Why I'm Not (Even Trying to Be) the Greatest Parent

My daughter likes to tell me I'm her favorite dad. We laugh. I tell her she's my favorite Annie. And it's true. Occasionally, she'll tell me I'm the BEST DAD EVER (don't worry, she's not afraid either to tell me the opposite - haha). I don't always dispute her in real time, but she knows I don't agree, on principle. Even if she doesn't completely understand it yet (although I would not put it past her), she's heard me tell the story of Stanley Hauerwas' response to being named "America's Best Theologian" by Time magazine. "Best is not a theological category," he famously quipped. 

What to make, then, of the generalization of parenthood that occurs with Mother's Day and Father's Day? And the subsequent and unavoidable awkwardness of invoking absurd titles like, "World's Greatest"? The subsequent and poisonous insinuation that every movement, moment, decision, is taking you closer to or farther from the title? The demonic logic that would suggest that the success of your relationship with your parent or your child is comparatively determined? 

In a favorite Robert Earl Keen song of mine, What I Really Mean, the singer/songwriter describes to someone close to his heart but far from his travels the incredible adventures he's experiencing in his life on the road, each time saying something like, "You should have seen the crowd we drew in there!" Each time, though, he catches himself and says, "What I really mean is, I wish you were here." It's such a gift in any relationship when we catch ourselves leaning on clichés we don't mean, come to our senses, and then say the next true thing we can only truly say to that one. On the same token, the thing about titles like "the greatest" that's so sad is that they invite us to say the thing we didn't mean and sit silent on the things we did. 

It's been refreshing to see the cultural pushback against the Hallmark holidays this year, with the sensitivity that recognizes that these days can be painful for lots of reasons. I think the holidays are potentially as harmful, though, for the message they communicate to those for whom the days are pure celebrations; the relegation of a relationship to a comparative context can only confuse the multi-faceted uniqueness that makes a particular relationship special. And it turns out what really makes the relationship special many times has a tremendous capacity to hold pain and brokenness, incorporate forgiveness, growth, and/or redemption, and invite us toward a place of knowing and being known, even as we disappoint and, sometimes, deeply wound each other.

In a recurring theme of The Jesus Storybook Bible, the author says over and over that God's people were lovely. And they were lovely, because God loved them. It is such a wonderful description of relationship rightly valued, and cherished, from the inside out. May we know ourselves beloved of God and be known in love to one another, where "to me you will be unique in all the world."

St. Francis House Students Gather Friends, Give Away $3,000 for Children & Youth

It started with the observation of one of our student leaders: "You know, Jonathan, I'm only here at St. Francis House - I only walked through these student center doors the first time - because of people who invested in me and made opportunities for me and shared the life of faith with me when I was in middle school."

Middle school? I asked.

"Folks in my parish and people in my diocese, they made spaces for me, when I was a kid." He looked at me directly. "What's going on in this diocese?" he asked. Intuitively, he knew that it is hard to adequately capture the self-destructive effects of a church that does not visibly value and invest in the lives of children, youth, and young adults. Moreover, he recognized the commitment to do so as a central feature of every single baptism in the Christian church.

So, what is going on in this diocese? Wonderfully, there are many good things happening. Challengingly, these efforts can be difficult to coordinate and/or leverage across congregations. It is easy to miss the existing efforts. It is easy to feel discouraged. So many of carry in our hearts the adamant conviction that more is possible.

It's an interesting and important observation, that campus ministry is in some ways a rain gauge for waters that fell nine years before. Kind of how we observe the light of stars whose lives have already run their courses. In other words, we're all connected, both to one another and, within each person, across the seasons of a lifetime. All of the specialized silos of ministry we imagine unravel at the insight that the seasons belong to unified lives in the one Body of Christ, unfolding, growing, and flourishing in God's time.

What to do with this student leader's insight? We gathered the St. Francis House student leadership team and discussed possibilities. We landed on an outreach gathering in which we would invite friends from other "silos" across the diocese to help us give money away. It wasn't a fundraiser - the students were prepared to give away $3,000, no matter who showed up. Instead, it was a wall-leveler, a friends-in-ministry-locator, an evening to strengthen and encourage. The gift would be the people gathered and their help in directing our funds. And we would try to have as much fun as possible.

All of that is the backstory for how we ended up hosting 30 something folks from 16 churches and other faith communities from across the diocese on April 11 for an evening of creative outreach. Attendees helped us disperse $3,000 in 3 directions:

• Camp Webb scholarship money for first time attendees
• Resource money for the St. Francis House middle and high school lock-in, November 2-3
• Funds for students to attend the national Episcopal Youth Event in 2020

​We heard testimonies (yes, testimonies!) from a student who attended several EYEs, summer camp veterans, and parents who gave thanks for the Christ-centered support of others in the lives of their children. We shared photos and stories about the children who have shaped us and the people who made God's love known to us when we were children. We made sure everybody knew about the upcoming and 3rd annual Thrive conference, a summertime gathering of children's, youth, and young adult leaders at St. Francis House, this year featuring the Rev. Nurya Love Parish on July 20. (Spoiler: you can register here.)

By the end of the evening, despite our best efforts to not be a fundraiser, folks had added several hundred dollars to our efforts. We left a community connected (the lock-in found a music leader!), united, and inspired. And very much aware that the most important step was the next one. And the next one after that. And the one after that, as we continue to show up with hearts open and ready to actively engage the new possibilities of God and the new things God is doing among those who can so easily become invisible among us.

We want to keep the momentum moving forward. We want to support one another. We want to make it as easy as possible for a cash-strapped congregation with a plate full of challenges to nonetheless say 'yes,' to ministry that puts children, youth, and young adults at the forefront, even if they aren't a part of Sunday mornings. We want every church in the diocese to be a part of this circle, even if they're not sure they belong or what their place in the conversation is.

One of the things we discovered that night at the outreach gathering is that the Episcopal Youth Event allots 20 openings (give or take) to each diocese every time it happens. For the last several EYEs, our diocese (understandably, and like a lot of others) didn't use the full 20 spots, but relinquished them to dioceses that had more folks wanting to go than they had spots. Over the course of the evening, this became like a rallying cry for our community, "No more charity for other dioceses!" Ha. The rally cry only works in the one context, but it remains a goal that inspires me, mostly because it's a goal that will take us all to realize. Which means we'll have to move the conversation from the periphery to the center, where Jesus is. "Let the children come to me," he said. Wonderfully, the good work of that relocation is alive and well among us. If you haven't already, I dearly hope you and your church will join the circle! There is joy and blessing in it.

Psalm 23: the Psalm that Exactly No One is Excited to Hear a Sermon About

We never preach about the psalms. But if we ever preach the psalms, I suppose it’s on days like this one. Psalm 23 contains some of the most familiar words in all of holy Scripture. Words most of us came to know before we were aware of our knowing them, even if we did not grow up in church. The Lord is my shepherd. Let me ask you, where did these words first find you? Or better, when did you first become aware that these words were inside you? When did you first feel the support or the intimacy of the images lifted up in this psalm? Which of the visuals first spoke to you, opened something of the life of God up to you? Or maybe it was someone close to you whose affection for this psalm you came to know through their sharing.

1 The Lord is my shepherd; * I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures * and leads me beside still waters.

3 He revives my soul * and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.

4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; * for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; * you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, * and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

My relationship with psalm 23, in a lot of ways, is a picture of my relationship with the rest of the Bible. Mostly, the things I notice in it change over time. Things that jumped out as a kid - I mean really jumped out, they were THE ONLY POINT of a story - are still there, but they no longer demand center stage, at least not always. Some of those things have receded in importance, some things have showed themselves to be connected to other things I hadn’t yet seen over time, and so my understanding of their meaning has grown or been transformed. None of the seeing is wasted. All of it shapes. All of it contributes. Sometimes one image builds on another. Occasionally, a new thing here appears to undermine an old thing there, but mostly the landscape continually opens up, deepens, and layers. It all points to God, who is at once unchanging and surprising.

The Lord is my shepherd. “I shall not want.” Right off the bat, that was a problem phrase for six-year old me. The language was hard to follow; it felt somewhat antiquated (a forgivable feeling, it turns out, this being the KJV), , but I couldn’t have told you how. “Lack for nothing” is closer to the meaning, but that’s how exactly nobody memorizes the verse. Some of the confusion came from the sequencing, combined with the old-timey language: not wanting came after mention of the Shepherd, whom I was pretty sure we were supposed to want, which confused me. Moreover, it was not clear to my six-year old heart why not wanting anything was good. I am not sure age or experience in this world of being sold to has entirely resolved that tension, although time and exposure have certainly highlighted the stakes of it.

As a kid, it was hard to miss, too, the VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH (all caps) - there was an eye-opener! - and, with it, the stakes of the trust. That the shepherd wanted life for the sheep was a simple but important thing for me to hear. And that the shepherd wasn’t above walking in valleys. Downward mobility toward the pain of another was a feature of this shepherd’s love. And of course it foreshadows the cross. If Jesus was this Good Shepherd, who knew my name, I discovered in the shadows an invitation to trust that that love would walk with me there. And also that I could go into another’s shadow without fear, even if I could do nothing to make things better for them or dispel the darkness by myself.

This part of the psalm - the shepherd’s refusal to abandon the sheep, even to death - prepared me, I think, to cherish the eucharistic hymns that talk about Christ the victim, Christ the priest. The most famous of these are Easter hymns. And of course they’re not original. Today we heard from Revelation, some of the source material: “the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." The lamb will be their shepherd. The shepherd becomes the lamb.

As I got older I noticed other things. I had always liked the thought of a feast, but one day I read the whole sentence. A feast prepared in the presence of my enemies (or those who trouble me). As our kids have learned to say when they find a possibility repulsive, “No, thank you.” Just, why? While I suppose the point of the story was that a feast in such a context would bring humiliation to my enemies, there was an honest part of me that wondered why they had to be there. And then a fearful part of me that wondered if they had been invited as more than spectators to witness the fruit of my divine favor or success. Was this all a part of that love your enemies business? I began to grow suspicious. What if my enemies had a place at the table, too? Worse still, what if my presence was to them what I had assumed theirs was to me? And what did such a party say about God? What if God wasn’t just with me in discomfort - what if God brought about some of my discomfort, you know, on purpose? What if God’s ends included - but did not center on - me, with my ideas for how things should go? It was blasphemy to imagine.

My nervousness increased years later with a thoughtful consideration of still waters. What I had earlier assumed to be a poetic repetition of the goodness of green pastures now struck me as a detail that could go either way - toward green, lush goodness, on the one hand, or equally toward the way of shadows and enemies at the table, on the other. For context, I was fresh off a family camping trip in which my brother, dad, and I had gone tubing down a river. After a few runs of the chute, we let confidence get the better of us and we floated down past where the signs said we should definitely get out. The pace slowed down suddenly. The quick-moving waters, that had made the chute so much fun, were nowhere to be seen. Before long, things stopped completely. The banks of the river weren’t accessible and it seemed like we’d be lost forever. Our imaginations filled with images of snakes - both in the water and dropping from trees - snakes and stagnation as we strained our muscles hard to keep hands and feet out of and above the water, which of course was to seal our fate as stuck, without the capacity to paddle. Was still water the gift of the oasis in the desert, the match for green pastures, or was still water more like the valley, more like enemies at the table? More like Lauren Winner, the Christian author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath, who followed up these books with an unlikely successor, her memoir Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis? In an NPR interview for All Things Considered, Winner described the situation in which she found herself, her mother dying, her marriage failing, this way: “In my life, I had this dramatic conversion to Christianity and it had lots of intense emotions. I thought that those feelings would just endure, and that those feelings would sort of sustain me in the life of faith forever. And then I came to a place where I was no longer in the glow of the young adult new Christian conversion; I was now just in the middle of my faith life.” She found herself where things got still. He leads me beside still waters. It’s a harder sell on campus, where it is possible that I am talking to at least some students for whom the waters have not yet stopped, but it is maybe easier for us to know that faith that is faith must be faith when things get still. Where it is still, still God is there.

That Easter is fifty days long invites such an observation. If Easter were just the one day, we could maybe imagine that Easter is all confetti eggs and Alleluias, that Easter marks the end of grief, but fifty days - no one can pretend that long. The promise in Revelation, after all, is not the end of the tears, but that God will wipe every tear away. We are right to rejoice and to sing our songs loud, but at some point we also get to let God be God when we are tired and wounded. Yes, Easter is true celebration. And Easter is also the risen Christ finding Thomas one week later in the excruciating anguish of his doubts. Easter is true resurrection, yes, and Easter is the risen Christ seeking, finding, breathing forgiveness on Peter and Paul, walking in the valley of the road to Emmaus when understanding fails his friends and they lose the way, consoling Mary outside the tomb, among the rocks, in the depths of sorrow, grief, and loss. This is all a part of Easter, because this is all the landscape on which, to which, the risen Christ visits us. This is Easter, his touching every broken place, the shepherd calling his sheep by name; the movement of the love Jesus has for his friends, to whom he returns with healing and life.

There is no friend or stranger, however strange they seem to us, who is not in herself the location of the presence and reign of the risen Jesus and so who is not a person for whom we are not called to show up in hope. And on those days when you seem strange to yourself, and you wonder, the love of the risen Christ is already near, the cup already overflowing with forgiveness, the psalmist tells us, the oil prepared already for your head.

Whom then shall we fear?

The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall not want. To dwell, to trust, to rest in the care of the Shepherd/Lamb/King is to meet the wonder, love, and praise of the age-old, anonymous hymn:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew

He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me;

It was not I that found, O Saviour true,

No, I was found of thee.

Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;

I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea,—

'Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,

As thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but, O the whole

Of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee;

For thou wert long beforehand with my soul,

Always thou lovedst me.

Dear Mayor Pete,

I pray this finds you well!

We haven't met, although your priest, now the Rector at St. James, was on the diocesan commission that presented me for ordination a lot years ago in South Bend. So we have a wonderfully corrupting influence in common. Ha. In any case, I went to pick up my car from the shop today. I didn't know in the moment that I would be sitting down a few hours later to tell you about it, but I now find myself compelled to share what there unfolded and, although you did nothing to repair my automobile, convey my deep and true gratitude for you.

The tires, it turned out, had been badly in need of alignment, and two of them were being replaced. It had been a long day of good meetings at work, so I had missed a couple of messages from the auto shop earlier in the day. I was running late. I found myself sailing in at exactly closing time, hoping someone would let me in. When I arrived, the shop was locked.

A minute later, Paul opened the door. Paul handles intake at the shop and had left me the messages I didn't get. "You, huh?" he said, with a slight smile. "The guy who doesn't check his messages and can't tell time." I laughed. "I knew I was pushing it, but I was hoping to sneak in in time. I missed." "Yep. You missed. Come on in."

Paul flipped through some paperwork, looking for mine. Without looking up from his papers, he asked me, "So, you work with college kids, huh?" I thought for a second, confused. We've known each other for a while, but I've never mentioned my job. He must have heard my voicemail when he left the messages. "At the UW-Madison." Yes. "Yes, I do." He shook his head, half admiration, half exasperation. "God bless you." I laughed again. "One of my boys is in college and hanging out with a hard crowd. I don't like the way it's headed. My thinking is a little science can ruin a faith, but a lot of science can do it good." "That sounds exactly right," I offered. Philosophy, too, I thought.

"They know everything. College students. At least mine do. It makes it hard."

Paul disappeared to the back of the garage, still looking for my paperwork. He came back with a stack of papers, none of them mine. Absentmindedly, he asked me, "What's that mayor - the guy from South Bend?"

"Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg."

"Right. He's Episcopal. That's you, right?"

"That's right."

"I keep thinking... My son... Y'all are LGBT affirming, right? My son would need to know that - that's you in the Episcopal Church?"

"Absolutely. Yes."

"Mmm. You know, Catholics are sometimes too focused on having babies. And questioning authority on the local level is not something that always goes over well. It's fine for me, the way it is, I'm sixty years in and used to it, but he...you know, I might send him over to you."

"You should! I'd love to meet him."

"Yeah, I'd like to send him over to you. I'd like to let him know about you."

As I left, Paul thanked me for providing him with counsel, but even in the moment I knew I hadn't offered any. Paul knew that there was a church with an unflinching commitment and place for his son because of you and your witness, your openness in sharing about the shape and character of the Christian faith as you have known and received it. I left the repair shop today deeply touched for the way Paul, a devout Catholic, nevertheless counted on the Episcopal Church to be there for his son and was so genuinely grateful that it was. (His is a trust I don't carry lightly, and one for which I am keenly and regularly aware of the church's and my own need for repentance and continued growth.) I left the shop deeply touched that the source of his gratitude for new possibilities of faith was your public witness.

Bless you. Thank you. I thank God for the lives that are discovering new and abundant life, new hope, and the assurance of love, by the Spirit at work in you.

Peace,

Belief and the God Who Sees Us First

My children’s favorite part of the Book of Common Prayer - I know, it’s a strange way to start a sentence, on a lot of levels - but my children’s favorite part of the Book of Common Prayer is the chart for determining the date of Easter. From time to time I forget it’s there, but it is! - you can look it up later - there’s a table in the front or the back (I can never remember which) that lists the exact date of Easter Sunday for 189 years. I know that might seem like a trivial item to include in a prayer book but, trust me, before smartphones - this table, in its heyday, was a Godsend! Every Easter Sunday date for almost two centuries. Helpful, because Easter is based on lots of things and moving parts and so it moves around itself. The table is pretty extensive. In it are instructions for Leap Years and - of special interest to my kids - several cryptic mentions of The Golden Number, which is the secret weapon, apparently, for decoding each year’s date. I’m not making it up. It’s straight out of Harry Potter, but it’s there. And from this table, you can learn lots of fun things. For example, did you know Easter will only be as late as it was this year 5 more times over the next 70 years? Or that Easter can fall as late as April 25, but it only does so twice in the 189 years of the table - in 1943, which I just missed - and again in 2038, mark your calendars!

The table and its golden numbers are all kinds of weird, but they’re weird in a way that feels wonderfully right. It’s almost as if the unpredictability of Easter’s date mirrors the surprise of the resurrection itself, what with its determined refusal to be contained or controlled or predicted. So, just like the resurrection, Easter Day can be hard to see coming.

But if Easter Day is hard to predict, the Sunday that follows Easter Day each year is considerably easier. John’s gospel. Doubting Thomas. Like clockwork. Every year! What does this mean? I sometimes imagine that the predictability of the sequencing could go one of two ways:

On the one hand, the reliability of ol’ Thomas might help us reorient ourselves after the wandering and chocolate-deprived season of Lent, in which our world gets upended, by the end of which we’re worshiping together at weird times during the week, day and night, and equally upended by the celebration of an Easter whose timing may have surprised us. Thomas helps us get back on track.

On the other hand, the predictability of Thomas’ arrival might inadvertently dull our imaginations or lull us back to sleep. Like a family returning from a long road trip vacation. They’ve just seen far-off treasures of previously unimaginable beauty - the Redwoods of California! Niagara Falls! - but now, they’re almost back home. The last fifteen miles. They know these streets. The neighborhoods are familiar. Nothing new to see here. They say that’s when the accidents happen, when the streets, becoming recognized, grow ordinary, when the eyes stop believing in the possibility of new and unexpected beauty at every stop and turn along the road and instead assume it’s all been seen before, that’s when it happens, when the heart and mind default again to autopilot.

If not today, it’s some day, right? The gradual re-assimilation into The Way Things Have Always Been… It happens. How else to account for the disconnect between the astonishment and joy of Easter Sunday and the live possibility that other Sundays after it might become mundane?

But this year, I saw something in John’s gospel that got me thinking. This year I saw something strange along the sidewalk of a once familiar street. Something that made me doubt I know the doubt of Thomas as well as I thought I did.

What I saw was Thomas’ brother in doubt, Nathanael. Jesus appears to Thomas at the end of John’s gospel, but Nathanael’s story of doubt comes at the beginning, in the very first chapter. (In this way, Thomas and Nathanael are like two bookends of belief and unbelief in the gospel of John.) Where Thomas didn’t believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, Nathanael didn’t believe that anything good could come out of Nazareth, that is, that there was anything special about Jesus. Do you remember that story? Jesus calls Philip who goes to find his friend, Nathanael, and he says, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.” That’s what sets up Nathanael’s one-liner. Can anything good come of Nazareth? It’s an edgy question, riding the always fine line between cynicism and prejudice. Nathanael’s cynicism is sometimes said to resonate with folks like you and me, we 21st century people for whom cynicism is often admired and frequently mistaken for wisdom, but Nathanael is also a reminder that cynicism predates our generation. As good as we are at cynicism, we didn’t invent it; we aren’t the first to be slow to believe; nor are we the first to have grown weary from always being sold the next, new thing; we aren’t the first to resent the hawkers of wares - the endless calls from solicitors brandishing unknown numbers - perpetually attempting to command our attention; we aren’t the first to discover the need for proof of trustworthiness before we get up from under the tree. And on a deeper level, along that same fault-line of trust, Nathanael’s reluctance reminds us that we are not the first to have been wounded, to have learned mistrust through betrayal and brokenhearted-ness, to have discovered the necessity of guarded hearts in a world that can be immeasurably exploitative and cruel.

I’ll believe it when I see it, Nathanael says.

And so we learn to be like him. And it’s almost like the Scripture, by including Nathanael’s account, honors our solidarity with Nathanael and makes space for our hidden wounds, too. It’s almost like the Scripture, busy telling the story of Nathanael and Jesus, nevertheless casts a thoughtful glance over its shoulder at us, communicating an understanding and compassionate heart toward us, we who sometimes share Nathanael’s circumstance.

Shortly after Nathanael pops off to Philip, Jesus finds Nathanael, and speaks to him. Jesus tells Nathanael he saw him under the tree, and that simple comment is what elicits Nathanael’s profession of faith, a profession not unlike the one Thomas gives this morning. Nathanael says, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel.” In reply Jesus asks Nathanael, ‘Do you believe just because I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’

So Nathanael, who had started with I’ll believe it when I see it, doesn’t believe when he sees so much as he believes when he is seen. While he was still unbelieving, amidst all of his fears and misgivings and hesitations, his doubts and living wounds, Jesus sees him, loves him, moves toward him, and Jesus’ seeing is the beginning of Nathanael’s belief, belief that will take Nathanael far beyond what he can see.

So by the time we come across Thomas today, Nathanael has prepared us to know better than to accept Thomas’ doubt as the most important thing about Thomas or this day that follows the resurrection we didn’t see coming. The most important thing about Thomas’ belief is that it comes - yes, as he sees Jesus - but most importantly - as he discovers himself as seen by Jesus. Loved by Jesus. Approached by Jesus. And not just for Thomas, right? For all of the disciples still locked behind closed doors. Hiding. Imitating the posture of Adam and Eve, after the snake. Out of sight. Found and forgiven by the Risen Jesus, whom they had abandoned. Seeing is believing, absolutely, but not the way we thought. As it turns out, the seeing that matters most belongs to God. God sees and loves first. God sees and loves you. This is the beginning of belief.

Two final thoughts, then. First, if the seeing that matters most belongs to God, we can begin to make sense of belief that does not make all things clear to us. That is, we can believe and still not pretend to know what comes next, and so maybe we can be reawakened to wonder and awe, because we believe in the one we follow, even into uncertainty. Or, if you prefer the words of the prayer book, “...out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.” We do not know the way, but the one we follow sees us, knows us, loves us and has become the way for us. And so we can be present even to those people in whom it is impossible to imagine God’s presence, confident that we do not know the limits of God’s love, even for us and in ourselves. We are, all of us, seen, known, and unimaginably loved by God. Sometimes God allows us to remind one another of this, when we forget. We should pray for these opportunities, both within the circles of this faith community and outside of these walls.

Second, and finally, maybe this morning you, like me, can use the reminder that the bread and wine we are about to share are not thoughtlessly and/or generically made available by God for God’s people. “This is my body, given for you.” For you. You are seen, known, loved by the living God. Yes, even knowing that thing you messed up, the hurt you’ve inflicted, and the ways you’ve been hurt. Today. And always. That’s what it means to come to this table. It is, like Nathanael and Thomas, to discover ourselves seen and loved by Jesus.

Amen.

My Gratitude for Maundy Thursday

I've always loved Maundy Thursday. The front edge of the three day mystery. A part of the Passion, but with the rubrical option to replace the red of Passion with liturgical white or gold, in celebration of the moment: last supper meets first Eucharist. The intimacy of the table. The joy that belongs to the feast. The particular (sometimes fussy) coordinating of water, towels, and basins, in each place meticulous and distinct, inviting you and me into the proclivities of local tradition and the practices of previous, unseen generations, as protected by only slightly less unseen saints on altar guilds, for whom this kind of selfless service is par for the course. The self-conscious giggles and grumbles over feet. The embrace between the washed and the washing. The way it comes most naturally to children. A communion of brokenness, betrayal, and blessing. The raw insistence on our need for, and the presence of, forgiveness in the cup we come to drink. Jesus' cherishing his friends and, with the holy space his love creates, my fleeting hope each year that maybe, just maybe, the torches, clubs, and cudgels won't abruptly spoil the scene this time. The bread and the body, the blood and the wine, given for us. "Love one another, as I have loved you." Love of God brought close. And then, clubs do come. Cudgels and torches come, too. The dramatic turn, the kiss, and the putting swords away. The altar stripped of glory. The tender washing of tables. The clumsiness of human chains of helpers, handing item after holy item to each other, making emptiness in one space, creating chaos in another. And all by darkness, mostly. Like the darkness of the courtyard in which Peter at once found the fire and lost his confidence to promise anything. The psalmist's words echoing in the emptying space. The Sacrament escorted to the Garden.

The Garden.

Where - even on the front edge of the three day Passion mystery - Easter lilies wait to open.

In Conversation with My Daughter about the 'New' Sign at St. Francis House

Whenever I fire up the computer, my oldest daughter is instantly at my shoulder. She asks me what I'm doing, who is that, where is that, and can I please check the weather. So when she saw me post this photograph on IG, Annie did not disappoint; she asked me how I made the sign. Did I buy it that way? Did I draw it? Was it the old sign? Had I replaced the old sign? I thought about her questions for a second. "It is the old sign," I said, "the same one you're familiar with. But it took 7 years, give or take, to make it look that way." She stared at me like I was crazy, so I explained the story to her.

"Kelsey, one of our 3 awesome house fellows, asked me last week she could re-draw our chalkboard signage. Kelsey is a gifted artist. Kelsey became a house fellow this semester when the SFH team discerned the need for a third house fellow through honest and challenging conversations in community about hospitality, homelessness, and safety. Once the decision was made to add a new position, our two other house fellows invited people they knew to apply. Katie's friend Kelsey interviewed and was invited to join the team.

"For her part, Katie first strode into St. Francis House one Sunday evening a couple of years ago (do you remember?), when she saw the same sign on the sidewalk, thoughtfully but less artfully decorated, with the single word 'Taizé.' She joined us for worship that night because she had gone on the Taizé Pilgrimage of Trust to Red Shirt Table in 2013. Katie longed to reconnect with some aspect of that time and the prayers that were shared there. Of course, you know that I was also at Red Shirt Table. It was the first trip the St. Francis House community made following my call to the position in 2012. It took 13.5 hours to drive there, and we camped for four days on an evacuated cow pasture.

"Katie and I did not cross paths at Red Shirt Table, but it was through that trip that I met Steve, the campus minister at the University of Minnesota, who has become a dear friend to me. We talk at least once a semester to share joys, challenges, and ideas. He is a fabulous road trip companion. Anyway, Steve is a natural community organizer, and he had organized a bus of folks from Minnesota to make pilgrimage to South Dakota. Though they don't know each other directly, Katie was on the bus.

"So the sign said 'Taizé' that day, in part, because of that pilgrimage, and subsequent ones like it, and their shaping effect on the community, and that pilgrimage also happens to be the reason Katie found meaning in that word. I suppose, to be completely transparent, we would really need to go back to 2000 or so, when Mother Mary Kate invited me to make pilgrimage to Taizé and unwittingly prepared my heart to receive SFH's history with the community as a gift and consolation.

"But of course there were other factors, too. Katie and Kelsey, both Lutherans, met through the Lutheran program Young Adults in Global Mission, which accounts for the beginning, at least, of their friendship. And Kelsey's journey as an artist is probably the most immediately relevant portion of the sign's history, but those specific details are mostly unknown to me.

"Kelsey recently received a full ride to a Lutheran Seminary. In this, she joins a growing list of recent SFH house fellows pursuing ordination across an ecumenical gamut: Methodists, Lutherans, and whatever they grow at Princeton. This modest mainline diversity delights me. God's church is one, and we belong to each other because we belong to God; that's at the heart of holy friendship.

"It is funny and mysterious and beautiful how that sign holds the convergence of so many faithful steps, none made with that sign in mind and most invisible to those who see the sign. But so many folks have remarked to me about the sign. Forgiveness scholar Robert Enright one time observed that Joseph cannot have realized the beauty of the gift he made space for when he forgave his brothers, noting that we and the whole church are a continuation of the fruit of that forgiveness. It is likewise such a gift when it is granted us to see the beauty of God's economy, the things that grow and come together when God helps us make space, beauty beyond our intending, of which this sign is but a symbol and reminder."

"So," she said. "Liquid chalk?"