faithfulness. Faith is not essentially about believing a
set of doctrines or teachings, though it has come to mean that for a great many
people. To have faith means to put your trust in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">somebody</i>. It is essentially about giving your heart to somebody,
even at the risk of having it trampled and trashed. Faith can be believing
something that you have no evidence for, only a hunch about, or less, or more. Faith
can be practicing piety like saying your prayers and going to church, or it can
mean the things you believe or the persons you follow, whether they are
religious or not. Faith can be virtuous or it can be pig-headed. It can make
life sweet when it works like a charm, and it can be a bitter disappointment
when faith turns out to have been sadly misplaced. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH7nNCYnOmHfKlZiSK5JBWnBV65HxGPxdkiCfO9ltl7IjD2nzWt-IsV3i8A5v_wcBp8kZelcgE0fZrKlYNjLgYxL8S6Uje0AYKDWF06EBtQFOJte6AcGlq_2G1dwkbVL02VJrNvA/s1600/John%252BChapman%2528JohnnyAppleseed%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH7nNCYnOmHfKlZiSK5JBWnBV65HxGPxdkiCfO9ltl7IjD2nzWt-IsV3i8A5v_wcBp8kZelcgE0fZrKlYNjLgYxL8S6Uje0AYKDWF06EBtQFOJte6AcGlq_2G1dwkbVL02VJrNvA/s1600/John%252BChapman%2528JohnnyAppleseed%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Chapman,<br />known as Johnny Appleseed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Are you still sure that you want
some faith? Or more of it? Some of you will tell me that you have all the faith
you need and that what you have works perfectly fine for you. I’m sure you do,
and I rejoice that it works well. Others may say that you don’t get what it is
all about. Faith is about as appealing to you as a root canal. The truth of the
matter is that we can’t live very well without faith. By that I do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>mean we need to live a particularly “religious”
lifestyle. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am talking about faith as a
matter of trust.</i> I am thinking even more specifically about faith as a
quality of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">taking risks</i>, like Abraham
and Sarah, the practice of striking out occasionally into the unknown, for
which you have no guarantees, and in which you have no charts or road maps. It
is true that a great many people—you may be one of them—have an aversion to
taking risks, and who can convincingly argue that they do very well staying on
the safe side of things. I’d be lying if I didn’t say to such folk that I’d
like to rattle their cages a bit! But this gospel we proclaim is not one that
we can use to slam the timid and retiring—or anyone else—suggesting that
somehow they count less than the brave-hearted. Yet, the writer to Hebrews has
a point. People did not get to be models of faith by hedging their bets and
pulling punches. The way of God demands some element of cutting loose and
letting fly, for God’s sake! No one in the entire roster of faithful people
gets to be in the Bible because he or she sat musing on the possibilities of
adventure, vacillating about whether or not to join the innumerable caravan
moving into the future with determination, analyzing to death the pluses and
minuses of getting balled up in the hard stuff that comes from a challenging
God. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjcT5cBeLU2eq5wLTR1lPLj_CMpXHPF28tf7P55sw8BD3YJebwR2vysTkCLX9SpmeXFfhk6p9Hrc_OHnbrAhJdOhNcVQBTy1fabTpNqYhYaqytd2qycKzimUP0WPGHHqlYAkmZQ/s1600/seraphim_of_sarov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjcT5cBeLU2eq5wLTR1lPLj_CMpXHPF28tf7P55sw8BD3YJebwR2vysTkCLX9SpmeXFfhk6p9Hrc_OHnbrAhJdOhNcVQBTy1fabTpNqYhYaqytd2qycKzimUP0WPGHHqlYAkmZQ/s1600/seraphim_of_sarov.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Seraphim of Sarov</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
If we, two thousand years later,
were to add to Hebrew’s gallery of faithful heroes and heroines, we would
quickly see that faithfulness is not a matter of particular content, nor of a
particular vocation. We would find all sorts of people who have lived
faithfully, from the hermit, St. Seraphim of Zarov,<span style="mso-ansi-language: EL;"> </span>to the wandering Johnny Appleseed, from the cloistered Julian of
Norwich to the activist Dorothy Day to the courageous mystic Sojourner Truth. Whoever
you are, you can be faithful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Are you one of the many people who
have stopped believing that? Have you been jerked around by the Church to the
point you have spiritual whiplash, and only want it to stop? Do you find
yourself wandering away from faith, convinced that the requirement of being
faithful means to forfeit your intellect or in some cases your sense of common
decency like many who set themselves up as paragons of right and do nothing to
stop this cruel rampage against humanity now picking up steam? Some of us are
slow to wake up and realize that there is more to life than conforming to
social expectations (be they set by your parents or by gangs in the ghetto or
Vogue magazine or Oprah), totally unaware that life is a many-layered thing,
and that some of the best layers are invisible to the naked eye, known to make
the heart quiver, and the spirit do a somersault. It is just this kind of
insight that nearly everyone on the Hebrews all-star line-up exhibits. Our
author says that they knew their true native land was somewhere besides the
front porch. They listened to a Voice that called them away from the familiar
towards another country, a heavenly one. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZbsCu1_jpa4njWI7Gjs28RQHon6nv08iWSLztFg4oklbIxSaPuyCO6yGbJTLJDh7EiXMVE4k5-vv8YslNlMOXh6tWmMN2JIwP-8BSqsyJyXGMxTDw6x2MKIPyMbBoP7N46vuyQ/s1600/Dorothy+Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="723" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZbsCu1_jpa4njWI7Gjs28RQHon6nv08iWSLztFg4oklbIxSaPuyCO6yGbJTLJDh7EiXMVE4k5-vv8YslNlMOXh6tWmMN2JIwP-8BSqsyJyXGMxTDw6x2MKIPyMbBoP7N46vuyQ/s320/Dorothy+Day.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy Day</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
My own take on most of the people
on the Hebrews list is that they were not in fact motivated by a dream of an
afterlife. Most of them did not know what that was, including Abraham, the
prototype of faithfulness. But they did have a notion of “heaven,” if by
“heaven” we mean where God is and if heaven and therefore God is everywhere
including as close to you as your nose or your forehead or your buttocks. Being
faithful is not dreaming of some airy-fairy world. When it comes right down to
it, being faithful is taking the presence of God in your own life quite
seriously. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
We need people of faith, real
faith, as never before. We are facing issues and battles today of unprecedented
proportions. We live in a society where there are now more guns than people,
where those who could do something about it choose weak-kneed responses and
cynically offer their thoughts and prayers as if consolation of victims were a
way to stop violence. It is just a matter of time before the next catastrophic
environmental disaster like poisoned water or a gigantic oil spill will be the
news for a day or two. The planet heats up and people either refuse to believe
it, or believe it and refuse to alter their behavior. Meanwhile we let the
religious crazies, at home and abroad, hijack our faith traditions and dictate
the terms on which we decide to be faithful or not. We are looking at every bit
as dangerous a time as Hebrews ever saw: a slow collapse of social
institutions, a debasing of education, the triumph of anti-intellectualism, a
fickle electorate that is run largely by fear, cynical so-called leaders who
lie big enough and long enough and steadily enough that hosts of people find it
easier to believe the lie than to pull up stakes, like Abraham, and hit the
road for the One who is True.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvSa7bLfAwHHxnU3_JMYMn-8XN26hcUYXpbwQgg6iWNVz_442RySNt69fNj90FPFVQdQ9TLgVOe_NqDok8r6-znvXMpSxKpKpzgljSXGhoLRnNmOaEEGZDKUy8XJflFWzJeP-hWA/s1600/MartinLutherKingJr.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvSa7bLfAwHHxnU3_JMYMn-8XN26hcUYXpbwQgg6iWNVz_442RySNt69fNj90FPFVQdQ9TLgVOe_NqDok8r6-znvXMpSxKpKpzgljSXGhoLRnNmOaEEGZDKUy8XJflFWzJeP-hWA/s1600/MartinLutherKingJr.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin Luther King, Jr.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The real enemy of faith is fear. The
question confronting us is, “So what are you afraid of?” Whatever may be
holding you back from running a risk or taking a stand or making a witness is
just something that puts you in the category with every other human being. We
can either shrink back, dither, or take heart. Martin Luther King once said, “This
faith transforms the whirlwind of despair into a warm and reviving breeze of
hope. The words of a motto which a generation ago were commonly found on the
wall in the homes of devout persons need to be etched on our hearts: ‘Fear
knocked at the door. Faith answered. No one was there.’”</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon preached on Hebrews
11:1-3, 8-16.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2010<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-38635078495220506952019-06-29T17:30:00.001-07:002019-06-29T17:30:43.462-07:00Ice In Summer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">or reasons I
honestly cannot fathom, on this hot summer day my mind is wandering around the
farm I grew up on. It is the middle of winter. Even in South Carolina in the
days before drastic climate change, a severe winter storm has set in bringing
ice and freezing rain. The thirty-seven acres on the farm seem huge to this
boy. Woods border the fields on three sides. I stay out of the woods in hot
weather for one reason only: snakes. But in the wintertime it is safe to wander
through the woods. I do. I put on some boots. I walk across a frozen field and
enter the wonderland. Trees bow down under the weight of ice. Sunbeams dance on
bare branches caked in crystal. Hiking through Low Country woods the morning
after an ice storm is not necessarily easy. It certainly isn’t fast. Trees have
fallen. Ice across little streams turns out to be too thin to support my
weight. I zig and zag my way forward. The adventure of moving through a tangle
of vines and saplings and brush combines with the awe-inducing freeze to
transport me so deep into the heart of Nature that I feel unnaturally connected
to an unearthly Something. I’m seventeen. Suddenly I’m venturing into a world
of rare beauty that inspires and puzzles me. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGr_HcFk9qCFlPtATqIWbJX67O6uemAM9USkwN0CBpDYCmpTzv8uzDmQZ756-fB__m9idBltrAgaX2Gqv3ZVa6KCoshajyocLcyn484StN5V3dAziD5nGNEasvQ1I__d_csNoJjg/s1600/ice-storm-springdale-patpie_980x551.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="980" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGr_HcFk9qCFlPtATqIWbJX67O6uemAM9USkwN0CBpDYCmpTzv8uzDmQZ756-fB__m9idBltrAgaX2Gqv3ZVa6KCoshajyocLcyn484StN5V3dAziD5nGNEasvQ1I__d_csNoJjg/s400/ice-storm-springdale-patpie_980x551.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ice Storm in the South</td></tr>
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</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Long lost to me is
what I wrote when I returned to the house and warmed myself to the point that I
could pick up a pen and put down some thoughts in the form of a theme for
English class. What I do remember is wanting to preserve the experience, to
dissect it just a bit, to get into what it was I felt when moving over a
landscape at once so familiar and so mysterious. I don’t know that I grasped
the paradox of great loveliness and peace a fierce storm had made
possible. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Fifty-seven years
have passed since that winter morning. What I believe I experienced then was
perhaps not the first, but certainly one of the most memorable instances of
finding my own place in creation. I was never a boy much at home in the
outdoors. I liked staying inside much more than venturing outside. Reading,
playing the piano, studying, and writing were much happier pursuits for me than
practically anything I could name like football or baseball, hunting or
fishing. I did not at first feel as if the natural world was home to me. I had
a lot to learn.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">On that morning
walk through the ice-laden woods, I had already discovered the great Romantic
poets of English literature. I learned from people like Wordsworth and Blake,
Byron, Keats, and Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and
Emerson that Nature was a Bible that communicated wisdom and truth to me. And I
learned all that from a wonderful high school teacher who opened my eyes to see
Truth in the world around me. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">The gravest problem
the human species is facing today is the destruction of the natural world. The
problem did not begin a few years ago, but has been steadily increasing in
scope and severity over the last half century. A great source of the problem is
that our religions in this part of the world have taught us that our individual
souls are of far greater importance than our environment. They have gone so far
as to school us in believing that the native and ultimate habitat of the human
soul is in fact not in this world but in another world. They have been rife
with images of God as having a home in a heaven that is distinctly not a part
of this world. Our hymns and our preachers have told a fairly consistent story
that the heaven where God lives is a land beyond the river that we call “the
sweet forever,” and to that land we are bound if we are good and pass the
grade. And while our religions have insisted that God is the creator of the
world, their attitude has been by and large that God really doesn’t care very
much about anything in this world except human beings and what we happen to
prize. We have had the blessing of our religious establishments to dominate, exploit,
use, and exhaust natural resources, with scarcely a murmur about the
consequences. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">What you and I are
trapped in, namely this wholesale cheapening of the natural world, is nothing
less than a broad example of what St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians calls
“slavery.” I’ll be the first to admit that when we hear words like “flesh” and
“self-indulgence,” our minds go first to our appetites—especially to sex. But I
invite you not to go there, just in case you like thousands of others think
that Christianity in particular harps all the time in a sex-negative key. As a
matter of fact, behind what we hear in Galatians, Romans, and elsewhere in the
New Testament are echoes of a great struggle that goes on both within the human
person and in society. Paul sometimes refers to it as two aeons or two ages.
One is the Age of Adam and the other is the Age of Christ. Paul writes in First
Corinthians, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive.” Clearly what differentiates the two is not mortality—because all
humans, including Jesus, face death. But Christ represents passage, and not
just at death, into a new quality of life, a new way of living, a distinctive
redirection of life’s purpose. We struggle because we live in both ages at once.
The question is whom do we follow. Adam represents our own human willfulness.
Christ embodies free submission to the desire of God to dwell within us. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Another way Paul
frames this struggle is with the terms flesh and spirit. Think of flesh as not
simply the human body, but as life that never quite gets beyond the basic
struggle that all flesh engages in: the struggle to survive. Following
the Spirit is not negating the body, but reorienting our purposes for living in
a radically new direction. Among other things that direction involves a change
in the way we approach the natural world. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJHrArxtmo5_0hhspGxHnKUYeDo_2rpCR9T7_dB6Uqyh4dWs96KW5UTjeVWE08CLc8k_NyRtySraoLWT1LFOHXRJGvJD0qYvMyNfx_ObYjZ1_ch_22qwduMoT3iPLoFA-7l0iz6g/s1600/Chinese+artifacts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJHrArxtmo5_0hhspGxHnKUYeDo_2rpCR9T7_dB6Uqyh4dWs96KW5UTjeVWE08CLc8k_NyRtySraoLWT1LFOHXRJGvJD0qYvMyNfx_ObYjZ1_ch_22qwduMoT3iPLoFA-7l0iz6g/s1600/Chinese+artifacts.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owning, Possessing, Hoarding: Not Quite the Art of Living</td></tr>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Joe and I were
watching a couple of nights ago a detective mystery in which a very wealthy man
was thoroughly enamored of ancient Chinese artifacts. He was a collector who
had amassed a museum-quality collection of various objects, many very precious
and fragile. To him they were not to be shared, but to be prized and hoarded,
only rarely to be seen by select visitors whom he could perhaps impress. What
was important to him was owning the artifacts, to the point of engaging in
whatever criminal activity he needed to in order to protect his ownership. That
is a perfect example of the Age of Adam in full swing. That is a chilling
example of walking after the flesh, living according to the gods of this world
called self-indulgence, greed, avarice, malice, egotism. Our place is within
the created order, not to exploit it to puff up ourselves with power,
influence, fame, or privilege.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>II</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Jesus is going
forward, his face firmly set in the direction of Jerusalem. His agenda is
constantly to confront the powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the
creatures of God. His ministry of healing directly challenges diseases of body
and spirit that infect people. He is constantly calling out the authorities
both political and religious that oppress the poor and powerless. He
consistently ranges himself on the side of the outcast. And along the way to
Jerusalem, where he will pay the ultimate price for his witness, he calls
people to follow him. One man says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus
replies that he has no home, no bed, but is perpetually on the move, restless,
tireless in his mission. Are you really willing to follow that example? To
another who wants to delay responding to Jesus’ call, he says, “Let the dead
bury the dead.” Who is dead? Those who live according to the flesh, those who
are stuck worshiping the gods of the Age of Adam, those who hoard their art and
possessions, their money and their food, instead of sharing. Someone agrees to
follow but first has to say farewell to those at home. Sounds reasonable. But
this is the third metaphor that emphasizes the urgent call of the Holy One
asking for admittance to the human soul. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qLKMjlU1KmPcCr0h0jTBNUTRxngu04wYfK86LsJeHKb5CLzvOZnQKlWsknU1si8HN4rI9HVAU0HfYEU0LIILK61z5wSqFV9EQsvkjZAZ-IXeCSUlax_73LKZ_Gh7LuE5T3ZELg/s1600/Mary+Cassatt+the-childs-bath.jpg%2521Large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="456" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0qLKMjlU1KmPcCr0h0jTBNUTRxngu04wYfK86LsJeHKb5CLzvOZnQKlWsknU1si8HN4rI9HVAU0HfYEU0LIILK61z5wSqFV9EQsvkjZAZ-IXeCSUlax_73LKZ_Gh7LuE5T3ZELg/s320/Mary+Cassatt+the-childs-bath.jpg%2521Large.jpeg" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Cassatt, "The Child's Bath," 1893</td></tr>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">And that is the
simple truth at the bottom of all this. In everything, the great Soul Maker is
sitting silently in the depth of our being, simply waiting to be noticed,
waiting to be acknowledged. Waiting and waiting, the Great Mother can think of
nothing better than to shower love and affection on her children. Nothing
pleases her more than for her children simply to play lovingly with her and
with each other.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>III</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">A life in the
Spirit, life lived in the age of Christ, is not a drab and tedious thing that
is ridden with guilt over imagined sins and weighed down with shame that cannot
accept itself. No, it is like a trip to a fabulous farmers market at the height
of the growing season where there are fruits and vegetables aplenty. Some of
them are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. You won’t find laws that prohibit such things,
because on both the deepest and most obvious levels those are the very things
that human beings and societies most hunger for. We never quite have them until
we have turned our faces in the direction our Leader is going. The fruits come
with following the one through whom all things are made. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>IV</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9Td83ckENiyZ04uRKtYNLVVbf7bRNjsjdAodM0czqfDXJ1t4HNrfiI_ngYvNliU9oIuNIjbZ4ut3OGr3XNxefyEmHTC6KxCe96OsPlXoy_1avpYVTSYvOspXvxC6JmRGrl-4jA/s1600/freezing-rain-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9Td83ckENiyZ04uRKtYNLVVbf7bRNjsjdAodM0czqfDXJ1t4HNrfiI_ngYvNliU9oIuNIjbZ4ut3OGr3XNxefyEmHTC6KxCe96OsPlXoy_1avpYVTSYvOspXvxC6JmRGrl-4jA/s320/freezing-rain-tree.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I’ve grown a bit
since that icy morning many years ago. All I could see then was the sheer
beauty of a world so much larger than I. And that was enough. Now I understand
that the enchanted frozen forest was not simply something that I was exploring,
but a vast and profound territory that was as much inside my heart and mind as
it was on the farm I called home. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">At the end of the
day, when the sunlight has melted the last of the ice and has begun to sink
into night, I can see the truth now. Walking by the Spirit, living in the Age
of Christ, following Jesus, putting my hand to the plough and not looking back,
is essentially acknowledging that I am a part of this marvelous world and all
that is in it. The trees, the ice, the streams, the rocks, and even the snakes
and spiders are a part of me and I of them. And so are you, my brothers and
sisters. And there is absolutely nothing to do but love everything and
everybody just as I love myself. We are all one, and it is all good.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">A sermon preached on Proper 8, Year C, of the Revised Common
Lectionary, on the texts Galatians 5:1, 13-25, and Luke 9:51-62.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-74159685545808495142019-06-07T14:46:00.002-07:002019-06-07T15:58:02.586-07:00William Potter Parrish: A Homily For His Funeral, June 5, 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
e had gathered with no little nervousness. Much was at
stake, not the least of which was our future. We were knocking on the door of
the Church hoping that we’d be told at some point that we’d be welcome to
become priests. It was on the whole a lot easier in those days to get the
desired answer than it was later to be. But none of us knew that at the time. We
were three postulants for ordination at our first meeting with the examining
chaplains of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, a group of senior clergy to
whom Bishop Marmion and the diocese had entrusted the task of vetting us young
squirts who thought we just might do that impossible job. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the senior, trusted clergy picked up his big fat
black leather briefcase sometime about 3 in the afternoon, stuffed some papers
into it, and announced that he had a meeting to attend at Lynchburg College
where he was on the faculty. He struck me as a man of serious purpose and few
words, pleasant but somehow a little inscrutable. But that was less about the
man, The Reverend Doctor William Potter Parrish, than it was about me, a newish
convert to The Episcopal Church still wondering how to navigate in a system
that was largely strange to me. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everyone</i>
was inscrutable and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i> a bit
daunting. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I didn’t know as I watched him pack his briefcase was
that I was looking at a man who would come to have a profound impact on my life
in ways I could never have imagined then. I didn’t see Bill for the next
several decades. In 1992, I answered a call from the vestry of St. John’s,
Lynchburg, to become rector. One thing or another had taken the entire clergy
and professional staff away from here, so I came on the alert to find somebody
fast to help me lead the clergy end of things. I’d hardly unpacked when the
then Senior Warden, Jim Peery and his wife Doris had a small gathering to
welcome Barbara and me to our new community. Two folks came up to me and said,
“You know, Frank, you might be aware that a great priest is available and might
be willing to give you some assistance at St. John’s. His name is Bill Parrish.
Ever heard of him?” I remembered the black briefcase being shut and the man who
had packed and carried it from the meeting long years before. Sure enough,
within a short time, I asked and Bill agreed to come here as pastoral
assistant.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what a great day that was, not only for me but for hosts
of people in this community. Bill worked several days a week and usually
Sundays as well for the next twelve years and then some. He was the mainstay of
clergy presence by many a sickbed, in hospitals and retirement homes, up and
down the halls and in living quarters at Westminster-Canterbury. He organized a
group that we came to call “Daybreak Bible Study” but which the members of it
called “Bill Parrish’s Bible Study” that lasted for years. But what few
parishioners knew was that Bill kept the staff smiling and the rector supported
with an unfailing sense of humor, good judgment, sound counsel, and unflagging
faith. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have a way of looking back over the years and can only be
breathless at the patterns we see in retrospect that were barely discernible as
events unfolded one after another. I think back to mornings with the staff on
Manton Drive, to conversations in weekly meetings, to moments when we’d share
pastoral information, to a sermon preached on an Easter morning, a hike along
the Blue Ridge Parkway with a hurting knee eventually to be replaced, dear
Jackie’s final illness and Jonathan and Minou’s wedding celebration, Herb’s
untimely death and young Bill’s fortuitous return to Lynchburg. Those are just
a handful of moments that are a part of a pastiche of grace in which his soul
rose to its full height and brought the souls of others to stand at attention. You
know much more than I do. You know how he touched your life. You know what he
taught you. You know what witness he bore as he shared his understanding of the
Truth with you. You are here today because of him whose life directly or indirectly
brushed or more substantially shaped yours maybe thousands of times, may just a
few, maybe only once. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is the grand mystery pressing upon our consciousness
that causes words to form such as these:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
Lord you have searched me out and
known me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
You know my sitting down and my
rising up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
You discern my thoughts from afar.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
You trace my journeys and my
resting places<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
And are acquainted with all my
ways. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
The only way we ever discover such a
wonder is in the details of our own lives. And the marvel of it is that such
awesome love makes itself obvious not so much in the carefully scripted ways we
imagine will bring us happiness and fulfillment, but in the jolts and tumbles
that we’re least prepared for, twists and turns we never plan and wouldn’t in a
thousand lifetimes choose. Deaths and losses and changes and revelations,
challenges and dilemmas that leave us exhausted: these are the moments that
alone can crack our false sense of self-sufficiency. Ultimately they form the
school in which we learn whatever we learn of the power of God, the use of
grace, the hope of glory. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
Make no mistake. Bill Parrish didn’t
get to be the priest or the teacher or the scientist or the friend or the
father or grandfather that we honor him for by breezing through life going by
someone else’s playbook. Like you and me, he found God showing up in the most
unlikely moments, many times surprising with unexpected joy and just as many
times bringing clarity through the sheer toughness of necessary change. How do
I know? Not just because Bill and I spent a dozen years quite close to each
other, but because it isn’t a secret that only through testing do we know what
lasts, only through struggle that we experience anything worth calling victory,
and only through dying to our ego-bound self that we are ever born into newness
of life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Where
shall I go from your Spirit?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Where
shall I flee from your presence?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
I climb up to heaven you are there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
I make the grave my bed, you are there also.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
All of that is theory and someone else’s
experience until life overtakes you and you find it true because you’ve lived
it or you are living it. You don’t have to worry about whether you can do it,
or whether it is true for you. Nor do you have to take Bill Parrish’s or mine
or anyone else’s word for it. All you have to do is look at your own life and
you’ll see appearing before your face, indeed closer than your nostrils, that
you haven’t really learned anything to compare with what you’ve learned when
you’re pushed against the wall, undeniably out of your head’s inventoried
resources. You can tell from your own experience that even in joyful times,
delightful moments, you never experience pleasure while you’re busy holding
back, you never know what it is to rise until see that your white-knuckled
holding on is all that keeps you from rising even higher. And letting go of our
ideas, preconceptions, judgments is what ultimately brings us to know what
trust, the core of faith, is all about.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
So it goes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
I take the wings of the morning and dwell <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>in
the uttermost part of the sea<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even
there your hand will hold me, and your right hand hold me fast. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
It is true irony that when we come
together, as we do today, to celebrate a human life that in many ways has been
beautiful, a life that has made ours richer and fuller, the mass of us
generally only knows the most superficial things that made such a person tick. The
same will be true of you when your days are over and the love you’ve inspired
and left behind brings together those who will honor you. We don’t know now and
they won’t know then but a tiny fraction of what has really been your journey. At
best they will, as we do today, intuit from the experiences they’ve had the
richness of your life, its meaning, the import of your story. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
And all of that is just as it should
be. The soul loves mystery and rests best in silence. All words of laud and
honor will be a faint tinkling in the breeze of memory. It won’t be important. What
saves us is not what we’ve done nor really what we’re remembered for. What
saves us is Love, the Power that brought us here and receives us back again,
the Love that gave us birth and receives us again into its own deep and
dazzling darkness. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
It is thus with William Potter
Parrish, child of God. That was and always will be quite enough. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A homily based on the text of the 139<sup>th</sup>
Psalm. All quotations are from that text.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Copies of this may be freely shared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quotations in print or online from this text
should be credited to the author.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank
you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-83257114954479787162019-05-27T11:01:00.001-07:002019-05-27T11:15:34.802-07:00We’re Living It, Whether We Know It Or Not<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The farther we get from Easter Day, the less likely we are
to hear words from Scripture as being messages about resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The main reason, I think, is that most of us think that the
resurrection was something that happened once upon a time to Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fair number of folk take it to be the happy
ending to an otherwise tragic story about the suffering and death of a
righteous man, indeed a man who was not only human but divine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As such, it doesn’t occur to us that
resurrection of the body has anything to do with us, certainly not here and
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have successfully swapped the
notion of resurrection for the belief in immortality of the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two are not necessarily incompatible, but
immortality leaves some important issues aside.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I invite you to consider some of those issues [this
morning].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are raised in one, two,
or all three of the scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s
take them one at a time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBd8lLjUtq0SfvFLrCFYtZwyPUdb8MWadTa1V9bjwP2FIwAEV8uSUcawIQlMLlsT6_RpJUqEO55E0uRmwFc7bkyZO4wCPNNHMKgLLbD55jIIOWlEnNDJwI-W7vWoceMgXhbvV9ew/s1600/philippi_river-t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="500" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBd8lLjUtq0SfvFLrCFYtZwyPUdb8MWadTa1V9bjwP2FIwAEV8uSUcawIQlMLlsT6_RpJUqEO55E0uRmwFc7bkyZO4wCPNNHMKgLLbD55jIIOWlEnNDJwI-W7vWoceMgXhbvV9ew/s320/philippi_river-t.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The river near Philippi, supposed place of <br />
Lydia's baptism, the first in Europe </td></tr>
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The story from the Book of Acts is the lovely account of a
Sabbath morning when a delightful woman by the name of Lydia became a Christian
convert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke tells us in one of the
passages in which he recounts his accompanying Paul that they headed outside of
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Philippi to the river that they supposed
was a gathering place for prayer. Sure enough some women were there including a
businesswoman, Lydia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incidentally, she
was apparently very prosperous as she dealt in purple cloth, a precious commodity.
Luke tells us that Lydia was a believer in God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How she had come to be one we don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After hearing Paul’s message about Jesus she
and her household were baptized, the river no doubt being convenient for
that. We don’t have to speculate much about
what Paul said that morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His was
always the message of the transformation brought about through relationship
with Christ Jesus. He couldn’t have proclaimed the gospel without mentioning
the death and resurrection of Christ. And no doubt he unpacked his
understanding of baptism that a few years later he would write in his elegant
letter to the Romans:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into
death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united
with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that
the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For
whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe
that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the
dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he
died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So
you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus</span>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiex0Y151Jy-WhNw81X30YGPYZBg_SUZaJtsLAMNuta_XjkBnf3fJ7k43nPSgedLCKlvpoDOMvqrsuIUWZOtxThOztBtj7ILYb6FtTnNoC1CIWuFYYwfbBFcG9PmNPrrFqOayNncA/s1600/St.+Lydia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1061" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiex0Y151Jy-WhNw81X30YGPYZBg_SUZaJtsLAMNuta_XjkBnf3fJ7k43nPSgedLCKlvpoDOMvqrsuIUWZOtxThOztBtj7ILYb6FtTnNoC1CIWuFYYwfbBFcG9PmNPrrFqOayNncA/s320/St.+Lydia.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Lydia of Philippi</td></tr>
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In effect, Paul gave to Lydia and the others a framework for
their lives if he discussed resurrection in this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He might have said as I often do, “When you
forget everything else about baptism, remember that it is “down under and back
up again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Baptism, as graphically
demonstrated by immersion in water, is a ritual enacting the death-and-resurrection
principle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed it is a way of
identifying with what we call “the Paschal (Easter) mystery of Christ’s death
and resurrection.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it spills over
into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all of life</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was already present in Lydia’s experience
as she went through the inevitable ups and downs in her business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take apart any moment or extended moment in
her life, such as dealing with one of the problems of a member of her
household, and she could see in that slice of life the dynamic of death and
resurrection. Something begins in the ideal state of perfect equilibrium, at
least theoretically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then something goes
wrong and we descend into the quagmire of problems, perhaps confusion, even
despair, or, on the simplest level, the ideal is exposed to be imperfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It deteriorates, as does everything in life.
We reach bottom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Metaphorically
speaking, our notion of the ideal is dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then arrives the moment of truth and we see, if but dimly, how there is
literally no way forward but up. Hope comes alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we take its wings and begin the ascent
out of the depths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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That is a bit dramatic a description of ordinary moments,
but maybe you see the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is
quite literally the way life is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of
life, not just human life, and certainly not just conscious life, and most
definitely not just Christian life is a matter of what some have called
“traveling the U: down, down, down until we reach the bottom, and then back up
again.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Death and resurrection are woven into the
fabric of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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So what does baptism do to merit our calling it the means by
which we experience true resurrection?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Baptism brings us into a community whose very life is conscious,
intentional fellowship with the Risen Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living with him is not fundamentally anticipating a future in another
world but living in eternity. All the scriptures point to the unity of creation
with the Creator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire Bible can
be summed up in the words, “They shall be my people and I shall be their God,
and I myself will be with them.” And that is the core message of the gospel
lesson from John 14.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dwelling in this
community of the baptized is the explicit context in which the incarnation of
God extends from Jesus to everyone through nothing else but love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Those who love me will keep my word, and my
Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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All of this is quite simple and straightforward, or so it
would seem until we get to the existential reality that we are faced with every
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That reality is our being situated in
what John’s gospel calls “the world” and what Paul rather confusingly calls
“the flesh.” They both mean the day-to-day cauldron of human activity largely
driven by anything but love. It is the
world where even the most well-intentioned systems get twisted from their best
potential and turn into engines that corrupt and destroy the creatures of
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the world where gratuitous
violence destroys life and is even praised. It is the world where money rules
and where greed is a breeding ground for corruption that now has extended to
the point where the entire ecosystem is but a few years away from being
thoroughly wrecked so that our own species and a number of others will not
survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add to that the willful
ignorance that denies the enormity, the evil of it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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At precisely that moment—the Now of this very day—comes the
hope revealed in that beautiful but dreadfully misused Book of Revelation. Its
message is nothing less than resurrection on a cosmic scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we surrender the temptation to read
Revelation as a book essentially about the damnation of all but an in-group of
like-minded conservative Christians, it is about the body of God, another name
for which is the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve heard
from ours and many other traditions that the temple of God is the body. So it
is. That body of yours is like every other material thing in the universe. The
energy to which it is convertible is the Love that powers all things in the
cosmos, and one of the thousand names of that Love is “the Lord God the
Almighty.” And the one through whom we
know that Love and its origin best is Jesus, who is called “the Lamb.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we who share his life and live it in our
own bodies catch on that what he is by nature we become by grace, then we begin
to be what C. S. Lewis referred to as “Little Christs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We usher in the age when “the nations will
walk by the light [of God’s glory]. It is totally incompatible with such Love
that we would ever settle for a life of lies and falsehoods, whether on a
personal or corporate, national or global scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because the deepest truth of the universe is indeed Truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is made concrete and present when we
attune ourselves to the Divine and live for no motive other than to be like
God, not by how knowledgeable or sophisticated we can be, but by how loving we
can be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what it is to be “written
in the Lamb’s book of life.”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title="">[4]</a></span></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn4" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQ5taCoEmaP9zVb6AFXLBgvoUd4rd648mR9OGMp7g6jb7gHKowMweCA-2oUDiErJaKeOs8Uh8qzI3e07PYsBfTNoTcCcvB_jl1Q4Bq18YLNHkvw2V66HXLXLr57hoW9XY8SpVpg/s1600/heaven+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQ5taCoEmaP9zVb6AFXLBgvoUd4rd648mR9OGMp7g6jb7gHKowMweCA-2oUDiErJaKeOs8Uh8qzI3e07PYsBfTNoTcCcvB_jl1Q4Bq18YLNHkvw2V66HXLXLr57hoW9XY8SpVpg/s320/heaven+1.jpg" width="320" /></a>Revelation moves towards its end with an image of the last
things that marvelously mirror the first things that ever were and presage the
first things in a transformed world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far
from being a corrupt and perverse world hell-bent on destroying itself by the
hand of one species that’s out of control, the world empowered by resurrection
and saturated with love is a world nourished by water from the river of life,
bright as crystal, flowing right out of the heart of God and the Lamb down <o:p></o:p></div>
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through the middle of civilization. Instead of a population
on the defensive, fearing even children fleeing from oppression, poverty, and
violence, its cities will be abundantly fruitful and its people known as healers
for people of all nations and tribes and languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dwelling of God and of the Lamb will be in
pitched in the heart of everyone, and we will worship him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will see his face in the face of every
creature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His identity will be visible on
ours and their foreheads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will be
no more night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will not need any
light—of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be our light, and everyone who
manifests the life of God will reign forever and ever.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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What a surpassingly powerful vision!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet we will never get there by doubling
down and working harder at it making come to pass. Paradoxically it is by
letting go and letting God, as the old slogan has it, that the heavenly city is
born and the heavenly community realized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our old ways, including all the old stories we tell about ourselves
including the story of how terribly sinful we are, must die. Only in traveling
the way of death do we ever reach the point where there is no way to go but
back up again, rising full of the power and peace of the resurrected and
ascended Christ.</div>
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</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeKlqFKUBt9S-3w97ffw565bQ1CtXfRR82w2wwxiCFkZ8St5LzY0dNWY6ObsTC4aHwQ6g8ARgfPB9zwt28no5ycSEwoIaadJKXdgQk0NgZy9RBBqUkQ-oakHcUUi4o_fVURJZl5A/s1600/Knippers+Ascension.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="393" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeKlqFKUBt9S-3w97ffw565bQ1CtXfRR82w2wwxiCFkZ8St5LzY0dNWY6ObsTC4aHwQ6g8ARgfPB9zwt28no5ycSEwoIaadJKXdgQk0NgZy9RBBqUkQ-oakHcUUi4o_fVURJZl5A/s320/Knippers+Ascension.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Knippers, The Ascension of Christ, 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">A sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C in the
Revised Common Lectionary, based on Acts 16:9-15; Revelation to John 21:10,
22-22:5; John 14:23-29<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
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<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Romans 6:3-11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This an all other biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard
Version (New York: Oxford,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1991).</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Peter Senge <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">et
al</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Presence: An Exploration of
Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society</i> (New York: Doubleday,
2004).</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">John 14:23.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Revelation 21: 10, 22-27.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Revelation 22:1-5.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-20331793797953190082019-05-27T07:23:00.004-07:002019-05-27T11:40:01.073-07:00Resurrection Resurrected<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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oday is in Christian tradition the Sixth Sunday of Easter. I
can't get enough of Easter because it's about the resurrection of the
body. Years ago I read Norman O. Brown's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life Against Death</i>, in which his last chapter is entitled
"The Resurrection of the Body."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Brown, a rather orthodox Freudian, opened my eyes to see that the thrust of
resurrection is the affirmation of the mortal body. He argued that the
real dynamic going on in humanity's struggle to become conscious (and free of
neurosis) was that between life and death. He further asserted that the only
way humanity would ever get out of the trap of its own neuroses was to stop
sublimating sexual drive and negating, limiting, and repressing pleasure. And
that he said was the treasure that lay buried in Christianity in the form of
the resurrection of the body.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have literally been unpacking that for almost 50 years.
Today was one of many occasions when I have preached on the theme of
resurrection, hoping to edge people out of the notion that it was an event that
happened to one man ages ago having nothing to do with the way we live our
lives today, and saying for the thousandth time that resurrection of the body
is not about the immortality of the soul nor essentially about an afterlife.
I don't deny the immortality of the soul for a number of reasons, and I
certainly don't assume a know-it-all stance about an afterlife. Yet I do know
that what both notions miss is the radical affirmation of the body--and
specifically the body's mortality. Until we embrace the body and stop
repressing its instinctual and sensual life, not only are we plagued by our own
neuroses but we continue on personal, social, cultural, and global levels to
surrender to the death instinct. When Brown was writing in mid-twentieth
century, it was clear that civilization had finally evolved to the point that
it was capable of incinerating itself through unleashing hydrogen bombs. Now it
is clear that the death instinct, masquerading in the garb of dominating "nature,"
has humans raping the ecosystem on a scale that is hurtling towards the brink
of annihilation of ours and other species.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What to do? In a word, the only way out of the dilemma is to
reconcile both the death and life impulses in the body. Because as long
as we act as if we can deny death through "security,"
"power," accumulation, domination, fame or whatever, we will never
get around to the one and only thing that can save us: profligate love, Eros
rooted in the body, not confined to the sex organs but energizing the entire
human organism, spilling over into erotic embrace of the entire universe.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So many voices are saying similar things today that finally
it seems possible that Brown's vision might finally be realized: the hope that
ultimately Eros would find itself prized and practiced by a humanity reveling
in bodily life. This is not a matter of being "religious" or
"secular." Nor does it mean abrogating morality, though it certainly
moves the needle of the latter away from a prurient fixation with sexual
manners and modalities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPAMOqSOedKbyviwFelIuJ5cZMWfGSp-jDRLG2WcmbnEikiPKNf_CRv4OoNgu9s5HeHuMq320g3jNZztyPcNqY01SQYG_Mry9LkVBOwxBLh1zMcQe4xK0B-aOKC-OglQiG82ufIA/s1600/EK_1996_The-Second-Coming-of-Christ_8x12_oil-on-panel-746x500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="746" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPAMOqSOedKbyviwFelIuJ5cZMWfGSp-jDRLG2WcmbnEikiPKNf_CRv4OoNgu9s5HeHuMq320g3jNZztyPcNqY01SQYG_Mry9LkVBOwxBLh1zMcQe4xK0B-aOKC-OglQiG82ufIA/s320/EK_1996_The-Second-Coming-of-Christ_8x12_oil-on-panel-746x500.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Knippers, Second Coming </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
All those voices are echoes of what mystics of many
traditions have been telling us for ages. Brown suggests that the principle
gift of psychoanalysis is offering an objective critique of the inner life much
as the natural sciences attempt to offer an objective account of the external
world. Whether or not that can be done is a debatable question. But one thing
is certain. The human mind's own debate about whether to follow its death
instinct or its life impulse will never be settled through rationality, which
is one form of sublimation and thus of repression. Poets, artists, shamans,
musicians, and others who engage the imagination can lead us in embracing the
world of paradox in all its dialectical complexity. And the way we'll discover
it is through the very mortal bodies that hold our memories, our dreams, our
desires, and the exhilarating power of pleasure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That, I think, is the life of resurrection. And it's closer
to us than the air we breathe.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Norman O. Brown, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life
Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History </i>(Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press, 1959).</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-84131113509118741992019-05-05T19:28:00.000-07:002019-05-06T05:30:10.898-07:00Rider Off His Horse <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<td align="left" style="padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 42.2pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-linespan: 3; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: dropcap-dropped; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; page-break-after: avoid;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
wo years ago Joe and I hiked a fair distance across the city
of Rome to get to the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo to see two paintings by
the famous Caravaggio. The hike was well worth every step. For hanging in a
chapel so dark that one has to pay a coin to turn on a flood light just for a
little while to see them, the paintings depict the crucifixion of St. Peter and
the conversion of St. Paul. Peter is shown head down, the position in which tradition
says he was crucified having refused to be affixed to his cross upright like
Jesus. In the companion painting, Paul has fallen off his horse onto the
ground. The viewer sees him too as head down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgS75GwOS0LNKzvUAX3NB0u85aOXE8tg9InGwa03f1GE4XnqCH3myQXnY_JroF78KYzEYras9LsPRer4i3nqXOL54WL7TjIIiJW5jTQzu7ARi0ajbMxGniQb96nlCXWQnlciDjQ/s1600/caravaggio_conversion_of_st_paul1330665941637.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="690" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgS75GwOS0LNKzvUAX3NB0u85aOXE8tg9InGwa03f1GE4XnqCH3myQXnY_JroF78KYzEYras9LsPRer4i3nqXOL54WL7TjIIiJW5jTQzu7ARi0ajbMxGniQb96nlCXWQnlciDjQ/s320/caravaggio_conversion_of_st_paul1330665941637.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caravaggio, Conversion of St. Paul, 1601</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaU14wJp5sbCfxGfWcE9B40F9BD7bMHY-h_zmVH6_wTXTdC-8ER02Nb1BJq5nVX9OUw3hNw_8xYHo4cTO3V6cZgZr5Gr8g6VFXnc_Fx9bvI3_s0ZpjUDft6sgCIF6UH0WVoXGPw/s1600/Caravaggio+Crucifixion+of+St.+Peter.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaU14wJp5sbCfxGfWcE9B40F9BD7bMHY-h_zmVH6_wTXTdC-8ER02Nb1BJq5nVX9OUw3hNw_8xYHo4cTO3V6cZgZr5Gr8g6VFXnc_Fx9bvI3_s0ZpjUDft6sgCIF6UH0WVoXGPw/s1600/Caravaggio+Crucifixion+of+St.+Peter.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caravaggio, Crucifixion of St. Peter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is the first of many clues that the artist has seized
the core truth of Paul’s conversion. This is his moment of crucifixion—the
earth-shattering experience of the Holy that amounts to nothing less than the
death of Saul as he has been known by all including himself up to then. He
later writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who
live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> What
Paul is talking about there is not just the incident of his conversion, though
it is clear that that experience never left him. He is speaking of the way his
whole life, his mind, his commitment radically shifted as a result. And that
shift, we know from Paul’s own account, did not happen overnight. He tells the
Galatians that though he once put his confidence in the Law those days are over
as he sees that the only way one is made whole (“justified,” he calls it) is
through a relationship (that’s what “faith” is) to and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in</i> Christ Jesus. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Quite frankly all of that sounds like so much religious
talk, so divorced from everyday life, until I begin thinking of it in the terms
and conditions of my own life. I invite you to consider, for example, what it
is that you hinge your everyday life on. I’m not talking about your religious
practices, which I don’t doubt you take seriously. But look at the things that
keep the average person going. Any such general sketch would certainly be a
dismissive caricature of the truth, but still I think we could probably say
that for many of us it would be our need of basic survival. Will I have enough
to eat? Do I have enough income to live on, and maybe even a bit more so I can
do some things I want to? Am I secure? Will there be someone to help me should
I need help? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We can go on from there. I can tell you that for most men I
know the questions at the center of life are whether we can prove ourselves
through our work, how well can we provide what we are expected to provide, how
much we’ll be able to protect those who look to us for protection, and how well
we’ll be able to perform in the various arenas in which men are expected to
perform. Those questions dominate the way we live and the way we feel about
ourselves, at least until we undergo a dramatic shift in the way we configure
our lives. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what about women? I can’t speak for women, but I can
tell you what I observe. I observe that women value self-expression and find it
devastatingly difficult to live in a world run by many men who both as
individuals and as those who control systems consistently undervalue women, and
sometimes devalue them outright. I observe women deeply devoted to home and
children and friends in lifegiving ways. Women on the whole seem to me to value
relationships not for what relationships can do for them but because they
perceive themselves profoundly connected to others in ways that we men often do
not. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not arguing that these things apply to everyone, or that
there is no interchangeability among those of different genders and sexual
identities. But if you recognize anything that hints of your own life, then you
can see what it is that your basic life structure is, and that is what I’m
getting at. That is what the “Law” was for Paul. It framed his entire existence.
It gave him his self-understanding. It provided for him a connection to what
was the ultimate truth about his life. So when that was blasted open by this
unexpected intrusion from the Risen Jesus, the old Saul breathed his last. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Interestingly, Caravaggio picks up on another piece of the
story of Paul’s conversion. There are three accounts in the Book of Acts of
this story, arguably the most significant event outside of the life of Jesus of
Nazareth in the whole of Christian history. In this first one we learn that
Paul lost his sight and was in darkness for three days. Who else was in
darkness for three days? We can think of two. Most obviously Jesus: in the tomb
until “the third day.” But don’t forget Jonah, the Old Testament man who spent
three days in the belly of the fish, traditionally spoken of as the “whale.”
Recall that Jesus is quoted as having once said that his generation would be
given no sign but the sign of Jonah. Whatever else that might have meant or
have come to mean, it is a definite reference to death and rebirth. So Paul
undergoes what his baptism subsequently acted out and which he himself
explained the symbolism of baptism to be: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a
union with Christ in his death</i>. A whole new Paul is born, raised from the
old life of obedience to the Law to a new life in union with the Risen Lord. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the hand of Caravaggio, this truth is painted in light
and darkness. The blinding light that strikes Paul has knocked him off his high
horse. We see him lying on the ground in the foreground, his face in full light.
Almost nothing else is visible, only the horse and one lone figure partly in
the shadows, obviously a groom who is apparently oblivious to this moment and
all that it means as he goes about quietly caring for the horse. The horse is
gigantic compared to the grounded Paul, helpless, defenseless, utterly
dethroned from his previous perch. Paul’s helmet has bounced off his head and
lies in the dirt, his arms are raised forming an upside down triangle with his
light-blinded face the nadir. Caravaggio invites us into this strange episode
in a human life, struck by the light that enlightens every man including this
unlikely fellow who so recently was denying the Light of Christ and working to
douse its spread. Paul will come to embody that old promise of the Light to
enlighten the Gentiles and thus will he turn the Way of Jesus into a path of
transformation for all into a kingdom where there is no distinction between Jew
and Gentile, slave and free, male and female but where all are one in Christ
Jesus.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If there ever were an Easter story that is cut out for you
and me, this is it. The others, like the story of the Risen Lord fixing
breakfast for a band of disciples returned to their old work of fishing, tell
us that this mysterious figure who at first we do not recognize is both one who
knows us intimately and one whom we intuitively know because he is our Food far
truer than the fish we catch and cook.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That in a real sense is what Resurrection is. Not the
far-off event of some heaven in the sky, but the Presence of the Holy One who
shakes our lives like thunder. Many Christians have imagined through the years
that faith in Jesus by necessity begins with a conversion experience that can
be described, deciphered, and dated much like the one that happened to Paul. Sometimes
that is true. But far more ordinary is the truth that conversion is an ongoing
resurrection that continues throughout life. Paul’s own account of his conversion,
most graphically detailed in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, indicates
that it literally took him years to work through the implications of his
conversion experience to the point that he became the first major interpreter
of the Christ event, especially to the Gentiles. He tell us that he immediately
went to what we today call Jordan, a land of Gentiles in the desert he calls
Arabia. After a stint of three years he returned to Damascus. After one
fortnight in Jerusalem visiting Peter and a few of the other leaders, he
returned to Damascus. After fourteen years had passed he had a revelation that
prompted him to return to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, ultimately launching
the full-scale mission to the Gentiles with the blessing of the Early Church’s
leaders. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fortunately we have this autobiographical account that dispels
any fantasy that resurrection to a New Life in Christ is a breeze. Paul’s life,
like that of Peter and the other apostles, was anything but a breeze. He bore
in his body the marks of Jesus’ crucifixion. He hardly wore the cross as a
piece of jewelry or a cool tattoo but on his soul as the inspiration for and
seal of a changed life. At one point he describes himself and his fellow
workers in these words: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">We
have commended ourselves in every way through great endurance in afflictions, hardships,
calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors sleepless nights, hunger;…
We are treated as imposters and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well
known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having
nothing, and yet possessing everything.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life in Jesus is not all sweetness and light, but it surely
contains sweetness and light. And it contains both, neither ignoring nor
exaggerating all the sufferings that Paul enumerates and more. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of us are content with looking on the bright side of
things despite the gloom we go through. Sometimes in truth that is the best we
can do. But there’s more. Not more that we must do or somehow more that God
expects of us. But more because it actually can be a noble and brave act to let
go rather than to double down on being cheerful or positive or whatever we
might try by way of dealing with trouble. It is the letting go that we see in
Jesus when he is in the midst of the agony in the garden. “Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I will but what you
will.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> It
is the letting go that we hear Paul expressing to the Philippians:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Whatever
gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than
that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and
I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him…
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings by becoming like him in his death….”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Paul sees that that is the way of living the resurrection, a
resurrection that he lived from that day of his crucifixion when the heavenly
vision and blinding light left him lying in the dirt of the Damascus road. He
has learned to be abased and to abound, and to be content in whatever state he
finds himself.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> He
has in himself and commends to us the mind of Christ Jesus who humbled himself
to face and own his mortality, even though it meant death of a cross.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> He
knows and proclaims that there are only three things that abide after all else
is done: faith, hope, and love. He knows that the greatest thing in all the
world is love.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> That
is all the gospel we know, and all we need to know.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sermon<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year C in the
Revised Common Lectionary, on the text of Acts 9:1-20<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019</span></div>
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<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
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<br />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Galatians 2:19-20a, NRSV.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
John 21:9-14.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> 2
Corinithians 6:4-10 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">passim</i>, NRSV.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Matthew 20:22; Mark 10:38; Luke 22:42.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Philippians 3:7-10, NRSV.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Philippians 4:12ff.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Philippians 2:5-11.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> 1
Corinthians 13:13.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-1186169821975681302019-04-26T18:57:00.004-07:002019-05-03T04:50:35.635-07:00Audacious Invitation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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ohn the Evangelist is crystal clear about his purpose in
telling the story of the Apostle Thomas’ first encounter with the Risen Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
believe” refers to you, to me, and to John’s audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is likely that the Gospel of John
circulated in its present form somewhere between the years 90 and 120.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is some evidence and some opinion that
it is based on much older material, but in all likelihood neither John nor any
of the canonical gospels was written until 40-50 years after Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By that time, hosts of people had come into
the Christian fold, none of whom had had direct contact with Jesus of
Nazareth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the decade of the 60’s, it
is likely that most if not all of the original band of disciples had been
martyred or had otherwise died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believing without
seeing was clearly an existential issue, not a moral or theological one in the
main.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can one stake one’s life on a
man who died a criminal’s death and whose supposed resurrection from the dead
was quite possibly, to quote the words of Luke, “an idle tale,” that couldn’t
reasonably be believed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the
decades in which the gospels were most likely written there were several waves
of horrible persecutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So “staking
one’s life” literally was not a matter of quietly joining a community dedicated
to personal growth and moral improvement but rather identifying with a very
vulnerable movement whose members daily risked being murdered atrociously.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIDA9CSd9k82DNaemBixbpYgEJi768JMgx2t2dqFHfVVNMeDXv5h51aCT2x5dKO8dm-MkQOZiZLEkBoDr0BwOCtJQhqCnoR3rITaReq-pKXwympHcfVuApo43elsrvDUnJarJagg/s1600/Thomas+and+Risen+Christ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="248" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIDA9CSd9k82DNaemBixbpYgEJi768JMgx2t2dqFHfVVNMeDXv5h51aCT2x5dKO8dm-MkQOZiZLEkBoDr0BwOCtJQhqCnoR3rITaReq-pKXwympHcfVuApo43elsrvDUnJarJagg/s400/Thomas+and+Risen+Christ.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Icon of St. Thomas and the Risen Christ</td></tr>
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The adjective that has stuck with Thomas is “doubting.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Doubting Thomas” has long carried the
implication that somehow Thomas ought to have believed without doubting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally I believe that to be utter
rubbish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not because we mustn’t of
necessity get past the need for physically observing the Risen Jesus before we
can believe in him, but because doubt is not an enemy of faith but a necessary
component of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we never doubt,
question, probe, examine, test the faith that we have as little children, we
can never grow up and own that faith as mature adults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, we run the terrible risk of never
realizing some of Jesus’ greatest challenges if we allow ourselves to remain
stuck at the first stage of faith development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Faith in Jesus is very much a relationship, and like all relationships
if it is to grow and last, it must shed the illusion that it can do so without
changing over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should and it
must, or else it will atrophy, wither, and become utterly useless.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But there is another outcome of this story of so-called
“Doubting Thomas” that has been disastrous for the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is a great misunderstanding of what
belief is in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our
world, belief generally means to give assent to, to accept something as
factually true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you believe what you
read?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you do, that means that you
accept as factual and provable what you read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do you believe that 2 + 2 = 4?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you do, it means that you not only trust the information that someone taught
you years ago that two and two did make four, but you have experienced that
mathematical equation every day of your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do you believe what you hear on a given news outlet or on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an internet site?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, there’s a different question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you do, you are quite likely believing
that source on the basis of someone else’s authority, or on the basis of your
own philosophy or opinions, not things that are easily verifiable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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So the question that we need urgently to ask is what does
belief mean. At the risk of getting a bit teachy here, I invite you to look
carefully at some words used in the telling of this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, the word that John uses to mean
“belief” or “to have faith” or with the addition of one letter “not to believe”
or “to be faithless” is a word [<span lang="EL" style="mso-ansi-language: EL;">πιστευω</span>]
that comes from an old root from which we get words like abide, awaiting,
persuading, confiding, trusting. It is the same root out of which grow words
like faith, fiancé, and confident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
tells us a good deal about belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost
nothing in those words has much to do with giving intellectual assent to a proposition
in our heads, our minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But almost
every one of them indicates an action that has to do with an attraction of one
person in relation to another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take
fiancé, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The minute that
word is said in English we immediately know that we are talking about a
relationship, indeed a relationship we assume to be loving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also know that it suggests a future in
which two persons are going to be married and thus share a life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep that in mind as we look at another text.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In a few minutes we are corporately going to use the words
“We believe” as we state the words of the Nicene Creed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The English word “believe” comes from another
old root from which spring words in various languages meaning caring, desiring,
loving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the same root come words
meaning things like pleasing, pleasant, and pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See how far that is from a notion that in
saying the Creed we are reciting a string of things that we simply agree are
factually true, historically accurate?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is more a matter of saying we are committing ourselves to a life
characterized by desiring, loving, giving and receiving pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that might suggest a quite different
experience when you’re saying the Creed besides running down a checklist of impossible
things that somebody said you ought to think are true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Try thinking of the Creed as the marriage
vows between you and your Creator-Lover!<o:p></o:p></div>
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And speaking of “creed,” let’s take a look at that word
also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Latin the verb for “I believe
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">credo</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s take a look at that for a moment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its ancient root is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kerd, </i>from which we get in lots of languages words like “heart,
cardiac, cordial, credence, credit.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
also produced words that point to the idea of putting trust in someone or
something.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now we are ready to return to the story of Thomas with a
little more clarity about what it and in the larger scheme of things the Gospel
of John means by “believing.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believing
is giving one’s heart to someone, being or becoming engaged and married to
someone, trusting wholeheartedly in someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And that someone is one with whom one has a relationship of love and
pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, I think you’ll agree, is
a far cry from thinking in the abstract that something is true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted, truth is something we expect in a
love relationship—truth, not lies, not pretense or sleight of hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truth, like trust, is an essential component
of love among beings, without which no viable community can exist, let alone
function.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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When Jesus says to Thomas, “Be no longer unbelieving, but
believing,” he is saying in effect, “Put your trust in me. Place your
confidence in me. Give me your heart, Thomas.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then—then—how powerful an image becomes of Jesus’ invitation
to Thomas:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Put your finger here and see
my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reach out your hand and thrust
it into my side.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interestingly, the
text does not say whether Thomas actually does these things, and you can
imagine it either way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
invitation of Jesus is clear:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Touch me;
don’t hang back. I invite you to be in a love relationship with me that exceeds
even all that we have experienced in the old life: my pain, my death, my
resurrection, my scars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be one with
me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9DaVelQVCHld8m-4lrd9g3jdCsB_XH7dR_a7Y64tY7C6hV23shrSztBuXHQ-UJ4xV6k4tQLed7OhH1LT62Y2d5eOusZyvOUVtF8QVjuJ-5CfNIz5VQ3_195h2l5_HDoksO76Og/s1600/Thomas+and+Risen+Christ2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="570" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9DaVelQVCHld8m-4lrd9g3jdCsB_XH7dR_a7Y64tY7C6hV23shrSztBuXHQ-UJ4xV6k4tQLed7OhH1LT62Y2d5eOusZyvOUVtF8QVjuJ-5CfNIz5VQ3_195h2l5_HDoksO76Og/s400/Thomas+and+Risen+Christ2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Place your hand here in my side..."</td></tr>
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It is interesting to compare this story with the one that
precedes it in the same chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
Mary Magdalene stands weeping outside the tomb and recognizes Jesus when he
calls her by name, he says, “Do not hold on to me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Latin text he says, “Nolo me tangere,”
or “don’t touch me, for I have not yet ascended.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember that these are stories told to
convey messages, not a historical record meant to be consistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each gives us a piece of truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One gives us the imperative not to try to
possess Jesus, not to hold on to the past, but to embrace the future
instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other gives us the joyful
invitation to enter into nothing less than a passionate union with the Risen
Lord, emboldened with the words, take your body and place it in mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can live in me and I in you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes us a lifetime perhaps to mull over
these two messages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both amount to,
“Trust me, love me, be one with me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I asserted a few minutes ago that the common understanding
of the story of Thomas with the message that doubt is dangerously opposed to
faith has been disastrous for the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I now assert even more strongly that the message to become one with
Jesus is for human beings truly to be saved: saved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from</i>
despair, saved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the healing not only of ourselves but of the
world. It all fits together:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>without
death there is no resurrection, without resurrection life has nowhere to go but
to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The risen Lord comes among his
followers who, far from understanding what is happening, hear him saying,
“Peace to you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shalom, salvation,
wholeness, healing, sanity, wellness, balance, health, the mending of
brokenness, the awakening of bodily pleasure, the fulfillment of hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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It is a gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can
accept it or turn it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
Risen Lord has amply demonstrated that he won’t go away, except to come among
us again and again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And each time he
comes, the invitation is renewed, “Come unto me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Put your finger here. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feel my wounds, see my scars, thrust your hand
into my body. Unite with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to
live in you. And I want you to be a part of me.”<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYIqZu6-Y9805B7e1RnU7CwodA1caF6oUeS-FY97i_BkaHz2DwqU7Ch8qQnhUSCFDOOniYLrtpE_6ydoYFoayl7-1tWIhMbxsstBsljzBHpD5IrZJ6_fCDKpY98nGhnKBVKfMhGA/s1600/bread+and+wine+still+life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="400" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYIqZu6-Y9805B7e1RnU7CwodA1caF6oUeS-FY97i_BkaHz2DwqU7Ch8qQnhUSCFDOOniYLrtpE_6ydoYFoayl7-1tWIhMbxsstBsljzBHpD5IrZJ6_fCDKpY98nGhnKBVKfMhGA/s400/bread+and+wine+still+life.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"... that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon for The Second Sunday of Easter, based on
John 20:19-31</span></i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo at left: Still Life with Bread and Wine, Abraham Guntz, Romania</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-5546049824333856962019-04-22T21:45:00.003-07:002019-05-10T12:43:35.790-07:00Why Hold Religious Authorities Accountable?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I really understand how people who have grown up in a faith
tradition can be so formed by that tradition that it is imponderable to
consider throwing over the traces and abandoning it. They stick with it despite
centuries of abuse, hypocrisy, even crime. To the outsider, such loyalty might
seem utterly stupid. They suppose that only the stubborn, the simple, or the
fearful would be immovably lodged in such a place, bonded to institutions that
they would even advise others to repudiate were others yoked to such
communities. Their rationales for remaining sound to others like the excuses of
abused spouses, sticking with their marriage vows, hoping that someday he'll
change, or that love might at last have the effect of wooing her towards a
kinder life, or just plain inertia. <br />
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It isn't, of course, just religious traditions that have
such a lock on people. But they are alone among the inventions of humanity the
systems most likely to give deep meaning to life, storehouses of stories that
address complexities that cannot be faced by reason alone. They are
repositories of myths, symbols, rites that adorn ordinary lives and punctuate
days and years with celebrations. It is interesting how when people whose
intellect and integrity have steered them away from any trace of religious
practice will, at the time of death, naturally borrow elements of a
long-discredited tradition in order to shape their mourning, if is nothing more
than the adaptation of the old impulse to gather and verbalize the meaning of a
dead friend's life or a lover's importance. Notice how people in purely secular
environments will arrange chairs in a way that perhaps even unconsciously
replicates an ancient experience of religious community. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Human beings have evolved to be storytellers. All of our
literature, all of our structured games, the entirety of our art, even the
debased and vulgar forms we keep inventing to pretend communication--tweeting
comes to mind--are born of the desire to tell each other for good or ill, false
or true, information we on some level consider worth passing on. <br />
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I am a product of a religious tradition, one might say
several, in fact. And for nearly half a century I've been a religious
functionary. God knows and I know how easy it is to justify wrongdoing, to
excuse oneself from following rules sanctioned for all but applied only to
others. It is possible but not easy to encounter people at their most
vulnerable and not be tempted at least in the mind to exploit that
vulnerability to feed some gnawing hunger in the pit of one's soul. But in all
honesty, I have trouble seeing how day after day, week after week, season in
and season out, people can perform rites and intone liturgies and propound
sacred texts without somehow realizing that the point of all the cultic
paraphernalia is to lead human beings to be better to ourselves and to each
other than, left to our native impulses, we generally are. Leaders who betray
us, charismatic tongues and compelling visions aside, lead us way past
temptation and into the pitch of damnation and ought to be, must be, called
out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Often the only ones thus calling out are those who are
self-sidelined from the systems, those who either disdain them by nature or
have sickened to the point of leaving. I respect them for bearing their own
witness to Integrity. But even they who don't identify with faith traditions or
religious institutions continue to be human--frequently exemplary humans--and
as humans they have the same need for meaning, the same pains to endure, the
same mortality to face, the same challenge to cope as those who salve their
consciences through religious rites and spiritual discipline. <o:p></o:p></div>
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An old discredited heresy in the Church is that of Donatism.
Donatists held that the moral defects and flaws of clergy who betrayed their
communities by surrendering their custodianship of holy tradition had the
effect of invalidating any of the sacraments such clergy administered. I see
the point of Donatism but don't want to be a Donatist myself. I have lived, and
still do live, with the knowledge that some have looked me in the face--well
not exactly in my face--and in effect have said, "You betrayed me. So I
thought you were straight. And lo you are queer. And thus I declare you a
hypocrite. I renounce you." I cannot deny (my dreams won't let me) that my
heart is stung still by the part of me that was the superego driven Good Boy
who wanted desperately to do the right thing and hoped in the process to win
approval. I don't want to drop into another hole by casting stones from my own
glass house. I take no joy in failing to forgive others as I have been
forgiven. I am not talking about God. I am talking about me, and the thanks I
owe to a community and a host of friends who have embraced me despite knowing a
Frank they once didn't know so well.<br />
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I have just given you an example of how faith has formed me.
It has not made me superior to anybody else on the planet. But it has made me
from an early age acutely aware that telling the Truth is inseparable from
honor itself. Lying, preying on the defenseless, cloaking one's misdoings in
self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement, and shameless exploitation of one's
own status are not just sins of the flesh, if by flesh is meant ordinary bodily
life. They are some of the unconscionable behaviors that destroy human
community, weaken the very fibers that hold us together, and mock the human
soul struggling to find meaning, if not enlightenment, in this life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not about to be convinced that this is a condition that
can be chalked off to what Mark Twain called "ordinary human
cussedness," the excuse that "humans will be humans" just as
they always have been. There is such a thing as human culpability and
"ordinary cussedness" and it is pervasive. But there is also such a
thing as accountability. And those to whom others entrust leadership are those
of whom accountability must be required.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-5856611152851266142019-04-17T10:19:00.002-07:002019-05-03T04:59:28.125-07:00Losing a Sacred Site<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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his morning, two days after the horrendous burning of Nôtre
Dame, I reached for a dish towel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
one on the rack was a red, white, and blue striped towel, a memento from
France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve had it for close to twenty
years now, a gift from Robert, a friend who taught college French during the
time he and I lived in the same community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Back from a trip to Paris he brought me the dish towel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The blue stripe bears an image of the Eiffel
Tower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The red, an image of Nôtre Dame.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like lots of things of this sort, the towel has transitioned
from gift to everyday usage to being well on its way towards the rag pile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wash it, dry it, use it, hang it up with
scarcely a thought of France or of Nôtre Dame, but surprisingly often on some
level remembering Robert, whose death several years ago I discovered belatedly
through meeting his son quite by surprise. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Something about the confluence of friendship, death, and the
near loss of Nôtre Dame is leading me at this moment to get beyond my shock and
grief over the fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why would I care so
much about an 850-year-old building if it were not a friend?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why would I perhaps lament its tragedy more
openly and obviously than I grieve for friend Robert?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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The answer goes back a long time. My sixth grade class in
Conway, South Carolina, reached the chapter in our social studies text that
introduced me to the Middle Ages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
on the page was a black-and-white photograph of the Cathedral of Nôtre
Dame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was mesmerized by it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked at it for what seemed like (and
probably was) days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned what
flying buttresses were, the architectural significance of the Gothic arch, the
symbolism of the rose window, the cruciform pattern of medieval
cathedrals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a day when international
travel was so rare as to be generally restricted to the rich, I could only
imagine actually seeing Nôtre Dame or any other cathedral. Yet, on some level,
I knew I had to.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, after three years of college French but never a trip to
France until 2010, I stood one early fall morning in a long queue awaiting the
opening of the cathedral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finding it darker
and much smaller than in my boyhood I’d imagined, I moved through its arches
and into its art-filled nooks and crannies trying to make out inscriptions on
tombs and fancying what the funeral of Louis XIV might have been like in that
sacred space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later I stood on the Pont
Saint-Louis in something of a reverie, looking towards its east end,
remembering my boyhood dream as my eyes scanned those flying buttresses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<o:p> </o:p>There is no way of explaining why or how places become
sacred <i>to us.</i> Chances are the spot on which Nôtre Dame was
built was a sacred site long before Our Lady birthed Jesus, that being the
usual case with holy places. We point to
age, beauty, art, architecture, history, prayer, priceless relics and sacred
story and are able to say why a building is more than important, particularly
one that has lasted nearly a millennium.
But there is more. Down deep
there is something about a sacred place that can reach out and capture some
inarticulate longing, even if it approaches us in the flat form of a
photograph. Then memory does its work. Fixed in the mind is the image or actual
experience of the place, fettered to a place in the heart that can’t be
explained in terms of anything on that list of age and beauty and art and all
the rest. Indeed sometimes spaces are
sacred to us with few or none of those characteristics so obvious in a medieval
cathedral. A church in our childhood, a cemetery where parents and friends lie
buried, the bell tower at an alma mater, the woods we roamed as kids, the creek
that ran through summer camp where we caught tadpoles: the loss of any such
place we experience as a soul wound. We
grieve.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not surprisingly, those who lack any such connection to the
sacred space react quite differently. There are more important things, they
say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What about this or that or the
other human need?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What about someone
else’s burial ground being bulldozed to make a parking lot, or some suffering
far worse than a building become an inferno? What about…?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What about…?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And the mantra of culture is not infrequently, “It will be replaced.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even the harsh, “Get over it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Replacement is never the same as
recollection. Getting over a loss never equals healing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Today it’s Nôtre Dame, tomorrow it’s some place else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Heraclitus described the life of the world,
“It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled
and in measures going out.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> As
my friend David Townsend, a medieval scholar, said yesterday, “This is the way
of cathedrals. They burn. They get bombed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They collapse.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was not being
dismissive, only telling the truth. The same is true when a human body becomes
a corpse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than seeing this as an
invitation to “get over it,” or to ignore the pain, what I am beginning dimly
to see is that this “ever-living fire,” the constant change of which Heraclitus
speaks, is itself the Holy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is not
working in spite of the fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God
manifests <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as fire, </i>just as God
manifests in the rose window, the roof, the spire, the altar of Nôtre
Dame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Holy—called by whatever
name—is the energy, the Spirit expressed in every body in the cosmos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the Holy is also the pure consciousness
that upholds and indwells the entirety of the universe—or, if you will, the
multiverse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinHu_ubO6bFOfmrAMKOXHZxJhsUgX0UjdM5UXDwqSgESHOH3ZUlKm2qPqLH0zkLklPTMfRTAwJjBsuxNnSibKrGvWfnqPV6xt5Fv9JNIigmdzk7eWV_F6C8g2w_FL55Ejevl1P8g/s1600/Notre+Dame+standing+after+fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinHu_ubO6bFOfmrAMKOXHZxJhsUgX0UjdM5UXDwqSgESHOH3ZUlKm2qPqLH0zkLklPTMfRTAwJjBsuxNnSibKrGvWfnqPV6xt5Fv9JNIigmdzk7eWV_F6C8g2w_FL55Ejevl1P8g/s640/Notre+Dame+standing+after+fire.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The morning after: the Cathedral still stands, battered and scarred but still with us.</td></tr>
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</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Holding onto the cathedral, the ground, the embodiment of
the sacred, is something so human we are not about to forfeit it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet whatever we gain by holding onto anything
we can count as loss compared to the liberation that comes with accepting the
flow and flux of change that are the nature of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beyond the things that come and go is the still
point, of which Eliot speaks: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Love is the
unfamiliar Name<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Behind the
hands that wove<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
intolerable shirt of flame<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which human
power cannot remove.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We only live, only suspire<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consumed by either fire or fire.<o:p></o:p></div>
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…<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And all
shall be well and<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All manner
of thing shall be well<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When the
tongues of flame are in-folded<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Into the
crowned knot of fire<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And the
fire and the rose are one.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
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<br />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Quotation found on the internet at <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/77989.Heraclitus?page=2"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/77989.Heraclitus?page=2</span></a>
, accessed April 17, 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> T.
S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950</i> (New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1967),
pp. 144, 145.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-34130183987560154782019-03-23T11:36:00.000-07:002019-05-03T05:08:42.665-07:00But Deliver Us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In his introduction to his book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Speaking Christian</i>, Marcus Borg tells us
that when he left the Midwest and went to the West Coast to teach, he began one
of his classes by stating that in order to understand Christianity, you have to
understand its roots in Judaism. Immediately a hand shot up. “What’s Judaism?”
a student wanted to know. Borg began to explain Judaism by referring to Moses. Another
raised a hand. “Who’s Moses?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I suspect that there may well be a good slice of this
congregation today in the same predicament in which Borg’s students found
themselves. You may know what Judaism is (or not) and you may know who Moses
was (or not), but I suspect that few people could articulate exactly why we
would be hearing about Moses on this particular Sunday. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So we have our work cut out for us. The second and third
Sundays in Lent, this season in which we are moving towards a celebration of
“the Paschal Mystery,” a name we give to Jesus’ death and resurrection, are
invariably about Abraham and Moses. That is because in our holy history,
Abraham and Moses represent the two pillars on which our covenant relationship
with God rests. What Borg was trying to tell his students is that there is no
way of understanding the importance we Christians attach to Jesus and the “New”
Covenant made through him without understanding the “Old Covenant” in which God
creates a people through Abraham and delivers them from bondage to freedom
through Moses. By the way, “new” is not necessarily good and “old” is not
necessarily bad. There is nothing shameful about being old, even if you are a
covenant. I’m saying that because it has become fashionable in recent times to
avoid calling the Old Testament the Old Testament or Covenant. No matter what
you call it, it gets a certain amount of bad press in Christian circles because
it is quite wrongly supposed that the Old Testament’s God is pretty wretched in
contrast to the rather cuddly God of the New. Nothing could be further from the
truth regarding either Testament.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now the reason that all this business about Old and New
Covenants (better known as “Testaments” in the sub-titles of the Bible), is
that it is all one story. It makes no sense to skip act one of a play because
all you want to see is act two, especially if there is no way of understanding
the second act without the first. It can also work the other way around. Sometimes
what it revealed in the second act or the third clarifies and indeed interprets
what was happening in the first act. So Paul, writing to the Corinthians in the
Letter you heard read a few minutes ago, uses the language and experience of
the New Covenant to understand what was happening in the Old Covenant. I’m not
so sure that Paul was all that successful in reinterpreting the Old Covenant,
but give him an A for at least trying to see the relevance of past experience
for his own time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If we had to choose one chapter in the entire Old Testament
that is the lynchpin of the whole thing, it would arguably be Exodus 3, the
story you heard this morning. Why? Because the deliverance of Israel from
slavery in Egypt is the formative event in its history. Before that, we can’t
even be sure that there was a history, to be honest. Yes, we have stories,
important ones. But we can say with some assurance that the nation of Israel
was born in the Exodus from Egypt. All the scriptures are written in light of
that conviction. When centuries later a scribe wrote, “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth,” he was writing about the God he knew from
the story of the Exodus. The creator God was the liberating God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Exodus: the way out, the coming out of God’s people. It all
began one day when Moses was out keeping the flock of Jethro, his
father-in-law. Moses had gotten there ironically because he had indeed escaped
from Egypt and from a murder conviction that was likely coming his way. If you
read the whole story of Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush on Mount
Horeb or Sinai, it is full of humor and pathos. We feel for Moses who is being
called to do something indescribably difficult, namely lead a horde of slaves
out from under the control of a very powerful state. But the guts of the story
is not what Moses says but what God says. “I have observed the sufferings of my
people in Egypt… I have heard their cry. I know their sufferings. I have come
down to deliver them.” I have come down to deliver them. That one phrase sets
the stage for all that is to come. God is a God of deliverance. God observes,
hears, knows, and delivers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be hard to overestimate the importance of those
verbs, because from then on, the story unfolds a relationship that God has with
the oppressed, with the downtrodden, with the marginalized, with the
non-people, the outcasts, the vulnerable, the poor. We never ever hear the
Bible saying that God somehow prefers that we should be slaves or downtrodden
or oppressed. We hear instead how God makes a people and challenges them to
share God’s concern for the little people—children, strangers, foreigners
without citizenship, the socially outcast, the politically powerless. The
scriptures make no bones about what God is up to. It is called righteousness. But
righteousness in the biblical vocabulary has nothing at all to do with moral
rectitude, let alone with personal purity. It has to do with right
relationships, the goal of which is always to bring about a redress of wrongs,
a healing of broken bonds, and the establishing of justice. That is in fact
what justice means: the lining up of relationships in their rightful order and
proper balance. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now if you can get that far, then it is perhaps possible to
begin to see why it is that God is so intent on delivering people. Sometimes
people simply need to be delivered from oppression, and they need someone to
intervene on their behalf. Note that God apparently cannot, or will not, do
this alone—at least not among humans. It seems to be the divine preference that
people, Moses for example, be called up and enlisted in the program, because it
is through humans that humans are most likely to be delivered and thus to be
changed. That is not to say that God is not a hands-on God; but it is to say
that God works within the very limits, as well as with the capacities, that we
humans manifest. After all God made us and the world the way we are, not the
way we might wish to be. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me be clear about what is at stake here. The overarching
story, not only about Moses and the Children of Israel, but about Jesus and us,
is a story about deliverance. The whole kit and caboodle is about deliverance,
all kinds of deliverance on all levels. It is about deliverance from bondage,
deliverance from oppression, deliverance for the power of evil, deliverance
from our own self-sustaining neuroses, deliverance from illness, deliverance
from sin (we’ll come back to that one, so hold on), deliverance from evil,
deliverance from death, especially deliverance from death as a scary monster
whom we have to fear. Trouble is, most of the time we are not only aware that
we can be delivered; we don’t really imagine that we need to be delivered. I
know I don’t speak for all of you, but really: if you are relatively
affluent—rich by the world’s standards—have what you think you need or at least
able to get it without too much trouble; if you are white, straight, well-educated,
or some combination of all of that, what on earth do you need to be delivered
from? And what would you like to be delivered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to</i> except more of what you already have? If you are already
relatively powerful, accepted, affirmed, why would you find deliverance an
attractive notion at all? Does it not sound like the title of an old movie, a
concept more at home among the snake-handling sects of Appalachia, the province
of weird exorcists than anything you identify with? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ah! You may think that because you don’t fit the mold of
this litany of characteristics I’ve named, you are immune to being blasé about
deliverance. But, truth be told, you and I are most likely in need of
deliverance from things we at best vaguely recognize. And usually they are not
the problems that we’d put first on our list of priorities to be addressed: good
job, good money, decent housing, affordable health care, happy family life,
personal fulfillment. Let me share with you a telling example. Several years
ago I was working with a small group of folk in St. Stephen and the Incarnation
Parish on the matter of violence, especially gun violence. We drafted a letter
and shared it with a number of church leaders in our diocese, calling on our
diocesan council to look carefully at the way we invest church funds. Our
belief is that the church ought not to be making money off of firearms,
munitions, and other means of killing people. Someone pointed out that our
position might be untenably broad. After all, were we suggesting that not only
private guns but military weapons not be the subjects of investment? Good
question. But the person, a very thoughtful person I might add, went on to ask
if we were prepared to argue for disinvestment in Quaker Oats if they were
somehow themselves involved in companies that produce ammunitions and weapons. What
is more, how can we draw the line? That well illustrates the fact that, like it
or not, we are enmeshed in an endless complex net that cannot be easily
untangled into “good” and “bad.” That is the story of the world in which we
live. Whether it is personal life or business life or corporate involvement or
government programs or the judicial system or the educational system or the
banking system or the medical world, we are involved in networks that far
transcend individual human initiatives. Even the best of them corrupt and
destroy the creatures of God, and not just human creatures. It is not just
personal sin that we need to be delivered from. That is relatively easy to deal
with compared with these vast and powerful economic, political, and social
systems in which we are usually pawns and players, no matter how personally
powerful—or good—we might be. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is it possible to be delivered from such a predicament at
all, short of the total destruction of society as we know it? Short of our own
death? Well, no, and yes. If you read our own holy story, you will see that,
although the Israelites had an exodus out of Egypt, they did not necessarily
become immune to other kinds of slavery. Over the coming centuries they were to
experience corruption, rebellion, massive government dysfunction, wars, forced
labor, deportation, exile, serious religious regression, and spiritual malaise.
From any one of these they needed deliverance on a level they themselves could
not supply. Over and over again they had to turn to God, learning many things
that affirmed the old ways, but many things that pushed them across new and
frightening frontiers. And still these our fathers and mothers found themselves
trapped in behaviors and mindsets that defied anything but the most radically
divine deliverance—witness Jesus. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there is also the “yes” answer to the question of
whether we can actually be delivered from our predicament. And it might not be
quite what you think. When St. Paul, writing to the Romans, asked, “Who will
deliver me from this body of sin and death?” he was not merely talking about
his human body. He was talking about the entire existence of life in this world
lived apart from God. It is personal and it is also communal. “Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord!” he exclaims. Jesus, through his death and
resurrection, breaks through the net that has us trapped. And while we still
have to live, inevitably, within this trap where good is on the defensive and
evil is always lurking to subvert good purposes to its own twisted ends, we can
little by little find deliverance by getting on the side of God. We can
intentionally harken to the drumbeat calling us to act like God—defying
Pharaoh, listening to the cries of the distressed, paying attention to the
sufferings of the world (not just our own), even enlisting in Operation
Deliverance ourselves. That is what it means to be baptized into Christ’s death
and resurrection. That is what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus. That
is what it means to thumb our nose at the evil powers of this world which
corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In C. S. Lewis’ famous story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, </i>Aslan the magnificent lion
lies on the great stone table having given his life for the sake of freeing
Narnia. You and I understand that Aslan is in fact Christ, bound by the cross. And
we might well understand that Aslan is also in a sense you and I, tied up in
systems that choke and stifle us, bound by forces that keep us enslaved. Susan
and Lucy, two of Aslan’s admirers, grief-stricken at seeing the great animal
muzzled and tied by the spiteful rabble that has killed him, want to untie him
in one last act to respect his dignity. <br />
<br />
They are unable. But there is a tiny movement going on in the grass under their
feet. It turns out to be mice, which the girls think are rather pathetically
trying to untie Aslan not realizing he is dead. But as the sun rises in the
dawn, dozens and even hundreds of little field mice gnaw through the ropes that
have bound the noble lion. Suddenly there is a shattering noise, the great
stone table on which he lay is broken in two from end to end, and Aslan appears
behind them, free, alive, real, risen, strong. All those little mice had played
their part. They had in their own way contributed to his deliverance. And
because Aslan was delivered from his bondage, he is free to bring Susan and
Lucy and all who follow him into his own freedom.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is our story. You never can tell what unlikely
creatures or mysterious developments will deliver you and set you free. But you
may be sure that if you throw in your lot with the God who has come to deliver
the world from its bondage, you will finally be free and there will be no
turning back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon preached the Third Sunday in Lent, Year C of
the Revised Common Lecionary, on Exodus 3:1-15.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2013,
2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-63976502742762133612019-03-06T11:25:00.000-08:002019-03-10T15:12:11.886-07:00God in Ashes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
iturgy is acting out what we believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any of us can attest that it is almost
impossible to go through an entire liturgy, even one that we’re familiar with,
and not find something that is at odds with what we truly believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that
any one of us could consistently go through a liturgy day after day, week in
and week out, that was totally at odds with what we consciously believed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be odious in the extreme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrvHUz5yietekU-W59OoEhJs6Ar_x6YGbCcrzYvt63R_efftPyo6d_gCkXPWmv_LitE9LGvpk9O9siQV2e3uEZZGHKk87wKZtZT_kmKa6LPeKSnnMF5ki-hLnUjN72CoUdFJ7eg/s1600/AshWednesday+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="919" data-original-width="1500" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrvHUz5yietekU-W59OoEhJs6Ar_x6YGbCcrzYvt63R_efftPyo6d_gCkXPWmv_LitE9LGvpk9O9siQV2e3uEZZGHKk87wKZtZT_kmKa6LPeKSnnMF5ki-hLnUjN72CoUdFJ7eg/s320/AshWednesday+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suspect that the Ash Wednesday Liturgy is a mixed bag for
many who attend it. I remember a little girl years ago drawing back in horror
as I went down the altar rail imposing ashes on the foreheads of the
faithful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a stage whisper she said to
her dad, “That Father Dunn’s not going to dirty up my pretty face!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That might have been what I was unconsciously
remembering many years later when I was faced with holding chapel for about
fifty kids in a parish preschool on Ash Wednesday. How do you honestly impose
ashes on the foreheads of three and four year old children saying the
traditional words?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It isn’t that kids
can’t understand mortality. Nor need we project adult fears of death onto the
very young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But how does Ash Wednesday—I
asked myself—square with the overarching gospel of love that we’re trying to
articulate for children all the rest of the year?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that if the gospel can’t be
understood by a three- or four-year-old then it probably isn’t the real
gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I told them how we made ashes
out of palm branches and how we used them to mark the beginning of Lent, which
ends in Easter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I talked about how we
all get dirty from time to time, sometimes from play, sometimes from work,
sometimes by accident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I spoke about
how ashes are really messy, and always result from something being destroyed by
fire, either on purpose or by accident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And then I said, “No matter how dirty we ever get, or what we do, or
what we say, God will always love us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And that’s what I’m thinking about when I make the sign of Jesus’ love
on my forehead”—I then put ashes on myself—“Remember no matter what you do, God
will always love you.” Almost every one of the children stood in line to
receive ashes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to think that
somewhere deep down some of them are remembering today, nearly twenty years
later, that message as their foreheads are being smudged with ash.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1IkOyavHhK7xlGiywvDgZboKqiHQV8D1bPlUYO3ejd_mfsFu8xZhKurduuthnZaeRZLF0Lr_FO1HCIwAryGyOfp5ANcvEhgde1bNYTsuw6oTqkSZE9V-zi79cZunnxvmecsIJXg/s1600/Young-boy-receives-ashes-on-Ash-Wednesday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1IkOyavHhK7xlGiywvDgZboKqiHQV8D1bPlUYO3ejd_mfsFu8xZhKurduuthnZaeRZLF0Lr_FO1HCIwAryGyOfp5ANcvEhgde1bNYTsuw6oTqkSZE9V-zi79cZunnxvmecsIJXg/s400/Young-boy-receives-ashes-on-Ash-Wednesday.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Remember no matter what you do, God will always love you."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ashes have a very specific value on Ash Wednesday:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they symbolize our mortality and penitence. Let’s
take those referents one at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, our mortality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is easy enough not to miss the connection between ashes and mortality
because the words with which ashes are given to us recall the words at the
grave, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that scary? Perhaps so, because nearly
everything and every system we know conspire to shield us from the reality of
death, starting with the medical profession. But we are mortal and designedly
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might use euphemisms such as
“passed away” or “expired” to speak of death, but they do not take away the
fact of death. Everything in all creation is subject to destruction, from stars
that die to the rocks of the earth’s crust that are forever being broken down
into grains of sand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And everything
broken down potentially becomes a part of the opposite process of
construction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human beings are no
exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the ashes come onto our foreheads in the form of a
cross, and there is a reason for that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The cross means preeminently one thing: that Jesus embraced his own mortality,
not giving in to the temptation to escape his fate either by softening his
radical message or by colluding with the powers of this world that pretend
invincibility or by falling for the illusion of security. It is precisely the
embrace of mortal body makes resurrection of that body possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ashen cross witnesses to the truth that
when we follow Jesus, becoming obedient to death, we are raised to real
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we will say in the Litany of
Penitence on Ash Wednesday, “By the cross and passion of [Jesus], [we come to]
the joy of his resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
resurrection he shares with us <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in these
mortal bodies</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So mortality is a gift, not a curse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so is penitence, believe it or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in order to see, let alone believe, that
penitence is a gift, it’s necessary to reimagine it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of penitence as breast-beating, it
is turning around and facing a new direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead of weeping and wailing for our sins and transgressions, penitence
is seeing that there is indeed no mistake that does not provide a lesson to be
learned, no sin that is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ashes on our foreheads remind us
rightly of our brokenness, the utter failure of our attempts to be perfect, the
myriad ways we mar our own beauty with hatred, bitterness, and
self-contempt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, wonder of wonders,
God reveals God’s very self in our weariness with the frustrations of
living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is not an escape from
reality, but the supreme Reality alive in everything, including both physical
ashes and all that ashes symbolize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If penitence is anything at all, it is
reminding ourselves of the abiding love of God, or as those kids once heard on
Ash Wednesday, “No matter what you do, God will always love you.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God shows up in such unlikely places—a manager, a cross, a
tomb, in bread and wine, and in ashes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most of the time, it is, as Moses once saw, the backside of God that we
see—the hind part visible only when the moment has come and gone, sometimes
gone for a long, long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet occasionally,
once we have practiced and practiced seeing eternal things through the mortal
mind’s eye, we can glance down at our hands and know that they and whatever
they handle is full of God, or at our feet and know that they and wherever they
go and on whatever they stand is full of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And sometimes when we’re least expecting it, we can taste something like
bread or wine and think, as for the first time ever, “My God!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You really do live in me, don’t you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you’re fine with making your home in me,
aren’t you?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2019<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-48259170050443314192019-03-04T12:24:00.000-08:002019-03-04T12:24:12.805-08:00Guardrails and Grace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" hspace="0" vspace="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="left" style="padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;" valign="top">
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</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB4l45xZ0xQy8BwN44OyqT9YoBThQCSAJM-7Fr35pOBU8V1ufwynnB7mFVOc-GPyQTMb41h4HadBhxnvjML7iU-FhFCGUFFUJsY1aQzCI-HmwAEQ83pyRk_4inrfAW9PCEWsW-Wg/s1600/Mount-Tabor-View-HolyLand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="700" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB4l45xZ0xQy8BwN44OyqT9YoBThQCSAJM-7Fr35pOBU8V1ufwynnB7mFVOc-GPyQTMb41h4HadBhxnvjML7iU-FhFCGUFFUJsY1aQzCI-HmwAEQ83pyRk_4inrfAW9PCEWsW-Wg/s320/Mount-Tabor-View-HolyLand.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mount Tabor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
o one knows which mountain it was on which Jesus was
transfigured; but from the fourth century, the traditional site has been Mount
Tabor, smack in the middle of the Valley of Jezreel. Dome shaped, looking much as if an ethereal
ice cream scoop might once have scraped it from the crust of the earth and
plopped it down atop an otherwise level plain, Mount Tabor has been the
destination of pilgrims and tourists for centuries. Our bus took us from the Bedouin village at
the foot of the mountain to a parking lot perhaps a quarter of a mile up. We spilled out of the bus and into a half
dozen beat-up taxis, therein to be transported up the mountain in a series of
switchbacks, with nary a guardrail in sight.
Flying up the mountain at breakneck speed, our Palestinian taxi driver
knew how to handle his old Mercedes, and knew as well how to give travelers
fits. At every hairpin turn exclaiming,
“Hallelujah!” and chuckling, he had every one of us laughing and screeching
like kids on a roller coaster.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It didn’t do a lot for my devotional life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time we reached the windswept summit,
my major connection with the Transfiguration was the fact that we were white as
bleached sheets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lamely suggested that
we build three booths and avoid the trip down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the trip is worth the effort, white knuckles and all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Atop the ruins of a fourth century basilica
(can you imagine hauling all the stone for a church up such a peak?) twentieth
century Franciscans built a magnificent edifice designed by the brilliant
architect Antonio Barluzzi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He depicted
the Transfiguration with bi-level altars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The upper altar, reached by side stairs, beams with magnificent mosaics
like a jewel, symbolizing the divine nature of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Below, is a much simpler altar, made to
recall Christ’s human nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in the
towers on the north and south sides of the church are two chapels, one for
Moses and one for Elijah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be easy, and maybe a little cheap, to go down the
path of exploiting the irony of the church and its three naves, mirroring the
rather stupid remark of Peter suggesting the building of three booths, perhaps
for the Feast of Tabernacles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
alternatively I would like to focus on how the Transfiguration of Christ, his
own seminal religious experience, if you will, and how it somehow called for
witnesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-EqGG3sX3Xll6qJD7Z2r1Fz0IZ1j55tQPSNMFqpAVlYlpc0a71J16jl0-NiIW8VIuU4OuJkztwRmy8SScPwVfqZv7YAZX25blRuG4U9cU3k7L5HzlCpkbazqa-GD5u8z7YQIcQ/s1600/Caesarea-Philippi1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="800" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-EqGG3sX3Xll6qJD7Z2r1Fz0IZ1j55tQPSNMFqpAVlYlpc0a71J16jl0-NiIW8VIuU4OuJkztwRmy8SScPwVfqZv7YAZX25blRuG4U9cU3k7L5HzlCpkbazqa-GD5u8z7YQIcQ/s320/Caesarea-Philippi1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statuary niches in the hillside at Caesarea Philippi, <br />near the ancient shrine of Banias </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You have noticed, perhaps, that within the band of The
Twelve disciples there was an inner circle consisting of Peter, James, and
John.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first three gospels tell
several stories of how Jesus chose these three taking them with him on some
occasions, of which the Transfiguration is one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing in the story suggests that Jesus was at all aware of what was
about to happen to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the
narrative does suggest, however, is that there is a link between what had
happened about a week before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus and
his group had gone far out of their accustomed circuit to the headwaters of the
Jordan at the foot of Mount Hermon, the highest peak in the country. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Mark and Matthew, at a place
called Caesarea Philippi, associated with the Greek god Pan or Baneas, Caesar,
and the House of Herod the Great whose son was the Philip who built the city
there in honor of Caesar Augustus, Jesus asked the question, “Who do the crowds
say that I am?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The place itself, though
perhaps on the much-used highway to the sea, no stranger to rumbling armies,
was rather desolate and still is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Awash
in all the symbols of power and tradition—Roman, Jewish, and the waters in
which Jesus himself had been baptized—Caesarea Philippi became remembered as
the place where Peter confessed the answer to Jesus’ question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You are the Christ, the son of the living
God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all the gospels say that Jesus
heard that response and immediately—“sternly,” they say—ordered his disciples
to tell no one, explaining that ahead of him lay the road of suffering and death,
not the glorious kingdom expected to be assumed by Messiah.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii26WSy4ZTzg0TeXDRsx3tzoLmWPzBljHsFgXHueVonRTo2VtmGLfbF4U0y0hy2e3X5tUNc93J_Dl2zlzrozIySzRK6z0QifDyiYdGBOfPVhO6-UuWi-We0LNHx4HBWmCiLlRXaQ/s1600/Caesarea+Philippi2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii26WSy4ZTzg0TeXDRsx3tzoLmWPzBljHsFgXHueVonRTo2VtmGLfbF4U0y0hy2e3X5tUNc93J_Dl2zlzrozIySzRK6z0QifDyiYdGBOfPVhO6-UuWi-We0LNHx4HBWmCiLlRXaQ/s1600/Caesarea+Philippi2.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Headwaters of the Jordan River</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what is that all about?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It seems to me that Jesus was struggling with identity and vocation, a
somewhat familiar struggle to many of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who are we and what does our life mean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you read the gospels, especially the first three, you can see how
deeply Jesus wrestles with those questions, although many of us miss that,
imagining that he was somehow immune to human struggles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Luke’s narrative, although Caesarea
Philippi is absent from the tale, Jesus is praying with his disciples near him
when he asks that question, suggesting that the question itself might have been
the subject of his prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who am
I?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if I am Messiah, the Chosen One, how
does that square with this sense of destiny I have to suffer, to be rejected,
to be killed, and to rise again?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are no maps telling me how to get there, and I am not sure how to do it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After this episode of prayer, as happens in both Mark and
Matthew, Jesus selects the inner three and takes them with him to a high
mountain, apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there something
very strange happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We call it the
Transfiguration, but in many ways it was Jesus’ confirmation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was his own unique spiritual experience that
springs from the roots of this question, “Who am I?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christian theology takes the route of
understanding Christ as one person of two natures, divine and human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do with that what you will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The struggle of the self, his Self, is in
some sense the struggle of the world of the crowds, Caesars, and gods of the
nations wrestling with and against the divine world of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scriptures today remind us that
transfiguration is something that had happened before, to Moses, for
example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Christian history contains
other examples of similar, if not identical, experiences of ordinary people,
St. Seraphim of Sarov being one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR455qLmJTdudNRP90JPmuNkKVgvyHsPX4W-BOGy1pSYnNmeZDYGxHyHVKUJnKt8piOU7Kvbw_oitkD9wt3WF3rjTRv_GDkEyMoM9qmESLvqT-nhXbzXXLAwR8yUOtMKInLH5uZw/s1600/st-seraphim-of-sarov-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="363" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR455qLmJTdudNRP90JPmuNkKVgvyHsPX4W-BOGy1pSYnNmeZDYGxHyHVKUJnKt8piOU7Kvbw_oitkD9wt3WF3rjTRv_GDkEyMoM9qmESLvqT-nhXbzXXLAwR8yUOtMKInLH5uZw/s320/st-seraphim-of-sarov-5.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Transfiguration of St. Seraphim of Sarov<br />Russian Icon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span>Be that
as it may, when they arrive on the mountaintop, Jesus enters into prayer again,
and in that moment his appearance changes and even his clothes become radiant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story tells us that not only Jesus is
different but that somehow the veil separating the world of the crowds from the
world of the divine is pierced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Moses
and Elijah appear, not to Jesus only, but to the on-looking disciples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the realm of eternity, not time, where
past and future have no meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moses
and Elijah are speaking of what we would call future—the “departure” that Jesus
was to accomplish in Jerusalem—but they know as much about the future as they
do the past, which is to say that they belong to that timeless realm that is then
and there on the mountaintop colliding with the realm of flesh and blood that
is generally ignorant of any other realm than that of common, everyday
goings-on. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are lots of things to be learned and gleaned from the
story of the Transfiguration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost
always we naturally focus on Jesus, which is doubtless the point of the whole
episode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But notice the obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus took with him three disciples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus there is an audience for this great
epiphany, and a community to share it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Why did he take them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps for
company—reason enough if you are going to hike all the way up Mount Tabor or
some similar peak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the story is
reminiscent of Mark’s account (which Luke had read) in which Jesus called these
three out from among the others and took them with him deeper into the Garden
of Gethsemane where he prayed in his agony to be spared his time of trial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus felt the need for company during
critical hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And simply because they
are there on the mountain, Peter, James, and John themselves get swept up in
the overshadowing cloud, terrified as they find themselves in that awful space
where time runs into eternity and flesh is saturated with glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The voice that comes out of the cloud,
unmistakably the same voice that spoke on the day of that other epiphany,
Jesus’ baptism, speaks not to him but to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“This is my Son, my Chosen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Listen to him!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Open your hearts, your minds, your
souls so that you can not only hear but pay attention, and follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The road downhill will be harder than the
climb, because it leads to suffering and rejection, denial and cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Chosen One is chosen not for domination
but for submission, not as ruler but as servant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if the Chosen One chooses you, it is so
that you may be like him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get your cross
and take it up and follow him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to
him.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-QIAGhitYDnTeKMngwbUPBrfIhdDr135XVYWUaIFTH7jpu-OJn-c_I2lZepr684T5nR_57VFaFm6JquqN6SsbLAY62PrI5Ja-JZmc04B4_vUFL3LpC6hz8iTIG8i9QQJnF43vg/s1600/InnerCircle1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="713" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-QIAGhitYDnTeKMngwbUPBrfIhdDr135XVYWUaIFTH7jpu-OJn-c_I2lZepr684T5nR_57VFaFm6JquqN6SsbLAY62PrI5Ja-JZmc04B4_vUFL3LpC6hz8iTIG8i9QQJnF43vg/s320/InnerCircle1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jesus with Peter, John, and James</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They kept silent and told no one in those days anything that
they had seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What else could they have
done?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those whose minds are sealed in
the world of the crowds and crows and Caesars are seldom impressed with tales
of glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even if they be enchanted,
they ponder the unearthly, rarely imagining that transfiguration or any such
thing could be for them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter, James,
John, their fellow disciples, and countless others were soon to come to see
something more magnificent than the Transfiguration, namely Jesus’ Easter, his
spring, his Resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They would
only get there by <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
listening to him and following him on the road that led through Gethsemane to Calvary, through agony and death. But they would catch on in due time to the
fact that what had happened to Jesus on the mountain was their destiny
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time would come when they would
tell freely what they had seen there, convinced that the world of the divine
penetrates the world of the crowds on every level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day would dawn when they and their
sisters and brothers would be the community showing what could happen to the
world when it but listens to the Chosen One, takes up its cross, and follows
him in the way that seeks Love in an exhilarating journey where there are no
guardrails, only grace.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fxZc2n6acsMJqk7YnzEg-TeWPh_JrysY_zGADVXKADHKKbZt1qdW5fYgau_PMAqQuQuxyiLebNGBJrGd0ZL6ZEUSpNBbuosN6kyuG5Jxemw7ijFVuGW-Jancv2RS9TABRqrhug/s1600/Mt.+Tabor+no+guardrails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="236" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fxZc2n6acsMJqk7YnzEg-TeWPh_JrysY_zGADVXKADHKKbZt1qdW5fYgau_PMAqQuQuxyiLebNGBJrGd0ZL6ZEUSpNBbuosN6kyuG5Jxemw7ijFVuGW-Jancv2RS9TABRqrhug/s320/Mt.+Tabor+no+guardrails.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The road up Mt. Tabor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon for the Last Sunday after Epiphany, Year C of
the Revised Common Lectionary<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Luke 9:28-36<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2013, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-31151324372624401952019-02-18T19:44:00.002-08:002019-02-19T10:14:39.503-08:00A Good Enough Life?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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hen I was a boy of about 7, I discovered the Beatitudes. I
didn’t know that the name meant “Blessed” but I knew I liked the name. They
were, of course, the familiar eight sayings of Jesus from St. Matthew’s gospel
with which in that gospel he is said to have launched his famous Sermon on the
Mount. I associate the beatitudes with a little card I got from Sunday school. It
had a little fuzzy red heart on it, on which was superimposed a plain light
blue cross that glowed in the dark. I remember tacking it up on a wall opposite
my bed where I could look up and see the cross glowing after the lights were
off. For as long as I had the card—and I have no idea how long it lasted—it was
a nightly ritual for me to look at the cross in the dark and to think about the
Beatitudes, which along with The Lord’s Prayer were printed on the reverse side
of the card.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQB-a2F_qsEmZXiClYIjpG8nlfrkRpQeAqxeOit8WKMucm92OWUVWxLt3tk73W9gixpHzRFDCgAFXL3jihg6L3OkpyRCwtolpca2lC9bmH7LwaLCkB-DepoOtlIFeeyPnNDpWzA/s1600/cross-heart-christian-red-green-textured-background-48714641.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQB-a2F_qsEmZXiClYIjpG8nlfrkRpQeAqxeOit8WKMucm92OWUVWxLt3tk73W9gixpHzRFDCgAFXL3jihg6L3OkpyRCwtolpca2lC9bmH7LwaLCkB-DepoOtlIFeeyPnNDpWzA/s1600/cross-heart-christian-red-green-textured-background-48714641.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not quite the same as my card, but close.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There was a gap between my knowing about the Beatitudes
according to St. Matthew and my finding out about a very different set of
“beatitudes” from St. Luke. Luke’s are terser than Matthew’s. And for whatever
reason, Luke’s sources told him that they were delivered not on a mountain but
on a plain. These plain-spoken sayings are much harder to swallow than the
better known ones from the other gospel. Matthew’s version mentions the Kingdom
of Heaven a number of times. Luke’s mentions the Kingdom of God (same thing)
only once. Matthew lists no woes to balance the beatitudes. Luke does. Matthew’s
Jesus addresses the entire sermon to the multitudes. Luke’s Jesus addresses
specifically his disciples. The question here is not which account is better or
more accurate (we could never know). Much less it is a question of how to
account for such differences by proposing two different sermons on two
different occasions. To my knowledge I haven’t seen any little Sunday school
cards bearing Luke’s version with or without a fuzzy heart and a
glow-in-the-dark cross. They’re just not as sweet as the ones I first knew as a
boy.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But let’s take Luke on his own terms. Rather than compare
further his short Sermon on the Plain with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, let’s
hear what Jesus is telling his disciples in Luke’s story. They are the ones who
are poor. They are the ones who mourn. They are the ones who are reviled and
excluded. And why? Because they are associated with, even identified with the
Son of Man, Jesus himself. They are called out from a great multitude of people
who include Gentiles from Tyre and Sidon as well as Jews from rural Judea and
Jerusalem. And it is they to whom the Kingdom of God has become a reality. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my boyhood I learned to associate heaven with that place
where I was going when I die. Only later did I learn that “heaven” was not a
future reality that was going to start when I died and went there, but a
present reality that was actually possible for me to live in and participate
in. If you go further into this Sermon on the Plain, you will see that Jesus’
instructions to his disciples were eminently practical, if not easy. You’ll
come across the apex of the entire thing:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
Love your enemies; help people,
and lend to them, looking for nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and
you will be children of the Most High, who is kind to the ungrateful and the
wicked. Be merciful even as your Father is merciful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We hear “reward” and imagine that it is a prize that we’ll
get when the game is over. What happens when we begin to see that the reward is
immediate? Does it change anything? Well, yes. Beauty is its own excuse for
being, and goodness is its own reward—a truth which you know from your own
experience. Why? Because your soul cannot be fooled. It is your nature to be
what you are created to be, and that is precisely what Jesus means when he says
“children of the Most High.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact it was about a year later when I was in third grade
that my pastor taught me and other kids what turns out to be the most important
theological lesson I’ve ever learned. The question in the catechism was, “Where
is God?” and the answer was “God is everywhere.” And if God is in heaven, then
where God is heaven is, and that is everywhere. But everywhere is different
from ordinary life. It is like being in a room that you think is fully lit when
someone comes in and switches on an entire bank of lights that you had no idea even
existed, and it is as if the room had been black and white until suddenly all
turned to vibrant colors. How did we miss it? We don’t know. We just did. It
hardly matters. Now we see. And what a glorious thing it is really to see!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What shall we then say to the woes, if this is all what
beatitude, or blessedness, is? That is a very difficult question for many
contemporary Christians to deal with. We hear “woe” and we want to run the
other way. Many of us are sick to death of religion that specializes in trying
to frighten us into being good, shakes a finger at us if we fail to conform to
socially approved norms, threatens with punishment or even annihilation if we
don’t meet exacting standards of a God who is difficult to please. So we hear
the warning “Woe to you…” as extraordinarily bad news, and imagine that no
loving God could be involved in such a threat. Well, no. But the “woe” is not a
threat but a statement that is a simple description of an inevitable situation.
Look at them. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have your consolation already.”
Is it not true? Give your life to money, gain whatever you can and justify it however
you may, and it will give you exactly what you want. Except that what it gives
and what you get is never going to last because money doesn’t last. Nor do
possessions. Nor can they ever fill up the hole at the center of every living
soul. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzAaPDBCZIJIeLpWEHfmzxwpmsfA5aK1zJHA1Z9oFvZKoe99R1MXVtZtzAMIrMUS6hfG8EwiO-UcdTWmLOjytw0o-goKHvlRAF-wNJWHWSYHhXo06398yRjO-VsTBhtt2-oTCnA/s1600/hungry+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="1254" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzAaPDBCZIJIeLpWEHfmzxwpmsfA5aK1zJHA1Z9oFvZKoe99R1MXVtZtzAMIrMUS6hfG8EwiO-UcdTWmLOjytw0o-goKHvlRAF-wNJWHWSYHhXo06398yRjO-VsTBhtt2-oTCnA/s320/hungry+man.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hungry?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Woe to those who are well fed now, for you shall go
hungry.” That strikes even closer to home. I’m well fed. And I predict that I
won’t ever go hungry. Well, maybe not for food. But there is a deeper hunger of
the heart that food cannot satisfy. “Woe to you who laugh now.” I don’t much
like that. I laugh a lot. I love it when people laugh and I especially love it
when I say something or do something that makes them laugh. Is that so bad? Woe
to those who laugh because they can’t get through life without facing pain or
sadness or failure or decline or death. They will know loss, and that loss will
be acute if they have a house built on sand with no foundation deeper than the
pleasure of the moment. “Woe to the popular, woe to those of whom people are
enamored and of whom they speak well.” There is no crowd more fickle than a
flock of friends who like you as long as you speak words they agree with and do
things they approve of and support their positions and prejudices and
preferences. The minute you begin differentiating yourself from those in your
closest circles whose expectations you cannot or will not meet, you will likely
see how it was not you whom they loved but their ideas of you and their
expectations that they could count on you to be in their court no matter what. Being
true to your deepest self is being true to the God who lives within you, and
Jesus is saying that you cannot do that without paying a steep price.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Exactly at this point we get really fidgety about the
gospel, which is never about stasis but always about change and growth. It
would be so easy if the gospel aligned neatly with society’s needs, desires,
and customs. So we continue to try to make the two dovetail or match exactly. It
is a project doomed to fail. The more we anesthetize ourselves from the
dissonance between life in Christ and ordinary life driven by our deep need to
survive and to succeed, the more likely we are to avoid the very pain of being
born (or giving birth) to new possibilities. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’d like, wouldn’t we, to get rid of the woes, the warnings
and make life just a simple process of doing well and being happy. Well, guess
what? We can do exactly that. Only we cannot do it by turning the gospel into a
feel-good program that smoothly blesses what the advertising industry tells us
that we want and need to make us happy, prosperous, secure. In this country
churches by the hundreds and preachers by the dozens tell us we can do exactly
that—and it isn’t just the case with Christians either, by the way. Everybody
is looking for a painless and easy road to follow.,The surprise is right here
in Jesus’ words. It is by identifying with the poor and the powerless that is
the road to deep freedom. It is by letting go, not by acquiring, that brings
true riches. Or, in a phrase that we are more familiar with, “it is more
blessed to give than to receive.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4hGa2kLhl_eoyaX-XB4FzUi5ttPsKA7DB9skSUkYeFWxKADu1_9yreMReKLIm8pVi9Iq_R5KfSsg2tonv7tGKWepoUnbsF4IzSlkRNwnp60xCO4IuX2TOaydjGe08PaxWPPwTQ/s1600/LaughingJesus1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1408" data-original-width="944" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4hGa2kLhl_eoyaX-XB4FzUi5ttPsKA7DB9skSUkYeFWxKADu1_9yreMReKLIm8pVi9Iq_R5KfSsg2tonv7tGKWepoUnbsF4IzSlkRNwnp60xCO4IuX2TOaydjGe08PaxWPPwTQ/s320/LaughingJesus1.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can you imagine?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lest you think that this is a sour, dull, unpromising
proposition, altogether at odds with anything you could recognize as a “good
life,” take a look at Jesus in the gospels. He is not a life-denying, up-tight,
all-work-and-no-play kind of person. In fact he’s always getting into trouble. Plucking
grain on the Sabbath, inviting himself to dinner with outcast tax collectors,
friend of prostitutes and riffraff, fishing, delivering free health care right
and left, paying attention to little kids who he consistently said were
modeling what the Reign of God is really like. This is not a man saturated with
sorrow and woe, but one who is free and who invites us into that same freedom.
And despite what hosts of people want to make him—namely the guardian of
conventional morality and the high priest of prosperity—Jesus is thoroughly
human, in truth a God-soaked man who is very down-to-earth. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question for you and me is whether Jesus’ kind of life
is good enough for us. Truth be told, it scares the powerful so badly,
including many professional religious people, that like the Grand Inquisitor of
Dostoevsky’s novel, they tell Jesus to get out, to go back where he belongs, to
stay out of the religion business altogether because he simply messes up the
racket that is working well for them. Good enough? If what’s important to us is
to be rich, entertained, and popular, well, maybe not. But if we’d like to be
free— <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we’d like to be free—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/om6HcUUa8DI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/om6HcUUa8DI?feature=player_embedded" style="clear: right; float: right;" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A sermon preached on Luke 6:17-26, Epiphany 6 C, 2019.</span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019 </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-60437930353355968142019-02-11T19:24:00.001-08:002019-02-13T10:31:46.990-08:00Body Worship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">he story of the two disciples on the road to
Emmaus is a resurrection story, one of a handful in the gospels that purport to
be records of encounters with the Risen Lord.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> But more is going on in this story than a
report of a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus. I believe it has something
to do with worship and how we understand—or whether we understand—what worship
is all about. And if we understand what worship is about, chances are we come
closer to understanding what Christian life is about, and what it has to do
with the life we are actually living.</span><br />
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<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI2vtJqUhHCjg9JCqtedoqCFJKdb80Vp5f3VzfqG_kbJX6tq1VuQ1EfjkQEu-d0FzNzpqPn3ALajHh3yGuVK2zxcer4YOxTMh8wptevbHAgPi8sEUs0TC-FwvvsiMIXMtf1UaQYQ/s1600/Rembrandt+Road+to+Emmaus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="581" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI2vtJqUhHCjg9JCqtedoqCFJKdb80Vp5f3VzfqG_kbJX6tq1VuQ1EfjkQEu-d0FzNzpqPn3ALajHh3yGuVK2zxcer4YOxTMh8wptevbHAgPi8sEUs0TC-FwvvsiMIXMtf1UaQYQ/s640/Rembrandt+Road+to+Emmaus.jpg" width="464" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rembrandt, "Road to Emmaus"</td></tr>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Many are the motivations for people to worship. But far down
the list of many churchgoing Christians is Jesus’ resurrection. It would strike
many as phony to give that as a reason for worship, as opposed, say, to being
able to pray, getting some practical guidance from a sermon, being in a
supportive community of like-minded people. Don’t get me wrong. I am not
suggesting that if you are such a churchgoing person you don’t believe that
Jesus was raised from the dead. I don’t for a moment imagine you have missed
the connection between his triumph over death and what the Church has taught
you about how that somehow is the lynchpin of what the whole Christian
enterprise is about. Furthermore, you might even be convinced that the entire
purpose of the Church is to get you ready to go to heaven when you die, a fate
that awaits you precisely because Jesus actually died to make that possible. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But there is indeed a problem with Christian worship—and it
is far deeper than sermons that don’t speak to us, or music we might not
particularly like. The problem is that the Church through the ages has by and
large failed to understand the real thrust of resurrection. This is exactly why
this 24<sup>th</sup> chapter of St. Luke’s gospel can really be helpful in our
understanding what worship and therefore Christian life is really about.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Take a close look at the story. It begins with two disciples
walking along on a Sunday afternoon—the day we call Easter—who are clueless
about the resurrection of Jesus. They were part of the company of disciples who
had heard from some women earlier that morning who had been to the tomb and,
not finding the body, had seen a vision of angels declaring that he was alive. Luke
has already told us that those who heard the women’s testimony did not believe
a word of it, which to them was just an idle tale. Up comes a stranger our of
nowhere who joins them on the road. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
two do not recognize him. He begins what is known as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">midrash</i> within this story which itself is a midrash—an
interpretation, largely symbolic—of biblical texts and the events they cite. That
sets the stage for the two men to invite him to stay and have a bite to eat. There
is a gap in the story at that point. We aren’t told how this stranger who is a
guest suddenly got to be in the position of host, whose place it was to take
bread, bless and break it. But it is in that very action that their eyes are
opened and they recognize the stranger to be Jesus himself. Immediately Jesus
vanishes. Then it all falls into place: the midrash about Messiah, the effect
that his exposition of scripture had on them, the way the mysterious appearance
of Jesus tracks with the women’s story of what the angels had told them. They
rush back to Jerusalem to report what had happened. They find the other disciples,
discover that by this time Jesus had appeared to Simon, and as the disciples
are talking about all this, Jesus himself comes and stands among them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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That is enough of the story to get at least the major points
Luke is making. One is that the resurrection body of Jesus is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>to be confused with his spirit in a
non-physical appearance: he is not a ghost. Second, the resurrection body is
not a resuscitated corpse, because he is able to appear and vanish at will,
regardless of space, time, and circumstances. Third, there is continuity
between Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified and the risen Jesus, inasmuch as
the resurrection body bears the scars of his passion and death, which fact the
disciples see in the passage immediately following the Emmaus story. Fourth, a
transformation has taken place, because, though the body belongs to Jesus, it
has changed to the point that he is not readily recognizable.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now we will never know until we get to the great seminar in
the skies exactly what happened to Jesus between his death on Friday and sunup
on Sunday. But one thing is for certain. Something happened to the physical
body of Jesus. And thus any resurrection we want to talk about has to do with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the physical body, </i>our physical bodies. And
we know well enough what is going to happen to them, don’t we? They are going
to die; and one way or the other they are going to return to the nothingness
out of which they came: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But the
church has been letting itself off the hook of talking about the physical body
for too long by transmuting resurrection into immortality. The issue of what
happens after death might be of great importance, but the more important thing
is what the resurrection means for this life, here and now. Even the most
devoted believer in an afterlife, of whatever kind, will tell you that what
happens there is directly tied to what we do here. From that I conclude that it
is wise to make a short list of things not to worry about and put afterlife
first on that list. Concentrate on living life joyfully, lovingly, gratefully,
kindly, and the afterlife, whatever shape it takes, will take care of itself. You
have my word on that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Triegel, "Resurrection of Christ"</td></tr>
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What we miss by appropriating resurrection as simply about
life in another dimension called heaven or some similar name is that nothing of
such a life is dependent upon the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">body</i>.
Think about it: there is no earthly reason why a resurrection of a body is
necessary for a living presence to be experienced from the other side of death.
Examples are far too numerous of apparitions, ghosts, spirits, and other
nonmaterial beings. Very likely a number of people who are reading this could
give a detailed account of having experienced one or more such things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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So what does the resurrection have to do with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your body?</i> And what does all this have
to do with worship? Well, first, remember your baptism. What do we remember
when we forget everything else about baptism? It is “down under and back up
again.” It is a ritual death and resurrection. (We are in the land of metaphor
and symbol here.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheMydRldDP8ZoqFOYHEPEDrvch3AJRC287JQusJSywQPZWTHORFSF3tT-DpCKxnl_b6Bbgb2r6u_uRD_83Q7hU3AUbLZMdcigqCPk3LP_8P9EJJej1uChzpIzzhAv0430TF7ZiYw/s1600/Orthdox+baptism+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheMydRldDP8ZoqFOYHEPEDrvch3AJRC287JQusJSywQPZWTHORFSF3tT-DpCKxnl_b6Bbgb2r6u_uRD_83Q7hU3AUbLZMdcigqCPk3LP_8P9EJJej1uChzpIzzhAv0430TF7ZiYw/s200/Orthdox+baptism+2.jpg" width="133" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orthodox Baptism</td></tr>
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When we are, as it were, pulled up out of the water we are
united with the Risen Lord in the resurrection. Yes, it has a future, that
resurrection life, beyond our mortal death. But it certainly does not wait for
death in order to begin. So whatever we do with our life in Christ we do in the
very body that is reading these words right now. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vI6oNLcrAVFC0H_-lyGSOhyj1oPM6i6e__l2LvBazINVtPHfRlGLzatl9cOqKg8haciNczEMvCAvadYgXntjNayexX3U-HA4ju13ET24UhjYLZLRaRl3iJ3r8QbUB_jSfpt5JQ/s1600/Knippers+Resurrection+of+Our+Lord.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="578" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vI6oNLcrAVFC0H_-lyGSOhyj1oPM6i6e__l2LvBazINVtPHfRlGLzatl9cOqKg8haciNczEMvCAvadYgXntjNayexX3U-HA4ju13ET24UhjYLZLRaRl3iJ3r8QbUB_jSfpt5JQ/s320/Knippers+Resurrection+of+Our+Lord.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Knippers, "The Resurrection of Christ"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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Second, what baptism symbolizes with water, bread and wine
symbolize in food. The same reality, namely New Life, is expressed in both the
sacraments. And because they are sacraments, baptism and eucharist are means by
which we receive God—called “Holy Spirit” in Holy Baptism and called “The Body
and Blood of Christ” in Holy Eucharist. The second most obvious thing about
sacraments is that they are physical means of receiving God. The most obvious
thing of all is that you can’t receive a sacrament without being a body.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvONfgW726iKLWT4ZyGRJahRKgSMln0htQxKfGlGs2LgfQYJMpBEyN9Bbz91GASHIp88as-Bu1ldKGX5HZenwdKYlrx40_0_6-yjpy1JnNvkxfNAG2_IyHr4J9lHdeu_hw1oFmNw/s1600/St.+Stephen+and+the+Incarnation+font+and+altar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="646" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvONfgW726iKLWT4ZyGRJahRKgSMln0htQxKfGlGs2LgfQYJMpBEyN9Bbz91GASHIp88as-Bu1ldKGX5HZenwdKYlrx40_0_6-yjpy1JnNvkxfNAG2_IyHr4J9lHdeu_hw1oFmNw/s320/St.+Stephen+and+the+Incarnation+font+and+altar.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Font, pulpit, and altar of St. Stephen and the Incarnation<br />
Episcopal Church, Washington, DC</td></tr>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What do we make of Jesus’ identifying himself with Bread,
which he is reported to have done more than once? Why would he have chosen wine
to identify with? I suggest that these things that were in first century
Judaism never used the way Jesus used them in his Last Supper (bread as human
body, wine as human blood) are the key to unlocking God’s own identification
with the human body. And not just the human body, but the human body <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as one instance of all creation</i>. We are
so used to thinking, even arguing, that God is totally distinct from the
natural world that it is challenging for us to see that “God” literally makes
no sense apart from something to be God of. If God is pure Being, or pure
Spirit, or pure Energy, or pure Consciousness, then that
Being-Spirit-Energy-Consciousness must have a receptor in order to be
meaningful at all. So, in a real sense, what we proclaim about the Bread and
Wine in today’s eucharist, namely that they are the means by which we receive
the real presence of Christ-God, is true of everything in the entire cosmos,
including you. The Incarnation neither started nor stopped with Jesus. God has
been expressing God’s self from the Big Bang onwards in that enormous Body
called the cosmos, the universe. And that means that there is no place where
God is not, nothing in all creation that does not tingle with the atoms and
quarks that come straight from the heart of Being itself, nothing animate or
inanimate that is too mean to be the home of the Holy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxY80yzntM8zBRNSDq82apFedyToEzCm_uxelQVP2160kPX9ZulhkCLrEaXH-midwnhA1pjwCfOEYq1KW3M52uDpHItGFRRFh4Ut-8PS56-ncjWgdMh46WRY-I7ttRtyzHay0D8A/s1600/Father+Sam+reading+gospel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="660" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxY80yzntM8zBRNSDq82apFedyToEzCm_uxelQVP2160kPX9ZulhkCLrEaXH-midwnhA1pjwCfOEYq1KW3M52uDpHItGFRRFh4Ut-8PS56-ncjWgdMh46WRY-I7ttRtyzHay0D8A/s320/Father+Sam+reading+gospel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Priest reading The Holy Gospel<br />
Father Sam Desordi-Leite, Sr. Priest, St. Stephen and the Incarnation<br />
Episcopal Church, Washington</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If you don’t believe it, just read the gospels, including
the non-canonical gospel of Thomas. In that gospel Jesus says, “Move a stone
and I am there. Split a piece of wood and I am there.” And Jesus is forever
affirming people, loving life, enjoying friendship, going to the tables of
friends and strangers and having a meal, drinking to the point that in his
words they call him a glutton and a winebibber. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not the picture of someone who
disdains the material world, not the profile of someone who woos us away from
our bodies so that we can go off somewhere and lead a “spiritual” life apart
from the bodies we are created to be.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that is what makes good worship. Worship is acting out
what we believe. And good worship does that well. Bring your entire self into
the act of worship, leaving nothing out. Bring art, bring music, bring dance
and celebrate life. Bring your arthritic knees, the pain in your neck, or the
cancer you’re being treated for. Bring your muscular body and your tattoos. Bring your overweight body or your anorexia. Bring your babies to be baptized and your
corpses to be buried. Bring your aspirations and your shame, your
vulnerabilities and your pride, your sexual experiences and your attempts to
repress them. Bring your laughter and your tears. As the Ash Wednesday collect
reminds us, God hates nothing that God has made. And in the words that
Anglicans have been saying for hundreds of years, “Here we offer and present
unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy,
and living sacrifice unto thee.” When we do that, the Bread of Life is
mysteriously broken open and broken up, and our eyes from time to time
recognize the One who is living within us, who only vanishes from our sight to
reappear again and again, always more gloriously present with us
than we’ve ever imagined.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Based on a sermon on Christian worship preached on
February 10, 2019, at St. Luke’s Church Episcopal, Bethesda, Maryland.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">©Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-19428544218888776442019-02-01T20:57:00.001-08:002019-02-02T07:16:38.091-08:00All Riled Up At Jesus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_j39q35NoV84Nc3p0yvA6h9qim99daPVWpBkXcUR-titusUzEB79rk-ZZnC33ia6oL2sAzgnw_prGpWgrCxMjO_WhB_o98-sODyrQiW5FZfnuAJJCrEkUluky5KTq7B6UKtF1cQ/s1600/Old+First+UMC+Conway+SC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_j39q35NoV84Nc3p0yvA6h9qim99daPVWpBkXcUR-titusUzEB79rk-ZZnC33ia6oL2sAzgnw_prGpWgrCxMjO_WhB_o98-sODyrQiW5FZfnuAJJCrEkUluky5KTq7B6UKtF1cQ/s320/Old+First+UMC+Conway+SC.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Built in 1912, Old Conway Methodist Church,<br />
my home church during my childhood</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he church in which I grew up was probably the single most
important place in my life. It certainly seemed many times a lot safer than
home. And I encountered there on the whole much less personal conflict than I
did at school. What’s more, at church I encountered a number of adults who
affirmed me. When I was in junior high school I was playing the piano for a
men’s Sunday school class that was broadcast on radio every week. When I began
to evince some talent for public speaking, my church was the first place that
extended opportunities for me to test my mettle. By the time I was in high
school, I had preached a sermon or two, and by the time I went to college, I
had taught a fair number of adult Sunday school classes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkjkyXKgvJWu2VXwz_tSVM27ERRXU3fqFX9cNuTRQE_i6K9M9n50Rja7hEc3D4HiWu20Cl0jwRC309YoJ74-zq5z0vRLTvOF3Mzen_o_tIzVlFAFC_V5GOBODAFA_9yJxlVxY2aA/s1600/The+Little+Church+Conway+SC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkjkyXKgvJWu2VXwz_tSVM27ERRXU3fqFX9cNuTRQE_i6K9M9n50Rja7hEc3D4HiWu20Cl0jwRC309YoJ74-zq5z0vRLTvOF3Mzen_o_tIzVlFAFC_V5GOBODAFA_9yJxlVxY2aA/s200/The+Little+Church+Conway+SC.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Little Church," where I played piano <br />
for The Hut Bible Class</td></tr>
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<br />
Like many a promising young ministerial student, I found
that the deeper I went into the Bible, led there initially by a wonderful high
school teacher and mentor, the more I discovered how much there was beyond my
childhood faith. My teacher, and later a college professor, opened up for me a
world of dazzling insights about the core nature of the Christian faith.
Gradually my message began shifting in line with what I was discovering. I look
back on it all now and see how what seemed like earth-shattering changes for me
were in fact only minor movements of a needle registering normal growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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But what might have been “normal growth for me” didn’t set
too well when I returned to my home church. Every now and again I’d hear some
comment that was not the glowing support I’d become accustomed to. More like,
“Boy you sure do have some new-fangled ideas, doncha?” Seared in my memory is
the time I accepted an invitation to preach in an African-American church in a
little community about 12 miles from my South Carolina hometown. This was in
the early 1960’s at the height of the civil rights struggle. My parents were
quite supportive and understanding. I was shocked, however, to get threatening
phone calls. And one Sunday, when I was asked to preach in my home church, a man
whom I had known for years pointedly got up and stalked out, incensed that
somebody would be preaching to him, somebody who was not a thoroughgoing
segregationist. I was not particularly shocked by his leaving, but I can’t say
that it didn’t sting me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielsWuDb0I6kVUkwaWhxia00LPkvarFZMxkYL43TnUYaWnbDlVjW3E8VOsReC220Ojb7y2kyAmirqPzAabMTwOo-z8E1zbsEnfkkTB1wA-oJFos9d6J6gcsV82Q6DbIRFd3Dw5Lw/s1600/First+UMC+Conway+SC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielsWuDb0I6kVUkwaWhxia00LPkvarFZMxkYL43TnUYaWnbDlVjW3E8VOsReC220Ojb7y2kyAmirqPzAabMTwOo-z8E1zbsEnfkkTB1wA-oJFos9d6J6gcsV82Q6DbIRFd3Dw5Lw/s320/First+UMC+Conway+SC.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First United Methodist Church, Conway, SC, today,<br />
much as it appeared when I preached<br />
there as a college student</td></tr>
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That’s some of the experience I bring to the story about
Jesus’ return to the synagogue in his hometown. If you have ever gone home to
your roots and encountered a gap between who you know yourself to be and the
way folks treat you (as if you were still the kid they once knew), then you too
have a taste of what homecoming can sometimes be. Home, tribe, native
community, family, relatives, networks we’ve known over time have a
tremendously strong pull on us. If you buck them and differentiate yourself
from others who have strong expectations, not to mention control needs, you’ll
see how fast they’ll react to keep you in their orbit. Threats, anger,
emotional blackmail, perhaps even cutting ties with whoever dares cross them
are among the things sometimes encountered by those who dare to live
differently from what the hometown crowd expects.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Since that is true for a great many people, the
near-lynching of Jesus that takes place on a Sabbath in Nazareth is not
entirely about him personally. And yet it is personal, as indeed any such
reaction is, or gets to be, as it becomes enflamed. What was it that got this
crowd of old friends and neighbors so riled up that they mobbed Jesus and were
ready to kill him? By most standards, that is a pretty unusual reaction, even
when people feel threatened or insulted. Look at the text. Remember that the
context is a synagogue full of worshipers. You might recall (if you heard last
week’s gospel) that his opening volley was a reading from the Prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah’s words were a self-description: “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
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” That is not in
fact the whole passage, and we are not told how far Jesus read into what we
call Chapter 61. But what the quotation doesn’t quite pick up is that the
prophet identifies himself with the fate of Zion, which was indeed the heart of
Judaism of the time. Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem, and is sometimes almost
interchangeable for the Temple itself, which was second only to the Sabbath as
Judah’s most sacred institution. It is a hopeful passage, promising vindication
and a bright productive future for Israel. By the time of Jesus “Israel” was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de facto</i> the tribe of Judah for the most
part, other tribes having been more or less absorbed into the large and
dominant tribe of Judah whose favorite son was David. So to take that passage
and to interpret it as having to do with anything other than what we might call
national pride was somewhat like taking “The Star-Spangled Banner” and
interpreting it in a way that would patently dishonor the country whose
national anthem it is. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Before he moves into high gear, Jesus says that the
scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing. Well, that was good news! All
spoke well of him, amazed at the gracious words that fell from his lips. My,
my: what a blessing that one of own—indeed our dear Joseph’s son—is preaching
so magnificently! He must have spoken at some length in a sermon that we
unfortunately can’t find on You Tube, because when he begins to unpack the
Isaiah text in terms of his own ministry he begins to show that he had no
special in-house relationship with those in his audience, no agenda to perform
miracles for their benefit. His mission was broader than that. Given Jesus’
whole history, it is possible that he said without mincing words that his
mission was to show concern and share table fellowship with some unpalatable
characters, some people like the ancient widow of Gentile Zarephath to whom
Elijah had gone and stayed, and others like the Syrian enemy Commander Naaman
whom Elisha had healed of leprosy. He might have mentioned a few whom he
perhaps had already encountered and ministered to—tax collectors or prostitutes
or the occasional Samaritan—people who a few pages later in Luke’s gospel we’ll
read about. Whatever he said flew in the face of the accepted tribal wisdom,
the national pride read into or derived from the words of Isaiah.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg19jnsq54i-xTmAPyXq9QBiVjVlAZr1tTeqdl29HpTLWpaQgQDD1J24gDy3r26djPI_1chyphenhyphen9I2gme1wn8w88aDBKzcfszFeVsN7aZRxYU5oPkqDaMwdFo8pliJjeRAX3-Z54dHIw/s1600/Nazareth+rejects+Jesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="236" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg19jnsq54i-xTmAPyXq9QBiVjVlAZr1tTeqdl29HpTLWpaQgQDD1J24gDy3r26djPI_1chyphenhyphen9I2gme1wn8w88aDBKzcfszFeVsN7aZRxYU5oPkqDaMwdFo8pliJjeRAX3-Z54dHIw/s400/Nazareth+rejects+Jesus.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancient Fresco of the Sermon and Rejection at Nazareth</td></tr>
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Was his congregation ever angry! But why make a big deal of
this in 2019? Certainly not because I think there is much likelihood that in
this house today there would be sympathizers with such violence. But without
too much imagination we can certainly see that the same things that rattled the
cages of the synagogue congregants in Nazareth are the same things that stir up
hatred and violence across the world today. In the last decade, and especially
in the last few years, we have seen the shocking rise of hate crimes. Hate crimes
are called that because they are executed by a member or members of a group
threatened by the very existence of people who are different from themselves.
We’ve seen it coming for a good thirty years now with an increase in separatist
movements all over the world. Now we see whole nations and economies—the United
Kingdom with its Brexit dilemma comes to mind—brought to paralysis over
nostrums like “taking back control” and “returning power to
our—fill-in-the-blank—group, race, nation, power elite. Need I say that
shutting down the world’s most powerful government even part-way over an issue
that any way you cut it is about keeping undesirable people out (whether a real
or manufactured threat) stems from the same kind of fear ignited by rage that
we see on display in Nazareth? <o:p></o:p></div>
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What do you think got Jesus crucified? Was it the will of
God? That became the popular understanding of Jesus’ death—as if an angry God
had to be talked into forgiving and loving a clueless species called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">homo sapiens</i>. But that is not the gospel
narrative, as you can see with a careful reading. No, it was precisely Jesus’
inclusion of undesirables; the open table fellowship with all and sundry; the
good news to the poor; the audacity to forgive sins; the unrestrained delivery
of free health care; the generous feeding of thousands; the willingness to call
out the hypocrisy of religious bigwigs; the flagrant breaking of religious
observances and laws, such as healing (i.e., working) on the Sabbath and
plucking grain for hungry bellies. All of that enraged the powerful hegemony of
religious leaders and political empire squeezing the life out of the poor and
driving the vulnerable into poverty and crime. It was not a fickle population
that turned on him, but rather a group of powerful people insulted by his
teaching and enraged by its implications. This incident in Nazareth truly
presages what is to come for Jesus. It is one of several accounts in the
gospels where people were ready to have his head. This time, however, filled
with Spirit, he turns and walks through the crowd who part like the waters of
the Red Sea their lynching plan foiled.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ2itstaElFPWouiDDVc7B63xou6CraR0dqzEJQuBVkpvUGdxgYgQ012TwJLIcTL3LRxuWwlBNqjX0NT2KFu48rq7RTxW8LKIfeF6pSaUj-KsotkXoQRycG18LAwqBtBiaUAR8Mw/s1600/jesus-eats-with-tax-collectors-sinners-siegerkroder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="785" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ2itstaElFPWouiDDVc7B63xou6CraR0dqzEJQuBVkpvUGdxgYgQ012TwJLIcTL3LRxuWwlBNqjX0NT2KFu48rq7RTxW8LKIfeF6pSaUj-KsotkXoQRycG18LAwqBtBiaUAR8Mw/s400/jesus-eats-with-tax-collectors-sinners-siegerkroder.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eating with Outcasts and "Sinners"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Jesus’ sermon today is the same as it was that Sabbath, and
as relevant. It would be a huge move forward if everyone hearing this gospel in
a host of churches today were to resolve to shift in whatever degree was
necessary to align ourselves with Jesus’ message of inclusiveness and justice.
But that is not enough. It is not enough because the Church today must come to
grips with our corporate complicity to stifle the message of Jesus precisely by
tamping down his call to radical welcome and his insistence on justice for the
outcast and the vulnerable. We cannot get off with a purely personal piety that
focuses on individual holiness and still claim to be followers of Jesus. Nor
can we imagine that somehow loyalty to the Church equates with loyalty to God.
Congregations have to choose between killing the messenger all over again, and
following him in the way that shares his fate as well as his glory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What will you do? The world is waiting for your answer. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon preached on Luke 4:21-30, The Fourth Sunday
after Epiphany, Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary</span></i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-59369035902564083222019-01-25T13:23:00.000-08:002019-01-25T15:16:34.465-08:00Are You Spiritual But Not Religious?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 48.0pt;">“I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0zfSLEipA0d8OP3sqOgPAxS3Wozcy7xnlSpIlhxRcTdWp9RoRU3xLcOqr-LSm9-QNTfqCvDpTe1aHMWCx9BtwqjjUr1O5UYJ4fy4Sw0-4vNkksV-rqVIitgV1d2inWzvqfCaO8A/s1600/Spiritual+but+not+religious%253F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0zfSLEipA0d8OP3sqOgPAxS3Wozcy7xnlSpIlhxRcTdWp9RoRU3xLcOqr-LSm9-QNTfqCvDpTe1aHMWCx9BtwqjjUr1O5UYJ4fy4Sw0-4vNkksV-rqVIitgV1d2inWzvqfCaO8A/s1600/Spiritual+but+not+religious%253F.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">’m spiritual but not religious.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the way more and more people describe
themselves in this culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I want a
piece of the spirit world”--I guess they mean—“but I don’t want to bother with
all the fol-de-rol that comes with religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Buildings and bureaucracies and budgets are not worth my time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
sentiment is not far from that of the 19<sup>th</sup> century poet Robert
Southey, who said, “I could believe in Christ if he did not drag behind him his
leprous bride the Church.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
nothing much new about the preference for the “spiritual” over the “religious.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter seems all balled up with the
material—money and property and organization—and there is a long, long
tradition that pits spirit against matter with a clear preference for the
former.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spirit is assumed to be good
whenever it rivals matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">To be spiritual but not religious would
appear, at first glance, to be an attractive choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And, lest you think I’m going to come down
on the side of being religious,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>let me
warn you that I have nothing whatsoever against being “spiritual” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">per se</i>.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, whatever its advantages, “spiritual” is not necessarily easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For one thing, I haven’t yet met a person who
can successfully say what being “spiritual” is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does it mean saying one’s prayers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does it mean serving the sick and needy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does it mean reading the Bible?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does it mean meditating on the Tao?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does it mean using beads and feathers and doing dances?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does it mean hitting the streets and
demonstrating for universal health care?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It can mean any or all or none of those things, depending on what
anybody decides it will mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, incidentally,
none of the things on that particular list is easy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But one thing seems clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spiritual</i>
has something to do with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spirit</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not much help, given the long list of
things that “spirit” can mean—including such disparate things as “ghost” and
“liquor” and “enthusiasm for one’s school.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let’s cut to the chase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spirit
has to do with God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the most
memorable equation of the two comes from St. John’s gospel where Jesus says to
a Samaritan woman, “God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in
spirit and in truth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke no doubt
would agree with that, but makes the point in his own way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twelve times before we reach Chapter 4, where
we find today’s story of Jesus’ inaugural sermon in his hometown synagogue,
Luke has referred directly or indirectly to him as a person uniquely shaped by
the Holy Spirit and therefore uniquely “spiritual.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus is more than a practitioner of
spiritual things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is literally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">filled</i> with Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he says in the words of Isaiah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His is going to be a ministry of bringing
good news to the poor, bringing release to the captives, of opening the eyes of
the blind, of freeing the oppressed, of proclaiming the Lord’s favor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a real sense, Luke answers the question of
what a spirit-filled life looks like by telling the story of Jesus’
ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All those things that Paul
writes about to the Corinthians (which you heard in our second lesson today)
are manifestations of Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
the fullest manifestation of Holy Spirit is Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Praying and healing and feeding and teaching
and forgiving and giving his very life when there was nothing else left to
give:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>these are the things that a life
full of spirit does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Let’s drop back for a minute and view Jesus
through a longer lens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How would we know
he was “full of spirit”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A word of
caution here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is tempting to imagine
(and that is all we can do, imagine) that being saturated with spirit has
something to do with personality traits such as being animated versus being
quiescent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no way of telling
what Jesus was really like, and to suggest otherwise would only betray what we
ourselves project onto him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Luke, I
think, would tell us that Jesus’ personality was not the point in the first
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point is what holy spirit
does, not how it appears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other
hand, Luke has inherited some key ideas from the Jewish experience, and one of
them is the close connection between spirit (ruah) and breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spirit is life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another is the notion that the outpouring of
spirit, on David or Elijah or Gideon, for example, enables one to do deeds of
surpassing power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life and power are
thus what, for Luke, Jesus supremely manifests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But, unlike the other gospel writers, Luke
does not stop with telling the story of Jesus, as if the point were that Jesus
was the beginning and the end of it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He writes a whole other book that we call “The Acts of the
Apostles.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, as much as Volume I,
the Gospel According to Luke, a document about spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It did not stop with Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spirit-filled lives continue in the
Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not insignificant that the
title we give to Volume II is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Acts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>The Spirit is not about having a degree
in God and retiring into pious dreaming or something of the sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Spirit is life and power that gets
expressed in re-interpreting scripture to those honestly searching, as did
Philip; in healing the way that Jesus healed, as did John and Peter; in boldly
confessing the Truth in the teeth of oppression and even<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>going to jail because of one’s witness, as
did Peter and Paul; of letting one’s heart and mind be changed to include the
previously excluded, as did Peter; and of redefining the vision of the Church,
as did Paul; of practicing generosity and hospitality, as did Lydia; of turning
around and making good after failure, as did John Mark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all of those stories of the spirit have
to do with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are told to make
the connection between the Spirit that possessed Jesus and the Spirit that
possesses the Body of Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IDe40eLJygSowci3IVwhE8BpT9oeYBt886RheA5lR9S4eJLm9NgaRVubnaKQBrlLnzhf61pWg-y0Yabx8KvAwnsHP8dlEsY8KJmOdVaA3uLq0HmmgSqLHhi3aoQZY5YwoN1HVw/s1600/Robert-Southey-1774-1843-on-engraving-from-1833-english.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="892" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IDe40eLJygSowci3IVwhE8BpT9oeYBt886RheA5lR9S4eJLm9NgaRVubnaKQBrlLnzhf61pWg-y0Yabx8KvAwnsHP8dlEsY8KJmOdVaA3uLq0HmmgSqLHhi3aoQZY5YwoN1HVw/s200/Robert-Southey-1774-1843-on-engraving-from-1833-english.jpg" width="136" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert Southey 1774-1843</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Yes, the Body of Christ, the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have I pulled a fast one on you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here we were only a minute ago talking about
being spiritual, which sounds like such an individual thing, freed from
association with that leprous bride of Christ who married so unfortunately
beneath himself, and here we are talking about the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the very reason that Southey and others,
perhaps even you, complain about “religion” and find the Church to be so
leprous is precisely because, stripped of spirit, it is at best dead and at worst
deadly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a pitiful caricature of
Jesus’ body we are if we are lifeless, energy-less, dispirited, in a word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a sad and terrible day when one has to
choose between being “spiritual” and being “religious,” if by spiritual we mean
“filled with spirit” and if by “religious” we mean being lifeless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bodies are meant to be vivified by
spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your body is that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus’ body was that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the Body of Christ, the Church, is that
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite simply, the Church, as the
example of “religion,” is meant to be spiritual, and cannot be truly itself if
it is not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Yet in the popular mind a person does not
need community in order to be complete or fulfilled or whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we Christians have a different point of
view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The New Testament understands that
it is precisely by being united to Christ and to Christ’s new community that we
in fact find and know and feel the Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I do not mean to suggest that somehow a person’s worth is tied to how
much they “go to church.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I do mean
to underscore that true Christian spirituality involves practicing the life of
the Holy Spirit—which is another way of talking about the Life of Christ and
thus the Life of God—in community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
even possible for a person to lead a solitary life as a hermit and be
Christian, so long as one is connected in some major ways to the
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of our forefathers and
foremothers in the faith, like St. Seraphim of Sarov, <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjTc81kE2nuSKRuJP_nlm-nFM8OP56-RYKjRHUZYiewYCxxMqNoiWgaNSJd1rEQvdPoSw5zgBHeu2TEXdCdHFqehbNOHDvuYQvtb2l84n1SLTGglQ8IgoifkbCcDbmEyfI45uAw/s1600/St_Seraphim_Of_Sarov_with_the_Bear_Hand-Painted_Icon_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1000" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjTc81kE2nuSKRuJP_nlm-nFM8OP56-RYKjRHUZYiewYCxxMqNoiWgaNSJd1rEQvdPoSw5zgBHeu2TEXdCdHFqehbNOHDvuYQvtb2l84n1SLTGglQ8IgoifkbCcDbmEyfI45uAw/s320/St_Seraphim_Of_Sarov_with_the_Bear_Hand-Painted_Icon_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Seraphim of Sarov Feeding the Bear</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
and Julian of Norwich,
have been sterling examples of Spirit-filled lives while living as solitaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they lived solitary lives so that by
their prayer and counsel they could contribute to the Body of Christ, not to
get away from irritating people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">If you have noticed, I have drawn no sharp
line between “spiritual” and “spirit-filled.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I concede that the two terms sometimes seem quite distinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at the end of the day to be authentically
spiritual is to be thoroughly alive, and to be filled with the Spirit is
likewise to be totally alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And to be
both is to be unmistakably full of life and power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That is why we are here today. If you are charged and ready, great. Lend your spirit to the whole body of the
faithful, which in turn empowers you. If
you are dispirited and doubtful, come to the table and be fed by and with the
one whose life is full of Spirit. And if
you are quaking in your boots with fear of what faces you tomorrow or the next
day, sip the wine of wholeness which is a spirit that will quicken you once
more. To a small and fear-struck army,
Shakespeare’s King Henry V, grown from a playboy into a leader, says, </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq7_Maosnl7TBTtNH4hzJ_lQPKIUTnxIdfCbQLnp6qnPzSznCxQ-uD6e3EZbE3ZRg8dYKzas7FYRogeDldbMJD720aspUzol9ROSFDd0mjV-UDnt2OKApxa6-KGdCkTIhh67tuDg/s1600/Henry+V+before+Harfleur.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="202" data-original-width="249" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq7_Maosnl7TBTtNH4hzJ_lQPKIUTnxIdfCbQLnp6qnPzSznCxQ-uD6e3EZbE3ZRg8dYKzas7FYRogeDldbMJD720aspUzol9ROSFDd0mjV-UDnt2OKApxa6-KGdCkTIhh67tuDg/s400/Henry+V+before+Harfleur.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry V (1989 film with Henry Branagh) before the Battle of Harfleur</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Now set the
teeth, and stretch the nostril wide,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Hold hard
the breath and bend up every spirit<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>To his full
height…<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>I see you
stand like greyhounds in the slips, <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Straining
upon the start. The game’s afoot:<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Follow your
spirit,..!<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Follow your spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lord and Giver of
Life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Follow.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A sermon preached on Luke 4:14-21 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2010;
revised 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-27068979334013722072019-01-19T17:14:00.003-08:002019-01-19T17:14:47.551-08:00Leather and Justice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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artin Luther King Weekend in Washington always coincides
with Mid-Atlantic Leather. Or I should probably say that the organizers of the
latter have for years placed the event on the MLK Birthday weekend.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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At first it would seem incongruous—a community that most of
society would look upon as curiously fetishistic—focusing on things not in the
slightest way linked to the great causes of Dr. King. Indeed some probably
would think, if they gave any thought to it, that leather-loving men and women
ought to be ashamed of partying when they ought to be taking cues from the holy
example of Martin Luther King, Jr., trampling down the now virulent rise of a
new wave of racism and allied injustices.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlFxu9XTW5DHCDd9q3GyududlfvsHL5xyoCmfewbH4UZrt2FJm22MbD_MlboPIuNDgdkbMKoxaumpqSfG6aoZoiDl6RjI_lGv8GiLujEmy_o33Wp2EZnI9yyk2TipwlFJapIPrg/s1600/Gay+Leatherman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="490" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlFxu9XTW5DHCDd9q3GyududlfvsHL5xyoCmfewbH4UZrt2FJm22MbD_MlboPIuNDgdkbMKoxaumpqSfG6aoZoiDl6RjI_lGv8GiLujEmy_o33Wp2EZnI9yyk2TipwlFJapIPrg/s200/Gay+Leatherman.jpg" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The face of leather is not always fierce.</td></tr>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<br /></div>
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Granted, I might be erecting "a straw man" just to
knock him over by bringing up a subject that is far from the top of people's
consciousness by and large. But that it precisely why I'm commenting on it
today. I'm giving my life to work for the liberation of people from the shame-laden
traps in which they're caught, traps erected by social forces that see no
earthly good in subcultures heavily populated by sexual minorities as the
leather community is. I'm giving my energy to encourage wholeness that can only
come when we accept every part of ourselves, not just those that cut the muster
in whatever now passes for polite society.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A huge part of that process of liberation is overthrowing
the idea that great spiritual ideals—indeed the practice of a spiritual life—is
incompatible with erotic energy, which sometimes finds expression in fantasy
and fetish as well as in more domesticated places like the marriage bed. Indeed
one of society's ills—I speak of globalized Western society in particular, but
there are others—ills largely undiagnosed and thus untreated is the continual
repression of erotic energy. No, I'm not talking about "sexual
energy" and calling it "erotic" to sound intellectual. Erotic
energy is Love, and Love has many forms and faces, its sexual visage being only
one. As Carl Jung once said, eros is not about sex; it is about relatedness.
Little wonder that we are a society shredded between extreme wealth and
grinding poverty. No wonder at all that we are prey to forces that constantly
stir up division and tear us asunder. Hatred of men for women and women for
men; disdain for people who we imagine to be threatening a sacrosanct way of
life; active persecution of minorities; shaming of those who are differently
colored and those of different abilities than the majority; exploitation by
those in religious and political authority of vulnerable people in their care
and charge: credit that to a huge and devastating mismanagement of erotic
energy. Someone once called sin "trampled-on love." Those things
warp, twist, stomp on, degrade, and ultimately trash love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1MgBFBZTUpqVTLtiViZ1AzkD6zpqUjSTs2gC13hZiFACWL6kO4EpRi-GzNFvIelygoHeiwZgBz5xmfTmzG15S-MlKwz7k1xLbHs5nB0c-cpHbp62Hg6RvFAsfHHmLiZVh69iKTg/s1600/martin_luther_king31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="997" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1MgBFBZTUpqVTLtiViZ1AzkD6zpqUjSTs2gC13hZiFACWL6kO4EpRi-GzNFvIelygoHeiwZgBz5xmfTmzG15S-MlKwz7k1xLbHs5nB0c-cpHbp62Hg6RvFAsfHHmLiZVh69iKTg/s320/martin_luther_king31.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Only love can drive out hate."</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
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I celebrated today. I celebrated Mid-Atlantic Leather
weekend by enjoying a brunch with dozens of other men gathered in a
non-pretentious and lovely home, who took the occasion to make contributions to
"Brother Help Thyself," a community-based organization that provides
financial and other support to non-profit organizations serving the LGBTQ and
HIV/AIDS community in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. metro area. Most people
there came dressed in leather to one degree or another. And conversations were
what you'd expect of any social gathering--who was doing what, where people
lived, what they were working on, what their plans were for 2019 and so on. In
other words, dress aside, we were just human beings having a great time. Government
workers, physicians, therapists, clergy, architects, writers, and lots of folk
about whom I have no clue: we were all brothers celebrating membership in a
community, drawn by the peculiarity of liking a special commodity made possible
by the larger brotherhood and sisterhood of animal life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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At that brunch I was just as much celebrating Martin Luther
King, Jr. His was a life and a witness to liberation from all forms of
oppression. Had his life not been cut down in its prime, he would have waged battles,
as indeed he had begun to do, that were far larger, wider, harder than even the
Civil Rights struggle that gave him prominence. His witness consistently called
out the evils, often unconscious, that cheapen human flesh and quench human
spirit. Most of the guys chowing down on brunch today were men who have
discovered the stellar brilliance of abandoning conformity to be themselves. I
don't imagine that one soul there would disagree with these words of Dr. King:
"You know, a lot of people don’t love themselves. And they go through life
with deep and haunting emotional conflicts. So the length of life means that
you must love yourself. And you know what loving yourself also means? It means
that you’ve got to accept yourself."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The future of justice hinges on the strength of Love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-1143191719064549902019-01-15T10:31:00.003-08:002019-01-25T15:17:49.504-08:00More than Hand-wringing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I think it was Robert McAfee Brown who wrote back during the
Viet Nam War that he really looked forward to the day when he could get back to
theological reflection and writing, but that he felt compelled to speak out
about the injustice and cruelty of war for as long as it took.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I feel something of the same way about these days. For over
two years now I have awakened every day thinking that the news could not
possibly be worse than the day before. Somewhere along the line I noticed that
the thought was utterly vain. The news is indeed always worse, more dire than
the day before. Surely there are bright spots here and there, stories of
heroism, reports of generosity and kindness, spotlights shown on neighbor
helping neighbor. Yet I would be remiss, and so would you, to let ourselves
become more than momentarily distracted from the serious disintegration of
American democracy that is accelerating alarmingly. There yet may be a Day of
Reckoning in the offing, but until it dawns, we are awash in the dark and
troubled waters of lies, deceit, delusion, and the degradation of public
discourse. And those are just symptoms of a thoroughgoing sickness, a
pernicious malady deep in the bones on our communal life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ah! Communal life! One of the brightest and most articulate
scholars I've known at close range in recent years is Charles Lawrence, a
former parishioner of mine and erstwhile professor of law in Georgetown
University. He made the comment once that the purpose of the Constitution was
to create community. I agree, although to be sure those were not the terms used
at its inception. I also know well, and he much better, that the Constitution
was skewed in the direction of protecting the interests of the rich and
powerful, notably the then slave-holding population that begged to be placated.
And thus the evil of human debasement was written into the fabric of this
otherwise laudable document that attempted for all that to create community, a
true commonwealth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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We have lost much of what the promise held. Not everyone
has, by a long shot. There are still signs of hope that not everything of worth
is diminished. But still the troubles we have that cluster around a
belligerent, foolish President and a dysfunctional White House are much deeper
than the players themselves. Not until we undo years and years, decades now, of
idolatry fixated on the accumulation of wealth (always at the expense of the
poor and powerless) will we even begin to touch the root causes of a decaying
civilization.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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The young will scorn me for being far too pessimistic, as I
would have myself when my eyes sparkled with hope for a future bright with
opportunity. Those who have lived as long as I know, or should know, that there
are no men or women riding white horses that will prance in to save the day, no
leaders that can turn this heavy-laden ship of State around in a few short
years. We might end the stupidity of shutting down the world's most powerful
and once promising government. We might address even some hard problems such as
health care for everyone. We might restore some respectability of the United
States of America among the nations who now fear that we've lost our minds or
laugh us to scorn. But the real crisis that we face is not a pathetic band of
abused and war-weary immigrants pleading for asylum and some measure of
economic opportunity. The crisis is the now practically uncontrollable
degradation of the environment, the wanton exploitation of natural resources,
and above all the widening gap between the shrinking percentage of
wealth-holders and the burgeoning ranks of the economically oppressed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">We can do more than wring our
hands. We can do better than fight each other. We can call ourselves to
remember the community that we were created to be and to become. And at the
bottom of the stack lies the possibility that we can stop making deals with
Death that so frequently is made up and decorated to look like Life. We have
the power to bore more deeply into our souls and to start the reconstruction of
the world by the reordering of our Selves. It won't happen as long as we tune
out, cop out, drop out, and resign our rights and powers to those who only care
about feathering their nests. And it won't happen as long as we dam up the Love
within us, afraid that should we try loving for a change we might lose what
little we have. It was always true and it always will be that giving ourselves
away is the only hope we have of ever finding ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 7.5pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2019</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-3402593517998110752018-11-22T12:16:00.001-08:002018-11-22T12:16:53.960-08:00Moved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<br /></div>
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I noticed her out of the corner of my eye. She was to me
just a random person taking a seat a foot or two away from me, both of us
facing the window in a Starbucks, I looking out on a sun-flooded street on a
cold morning the day before Thanksgiving. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I was looking out until she came up, and then I did what I
always do. I checked to see who had alighted near me. There was nothing unusual
about her. Maybe thirty, perhaps or a tad younger, she wore a gaily colored
backpack. She opened up the small bag and partially pulled out a breakfast
sandwich. She closed her eyes. Theoretically she could have been thinking of
anything, but I knew somehow that she was silently offering a prayer. My eyes,
after a second, resumed their gaze on the bustling corner of 20<sup>th</sup>
and L Streets. Something in me said that to look further would be somehow to
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Why seeing this stranger pause and shut her eyes before
biting into a sandwich would affect me at all I have no idea. It occurred to me
that she might have been practicing something that she’d learned as a child,
much as I had, to pause before eating to frame a thought or word of gratitude. I
thought it, but for no longer than a nanosecond. I glanced at my phone but
somehow didn’t want to go away from the Presence nesting near me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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She rose after a bit, gathered her things, left. Still
looking out the window, I saw a totally unremarkable woman wearing a bright
backpack and green pants walk towards the corner, wait, cross the street, and disappear
behind a truck blocking any further view of her. I continued looking out at the
street, the morning, the passersby, the traffic. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For reasons I will never know, or maybe for no reason at
all, I could only feel surging affection rising up inside me. It felt, well,
like love, and seemed almost to have a sound as it crept higher past my throat.
A tear spilt onto my cheek, and then another, and another. I sat stunned at my
own body’s response to something so inconsequential I didn’t know what it was. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet I did know. I do know. I saw a stranger pause in
something that seemed like gratitude. It was her pause that touched me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-50749917425138724192018-10-31T14:35:00.000-07:002018-12-09T19:17:18.661-08:00Finding Vision<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Miss Kathleen Frazier lived on Bedford Avenue in Altavista,
Virginia, in the house where most likely she had been born.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">She had a spare bedroom with a private bath,
left vacant by her mother’s death just a year or so before I was to occupy it after
my sophomore year in college.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I came to
Altavista to be the summer intern at the local Methodist church.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The lay leader of the congregation met me on
a late spring Sunday evening and after initial pleasantries headed with me down the
block towards Miss Kathleen’s house.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“I
should tell you,” said he, “that the lady you’re going to be staying with is
blind.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">She can see a little bit, but
she’s practically totally blind.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And he
added, “You’ll discover what an amazing person she is.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miss Kay, as she was known, had spent her entire adulthood
as a music teacher in Altavista Elementary School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She walked there and back every day that
school was in session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She sang in the
church choir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was phenomenally well
read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I would pass her room and
see through the open door her sitting with a huge volume of Braille in her
lap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She frequently commented on what I
was wearing or how I looked particularly good in the color blue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day she commented on a novel I had left
beside the chair in which I’d been reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> She didn't much like it.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5VdyLlF3N5bZVB4j8Zn2VQq2SZDHAXy60koWGEuQ2q64OqsTooPNhJU9ha33ZY6C8K1RK-a_RYzoTF-mR1_pUlOK_25NeRMasHqIklqDegcs0snFRQkwrjMiHz3v1bssrQO3ZYw/s1600/OldHandsBraille_book-300x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5VdyLlF3N5bZVB4j8Zn2VQq2SZDHAXy60koWGEuQ2q64OqsTooPNhJU9ha33ZY6C8K1RK-a_RYzoTF-mR1_pUlOK_25NeRMasHqIklqDegcs0snFRQkwrjMiHz3v1bssrQO3ZYw/s1600/OldHandsBraille_book-300x200.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She sometimes had a huge volume of Braille in her lap.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In retrospect, the most valuable lesson that Miss Kay taught
me was how ambiguous blindness is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be
sure, there is a vast difference between total blindness and partial blindness,
however limited the latter might be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
I realized very quickly how much I saw but did not truly look at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to realize how much more she, nearly
totally blind from birth, actually perceived than I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bartimaeus in the gospel story told by Mark was a blind
beggar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently he had once been able
to see, for the favor he asked of Jesus was “let me see again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blindness in the gospel narratives is
paradoxical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The blind can frequently
see what the sighted miss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The vignette
about Bartimaeus is about exactly that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His is the only instance of a healing story in Mark’s gospel where the
person healed is actually named.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he
is the one in this early gospel who first calls Jesus by the Messianic title
“Son of David.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So on one level the
story is about names and identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hold
on to that thought because, as we shall see, it has something to do with the
central point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mark’s terse prose doesn’t tell us how Bartimaeus knew about
Jesus, although at this point it is not at all unusual for his fame to precede
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The picture Mark paints is of a
noisy crowd of people who are surrounding Jesus on his way out of Jericho.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all the commotion, Bartimaeus finds out
that it is Jesus of Nazareth who is passing by, and that is enough to ignite
his enthusiasm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He begins shouting,
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe the crowd is used to loud-mouthed beggars and therefore used to
putting them down and shutting them up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or maybe Jesus is carrying on a conversation or doing a bit of teaching
along the road—we can speculate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
could be, too, that the implication here is that Bartimaeus is using a
politically sensitive title which the crowd is eager to avoid lest the
authorities get worked up about Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whatever the case, Bartimaeus is not about to hush. He just gets more
insistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Son of David, have mercy on
me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhEmC3PPUaoG-OAeJxyQEhdc-5d1EE26fduADqSzTsQ7Q1T4K6KveRaT1Nlg8o1JCoaxAGfP30nUnL1GPVqpM0PzSn_Rdl0dM5gBWOhBqB_CbC4wsDF6B_tfvn8un8MMDv6GS-Gw/s1600/blind.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhEmC3PPUaoG-OAeJxyQEhdc-5d1EE26fduADqSzTsQ7Q1T4K6KveRaT1Nlg8o1JCoaxAGfP30nUnL1GPVqpM0PzSn_Rdl0dM5gBWOhBqB_CbC4wsDF6B_tfvn8un8MMDv6GS-Gw/s1600/blind.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Son of David! Have mercy on me!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The most dramatic moment in the narrative begins when Jesus
simply stops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stands still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, too, might be more than a tiny gloss on
the main theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Call him here.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By this time in the story, it is becoming
clear that this story has a function that far exceeds that of another miracle
story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Call him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That tips us off that on another level this
story is one about vocation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is about
a calling and a response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Take heart, cheer
up, Pal. He is calling you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with
that the moment arrives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bartimaeus in a
gesture which seems to be brimming with enthusiasm indeed does take heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He throws off his old cloak and comes to
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s pause the action for a
second and take stock of what Bartimaeus is doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, he has opened his voice full throttle
and cried for mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has persisted in
crying despite the crowd’s attempt to silence him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And finally he springs to his feet and
throws off that trademark of his beggarly life, the cloak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that way, Bartimaeus stands in marked
contrast to the rich young man whom we recently saw in this gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Jesus invites him to come follow him,
the young man goes away sorrowful for he has great possessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bartimaeus, it would seem, is not only ready to
give up what he has of a life but knows that if he is ever to see again he must
seize the moment without second-guessing whether it will work out for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus repeats the question which he put to James
and John when in the story immediately preceding this one when they too come to him asking
for something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What is it that you want
me to do for you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus asks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so he asks that question of Bartimaeus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, too, is key to the meaning of this
story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What exactly do you want?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what do you imagine that Jesus has to do
with whatever you desire?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James and John
were quite prepared with their request.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a word or two, they wanted status and prestige, place and honor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disciples, even members of Jesus’ inner
circle though they were, they had no grasp of what his Way entailed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps Bartimaeus doesn’t know either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he knows that he wants to see again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unlike the other story of a blind man being healed in this
gospel, this one has no account of Jesus laying on hands or using spittle or commanding
that someone go wash in order to gain sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He simply says what he often does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Go your way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your faith has made
you whole.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The implication here is not
that faith is about believing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>but
rather about believing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Modern Christianity by and large doesn’t
get that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People spend enormous energy
arguing about what is correct or not, what is God’s will about this or that, how
you ought to think or how you should behave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faith
is never really about those things, at least not centrally so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is about giving your heart, which is the
root meaning of belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My God, accept
my heart this day and make it truly thine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is quite literally falling in love with this indescribably wonderful
Force that brings all things into being and keeps the universe in motion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is this love that heals and saves
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvG70UCyazrb3hyc6v0f2RKS7s8k-cz27E7vpmdPeoeyNTlPqF0zP6oO1XROV3-iCJQVWCvsZFOIhWCTAfeeAXY8iHK3F3WSRIS16aw48CMW0tFfLkvQbfNjMCg3OyL4nPf2vE2A/s1600/hiking-to-jericho-from.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="550" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvG70UCyazrb3hyc6v0f2RKS7s8k-cz27E7vpmdPeoeyNTlPqF0zP6oO1XROV3-iCJQVWCvsZFOIhWCTAfeeAXY8iHK3F3WSRIS16aw48CMW0tFfLkvQbfNjMCg3OyL4nPf2vE2A/s320/hiking-to-jericho-from.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The way" from Jericho to Jerusalem is incredibly steep. <br />
The way of Jesus is even steeper.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now the denouement of the story is that Bartimaeus, whom
Jesus gives the command, “Go <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your</i>
way,” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>actually uses that freedom and his
restored sight not to go his way but to go Jesus’ way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Mark ends this passage with the thought,
“He followed [Jesus] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on the way</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I said earlier that we’d return to the matter of identity
and names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus
is quoted in a number of places making “I am” statements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am the Good Shepherd.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am the bread of life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am the true Vine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of that is at all accidental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But frequently, though not in the beginning
so much, the Church has understood those statements to be about the uniqueness
of Jesus as contrasted with the rest of us. But the issue is not ever that
Jesus is about arrogating power to himself, or even asking to be
worshiped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rather asks that his
disciples <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">follow</i> him. And to follow
Jesus inevitably means joining him in the way that leads through suffering and
death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point is to sign on to his
cause, not just his benefit package.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus is on the way to suffering and death precisely because he has
chosen to identify with the poor, the blind, the marginalized, the outcast, the
ones who have been chewed up and spit out by the unholy alliance yoking
political power and religious authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who would be lingering in the background here upset at a messianic title
being used to address Jesus?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know
who.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those in power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make no mistake about it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus is going to Jerusalem and, as he
himself predicted to his spiritually blind disciples, be killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the reason is simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His teaching and preaching directly liberated
those who were society’s poorest and least powerful in many cases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His is a kingdom truly not of this
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is made of people like those
little children in the story immediately preceding the one about the rich young
man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Let the little children come to me
and don’t stop them, for to such as them the kingdom of God belongs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is the way that Bartimaeus chose to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus became not only the healer but the Way
himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did Bartimaeus stick with Jesus
through the coming crisis?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was he there
during the last week, or did he revert to the old life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What we do know is that Bartimaeus for a tiny
little slice of the gospel narrative embodies the essence of the faithful
disciple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He follows Jesus on the Way,
and all who do that discover that the Way is indeed Jesus himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is, for every Bartimaeus among us, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My</i> teacher, Rabbouni.” He is the
model.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our model.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do not believe I need to tell you that the deck is stacked
against Bartimaeus today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if
Bartimaeus is, as I have said, the kind of disciple that really gets it, gets
the truth, and acts on it, then those like you and me who are paying attention
to this formerly sightless beggar might be aware that there is a virulent
hatred, growing in today’s world, of noisy beggars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beware if you are an immigrant, a foreigner,
or a person who does not serve the purposes of those in political power or
religious authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be careful if you
sit by the roadside because you are a refugee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But in a wider sense, blessed are you when people revile you and
persecute you and tweet all manner of lies and evil against you falsely, and
claim that you are undermining the system and threatening the security of
everyone who matters. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just observe who it is who is standing dead still and
calling you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Calling you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Calling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Rejoice and be exceeding glad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For great is your opportunity once you take
that first step on that steep climb from Jericho to Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will have a new identity,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and gradually a reworked
self-understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And most of all, you
will have a vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will be able to
see again, and the first thing you’ll behold once your vision comes, is Jesus,
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rabbouni</i>,” <i>your</i> teacher.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A sermon preached on October 28, 2018, on Proper 25, Year B, of the Revised Common Lectionary. The Text is Mark 10:46-52.</span></i></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2018</span></div>
Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-84141114820833433572018-10-01T08:50:00.001-07:002018-10-01T08:52:24.794-07:00He's Not One Of Us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“He isn’t one of us. Neither is she.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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We somehow seem unable to get away from tribalism. If you
are a member of our tribe, well and good. If you’re not, you have to prove
yourself, if that’s even possible. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszn7hWSypcw-EU0xAh4y70zRB1DqFatOc4pVps9R2ZvNe8b11FI592d-gO5kzD96syK9xWD6emKeIOykGJNkml8SArDtoMz1kHevgTXU7GkhMReukknnjClYZA0NzofH_PCNFxA/s1600/tribalism1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszn7hWSypcw-EU0xAh4y70zRB1DqFatOc4pVps9R2ZvNe8b11FI592d-gO5kzD96syK9xWD6emKeIOykGJNkml8SArDtoMz1kHevgTXU7GkhMReukknnjClYZA0NzofH_PCNFxA/s400/tribalism1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We are all members of tribes of all sorts. <br />
Tribes meet deep human needs for bonding and affection.<br />
Tribalism becomes dangerous <br />
because it emphasizes commonality and is suspicious of differences.</td></tr>
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Tribal identity is so deeply embedded in human consciousness
that when any of us begins to dismantle the walls that separate tribe from
tribe, anxiety immediately rises, sometimes to a shocking degree. People who
have been taught to feel proud of the tribe they belong to don’t like it when
that identity is threatened. We all belong to a great many tribes of different
sorts. We’re Americans, and so we’re members of the USA national tribe. We
belong to a religious tribe or tribes, a racial tribe, perhaps an ethnic tribe,
a tribe of those who do a particular kind of work, a tribe that encompasses people
who live in a section of the country, the fans of a sports team, residents of certain
state, a particular neighborhood, and so on. All of these things make up the
identify of the “I.” As in “I am an American, a Nationals fan, a Southerner, a
man.” They don’t, however, have a great deal to do with who we are at our core.
Most of those things that we think we are come and go, many are negotiable,
some are exchanged rather easily, and none last past death. <o:p></o:p></div>
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That is what I think is at stake in the little snippet from
Mark’s gospel about the “alien exorcist”<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[Mark
9:38-40].</span> It wasn’t what he was doing. It wasn’t about the Name in which
he was doing it. The trouble was (for the disciples of Jesus) he wasn’t one of
them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI17EVtOD82QwSN4q_BtlKgL2t4ij1QomaGHG7VMcHoKLn94_oE3uE_Xhfh0MBSQ_fCWb7Xjl9Eb9-X39LkpFbnsEaiXVr5vS62gOBGV_UtMHUttrwnFfFI9YJKfFrBA4kh-npuw/s1600/EL_CLNativeamerican186_1_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="300" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI17EVtOD82QwSN4q_BtlKgL2t4ij1QomaGHG7VMcHoKLn94_oE3uE_Xhfh0MBSQ_fCWb7Xjl9Eb9-X39LkpFbnsEaiXVr5vS62gOBGV_UtMHUttrwnFfFI9YJKfFrBA4kh-npuw/s400/EL_CLNativeamerican186_1_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Native American dance being performed in an Episcopal Church.</td></tr>
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Times have changed since the first century. I remember a
comment made by one of my professors forty years ago when I was in seminary. He
said, “When the real ecumenical movement comes…” referring to the serious
interaction between Christianity and other religions, which had only just begun
to gather momentum in those days. Nowadays, there is enormous interest in the
confluence and differences among religious traditions and practices. People
gravitate to conversations about religious traditions for all sorts of reasons
and with all kinds of agendas. And while such interest is broad, it is still a
minority interest. Sometimes conventional Christians find themselves climbing
the walls when other traditions seem to be competing with, possibly even
altering or, worse yet, displacing the received norms of Christianity. I’m
thinking in particular of a General Convention of The Episcopal Church several
years ago in which Native Americans played a major role. To its credit, The
Episcopal Church has a laudable track record of having brought Christianity to
Native Americans without disparaging their own cultures and religious
traditions. As a result, there are small but highly significant examples of
Native American communities that identify as Episcopal, and who have brought
their music, art, dance, food, and symbol systems into the wider Episcopal
experience greatly enriching us. Some at General Convention, however, were
reportedly scandalized and horrified at what struck them as pagan and certainly
as non-Christian. That is not an example that exactly parallels the passage in
the gospel about the alien exorcist, but it comes close enough to make the
point: somebody is suspect if they appear to belong to a tribe other than ours.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lest you think this is not a matter of some urgency, I want
to tell you that my reading of culture these days is that it is imperative that
we find as much common ground on which to stand as possible. Otherwise,
fragmentation threatens to devolve into enmity and enmity into warfare on a
planet that cannot stand much more stress among its human inhabitants. Means of
killing whole populations are far too much available for us to imagine that
ideological divides are just backwater eddies that can’t have momentous
effects. <o:p></o:p></div>
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More to the point is who we imagine Jesus to be. I have
little notion that in a small slice of a single sermon I can say much that
would help you in revisiting your understanding of Jesus. But if I could say
only one thing it is that if Jesus is indeed, as Christianity insists, the
manifestation of the essence of God, then it is also true, even according to
our own scriptures, that the essence of God pops up in every culture, clime,
race, nation, and tradition. Jesus the man is or was a particular human being. Christ,
however, is the phenomenon that is experienced across lines and boundaries,
both in time and in space. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m saying nothing new here. Hear from the first chapter of
the Epistle to the Colossians these words: “He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation. For in him all things in heaven and on earth
were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
rules or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He
himself is before all things and in him all things hold together.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> That
is saying something far beyond one human life. It is a claim that what was
embodied in this one human being, Jesus of Nazareth, was a universal power that
touches and embraces all things. Everything holds together in him. So that is a
theological statement, a faith claim. But clearly it is at odds with any
attempt to make Jesus the private Savior of a select population. In confessing
Jesus’ uniqueness, the Early Church expressly found in him the glue that bonds
everything together. As the first chapter of John’s gospel says, “The light
that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enlightens everyone</i> was coming
into the world.” Jesus is not the private possession of a relatively small
slice of humanity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4nNcYQwjWezIX9ketmZyNx31DapmLX173vziu4-lbe80yW41kejL5dcWNSj-DPFm0Tc8e00KeBeAgq_UF0cy7-LILCnhaVLP9eaFIekoQVawEIx1viaywOz5HDs6QyxECf9Mssw/s1600/performing-a-mayan-religious-ceremony-in-coban-alta-verapaz-guatemala-bh2m97.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="640" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4nNcYQwjWezIX9ketmZyNx31DapmLX173vziu4-lbe80yW41kejL5dcWNSj-DPFm0Tc8e00KeBeAgq_UF0cy7-LILCnhaVLP9eaFIekoQVawEIx1viaywOz5HDs6QyxECf9Mssw/s400/performing-a-mayan-religious-ceremony-in-coban-alta-verapaz-guatemala-bh2m97.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mayan ritual in a Guatemalan forest</td></tr>
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One day in about 1977, I opened my mail and saw a flier from
a publisher that I didn’t know at all. It advertised a couple of books that
caught my eye. I ordered one entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return
to the Center</i> by Bede Griffiths, a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk who had
at that time lived in India for some time in a Benedictine community styled in
the manner of a Hindu ashram. The book turned out to be a brief exploration of similarities
of Buddhism and Christianity. Reading it began a new stage in my growth that
continues to this day. I have experienced a chain of discoveries of the truth
of Christ cropping up in all sorts of places and in unexpected languages. I’ve
found Christ showing up in a pagan ceremony of the New Moon, expressed in other
language, but acknowledged as old, crippling behavior was denounced and new
openness welcomed, much as in Christian baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve found Christ showing up as I’ve shivered
in a cold Guatemalan forest, warmed by a great bonfire, and have had hands laid
on me and prayers offered in the language of indigenous shamans in a Mayan rite,
not unlike the healing services that I hold as a Christian priest. The Truth of
Christ is universal. That is not to sell short the beautiful particularities of
Christian tradition as found in more familiar places, such as your favorite
parish church. But the idea is not nor ever has it been how people who attach
themselves here or there are better or closer to God than many others. Being a
Christian does not mean believing that yours is the only faith or the best. Nor
does bearing witness to the power of Jesus mean clobbering other people with a
Bible and proving them wrong.</div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg28Y3gP30Q_GpZhgF5qx_1oUDZypKz-d7tsbTyY57OrM8S2Qrpi2QyR8kEv0C4IXrKK3ME1js1s3c2XMVMUxbgGxO7ry4nYJVk110JqGQLMzuTK4XV4eL_LJ9pSgPH8JhgReu5Gw/s1600/nighttime+pagan+blessing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="700" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg28Y3gP30Q_GpZhgF5qx_1oUDZypKz-d7tsbTyY57OrM8S2Qrpi2QyR8kEv0C4IXrKK3ME1js1s3c2XMVMUxbgGxO7ry4nYJVk110JqGQLMzuTK4XV4eL_LJ9pSgPH8JhgReu5Gw/s400/nighttime+pagan+blessing.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sleep Blessing from a pagan source. <br />
Comparable prayers can be found in Anglican prayer books. <br />
Note the Trinitarian symbol in the above graphic.</td></tr>
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Some people who have looked carefully at the way human
consciousness operates have observed that the us-versus-them mentality is
inherent in early stages of development. We pass through such stages in our
pre-school and elementary school years. If the conditions for growth are
present, we learn how to make allowances for others who think and believe
differently from us. And if we continue to grow, we get on a path that brings
us farther and farther towards the place that we begin seeing that not only we
and other humans but also everything in creation actually is a part of a great
whole. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is a critical lesson to be learned in Jesus’ response
to his disciples’ concern about the alien exorcist. “They who are not against
us are for us.” That doesn’t mean that if some <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> against us we can drop all attempts at respect and
reconciliation and proceed to fight back. But neither does it mean that if some
are twisting and perverting the Christian faith, as indeed in my opinion is
happening on a frightening scale these days, that we have to play nice and not
push back. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Speaking of that, look at the next sayings of Jesus. What is
the point of the gospel if not to reconcile people to each other and all
creation with the God who actually manifests in every part of creation? If then
we participate in dehumanizing persons, treating them as inferior, ignoring
their suffering, disrespecting them no matter who they are, we are betraying
and outright denying the very gospel that we affirm by being baptized
Christians. Does it not send chills down your spine to hear “if any one causes
one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better to have a millstone
hung around your neck and be thrown into the depths of the sea?” Does that not
ring a bell very clearly to the mass mistreatment of children in the name of
the United States? In the name of the Church? And how do we so easily forget
that vulnerable children that wring our hearts and move us with compassion grow
up to be adolescents and adults who need to be loved and affirmed and fed and
clothed and cared for as well? Can our compassion not extend to them?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now you may see why these hyperbolic statements of Jesus
that strike us as impossibly hard, even irrational, are meant to shake us out
of our lethargy and to call us to full awareness of how necessary it is to
grow, to change, to stretch ourselves to live this delightful, joyful, playful
life of God that we simply can’t live without giving up our delusions, our
enchantments with tribal gods, our fixations on prejudices and pride that
separate us from our fellow human beings and cause us to depreciate creation. Is
it painful to leave our comfortable positions? It is like cutting off a hand. Is
it easy to revise our views of reality? It is like plucking out an eye, so hard
it is. Is it difficult to learn to love those whom we can’t stand? You bet. It
is like cutting off a foot on which we’ve stood for so long we can’t remember,
so long that we’ve forgotten that to hate is to stumble and fall, though it
masks as if it makes us taller and more powerful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is a story in the Orthodox tradition of a monk named
Peter who was known for his irascible temper. He prayed and prayed for God to
remove his anger from him. Finally he went into the church one day, confessed
his terrible anger, asked for healing, and heard the Lord speaking words of
assurance to him that he had been healed of his anger. Immediately on leaving
the church, Peter came upon a man who had been an irritant to him for years and
within seconds they fell into an argument and Peter lost his temper. Distraught,
he turned around and went back into the church, fell on his knees, and asked,
“Why, Lord, did you promise that I was healed only to let me again flare up in
rage at someone?” And he heard the Lord pose a question: “Peter, you didn’t
think that I would not give you the opportunity to use your new gift, did you?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Christian life is a life of growth. You have every day
new opportunities to part with old ways, shed old behavior, get rid of thought
patterns that really contribute nothing to your health and happiness, and live
differently. It doesn’t happen in a momentary conversion in which you are made
pure and perfect. It happens when each day you decide to use your new gift. Salt
is good, and you are salt. Yours and my gift is to make life in the world taste
better for all.</div>
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If we don’t do it, who will? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrqrcFPqFosE5VEHauTeBDurmdTWPLGK52pDvAD6MDB5_Rn6eDO847wotJn9oiGcmK6hf5wWj_sDAcCg9AUcTdg-NYOm0hf21fMErhQKSxMNR82-nwBG3WnhAZoa78mVA1wumfg/s1600/table+salt.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrqrcFPqFosE5VEHauTeBDurmdTWPLGK52pDvAD6MDB5_Rn6eDO847wotJn9oiGcmK6hf5wWj_sDAcCg9AUcTdg-NYOm0hf21fMErhQKSxMNR82-nwBG3WnhAZoa78mVA1wumfg/s320/table+salt.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Salt is good. But if salt loses is saltiness, how can you season it? You are salt."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon based on Mark 9:38-50, preached on September
20, 2018, on Proper 21 (Year B) of the Revised Common Lectionary.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=22230483#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Colossians 1:15-17.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-35945909366622487022018-09-15T17:39:00.002-07:002018-09-15T17:39:51.311-07:00Just As the Twig Is Bent, the Tree's Inclined; Or, the Value of Discipline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwwIaOvJ-ZFCV9f4Mswucef6gx7NMBKRuQe6qp0jxZZPvnJzbRvNRpuyYzbIkmbXjAdjPp7B9LC8swx0C1NFIZVTbnX7X8L3gMriB8FcEeCvgovXICHDo_yRXw2lKuB0MRXmr3Q/s1600/Girl+in+corner+sticking+tongue+out.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="1254" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwwIaOvJ-ZFCV9f4Mswucef6gx7NMBKRuQe6qp0jxZZPvnJzbRvNRpuyYzbIkmbXjAdjPp7B9LC8swx0C1NFIZVTbnX7X8L3gMriB8FcEeCvgovXICHDo_yRXw2lKuB0MRXmr3Q/s320/Girl+in+corner+sticking+tongue+out.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I don’t know it for a fact, but I’m reasonably sure that
discipline is not a topic that generally appeals to people these days. Of
course there are exceptions. Many of us value the discipline of learning a
skill or an art, the discipline of running, or the discipline of regular yoga
or gym visits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Discipline generally doesn’t
seem to be a bad idea if it is a way to manage ourselves the way we wish to be
managed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if even for a moment
discipline suggests something that somebody else is meting out, a punishment or
corrective of some sort, well who does like that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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And right off the bat that is a stumbling block for talking
about something that in most contexts poses a problem but is integral to a
truly spiritual life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such is
discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRoOKNa0zVGpR_BGVxev1u0AKYsE_MM0eeHYmVwNnR9i6dx4UTABewNJroiobqvXmEalI8pgYsierZ3SkSxZMnOJn6ZP3lEYs6f1eqci6vES3ilysbsLiYHZknGnArCESgAH1iw/s1600/Luther.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="900" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRoOKNa0zVGpR_BGVxev1u0AKYsE_MM0eeHYmVwNnR9i6dx4UTABewNJroiobqvXmEalI8pgYsierZ3SkSxZMnOJn6ZP3lEYs6f1eqci6vES3ilysbsLiYHZknGnArCESgAH1iw/s200/Luther.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin Luther</td></tr>
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We are in that time when every third year we get a crack at
reading the Letter of James.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luther
despised the Epistle of James, calling it an epistle made of straw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luther was on the wavelength of St. Paul,
especially when it came to being saved by grace through faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He didn’t have any patience with James’s
emphasis on works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frankly, I think that
although James has only a few pages of the New Testament to his credit and Paul
more than half of it, James actually won out as the major force in
Christianity, which is almost always far more enchanted with works, behavior,
practical approaches to everyday problems than with more abstract ideas such as
“walking by the Spirit” or “putting on Christ through baptism.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I like Paul well enough, indeed very much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But James serves us well by pointing to the
actual practice of Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
writes in some depth about the human tongue, one of the more powerful and
dangerous members of the body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James
gets a bit carried away writing about the tongue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One wonders just what experience he had had
with the tongue, his own or somebody else’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Chances are he had been the victim of some gossip line, or had seen
others sliced to pieces by snarky so-called friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compared to wild animals the tongue is more
powerful than them all:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“no one can tame
the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whoa!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Strong stuff there, James.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
immediately softens just for a split second to remind us that with our tongues
we bless the Lord God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then he rapidly
reminds us that we stick our tongues out and curse those made in the likeness
of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I seriously doubt that anyone would find that a difficult
passage to accept as factual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you
have made it as far as kindergarten, you have probably encountered some
experiences that document what James is arguing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the issue is not so much what to do about
the tongue as a weapon as it is to look at the larger picture of what a
disciplined life really looks like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>James goes on to say much of what Paul says in his famous chapter on
Love, or Charity, 1 Corinthians 13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
way of Christ is the way of love, the way of humility, service, sacrifice, and
deference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James, like Paul, understands
that, whatever social context in which we live, that society frequently rewards
the opposite of those things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither
one, James nor Paul, was an American, but they might well have been talking
about American culture in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because in the grand scheme of things, this
culture, whose tentacles now reach into every part of the globe, in many ways prizes
competition over common endeavor, acquisitiveness over sharing, productivity
over idleness, activity above passivity, assertiveness over dependence,
self-protection over vulnerability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
many of those ways we are no different from the society to which the New
Testament writers addressed their letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although there are many things to which we can point that paint a very
different picture, at the end of the day the world is still driven by the
forces that amass power rather than by those that give it away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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You know all that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is impossible to be alive and awake in this world without knowing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of you indeed know it better than I.
Those who crow about empowerment have little regard for the virtues and ideals
of submission and passivity, both of which are integral to discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their skepticism is understandable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is unfortunately true that the powerless
have often been given a big dose of praise by the powerful for kowtowing to the
very forces that oppress them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reason that I go into that much detail about what I
think James is driving at, namely the way to live in accordance with the
example of Christ, is that it is absolutely necessary to see that the disciple
who follows Christ cannot do so without discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore that discipline is for the most
part counter-cultural.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If, for example,
following Christ—which is another name for the deepest part of your soul, for
the God that is is the God that lives in your very flesh—if following Christ
entails cutting your ties with family, with friends, with peer groups and
communities in order to be yourself and to do what you know you must do, don’t
expect that all of those folk will stand up and applaud you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will do everything in their power to
pull you back into the old familiar orbit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Less dramatically by a hair, if you embark on a lifestyle that differs
from the mainstream of your community, say, for example, by giving up a
lucrative career in order to advocate for people who are political liabilities,
you won’t necessarily get support and congratulations from your best high
school buddy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that brings us to the heart of the matter. It is called
the gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to the fierce,
daunting words of Jesus: “If any want to become my followers let them deny
themselves and take up their cross and follow me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those who want to save their life will
lose it, and those who lost their life for my sake, and for the sake of the
gospel, will save it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disciples are
those who follow Jesus, not those who merely worship Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To follow Jesus means precisely that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the stakes are pretty high. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In their amazing book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Last Week</i>, the late Marcus Borg and John Dominick Crossan trace the last
seven days in Jesus’ life, arguing that what got Jesus crucified was his
insistent advocacy for those oppressed by the collusion of the religious
establishment with political power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
was not despised and rejected by the common people, who heard him gladly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was despised and rejected by the powers
that gripped the defenseless and toyed with the vulnerable ensuring that they
were miserable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That sounds harsh, but
not nearly so harsh as the experience of being outcast, cut off, discounted,
shunned, and shamed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was to those on
the margins of health, wholeness, sanity, economic stability, and morality that
Jesus reached the farthest and the most persistently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following him means doing as he did and going
the way he went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are awfully lucky
if you do all that and don’t lose some skin doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOCA7fvaGHjKRyxAHNkvhfEjz-zCa-3jYujQB2I8Dmw7HNi5V5HgsY18Bj_DAdY3bkSgniFQgy-_7V3fNkJhyphenhyphenl-ooIXcGvAo9gZm4tWFVkXv-OsWCzrxSL0Rzl63ORQYB_xhSA8A/s1600/follow+Jesus.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOCA7fvaGHjKRyxAHNkvhfEjz-zCa-3jYujQB2I8Dmw7HNi5V5HgsY18Bj_DAdY3bkSgniFQgy-_7V3fNkJhyphenhyphenl-ooIXcGvAo9gZm4tWFVkXv-OsWCzrxSL0Rzl63ORQYB_xhSA8A/s320/follow+Jesus.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me speak plainly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because we are human beings, even at our most idealistic, we imagine
that what Jesus is talking about or what Frank is driving at is actually what
we already are doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are
progressive, liberal, justice-driven Christians then what else is there to do
but what we are doing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I were
preaching today in some very different context, let’s say at a posh Episcopal
church somewhere in suburban Alabama, I might rephrase that, saying something
like, “if we are upstanding, respectable, morally conservative,
responsibility-driven Christians then what else is there to do but what we are
doing?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you see my point?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am convinced that the telltale sign of
stale faith is self-satisfaction with who and what we are, to the point that we
overlook the necessity of undergoing disciplines that transform us into true
disciples. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Disciplines and practices abound. I actually have a list
that I sometimes give to individuals and groups that I work with on which
appear about thirty distinct practices that support a spiritually rich
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not all of them suit everyone, of
course, and the list itself is partial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which
ones fit us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which ones challenge us? I
invite you to consider three. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have found that a basic discipline for me, and I suggest
you might try it, is making a daily intention, saying it out loud, perhaps even
writing it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep it simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might be the same thing for days at a time
or perhaps for even longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned
from a British woman who has lived for a long time in Mozambique that her
neighbors in that African country habitually do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one thing</i> per day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
thing!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We by contrast have our to-do
lists and our reminders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, not many
of us are called to drop what we are doing and move to Mozambique, but we can
take a hint from that practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aim to
put all your energy into one central intention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And stick with it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another key discipline is to be courageous in examining
ourselves by the standard of love that we see in Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means building into regular observance a
daily regimen of self-examination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
idea is not to beat ourselves up about falling short but to discipline
ourselves to be as honest as we can be about our motives and our behavior, not
excusing or lauding ourselves, but being accountable for our attitudes and
decisions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meditate, journal, reflect
with a friend or partner, pray St. Ignatius’ examen, or review your baptismal
covenant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any of those things can support
the discipline of self-examination. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And a third one is, you guessed it, taking a cue from St.
James and bridling the tongue. The nubbin that I want to say about
tongue-taming is that the tongue actually takes its orders from the mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What we say, whether good or evil, originates
not in the conscious mind but in the pre-conscious or subconscious mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There isn’t a lot we can do about managing
what we aren’t conscious of, but we do have the option of feeding our inner
lives with quality soul food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be
honest, the biggest challenge for me right now is to wake up and do something
besides look at my phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I can’t pick it up to see whose
birthday it is on Facebook without running into a piece of news about some
tweet that sends me into orbit. I cannot be centered, balanced, and focused on
love if I spend much of the day hating Donald Trump and lambasting him to
myself silently or to others with the full force of tongue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent last week in a Zen center in New
Mexico, during which time I was for the most part totally unplugged from
twitters and posts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead I was
breathing, embracing others, listening, learning, and paying attention to my
body. Breathing, yoga, and some other physical disciplines are working for me
pretty well, much as did running daily for twenty-five or so years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What works or might work<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Luther might find all this far too mundane, too
“works-oriented” for his taste, and that’s just fine with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love the speculative, intellectually
reflective life, but there is a place where the rubber must hit the road if we
are to go anywhere at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For years I
wondered what on earth Jesus meant when he said that if I saved my life I would
lose it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have finally come to see what
he means, or at least I think so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
follow him as his disciple is to live the way he lived, to love the way he
loved, to confront others the way he confronted them, to risk everything
including life itself in order to find the deepest part of yourself, the
blueprint of your soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is to live
the life you are created to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Discipline is not for squelching yourself but for training yourself to
be fully you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, as Jesus put it, to
lose your life in order to find it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon for Proper 19 Year B on the texts James
3:1-12 and Mark 8:28-38.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-17451559625720812992018-08-25T17:53:00.000-07:002018-08-25T19:06:08.548-07:00But, By God, We're Here<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOsM1epipLttawLJi2NnkFcWWv5q2ryFWubSsh1sAu3mCVMdzM-zrBzfm8QHJXEVexwSarw28cbvqCW1BK9D4iI5Qc359g0Sik4MEnvi0YZnKHad_ba8yhPFywpjb6_bHgeui6Fg/s1600/Color+Purple+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="920" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOsM1epipLttawLJi2NnkFcWWv5q2ryFWubSsh1sAu3mCVMdzM-zrBzfm8QHJXEVexwSarw28cbvqCW1BK9D4iI5Qc359g0Sik4MEnvi0YZnKHad_ba8yhPFywpjb6_bHgeui6Fg/s320/Color+Purple+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Women in Alice Walker's <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Color Purple, </i>the musical</td></tr>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It seems in some ways that the ordination of women in The
Episcopal Church is still relatively new.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In other ways, it is difficult to remember a time when women weren’t
ordained.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I remember that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed I lived through the tumultuous years leading up to the ordination
of eleven women in Philadelphia in 1974. I was ordained a priest in 1971 in my
sixth month as the curate at St. Martin’s Church, Charlotte, North
Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St. Martins’ was the home
parish of Carter Heyward, an exact contemporary of mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carter at that time was at student at Union
Seminary in New York City and was in the forefront of women pushing the Church
to ordain women to the priesthood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
myself had only recently come into the Church and like many converts, I
espoused Episcopal traditions with gusto.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of those traditions happened to be an all-male priesthood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know that I was solidly against the
ordination of women, but I certainly was no enthusiast for it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One Sunday in early July, 1974, I preached a sermon on the
gospel story of Jesus sending out his disciples two by two to places where he
himself was going to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I entitled it
“Disciples That Go Ahead of the Master.” I preached this sermon never even thinking
about or mentioning the hot-button issue of women’s ordination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carter’s mother, Mary Ann, was in church that
Sunday, as she usually was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever the
enthusiast for “the women,” as she put it, she immediately inferred that the
sermon was precisely relevant to women’s ordination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She asked for a copy of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>News came out in several weeks that eleven
women had been ordained to the priesthood in Philadelphia by three
bishops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of those women was Katrina
Swanson, who co-authored the liturgy we are using today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another was Carter Heyward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary Ann Heyward sent copies of my sermon to
all eleven of those women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within days,
I think, each one of them wrote me a personal note thanking me for my
support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is how I became an
advocate for women’s ordination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaOxreTZEfEyUoB-H2bzTi7CEXER8azjBgLb23uWuTgVZh6CDdYH3zjpCVwHOK4Q24LQp40tKtGp-Gvp4MAjT3LyGg-0_VSkhlSWnbTMynmGWzhQCkYHy1xhzISXZkHzzKTGDBAg/s1600/1974PhiladelphiaOrdinations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="300" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaOxreTZEfEyUoB-H2bzTi7CEXER8azjBgLb23uWuTgVZh6CDdYH3zjpCVwHOK4Q24LQp40tKtGp-Gvp4MAjT3LyGg-0_VSkhlSWnbTMynmGWzhQCkYHy1xhzISXZkHzzKTGDBAg/s400/1974PhiladelphiaOrdinations.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Philadelphia Eleven at their Ordination to the Priesthood <br />
July 29, 1974</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A year later, four more women were ordained in the Diocese
of Washington in St. Stephen and the Incarnation Parish, known for its highly
experimental liturgies, its unorthodox practices, its
hit-the-streets-and-demonstrate-for-justice-and-peace mentality, and especially
for its popular rector, The Rev. William Wendt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Father Wendt got into trouble with his bishop, The Right Reverend
William Creighton, and was brought up on charges for which he was tried in a
church court and ultimately reprimanded in the cathedral for his
disobedience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I never imagined in 1975 that I would one day serve the
parish of St. Stephen and the Incarnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2015, I was in my twelfth year as Senior Priest there when we
celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of the Washington
Four.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The three living priests who had
been irregularly ordained returned for a special liturgy and celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wonderful occasion brought together a
host of people who had been directly affected in one way or another by that
event in 1975 that had been so painful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The year before, Carter Heyward had come to St. Stephen and the
Incarnation to preach when we commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the
Philadelphia ordination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was all a
part of a year of commemoration<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
celebration that left me grateful that I had lived through the struggle, but
profoundly aware that I myself had been privileged to avoid any suffering of my
own, and that for only one reason:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
male.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is interesting to me that the first lesson chosen for
this liturgy is the story of Abraham’s agony over not having an heir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a story about trust, the theme of the
entire Abrahamic cycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trust is
integral to faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is a
sub-text to the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is implicitly
about an outsider, Eliezer of Damascus, Abraham’s slave who he thinks will be
his only heir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eliezer is only mentioned
in the biblical text in this connection, although there are rabbinical stories
about him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in the background of this highly
important story about the establishment of a lineage that was ultimately to become
Israel, God’s own people, who in turn were to be a light that shown for all
nations, there hangs the question about who along the way is left out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVBWrLeXWNgQw-wu1bTuSNQMdrgroHHBUNOYOw61lpsOkLur-ILapm4K8DdT4J8gVQhxuw9-SewAYDbizDOGNbbpnTvR_IrfEf4uNFbVQxX6GHRP5KOgYE_Zx0uOT9Py5e3bd6g/s1600/Zinn+History.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVBWrLeXWNgQw-wu1bTuSNQMdrgroHHBUNOYOw61lpsOkLur-ILapm4K8DdT4J8gVQhxuw9-SewAYDbizDOGNbbpnTvR_IrfEf4uNFbVQxX6GHRP5KOgYE_Zx0uOT9Py5e3bd6g/s320/Zinn+History.jpg" width="320" /></a>Several years ago a friend of mine introduced me to Howard
Zinn’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A People’s History of the United
States.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Howard Zinn was a professor
at Columbia University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His history is
history told from the underside, stories of the people who were the losers,
like the Native Americans, like Africans forced into slavery, like common
laborers of all races that rioted and frequently died for worker’s rights, like
children who were working in factories under awful conditions prior to the
passage of child labor laws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
amazed on page after page to learn of things no one ever taught me in school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nearly always the winners write the
histories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They tell their own story
about how they are powerful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They crow
about what they’ve accomplished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
recently have we begun to pay attention to the unsung heroes that have come
from the ranks of minorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there
are plenty of people who don’t like telling the stories of the so-called
“losers” one bit. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But they are not they gospel and that is not how the gospel
works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like it or not, throughout the
biblical story, God displays a preferential option for the poor and the
powerless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not the rich and
famous, but those who are the dispossessed, the marginalized, the forsaken who
turn out to be the recipients of special divine care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is what the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Magnificat</i> is about, Mary’s Song that we hear in the gospel today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reads like a manifesto for universal
economic and social justice. Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> a manifesto for
economic and social justice. Listen:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span class="text"><b><sup><span style="color: black;">51 </span></sup></b><span style="color: black;">You,
God, have stretched out your mighty arm</span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text">and
scattered the proud with all their plans.</span><br />
<span class="text"><b><sup>52 </sup></b>You have brought down mighty kings
from their thrones,</span><br />
<span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text">and
lifted up the lowly.</span><br />
<span class="text"><b><sup>53 </sup></b>You have filled the hungry with good
things,</span><br />
<span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text">and
sent the rich away with empty hands.</span><br />
<span class="text"><b><sup>54 </sup></b>You have <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>kept the promise you made to our ancestors,</span><br />
<span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text">and
have come to the help of your servant Israel.</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mary herself, a woman, or, more likely a teenage girl, is
the poster child for the powerless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
is female in a world dominated by men, young in a culture where age is revered
and children discounted or ignored, a Jew without vote or office in a nation
subjugated to a foreign imperial authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipJ98oVxHMqxVLGdAfJGCyJm0QLmeiD1HIUIQr74iUPh91GHPSAbNln6X0wrZMAFokOa-xDuFLBlOZRiZKQ3GewzQ0vZ4Zh5VxHy14OyU8k_EbcsVODK8_80Ajm8YJvItUhmhb_g/s1600/Color+Purple+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="630" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipJ98oVxHMqxVLGdAfJGCyJm0QLmeiD1HIUIQr74iUPh91GHPSAbNln6X0wrZMAFokOa-xDuFLBlOZRiZKQ3GewzQ0vZ4Zh5VxHy14OyU8k_EbcsVODK8_80Ajm8YJvItUhmhb_g/s320/Color+Purple+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"“Until you do right by me, I say, everything you even dream about will fail.” </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week I saw a production of the musical version of Alice
Walker’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Color Purple</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The climax of that story takes place at an
Easter dinner when the discounted, abused, downtrodden Celie declares her
independence and finally flies in the face of Mister, her oppressive husband,
as she announces that she is going to leave him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Celie curses Mister, an act of amazing
courage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enraged at being defied, Mister
yells, “Who you think you is? You can’t curse nobody. Look at you. You’re
black, you're poor, you're ugly, you're a woman, you're nothing at all!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But moments later when she is leaving, she
shouts back at Mister, “I'm poor, black, I might even be ugly, but dear God,
I'm here. I'm here.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is not an accident that this all transpires on Easter
Day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting around the table is the
whole cast of characters, all of whom, to a person, are walking in darkness and
the shadow of death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the case
with all human beings at one time or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even the most bedraggled of them sees and hears Celie claiming her
power and proclaiming her freedom, and some, notably the women, take fresh
courage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One laughs declaring she is
home again, back where she once belonged and was brave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another follows Celie’s example and declares
that she too is leaving, leaving her narrow immature dependency to become the
singer she believes she can be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
Easter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s resurrection. That is the
story of the power of God that we know as Christ breaking the bonds of death
and hell and rising victorious from the grave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happens again and again and again in lives like Katrina Welles
Swanson’s and Carter Heyward’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In lives
like Bill Wendt’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In lives like yours
and mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgo7jWdDeNCwHyZ8bNOUstVRlvgkYcEItac1PvxQ7uEPozJ0qeq58Lgpqfm7BY8P9mC6N94J7rgWuUk-zqheTpKR2qnhaneiCDj7zPJM0BdT-lqzWE8eF3WwmEkYe9otF_Xk1Zw/s1600/Women+Celebrating+Eucharist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="770" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgo7jWdDeNCwHyZ8bNOUstVRlvgkYcEItac1PvxQ7uEPozJ0qeq58Lgpqfm7BY8P9mC6N94J7rgWuUk-zqheTpKR2qnhaneiCDj7zPJM0BdT-lqzWE8eF3WwmEkYe9otF_Xk1Zw/s320/Women+Celebrating+Eucharist.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three of the Philadelphia Eleven Celebrating Holy Eucharist in Riverside Church, New York<br />
October 27, 1974<br />
L-R: Alison Cheek, Carter Heyward, Jeanette Picard</td></tr>
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And it will happen again in this nation of ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evil will prosper but for so long, but the
cause of Truth will triumph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is built
into the fabric of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
that fabric may be ripped and torn and trampled upon by the forces of darkness
and destruction and death, but that fabric will be mended by the only force
that ultimately breathes, namely Life itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truth and life and love will continue moving, however unsteadily and
haltingly, until the circle of life becomes wider and wider to include
everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only ones excluded are the
ones who exclude themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mighty
are cast down from their thrones not by some punishing god from a distant
throne but by self-will dedicated to the self’s destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rich are sent away empty not by the
Spirit but by their own choice to refuse the Bread of Life, which is Truth and
Justice, Mercy and Love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have seen
darker times and lived through scarier moments, many of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we may be poor, we may be black—or white,
we may be ugly—or beautiful, but by God, we’re here, we’re here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A sermon preached on the commemoration of the
ordination of women in the Anglican Communion on the texts </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Genesis 15:1-6 and Luke </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Luke
1:46-55.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Frankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.com0