Who Changed My Bible?

This Sunday is All Saints’ Sunday. Let me be the first to say (because we aren't there yet) 'Happy All Saints' Sunday!' All Saints' Sunday, and the raising of Lazarus - the gospel lesson appointed to the day - means to bring to the fore of the Church’s attention the resurrection hope.

It is interesting (if obvious to preachers) to note that, before the inclusion of the Revised Common Lectionary, officially adopted by the Episcopal Church in 2006, the Prayer Book readings assigned for the Feast of All Saints’ were either the sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes (“blessed are the pure in heart”) from Matthew’s gospel or, alternately, what is sometimes called the sermon on the Plain from Luke’s gospel. With the adoption of the RCL in 2006, however, these readings are now each read once every three years (not every two), with the raising of Lazarus added into the three year rotation as reminder of our mortality and that “because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.”

For those of us who grew up accessing All Saints’ Day from the vantage of Jesus’ teachings on holiness, the shift is substantial and still a little strange - this reading from John’s gospel is read mostly at funerals. Make no mistake, the Christian life of holiness is still central to the day, but John’s gospel asks us to begin the question of Christian living at the place of death and dying: Jesus and Mary and Martha in grief at the tomb. 

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Questions:
 
Does the resulting starting point helpfully save our reading the Beatitudes are mere moralism? 

Does anyone else miss the focused attention on Matthew 5? 

Does anyone else think here of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Death and Holy Dying? 

If you are a preacher, do you tend to a) preach the feast without following the texts as closely on this day b) preach the texts such that the feast is the not the focus c) find your preaching of All Saints swinging between focuses from year to year d) seek a way to integrate the three gospel readings for All Saints in a unified way.

I have my sermon (mostly) done. But I am interested in your thoughts, preachers and lay people. The raising of Lazarus was only introduced to this feast in the Episcopal Church in 2006 and many churches were late in adopting. We haven't been doing this for very long. If we were good at thinking about this, I would be surprised (and likely unconvinced).

Full disclosure: I like the addition; it's growing on me, if necessarily changing me, too. Which is why I think we have much to gain by talking openly about the addition and transition.

Why Yes, I Do Crave Yarn on All Saints' Day...

This post originally appeared on my family blog, November 15, 2011. It is a reflection on knitting in conversation with the collect for All Saints' Day, which the Church celebrates today. Said collect always makes me want to grab some yarn and knit me some elect... I later wrote additional knitting/spiritual reflection type thoughts here. 
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An unexpected hobby emerged from my CREDO experience: knitting.  Seriously.  What took me so long?  Grateful to Dina and Leigh for their patient instructions and to many, many others for their kind words and encouragement - Melissa, Chris, Beth, Heidi, and co.  Grateful to the lady in the Asheville airport who got me going again when my cast-on row had come undone and all my friends had flown home.  Grateful to the random guy with kind words as we deplaned in Houston.  It takes a village...

Anyway, knitting lends itself to contemplation, so I shouldn't be surprised by the connections and lessons it's tried to teach me (already), but I am.  Here are some of them:

1) Forgiveness is like learning to undo a stitch.  It beats the hell out of tearing up the whole thing.

2) When, as on All Saints', we pray

"O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one Communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those indescribable joys which thou hast prepared for those who truly love thee: through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, in glory everlasting."

we should defer to the knitters and make them preach.  Read through the lens of the fellowship of the saints, knitting is the embodiment of Ubuntu:  "I am what I am because of who we all are," or as Desmond Tutu put it once:

"A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed." 

3) If knitting approximates God's joy in bringing each of us into being ("For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" Ps 139:13), it's no wonder God keeps going.  I can't stop, either.

4) Point number 1 notwithstanding, if knitting approximates God's joy in bring us into being, I totally get the temptation to tear it all up and start from scratch, and I commend God for only doing it once.

Why Do Christians Vote? (and should we?)

 

 

A good friend, Greg, recently posted in podcast form a conversation he led with university students. The subject was voting and, more specifically, the case for why Christians might not be called to do it. I found the recorded dialogue deeply interesting. First and foremost, it takes no small measure of courage to question an assumption so widely held as "you should vote." (I think the team's decision to name the talk "You Aren't Going to Like This" was brilliant.) Many people believe voting is more basic to being a moral personal than faith. To subsequently post the conversation that takes courage in the first place to have on the internet for the larger Church's benefit and critique requires the character we all, on our good days, pray to have as Christian leaders. I especially appreciated Greg's framing the question as one of Christian discipleship. 

Full disclosure: I don't know that I will not vote this election year. That is, I might. I am an undecided's undecided. In some years, I have abstained for reasons of conscience, though not for reasons as theologically and ecclesially developed as Greg's, and, in recent years, I have made voting a priority. In both cases, I have struggled primarily with what I consider to be a false choice: I am offered Coke or Pepsi and decline, indicating that I believe soda is harmful for my health (if only I could act on that conviction!) and am subsequently ostracized by large segments of the population if I refuse to make a choice within a choice I wouldn't choose.

That is to say that my argument might have been Christian in its struggle, but not uniquely so. I am grateful for the podcast's ability to tease out some of the important, more uniquely Christian questions for God's People. 

To steer away from American politics...

Toward the end of the podcast, Greg suggests that voting as a method of discernment may be inherently violent - at the very least incapable of expressing love for one's enemy. (I am still wondering if this is true. Might there be a way to vote in such a way that builds up one's enemy? But how would one choose which enemy to support?) Greg suggests that voting is not simply a problem, then, for American politics; it is a questionable methodology for the Church to employ in her important discernments.

This thought fascinates me. I remember my rector in seminary, Timothy Kimbrough, asking what it might mean for the Church to cast lots in filling positions of leadership. After all, lot-casting is the closest biblical answer for the challenges that voting was proposed to address.

Practical aside: many churches, even diocese, presently nominate only as many people as they have positions to fill. This happens for two reasons, largely: 1) individuals can be reluctant to serve, and 2) among those who do step up to serve, it is thought that the humiliation involved in "losing" is more than they deserve. But see how lot-casting helpfully speaks to these concerns: given corporately determined criteria for nomination, it would be possible to assemble a slate of individuals - twice in number relative to the open positions - with each one made a "winner" simply by virtue of the nomination, with no fear of "losing" in the step that follows.

Theologically, this method 1) reminds the Christian faithful that total control is neither possible nor desirable, and 2) creates open space for cultivating trust in the movement and leading of the Holy Spirit.

To see the thrust of these theological points in action, consider if we are not longer filling a board or a vestry, but calling a rector. With the process down to three candidates, the vestry casts lots. Gone is the sense that the parish's long-term success depends on their "getting this right." Increased is the sense of corporate responsibility (a key point for my friend throughout the podcast) for the life of the parish. Likewise increased is the reminder that the future we so often presume is the future that belongs alone to God.

And here's the big question: why does this scare us?

How to Ask God to Give You a Heart for Africa...or College Students...or...

Reading this book, The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community, by Halter and Smay. And while I still have serious misgivings about "incarnational" as an adjective applied to Christian communities, I am finding the book a good conversation partner for the kind of work in which I find myself engaged as a university chaplain. 

Most recently, I read a passage that beautifully (and humbly) challenges what I have perceived as the sometimes-passivity of evangelical language exhorting Christians to pray to be given a heart for a particular people group. Yes, pray. But/and...

"...[Our] heart only changes as we live among the people for whom we will eventually advocate."

"If you go to Africa and hang out in a village of starving children, you'll get a heart for starving African children. If you hang out with the mentally ill, you'll get a heart for the emotionally imbalanced. If you want an authentic heart for people outside the church...you've got to be with them. As they grab your heart, your posture will change, your angle of approach will change, and the kingdom of God will be a little more tangible."

Maybe this is what is meant by incarnational (though comparing the Incarnation of the Son of God to an extended travel trip to Africa seems silly and unnecessary to me). Anyway, two things that strike me:

1) The pro-activity available to each of us in our desires to live out a heart for a particular people. Go there. Be there. Also, with whom are you around now? How might intentional practices of being present to your present context open up connecting points for love in action? (Yes, I'm talking - at least in part and to myself - about putting the smartphones down.) A favorite prayer of mine from the BCP begins, "Be present, be present, O Lord, Jesus Christ..." How many times does he pray the same prayer for me?

2) The words of the first line: "for whom we will eventually advocate." Advocating is an unpredictable privilege that develops, not a starting point. Go there. Be there. Without the expectation of either reward OR immediate usefulness. If incarnational means anything helpful for describing the Church's ministry (and I'm still not sure it's the right word), it is in learning to trust and imitate the ministry of presence commended by our Lord. To be present is a gift that is not lost on others. You have other places you could be, and you are here. This already is something interesting I want to understand about you. 

Annie's godparents have this lyric from Mumford and Sons posted high above their living room: "Where you invest your love, you invest your life." This is descriptive, not normative; it's just the way things, in God's good order, are. But it's also a gift, an opportunity, an invitation...

"If you go to Africa and hang out in a village of starving children, you'll get a heart for starving African children."

On Being Texan, Reading Scripture, & Seeing Blindness

The Dudes: Jeff Bridges with Jeff Dowd

One of the highlights of my first two months at St Francis House - before I saw Jeff Dowd, the real life inspiration for the Big Lebowski, at the Rathskeller last week - came on my very first Sunday when, on the way out to dinner, Jimmy informed me that, for a Texan, I was pretty disappointing. No boots or spurs; no six-shooter or hat. No real accent, even, and Jimmy would know. “Now Rebekah,” he said. “She has an accent; there is an interesting Texan.” You can imagine my delight in sharing this compliment with Rebekah, because Rebekah is from North Carolina.

Fair warning: I’m about to let my Texan show. It won’t hurt. I think.

In Texas, sixth grade is the Texas History year. Children learn names like Davy Crockett, Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, and Sam Houston. Optimally, one’s class will make a pilgrimage to the capitol in Austin during this year; additionally, students will learn to disdain Colonel James Fannin (who could have aided at the Alamo, but did not) and to repeat the cry of San Jacinto: “Remember the Alamo!”

But even Texans know that Texas history does not start with the Alamo; or, better put, that the Alamo was a Spanish mission - a church - long before it was a fort under siege. The Alamo owed its being to the Spanish engagement with the Americas that began centuries before the famous battle; this ongoing engagement resulted in unspeakable hardships for the indigenous peoples, some graces, too, all of it driven by the three-fold, sometimes misguided (and helpfully alliterative) motivations of those first conquistadors; the three ‘Gs’ we learned in sixth grade: God, Gold, and Glory.

God: the missionary impulse of the early Spanish adventurers; Gold: the vast wealth of the land being conquered. Glory: the positions of honor that awaited those who were successful in risk-taking and wealth-discovery upon their return to the Old World.

God, Gold, and Glory sounded so noble in sixth grade. Now, looking back, it is hard not to name these motivating factors without some measure of cynicism for the unbridled exploitation and violence they were used to justify. So it was with some ambivalence this past Tuesday that I realized that if the last three weeks’ gospel lessons were ever made into a single film, God, Gold, and Glory would be the inevitable title, harkening back to the days of bad spaghetti westerns.

Three Sunday’s ago in Mark’s gospel we read of the rich young man whose wealth proves an insurmountable obstacle to his receiving the gift of God’s Kingdom. Gold. Two Sunday’s ago in Mark’s gospel,  James and John make a failed attempt to secure the top cabinet positions in Jesus’ new administration. Glory. This week in Mark’s gospel, we are given the healing of a blind man who longs to see God. God, gold, and glory.

Now, to be fair, the blind man doesn’t say straight out that he wants to see God, only that he wants to see again. However, in light of 1) the gospel’s recurring theme of the disciples’ blindness with respect to who Jesus is and 2) what the blind man does once he is healed - he follows Jesus to Jerusalem, where Jesus will be crucified - it is not too much, I think, to characterize this blind man’s longing as a longing to see God.

So we see the blind man and immediately realize that we have seen this before, the latest in a series of individuals coming to Jesus with a special request - three weeks in a row now. In case we miss the repetition and so also the connectedness of the stories, Jesus uses the same question to engage the blind man that he used with James and John: “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man is the third in a trilogy of encounters.

As you and I know, the first two encounters do not turn out well. The first two encounters do not turn out well because the ones who approach Jesus cannot see that they do not see. The rich man cannot see the possibility of a future apart from his wealth; James and John cannot see the possibility of a kingdom that takes Jesus to the cross. Each in his own way holds the Kingdom to the standard of a stunted imagination. But this time is different. This time the one coming to Jesus sees that he does not see. Unlike the others, he knows he is blind. And this one is able to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, to follow the Savior whose glory is the cross.

We do not like to think of ourselves as blind. But in Mark’s gospel, seeing one’s blindness is the only sight that leads to life. To see that one cannot see makes possible the profession that invites the healing of God: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

There is a long-standing tradition in the Church: a desire among the saints, for what is called the beatific vision, the longing of the saints to see God. The beatific vision refers to the perfect knowledge of God enjoyed in heavenly realms. It is Paul reminding us that while now we see but dimly, then we will see face to face. And this is the longing of God’s holy ones, the knowledge that we don’t see, the prayer to see face to face, and with both of these the willingness to surrender every definition of the God we thought we knew before we knew Jesus.

Professor of mine in college asked us: “What if there was nothing in it for you? No streets of gold. No promise of wealth. No pearly gates. No power or position. No reunion with loved ones, even. Would you still be in?” he asked. He clarified: he wasn’t saying that there would be no reunion with loved ones - indeed, salvation as we find it offered in Scripture is the restoration of the whole Body of Christ, God’s holy People, all things reconciled to God - but, he added, and this is the heart of the beatific yearning: “What if the only thing promised you by God was...God?” Would God be enough?

Gold and earthly glory are unfortunate aspirations for those who follow the crucified King. But God as enough for us, God as enough for you - forever - this longing leans into the abundance and glory of the New Jerusalem, for this desire is God’s own.

Jesus, whom now hidden, I by faith behold,
what my soul doth long for, that thy word foretold:
face to face thy splendor, I at last shall see,
in the glorious vision, blessed Lord, of thee. (1)

Amen.

SFH. 10.28.12
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(1) Attr. Thomas Aquinas, Hymn 314 in the Hymnal 1982.

Are Professional Sports the Liturgy of the Empire?

This past Saturday, St Francis House students and I were among the 80,000 plus red-clad fans (1) on hand at Camp Randall Stadium to cheer the Badgers of Wisconsin as they took on the mighty Gophers of Minnesota. We had a great time on a gorgeous day with the very best company - one another. And the Badgers won. Very good times, indeed.

The day ended with students verbalizing their collective gratitude to the diocese, which had matched student funds to support this day directed toward leadership/community building and fun. What neither SFH nor the diocese could have anticipated, however, were the additional formative benefits proffered us through this particular gridiron act of liturgical worship.

The students picked up on this quickly: how fandom within the context of the stadium required our engagement through a series of very particular, predetermined responses, both vocal and physical. For example, every time the announcer announced, "First and ten, Wisconsin," fans were obliged to parrot both the announcers words and the official's "first down" gesture. We did this approximately 1,342 times. (To be fair, the first and ten gesture - which we decided most nearly parallels the making of the sign of the cross - for its frequency - is a modest corporate commitment when compared to that which is required of the student section. Insanity.) Indeed, every situation on the field conspired with tradition to elicit a separate, unique response from the people, engaging us body and soul in the proceedings before us.

Yesterday a friend tweeted me this quote: "Professional sports is the liturgy of the Empire." Walter Brueggemann said that. True, collegiate athletics are not technically professional sports, but not for lack of professional revenue or investments; it IS a billion dollar business. 

In this post, I am less interested in making moral judgments of a society that makes billions of dollars through what Bill Simmons calls the worship of laundry. No, just now I find myself assuming Brueggeman's definition and fascinated by the effectiveness of a liturgy that is very opposite of the buzzwords that various ecclesial pundits contend are essential to the Church's connecting to the world "out there" - e.g., relevant, authentic, dynamic, relational. That is, I am interested in the extent to which what is arguably the most formative liturgy in our country follows the blueprint for predicted liturgical success.  Let's take a brief look at each buzzword in turn.

Relevant. 

Occasionally you will hear a sportscaster say something like, "Notre Dame is relevant again," but it is not clear to me what is meant by such a statement, except that they are winning. But that Notre Dame last won the National Championship in 1988 when I was seven years old does not appear to have any bearing on the enthusiasm of fans on game day, much less fans' willingness to attend games. Indeed, a problematic trend across sports at present is that it is more financially lucrative for owners to field a mediocre team than a champion-caliber team. Relevance as denoted by the sportscaster would seem to be a deceptive insistence on the arbitrary illusion that everybody wants to win.

Taking the word (relevant) at face value - "having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand" - the appeal of professional sports would seem to be precisely their irrelevance. As a kind of escapism, the draw of sports is precisely that they have no significance on the matter at hand unless they are the only matter at hand. Like any good liturgy, pro sports demand total loyalty and allegiance.

Indeed, the only clear realm in which sports come close to "having significant and demonstrable bearing the matter at hand" is the financial realm, of which fans are incessantly cynical and critical. The more money is made, the more difficult it becomes to profess sports as an escape without external relevance.

Authentic.

WWF wrestling, steroids, blood doping, the Black Sox, replacement refs, lock-outs, NCAA student-athlete hypocrisy. I suppose one could make the case that professional sports are authentically human in their predictable and sometimes open attempts to be other than they are, but that seems like a low (and bizarre) bar for authenticity. Strangely, fan suspicion that the fans are constantly kept on the outside by money-grabbers seems to increase fan passion for the game.

Dynamic.

Yes. Absolutely. The big play. The big hit. And yet...baseball? (My true sports love, BTW.) Soccer? Skillful. Artful. Dynamic? Just asking.

Relational.

This is actually why I love baseball. I love the banter with friends as the game plays on. Friends with knowledge of and appreciation for the game's history makes the banter most satisfying. But the game itself is hardly relational. How many professional athletes do you know? What percent of the 80,000 friends at the last college game you attended have you taken to coffee? Or met? 

If professional sports are the new liturgy of the Empire, I would humbly suggest our particular Empire does not value relevance, authenticity, dynamism, and relationality quite to the extent that believes it does. But what, then, are the values of the liturgy of the Empire? And how, then, did we arrive at these words? And do the actual values of the Empire have things to teach us? 

I am afraid that the answer to the last question is "yes." I say "afraid" because I suspect the values of the Empire's liturgy have much to teach us about the selves we believe we are offering in all our worship, even the non-sporting kind. Such a lesson could be worthwhile, if appropriately frightening, in its truth.



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(1) Actually, and as you can clearly see from the photo, I was wearing green, because green is the color of the jacket my father-in-law gave me, and also, it was cold. Badger fans, forgive me.

Do not be Ashamed to be Yourself

Every Sunday about 2 p.m., I peruse the University of Wisconsin's events calendar in search of a) items I think the students will find interesting - like free pumpkins courtesy of the WUD on Wednesday - and b) open lectures on topics that I would like to learn more about. (1) These opportunities 1) are incredibly interesting and engaging in their own right, 2) keep me mindful of the discipline required of students, 3) introduce me to new friends, and also 4) witness the Church's interest in areas of life that the world thinks the Church has discounted or abandoned.

Yesterday, I invited my wife to peruse the events calendar with me. So much of what she does for our family enables a ministry she doesn't often get to see, so this was a small way to share my work with her. Also, she frequently sees things I miss. So we're scrolling down, and she blurts out: "Clergy continuing ed?? At UW?" "What? Where? Are you going?" Sure enough. Too late and too pricey, but right here on campus. Two days, no less. I'm going to have start looking farther ahead. 

The fact of this conference is interesting to me. For all the present discussion of our being a post-Christian society (and, make no mistake, we are one), the Church assumes the world's disinterest or dismissal of Christians and the Church at its own peril. Further, for the Church to use the assumption of the world's disinterest to justify her own disinterest in the world is the worst kind of tragic and a betrayal of the Gospel. But I digress...

My main point surrounds the topic of the conference: "Clergy Leadership and Management: Shame-less Lives, Grace-full Congregations." A secular campus making room for a two-day workshop on shame and grace in the life of the Church strikes me as itself an act of grace. It is also a refreshingly honest topic to address: the role of shame in the lives of Christian leaders, and the ways we pass it down to our flocks.

Read Karen McClintock's explanation of shame and grace here.  

When I made my first CREDO (a clergy wellness conference) last November, one of the life-goals I discerned was "to become a credible witness of grace," the thrust of which is two-fold: 1) extending God's grace toward others, and 2) visibly witnessing God's grace toward me. One of the action-points of that goal was to attend one movie a month by myself as a way of stepping out of the myth that it is all up to me and I can never do enough, which, I am aware, is a kind of egotism. Shame is sneaky like that.

So, although I am not at the conference, my heart is keyed into the theme and then unexpectedly met by the words of the scriptures appointed for today's Morning Prayer: 

Watch for the opportune time, and beware of evil,
   and do not be ashamed to be yourself. 
 For there is a shame that leads to sin,
   and there is a shame that is glory and favour. 
 Do not show partiality, to your own harm,
   or deference, to your downfall. 
 Do not refrain from speaking at the proper moment,^*
   and do not hide your wisdom.^* 
 For wisdom becomes known through speech,
   and education through the words of the tongue. 
 Never speak against the truth,
   but be ashamed of your ignorance. 
 Do not be ashamed to confess your sins,
   and do not try to stop the current of a river. 
 Do not subject yourself to a fool,
   or show partiality to a ruler. 
 Fight to the death for truth,
   and the Lord God will fight for you.(1)

What a wonderful encouragement, I think, for followers of the One who died on the cross and who find ourselves in an unpopular (but not impossible) time: do not be ashamed a) to be yourself AND b) to confess your sins. Surely these twin admonitions to not be ashamed can only be connected by the conjunction AND by the grace and mercy of Jesus. And they are. We in the Church - and especially we leaders - cannot steep ourselves too much in this mystery. 

Thanks be to God.

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(1) One day it was the economy of Janesville, Wisconsin, as a microcosm of the national economy in recession, with a particular eye toward measuring the effectiveness of job retraining among the middle class. Another day it was African post-colonial readings of ancient Greek literature. Still another time I listened to and had the privilege of meeting former U.S. ambassador John L. Hirsch. Not bad for a lunch hour. 

(2) Wisdom of Sirach 4:20-28