For some time before the episode we encounter in today’s reading Jesus has had His "face set toward Jerusalem.” This idiomatic phrase means that He is about serious business; business that will take Him all the way to the cross. In today’s reading Jesus is being accompanied by a large crowd. They are enthralled with His teachings, delighted by the way He confronts powerful people, captivated by the healings, and pleased when He blesses scrapes of food and fills their bellies. No wonder there was a crowd, but Jesus wondered if they really knew the cost of discipleship and if they were willing to pay it.
And so Jesus challenges them. “You cannot follow me unless you hate your mother and your father and wife and your children and your brothers and your sisters and even life itself. You cannot follow me if you do not get rid of all of your possessions.” That is some strong talk. Taking Him at His word, more than one preacher has noted that Jesus would not have made a very good parish priest. One or two sermons like this and a rector can expect to hear from the wardens. If we took this seriously there would only be about three or four people left in the congregation and at least two of them would be self-deceived.
If you read on in Luke’s Gospel to chapter 18, Jesus is approached by a member of the ruling class who wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells the man that he must obey God’s laws, which the man indicates he has done all of his life. Seeing that the man is wealthy, Jesus then says he must sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Him on the way. This the man is unwilling to do. In response, Jesus utters the famous statement that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.
What comes next is what I want you to hear. Peter says, “We have left all of our belongings to follow you.” Jesus does not challenge the accuracy of his statement, but accepts it as truth by saying, “I tell you this: there is no one who has given up home, or wife, brothers, parents, or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not be repaid many times over in this age, and in the age to come have eternal life.” Now, we know from other places in the Gospels that Peter was married, had a home, and made a living as a fisherman. He had at least one boat and a supply of nets. And we know that after the Resurrection Peter went back home and went back to work. So it would appear that when Jesus says you must hate your family and sell all that you have He is speaking in hyperbole. He is going for effect. He wants those hanging around Him to know that His number one priority in life is ushering in the kingdom of God and it is to be theirs as well.
For many of them, and for us, that is still a tough sell. A wise saint (I don’t know who) once said that after God meets us as our friend God confronts us as our adversary. That God loves us as we are is a theme I have highlighted in sermons many times, including last Sunday. Yes God loves us, but the question is does God find us to be useful? How can I be generous as God is generous if I spend on myself all the money I have? How can I be compassionate as God is compassionate if I am unable to forgive those who have wronged me? How can I be loving as God is loving if my first priority is to meet my own needs? How can I walk in the truth as God is truth if I live my life as a lie? Yes, God loves you as you are, but that does not mean you are useful as you are.
In today’s New Testament reading we hear about someone who was “useless,” but becomes “useful.” Onesimus was a runaway slave. His name in Greek literally means “useful;” hence the play on words. After running away from his owner, Philemon, Onesimus finds his way to Paul. During his time with the apostle, the slave undergoes a dramatic transformation. He becomes a very real source of comfort and support to Paul who is imprisoned. But this new work will not be finished until Onesimus returns to Philemon and the act of reconciliation is complete.
It is like the wonderful image of the potter and the clay used by the prophet Jeremiah. God is about the work of molding and shaping us into something useful. You and I, we have our rough edges and our wobbly sides. We are a work in progress to be sure. And there are some aspects of our lives, our practices, our beliefs, our attitudes, our behavior, our priorities that simply need to be patted down flat by God our adversary so that a right and new beginning can emerge. You see, God who loves us as we are loves us to much to leave us as we are. God the potter wants to shape us into something beautiful; something (according to the poet of the 139th Psalm) that God has dreamed for you from before you were born.
If you believe this, if you believe that God has a dream for who you might become and how you might help to usher in the kingdom, is there anything you have or own that is worth possessing if it gets in the way of your being useful? Is there any relationship in this world that should not take a backseat to the molding work of the Potter? Is there are reason why the good work God has begun in you should be brought to a standstill?
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Pentecost 14: Humbling Meals
Many years ago, when I was fresh out of seminary and a new kid in the diocese, I found myself at a clergy conference. I did not know a soul at this particular gathering and I remember entering the crowded dining hall on the first night and feeling completely lost. There were no faces that I recognized and no apparent open spaces at the tables. Perhaps you have been in a similar situation. My misery ended when I spotted a place to sit right across from the bishop. I made my way over and asked if I could join him. I was encouraged to do so.
Over the course of the meal I saw the bishop in a new light—not as the spiritual and judicial authority of the diocese, but relaxed in conversation with long-time friends. He talked and joked with others at the table who were obviously near and dear to him. The conversation rolled casually from church affairs to committee work to seminary days. The bishop was polite to me, asking how things were going in my new position and other usual pleasantries. His friends tolerated the intrusion I represented and I was grateful for the chance to be with them. The meal ended when a priest asked for some private time with the bishop and he excused himself. Without a good-bye the others left shortly thereafter and I remained sitting alone.
The next morning I went to the dinning hall for breakfast intent on meeting some new people. I saw a table with a tray on it and plenty of open chairs. I sat down not knowing whose tray it was, but confident that others would be joining me soon. It turned out that the tray belonged to… the bishop. For the second straight meal I was seated directly across from him. The other spaces were quickly filled by the same priests I had eaten with the night before. The bishop said good morning to me and not much more. His friends barely acknowledged my presence.
That breakfast was torture but it gave me a chance to sit back and observe the nature of the people who held forth in the king’s court. They talked in a kind of coded language, never once bothering to explain the discussion to me or to draw me in. They openly planned their afternoon’s golf outing, never once asking if I played or would like to join them. And as the conversation wore on I noticed that they didn’t so much talk to each other as they talked to each other through the bishop. They never looked directly at each other, only the bishop. They never directly addressed each other, only the bishop. It dawned on me that for each one of these priests only two people really mattered—himself and the bishop.
Someone once observed that a significant number of clergy share a lethal combination of two personality traits—low self-esteem and high idealism. If you look at any of us long enough you will see a person who has a deep need to good and an even deeper need to be recognized for doing good. For my colleagues, sitting with the bishop had a lot to do with their need for recognition and its derivative, self-worth. Seeing that helped me to understand their rude behavior as being nothing personal. It also strengthened my resolve to find new companions at lunch!
That episode came back to me as I pondered the Gospel reading for today. When Jesus encourages us not to sit at the best seat at the table He is not so much spelling out Emily Post-like manners for a social function as He is talking about one of the cardinal virtues of the religious life: humility.
Humility is one of the most misunderstood traits of our time. We tend to think of it in terms of self-effacement, but it is not that. For instance, when you work hard at putting together a dinner party and someone compliments you, being humble does not mean saying, “Oh, it was nothing,” or “the food could have been better.” That is self-effacing. And being humble does not mean hiding in the kitchen so no one can express their appreciation. True humility accepts the complement graciously. When someone says, “This dinner is wonderful,” humility might respond, “Thank you, I am so glad you are having a nice time.” When the boss says, “You did a good job on this project,” humility might say, “It was important to me to give it my best effort.”
If humility is not self-effacement, then what is it? The saints of the Church tell us that it has something to do with truth and peace. In the spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, which was written in 14th century England by an anonymous author, we find this thought:
A person is humble when he stands in the truth with a knowledge and appreciation for himself as he really is.
A humble person knows his or her own shortcomings and appreciates his or her own gifts. In other words, he or she knows the truth about himself or herself and accepts it.
Two centuries earlier, St. Francis spoke about the truth we each must find about ourselves:
Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no better when he is praised and exalted by people then when he is considered worthless, simple, and despicable; for what a person is before God, that he is and nothing more.
One of our deepest cravings by virtue of being human is a longing for affirmation—a desire to be recognized as being somebody. Where we take that desire and how do we seek to have it met is one of our most critical undertakings in the journey we call life.
Francis says that who we are is who we are as we stand before God. We are nothing more, nothing less. Who am I before God? Well, I certainly am not who I could be, but I am loved by the Author of all things. I am not perfect, but I am forgiven by the God of all mercy. I am not spectacular by any measure of the world’s standards, but I am dear and precious to the One who made me and is about the work of molding me day by day. The humble person knows this truth and the humble person derives from it an abiding sense of peace because the core of who he or she is rests safely in God. It can not be inflated by people’s praise nor can it be deflated by people’s poison.
The poet of the 112th Psalm wrote this about those who are humble...
...their heart is right;
they put their trust in the Lord.
Their heart is established and will not shrink.
The humble person then is the one who knows the truth about himself, who sees himself as God sees him, and as a result is at peace.
And from this self-perception, the humble person enters the world in a new way. Anthony de Mello of the Society of Jesuits, in his book, One Minute Wisdom, describes it this way:
The spiritual Master frequently told his disciples that holiness, like beauty, is only genuine when unselfconscious. He loved to quote the verse,
The Rose: she blooms because she blooms,
and does not ask why,
Nor does she prune herself
to catch my eye.
It is only when we derive our identity from being a child of God, not of the world, that we are able to let go of the insatiable need for self-inflation and move out in love toward others, especially those who will not advance us in some way. It is only when our sense of self is grounded in grace, in the eternal reality that we are loved by God, that we are able to break the tyranny of self-inflation and love others as we have been loved.
So, back to that clergy conference. At lunch I looked long and hard for a new place to sit. To my right was a table with the bishop and his friends. To my left was another table with a rather disheveled looking fellow, an over-weight woman, and some other rather non-descript folks. That is where I sat down. I was warmly greeted and genuinely engaged. In fact, the conversation carried over on to the lawn in front of the hall after the kitchen crew kicked us out and it lasted long into the afternoon. I found these colleagues to be genuine people who, though they were not outwardly beautiful enough to sit at the king’s table, had been inwardly transformed by the King of kings.
In a few moments I will invite you to join me at the King’s table where He is the host and each one of us are a valued guests. No matter who you are, no matter what ugliness you have done in life, God invites you to come to this table. God asks you to take the seat next to Him as you are and nothing more. God’s very self will be grafted into your heart. In this era of power lunches and positioning, where its not who you are but who you know that really matters, the Eucharistic meal beckons us to put our trust in God and His love for us. Let God be established in your heart and it will not shrink. May the truth of God’s love make you humble—at peace.
Over the course of the meal I saw the bishop in a new light—not as the spiritual and judicial authority of the diocese, but relaxed in conversation with long-time friends. He talked and joked with others at the table who were obviously near and dear to him. The conversation rolled casually from church affairs to committee work to seminary days. The bishop was polite to me, asking how things were going in my new position and other usual pleasantries. His friends tolerated the intrusion I represented and I was grateful for the chance to be with them. The meal ended when a priest asked for some private time with the bishop and he excused himself. Without a good-bye the others left shortly thereafter and I remained sitting alone.
The next morning I went to the dinning hall for breakfast intent on meeting some new people. I saw a table with a tray on it and plenty of open chairs. I sat down not knowing whose tray it was, but confident that others would be joining me soon. It turned out that the tray belonged to… the bishop. For the second straight meal I was seated directly across from him. The other spaces were quickly filled by the same priests I had eaten with the night before. The bishop said good morning to me and not much more. His friends barely acknowledged my presence.
That breakfast was torture but it gave me a chance to sit back and observe the nature of the people who held forth in the king’s court. They talked in a kind of coded language, never once bothering to explain the discussion to me or to draw me in. They openly planned their afternoon’s golf outing, never once asking if I played or would like to join them. And as the conversation wore on I noticed that they didn’t so much talk to each other as they talked to each other through the bishop. They never looked directly at each other, only the bishop. They never directly addressed each other, only the bishop. It dawned on me that for each one of these priests only two people really mattered—himself and the bishop.
Someone once observed that a significant number of clergy share a lethal combination of two personality traits—low self-esteem and high idealism. If you look at any of us long enough you will see a person who has a deep need to good and an even deeper need to be recognized for doing good. For my colleagues, sitting with the bishop had a lot to do with their need for recognition and its derivative, self-worth. Seeing that helped me to understand their rude behavior as being nothing personal. It also strengthened my resolve to find new companions at lunch!
That episode came back to me as I pondered the Gospel reading for today. When Jesus encourages us not to sit at the best seat at the table He is not so much spelling out Emily Post-like manners for a social function as He is talking about one of the cardinal virtues of the religious life: humility.
Humility is one of the most misunderstood traits of our time. We tend to think of it in terms of self-effacement, but it is not that. For instance, when you work hard at putting together a dinner party and someone compliments you, being humble does not mean saying, “Oh, it was nothing,” or “the food could have been better.” That is self-effacing. And being humble does not mean hiding in the kitchen so no one can express their appreciation. True humility accepts the complement graciously. When someone says, “This dinner is wonderful,” humility might respond, “Thank you, I am so glad you are having a nice time.” When the boss says, “You did a good job on this project,” humility might say, “It was important to me to give it my best effort.”
If humility is not self-effacement, then what is it? The saints of the Church tell us that it has something to do with truth and peace. In the spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, which was written in 14th century England by an anonymous author, we find this thought:
A person is humble when he stands in the truth with a knowledge and appreciation for himself as he really is.
A humble person knows his or her own shortcomings and appreciates his or her own gifts. In other words, he or she knows the truth about himself or herself and accepts it.
Two centuries earlier, St. Francis spoke about the truth we each must find about ourselves:
Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no better when he is praised and exalted by people then when he is considered worthless, simple, and despicable; for what a person is before God, that he is and nothing more.
One of our deepest cravings by virtue of being human is a longing for affirmation—a desire to be recognized as being somebody. Where we take that desire and how do we seek to have it met is one of our most critical undertakings in the journey we call life.
Francis says that who we are is who we are as we stand before God. We are nothing more, nothing less. Who am I before God? Well, I certainly am not who I could be, but I am loved by the Author of all things. I am not perfect, but I am forgiven by the God of all mercy. I am not spectacular by any measure of the world’s standards, but I am dear and precious to the One who made me and is about the work of molding me day by day. The humble person knows this truth and the humble person derives from it an abiding sense of peace because the core of who he or she is rests safely in God. It can not be inflated by people’s praise nor can it be deflated by people’s poison.
The poet of the 112th Psalm wrote this about those who are humble...
...their heart is right;
they put their trust in the Lord.
Their heart is established and will not shrink.
The humble person then is the one who knows the truth about himself, who sees himself as God sees him, and as a result is at peace.
And from this self-perception, the humble person enters the world in a new way. Anthony de Mello of the Society of Jesuits, in his book, One Minute Wisdom, describes it this way:
The spiritual Master frequently told his disciples that holiness, like beauty, is only genuine when unselfconscious. He loved to quote the verse,
The Rose: she blooms because she blooms,
and does not ask why,
Nor does she prune herself
to catch my eye.
It is only when we derive our identity from being a child of God, not of the world, that we are able to let go of the insatiable need for self-inflation and move out in love toward others, especially those who will not advance us in some way. It is only when our sense of self is grounded in grace, in the eternal reality that we are loved by God, that we are able to break the tyranny of self-inflation and love others as we have been loved.
So, back to that clergy conference. At lunch I looked long and hard for a new place to sit. To my right was a table with the bishop and his friends. To my left was another table with a rather disheveled looking fellow, an over-weight woman, and some other rather non-descript folks. That is where I sat down. I was warmly greeted and genuinely engaged. In fact, the conversation carried over on to the lawn in front of the hall after the kitchen crew kicked us out and it lasted long into the afternoon. I found these colleagues to be genuine people who, though they were not outwardly beautiful enough to sit at the king’s table, had been inwardly transformed by the King of kings.
In a few moments I will invite you to join me at the King’s table where He is the host and each one of us are a valued guests. No matter who you are, no matter what ugliness you have done in life, God invites you to come to this table. God asks you to take the seat next to Him as you are and nothing more. God’s very self will be grafted into your heart. In this era of power lunches and positioning, where its not who you are but who you know that really matters, the Eucharistic meal beckons us to put our trust in God and His love for us. Let God be established in your heart and it will not shrink. May the truth of God’s love make you humble—at peace.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Pentecost 13: Drawn by Desire to God
You could find Bob
in the same parish
in the same pew
sitting with his wife
every single Sunday.
He was as traditional
as traditional gets;
in his choice of cloths,
in his manner of speech,
and in his preference
for worship:
Kneeling in silence,
Rite One Holy Eucharist,
altar against the wall.
I once asked the congregation
what about it’s life
would appeal to a visitor:
the solid stone architecture?
the gorgeous stained glass?
the intricate wood carving?
Bob said it would be
the reverential demeanor
of the people at worship.
That was his manner,
which most people
experienced as being
gruff and off-putting.
Bob was not happy
with liturgical innovation,
livid with the new
center altar location,
longed for the old prayer book,
lamented a day gone by.
What would happen
I wondered
if at the pearly gates
St. Peter welcomed him
with word
that Rite 2 communion
was set to begin
in half an hour
but the devil whispered
Rite 1 would begin
in just five minutes
at his place?
Where would Bob
chose to be?
What is it that draws a person to the True and Living God? Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel invites us to ponder this question as a seeker approaches Jesus and asks, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”
It is a question that most every religious tradition has mulled over. Buddhists and Hindus believe that all living creatures are reincarnated after death. Toaists believe that only an enlightened person achieves immortality. Judaism teaches that the righteous dead will be resurrected in a messianic age that is still to come. Muslims hold that everyone will be resurrected, but that those who have lived a bad life must undergo correction in hell for a time. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach the righteous will live eternally on the earth, which God will one day turn into paradise. They also believe that the 144,000 most righteous people will go to heaven: Jesus was the first of this number, more are being added, and once the group is complete our present age will come to an end. Mormons think that heaven (or glory) has three levels, each of these having sublevels. The lowest level will be here on earth and it is reserved for those people who have not lived a good life.
Jesus’ response to this question (here and throughout the Gospels) is less concrete, more nuanced, not nearly as specific, and consists of a multiplicity of images. What we hear this morning suggests that some who thought they were ‘in’ will be shut out, while others who never knew about it will be drawn it. It is an image that portrays God as both exacting and generous.
Several years ago I led a senior high youth conference in an exploration of C.S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce. It is an allegory where various people find themselves on a bus which takes them to heaven. Once there, each person is met by an escort who is assigned to guide him or her on a journey to meet God. In most every instance the person resists, each for a specific and personal reason. In one of the most challenging chapters, a mother is met by her brother, but years early she had lost a child and it is her long-departed child that she most wants to see. Her brother assures her that she will be reunited with her child, but first and foremost she must want to meet God because everything else flows out of that desire. But her burning desire is to be reunited with her child. It is one that we can all understand, and yet it is not the most important thing. In the end, she leaves heaven angry and bitter that it does not give to her immediately the thing she wants.
After our discussion I worked with a group of students who were assigned to plan that evening’s worship service. We agreed that each would write a description of what he or she hoped heaven would be like. That night, after they put their thoughts together, I listened to descriptions of heaven as being a place where you could play your favorite sports and never get tired, as being a place where you could eat all that you want and never get fat; as being a place where you could be with your friends all the time and never have to go to school. After listening to them, here is what I asked them: Is heaven a place where you get to be with God, to know God, and to experience God’s love? And is any of that important to you?
What is it that draws a person to the True and Living God?
Jesus suggests that it has little to do with being a part of a church or holding to the tenets of the Nicene Creed or being a good person. He suggests that it has everything to do simply with what you desire. St. Paul found the same thing as he traveled the Roman Empire preaching the Gospel to those who had never even heard the name of Jesus. He found that there are people who, quite apart from the Christian faith and culture and ceremony and language, live with a desire to be like Christ, although then cannot name it as such. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, St. Paul argues that there are Gentiles who live according to God’s law even though they are completely unaware of it. These people, Paul says, will be deemed as righteous; in other words... they are people who desire to know God and live their life in pursuit of this.
In today’s reading, Jesus hints that our challenge is to live every day in this world while being less and less of this world, to desire to know God, and to develop specific practices which can nurture this desire.
Last Sunday I showed you two chapters from the film Baraka, a Sufi word which means “the thread which weaves all life together.” This week I want to show you another chapter called “Monk with a Bell.” It is shorter than last week and not nearly as disturbing. Last week’s chapters portrayed how modern life is creating what I called an assault on the God-given gift of our humanity. This chapter shows one person in the midst of the madness practicing the ancient spiritual art of mindfulness. While I am not advocating this eastern practice, I want to close with it because it is a visual image of how one person manifests a desire to know God. Your desire and my desire will look different, but this image helps me to keep in focus the practices that enhance my desire to be with God.
[Monk with a Bell]
“Lord, will only a few be saved?” “Many will seek to enter and not be able, but others shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God.”
in the same parish
in the same pew
sitting with his wife
every single Sunday.
He was as traditional
as traditional gets;
in his choice of cloths,
in his manner of speech,
and in his preference
for worship:
Kneeling in silence,
Rite One Holy Eucharist,
altar against the wall.
I once asked the congregation
what about it’s life
would appeal to a visitor:
the solid stone architecture?
the gorgeous stained glass?
the intricate wood carving?
Bob said it would be
the reverential demeanor
of the people at worship.
That was his manner,
which most people
experienced as being
gruff and off-putting.
Bob was not happy
with liturgical innovation,
livid with the new
center altar location,
longed for the old prayer book,
lamented a day gone by.
What would happen
I wondered
if at the pearly gates
St. Peter welcomed him
with word
that Rite 2 communion
was set to begin
in half an hour
but the devil whispered
Rite 1 would begin
in just five minutes
at his place?
Where would Bob
chose to be?
What is it that draws a person to the True and Living God? Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel invites us to ponder this question as a seeker approaches Jesus and asks, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”
It is a question that most every religious tradition has mulled over. Buddhists and Hindus believe that all living creatures are reincarnated after death. Toaists believe that only an enlightened person achieves immortality. Judaism teaches that the righteous dead will be resurrected in a messianic age that is still to come. Muslims hold that everyone will be resurrected, but that those who have lived a bad life must undergo correction in hell for a time. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach the righteous will live eternally on the earth, which God will one day turn into paradise. They also believe that the 144,000 most righteous people will go to heaven: Jesus was the first of this number, more are being added, and once the group is complete our present age will come to an end. Mormons think that heaven (or glory) has three levels, each of these having sublevels. The lowest level will be here on earth and it is reserved for those people who have not lived a good life.
Jesus’ response to this question (here and throughout the Gospels) is less concrete, more nuanced, not nearly as specific, and consists of a multiplicity of images. What we hear this morning suggests that some who thought they were ‘in’ will be shut out, while others who never knew about it will be drawn it. It is an image that portrays God as both exacting and generous.
Several years ago I led a senior high youth conference in an exploration of C.S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce. It is an allegory where various people find themselves on a bus which takes them to heaven. Once there, each person is met by an escort who is assigned to guide him or her on a journey to meet God. In most every instance the person resists, each for a specific and personal reason. In one of the most challenging chapters, a mother is met by her brother, but years early she had lost a child and it is her long-departed child that she most wants to see. Her brother assures her that she will be reunited with her child, but first and foremost she must want to meet God because everything else flows out of that desire. But her burning desire is to be reunited with her child. It is one that we can all understand, and yet it is not the most important thing. In the end, she leaves heaven angry and bitter that it does not give to her immediately the thing she wants.
After our discussion I worked with a group of students who were assigned to plan that evening’s worship service. We agreed that each would write a description of what he or she hoped heaven would be like. That night, after they put their thoughts together, I listened to descriptions of heaven as being a place where you could play your favorite sports and never get tired, as being a place where you could eat all that you want and never get fat; as being a place where you could be with your friends all the time and never have to go to school. After listening to them, here is what I asked them: Is heaven a place where you get to be with God, to know God, and to experience God’s love? And is any of that important to you?
What is it that draws a person to the True and Living God?
Jesus suggests that it has little to do with being a part of a church or holding to the tenets of the Nicene Creed or being a good person. He suggests that it has everything to do simply with what you desire. St. Paul found the same thing as he traveled the Roman Empire preaching the Gospel to those who had never even heard the name of Jesus. He found that there are people who, quite apart from the Christian faith and culture and ceremony and language, live with a desire to be like Christ, although then cannot name it as such. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, St. Paul argues that there are Gentiles who live according to God’s law even though they are completely unaware of it. These people, Paul says, will be deemed as righteous; in other words... they are people who desire to know God and live their life in pursuit of this.
In today’s reading, Jesus hints that our challenge is to live every day in this world while being less and less of this world, to desire to know God, and to develop specific practices which can nurture this desire.
Last Sunday I showed you two chapters from the film Baraka, a Sufi word which means “the thread which weaves all life together.” This week I want to show you another chapter called “Monk with a Bell.” It is shorter than last week and not nearly as disturbing. Last week’s chapters portrayed how modern life is creating what I called an assault on the God-given gift of our humanity. This chapter shows one person in the midst of the madness practicing the ancient spiritual art of mindfulness. While I am not advocating this eastern practice, I want to close with it because it is a visual image of how one person manifests a desire to know God. Your desire and my desire will look different, but this image helps me to keep in focus the practices that enhance my desire to be with God.
[Monk with a Bell]
“Lord, will only a few be saved?” “Many will seek to enter and not be able, but others shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God.”
Monday, August 16, 2010
Pentecost 12: Chutes and Blessings
He had had it. He had just had enough. He had had all he could take and then some. Enough of the rudeness. Enough of the stress. Enough of the grind. And so Steve Slater picked up the cabin microphone, announced to all on board that he quit, grabbed a beer, activated the plane’s emergency exit chute, and slide into infamy. His story (as we say in today’s world of interconnected communication) went ‘viral.’ All around the globe people weighed in. His frustration resonated with millions and millions of workers everywhere who are just plain tired of the daily grind and the toll it takes on each one of us.
You may recall that some time ago in a sermon I talked about the concept of emotional labor - first described in a 1983 book by Arlie Hochschild called The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling. Studying airline flight attendants and debt collectors, Hochschild wondered about the price a worker pays to present the company’s emotion rather than one’s own authentic feeling. For flight attendants, the emotional demand is to be ever pleasant and courteous, even in the face of galling rudeness. For debt collectors, it is to strike an angry, compassionless, and judgmental tone, even in the face of heartbreaking human struggle.
Much of today’s work falls under the umbrella of the notion of emotional labor. In years gone by, an honest day’s work would have worn you out physically. Today’s work wears us out emotionally. In the process we become disconnected from our self; at first by suppressing our true feelings, but over time by repressing them. In our non-work time, either we are emotional zombies or all the stuff we were not allowed to feel and express at work comes flooding out in the other arenas of our life.
Add to this diminishing pay, shrinking benefits, the growing cost of the daily basics, more demands, less rewards, more pressure, less security, and it is no wonder that Steve Slater is a folk hero to many. I have only read an article or two about the incident. I have not seen Slater on TV or listened to any discussion about him. So based only on my limited exposure to this story, it seems to me people are wrestling with a fundamental question: what does this mean, given that millions of people have had such a deep, visceral response to his actions? What draws the masses to the act of this one individual?
And that is a good question to be asking. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus points out the irony of a culture’s ability to discern the weather while being completely unable to discern the meaning of the times. Since Jesus’ day we have developed amazing technology to forecast the weather, but we still struggle to see the bigger picture. It is so hard to understand the times in which we live while we live within them.
When I read about Steve Slater I immediately thought of a film called Baraka, a word in Sufi that means “the thread which weaves life together.” Ron Fricke, the film’s director, intended it to be “a guided mediation on humanity.” I want to show you two chapters from the film that will take about 7 minutes to watch. The first chapter is called “City and Industry” and the second “Chickens.” There are no words, just visual images. As you watch ponder what these images suggest about life today, about work, and about the state of our humanity.
[portions of the chapters we watched can be found on YouTube by searching for 'Baraka']
Here are a few things that come to me from what we have seen:
I am struck by the rhythm of the city; suggesting that while each one of us is free to live life as we choose, the modern world has a way of funneling us into patterns which feel forced and predictable and anything but free.
I am stunned by the industrialization of chickens. Their worth has been reduced to one single thing… the thing they do that is deemed to have value; namely lay eggs. Everything about their environment has been tailored to leverage that value and anything thought to detract from it has been removed. Isn’t that same methodology being used on human labor? Isn’t that what the manufacturing scenes suggest?
One final image comes from the fast-forward view in the commuter terminal. Of all the motion and activity, my eye gets drawn toward the two people who stop to have a conversation. Every other person is a blur of motion, but these two people, standing and talking, come into focus. What does this suggest about what it means to be human and the value of connecting with another person?
Given all of this, what discernment do you make of the times in which we live? Isn’t it summed up in the face of the screaming man and in the chute descending slide of Steve Slater? God the Creator has endowed each person with the dignity of humanity, and yet we live in a time when the very essence of our humanity is under assault.
Let me close by presenting a different vision of what it means to be human and to engage in labor. It is not a quick fix or an easy answer, but it is life-giving in these dark times. It comes in the form of a blessing written by John O’Donohue. He was a Roman Catholic priest for a while, a writer, a theologian, and something of a mystic before dying in 2008 at the age of 52. O’Donohue believed that God can be found both in the inner wisdom of our soul as well as in the unfolding drama of the day. Being aware of both and paying attention to how they intersect was for him the key to being fully human and faithful. He wrote a book of blessings and I close with this one, his blessing for work. Listen closely and see if you hear in it a vision of what your life and labor might be:
May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work you do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light, and renewal to those who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of refreshment, inspiration, and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams, possibilities, and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered, and protected.
May your soul calm, console, and renew you.
You may recall that some time ago in a sermon I talked about the concept of emotional labor - first described in a 1983 book by Arlie Hochschild called The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling. Studying airline flight attendants and debt collectors, Hochschild wondered about the price a worker pays to present the company’s emotion rather than one’s own authentic feeling. For flight attendants, the emotional demand is to be ever pleasant and courteous, even in the face of galling rudeness. For debt collectors, it is to strike an angry, compassionless, and judgmental tone, even in the face of heartbreaking human struggle.
Much of today’s work falls under the umbrella of the notion of emotional labor. In years gone by, an honest day’s work would have worn you out physically. Today’s work wears us out emotionally. In the process we become disconnected from our self; at first by suppressing our true feelings, but over time by repressing them. In our non-work time, either we are emotional zombies or all the stuff we were not allowed to feel and express at work comes flooding out in the other arenas of our life.
Add to this diminishing pay, shrinking benefits, the growing cost of the daily basics, more demands, less rewards, more pressure, less security, and it is no wonder that Steve Slater is a folk hero to many. I have only read an article or two about the incident. I have not seen Slater on TV or listened to any discussion about him. So based only on my limited exposure to this story, it seems to me people are wrestling with a fundamental question: what does this mean, given that millions of people have had such a deep, visceral response to his actions? What draws the masses to the act of this one individual?
And that is a good question to be asking. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus points out the irony of a culture’s ability to discern the weather while being completely unable to discern the meaning of the times. Since Jesus’ day we have developed amazing technology to forecast the weather, but we still struggle to see the bigger picture. It is so hard to understand the times in which we live while we live within them.
When I read about Steve Slater I immediately thought of a film called Baraka, a word in Sufi that means “the thread which weaves life together.” Ron Fricke, the film’s director, intended it to be “a guided mediation on humanity.” I want to show you two chapters from the film that will take about 7 minutes to watch. The first chapter is called “City and Industry” and the second “Chickens.” There are no words, just visual images. As you watch ponder what these images suggest about life today, about work, and about the state of our humanity.
[portions of the chapters we watched can be found on YouTube by searching for 'Baraka']
Here are a few things that come to me from what we have seen:
I am struck by the rhythm of the city; suggesting that while each one of us is free to live life as we choose, the modern world has a way of funneling us into patterns which feel forced and predictable and anything but free.
I am stunned by the industrialization of chickens. Their worth has been reduced to one single thing… the thing they do that is deemed to have value; namely lay eggs. Everything about their environment has been tailored to leverage that value and anything thought to detract from it has been removed. Isn’t that same methodology being used on human labor? Isn’t that what the manufacturing scenes suggest?
One final image comes from the fast-forward view in the commuter terminal. Of all the motion and activity, my eye gets drawn toward the two people who stop to have a conversation. Every other person is a blur of motion, but these two people, standing and talking, come into focus. What does this suggest about what it means to be human and the value of connecting with another person?
Given all of this, what discernment do you make of the times in which we live? Isn’t it summed up in the face of the screaming man and in the chute descending slide of Steve Slater? God the Creator has endowed each person with the dignity of humanity, and yet we live in a time when the very essence of our humanity is under assault.
Let me close by presenting a different vision of what it means to be human and to engage in labor. It is not a quick fix or an easy answer, but it is life-giving in these dark times. It comes in the form of a blessing written by John O’Donohue. He was a Roman Catholic priest for a while, a writer, a theologian, and something of a mystic before dying in 2008 at the age of 52. O’Donohue believed that God can be found both in the inner wisdom of our soul as well as in the unfolding drama of the day. Being aware of both and paying attention to how they intersect was for him the key to being fully human and faithful. He wrote a book of blessings and I close with this one, his blessing for work. Listen closely and see if you hear in it a vision of what your life and labor might be:
May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work you do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light, and renewal to those who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of refreshment, inspiration, and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams, possibilities, and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered, and protected.
May your soul calm, console, and renew you.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Pentecost 11: Are You Ready?
Are you ready? Ready for what? Ready for… I don’t know… something!
This fall will mark the completion of my third year as your rector. I know, I know, the time flies when you are having fun. Twice now I have written articles of our newsletter – The Messenger – imploring you to be ready. One instance encouraged you to be ready for a hurricane. I mentioned a list of items you should have on hand, including…
• An adequate supply of bottled water.
• Batteries and a working flashlight.
• Non-perishable food items.
• A battery powered radio.
The question you should ask is this: “So Preacher, how are you doing on this?” But before you can ask, let us move us quickly on to the other article I wrote about readiness. In it I talked about some of the things each one of us needs to do to be prepared for unexpected incapacitation or an untimely death. These things include…
• An up-to-date will.
• A medical directive describing what kind of treatment you want and don’t want should you become incapacitated.
• A Power of Attorney document appointing someone to handle your financial and legal affairs should you not be able to tend to them.
• Up-to-date documents stating the beneficiaries of your assets and financial holdings.
• A document that lists your various accounts and password information.
Again, you might want to ask, “Well Preacher, did you take your own advice?” All I can say is, when in Oz, just watch the show, but never ever peer behind the curtain.
If you get nothing more from today’s Gospel reading and this sermon than the importance of tending to the basic acts of preparedness for life’s strange twists and turns, then something good has happened. The reading encourages this, but it also invites us to think broader and look deeper.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, the first followers of Christ lived in a state of heightened readiness. They expected, anticipated, looked for, and taught that the Lord’s return was imminent; perhaps only a matter of days or weeks away. Surely, they thought, it was no farther off than a month or two. Given this mindset, it did not make sense to plant crops or enroll in college or even buy a pair of new shoes. Given their expectations, it made sense to leave your job, liquidate your assets, and use everything you have to spread the good news that Jesus is coming… soon… any day… any moment… maybe even tonight.
Extreme readiness. Hyper-readiness. Don’t even sleep. What happens if you are asleep when the Lord returns? Will you miss out, be locked out, get left behind? Well, as months passed by it became impossible and impractical to live in this kind of state. Some believers began to reengage the practical matters of life: going to work, paying the bills, planning for the holidays, sleeping on a nightly basis… these kinds of things. To those who held out, such behavior seemed akin to the household servants who, when the master returns, are caught not tending to their responsibilities. Eventually all the followers of Christ had to develop a more practical ethic for living on a day-to-day basis given that Jesus’ return could be a long, long, long way off.
2,000 years later we read this text and ponder not only what it meant to those believers in that original setting, but also what it means to us in our present – and very different – context. What does the return of the Master look like and what does it mean to be ready for it? This is the deeper and broader question we are invited to ponder.
Jesus’ teachings on this matter seem to fall into three types of images or stories. One we see in this lesson. Spend your time doing the things that matter most – that count for something important… like the Kingdom of God – rather than frittering your days away on things trivial and inconsequential.
Another image relates to being ready for power outages and drastic changes in life. Think of the parable of the ten maidens who, again, are waiting for a bridegroom who (it just so happens) is delayed. Five of the maidens bring enough oil for their lamps to last through the night, while five do not. Those in that second group have to scurry off to find more oil and it is during their absence that the bridegroom appears. This story suggests there is a practical aspect to being ready.
A third and final image relates to great feasts and parties. Those who miss out on Christ’s return are those who consistently ignore invitations to social gatherings, family events, and community celebrations; preferring instead to tend only to the drudgery of daily tasks.
These three images tell us something very important about the “return of Christ;” suggesting that it is not so much an end of time occurrence as much as it is an on-going experience in the life of God’s people. The first image hints at how we find Christ present as we exercise our gifts in ministry. The second image suggests that we need to have our affairs in order. When our life is in chaos it is near impossible to be open to what God has to offer. The final image relates to how Christ becomes present as we gather in the company of fellow believers.
Making each a priority is how we can live into Jesus’ teaching to be ready.
• Be mindful of life’s basics.
• Be about the things that bring out the best you have to offer.
• Be present whenever God’s people gather together.
Do these things and you will be well-positioned for the “return of Christ” – today, tomorrow, every day, and at the end of time as we know it.
This fall will mark the completion of my third year as your rector. I know, I know, the time flies when you are having fun. Twice now I have written articles of our newsletter – The Messenger – imploring you to be ready. One instance encouraged you to be ready for a hurricane. I mentioned a list of items you should have on hand, including…
• An adequate supply of bottled water.
• Batteries and a working flashlight.
• Non-perishable food items.
• A battery powered radio.
The question you should ask is this: “So Preacher, how are you doing on this?” But before you can ask, let us move us quickly on to the other article I wrote about readiness. In it I talked about some of the things each one of us needs to do to be prepared for unexpected incapacitation or an untimely death. These things include…
• An up-to-date will.
• A medical directive describing what kind of treatment you want and don’t want should you become incapacitated.
• A Power of Attorney document appointing someone to handle your financial and legal affairs should you not be able to tend to them.
• Up-to-date documents stating the beneficiaries of your assets and financial holdings.
• A document that lists your various accounts and password information.
Again, you might want to ask, “Well Preacher, did you take your own advice?” All I can say is, when in Oz, just watch the show, but never ever peer behind the curtain.
If you get nothing more from today’s Gospel reading and this sermon than the importance of tending to the basic acts of preparedness for life’s strange twists and turns, then something good has happened. The reading encourages this, but it also invites us to think broader and look deeper.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, the first followers of Christ lived in a state of heightened readiness. They expected, anticipated, looked for, and taught that the Lord’s return was imminent; perhaps only a matter of days or weeks away. Surely, they thought, it was no farther off than a month or two. Given this mindset, it did not make sense to plant crops or enroll in college or even buy a pair of new shoes. Given their expectations, it made sense to leave your job, liquidate your assets, and use everything you have to spread the good news that Jesus is coming… soon… any day… any moment… maybe even tonight.
Extreme readiness. Hyper-readiness. Don’t even sleep. What happens if you are asleep when the Lord returns? Will you miss out, be locked out, get left behind? Well, as months passed by it became impossible and impractical to live in this kind of state. Some believers began to reengage the practical matters of life: going to work, paying the bills, planning for the holidays, sleeping on a nightly basis… these kinds of things. To those who held out, such behavior seemed akin to the household servants who, when the master returns, are caught not tending to their responsibilities. Eventually all the followers of Christ had to develop a more practical ethic for living on a day-to-day basis given that Jesus’ return could be a long, long, long way off.
2,000 years later we read this text and ponder not only what it meant to those believers in that original setting, but also what it means to us in our present – and very different – context. What does the return of the Master look like and what does it mean to be ready for it? This is the deeper and broader question we are invited to ponder.
Jesus’ teachings on this matter seem to fall into three types of images or stories. One we see in this lesson. Spend your time doing the things that matter most – that count for something important… like the Kingdom of God – rather than frittering your days away on things trivial and inconsequential.
Another image relates to being ready for power outages and drastic changes in life. Think of the parable of the ten maidens who, again, are waiting for a bridegroom who (it just so happens) is delayed. Five of the maidens bring enough oil for their lamps to last through the night, while five do not. Those in that second group have to scurry off to find more oil and it is during their absence that the bridegroom appears. This story suggests there is a practical aspect to being ready.
A third and final image relates to great feasts and parties. Those who miss out on Christ’s return are those who consistently ignore invitations to social gatherings, family events, and community celebrations; preferring instead to tend only to the drudgery of daily tasks.
These three images tell us something very important about the “return of Christ;” suggesting that it is not so much an end of time occurrence as much as it is an on-going experience in the life of God’s people. The first image hints at how we find Christ present as we exercise our gifts in ministry. The second image suggests that we need to have our affairs in order. When our life is in chaos it is near impossible to be open to what God has to offer. The final image relates to how Christ becomes present as we gather in the company of fellow believers.
Making each a priority is how we can live into Jesus’ teaching to be ready.
• Be mindful of life’s basics.
• Be about the things that bring out the best you have to offer.
• Be present whenever God’s people gather together.
Do these things and you will be well-positioned for the “return of Christ” – today, tomorrow, every day, and at the end of time as we know it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Pentecost 10: A Life of Autarkeia
If you had a few brief moments to spend with someone who is wise, revered, deeply spiritual, what would you want to talk about? Say it is Desmond Tutu or the Dali Lama or Billy Graham. My guess is you would want to make the most of that time by discussing something of significance. Think about the people who approach Jesus and the questions they raise. Some get it right and make the most of the opportunity:
Lord, which is the greatest commandment of all?
Lord, can you teach us how to pray?
Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
These folks are searching for answers to the most significant yearnings in the human soul. Others, well, their base concerns are indicative of a very different set of priorities:
Jesus, can you grant that my sons will sit at your side in glory?
Jesus, do you want me to call down fire from heaven on these people who have treated you so rudely?
And today… Jesus, can you please tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me?
Jesus was not concerned with power or vengeance or material possessions. He was firmly grounded in what the Greeks called autarkeia, a word which means ‘sufficiency,’ ‘contentment,’ or ‘enough.’ Aristotle described autarkeia as “a freedom from all things” or “to have need of nothing or no one.” The Stoics equated it with the word apatheia and espoused an even more extreme position of not even having desires.
In writing to the Christians in Philippi, St. Paul uses the word autarkeia in a slightly different way:
I have learned in whatever circumstances I am to be content [autarkes]. I know both what it means to be in modest circumstances and to be affluent. In any and in all circumstances I have been initiated into what it means to have plenty to eat and to go hungry, to be affluent and to be needy. (4:12)
For Paul, the Christian notion of contentment does imply doing away with all possessions, all relationships, and all desires. It means basing your sense of contentment on something greater than things that come and go, that fade or fail or find a way not to live up to their over-hyped expectations. What do you think was the source of Paul’s contentment; of his sense that he had enough of all he really needed regardless of the balance in his checking account or the newness of the automobile in his driveway?
“Jesus, can you tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me?” It is like going before a famous chef and asking how to make a peanut butter sandwich. And Jesus responds with a teaching on coveting, reminding all that life is about more than having possessions. I would like to say ‘amen’ to that, but, having just finished entering a month’s worth of receipts into my Quicken program, I wonder if my spending habits speak louder than my words.
Jesus’ teaching takes the form of a parable about a person who is already rich when a bumper crop comes in. What should he do with this huge bonus? The garage is already so full of stuff that he can’t park his cars in it. The attic and the basement are overflowing. Its 2,000 years ago and no one has yet thought up the self-storage business. So the rich man decides to build even bigger spaces to keep all of his things. And having it all in place, he imagines, will enable to him to kick back and lead a life of ease.
He is, in Jesus’ estimation, rich in things but impoverished in soul. There will come a time, perhaps even this very day, Jesus says, when all those things will lose their meaning and his spiritual poverty will overwhelm him.
One way to enrich your soul is to cultivate a sense of autarkeia, contentment; a belief that no matter what your circumstances you have enough of all you really need. Pondering this notion, John van de Laar, a Methodist minister from South Africa, wrote a reflection, which he called “Enough”:
Worry and stress are not hard for us, God,
we do them without thinking.
There is always the potential of threat
to our security,
our comfort,
our health,
our relationships,
our lives,
and we foolishly think that we could silence the fear
if we just had enough money,
enough insurance,
enough toys,
enough stored away for a rainy day.
It’s never enough, though;
The voice of our fear will not be dismissed so easily.
But in the small, silent places within us is another voice;
one that beckons us into the foolishness of faith,
that points our gaze to the birds and the flowers,
that, in unguarded moments, lets our muscles relax,
and our hearts lean into loved ones;
In unexpected whispers we hear it,
calling us to remember your promises,
your grace,
your steadfastness;
and suddenly, we discover
that it is enough.
Amen.
What helps do you to discover this spiritual sense of enough? In what ways do you live into it? And it what ways do you not live into it; forsaking contentment for the supposed blessings of a material life? Today, tomorrow, this week, for the month of August, what can you do to become more rich in spirit and less dependent on things?
Lord, which is the greatest commandment of all?
Lord, can you teach us how to pray?
Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
These folks are searching for answers to the most significant yearnings in the human soul. Others, well, their base concerns are indicative of a very different set of priorities:
Jesus, can you grant that my sons will sit at your side in glory?
Jesus, do you want me to call down fire from heaven on these people who have treated you so rudely?
And today… Jesus, can you please tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me?
Jesus was not concerned with power or vengeance or material possessions. He was firmly grounded in what the Greeks called autarkeia, a word which means ‘sufficiency,’ ‘contentment,’ or ‘enough.’ Aristotle described autarkeia as “a freedom from all things” or “to have need of nothing or no one.” The Stoics equated it with the word apatheia and espoused an even more extreme position of not even having desires.
In writing to the Christians in Philippi, St. Paul uses the word autarkeia in a slightly different way:
I have learned in whatever circumstances I am to be content [autarkes]. I know both what it means to be in modest circumstances and to be affluent. In any and in all circumstances I have been initiated into what it means to have plenty to eat and to go hungry, to be affluent and to be needy. (4:12)
For Paul, the Christian notion of contentment does imply doing away with all possessions, all relationships, and all desires. It means basing your sense of contentment on something greater than things that come and go, that fade or fail or find a way not to live up to their over-hyped expectations. What do you think was the source of Paul’s contentment; of his sense that he had enough of all he really needed regardless of the balance in his checking account or the newness of the automobile in his driveway?
“Jesus, can you tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me?” It is like going before a famous chef and asking how to make a peanut butter sandwich. And Jesus responds with a teaching on coveting, reminding all that life is about more than having possessions. I would like to say ‘amen’ to that, but, having just finished entering a month’s worth of receipts into my Quicken program, I wonder if my spending habits speak louder than my words.
Jesus’ teaching takes the form of a parable about a person who is already rich when a bumper crop comes in. What should he do with this huge bonus? The garage is already so full of stuff that he can’t park his cars in it. The attic and the basement are overflowing. Its 2,000 years ago and no one has yet thought up the self-storage business. So the rich man decides to build even bigger spaces to keep all of his things. And having it all in place, he imagines, will enable to him to kick back and lead a life of ease.
He is, in Jesus’ estimation, rich in things but impoverished in soul. There will come a time, perhaps even this very day, Jesus says, when all those things will lose their meaning and his spiritual poverty will overwhelm him.
One way to enrich your soul is to cultivate a sense of autarkeia, contentment; a belief that no matter what your circumstances you have enough of all you really need. Pondering this notion, John van de Laar, a Methodist minister from South Africa, wrote a reflection, which he called “Enough”:
Worry and stress are not hard for us, God,
we do them without thinking.
There is always the potential of threat
to our security,
our comfort,
our health,
our relationships,
our lives,
and we foolishly think that we could silence the fear
if we just had enough money,
enough insurance,
enough toys,
enough stored away for a rainy day.
It’s never enough, though;
The voice of our fear will not be dismissed so easily.
But in the small, silent places within us is another voice;
one that beckons us into the foolishness of faith,
that points our gaze to the birds and the flowers,
that, in unguarded moments, lets our muscles relax,
and our hearts lean into loved ones;
In unexpected whispers we hear it,
calling us to remember your promises,
your grace,
your steadfastness;
and suddenly, we discover
that it is enough.
Amen.
What helps do you to discover this spiritual sense of enough? In what ways do you live into it? And it what ways do you not live into it; forsaking contentment for the supposed blessings of a material life? Today, tomorrow, this week, for the month of August, what can you do to become more rich in spirit and less dependent on things?
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Counter-Cultural Prayer Life
“Lord, teach us to pray.” Isn’t it interesting that prayer is something we have to be taught. Unlike say language – which you learn largely by listening to others speak – prayer requires instruction. Or maybe it is like language. We all know how to pray, kind of, because we have all been exposed to it. We are formed by the prayers of this worship service. We know how to say grace and bedtime prayers. Some of us can offer extemporaneous prays at a bible study, or fellowship gathering, or as a healing ministry. Still, just as the disciples discerned by being around Jesus, we sense that there are depths and aspects of prayer that elude us just as we know our command of the language is limited when we listen to a great speaker or playwright or poet.
“Teach us to pray.” Let me highlight several things about Jesus’ response.
This first one you may already know. Jesus teaches His followers to address God as ‘Father’ using the Aramaic word for ‘daddy’ or ‘pa-pa.’ God, the One who is Holy Other, is intimate, open, loving, available, and accessible. Think how revolutionary this approach to prayer really is, given that it emerged from a religious tradition that taught you could not even speak or write God’s Name.
“Abba” – da-da – “hallowed be your name.” Hallowed: we have lost just how subversive and counter-cultural this part of the prayer is. Let me explain.
In the Greek and Roman world of Jesus’ era, it was commonly held that the emperor was a god. Adherents to this notion were part of what is known as the Roman Imperial Cult. Several rulers took the title ‘Epiphanes,’ meaning ‘god manifest.’ Ptolemy V, who came to power as a youth, is described with these glowing terms: “great in glory,” “restorer of the life of man,” “king like the sun,” “child of the gods,” “living image of Zeus,” and “the god manifest for whom we give thanks.”
When Octavian defeated the forces of Anthony and Cleopatra in 31 BC he became Rome’s first emperor, the Caesar. A few years later the senate conferred on him the title ‘Augustus’ – a Latin word meaning “hallowed” or “revered.” Listen to this typical proclamation made to the August or Hallowed One:
Whereas Providence, which divinely ordered our lives, created with zeal… the most perfect good for our lives by producing Augustus [the hallowed one] and filling him with virtue for the benefaction of humankind, sending us and our descendants a savior to put an end to war…, and Whereas when Caesar appeared he exceeded the hopes of all who had anticipated his good tidings [in Greek, euangelion or ‘gospel,’ ‘good news’]”
All of this points to the culture and climate of that era. It was a time when the political, military, and economic leader was proclaimed at “hallowed” or “revered.” He was god manifested among humans. His acts and proclamations where evangelisms. Now, not everyone believed this, but everyone had to give homage to it. And the more you give homage to something, the more you live in to the reality it creates.
So do you see now how Jesus’ prayer life was counter-cultural and subversive? As Jesus prayed so Jesus lived. He lived in this life in warm, intimate relationship with God and acknowledged God’s kingdom as the supreme reign and reality in this world. Jesus was engaged in what the poet Czeslaw Milosz called “the passionate pursuit of the real.” His prayer life was aimed at exposing pretenders and rejecting contenders to the kingdom of the real.
So what does a passionate pursuit of the real look like? Well, in prayer, Jesus said it looks like asking, searching, and knocking. The writer Evelyn Underhill makes this observation:
“Note how all of them are attached to something done by us. The question of whether we will commune with God is left to us… God gives out of God’s treasury what we really ask, seek, and long for. God’s supply is infinite: it is our demands which are shallow, mistrustful, and vague.”
I see in this three-fold formula a pattern to the evolving, maturing life of prayer. At the earliest stage our prayer life revolves around asking: “God, give me this,” “God, fix that,” “God, get me out of a jam.” There seems to be no limit to what we can ask of God, to what we want from God. But somewhere along the spiritual way we may come to see and sense how we often ask for the wrong things. We are like a little child who for dinner wants ice cream, cookies, and popcorn. That may be want we want, but it is not what we need. It is not what is good for us.
In my own life of prayer I have sensed a movement from asking toward seeking. I began to wonder more about God’s way, God’s word, God’s wisdom, and God’s will. I knew I was asking for the wrong things, but I did not know what exactly were the right things. Consider what Jesus teaches us to ask:
…that we have the food we need (not want) for this day.
…that we be forgiven.
…that we not be alone in the midst of life’s trials and challenges.
Searching for what is right – for what is real - it seems to me is a near life-long process.
Emerging in my prayer life is more of what I think Jesus meant by knocking. It involves wanting to enter into the presence of God through silence, through meditation, through holy reading, and through being attentive to the world around me and the relationships of my life. It involves a conscious and deep desire to leave the hallowed world of today’s Caesars in order to enter the kingdom of Abba.
It is hard for me to sustain this desire for extended periods of time or as a daily practice and these times of knocking don’t happen as often as they could. I realize more and more that I am just a toddler in the life of prayer. But every now and then I find myself in line with the Prayer of St. Theresa of Avila:
Let nothing trouble you
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes
But God will never change
Patient endurance
Will obtain everything
Whoever has God
Wants for nothing at all.
Now that is a counter-cultural notion indeed. It is subversive to the core of this age. It is a beautiful description of the real and whenever I attach myself to it I know that my prayer life is on the right track, especially when my actions follow.
“Teach us to pray.” Let me highlight several things about Jesus’ response.
This first one you may already know. Jesus teaches His followers to address God as ‘Father’ using the Aramaic word for ‘daddy’ or ‘pa-pa.’ God, the One who is Holy Other, is intimate, open, loving, available, and accessible. Think how revolutionary this approach to prayer really is, given that it emerged from a religious tradition that taught you could not even speak or write God’s Name.
“Abba” – da-da – “hallowed be your name.” Hallowed: we have lost just how subversive and counter-cultural this part of the prayer is. Let me explain.
In the Greek and Roman world of Jesus’ era, it was commonly held that the emperor was a god. Adherents to this notion were part of what is known as the Roman Imperial Cult. Several rulers took the title ‘Epiphanes,’ meaning ‘god manifest.’ Ptolemy V, who came to power as a youth, is described with these glowing terms: “great in glory,” “restorer of the life of man,” “king like the sun,” “child of the gods,” “living image of Zeus,” and “the god manifest for whom we give thanks.”
When Octavian defeated the forces of Anthony and Cleopatra in 31 BC he became Rome’s first emperor, the Caesar. A few years later the senate conferred on him the title ‘Augustus’ – a Latin word meaning “hallowed” or “revered.” Listen to this typical proclamation made to the August or Hallowed One:
Whereas Providence, which divinely ordered our lives, created with zeal… the most perfect good for our lives by producing Augustus [the hallowed one] and filling him with virtue for the benefaction of humankind, sending us and our descendants a savior to put an end to war…, and Whereas when Caesar appeared he exceeded the hopes of all who had anticipated his good tidings [in Greek, euangelion or ‘gospel,’ ‘good news’]”
All of this points to the culture and climate of that era. It was a time when the political, military, and economic leader was proclaimed at “hallowed” or “revered.” He was god manifested among humans. His acts and proclamations where evangelisms. Now, not everyone believed this, but everyone had to give homage to it. And the more you give homage to something, the more you live in to the reality it creates.
So do you see now how Jesus’ prayer life was counter-cultural and subversive? As Jesus prayed so Jesus lived. He lived in this life in warm, intimate relationship with God and acknowledged God’s kingdom as the supreme reign and reality in this world. Jesus was engaged in what the poet Czeslaw Milosz called “the passionate pursuit of the real.” His prayer life was aimed at exposing pretenders and rejecting contenders to the kingdom of the real.
So what does a passionate pursuit of the real look like? Well, in prayer, Jesus said it looks like asking, searching, and knocking. The writer Evelyn Underhill makes this observation:
“Note how all of them are attached to something done by us. The question of whether we will commune with God is left to us… God gives out of God’s treasury what we really ask, seek, and long for. God’s supply is infinite: it is our demands which are shallow, mistrustful, and vague.”
I see in this three-fold formula a pattern to the evolving, maturing life of prayer. At the earliest stage our prayer life revolves around asking: “God, give me this,” “God, fix that,” “God, get me out of a jam.” There seems to be no limit to what we can ask of God, to what we want from God. But somewhere along the spiritual way we may come to see and sense how we often ask for the wrong things. We are like a little child who for dinner wants ice cream, cookies, and popcorn. That may be want we want, but it is not what we need. It is not what is good for us.
In my own life of prayer I have sensed a movement from asking toward seeking. I began to wonder more about God’s way, God’s word, God’s wisdom, and God’s will. I knew I was asking for the wrong things, but I did not know what exactly were the right things. Consider what Jesus teaches us to ask:
…that we have the food we need (not want) for this day.
…that we be forgiven.
…that we not be alone in the midst of life’s trials and challenges.
Searching for what is right – for what is real - it seems to me is a near life-long process.
Emerging in my prayer life is more of what I think Jesus meant by knocking. It involves wanting to enter into the presence of God through silence, through meditation, through holy reading, and through being attentive to the world around me and the relationships of my life. It involves a conscious and deep desire to leave the hallowed world of today’s Caesars in order to enter the kingdom of Abba.
It is hard for me to sustain this desire for extended periods of time or as a daily practice and these times of knocking don’t happen as often as they could. I realize more and more that I am just a toddler in the life of prayer. But every now and then I find myself in line with the Prayer of St. Theresa of Avila:
Let nothing trouble you
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes
But God will never change
Patient endurance
Will obtain everything
Whoever has God
Wants for nothing at all.
Now that is a counter-cultural notion indeed. It is subversive to the core of this age. It is a beautiful description of the real and whenever I attach myself to it I know that my prayer life is on the right track, especially when my actions follow.
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