Light a Candle

Last Sunday a colleague of mine served as a guest preacher at an Episcopal church in another state.  Like many pastors in recent weeks, her sermon addressed our current immigration situation.  She posted it on-line and I read it.  It was thoughtful and articulate.  She built on the scriptures for the day and the theology of our baptismal covenant.  She was respectful of those holding a different opinion.  She invited parishioners into a place of reflection and conversation.  Still, two people walked out of church during the sermon and two other people waited until after the service to “lambaste” her before storming out in a huff.  The experience left my colleague shaken, anxious, and fearful.  I have other colleagues who have been criticized from the opposite direction by people who believe they have not preached strongly enough about objectionable things happening in our country.

Increasingly, preaching, like many other forms of communication, is becoming caught up in the growing incivility of our national discourse.  Our minds are made up, our positions solidified, and our defenses are on heightened alert to reject anything not in accord with what we believe.  Given this, what is a preacher to do?  Well, in an article this week, one minister suggested we clergy should preach the Gospel.  Now there, I thought, is a novel idea.  How much trouble can one get into if he or she sticks to the Gospel?  Well, Jesus was executed for it and all but one of his Apostles were martyred for their faith.  Still, I am willing to give it a try.

In today’s Old Testament reading, God states a decided preference for the most poor and vulnerable people in society – widows (at that time a group with absolutely no status or rights), orphans, and strangers.  “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  The New Testament reading describes how directs God Abraham to pack up his family and belongings in order to move from a land where they are threatened to a place where they will be safe and can prosper.  Jesus ratchets up the Gospel imperative to a level almost unimaginable: “You must love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.” 

The readings challenge us to acknowledge the humanity of the person who is other and the person who is against us.  It is easy, Jesus says, to find humanity in the person who looks like you and talks like you and thinks like you.  If you want to be my follower than you must find the humanity in the person who does not look, talk, or think like you. 

And if you manage to see the other as human, what then do you do with this?  What should our actions look like?  Here is one suggestion with deep roots in the Christian tradition: while we fail to recognize him at first, most often we meet Jesus in the person who is other.  Offer to the other what you would offer to Christ.  So, for example, if you own a Colorado bakery and a gay couple asks you to bake a cake for their wedding, bake them the kind of cake you would give to Jesus himself.  And if, for example, you own a Lexington restaurant and an administrative staffer sits down at a table, make her the most delicious meal you can and offer to her and her companions the best service ever, just as you would do if you were preparing a dinner for Christ. 

It is time for us in America to stop pushing each other away and pull closer together, to talk about our differences in a way that is articulate, civil, and respectful, not hateful, accusatory, and divisive.  We need this from our elected officials, people in the media, and from ourselves. 

I have had several very interesting Facebook threads discussing some of the current issues facing our country.  I try to be honest about what I don’t know (immigration law and statistics about crime) while lifting up what I do know – a moral and spiritual perspective.  I am learning a lot and I think what I have contributed has caused some people to think in slightly new ways.  There are disagreements, but no one has been disagreeable. 

At the end of the day, I will have only one vote to cast in a general election, so I don’t believe I alone have the power to change the world.  Still, I believe my opinion matters and I believe how I express my opinion matters even more.  How I express my opinion contributes to who we are as a people and influences – for good or for ill – who we are becoming.  Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain and most fools do.”  I say in times like these, it takes someone really special to contribute to the common good.  Jesus suggests you can tell who a person is and whose a person is by how that person treats those of whom they differ most.

Are you familiar with an organization known as The Christophers?  Father James Keller founded it in 1945 to counteract a deep-rooted American suspicion the Roman Catholic Church wanted to take over our country.  The name ‘Christopher’ means Christ bearer and the members of this group commit themselves to bring our Lord and Savior to a people prejudiced against them.  Although it is born in the Roman tradition, it advocates for religious tolerance and respect.  It continues on in our own time, guided by its founding motto: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”  Members of The Christophers are encouraged to commit simple acts of kindness and goodness each and every day in order to bring the light of Christ into a dark world.

If ever there was a Gospel message for our time it is this: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.  In truth, each one of us is going to have to light a lot of candles.  Everywhere we go, with every encounter we have, and especially as we meet ‘the other’, we are going to have to light a candle.  It will be a candle of civility and respect and regard for the dignity of every human being.  It will be a candle created in the theology shop of our Presiding Bishop, who is fond of saying, “If it isn’t about love, it isn’t about God.”

Debbie Askew shared with me a Facebook post she had seen and I want to read it for you.

[We went to] a New Mexican restaurant in Suffolk called El Korita.  It is at 200 E. Washington St.  We got there about 12:30 and it was busy.  It is a tiny little restaurant.  Family run, painted bright and clean. 

We were seated right away, one waitress running from table to table, super friendly.  We were brought chips and drinks right away.

I immediately notice what looks like a homeless older lady.  She is pushing a buggy with lots of belongings, she is not well kept, wearing a shirt for a skirt.  She is sitting at a corner table.  She gets up several times, goes to the counter and back.  I pointed her out to Meg and we waited to see what was going on.  Very quickly in the midst of this busy lunch rush, the owner hands her a plate of food.  She goes back to the table and sits down and eats.  When the waitress, who is the daughter of the owner comes over to take our order, we tell her that we will cover her lunch.  She just (literally) joyfully says... we have it!  She is here every day and we feed her.  We know what it is to be hungry, so we make sure she isn’t.

When that lady was finished with her meal, she picked up her plate, took it back to the counter.  The owner came from the back in the kitchen, met her, had a conversation with her and walked with her to the door.  He gently put his hand on her back, opened the door for her and then went back to working. 

When we went up to pay I was talking to his daughter and she thanked me again for wanting to cover her lunch.  She told me that everyone that worked there saved their change and put it aside to cover anyone that came in that was hungry.  She said they do not judge and will feed them.  Meg and I paid our bill and gave them money to put in for that too.

I tell this story for several reasons.  The most important is that this family is showing LOVE with no judgment.  Salt and Light. 
A brand new restaurant that was crazy busy and he could have taken the time to talk to the people that were there in suits and ties and little kids, but he was genuinely loving and caring on her.

It costs NOTHING to love and not judge.  Be salt and light!
OH!  The food was great too!!!!  Go eat there and maybe leave a little extra for their “mission.”

This is the kind of community I want to live it.  This is the kind of community I want to help create.  This is the kind of thing that happens more often and in more different ways than most of us could ever imagine.  These are the kinds of stories we need to share… the stories about people who light a candle rather than curse the darkness.   

I can’t change the world and, like many of my colleagues, I struggle with how to preach about the world today.  But here is one thing I can do and no one can stop me: I can light a candle… and then another… and then another.  The darkness is dark, but the light of Jesus – should you and I choose to manifest it in our lives – will overcome the darkness.  

Does God Care?

I finished reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Sea of Glory, which chronicles the story of the United States Exploring Expedition, consisting of a squadron of ships that circumnavigated the globe from 1838-1842.  Among its other achievements, the Ex. Ex. is credited with discovering the continent of Antarctica and mapping more the 1,500 miles of its coastline.  Most of this work was done under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, including gale force winds and ever-shifting packs of ice.  I come away from the book impressed with the courage and skill these sailors brought to the sea.  Here is one passage to give you a flavor of what they experienced:

Dense fog made navigating the icy barrier a particularly hazardous endeavor.  Instead of their eyes, the lookouts depended on their ears.  When they heard “the low and distant rumbling of ice,” they knew it was time to tack.  Then there were the times when the usual sounds of a ship at sea – the rhythmic slap of the waves and the comforting creak of the rigging (which always seemed magnified in the fog) – suddenly ceased as the [ship] glided into the eerily quiet lee of an unseen iceberg.”  “[T]he transition was so sudden… that many were awakened from sound sleep…  [It is] an occurrence from which the feeling of great danger is inseparable.”  

One of the squadron’s vessels, the Peacock, become so hopelessly ensnarled in the flows of ice its rudder was snapped off.  Unable to steer the ship, the captain and crew labored for hours and hours to direct its movements with a series of complicated, rapid, and demanding raising and lowering of sails.  Attempt after attempt to break free to open water failed and the ship’s haul was in danger of being crushed.  Finally, after more than 24 hours of life and death struggle, the ship broke through and the crew had to sail the battered Peacock more than 1,000 miles to New Zealand for repairs.

I share these stories because they describe the hazards of being on the water, something we encounter in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel.  While not nearly as long as the Chesapeake Bay, the Sea of Galilee is nearly as wide.  It is notorious for its sudden and dramatic change in conditions and because it is relatively shallow, strong winds can create formidable waves on it.  

Pairing Mark’s account with Sea of Glory, here is what I sense is happening.  The fishermen in the group are accustom to the conditions and are working hard at the sails and oars.  The land-lovers in the group are terrified.  Most likely they have been ordered to bale water filling the haul at an alarming rate.  Jesus, having exhausted himself with “the crowd” they left behind, is in the midst of what my colleagues and I refer to as a “clergy coma.”  Many of us collapse on Sunday afternoons and do not come close to recovery until after a good, long nap.  Have you ever awakened from a nap completely disoriented; not knowing who you are, where you are, what day it is, or what time it is?  I think this is what happens to Jesus.  He awakes startled and acts before he comes to his senses.  The results are dramatic, to say the least.

It is not clear who wakes Jesus and says, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  My guess it is the sailing novices, because the fishermen on board would not give up the struggle so easily and admit defeat.  And it is not entirely clear if the question indicates they believe they are doomed, or if they are urging Jesus to lend a hand with the baling efforts.  Either way, there is something universal in what they ask, “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?”, Jesus’ command, “Peace.  Be Still”, and his response, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

“Do you not care that we are perishing?”  What a profound question!  It has been asked about God down through the ages.  My suspicion is most of us here this morning have asked it in some form or fashion at some point in life.  God, do you care about what is happening to me?  God, do you care about what is happening to us?

I ponder often how the Creator of all reality can possibly care about me, let alone even be aware of me.  I can barely manage to keep track of my own extended family.  I spent two days of my vacation driving to cemeteries in rural Pennsylvania in order to find the tombstones of direct, but distant ancestors.  (I know, many of you must be wondering why I am not willing to charter a bus and make these amazing adventures a parish outing for all!).  I had to carry genealogy charts with me in order to keep straight even a handful of people and still felt confused.  If I can’t do it, I struggle to understand how God does.  

But, my experience matches that of so many of you, and countless throngs of the faithful down through the centuries.  While I can’t explain how it is, I know – I just know – God cares about me.  They only way I make sense of it is to believe the Holy One is something so completely other that human limitations simply do not apply, while at the same time is something so close to us as to be known and knowable.  

This morning’s first reading is one of the best known from the Old Testament – the story of David and Goliath.  We learned it as children, but could spend all our summer sermons pondering what it says to us as adults.  I come away from it this morning with two clear reflections.  First, David trusts how his experiences in the past translate well to the challenges of his present.  He believes in himself.  And second, he believes God cares about him and about his people.  Absent either of these, I doubt he would have stepped forward to slay the Philistine giant.  

Does God care about us?  Think about those times when you have asked this question with every fiber of your being.  Most often the winds and the waves threatening to take you under abated only as God worked through another person or people to restore the peace and calm you needed in your life.  Does God care about us?  On our better days, we step forward to provide the flesh and bones of the answer by challenging the Goliaths of our times in order to bring peace and calm to the life of another.

When I was in Ohio I met with Jon, my friend from childhood.  Along with his wife, we were driving to have dinner at another friend’s house when Jon’s cellphone rang.  His elderly neighbor was in the midst of a family crisis raising concerns about his safety and wellbeing.  Jon was not going to be at peace until he knew his neighbor was OK.  We turned the car around and drove back to Jon’s house where his wife volunteered to give up her Friday night and this social engagement in order to care for their neighbor.  Does God care?  Yes, and I know this because Jon and his wife care.

I do not have an ax to grind with the First Lady.  Still, her fashion decision regarding what to wear while visiting immigrant children separated from their parents invites a moral, Godly, Christian response.  “I don’t care.  Do you?”  Yes!  I do care.  No, to the critics who say “these are not our kids.”  All children are our children.  “Lord, don’t you care about these innocents and what they are experiencing?  “Yes,” God says, “Yes I care with all my Being.  You need to show the world how much I care.  What you do will bring peace and calm.  I will see to it.  What you do will speak of your faith.  I will channel my care and compassion through you.”

Does God care?  How do you know?  Does God care?  How do you show it? 

A Labortary for Relationships

I initiated something with my twenty fellow pilgrims after we returned from Scotland.  I made up a list of the Top10 things never said as we walked the Way of St. Cuthbert.  Things like, “What do you mean we don’t get to walk up that step hill!”  Others quickly responded, adding their own statements to the list.  One of the slower walkers offered this: “I must be the first person here.”  I won’t read the list to you because, as they say, you had to be there to get it.

About half of our group also walked the English Way of the Camino in Spain in 2016.  Of them, half are clergy who I see a couple of times each year at diocesan meetings and functions.  It is always a reunion of sorts when we are together, punctuated by joyous hugs and good-natured ribbing about something funny that happened on the trip.  It is fascinating to me how ten days and 60 miles of walking can forge a group of people into a community.

Last Sunday I talked about negotiating two realities in our lives.  First, we are lovingly created by God to be a one of a kind masterpiece.  And second, we are a communal people who live in complex relationships with others.  We are created in the image of God and just as God does not exist as an isolated singular, but rather is revealed in the Holy Trinity as existing in relational harmony, so too we have been designed to be connected to other people.

In today’s gospel reading we get a sense of just how complicated this can be.  Scholars attack Jesus saying he is in league with the devil and his own family states publicly they fear he has lost his mind.  The first accusation must have been infuriating; the second must have been devastating.  

In developing his hierarchy of human needs, the psychologist Abraham Maslow held that after addressing our physical need for things like food and water and after making provisions for our personal safety and well-being, our greatest need is to secure a sense of belonging; social connectedness.  Typically we make these connections through friendships, co-workers, and family. 

These relationships are not luxuries.  They are a human need.  If you deny the body oxygen – a physical need – it will surely die.  If you deny a human being of vital relationships, it will have an intensely detrimental effect on a person’s well-being.  Given all of this, it is no exaggeration to say Jesus is facing a very real personal crisis in his life in today’s reading.  

In her book Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, the social scientist Brené Brown states “The greatest barrier to belonging is fitting in.”  Certainly this seems counter-intuitive because we grow up believing fitting in to get along is essential if we are going to be accepted and incorporated into a group, be it friends, coworkers, or family.  But through her research Brown discovered the people with the deepest sense of belonging have the ability to stand alone when necessary.  They will risk disconnection in order to maintain their own authenticity and integrity.  Last Sunday I named this as personal authority.

Brown notes, “We are more sorted than we have ever been in the history of our county.  We have built ideological bunkers.  We are more likely now to live with, worship with, and go to school with people who are politically and ideologically likeminded.”  Rather than fostering a sense of belonging, Brown notes this sorting has not resulted in deeper connections, but rather in what she calls “Common Enemy Intimacy” – being joined together only because you hate the same people.  And just as some said Jesus did the work of the devil or that he had lost his mind, today’s language about the other is largely dehumanizing.  The less human we think of a person or a group the more inhumane we are likely to treat them.  Brown says as a society we are being driven away from one another by fear.

Fear is a subtext in today’s gospel reading.  The Jerusalem scribes are afraid of Jesus even though it is very early on in his public ministry and all he has done is heal a few people, defy certain societal conventions, created a buzz, and attracted a few followers.  No doubt Mary and her children – Jesus’ brothers and sisters – are afraid of the attention he is drawing and for good reason suspect it will not serve well either him or them.  Fear ratchets up the drive to disconnect.  Think about Maslow – personal security comes before social belonging.

I suspect there is not one of us here this morning who is not experiencing some kind of social disconnectedness in life; some kind of estrangement from a person or group where once there was, or should be, a relationship.  Somewhere in this brokenness I guarantee you is a fear.  It may be complicated and disguised or obvious and open, but fear is a tremendous threat to relationship.

In my first years of ordained ministry I worked for the most dysfunctional person I had known up to that point in my young life and I was completely unprepared to negotiate this relationship.  I sought the counsel of a priest I trusted who suggested I refocus the emphasis on my ministry to serving the rector while I quietly looked for employment elsewhere.  It was a brilliant suggestion, but at the time I said I was afraid if I devoted myself to what my boss needed from me I would be swallowed whole and disappear.  Well, lets just say our ‘relationship’ did not end well and leave it at that.  But, as time has gone by, I don’t blame him or focus on his dysfunction.  I think about how inexperienced I was and how fear disabled me and limited severely the range of my possible responses.

Well, back to Jesus and today’s reading.  He dismisses the criticism of his ‘peers’ by noting the obvious: if he is creating health and well-being in those who are suffering he can hardly be in cahoots with the author of misery and pain.  More difficult to dismiss is the criticism of his family.  But Jesus has experienced in much greater intensity what I experienced with my fellow pilgrims and you have found to be true through manifold relationships in your life.  Our social connectedness – our sense of belonging – manifests itself in a variety of ways.  

Perhaps the deepest, most enduring level is spiritual.  Jesus found his connectedness neither through genetics or professional associations, but through shared, deeply held beliefs and experiences.  “Whoever does the will of God is my mother, my father, my brother, my sister.”  

Why are we at St. Paul’s bound together in social connectedness?  It is not because we share the same history.  Some of us have pedigree in Suffolk going back generations while others have not yet been here a calendar year.  We do not see eye to eye on politics.  We do not gather arm-in-arm singing Kumbaya every time the Episcopal Church makes a statement about our society.  

What binds us together?  Well, it may seem simplistic, but we are bound together because we are in the same place week in and week out.  We recognize how each of us – although flawed – is attempting to honor God and do God’s will.  Here is something I love about St. Paul’s: this is not a place of sorting.  We are not perfect, or perfectly diverse (whatever that means), but we come here to be with the people God is bringing here – all of the people.  This is not without its challenges, but it is not without its blessings.  If every child of God is welcomed here – no matter what his or her foibles me be – than guess what… I am welcome here, just as I am.  I do not need to boast about why I belong.  I do not need to grovel for acceptance.  I just need to present myself as a child of God desiring to be in relationship with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  

Here, you can be yourself.  You are welcome to stand apart, should you feel the need to do so.  But you have to be willing to allow another person to stand up and speak a word you struggle to accept.  In the end, we are a laboratory for relationships and belonging.  This is not a place to be coddled.  It is a place to be challenged and refined all the while being loved with the deepest love God has for each of us.  We are brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.  We belong to one another. 

The Single Most Important Task in the Second Half of Life

Does not take directions well.  Has trouble listening.  Won’t color within the lines.  These are the kinds of evaluations made about kindergarten students.  Early in our lives two realities clash.  The first is highlighted in today’s breathtaking reading from the 139^th Psalm.  Each of us, like a snowflake, is unique.  We have been lovingly crafted by a skillful Creator to be ourselves – a one of a kind masterpiece.  The other reality is we are a communal people.  We do not live in isolation, but rather in complex relationships with others.  As such, we need to conform to certain standards and expectations.  There comes a time in life when you will be free to color outside the lines, but early on the emphasis is on mastering the skills necessary to fit in and get along.

To shift the metaphor to one I have used before, in life, each of us is meant to be a jazz musician.  Jazz music is a free-form, creative expression built on the unique talents of the artist and his or her interaction with others in the group.  You can’t just pick up a saxophone for the first time and blow jazz.  First you must master the basics and learn the scales.  Only when the fundamentals are so deeply ingrained as a tacit skill is it possible to break free of them and create something of your own.  

It takes years and years to get to this point, and one of the great sadnesses of life is when a person learns the scales but never deviates from them; when a person learns how to color within the lines, but never branches out into authentic, personal expression.  These people are everywhere, littering our lives.  They tend to be rigid, domineering, and highly critical of others who question convention.

We meet some of them in today’s reading from the gospel of Mark.  If the Pharisees are anything, they are masters of the scales of practicing religion.  When the Lord God said, “You shall honor the Sabbath and keep it holy,” they became the guardians of what this looked like.  They have all the details down pat.  What was intended as a day of rest and celebration of delivery from bondage in Egypt became for them an exercise of coloring within the lines and playing the scales.  Do it like this.  Nothing else is permissible.

Sunday in and Sunday out we gather in this place and pretty much do the same thing every week.  Yes, the readings and the hymns change, but we are a “prayer book” church.  It is how we come together to experience the Sabbath.  But we are not slaves to the prayer book.  Several years ago we received word early on a Sunday morning a parishioner had been rushed to a hospital with a life-threatening medical emergency.  I knew I had to be there, so I turned to Al Reese and said, “You need to figure out how to wing it.”  Everyone understood the Sabbath priority of pastoral care eclipsed prayer book worship in that moment.  Do you remember the Sunday we observed the 15^th Anniversary of 9/11 outside with the Unity Project?  Honoring the Sabbath is not the same as being obliged to a mandated form of worship.  

Try to tell this to the Pharisees.  They exercise what is known as positional authority.  This is the authority of a boss or teacher or police officer.  We do what they tell us to do because their position entitles them to place demands on us.  Positional authority is grounded both in the power of the person who wields it and in the fear of those who are under it.  The Pharisees’ title and role makes them the wardens of all things religious.  

Jesus operates with personal authority.  Its expression is grounded in a person’s own vision and values.    It inspires loyalty and trust in others and they will allow such a person to speak to their lives because they know the person cares about them.  Personal authority is not concerned with prestige, status, or image, but rather in the genuine well-being of self and others.  

Sometimes, but not always, a person with positional authority also has personal authority.  This is a powerful and potent combination.  In today’s reading, no one has both.  Jesus has personal authority, but not positional.  The Pharisees have positional authority, but not personal.  

Most often most people will not challenge positional authority even when they know it to be wrong.  The FAA has discovered many errors by flight captains go unchallenged by crew members because they do not believe it is their place to question.  One airline went so far as to create a flight simulator with scenarios designed to overwhelm the captain.  25% of the time subordinates failed to take corrective actions in the face of a captain’s fatal mistake.     

This suggests the Pharisees are not used to having their positional authority challenged.  They are not used to someone like Jesus who knows how to color within the lines, but at times elects not to.  And it illuminates why they take the dramatic step of consulting with the Herodians – members of the occupying ruling government – in order to find a way to “destroy” Jesus.   They are concerned only about the demands of communal living and insist on conformity and standards.  Jesus has moved past this and is focused on the reality that every person is a masterpiece and our highest pursuit is to discover the unique way we can express how we have been created in God’s glorious image.

Dr. James Hollis, in his book What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life, states “the single most important task of the second half of life is the recovery of personal authority, namely, the discovery of what is true for us, really true, and mobilizing the courage and resources to live our truth in the world.”  He notes Carl Jung – the founder of analytic psychology – held “all our troubles stem from one place—the separation from our instincts”.  All those adaptations we make to fit in and get by, while necessary, have the cumulative effect of estranging us from the quiet and centered voice within each one of us; the voice telling us who we are and what is right and what will keep us healthy and help us to flourish.

Hollis talks about the adaptive self and the true self, which is longing to be expressed in the world.  He says, 

The ultimate question we have to ask ourselves is, “what wants to enter the world through me?”  This is not a narcissistic question; it is a respectful, reverential invitation to reflect on the purpose of our journeys.  And then we must ask, “what within me stands in the way of embodying that talent, that enthusiasm, that curiosity, that relational gift which I can bring to my family, my friends, my world, and to myself?”  This is not an agenda for being famous, recognized by others, or even understood by others.  It is rather a question of what do I experience as truly meaningful in my life.

“In the end,” he says, “we need to feel that the life we lived was our life, not someone else’s, that it was chosen rather than simply our following the instructions on the box.”

Christian spirituality adds to this search one critical element.  In the search for our true self we are also in pursuit of the true Jesus.  How does the Word Incarnate inform who you really are?  Say you discover your most authentic self-expression is that of a ne’er-do-well.  Such a discovery is not one to be celebrated or pursued.  Each one of us has been created for something more grand and glorious than this.  We have been created to manifest a unique expression of the perfect humanity we find in Jesus of Nazareth, what St. Paul's describes as making the life of Jesus visible in our mortal flesh.

This morning we see Jesus acting out of his personal authority.  He addresses human need and alleviates human suffering.   These are expressions of his deep, authentic self.  The single most important task in the second half of life is the recovery of personal authority.  What is true for you and how do you mobilize the courage and resources to live your truth in the world?

Prayers & Parents

Little five-year-old Suzie tells her mother she wants a baby brother or sister.  Her mother tells her if she prays every night for two months God will send her a sibling.  Suzie pours herself into the project, praying feverously every night for a month.  Then she begins to have her doubts.  She checks with all her classmates and discovers none of them got a brother or a sister through prayer.  So Suzie stops praying.  A month later her mother goes into the hospital and gives birth to twins.  When Suzie visits her and meets her new siblings her mother says, “Now aren’t you glad you prayed every night.”  Suzie replies, “Aren’t you glad I stopped praying when I did!”

This morning’s gospel reading is a small portion of what is known as Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer” which he offers at the conclusion of the Last Supper.  What we read focuses on Jesus’ concerns for his disciples.  When the prayer concludes, Jesus leads them across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas betrays him.  One biblical scholar says the prayer is typical of John’s writings, “the wording spirals around, seemingly repeating itself.”  It is like a fabric, he says, “woven with repeating words and themes.”

One theme is the world.  The disciples have been chosen from the world, they are in the world, and they are hated by the world where the evil one is at work.  Jesus sends his followers into the world and prays they will be protected.

A second recurring word in the prayer is given.  It occurs nine times in this portion of the text.  The Father gives the disciples to the Son.  The Son gives his word to them and gives them his name to protect them.  Two other themes are the Word and Truth.  Knowing the Word and the Truth sanctifies the disciples and makes them holy.

Well, if world, given, Word, Truth, and sanctify still feel like heady ideas and the prayer seems abstract to you, don’t worry, you are not alone.  Let me try to help us by approaching it from a different direction.  Let’s imagine it is the prayer of a devout mother for her daughter. 

“I have made your name known to this child whom you gave me.” 

As parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, we know what is to attempt to pass on the faith to our children.  We do our best, but often the fruit of our efforts is not seen for years.

“She was yours, and you gave her to me, and she has kept your word.  Now she knows that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to her, and she has received them.”

We think of our children as gifts from God.  We understand they are a sacred trust requiring and deserving our absolute best as we seek to form and prepare them.   

“I am asking on her behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of this child you gave me, because she is yours.  What is mine is yours, and yours is mine; and I have been glorified in her.”

When we raise a child in the faith we do not parent in isolation, but in partnership with God.  All that we are and all that we have works with a Mystery from beyond to mold a unique and special human being.

“And now I am no longer in the world, but she is in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, protect her in your name that you have given me, so that she may be one, as we are one.  While I was with her, I protected her in your name that you have given me.  I guarded her.”

I have a vivid memory of taking my oldest daughter to daycare for the first time.  In those early years either her mother or I was with her all the time.  It was our job to watch her and care for her and protect her.  Leaving the center I realized for the next eight hours neither her mother nor I would fill that role.  Our daughter was now “in the world”, or at least a world without us.  I recall wishing the daycare had a one-way window so I could sit undetected and watch my daughter be herself as she engaged the world.  One of the toughest tasks of parenting is learning how to let go.

“I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that she may have my joy made complete in herself.”

There are many things we want to pass on to our children: an inheritance, an education, certain values.  Surely one of the most important things we seek to develop in our children is a sense of joy.  The writer Sharon Draper notes, “Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall.  It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events.”  “Joy,” she says, “comes in sips, not gulps.”  What an incredible delight it is to watch our children delight in the small things.  Any child can be over the moon at Disney World, at least until the end of the day, but what we hope to cultivate is a child who is thrilled by the wonder in her own back yard. 

“I have given her your word, and the world has hated her because she does not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  I am not asking you to take her out of the world, but I ask you to protect her from the evil one.  She does not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.”

The world hates her.  That sounds awfully harsh, but I think it is true.  Today’s standards of womanhood are cruel and exacting.  Even beautiful models look at their body or their facial features and see something not to like.  The measure of masculinity is becoming more and more difficult to achieve.  The world grounds our identity in how we look, what we do, and what we have.  The Christian faith grounds our identity in God’s love for us.  Each one of us is precious and valuable beyond all measure.  We are God’s children.  It is this value we acknowledge and affirm through baptism.  Above and beyond all else, we belong to God.  It is not a message you will hear in a Madison Ave. ad campaign, but it is the truth we embrace.

“Sanctify her in the truth; your word is truth.  As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent her into the world.  And for her sake I sanctify myself, so that she also may be sanctified in truth.”

As I said earlier, we do our best to pass along the faith that is within us.  It is not easy because often our faith eludes the words necessary to describe it.  Faith, like motherhood, is something we live better than we describe.  Most of our mothers never sat us down and taught us the 10 Commandments of being a good parent.  Still, we learned what to do from what our parents did well and hopefully we learned from their mistakes what not to do… just as we pray will happen for our children, grandchildren, and nephews and nieces.

So this morning we hear Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer for us and after scratching our heads at first we find in it many of the same thoughts and concerns we have for our children.  We give thanks for how Jesus has raised us up to be who we are.  We ask for his guidance and protection and we seek to live the life we have seen in him. 

A Place to Abide

When I was growing up my father planted two peach trees on what we good folk of Akron call “the devil strip.”  It is that narrow swath of land between the street and the sidewalk.  Well, a year or two passed and without any prompting, those two trees began to produce peaches.  A lot of peaches.  Manifold, delicious peaches.  More peaches than our family could eat.  Every morning in the summer I awoke to the sound of a garbage truck stopping in front of our house.  The men on it discovered our peaches during their weekly pick-up and now drove by every day to help themselves to breakfast.  As I recall, the summer of peaches lasted only two years.  The third summer the trees bore nothing and within a year or two died and had to be cut down.  We didn’t know about pruning or nutrients or identifying blight.  We just let them grow on their own and that is how they thrived and that is how they died – on their own.

This morning we hear Jesus present yet another metaphor to describe our relationship with him.  Last week we heard him say, “I am the Good Shepherd.”  This week he says, “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  As with last week’s image, which we understand even though we have never met a shepherd, so too this week’s image speaks clearly and powerfully even though most of us have never worked in a vineyard. 

I suspect the act of pruning is grounded both in judgment and in nurturing.  If a branch is broken or not bearing fruit, it must come off.  Or, if it is growing in a way which over time will be harmful to the whole, it must be pruned.  This is the judgment.   But cutting back can also be a healthy, revitalizing activity, giving the plant its best possibility to thrive and produce.  Jesus says he does both.  He calls us to account when and where we are in the wrong.  He nurtures and nourishes us so we may flourish.

When reading a passage of the bible, I always pay attention to verbs set in the imperative, that instruct us to do something.  Today’s gospel reading has two imperatives: abide and ask.  “Abide in me as I abide in you.”  “If you abide in me… ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”  Abide and ask.

The verb John uses translated as abide carries the sense of remaining.  Jesus talks about the Father abiding with the Son (14:23) and the Holy Spirit abiding with them (14:17).  When Jesus tells his followers “In my Father’s house there are many mansions”, the word used for mansions comes from the root word abide.  A literal translation might be, “In my Father’s house there are many places to abide.”  To abide with Jesus is to be in a place or a state where one is deeply at home.  We can only go out into the world and be fruitful if we have a place where we can abide and be “at home.” 

Home does not necessarily mean the physical space where you live, although no doubt this is a part of it.  Your abiding place includes a place of solitude where prayer and reflection are possible.  It includes a place to worship and people to worship with.  It includes family and close friends.  It is also a soothing place or a time – perhaps sitting on your deck drinking coffee while watching the sunrise. 

Whatever elements make up your abiding place, take even one away and you will soon begin to feel out of sorts.  You have been working on the road and haven’t had time to be with your family.  You have been sick and can’t get to church.  You have had to hit the ground running each morning and can’t relax and drink your coffee.  Whatever it is, take it away and you will begin to feel it.  Your fruitfulness will diminish (even if you are producing at a voluminous level).

Ask is the second imperative.  I have an odd reaction whenever I hear Jesus say, “Ask and it will be given to you.”  I am confident if I ask Jesus to make my lotto ticket a winner I am soon going to be holding a worthless piece of paper in my hands.  I can ask God to take away a friend’s life-threatening illness, but it doesn’t always happen.  I don’t think Jesus is a genie in a lamp which, if rubbed, will be bound to grant three wishes.  So what does Jesus mean when he directs us to ask?

The Greek word used here carries with it the sense of resolve or require.  It is not something flippant, extravagant, or trivial, but rather something necessary.  And taken in the context of the command to abide, it seems to say, “Whatever you need to abide in me, ask, and I will give it to you.”  So here is a question you may not be able to answer right away, but may want to ponder: What do you need to be able to abide in Jesus? 

I always thought if I was shipwrecked on a deserted island, either alone or with a group of people, or if I was imprisoned, or if I was a hostage, the one thing I would want to carry me through would be a Book of Common Prayer.  The ability to keep my daily, weekly, and yearly life grounded in prayer would be a matter of life or death, of hope or despair, of purpose or despondency, of abiding or being truly lost.

The Maharshi noted “that which comes and goes, rises and sets, is born and dies is the ego.  That which always abides, never changes, and is devoid of qualities is the Self.”  What do you need to sustain the Self, not your passing fancies, but the essence of who you are?  Ask for this and you will receive it.  

I love this time of year.  Even with the pollen, there is something magical about watching trees and plants begin to bud.  Through a system of roots, trunks and limbs, they gather water and nutrients and deliver them to the branches.  The branches, exposed to the sun and its warmth, break open with new life.  Every day I look out my office window and notice more fullness of green not there the day before.  The tree and plants are doing what each of us hopes will be true in our lives.  They are coming alive.  They are bearing fruit.  They are flourishing.  And they do so not because they set their mind to it, but because they are abiding in a good place.

I think back to those two fruit trees in front of my childhood house.  As I said, they lived and thrived on their own, but quickly ran their course and were gone.  “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  We are more like those peach trees than the mighty oak that endures year after year, through the worst of what the weather may throw at it.  We need care, correction, nurture if we are going to survive and bear fruit.  In short, we need a place to abide.