Anomie or Moral Rigidity

In 1893, Emile Durkheim, who is created with founding modern sociology, published a brief work detailing differences he observed in the labor force.  One group of workers, he noted, was required to perform repetitive tasks while the other needed to employ a wide variety of skills, disciplines, and actions.  Durkheim named the first type of labor Mechanical Solidarity and detailed how its redundant nature discouraged innovation and adaptation to changes.  He named the other Organic Solidarity and stated its multi-faceted approach fostered and valued new ideas and methods.

Through his observations Durkheim determined these two basic groups in the labor force were unable to exist in harmony with one another.  Coining the phrase “anomie” (or normlessness), he stated the mechanically inclined could not tolerate the open-endedness of the organic approach.  Those immersed in organic labor felt stifled by the closed nature of the mechanical approach to work. 

Durkheim continued to develop his thinking about anomie and took it in new directions in an 1897 book studying suicide.  He found that just as resistance to change and change occurring too rapidly had an impact on the workforce, so too societal anomie influences our lives more than we realize.  There is a human, psychological cost when norms are lacking as well as when they are too rigid. 

Durkheim learned a diminishing of clear values and codified behavior causes people to experience a sense of alienation and purposelessness.  Life feels frustrating, confusing, and even disturbing because one is not sure how to live and act.  It is as if there is no clear-cut path forward, no guidebook to tell you how to do it, and no shared vision of what life is to look like.  Think of it as the exact opposite of Ozzie and Harriet and the 1950s. 

A common example of anomie occurs every time a child acts up in a checkout line.  If ten people are watching there are at least fifteen difference ideas as to how the parent should handle the situation… and no matter what the parent does, it will be deemed improper by those watching.  This, in a microcosm, is what it looks like and feels like to live in anomie.  Things are changing so much so fast our norms cannot keep up.

While some manifest anxiety in response to this, others opt for rigidity.  They hold hard and fast to the old ways and remember nostalgically (if inaccurately) a time when everything felt more settled and sure.  So, for example, some pine for the return a Father Knows Best era when role expectations were clearly defined and followed.

In a time of normlessness everyone feels adrift and unsure because society lacks a consensus about how to act and behave.  And while periods of rigid norms offer clarity, those who do not or cannot abide by them are pushed to the sidelines or expelled from the community.  The question I want to pose is this: Is there a third way, a way striking a balance between normlessness and rigidity?

Let’s use all of this as a lens through which to look at this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke.  Travelling by boat, Jesus and his followers come ashore in the land of Gerasenes.  It does not appear to be their destination, but a ferocious overnight storm has blown them to this pagan land on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. 

They disembark, perhaps to catch their breath after a harrowing experience, and immediately are confronted by a demon-possessed, unclothed man.  Local townsfolk are so disturbed by him they have taken to chaining him in a nearby cemetery.  The crazed and tormented individual begs Jesus for relief.

The text does not tell us Jesus’ initial reaction to the situation.  Perhaps he was startled.  He might have been afraid.  Maybe he was annoyed.  We are not told.  But here is one thing to note:  Jesus is in a pagan land, in a cemetery, in close proximity to a herd of pigs, speaking with a possessed person.  All four are forbidden in Hebrew law and any one of them will make Jesus “ritually unclean” and prohibit him from public worship until going through an elaborate cleansing rite. 

This episode bears similarities to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.  In it, a priest and a religious scribe both avoid an injured person, in part to avoid becoming defiled.  It is only the foreigner from Samaria who demonstrates compassion for the man in need by treating one different from him in so many ways as a neighbor.  Well, to use an expression common to us, Jesus does not just talk the talk, he walks the walk.  He lays aside all the rules and regulations and frees the man of all that torments him.

It is easy to sympathize with the locals.  You cannot have a crazy, possessed person running amuck on the streets.  Certain behaviors and standards need to be upheld.  But their response to banish him and confine him in such an inhumane manner is the picture of moral rigidity.  It is a retreat to the way things “should be” that does not grapple at all with the way things are.  Everyone feels better once the threat of his disturbances is removed… well, everyone except the possessed man.

A truly normless response to the situation would be to allow the man to behave as he will.  Jesus could brake off his shackles and send him back into the town unchanged as a statement no one has the right to treat a human being in such a manner.  After all, “to each his own” and “live, at let live.” 

Jesus rejects both moral rigidity and anomie; striking a balance between these two extremes by focusing on the humanity and dignity of the possessed man.  His compassion, leading to the man’s healing and freedom, becomes itself a new kind of normative behavior.  Jesus elevates compassion above ritual purity and demonstrates it supersedes property rights and economic prosperity (just ask the pig herders!). 

So much is changing in our society and standards of behavior simply have not kept up.  We live in a time of anomie with all its effects on well-being outlined by Durkheim over a century ago.  Many feel like a rudderless ship at sea being tossed about and blown to and fro.  Jesus offers to us a new ethic of compassion based on human dignity and flourishing.  His words and his actions invite us in every situation to ask “What does this human being need?”  To ask, “If I was in his or her position, what would I want people to do for me?”

Have you heard of the advocacy group called No More Deaths?  They have mounted a humanitarian effort to leave food, water, blankets and other provisions in desert regions along our southern border in an effort to provide relief aid for migrants seeking to enter our country illegally.  Last March four of its volunteers were found guilty of federal misdemeanors and sentenced to probation.  Earlier this month a jury was unable to render a verdict in the trial of Scott Warren, an Arizona schoolteacher who provided aid and shelter to pair of migrants who were in desperate condition.  Warren’s defense attorney argued he was exercising his religious beliefs by doing unto others as he would have them do unto him.

The immigration crisis facing our country is not a challenge easily solved or understood.  I know good Christian folks who state emphatically people trying to enter our country illegally should not receive humanitarian aid and if they die in the desert it is their own fault.  I know other people of faith who advocate for completely open borders.  I believe the group No More Deaths is navigating a path between rigid morality and normlessness by addressing human need and real suffering.  It feels to me like a Jesus action in the midst of this ongoing debate.

Where in your life do you sense what Durkheim called anomie and what might a compassionate response focused on human need look like?  How might this give you a sense of meaning, direction, and purpose in a world changing so rapidly you yearn for guidance?

The Unexpected Gift

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?  (Ps. 8:4)

In his short work, Wife Wooing, John Updike tells the story of a husband who after seven years of marriage and three children is still stirred as at first by the sight of his wife.  Sitting with his family around the hearth on a Sunday evening, the husband silently ponders his wife’s beauty as she reclines in the glow of the firelight.  The reader can sense the husband’s desire growing as he nestles beside his wife in their bed, but the story takes an unexpected twist when she falls asleep while reading (of all things) a biography of Richard Nixon. 

In the morning the husband wakes and goes to work where he is confronted with a particularly vexing mechanical problem.  He struggles all day long, but can find no solution.  He brings his work home at night where he is the picture of preoccupation.  His wife makes a meal, tends to the children, puts them to bed, and slips off quietly to draw a bath.  After a time she enters the study where her husband is absorbed in thought.  As she leans over to kiss him he catches the scent of her perfume and then tastes the freshness of toothpaste on her breath.  “Come to bed,” she says in a way that suggests to the reader this night will end differently than the last.  And then Updike ends the story with the husband’s stunning insight:

An expected gift is not worth giving. 

Do you agree?  Updike contends an expected gift often is received as routine or as obligation.  It does not have staying power because it does not surprise.  But an unexpected gift, well, it can take on a life of its own that lasts and lasts and lasts a lifetime.  And even more, at the heart of all profound religious experiences there is, I think, an unexpected gift. 

Before I was a father I was an uncle.  I enjoyed playing with my nephews and nieces and when they were hungry or sticky or whiney or stinky I enjoyed giving them back to their parents.  I loved them (and still do), but my feelings as translated to actions lacked the depth and intensity of a parent. 

Perhaps the single most remarkable experience of my life happened in the instance the nurse handed my first daughter to me and I held her in my arms.  In the time it took my heart to skip a beat I was changed forever.  I can’t even begin to explain the connection I felt, but I know I don’t have to because every mother and father here knows exactly what happened to me.  It was something I absolutely did not expect; a gift from beyond.  It lit an eternal flame of love in me that still burns just as intensely and mysteriously as it began.  I knew when I first held my daughter nothing would ever mar the love I felt for her in that moment. 

All of this came to me as unexpected gift and though I am far removed from that day it is as vivid in my mind and in my soul as it was on that early September day in 1991.  Beyond being a very human moment, it was a completely holy moment.  When God comes to us God always comes from beyond as unexpected gift.  This is the essence of all authentic, true, deep religious encounters.

Why us?  Given God’s incredible nature and our seeming insignificance, why does God even consider us?  This, I think is what the psalmist pondered at a very deep level as he or she wrote the Eighth Psalm. 

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?  (Ps. 8:4)

In Genesis Chapter 1 we read how, as each day of creation is called forth, God looks at it and realizes it is good.  On the six day, God creates humanity and calls us “very good.”  It is as if God is taken by surprise at the intensity of love and affection God feels as a response to holding us for the first time.  Is it any wonder so many of us identify with God most closely as Father, a parent figure?

Why does God, who brought forth all of creation, consider humanity so highly?  The answer, I believe, is because God felt an unexpected, special bond with us from the moment we came into being.  God’s love for us – for you – is passionate, eternal, mysterious, and unshakable.

I did a Google search this week, asking if it is possible to surprise God.  No, said one site, because God knows everything.  No, said another, because God has planned out everything (don’t even get me started on this kind of theology).  No, no, no said site after site until I said phooey and closed the search tab. 

I’d like to think the God who gives the unexpected gift waits eagerly to see how we will respond.  In our best moments I’d like to think God is surprised, just as every parent is often caught off guard by the awesome wonder that is a child.  And I’d like to think the unexpected gifts we offer to one another come as surprise to God. 

And what about today?  Why are you here?  I suspect for most of us, this time of worship is an encounter with the expected.  We expect to speak with certain friends.  We expect the music.  We expect the readings.  We expect the sermon (with or without a joke).  We expect the sacraments.  We expect to make an offering of a certain amount of money.  We even expect to be home by noon.  So much of what we receive at this time is exactly what we expect.  There is a reason our prayer books fall open to the same page week after week.  And don’t get me wrong; we need certain daily and weekly rhythms to give our life order and meaning and cohesion. 

But where is the unexpected?  When does God, the holy God, overwhelm us with what we do not anticipate?  When does God woo us and open us to deep intimacy with the Holy?  Can we in some way prepare ourselves in heart and mind to receive what cannot be anticipated? 

And the flipside of these questions involves our gift-giving to God.  If an expected gift is not worth giving, and if much of our worship is an offering of the expected, does it hold value for God?  Is it possible to surprise God with an unexpected gift?  I sure hope so and this thought alone stirs my imagination.  What unexpected gift might you offer to God and how might the effort lead to things that surprise you?  How might the offering of something deeply authentic help us to meet God in the unexpected moment? 

 

 

Life is Too Short to be Little

It has been a long time since I first heard this quote by Benjamin Disraeli, but it has stayed with me over the years.  The 19^th century British Prime Minister and statesman is widely remembered for saying, “Life is too short to be little.”  I imagine there were plenty of times in his life when his own wisdom was forged and put to the test.  Being a public and political figure does not come without its challenges.  But then again, neither does life.  It has a way of tempting us to be petty, to be afraid, to doubt ourselves, to hold a grudge, to be resentful, to be vindictive, to make a mountain range out of a molecule, to worry ourselves into a fit... to be little. 

Life is too short to be little.  It is full of great and grand possibilities and you do not want to miss your chance at them.

It has been ten days now since we all rose on a Friday morning and headed off to work or the day’s rounds, many of us thinking of that comforting refrain, TGIF.  As the clock ticked passed four in the afternoon we wrapped up loose ends before launching into our weekend with its plans.  This normal and natural conclusion to the workweek came to a horrific end for many in Virginia Beach with the shootings at the Municipal Building 2.  And now, ten days later, we know much about twelve people most of us had never met.

Quita traveled the world and spoke at least two languages.  The Virginian-Pilot said of her, “Playful exchanges on Facebook reveal glimpses of a woman who was adventurous, fun-loving and curious.”  Tara was born in Portsmouth and graduated from Old Dominion with a degree in civil engineering.  She lived in Great Neck.  Mary Lou was a devoted grandmother who was planning on taking her two grandchildren to Disney World in the near future.  She was a devout member of a Roman Catholic Church and volunteered as a cheerleading coach at Ocean Lakes. 

Alex emigrated from Belarus in 2003 and also graduated from ODU with a degree in civil engineering.  Co-workers said he was a “model professional” when dealing with the public.  A friend described him as the kind of person who would do anything to help you.  Alex’s twin brother, sister-in-law and niece live in Virginia Beach and their mother split time between the two homes.  A friend said of Kate, “She loved her husband unconditionally, and always stood up for what was right.  She was a ray of sunlight that led so many in the right direction.  She was selfless, smart and, most of all, a loving mother.”  Rich, the oldest of eight children and father of two sons and two-step sons, is remembered as a kind and friendly person and a leader who put the needs of others first.

Chris was a bagpiper whose affable personality reminded many of Fred Rogers.  One person remembered him as “one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I’ve ever met in my life.”  He was a member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Kempsville and will be buried from there this afternoon.  Keith, though soft-spoken, had a powerful singing voice and loved being a part of his church’s choir.  Always the protector, he led seven people to safety during the shooting and was killed when he went back looking for others to help.  Joshua was a loving uncle who, in 2011, published a children’s book on protecting yourself from strangers.  He always had a smile on his face, but friends also say he was still recovering from the pain of a recent divorce.

Missy lived by herself in a townhouse she kept well maintained.  She was married to her job and the Pittsburgh Steelers.  A friend said she was still grieving the death of her parents in 2014 and 2016.  She was one of those people who called her mother at the same time on the same day every week.  Bobby was awarded eight different times for his service to Virginia Beach.  He was a devoted family man who was looking forward to spending more time with his loved ones once he retired.  Bert, a respected contractor, was known all over Hampton Roads.  He thought nothing of stopping whatever he was doing to help a neighbor with a repair problem.

What strikes me about these twelve people is the bigness of their lives.  They were eleven public servants and a contractor – not a collection of the famous or the influential or the affluent – just twelve everyday people.  And yet, without notoriety until their tragic deaths, they lived truly remarkable lives.  Sure, none were influential enough to shape the direction of world events, but each person – in his or her own way – made this world a much better place for many.  Their lives, though cut short, were by no means little.

I suspect this is true for each of us.  We do more than we know, mean more than we realize, and matter in ways we don’t quite understand.  Today – The Day of Pentecost – the Church celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It manifests God’s presence in us to empower us to do special things and mobilizes us to undertake great works.  The Holy Spirit is God in each one of us reminding us life is too short to be little.   

Chances are you don’t think of your life as being extraordinary nor would you describe yourself as being filled the Holy Spirit.  We are Episcopalians, after all.  But the truth is you are both.  As St. Paul wrote to the Church in Ephesus, “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (3:20).  You may not ask for it and you might not be able even to imagine it, but God’s Spirit is at work in you.  And because of this, your life is truly remarkable, dearly precious, and absolutely essential to the common good.

Nipping away at this reality is not the shortness of life.  It is the temptation to be little.  It is the temptation to be dragged down into the muck and mire of all those things that suppress the brightness of God’s Spirit in you.  It is the temptation to dwell on the worst of life rather than to live into its best.  It is to undersell the part you have been given to play in this grand drama of life.

I make it a point not to learn much about the perpetrators of mass shootings and I absolutely abhor how popular culture plays on our fascination with them.  I shun any and every movie, book, documentary, and TV show seeking to capitalize on our lurid attraction to their heinous acts.  As such, I am the last person qualified to speak on what motivates a person to commit such a horrific act.  It does seem many are drawn by a desire to be known for something.  They have gone through life sensing little more than their littleness and, in some twisted way, believe an act of mass murder will make them big in the eyes of the world.

Thankfully, with each sad occurrence, more and more we focusing less and less attention on the shooter and honing in on the stories of the victims.  And what we are learning from them is how ordinary people are leading exemplary lives.  We are learning to draw inspiration from lives tragically cut short. 

The heart-breaking events of a week ago Friday only amplify the message and meaning of Pentecost which we celebrate on this day.  God’s Spirit moves in each of us calling us to remember life is too short to be little.  May you be aware of the power of God’s Spirit in your life working in ways that touch the lives of many.

The Spirit of the Apostles

Harold grew up in the Episcopal Church.  He even served as an acolyte, but never paid much attention.  It has been years since he attended a service.  Harold is not a bad person, but church is not for him. He has one passion – the ponies.  One day at the track Harold is surprised to see the local Episcopal priest, outfitted in full liturgical garb.  Before the first race, the priest approaches one of the horses – a real nag and a long-shot – and gives it a blessing by tracing the sign of the cross on its forehead.  Playing a hunch, Harold places a small wager on the horse and sure enough... it wins the race and pays off handsomely.  The priest blesses an entrant in the second race, Harold bets on it, and once again wins.  Well, this pattern repeats itself through the first eight races. 

Harold watches intently as the priest approaches a horse before the ninth and final race and proceeds to pray over it with an elaborate series and gestures and motions.  This pony is the longest shot of the day and Harold decides to bet all his winnings on it.  If it pays off, he’ll nab more money in one day than most people do in a year.  Well, sad to say, Harold’s horse comes in dead last and all his winnings are lost.  He is mystified and little more than angry at the priest.  Harold tracts down the reverend and lets him have it.  “How could you bless eight winners and then have the last one do so poorly?”  The priest puts a hand on Harold’s shoulder and says, “My son, you need to come to church more often.”  “Why,” says Harold, “so God won’t play such cruel tricks on me?”  “No,” the priest replies, “so you can learn the difference between a blessing and the last rites.”

During the Easter season the Lectionary replaces readings from the Old Testament with passages from the Book of Acts.  This affords us the opportunity to hear the earliest sermons and missionary activities of Jesus’ first followers.  With everything else going on at this time of year, it is easy for these readings to fall through the cracks so allow me to provide a brief recap of what we have heard over the last seven weeks. 

On Easter Sunday we hear a portion of one of Peter’s sermons.  In it, he puts forth a succinct summery of Jesus’ story; touching on his baptism, message of peace, healing ministry, death, resurrection, and appearances to his followers.  Peter concludes by remembering how Jesus commissioned his followers to testify he was ordained by God. 

On the Second Sunday of Easter we read about Peter and John being brought in for questioning by the same council that condemned Jesus to death.  Even though they have been told not to speak of Jesus they continue to preach, “filling Jerusalem with his teaching” according to council.   

By the third Sunday harassment has given way to all out persecution.  Its most rabid proponent in a Pharisee by the name of Saul.  Travelling to Damascus, which lies just north of present day Israel, he is confronted by the Risen Christ and blinded by the encounter.  Three days later, a church leader named Ananias prays with him, leading to the restoration of his sight.  Saul becomes Paul, an effective missionary of the early church. 

On the next Sunday we find Peter being called to meet with disciples in Joppa, a port city on the Mediterranean coast west of Jerusalem.  A woman in the town is very sick and the disciples there ask Peter to pray for her.  The text tells us her name is Tabitha and adds “which in Greek is Dorcas.”  It is a tidbit hinting these early believers are culturally diverse with associations cutting across ethnic divides.  Peter prays over Tabitha and she recovers.

By the Fifth Sunday of Easter Peter has returned to Jerusalem to report to fellow disciples what happened to him in Caesarea, a city some twenty miles to the north of Joppa.  He was called there to visit a Gentile family.  While with them, the Holy Spirit fell upon the members of the household and they began to speak in tongues, just as the disciples did on the Day of Pentecost.  Peter, sensing God’s movement, baptizes everyone present and they become the first Gentile converts to the Christian faith.

The Sixth Sunday finds Paul in Asia Minor.  He has a vision of a person in Macedonia (a region in northern Greece) calling out to him.  Paul travels there and settles in the city of Philippi.  He meets a woman named Lydia, who is a merchant and a follower of God.  Paul tells her the story of Jesus and she decides to be baptized, becoming the first convert on the European continent. 

Today, on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, we learn of the impact of Paul’s preaching and ministry.  An enslaved girl is freed of a tormenting spirit and a man who profits by her is enraged.  Paul and Silas are imprisoned, survive an earthquake, and convert their jailor and his family.

This unfolding drama hints at the growth of Christianity; how it begins in Jerusalem as a sect of the Jewish faith and expands across a geographical region and ethnic divides.  The Book of Acts focuses primarily on the growth of the faith in the northwest Mediterranean, an area spanning Jerusalem to Rome.  At the same time, other faithful followers are taking the message of Jesus to Egypt, the Southern Mediterranean, and parts of Africa including Ethiopia.  Still others travel the Silk Road and proclaim the faith in Persia all the way to India. 

One thing is clear.  These early followers do not experience the faith as a private enterprise.  It is Good News to be lived and told.  They can do nothing but share the love and joy made known to them in Jesus Christ.  No court order, no cultural divide, and no geographic barrier stand in their way.

Last Sunday I worshipped at an Episcopal church in an area known as the West Hill in Akron.  While parts of the neighborhood are being resettled by urban pioneers, much of what surrounds the parish still maintains its rough edges.  People with resources live side-by-side with people in need.  The Sunday congregation reflected this.  It was a diverse lot who shared a common love for Jesus and one another.

In the pew in front of me sat a young family with two small, reasonably busy children.  An elderly man in a wheelchair occupied a space across the aisle from me.  Several times during the service one of the parents rose to take the smallest child to the back of the Nave and more than once a person was called to tend to the elderly man.  No one seemed to mind any of this and none of it eclipsed my ability to pay attention.

At the announcements several people spoke of community events in which they were involved and encouraged others to join them.  The Junior Warden thanked folks who participated in a work day and the building – 123 years old – was well maintained.  They welcomed me with great warmth and invited me to their Pizza Lunch in the Parish Hall after the service.   They have a food pantry and Panera Bread delivers leftovers to them for distribution.  Several people encouraged me to take a loaf, but I declined.  I met a boy from the neighborhood who started coming to the church a few weeks ago when he learned about the bread.  Everyone seemed glad he was there.

Two things struck me about the parish.  First, in their own way, the people reminded me of the early Christians in the Book of Acts.  There is no containing their love and joy in the Lord and they are open to extending it to their neighborhood in a great many of ways. 

And second, the people there reminded me a lot of the people here.  Here at St. Paul’s we take our faith into the world and welcome the world into our church.  I felt the same warmth there I feel here, and that does not always happen when I visit other churches.

It is tempting to listen to the stories from the Book of Acts and sense a disconnect between their faithfulness and ours.  The main figures of the early church gave much, travelled far, and risked all to share their faith.  Compared to them, it feels like we here do so little.  And yet we share something crucial in common with them.  Like them, our belief in Christ overflows with love and joy.  We cannot help but express it as we worship God, as we greet one another, and as we move throughout our community. 

Our hearts, like those of the people I worshipped with last Sunday, are made alive by the presence of God’s Spirit in all we say and do.  You can feel it.  You can hear it.  You can see it.  Those who know us know it.  No matter who they are, they know God loves them because we love them with the love of Christ.  God’s Spirit – so active and vital in the Book of Acts – is active in and through us here at St. Paul’s. 

This is what I thought about and felt last Sunday as I worshipped with the good people of the Church of our Savior in the West Hill neighborhood of Akron.

Love is a Verb and a Noun Too!

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you.  Love one another as I have loved you.”

Years ago I pondered this text and from my meditations a brilliant sermon emerged.  I gave it the title “Love is a Verb.”  In 2012, more than a decade later, the Grammy Award winning artist John Mayer released a song with the same name (so, apparently, my sermons reverberate far, wide, and across the sands of time!):

Love is a verb
It ain’t a thing
It’s not something you own
It’s not something you scream

When you show me love
I don’t need your words
Yeah love ain’t a thing
Love is a verb

Catchy, isn’t it. 

My old sermon made a simple point.  Love is an action.  It is an activity.  It is something you do – like a verb – not something you are – like a noun.  As it says in the First Letter of John, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth” (3:18). 

Well, I am here this morning to recant my words of yore.  Oh, yes, love is still a verb.  It still describes what you do.  When you love another as Jesus loves you it involves some kind of action.  But love is also a noun.  It is descriptive of a thing.  The Christian author Jon Bloom makes the point best:

If we reduce love to mere action, we will miss love at its source.  Making love only a verb will likely make us Pharisees.

It is possible for us to do all the right things, but without the proper motivation.  The Pharisees kept all of the commandments, but Jesus finds their actions lacking.  Yes, they do the right thing, but no, they do not love God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength.  Without the inner source, the outer action is in danger of becoming empty, or worse.

When Jesus instructs his followers to love one another as he has loved them, most definitely he is qualifying what this love is to look like.  It should be selfless and giving, free and forgiving, natural and (at times) costly.  He is saying, “Let the verbing of your life reflect how I verbed my life” (or something like that). 

But he is saying something more.  He is reminding them of more than how he loved them.  He is reminding them that he loved them.  His love for them was also a noun. 

Experiencing love as a noun is absolutely essential.  Think about your parents.  Hopefully they set a good example for you.  You learned how to be an adult and how to be parent by emulating they best of what you saw in your mother and father.  But their love was more than an example.  It was something real that you experienced.  As you bathed in their love, you became you.  You received from your parents not just a series of actions to imitate, you received a gift – the gift of love.  And it is this give that fills you and animates all that you say and do.  You are filled with love because your parents loved you.

This is what John meant when he wrote, “We love because God first loved us” (I John 4:19).  This is what Jesus says to his followers, “My love is something for you to replicate, but it is also something for you to experience, to know, and to receive.”  As we receive God’s love we find replicating it is something flowing naturally through us, rather than something we must force in order to be faithful.  Jon Bloom puts it this way: “Love originates as a noun that necessarily produces verbs.”

Church life can degenerate into a mess of feverish activities all designed to produce the fruits of the verbs.  And there is no doubt many of the things we do here shore up our ability to love. My participation in the life of the Church helps me to be a better verber, no question.  But I wonder how much of what we do invites us into the presence of God’s noun-like love for us.  How much of what we do opens us to be filled with a love that becomes us?

I came across an interesting little exercise this past week.  It invites us to think of Jesus’ love through the lens of Paul’s magnificent writing in his letter to the Church in Corinth:

Jesus is patient and kind;

Jesus does not envy or boast;

Jesus is not arrogant or rude.

Jesus does not insist on his own way;

Jesus is not irritable or resentful;

Jesus does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Next, the exercise requires you to substitute Paul’s word love with your own name.

Keith is patient and kind;

Keith does not envy or boast;

Keith is not arrogant or rude.

Keith does not insist on his own way;

Keith is not irritable or resentful;

Keith does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Keith bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The point of the exercise, I think, is to make the person doing it feel completely misserable about his or her Christian life.  It is to remind us that our lives as verbs are terribly lacking.  And, well, do we really need to go through Lent all the time?  Of course our lives come up short of the lofty ideals set forth in Scripture and lived out by Jesus.

If you decide to undertake this rigorous project I suggest you do it by contemplating how you have been (and are being) transformed by the experience of knowing Jesus’ love has been a noun in your life:

I am patient and kind because I experience Jesus as patient and kind with me when___________;

I do not envy or boast because I experience Jesus doing neither when___________;

I am not arrogant or rude because Jesus is not arrogant or rude with me when __________;

I do not insist on my own way because Jesus does not insist on his own way when _________;

I am not irritable or resentful because Jesus is neither with me when __________:

I do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth because this is my experience of Jesus when _________;

I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things because I feel Jesus bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring when _______.

I have said before the Christian faith is first about being.  It is about experiencing yourself as a beloved child of God, unique and special, precious and full of promise, in no ways perfect but always loved dearly just as you are.  As you experience this as your being, the doing (the verb of the faith) happens naturally.  God’s love in us seeks to be expressed as God’s love for others made real through us.  My prayer this morning is for you to experience God’s love as a noun so that you can be God’s love as a verb.

Distraction Sickness

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them and they follow me.”

The children in my boyhood neighborhood played outside all summer.  It was the era before cell phones, so our resourceful parents devised all manner of ways to call us home for dinner.  The Lux family blew a whistle.  Using different toot cadences, they could call all their boys at once or any one of the three individually.  The Emerson’s had an old hand-held school bell and my mother rang it from the front porch so we could hear it.  Not only did we know its sound, but so did every other kid on the block.  “Keith, I hear your dinner bell.  You had better go home.”

“My sheep hear my voice.”  There are times I wish Jesus’ voice was as easy to discern as my mother’s call to supper.  We listen for his voice to be our moral compass, a source of compassion, a beacon of guidance, a clarion of discernment, and a purveyor of healing.  In a sense, listening for God’s voice has never been easy.  Yes, on some occasions it is as clear and unmistakable as three loud, long blasts from the Lux’s whistle.  But most often it is much more elusive. 

It isn’t so much that God doesn’t want to speak to us.  It has more to do with our inability to be attentive.  Being attentive to God’s voice requires time and space for sustained focus.  It needs self-emptying.  It demands we cease doing and simply be.  And so much of our culture degrades our capacity to do these things.

William James, the 19^th Century philosopher, held we are what we experience and we experience those things to which we give our attention.  Andrew Sullivan, in an essay on ‘distraction sickness’ in The New York Magazine, points out our attention is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.  Ads, smartphones, apps, social media, and the internet produce an endless parade of distractions to which we are incredibly susceptible. 

There is immense competition for our attention.  There is an entire industry selling its ability to capture it.  The things that ‘pop up’ on your screen don’t just happen by accident.  Politicians, who once garnered our support by articulating positions and policy ideas, now desperately vie for our attention.  Outlandish statements and bizarre behavior have become the new pathway to electability because more and more they are the only way to get noticed. 

“My sheep hear my voice.”  “You are what you pay attention to.”  A 2015 study of young adults determined the average person uses a smartphone five hours a day, engaging it a whopping 85 times, most of which last less than 30 seconds.  What does this tell you about our ability to pay attention?  Just as revealing, the study found participants far underestimated how much they used their phone.  It just doesn’t seem like we spend 1/3 of our waking hours using a device that did not even exist a decade ago, but we do.

Consider the uniqueness of what we are doing right now.  For about 12 minutes, each of you is going to sit in one place, not look at you cell phone, listen to a person speak (who is unaccompanied by pictures, video, or a scrolling series of headlines and stock market updates underneath).  There are no panelists shouting down each other.  No slickly produced PowerPoint presentation.  It is just me and my words bathed in the light of our timeless and familiar church imagery.  I dare say there will be nothing else in your week even close to this.  Paying attention to a sermon has never been easy, but it is especially challenging in an era when we cultivate multitasking and accept as normal the fragmentation of our focus.

Every minute you sit listening to me 500 new profiles are being created on Facebook, 150,000 messages are sent, and 3,000,000 new comments are posted.  Every minute you listen to me 400 hours of video is being uploaded onto YouTube.  The abundance of information available far exceeds our ability to consume it.  And it is not just social media.  I remember a medical professional once stating she would have to invest 200 hours a week reading the latest articles published in professional journals covering her field just to stay current with the latest research. 

The time you have and the attention you can give is a scarce resource.  More and more, learning how to manage and allocate these resources is an essential life skill as well as a spiritual necessity.

Andrew Sullivan’s article on distraction is titled “I Used to be a Human Being.”  He describes in it the soul-crushing experience of making a living as a political blogger spending almost all of his waking time on-line responding to the endless seeping of ‘breaking news.’  This is what he came to learn:

I spent many hours communicating with others as a disembodied voice, but my real life and body were still here.  I began to realize, as my health and happiness deteriorated… [e]very hour I spent online was not spent in the physical world.  Every minute I was engrossed in a virtual interaction I was not involved in a human encounter.  Every second absorbed in some trivia was a second less for any form of reflection, or calm, or spirituality.  Sometimes I walk down the street, and I’m the only person not plugged in… No one is where they are.

After coming to this realization, Sullivan decided to make a change; to go in a new direction for him, but one as old as the dawn of the human spirit.  He signed up to be a part of a week-long silent retreat focusing on the art of meditation.  He reports it took a few days for his brain to ‘settle down’ and his body to be comfortable relaxing.  He then began to notice things that had escaped him for some time… the sound of birds singing, the feeling of the breeze on his skin, the changes in the quality of light as late afternoon gives way to early evening.  For the first time in a long time he began to feel as if his body and his mind existed in the same place at the same time. 

Sullivan said his immediate impulse was to grab his phone, take a picture, and post it online.  Alas, he had been forced to surrender it at the start of the retreat so all he could do was simply be in the moment and live with what he was experiencing.  This, he came to realize, is exactly what he needed.

As the week unfolded Sullivan became more aware of long-held painful memories he had suppressed for years.  He wanted an instant antidote, but came to understand this too is a false way forward created by our modern, make-it-happen-at-microwave-speed world.  Some things, he learned, require time.

“My sheep hear my voice.”  Sullivan states something fascinating in his article:

[M]odernity slowly weakened spirituality, by design and accident, in favor of commerce; it downplayed silence and mere being in favor of noise and constant action.  The reason we live in a culture increasingly without faith is not because science has somehow disproved the unprovable, but because the white noise of secularism has removed the very stillness in which it might endure or be reborn.

Some churches have gone all in with an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach.  They make their worship services as showy and as glitzy as possible.  Big sound, bold visuals, bright lights, and blazing personalities.  Their worship has the pace and the energy of the latest Avengers movie.  But, as the late Rachel Held Evans wrote, she was not looking for a ‘cool’ church to compete with the culture, she deeply desired a place she could encounter ancient religious practices in a meaningful way.  Essentially, she, like Sullivan, sought a place where distractions are minimized in order to provide a place and a space to listen for the voice of Jesus.

Last Sunday we read the story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.  He heard the voice of Jesus only after being knocked off his horse and blinded by an intense light.  For most of us, nothing this dramatic will ever happen.  It is not that Jesus does not want to speak to us.  He does.  It’s just that his voice is soft and calm and is best heard in stillness and quiet – the very things our culture (to borrow a popular social media term) has blocked.

Still, we desperately want to know our lives matter, and not just because we got 100 reactions to our latest post.  We want to know someone cares about us for something deeper, more unique, and more enduring than purchases we might make because we are bombarded with pop-up ads some algorithm has determined should be enticing to us.  We want to know that life has meaning so grand it cannot be captured in 144 characters.  We want a purpose more significant than proselytizing the unknown masses to our particular position on the news cycle’s most recent dust-up.

To the best of my recollection I never missed a dinner as a child.  No matter what was going on, my ear was tuned to hear that bell (or others heard it and quickly brought it to my attention).  This for me is a wonderful image of a spiritual skill we all seek to cultivate.  None of us wants to lose focus on what really matters.  We want the ability briefly to gaze down life rabbit holes and then walk on.  Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.”  In life, you are what you pay attention to.  Thank you for paying attention to me these last few minutes. 

The Patron Saint of Stepping Out of your Comfort Zone

Yes, Lent is over, but I am on a mission; a mission to impart church knowledge/trivia to this faithful flock.  Today’s category: Churches named after a saint.  Here are the 10 most popular in the United States:

#10  St. Matthew (724)

  #9  St. Andrew (789)

  #8  St. Luke (1,053)

  #7  St. Mark (1,062)

  #6  St. Joseph (1,152)

  #5  St. James (1,270)

  #4  St. Peter (1,362)

  #3  St. Mary (1,832)

  #2  St. Paul (3,210)

  #1  St. John (3,713)

Now, as near as I can tell, there are only two churches named after St. Ananias: one in New Jersey, the other in Indiana, and both are Orthodox.  Why so few churches named after Ananias?  Perhaps a better question is “Who the heck is St. Ananias?”

According to tradition, when Jesus sends 70 of his followers in teams of two to preach and heal throughout the region of Galilee, Ananias is one of them.  Just a handful of years after the Resurrection, he is leading a small house church in the city of Damascus, some 140 miles north of Jerusalem. 

No matter the size, it appears to be a dynamic and effective congregation because a Pharisee bent on persecuting Jesus’ followers makes the long journey north in order to do harm to the members of this church.  He bears documents authorizing him to arrest those professing to be a disciple, to bind them, and to bring them back to Jerusalem for trial.  Truth be told, if he has his druthers, he prefers to stone them to death on the spot.

The Pharisee’s name is Saul and, as we read in today’s first lesson, something life-changing happens to him on the road to Damascus.  He is driven to his knees and struck blind by an intense light.  He hears a voice in the light.  It is the voice of the Risen Jesus.  Saul’s travelling companions, witnesses to what has happened but unsure of what to make of it, guide their comrade into Damascus where they leave him to ponder what has happened.

Enter Ananias.  The Lord appears to him in a vision, instructing him to go to Saul and lay hands on him in order to restore his sight.  Ananias has heard of Saul and, knowing how he has persecuted disciples in Jerusalem, questions the wisdom of such an assignment.

Here is why I think St. Ananias should be a popular name for a Christian church.  Show me a good parishioner who cannot identify with him.  He is active and engaged in his faith community, giving what he can and volunteering to do those things in his zone of comfort.  Without hesitation, I’d take twelve people just like him to serve on a Vestry and count myself blessed as a rector.

I look around the congregation and do my best to access gifts, skills, and interests.  I then encourage each person to contribute in ways he or she is naturally suited.  I keep a mental list of the comments I hear:

“I’ll fold bulletins, but don’t ask me to read in public.”

“I’ll write check to support such-and-such, but I can’t give my time to it.”

“I’ll visit folks in a nursing home, but don’t ask me to teach in the Sunday School.”

For those of us who like to operate in a church within our comfort zone, Ananias can be our patron saint.  But here is the problem: God has a way of asking us to do things which make us extremely uncomfortable! 

Churches are famous for pot-luck dinners and if there is one thing I’ve learned over 30+ years of ordained life while serving in numerous congregations of varying size and makeup, we Episcopalians discover a dish we are capable of preparing and then bring it to pot-luck dinners over and over and over again.  That is why, years ago at another church, I took a perverse pleasure in announcing a terrific new idea I’d had: a pot-luck brunch.  You have never seen such an uproar.  Why, no one had ever before prepared a dish for a pot-luck brunch.  What to do?  What to do?   You can’t imagine the anxiety created by asking people to do something unfamiliar to them… or maybe you can.

Now, we can laugh at the challenge of switching from bringing deviled eggs to cheese croissants, but each of us knows following Christ places much more significant demands on us than this:

“Do you really want me to love the person at work who continually stabs me in the back?”

“How am I supposed to let go of the pain and bitterness I have carried for so long?”

“What do you mean I must learn to master my destructive passions and cravings?”

Perhaps we have stumbled onto the reason so few churches are named after Ananias.  No one wants to be reminded the Christian faith really is a costly and risky proposition.  How could you enter a sanctuary every week seeking peace and comfort if it was named after a saint who was called by God to pray with (not for, with) a person who wanted to arrest and kill him?  I can just imagine such a parish’s mission statement:

Here at St. Ananias, we strive to make all people as uncomfortable as possible by asking them to do what they feel least capable of doing.  Won’t you join us?

Umm, I think not.

Chapters 8-10 of the Book of Acts chronicle four dramatic conversions, each essential to the unfolding work of God’s Spirit in and through the church.  Philip preaches to hated Samaritans and in the process confronts a man who profits by manipulating a child possessed by an evil spirit.  Philip next approaches an Ethiopian who is reading Scripture while riding in a chariot.  Then we read about Saul’s journey to Damascus and Ananias is introduced.  Finally, Peter is directed to visit a Roman centurion in the coastal city of Caesarea.  This soldier and his family become the first Gentile converts to the Christian faith.  There is at least one common thread in each of these stories: God asks a faithful person to do something unconventional, something outside of his comfort zone. 

Philip challenges the economic status quo.  Peter defies stringent social and cultural convention.  Ananias is asked to do something absurdly dangerous.  None acts simply to go out on a limb.  Each responds after some understandable hesitation because God calls them to do so.

Has God ever called you to do difficult things or to go to unexpected places?  Might God be calling you even now to some thing which, like Ananias, gives you serious pause or concern? 

Annie Dillard famously observed if we take the Christian faith at its word, we wouldn’t hand out bulletins in church, we’d hand out crash helmets.  I have known some people and some churches who acted as if faithfulness looked like jumping from the frying pan into the fire and then back again in a continual feverish frenzy of spiritual and emotional flagellation.  I don’t subscribe to this pattern of Christian living, nor do I recommend it.  However, as today’s reading reminds us, God is about stirring up things until all things reflect God’s dream for the world.  And it would seem when God sets out to stir, God calls on people like Ananias and you and me. 

Imagine how different the world would be if Ananias had stayed in his comfort zone.  A person would have remained blind and wasted away in a house on a street called Straight in the town of Damascus and the church would have been bereft of its first great evangelist and deep thinker.  

Imagine how the world – or at least your life – might be different if you responded to God’s call to do that thing you least want to do or go to that place you least want to go.  The next time you feel hesitant, the next time you are afraid, the next time every fiber in your being tells you to resist, think about St. Ananias, the Patron Saint of Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone, and you will know what to do.