the blessings of living in balance: thoughts about the holy trinity...

This coming Sunday faith communities are asked to consider the blessings and presence of the Holy Trinity:  in our lives, our prayers, our thoughts, our actions and our world. My hunch is that for most of us, this sacred mystery is rarely a conscious part of our living - myself included. Like Carl Jung once said of his own spiritual formation:  when I asked my father (a pastor) to tell me about the Holy Trinity, at first he became flustered, then frustrated and finally
flabbergasted as he shouted, "I can't really explain it - it is very important - so just believe it and shut up. (paraphrase is all mine.) Like so many older Christians who still attend worship, some may have heard about the Trinity from time to time on Sunday mornings, others may actually "confess" it weekly at Eucharist (albeit with their fingers crossed behind their backs) while the rest of us hold a vague recollection from a confirmation class long ago and far away and nothing more. But do we consciously consider the Trinity's wisdom and love in our lives and celebrate it as a part of our spirituality? Probably not so much...

As this week unfolded, however, I sensed a call to give myself more time than usual to sitting in prayer and study with this perplexing spiritual truth - and I am glad I did. Because the promise of the Trinity points us towards a way of living that is grounded in God's grace. Eugene Peterson calls this the unforced rhythms of grace in the spirit of Jesus.  It is a radical trust that knows from the inside out that love is greater than all death. The Holy Trinity evokes a pattern for our ethics by honoring that before the beginning of time we were all bound together in creation:  bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. But never in the shame-based morality that has come to define too much of conservative religion nor the empty moral relativism the plagues more and more of contemporary liberal spirituality. 

Rather, the Trinity is an expression of radical and extravagant hospitality. It is depicted best in art as a dance - most often among three women - and for me this suggests a boldly relational way of doing politics, organizing our economy, speaking to one another as well as shaping how we do spiritual formation. The Trinity encourages us to question the self-absorbed habits of the status quo and challenge the snarky cruelty that saturates so much of what passes for public discourse. Richard Rohr recently shared this insight about living into a Trinitarian reality:

The way to arrive and remain within "the force field of the Holy Spirit", which is one way of describing consciousness--is both very simple and very hard: you've got to remain in love, with a foundational yes to every moment. You can't risk walking around with a negative, resentful, gossipy, critical mind, because then you won't be in the force field. You will not be a usable instrument. That's why Jesus commanded us to love. It's that urgent. It's that crucial. That love, as contemplatives learn, can begin in the mind or can be inhibited by the mind. You may have heard this quote--sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt:

Watch your thoughts; 
they become words.

Watch your words; 
they become actions.

Watch your habits; 
they become character.

Watch your character; 
it becomes your destiny.

Contemplation nips negativity, hatred, and violence in the bud. It begins by retraining your initial thoughts, because if you let the mind operate in a paranoid, angry, and resentful way, you aren't going to get very far. You're not going to see clearly. At the same time, if you spend your time only in contemplation without moving toward positive engagement, you end up with what many call spiritual constipation. I am afraid it is quite common.

In Karen Armstrong's A History of God she notes that the while the origins of the Trinity began over a battle between competing understandings of Jesus, the early Cappadocian Fathers who later constructed the Trinitarian creeds did so with a sense of awe and grace for they wrote with the conviction and artistry of poets.  The Holy Trinity, you see, is fundamentally a poem - a simulacrum - that seeks to evoke a truth greater than mere words and a reality that can only be expressed through art. Walter Brueggemann underscored this insight when he wrote Reality, Grief and Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks. God's grace breaks through our grief, he observed, when the sacred imagination becomes art.  Hope is always a gift from God that is beyond our control. If we honor and embrace it, we grow in wisdom. The core of my message for Sunday unfolds like this:

Guess where Jesus and all the early church theologians learned their poetic and hope

filled vocabulary? From the prophets of Israel along with the songs and sayings of the Psalms and the aphorisms of Proverbs!  In ancient Israel there were three groups of teachers:  the prophets, the priests and the sages (wise men and sometimes women.)  Today’s unique insight comes from the later group as recorded in today’s Proverbs 8.  Here God’s hope for the world is personified as Lady Wisdom (as opposed to Dame Folly.)  And Peterson renders this text in a way that demands our regular repetition:

Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling? Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice? She’s taken her stand at First and Main – or we might say right out on Park Square - at the busiest intersection. Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts: “You—I’m talking to all of you, everyone out here on the streets! Listen, you idiots—learn good sense! You blockheads, too—shape up! Don’t miss a word of this—I’m telling you how to live well, I’m telling you how to live at your best. I am giving you the WISDOM of the Lord.

Right out of the gate we’re told that God’s wisdom is public – it is not for private consumption just by the highest bidder or the cognoscenti – God’s mercy and the unforced rhythms of grace are for all the people: the idiots and blockheads, the savvy entrepreneurs as well as the addicts, the intellectuals and all the broken, wounded souls of the world., too. That’s the whole point of the opening verse:  can you HEAR God’s wisdom being announced from the center of the city? From Park Square? From the top of the gates to the places of commerce and entertainment? In your newspapers or on TV? It is there. God isn’t far away – God is right here and right now – not aloof in the heavens but smack in the middle of human life.

So let me ask you:  does this sound like anything else you might have heard in the Bible?  The gospel of John is saturated in this type of poetry: In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was in the world, in fact the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t always notice. The Word came to his own people but some of them didn’t want him. But whoever did – those who listened and heard and believed… he made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.

The Christian belief that in Jesus the depth of God’s truth was revealed and lived among us – the Greek actually says dwelt among us, pitched his tent in our neighborhood and became human flesh – begins right here with Lady Wisdom in Proverbs.  But it goes deeper and gets better, too. The wise sages of ancient Israel who shaped the ministry of Jesus and informed the poetry of the early Church, believed and taught that God’s will has existed since before there was time. These teachers understood that not only was there a balance to the created order, but that human beings could live in harmony or opposition to this balance established before there was time. If we opt for wisdom – the way of the Lord – the earth will thrive and our neighbors will experience hope and trust.  The Psalm we’ll sing in just a moment celebrates this truth: O Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark… to silence the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet…

If, however, we chose to live as if we are smarter than God – if we organize our personal and social lives around selfishness, bigotry or fear – we will experience the consequences of disharmony:  war, anxiety, ecological and economic disaster as well as hatred, misogyny and racial bigotry.  Proverbs proclaims that the essence of God’s wisdom is not a secret: it is revealed in how creation is organized and is at the heart of all ethical living.  St. Paul picked up on this second poetic truth about Lady Wisdom being with God since before creation and uses it to describe Jesus.  

Look at the comparison chart between Proverbs 8 and Colossians 1:  Paul used both the wisdom sayings of ancient Israel as well as the poetic tradition of Judaism to help us get a sense of the deepest meaning of Jesus the Christ. Before the beginning of time, there was a holy order created for life. Wisdom revealed it – Jesus embodied it – and our lives can experience it if we ally ourselves with it. God’s wisdom – God’s will – is not a mystery. It is built into our soil and our air. God’s grace limits the chaos of the sea by giving us dry land and God’s wisdom has been shaping all creation since before the beginning of time. Like both Genesis and the gospel of John say:  before the beginning, there was chaos – it was God’s loving wisdom that came upon the chaos to give it order, shape and form so that all life might thrive. And just so that there is no ambiguity, the precise nature of God’s order looks like personal compassion and social justice.

That is the third insight for this opening commentary on Trinity Sunday:  Walter Brueggemann calls the order and fabric of God’s wisdom embodied in these ideas the agency of a generative moral coherence for all of creation. To be wise is to trust God’s path more than our own public relations.  It is to live in harmony and connection with our neighbors, the earth and the Lord.  Foolishness – ignorance – destruction:  these are the opposites of holy wisdom. And the choices we make in life hold ethical consequences as good and compassionate choices eventuate in shalom; but sowing and reaping fear and discord bring us back to the brink of chaos – or worse. 

The good news is that wisdom comes first: Brueggemann notes that Lady Wisdom was with the Lord first and has been in divine intimacy with God since the beginning of time. She is of the Lord while foolishness and disharmony – destruction and despair – are not present at the start of this story – and only come afterwards as the agents of chaos. These are some of the truths that gave shape and form to how the early Church talked about the blessings of Jesus – even his Cross.  They point to a love greater than death that embraces us sometimes like a Father – or Mother – shows us the way of love like a beloved Child – and speaks to us still from within the world and our own hearts like a Spirit. 

When you let the insights from Proverbs mix with the later ruminations of both St. Paul and St. John, my prayer is that you are starting to sense that any conversation about the Holy Trinity is more like a Zen koan – or poem – than an operating manual or rule book.  Essentially the Trinity points us towards the enormity of grace – a truth that encompasses beauty as well as sin, hope in addition to death and fear – to say nothing about the sacred order of God’s will exacted in reality throughout history. Grace is beyond definition – we can know it, trust it, love it, taste it, experience it, share it and cherish it – but we can never adequately define or limit it. The brilliant Palestinian-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, put it like this in a poem entitled, “Kindness” that was used during our Good Friday liturgy.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment, like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape

 can be between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel 

where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, 

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it 

till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for and then goes with you everywhere 

like a shadow or a friend.

The words of Paul in Romans – and the gospel text in John – I sense build upon the poetry of

grace initiated in ancient Israel as they insist that there is a right way to live into God’s wisdom – even in the face of suffering – as well as a morally bankrupt way that leads us towards trouble and injustice.  Paul is telling us that in addition to feelings and poetry there is an ethical quality to God’s wisdom that is counter-cultural: even  our pain can become one of our teachers, he writes, for:  We know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Please note that the apostle is NOT telling u God’s wisdom is automatic. He is not a fool who claims that all suffering is good because it always leads to endurance blah, blah, blah. Not at all. We now that all suffering hurts – and not all pain is redemptive. What Paul IS saying, however, is that when we trust that God’s grace is the truth that gives moral cohesion to all of creation – when we trust by faith that the arc of the moral universe tilts ever so slightly towards justice to paraphrase Dr. King – then we can let go of anxiety, allowing ourselves be transformed even by adversity because we know that the foundation of everything begins in God’s love..

Let me rephrase Paul’s proclamation like this: because we have been touched by God’s wisdom –and trust God from the inside out – we are now able to be patient in our afflictions just like Christ who endured the Cross. Paul is confessing that once we have experienced true hope born of God’s love – a love most fully revealed on Easter Sunday – then we begin to comprehend the living will of God – the order of creation – so even though parts of our lives are agonizing or unfair, we don’t quit. We don’t deny suffering but we don’t let it have the final word either. The same goes for injustice or fear:  we know it is real, not an illusion as the Buddhists sometimes say, but it isn’t the end of the story. The resurrection is the true end of one story as the Cross exposes – but it also the start of a whole new life, too.  When we live from within the power, truth and love of Easter, the Holy Spirit pours hope into our hearts just as Jesus promised. Troubles can develop passionate patience within us, patience can become the forge of tempered steel on the path of virtue, and anything else that connects us to human solidarity can bring hope to birth because… hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

That’s what St. John’s gospel underscores, too:  When my Spirit comes, Jesus said, he will guide you into all truth. The Spirit, you see, is intimately connected to the Father and the Son – the Spirit is how Wisdom and Comfort are communicated to our living flesh – and the Spirit is how we reconnect with God’s harmony, balance, wisdom and moral cohesion in our ordinary lives. No wonder the early church wrestled with finding poetic language for this blessing for four hundred years – and why most of us don’t go anywhere near it today – not only is it nuanced and complicated, it also demands that we make a moral stand against the relativism of contemporary culture.

Let me put it to you like this:  the Trinity – inspired by Lady Wisdom and the sages and prophets of ancient Israel who include our Lord Jesus Christ – tells us that God has given us a guiding principle for life:  harmony, balance, personal compassion and social justice with all creation.  St. Paul would push the envelope and say that wisdom teaches that grace is at the heart of creation as the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus make clear.

But let’s be real:  grace, harmony, trust and moral balance are not the guiding principles for contemporary Western culture. No, if we had to summarize the heart of our values right now, the quintessential American proverb would be something like: “Different strokes, for different folks.” There are variations on this theme:  live and let live – to each his or her own – a man’s home is his castle – don’t rock the boat. But they all mean the same thing and can be boiled down to one word according to the old preacher, Thomas Long… whatever!  

Long makes the case – and I agree – that our laissez faire relativism means that there is NOT a coherent vision for how best to live in the world. He says:  It’s as if each of us has been handed a little box of puzzles pieces that conveniently snap together in any number of different ways. So if the picture I end up assembling of what I think my life should look like ends up being wildly different from what you piece together, big deal! Different strokes for different folks. Why would anyone even expect that any two puzzles would end up looking similar? Whatever, right?

Biblical wisdom in Proverbs – and the mysterious poem we call the Holy Trinity – suggests otherwise.  They point to a consistent vision for life – God’s shalom – that is just, loving, compassionate and trustworthy even in the midst of suffering and instability.  Small wonder that the best artistic depiction of the Holy Trinity is not a static portrait of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: it is three women dancing!  Usually a Crone – in old age – a child – in innocence – and a mother – bearing life as they all dance in unity and harmony. They are NOT all alike. They are not automatons forced into a one size fits all ideology or spirituality; rather they each have sacred and unique gifts that they bring to God’s dance – and their expression is a joy to behold.

Dear people of God, I don’t think that it is coincidental that Lady Wisdom in Proverbs is

feminine.  Nor do I think it is accidental that one of her descriptions at the close of today’s reading could be translated either as God’s helper in creation – a master worker who advances the will of God in the world – or – a little child. Apparently the Hebrew root, ‘aman, is enigmatic – and ancient scholars are split on which way to go: it could be master worker – divine helper – but it could also be little child who delights in the creativity of God – suggesting to me that a principle of “pleasure and playfulness is built into the structure of God’s sacred order of compassion and justice.”

And I have to tell you, I like both options – architect helping the Lord as well as little child laughing with delight. It makes me think of the words of Jesus:  “unless ye become as an innocent child ye shall not enter the kingdom of God.”  Having just spent last weekend with my grandson, Louie, I am totally down with the personification of God being a giggling, little girl delighting in awesome diversity of the human race.   Think about that one for just a moment, ok? Besides holding a newborn infant to your chest while she sleeps, there may not be a more sacred sound in all creation than that a little child’s infectious laughter. We were out at Hancock Shaker Village checking out all the “baby animals” last Saturday.  And man, you should have heard my little dude laugh – especially as the baby chicks strutted about and the piglets wallowed in the mud – it was pure innocence. Complete joy. Total trust.

Wisdom’s followers – people of the Holy Trinity – have been called to be playful just as much as we are to be compassionate and just. In this we learn to live in harmony with God’s will and share it with all our neighbors in a sacred dance. So let me give you my take-away for Trinity Sunday – it is one I am still learning after all these years and I have to work it every single day – but it is the forever time-tested, spiritually un-contested, ethically never-bested and unquestionably12-Step suggested way to live into God’s grace and wisdom in your everyday, walking around, ordinary lives:  it is indubitably the practical way to make the blessings of the Holy Trinity the core of your existence.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

We are not always in control of events – there is pain and war and fear and death – most of which we cannot change:  let it go and leave it to God.  There are also other realities that we can change if we claim the courage to go against the grain:  we can make time for prayer, we can interrupt our addiction to fretting, we can say no to those who would devour our soul or compromise our compassion:  and as we do it God’s peace becomes our own. And of course there is the wisdom – the Trinity – the grace of God that helps us know the difference.

The question I asked myself over and again this week is what I ask of you now: do you want to live in anxiety or the peace that passes all understanding?  Do you want the Trinity’s promise of serenity, courage and wisdom or Dame Folly’s chaos, fear and violence?  Beloved, the choice is ours. Yes, I wrestle with this everyday – but incrementally over time I continue to know from the inside out that the more I trust, the more God’s love is poured into my heart by the Holy Spirit.  And there isn’t any better news than that – so let the promise of the Holy Trinity come to those who have ears to hear, hear.

credits:

1.  Trisket @ www.pinterest.com

2.  Icon @ deforestlondon.wordpress.com

3.  Robertz Lentz @  robertlentzartwork.wordpress.com

4.  Divine Feminine Trinity @ www.pinterest.com

5. Shall we dance @ frscottrussell.wordpress.com

6. Celtic trinity @  robertlentzartwork.wordpress.com

7.  Christ dancing @ goodfridayblues.wordpress.com

i will learn my song well before....

For the past year I haven't listened to any "new" music. That startling conclusion started to dawn on me during the closing rehearsals of our Good Friday liturgy saturated with John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." 

NOTE: for the truly curious, this is streaming on PCTV; go to: http://www.pittsfieldtv. org/access-pittsfield-show-search/ and search for a love supreme.) 

This is not to say that I haven't listened to any music in a year, nor is it true that all the "old" songs I took in weren't"new" to me - for they were. The majesty of Ray Brown's bass playing with Oscar Peterson, the nuances of pianist Herbie Hancock's journey from Miles Davis protege to grand master jazz/funk/fusion guru in his own right, the later recordings of Joni Mitchell, the collaboration between upright bass man Ron Carter and guitar playing Bill Frisell, and Ahmad Jamal's "Saturday Morning" have regularly filled this past year with sounds of grandeur. But, while most of this music was new to me, it has not been cutting edge.

Oddly, when I started to search for some of the best new jazz recordings of 2016, many of them involved old artists:  Greg Abate and Phil Woods, Bucky Pizzarelli, Larry Young and Stan Getz. Last summer I heard Bad Plus Joshua Redman play some wildly inventive new jazz - and I was turned on to Quebecois pianist/composer Maryanne Trudell, too (whom we'll make a point to see in late June at the Ottawa Jazz Festival.) So like Joni once sang, "...maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's the time of man but I don't know who I am but life's for learning." I can't speak for the culture's obsession with nostalgia. I just know that I needed to saturate myself in the tradition both to feel its depth as well as learn its grooves. Now, I am sensing an interest in not only listening to new creations but also creating something new, too. Dylan was right: I must learn my song well before I start singing... .

Yesterday, for the first time in more than a year, I spent the whole day in study, prayer and writing - and it felt like I was finally sleeping in my own bed again. For more than 33 years I have set aside one full day for Bible study, prayer, quiet reflection and writing for Sunday worship. But since returning from Montreal it hasn't worked out that way. I suspect that there are a variety of reasons for the gap, but after yesterday's focus I've quit trying to make this past year's scattered style suffice. In a mixed metaphor way, yesterday's saturation in Scripture and silence brought this version of "Summertime" to mind by many of my favorite masters.

a time to go deeper and a time for rest...

There is an experiment I am going to try during Sunday worship for the next six weeks:  two spoken reflections separated by silence and song instead of one spoken sermon after a host of Bible lessons. Last week, for Pentecost, I divided the four lectionary readings into discrete "word and commentary" segments. After one spoken reflection I invited folk to practice walking meditation as they moved through the Sanctuary to light a candle on behalf of the wounds of our world. After another, I  spoke about the promise of Pentecost before the reading, and then while the Scripture was shared our children and adults tossed crepe paper "tongues of fire" over the edge of the balcony so that they hovered over the heads of the congregation.  And after St. John's reminder of the coming "Comforter, the Holy Spirit," I encouraged the community to get up and go speak to someone they did not know so that our words might became an embodied act of comfort.

Now the reason for this experiment involves two, interwoven ideas about the tension between church and culture

+ First, our fast paced culture trains us for a diminished attention span. We want and need only the news we can use in byte size portions. So while I will not become a slave to consumer culture, I am curious about what might take place if we tried something like this: a) We read a short text from the Hebrew Bible aloud; b) I offer a concise but serious reflection on why it is important in our tradition and contemporary culture; c) .We pause in community for a short, silent reflection; and d) then close our prayer with a shared song. Two additional readings - and a Psalm - will follow to be concluded with another short critical refection in conversation. The total time for engaging Scripture won't change, but the way we focus will.  And while I might be totally whacked, I sense that putting the Hebrew Bible into context is vital for this moment in time: if we are going to reclaim a shared vision for compassion and justice, then our people who are wildly unaware of ancient Israel's prophetic wisdom need some remedial tutoring.

+ Second, I want to help our folk reclaim the wonder, power and awe of the Bible. Too  many people say, "Can you explain that reading to me more thoroughly so I can grasp its context?" Or even, "I don't really get why we read so much Bible during worship when I don't know the bigger picture." There are times when I even see people's eyes roll back in their heads as we move from the Palm into the Epistle - and by the time the Gospel comes around they are goners. Eugene Peterson found much the same thing back in his church in Maryland and started to rework the texts into the gracious, bold and demanding language we have come to know as The Message. Could it be that using his reworked text mixed with a time of silence, music and quiet prayer might unlock our peoples' passion for the LIving Word of the Lord?  I don't want to dumb things down any more than our culture already does, but  my experience at midday Eucharist suggests that many who gather really are hungry to genuinely hear the word of God in Scripture and have it interpreted, too. 

Maybe playing with the liturgy in this way will be a total flop. But I won't know until we try. I have already discovered that more contemplative prayer with candle lighting makes a difference for some folks. Same is true with walking meditation to different prayer stations in our massive Sanctuary. So, we'll see with this new experiment. We'll give it a try as we move into Ordinary Time and evaluate things after phase one of my summer vacation.  Obviously the composer of the anthem we'll be doing this Sunday, Craig Curry, wasn't afraid to experiment by taking both the singers and congregation to a deeper and more challenging place... I'll keep you posted.

blessed pentecost...

Today is Pentecost in the Western Christian tradition: at one point during the Eucharistic Prayer I looked out of the corner of my eye and there was my grandson, Louie, standing close to me behind the communion table. I waved discretely while continuing with the liturgy. What a treasure. The whole family gathered in Pittsfield last night for feasting and story-telling. Earlier in the day we joined other locals at the opening of the Farmer's Market. And then visited the "baby" animals at Hancock Shaker Village. What a festival of feelings for this old dude...

As I looked down at Louie during Eucharist, two thoughts washed over me: first, his momma was just about that age when I was ordained; and second, what a sweet life cycle now that I am moving towards the close of ministry. What's more, in three weeks we're going to ordain a brilliant young man from within the congregation and he, too, has a family much the age of mine on the day of my ordination 35 years ago.

As we all gathered in the Chancel this morning around the communion table, serving one another the bread and the cup - singing the Sanctus with gusto as old timers were surrounded by new friends and guests - I found my eyes swelling up with tears of gratitude (much as they are now): this is the Body of Christ. Broken, often frail but always a sign of hope in a world too often obsessed with power and busyness. This is a PLACE for real people - a community of solidarity where everybody knows your - and this fills my heart with joy. In fact, during my homily, I spontaneously asked people to make a point to go introduce themselves to someone they

didn't know rather than light a candle for prayer, because our small size is a gift now a problem.

After wards, two different people told me something sacred about one of our special needs members:  one man mentioned that our friend is now engaged to be married (a blessing that I knew about) while Di told me that during part of the liturgy, this same gentleman took off his red Pentecost scarf (we handed some out at the start of worship) and placed it over the shoulders of a care-giver. He wanted her to know that she she was welcomed. This stuff mostly only happens in church. It is usually not seen by those too busy getting important things accomplished.  And to have my grandson a part of this feast was almost more than I could contain. Blessed and happy Pentecost to you all.

hey the family is coming...

There is a unique charism to cleaning the bathroom, scrubbing the floor and making the house

look hospitable. This is not a unique insight, of course, as everyone from St. Benedict and Brother Lawrence to Kathleen Norris and Anne Lamott have weighed in on the subject.

The Bible is full of evidence that God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us--loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed everyday". Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous details in Leviticus involving God in the minutiae of daily life might be revisioned as the very love of God.  (Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women's Work)

For nearly two hours, we have been engaged in the common drudgery of vacuuming dog hair (waaay too freakin' much!), dusting, scouring toilet bowls and waxing the floor in anticipation of our children and grandson. For some odd reason, I have always found satisfaction in such work. Yes, it can be oppressive - especially if you are the only one doing it - and often there can be too much of it. But like good liturgy, there is something calming about making a sink shine. Or adding a fresh coat of wax to a once grimy hardwood floor. 

I feel much the same way about setting a beautiful table with flowers, crisp linen, candles and all the rest. Norris writes that St. Benedict was clear that:  Whatever you do repeatedly has the power to shape you, has the power to make you over into a different person— even if you’re not totally engaged’ in every minute! I find that my mind wanders while washing the floor: I think of ideas for an ordination sermon I've been asked to preach in early June - or find old wounds and resentments rising to the surface of consciousness - or even memories of those long gone from this world wafting through my mind as they remind me how to do "women's work" and why it matters.

Well, now there is a dog to wash, more floors to finish and groceries to be gathered before the troops arrive in a few hours. I like the way Ms. Norris wraps it all up:

When it comes to the nitty—gritty, what ties these threads of biblical narrative together into a revelation of God’s love is that God has commanded us to refrain from grumbling about the dailiness of life. Instead we are meant to accept it gratefully, as a reality that humbles us even as it gives us cause for praise. The rhythm of sunrise and sunset marks a passage of time that makes each day rich with the possibility of salvation, a concept that is beautifully summed up in an ancient saying from the monastic tradition: “Abba Poeman said concerning Abba Pior that every day he made a new beginning.” 

the journey into pentecost...

This Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost, we are experimenting with another participatory and sensory worship celebration.  There are two candle-lighting prayer stations at the back of the Sanctuary:  after two of four different brief reflections - one on the Genesis 11 text and the other on John 14 - people will be invited to do "walking mediation" as they move, light candles re: the brokenness of the world (first) and the Spirit's calling to us to be healers (second) as we create two jazz improvisations. In my head, I hear this bluesy groove of Herbie Mann's take on "Come Together" for the second improv. 

During the other readings, Acts 2 and Psalm 104, our children and youth will unfurl "tongues of fire" from the balcony (rolled crepe paper) and sing and chant the ancient Psalm. The culmination of this liturgy will be Eucharist - as in the unity  of different peoples coming together in the Christian encounter with Pentecost - where people will leave their seats and gather around the communion table. They will serve and be served the bread of life and cup of blessing in the round.

One of my mini-reflections on each text, John 14, articulates one of the Pentecostal insights like this:

This is the “other” Pentecost story in Christianity: the promise and presence of the Holy Spirit – the Paraclete in the Greek text – who gives us hearts to trust and eyes to see the essence of God in Jesus – and then to LOVE the Lord our God by living in the WAY of Christ. The fundamental insight in John’s gospel is that we can see what God is like – and how to love and serve God – by following, embracing and living the way of Jesus. Jesus is the man of peace – the soul of humility – the servant teacher who gets down on his knees to wash the feet of his confused and surly friends and then tells them:  this is my new commandment for you – love one another as I have loved you – on your knees as humble servants.  Do this and you will come to know the Lord your God in your flesh.  And there are three essential insights to embrace here:

+ First Jesus shows us in the flesh the polar opposite of the Tower of Babel:  they follow themselves and cause destruction and violence; he follows the Father and serves others with humble tenderness. They alienate themselves from God; he embraces and is embraced by God’s love. They are self-centered, he is other centered.

+ Second, by watching, following and learning from Jesus we, too, will receive

inspiration to become tender servants guided by humility and love because God will inspire us from within. We can’t manufacture such love. We can’t create it either – we can barely comprehend it. But, by grace and in God’s own time, we will be given the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – the Comforter – who will lead us into new and life-giving acts of compassion.

+ And third, there is specificity as to what it means to follow in the way of Jesus and his Spirit of holiness, not ambiguity.  In both the Old Testament and the New, in Isaiah and the letters of St. Paul, the power of the comforter – the Holy Spirit – is NOT some sacred teddy bear to snuggle with, but rather a way of living born from above.  It is a calling and a commitment to make the way of Jesus flesh in our lives and Scripture tells us that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are sevenfold:  sound judgment or wisdom, understanding of how grace and real life work, the ability to counsel others in the way of faithful living, intimate experience with God’s grace, strength to persevere, inner peace from prayer and a sense of awe concerning God’s love and power.

Pentecost is all about the promise and the presence of Jesus in our flesh. Professor of homiletics at my alma mater Union Theological Seminary in NYC, Barbara Lundblad, put it like this:  Those of us who attend worship regularly know all too well that we are rarely what Jesus called us to be: We spend too much and share too little; we judge too many and love too few; we wait too long and act too late.

We also know that all across the United States and Western Europe there are people who are interested in the way of the Lord but say:  Show me a church where ministers aren’t self-serving, where hypocrisy has been purged away, where love is genuine, and I’ll become a member.  From our own experience we know that these folk will have to wait a long, long time for such a church to take root on earth because in the words of St. Paul:  too often we do what we hate and forget what we love.  We are uncomfortable embracing the radical humility of Christ – we are afraid – and we hedge our bets.  We are too busy and we forget to reach out to others in love. We are broken and need our own love, forgiveness and healing.

And so we gather for Pentecost to be reminded: if you love me, you will keep my commandment.  I love the simplicity of this truth:  it is challenging, positive, possible and life-changing. So let me invite you back into a walking meditation to light a candle and ask yourself: what is the next step for me in trusting the love of Jesus more than my own fear, hurt, confusion or guilt?

I am looking forward to this celebration in sound and movement, thought and silence, insight and questioning. 

rest is a crucial ingredient in the quest for justice...

So this will sound like a tape loop to some, but here goes from a headline at Sojourner's Magazine entitled, "A Crucial Ingredient in Justice Work: Rest." (check it out  @ https://sojo. net/articles/crucial-ingredient-justice-work-rest) Here's a key paragraph:

Just as fields need to lie fallow, so does all creation — including us. In a world that is rife with addiction to busyness, it is imperative that we rediscover the lost art of re-creative rest. Only then can we effectively serve and yield fruit for the Kingdom of God.Justice work is good work. It is a high calling. It deserves great effort and exertion. But in today’s world, if our work in the realms of social justice mimics the exhausting routine of the fiercely competitive struggle for wealth and power, we would do well to take a moment to consider the biblical rhythm of Sabbath. The esteemed rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in The Sabbath that the holy day serves as a “sanctuary in time.” The invitation of the Sabbath is a summons to dwell in the eternality of time, he wrote, to turn from “the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”

I've burned myself out too many times overlooking this truth - and I've been burned by self-righteous activists who are all hype and drive without a sense of inner peace, too. Small wonder Fr. Richard Rohr calls his ministry the Center for Contemplation and Action. It is a both/and reality, yes?

I just returned home from a "make-up" confirmation class where my young charge asked, "Why do we have to go to church each week, sit quietly and listen to stories about dead people we will never know?" Three weeks ago, we tried to answer that together in worship. But my hunch was we only scratched the surface of an authentic answer. So we spent 20 minutes talking and thinking this through from the perspective of soccer practice:  we gather together at a set time to practice listening to and loving God and one another because without a set time, it wouldn't happen. You wouldn't grow as a player if you didn't have practice would you? And you wouldn't practice if it wasn't set and required, right? Over the years, we learn a little about ourselves, we are reminded of God's forgiveness and we find new friends who can help us when we're sad, confused or hurting. Have you met new people at soccer practice? Do you hang with them? How do they make you feel? (Like I want to become a better player!) Hmmm....

Well, we also gather to rest as the rest of the Sojourner's article continues:

Compassion for the world and practice of the Sabbath for the body and soul are intimately interconnected. We cannot serve the world without setting time aside for re-creative rest. We cannot do re-creative work from a place of exhaustion and burnout. In our current culture, this is downright subversive. We carry a pervasive idea that we are defined by the volume of our work or the sweat of our brow. But sometimes the best way we can celebrate labor is to rest from it — to discover relaxation, restorative delight, and a sense of the sacredness of time itself.

And so it goes: church is truly a counter-cultural institution for those who take Sabbath seriously and honor it. For too many, however, it just one more thing to do that gets shoved to the bottom of the list - and eventually discarded. Life is already too busy and demanding. I am learning not to fret about this - I can't fix or change it - and God knows I've spent over 30 years trying. It is about time I simply pray the Serenity Prayer and change the things I can and accept what is not mine to alter. Tomorrow I will drink tea, write and pray, meet with a local artist about a Juneteenth event and then gather with local grassroots activists to listen for the Spirit within and among us about next steps in building our Berkshires justice network. On Friday, I will sleep late, clean the house and then welcome my Brooklyn family for the weekend - with a grand Saturday feast planned, too. 

It really does come down to the song we sang at the close of today's midday Eucharist...

a bluesy piano jazz kinda day...

For some unknown reason I am in a piano jazz blues kind of place today - not melancholia, mind you - just something low down and gritty. It feels rather like Dave Brubeck's incredible groove building to a crescendo on "Travellin' Blues." Maybe you've felt this way, too? (Check it out here: man, can this cat play!)


Another absolutely sublime meditation in music is the Bill Evans classic: "Peace Piece." There may not be another jazz piano composition quite like this in all creation. It speaks to me of inner refreshment, the ups and downs of being real in a broken world and the quiet longing to hold on to awe for just a moment longer in this life even while knowing that is impossible. For my soul, this is what heaven sounds like. And I would be foolish to miss including Ahmad Jamal's most recent composition:  "Saturday Morning."  It was my big find last year in Montreal. This is the "reprise" take of the much longer version from the CD of the same name. In both the melody and interplay of instruments, this tune speaks to me of resting in the gentle beauty of the warm sun. It hints at love, too without a trace of sentimentality. It is truly a beautiful and playful work of art.