The Day the Stones Sang Songs of Hope

Today I attended a lecture entitled Eclipse of Empires, Dawn of a New World Order, featuring two of UW-Madison's most prominent and (on this day) book-promoting professor's: Alfred McCoy and Crawford Young.

I cannot pretend to do justice to the remarkable conversation here, but a particularly compelling digression occurred over McCoy's observation that, with the decline of the U.S. as world empire a near-certainty (within 25-40 years, McCoy projects), a futuristic global empire is imaginable in which a global, governing class of wealthy, largely corporate, elite, navigate between high-profile cities as the masses are relegated to the margins, with economic disparity on a scale never before seen in the history of humanity, and governments relegated to contractor status for these dominant corporate powers.

The digression came in the form of another well-respected professor's suggestion that McCoy and Young were being too optimistic; that their "straight-line" projection failed to account for human depravity, world war, and a potential global economic collapse on par with the Great Depression.

As the professor spoke, it was hard not to hear echoes of the apocalyptic gospel lesson that began the Church's Advent season. Indeed, a friend recently preached his observation that, while the post-modern world finds end-time claims of faith traditions unintelligible, the post-modern world's vivid imagination for the end of all things is all too operative. "There will be signs..."

And then, as the conversation droned on, a most peculiar sign: bells, from the carillon tower just across the street, lifting up what I would have sworn - had I not known better, situated as we were in the heart of secularist UW - was a hymn. It was a hymn. And more than that, a laughably out of place hymn for a land and still holding the season's first snow. I began to mouth the familiar words: "Now the green blade riseth..." An Easter hymn. In the bleak of winter. In the face of annihilation and collapse, even faced with the revelation of the sin that makes the American empire possible. In the deep winter of the soul's despair. The very rocks crying out:

Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:

Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain,
Thinking that He never would awake again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:

Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,
Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain;
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:

Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Jesus' touch can call us back to live again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.


Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Simply and Slowly (on advent preparation)

“...the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord...’”

How does one prepare the Way of the Lord?

We know how to prepare, say, cakes - goodness knows this group knows that! (And I’m grateful.) We know  - or hope we know - how to prepare for exams, studies. A good essay is prepared with research or an outline. Ideally both, I suppose, but let’s not be picky. One prepares for a wedding with the help of friends, maybe a wedding coordinator, photographer, priest, and caterer. Cold weather is prepared for with a down jacket, and something substantial to cover the ears. My grandpa always swore by good socks. Game day preparations can differ greatly, depending on the sport, one’s mental approach, and whether one’s preparation is as athlete (warm-up and prepare the body) or as spectator (warm up the nacho cheese). We are endlessly engaged with all kinds of daily preparations, sometimes to our soul’s exhaustion. And even here, the simple preparation of ceasing preparations, requires toothbrush and floss before going to bed.

John has come to prepare the way. He cries out to  us, too: prepare the Way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

And I wonder how one does this.

I wonder about the various understandings, spoken or otherwise, that direct (for example) our Christmas preparations. In my family growing up, the season of Advent was greatly revered. No Christmas songs until Christmas, or until Mom put on Bing Crosby while dad was out running errands. On the whole, this approach meant that we mostly got ready for Christmas by not getting ready for Christmas. The not getting ready was the way we got ready; the not preparing was the preparing. It was all very Zen.

Of course, it’s not that we didn’t get ready at all; rather, in bold defiance of society’s worship of efficiency, productivity, and speed, my family taught me that, in some things, at least, timing matters and some matters take time; moreover, time and patience bring with them the humbling acknowledgement that we do not control God.

So the apparent tension of Advent - between waiting on the one hand and preparation on the other - can, perhaps, be held together. Expectant mothers, for example, know the truth, the secret, that the preparation is the waiting, the emptying; making room, physical space - like nurseries - and also temporal space, like stripped-down schedules that, while not neglecting life’s other commitments, are simple, bare, and expecting interruption. Preparation is making room for that for which one waits.

This is why, when John the Baptist comes preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins, so many Israelites flock to him, repent, and ask to be opened to the coming of God - because the preparation of repentance is a powerful kind of emptying that can open one’s eyes to the salvation of God.

‘...the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'

A friend told me about his recent trip to Uganda; he had been honored to preach at a service of baptism and confirmation. The bishop stood up and invited those who would like to be baptized and/or confirmed to meet him in front of the altar. Several dozen young teenagers rose to meet him. “You are saying ‘yes’ to Jesus,” the bishop observed. “Tell me,” he said, “in order to say ‘yes’ to Jesus, to what are you saying, ‘no’?”

Now, one could read this invitation as a simple retread of pietistic moralism, but I think that would be a mistake, to miss the larger challenge. It is not just bad sins or habits we put down in preparing for Christ; it is everything that, once set down, frees our lives to receive him. Put differently, Christians have no grounds for discerning good or bad habits apart from the measure of life lived with Christ.

I think, then, we are finally left with this question: What does life lived with God look like? This is why Advent begins with John, with Israel, the people of God struggling to live with God. Advent invites us to enter Israel’s struggle; to consider an intimacy with God closer than what we were initially prepared to take on. There’s that word again: prepare.

How does one prepare the Way of the Lord?

Preparation: not being asked to do more; maybe being willing to do less or to do what you are doing more slowly; making physical and temporal space; John asking us to re-envision all of our doings as preparation for - and eventual participation in - the three-fold mystery we don’t yet know: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

I wonder if you are among those whose preparation this Advent would be blessed by the emptying, the holy space-making, of repentance. I wonder if there are things weighing heavily on you for which the ear of a priest, spiritual director, or holy friend, listening on behalf of God, would aid your preparation, make room for his coming. I wonder if a part of your heart aches in a good way at the thought of the relief this might bring. I wonder if instead you are mindful of a particular relationship into which you might speak your desire for forgiveness.

I wonder also - as one preparing - how slowly you are willing to linger through the story of God this Advent. I wonder what room might open in you, simply walking, slowly through the pages, the landscape of shepherds, stars, camels, and kings until the story becomes alive and wild and strange. Words that you had not noticed the first time reframing your second reading. Preparing your third reading. Anticipating your fourth. Just of Luke’s first two chapters. I wonder if the commitment to memorize - carry in your person - a small portion of the story would open in your person a place for the One whose coming we prepare. Preparation is making room for that for which one waits.

John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord...’”

Amen.

SFH 12.9.12

Humility and Love's Acceptance

 

"It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am."

Muhammad Ali

In my most recent sermon/post, I found myself concluding that

Saints are not the ones who always get it right. Rather, saints are those who always remember their great, great need of God. It is the humility of the saints that protects them from presumption and so keep their eyes waiting, watchful, responsive, fixed on the horizon of Christ’s returning.

In addition to believe this conclusion to be faithfully in conversation with the lessons appointed for the occasion - the 1st Sunday of Advent - I somewhat accidentally found the emphasis on humility echoing the language of that Sunday's collect:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

It has been said that humility is almost too tricky to be helpful in practice because of the human tendency toward the extremes of self-loathing on the one hand and self-righteousness on the other: so humility is a kind of logical response to shortcomings and as damper to successes that have not proven themselves over time; that is, humility serves as an indicator of self-awareness in moral practice.

This operating definition of humility makes humility especially hard to talk about in Advent because Advent is no longer considered a strictly penitential season, and penitential seasons are when moral practice is most up for open conversation. Thus, that humility still comes up in our collects in Advent should make us question our presuppositions about humility.

The collect recalls us to the humility of Christ in his being born among us to Mary. The One without sin poured out such that the humility open to Christians becomes less self-loathing v. self-importance but rather life without God v. life united to him. And life united to God means life for the world as well. Advent calls Christians to the humility of love's acceptance.

All of which occasions my sharing a hymn that has become my daughter's favorite - one she asks me to sing to her at least three mornings a week - #277 - in the Hymnal 1982.

Sing of Mary, pure and lowly,
Virgin mother undefiled;
Sing of God's own Son most holy,
Who became her little child.
Fairest child of fairest mother,
God the Lord who came to earth,
Word made flesh, our very brother,
Takes our nature by his birth.

Sing of Jesus, son of Mary,
In the home at Nazareth.
Toil and labor cannot weary
Love enduring unto death.
Constant was the love he gave her,
Though he went forth from her side,
Forth to preach, and heal, and suffer,
Till on Calvary he died.

Glory be to God the Father;
Glory be to God the Son;
Glory be to God the Spirit;
Glory to the Three in One.
From the heart of blessed Mary,
From all saints the song ascends,
And the Church the strain re-echoes
Unto earth's remotest ends.

Stuff My Dad Says(1):an Advent homily

I wonder if you can think back to one or more especially quirky things your parents used to say with some regularity throughout your childhood. Maybe they still say them. Do you have a good one you’d be willing to share? It needs to be endearing/lame/memorable.

[When asked for an example: when Dad would set the table for dinner, prepare drinks, he'd find my brothers and me in the living room and say something to the effect of, "Well, what'll it be, boys? Juice? Or Gentiles?" I'll wait a second while you put it together. Ready? Good.]

As a young teenager, I would sometimes holler to my parents as I was leaving the house, “See you later. I’ll be back!” To which my dad would inevitably and dryly respond: “Is that a promise or a threat?”

Har har. Love you, too, Dad.

Tonight, we hear the news that Christ will come again, and I think about my dad. The image given to us in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, and again in Luke’s gospel, is of God’s people standing before the Son of Man, standing blameless before God the Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints. And hearing that Christ will come again - us, before the throne - I wonder my dad’s question: is that a promise or a threat?

On the one hand, clearly promise. Promise: à la Thomas Aquinas in that great hymn - hymn 314 of the 1982 Hymnal - “face to face thy splendor I at last shall see, in the glorious vision, blessed Lord, of thee.” Promise: that, on that great, last day, suffering and injustice will be ended, that God himself will dry every tear. Promise: that, on that day, all things will be reconciled, made whole, brought near to God. Promise: no more warring madness, both in the land and in my soul, but peace, the true peace, of the city of God.

On the other hand, threat. Threat: just to the extent that I sometimes act as if I will not ever be seen by God - or anyone else, for that matter - as I really am, and just to the extent that I sometimes enjoy, find relief in, this thought; the desire to flee, to hide, to escape; never fully eclipsing the instinct that Adam and Eve first learned in the garden.

I wonder if you have ever feared the coming again of another person, and who that person was. My parents used to leave my brothers and me with lists of chores when they would leave the house, things to do while they were away. The chores nearly always were left undone, or put off until the very end. We had reasons, self-inflicted, to fear their return. There are those of us who have more serious associations with fear and returns. Returns like the commotion of the drunken parent, back from God’s knows where, who might or might not have found the hidden baseball bat. Some people think of God’s returning like that. Or returns like the return of the loved one who has come back with tears in her eyes to accept the apology you know cannot undo the hurt you have caused her, and to give the forgiveness you know you will never deserve. I wonder if God’s returning has ever seemed like that for you.

Christ will come again.

There are some of us who, from time to time, long for the return of Jesus so that the others will finally get their just desserts, swiftly. Not just in a nasty way, but even in noble ways that are jealous to see justice and mercy lived out. The Psalms are full of examples like this. I suspect, though, that it is naive and dangerous to pretend that those others have offended God’s justice and mercy more often than I have.

Christ will come again.

There are even some of us who, from time to time, pray against the coming of Jesus so that we can get to do all the things we are planning to do before then. A good friend of mine in college - engaged - one day vocalized his fervent prayer that the second coming hold off just a few more weeks, at least, until he and his fiance were married and had enjoyed their wedding night.

I suspect my friend only said out loud what most of us quietly think about the end and Christ’s coming; reminiscent of Augustine’s brutally honest prayer: “Lord, make me chaste, but Lord, not yet.”

“Be on guard,” Jesus says, “so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation (that is, wasteful consumption) and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly.”

So here is the question to which these readings and this Advent and the thought of his coming and the standing before Christ keep calling me back: What about the way I hope to be then, standing in the full presence of God, am I putting off now?

What are the contours of holiness? What is its taste? Of the steps I take each day, which steps are in step with my growing understanding of who God is and who I am as God’s own? Which steps merely keep time? Which steps, when I am honest, make me doubt my desire for God? Would I be willing to surrender this last sort of steps?

And here, in the midst of this desire, that question, and honest, self-reflection, a last word about holiness and the practices that might sustain it in this life. It has been said of the saints that for all their pursuit of perfection, it is not their perfection that defines them. Saints are not the ones who always get it right. Rather, saints are those who always remember their great, great need of God. It is the humility of the saints that protects them from presumption and so keep their eyes waiting, watchful, responsive, fixed on the horizon of Christ’s returning. So it is the knowledge that they have been forgiven, for example, that becomes the generous stream of forgiveness flowing through them. It is God’s great love for them, shown chiefly in the humility of Christ born to us, that at the same time embarrasses and inspires them to love without hesitation or fear. It is exactly the brokenness, the weakness, of the saints that occasions their praise of the Great Physician. In each of these ways the lives of the saints grow an appetite for a fulfillment that must, in the end, come from outside of themselves, as gift from outside. So their lives expect, look for, live the yearning of, this gift: the promise of the presence of God.

Christ will come again.

Amen.

SFH. 12.2.12

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(1) I wanted to title this post something other than '"stuff" my dad says' (let the reader infer), but Rebekah tells me that, while culturally relevant, the preferred title is too edgy for a priest and, more than that, I risk losing the readership of the two or three of you who read the blog with any regularity. "Stuff" it is.

St Francis House 2012 Alumni Christmas Letter

St Francis House has just prepared its 2012 Alumni Christmas Letter. Written primarily for SFH alums, it nonetheless offers a snapshot for anyone interested in the work and ministry of SFH. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Alumni will want to especially take note of the upcoming Alumni Christmas Reunion Gathering, December 18th, with Bishop Miller, the SFH Board, myself, and invited, honored guests the Rev. Art Lloyd (St Francis Chaplain, 1968-77) and his wife, Sue. It promises to be a wonderful evening.

Click on the link above to access the full newsletter. For best resolution quality, download the PDF onto your computer.

 

On Forest Herbs and their Pollinators

The stars declare his glory;
the vault of heaven springs,
mute witness of the Master's hand
in all created things,
and through the silences of space
their soundless music sings.

 - Timothy Dudley-Smith (1)

I am Coffee Bytes just now, a few minutes away from my inaugural trip to Birge Hall, a block and half down University Drive from this coffee shop. Every week I try to sit in on an open lecture on campus. More than a few times, I have found myself in over my head. This one, at Birge Hall, is especially intimidating:

  

The influence of climate and land-use history on native forest herbs 

and their pollinators in the Southern Appalachians.

Yep. That's the real title. Admittedly, not my first choice, but schedules and availability play a part. I am finding that the commitment to be interested is itself a discipline - a discipline I am finding to be especially worthwhile.

Indeed, part of my intention in these visits is to witness the interest of the People of God in things that it might be easy not to notice, much less show an active interest in. Of course, for this witness to be sincere, the interest must be sincere. But this is actually the best thing about interest, I have found, because the interested one gets to decide what interests her/him. And there is a wonderful freedom in this.(2) One need not apologize for one's interests. So I come to these gatherings ready to say why the work interests me, and I come ready to listen to the interest of others because I am genuinely interested in that, too. 

My particular interest in the influence of climate and land-use history on native forest herbs and their pollinators in the Southern Appalachians is 3-fold:

Having lived in NC for three years, and honeymooned on Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, TN, I have a personal/geographical interest. I love the region.

Some years ago, Ellen Davis, Wendell Berry, and others, reawakened my imagination to the importance of land and place, and how we care for land and place, as Christians. This imagination has everything to do with daily life and how Christians read Scripture.

When I first read the lecture title, the words to the hymn at the top of this post surfaced from some far-off recesses of my soul. Hymn 431 was my "first favorite" hymn as a child. I found it difficult to sing and impossible not to love. I come to this lecture to learn more about the "soundless music" whereby creation livings its/our constant praise of God.

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(1) Hymn 431 in the Hymnal 1982
(2) I have sometimes found that, for fear of not knowing enough - or some similar insecurity - we in the Church don't indicate our interest in the interests of others nearly enough, to our mutual poverty. The Kingdom comes to those like children. Be not afraid.

"And what is this 'glory of the Lord'?"

In our worship for Christ the King Sunday, St Francis House observed a time of reflection in lieu of the homily. Specifically, the time was oriented to help us reflect on 1) the nature of the Kingdom of the Crucified King, and 2) the place this feast holds as the last Sunday of the year - and so at a time wherein examination of our own lives seems especially appropriate. To the first goal, we read an excerpt (below) from the Early Church in which themes of kingship, coming, Christmas, and cross are richly interwoven. To the second end, I asked three questions spaced over a time of silence. Following the silence, we collected ourselves and our intentions in the song at the end of this post, which rightly, I think, situates followers of the King whose glory is the cross.

A reading from a sermon of Andrew of Crete, Bishop and Hymnographer [740], from Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church, J. Robert Wright:

Let us say to Christ: "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." Let us hold before him like palm branches those final words inscribed above the cross. Let us show him honor, not with olive branches but with the splendor of merciful deeds to one another. Let us spread the thoughts and desires of our hearts under his feet like garments, so that entering us with the whole of his being, he may draw the whole of our being into himself and place the whole of his in us. Let us say to Zion in the words of the prophet: "Have courage, daughter of Zion, do not be afraid. Behold, your king comes to you, humble and mounted on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."

He is coming who is everywhere present and pervades all things; he is coming to achieve in you his work of universal salvation. He is coming who came to call to repentance not the righteous but sinners, coming to recalled those who have strayed into sin. Do not be afraid, then: "God is in the midst of you, and you shall not be shaken."

Receive him with open, outstretched hands, for it was on his own hands that he sketched you. Receive him who laid your foundations on the palms of his hands. Receive him, for he took upon himself all that belongs to us except sin, to consume what is ours in what is his. Be glad, city of Zion, our mother, and fear not. "Celebrate your feasts." Glorify him for his mercy, who has come to us in you. Rejoice exceedingly, daughter of Jerusalem, sing and leap for joy. "Be enlightened, be enlightened," we cry to you, as holy Isaiah trumpeted: "for the light has come to you and the glory of the Lord has risen over you."

What kind of "light" is this? It is that which "enlightens every one coming into the world." It is the everlasting light, the timeless light revealed in time, the light manifested in the flesh although hidden by nature, the light that shone round the shepherds and guided the Magi. It is the light that was in the world from the beginning, through which the world was made, yet the world did not know it. It is that light which came to its own, and its own people did not receive it.

And what is this "glory of the Lord"? Clearly it is the cross on which Christ was glorified, he, the radiance of the Father's glory, even as he said when he faced his passion: "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him, and will glorify him at once." The glory of which he speaks here is his lifting up on the cross, for Christ's glory is his cross and his exultation upon it, as he plainly says: "When I have been lifted up, I will draw all people to myself."

Questions for reflection in silence:

In what moment(s) or season of this past year did you feel closest to God?

What practice or practices were most up-building to you in your life of faith?

In the year ahead, in what particular area or areas of your life do you most feel/hear God calling you to grow or develop?