retirement...

NOTE: Here is my letter of intent to retire that I shared with my Council last night and my congregation today. 

October 2016

Dear Friends and Colleagues in Ministry at First Church:

During my sabbatical in Montreal, I began to sense that just as I had once been called “in” to full time pastoral ministry in the summer of 1968, I was probably now being called “out” of this ministry, too. As in all matters of discernment, this is not something I have rushed into. Indeed, over the past fifteen months I have been actively engaged in prayer, study, quiet reflection, professional counsel, family questioning, financial planning and a series of practical experiments concerning what my heart is communicating to my head. In a word, I have been listening deeply to how best to serve God, care for my soul, and share love with those dearest to me. As a result, I am submitting my notice of retirement as Settled Minister of First Church, Pittsfield effective February 1, 2017.

Just as the sacred rhythm of God’s grace teaches the world that there is “a time for every purpose under heaven,” so, too for me: “there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.” (Ecclesiastes 3) Everything within me knows that this is my season for leave-taking from full time ministry. Further, given the congregation’s need to move towards part-time ministry, now is the time for me to act. 

+  I am not departing because I have found a better job or more money. Nor am I in conflict with the direction or leadership of our congregation. Dianne and I are simply finished with this phase of ministry; our days of working full time in a local church are over. So just as I have often challenged you in Sunday worship to step out into life with faith, trusting that God is not done with us yet, now is yet another time for us to do so, too. 

+  In order to negotiate a new transitional, part-time position with First Church that will take effect in the New Year, my current call agreement must come to a close. Honoring the protocol of our tradition, this requires a three month notification. Additionally, I must give the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ three months to prepare my annuity package upon retirement. 

+  And, as some of you know, I also ache to return to Canada. Upon completion of my part-time ministry at First Church (whenever that should come to closure) it is my goal to volunteer with Jean Vanier’s L’Arche Community in either Ottawa or Montreal as part of their ministry to adults with intellectual challenges. Dianne has been eager to respond to the humanitarian crisis of Syrian and North African immigrants fleeing oppression. She will have completed her CELTA certification in English Language Training in May 2017 and hopes to assist refugees in Canada with their transition. I look forward to going deeper into my writing concerning a spirituality of tenderness. And, without qualification, we are going to spend lots of time with our beloved daughters, sons-in-law and grandson.

My retirement comes with full support for Lauryn Levesque’s commitment to help First Church become a vibrant small congregation for the 21 century. I endorse our Church Council’s vow to preserve our unique contemporary ministries while honoring the historic legacy of our congregation in the wider community. And l celebrate the insights and recommendations the Ad Hoc Planning Team led by Jon Grenoble has crafted for our future. I pray you will support them faithfully, too.

There are no good times for a pastor to leave a beloved congregation. Still, I know that this is the right time for me to rest in God’s grace. The Bard of Vermont, one of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner, put it best when he wrote: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness, touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments – and all life itself is grace.

As I look back upon our ten years together I give thanks to God for our commitment in becoming an Open and Affirming congregation: when First Church took this stand, it spoke volumes to the wider community about God’s love for all of creation. It also put us on notice as allies for all who have experienced religious persecution. 

+  I have been personally blessed by the creativity of our music and worship endeavors over the past five years. I would rank Missa Gaia and Love Supreme as highlights of our liturgical and artistic collaborations. Creating and sharing new music in the service of solidarity with the people of Pittsfield – as well as in public worship – has been holy ground for me. Thus, I owe a debt of gratitude to the various incarnations of Between the Banks with a special love for: Jenna O’Brien, Brian Staubach, Sue Noyes, Eva Perri, Jon Grenoble, Dave McDermott, Elizabeth McCarty, and Dianne De Mott. My artistic/spiritual collaborations with Jon Haddad, Andy and Sue Kelly, Rebecca Maaia, Charlie Tokarz, Grahm Sturz and Linda Worster have been equally sublime. 

+  Being connected with the young people of First Church – musicians and confirmands (and their wonderful families) – has been another source of renewal, hope and deep satisfaction. I am particularly grateful for young musicians like Ethan Wesley, Olivia Kinne, Emory Korte, Catherine and Alida Perri for their willingness and verve in making a joyful and beautiful song for the Lord.

+  Working with five Moderators, Council members and Worship Teams under the guidance of

John Galt, Susan Noyes, Dana Noble, David Noyes and Lauryn Levesque has been enriching. And bringing to fruition the ordination into Christian Ministry of Rebecca Floyd, Robert Hyde and now Elizabeth McCarty has been a unique and sobering privilege for me.

I would be remiss in affection and untrue to my heart if I did not acknowledge the unique, creative and compassionate synergy that became the core of my collaboration with my First Church colleagues: David Grusendorf, Becky Jankowski and Carlton Maaia II. Not every staff loves one another nor works well together for the glory of God – but this crew did – and we have all been the more blessed because of it. Joyfully I have grown closer to many of you as we practiced loving God in community, worship and mission. I have disappointed and even failed some, I know, and rely upon God’s grace as we all move into a new era.

This moment in the life of North American Christian congregations is complex: our culture and our religious habits have changed profoundly. For good and ill, there are more “spiritual but not religious” citizens in our region than ever before. Our personal and public obligations have grown more multi-faceted – and all too harried. Our commitment to the common good has been diminished. So many good people are both anxious and angry about the future. And a growing minority of neighbors prefer a coarse and crude politics celebrating cynicism rather than the pursuit of happiness and social responsibility for all. More than at any other time in my thirty-five years of ordained ministry, I sense a need to nourish a spirituality of tenderness in writing, music-making and community building and I yearn to use my retirement for just such activities.

So thank you for your love and your support. After I take my leave, and conclude whatever part-time service we negotiate, I will uphold the Code of Ethics for Retired Clergy and rigorously maintain clear and respectful personal boundaries like my predecessors. Until that time, however, I pray only blessings and a deepening of God’s guidance for you in the exciting and challenging days ahead.

Grace and peace always,
The Reverend Dr. James Lumsden

to every thing there is a season...

So many endings and beginnings this week:  the anniversary of my father's death and the marriage of "the Belles," the announcement of my retirement from full-time ministry and grandson Louie's third birthday, the falling of stunning autumn leaves and the welcome of Elizabeth into "discernment for ordination." More to say soon... but this picture from the wedding gets it so right!

taking flight takes courage...

As if the lower back aches and pains were not evidence enough - or the snow white and silver hair - a picture posted on FB this morning puts it all into perspective:  today is Louie's first day of school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

I can remember with vividness his mother's first day of school back in Saginaw, MI. She wore a red corduroy jumper, a white blouse and a green tweed sports coat. She carried her vegetarian lunch in a small Army green back back. There were reddish Buster Brown shoes on her feet as well as white tights. I cried that morning - a mixture of joy, sorrow, anxiety and hope. And I found tears in my eyes this morning seeing my grandson's first day at school picture, too. So many big and competing feelings, yes? 

This aging business is complicated - I love it and sometimes fear it - knowing there is nothing I can do to stop it. This is truly the season for practicing letting go. As Christine Painter wrote earlier this week: 

Autumn is the time of transition, of the earth's turning, with the balance of light and dark in the northern hemisphere tilting toward the dark season and the invitation to release the excess we carry and rest into growing Mystery. It is a season of initiating these great movements across the globe of birds, fish, and mammals following an instinctual call.

I am taken with the mysteries of migration, the inner knowing that rises up in them to embark on a journey, the impulse to swim and fly across great expanses of earth and sea in search of a feeling of rightness that season.

    

I think of the ancient desert monks who each knew that one day they would have to leave behind the familiar and venture out into the wilderness to seek a space of radical encounter with God. Or the Irish monks who felt called to a particular kind of journey called peregrinatio, which was a pilgrimage for the love of Christ without a destination in mind. The practice was to step into a small boat called a coracle, without oar or rudder, and let the current carry them to the place of their resurrection. They yielded their own agendas and plans to the current of love, trusting in this deeper wisdom at work in water and wind, on behalf of the One who opens the way before us.

So Louie goes to school, we leave to celebrate the marriage of a young woman I first met 20 years ago in Tucson. It is the anniversary of Dianne's father's death 15 years ago and the passing of my own dad just about 2 years ago this week. Sensing some of these transitions - as well as our journey in a few hours - Lucie remained glued to my hip last night. She, too, is aging, no longer the screwy little puppy who would sleep on my boot. Painter closes her reflection with words that speak to this moment in my own soul's migration:

In the Christian contemplative tradition, we are invited to rest more deeply in the Great Mystery, to lay aside our images and symbols, and let the divine current carry us deeper, without knowing where, only to trust the impulse within to follow a longing. As autumn tilts us toward the season of growing darkness, consider this an invitation to yield to the mystery of your own heart's desires. You do not need a map or agenda, simply a willingness to swim in the waters carrying you back home again.

The monks knew the wisdom of embracing a season of unknowing, to wrest from their grip the idols of certainty and security. As mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade says, "a false sense of security is the only kind there is." Of the new things happening you have known nothing until this moment. Taking flight requires courage to ascend into the unfamiliar and unknown.

on the road again...

We are heading to Kentucky tomorrow. It is a 14+ hour driving trip so we're breaking it up into two seven hour road trips:  Erie, PA on Wednesday and Paris, KY on Thursday. On Friday we'll see the young couple and spend a bit of time with their families as we finalize details on the ceremony. On Saturday, we'll celebrate God's gift of love with these two women in a beautiful outdoor setting. And then, it is back on the road again come Sunday: we'll make it to Frederick, MD that night and visit with my dear sister and her family; and truck on home Monday. as I have church council that night. We're interviewing a woman from the congregation who is ready to enter the ordination process for ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ. And there are a few other major decisions to be addressed at council, too.

After returning from Kentucky, we'll be getting ready for the 9th CROP Walk we've sponsored in Pittsfield. For those who don't know much about CROP Walks, they are a major resource for funding and information sharing about the ministries of economic development and emergency relief organized by Church World Service. (Find out more here @ http://cwsglobal.org/) Dollar for dollar, CWS is one of the best investments going as only 10 cents per dollar goes to any administrative expenses. CWS not only does its homework about long-term needs, but they maintain strong relationships with care givers on the ground. It is a privilege and blessing to be a part of strengthening their work in a broken world. (NOTE: we'll also get a chance to celebrate my main man Louie's third birthday, too!)

Then it is on to implementing new changes in ministry, celebrating Eucharist, caring for the community of faith, All Saints Day, Veterans' Day, Christ the King Sunday - and Advent 2016! All of which is to say that I will not be posting much of anything here for the next week. See you after Kentucky. We raise prayers as our Jewish loved ones enter Yom Kippur. We pray for peace and justice for our sisters and brothers in Syria and Palestine. We grieve with our kin still reeling from Hurricane Matthew in Haiti. And trust that our small acts of love - shared with vigor - will bring a bit of hope to those most in need.

presidential debate #2...

It was unpleasant and sometimes disturbing. It was a race to the bottom a la Jerry Springer et al as is the core of Donald Trump's persona and candidacy. And, with the exception of a highly unsatisfying episode re: deleting State Department e-mails,tonight's second presidential debate showed Hilary Clinton "going high when he went low." Don't get me wrong: she is a barracuda politician who is as ruthless as they come and plays to win. That is both a strength and a weakness depending on who you talk to about her (or any politician, for that matter.)  Nevertheless, her commitment to answering most questions with insight and clear responses stands head and shoulders above Mr. Trump's insults, threats and hyperbole. 

And Mrs. Clinton's reply about the character of both the candidate and the campaign resonated with my values of caring for the common good. She has a big heart - as well as a number of personal and political flaws - in addition to her 30 year track record of caring for others. All that can be said about "the Donald" is that is is a self-promoting narcissist. Sure he has tapped into a long history of manufactured Clinton hatred. Without a doubt, he has grasped that 40% of the American people are afraid and/or confused - for various of reasons ranging from loss of blue collar jobs and the changing demographics of race to terrorism - and has hired the right people to articulate this fear and hatred into wildly emotional sound bytes that make his crowds roar. And let's not forget his mastery of reality TV crudity.  He's a player - good at what he does - but dreadful for both the USA and the world. His erratic and skulking performance tonight was ugly, focused only on cleaning himself of self-inflicted filth, and stopping the loss of political credibility born of his own belligerent hypocrisy. In so many way he was a stalker - and it was creepy.

Let me be blunt: I like Hilary Clinton. Many people - liberals, independents, etc - feel the need to qualify their support for HRC. She's the lesser of evils. She's the realist compared to Trump's lunacy, Stein's ideological rigidity and Johnson's intellectual fog. She's really a Republican but I don't want to throw my vote away. There are probably more reasons why some qualify their support of her bid for the presidency, but not me. I like her thoughtfulness. I like her long history of caring for people on the margins. I like that she can stay focused and poised when bullies try to pull her into the sleaze. I like that she wrestles with the politics of the possible and goes for it with a realistic strategy. I like that she is a Christian realist who understands that most of the time we act in the world in ways that are compromised no matter how  noble our planning or prayers.  I don't like that she's so close to Wall Street. I don't like that she sometimes flirts with telling the whole truth. But I also don't like that she has been forced by those who hate her to carry around a tarnished reputation that is fundamentally untrue. At her core, she is a person I respect and value.

I get that most people - even bright, successful and well-educated people I know and love - don't go much deeper than headlines and bumper stickers so they don't know this aspect of HRC. Who cares why this is true, it is. Hilary has a lot of negatives to overcome and she won't win everyone's hearts by Election Day. Still, I cannot for the life of me understand how people of compassion and conscience can conclude that she is evil incarnate. Or that she is morally compromised - especially when Mr. Trump is her adversary. His record of greed, unethical business practices, bankruptcy, misogyny, race baiting and Islamaphobia disqualify him  from anything related to the common good.  As Dan Rather said, "He gives even con men a bad name."

America has been in murky political waters before: the cronyism of Andrew Jackson, the racism that defined appointments to the Supreme Court up until Harry Truman, the long arm of the robber barons, Watergate, the Democratic machines of Daley and JFK's purchase of the West Virginia's vote are just the low hanging fruit. In time, we weathered these storms and learned from our failures. I trust this will happen again as we find a way through our current morass. I think Mrs. Clinton can help. That's why I will not take take a pass in silence and ignore the destruction Mr.Trump promises in word and deed.

still more questions re: Jesus and the 10 lepers - part three...

Who could have predicted that I would become fascinated (some might even say obsessed)

with the connections between Luke 17: 11-19 and Leviticus 13-14; as well as the origins and implications of shamanistic rituals within the holiness ceremonies of Israel's priesthood?  Not me - but I am intrigued and wildly engaged in trying to understand what all of this means. And I am increasingly clear that my focus has something to do this quote from Walter Brueggemann:

The book of Leviticus articulates an old and perennial agenda in Israel in which there is an awareness of the radical "otherness" of YHWH who cannot be approached casually, but who can be hosted only with rigorous, disciplined intentionality.  This agenda is rooted in Israel's profound sense of the character of this God who is, at the same time, faithful and ominous.  That sense of God is perhaps intensified in a season of cultural danger.  This reality may provide a clue for our appreciation of the codification of older material in exile or soon thereafter. It is curious of course that by the time of the exile (the season in which Leviticus was formalized)... there was no longer a temple In Jerusalem where sacrifices could be offered and cultic holiness could be practiced. This may suggest that the extended inventory of sacrifices and related materials in the book of Leviticus is to be understood not as a manual for practice, but as a liturgical, aesthetic act of imagination of what the world of Israel is like when it is known to be focused upon glad responses in obedience and sacrifice to YHWH. 
                              (Introduction to the Old Testament: Canon and Christian Imagination, p. 74)

In other words, the experience of a broken people in exile can be redeemed only by honestly entering the darkness of grief, reconnecting a failed past with the present through a thorough confession, embracing a radically renewed trust in God's incomprehensible grace, and waiting for the Lord to infuse our imaginations with a new vision. Imagination is NEVER a product manufactured by human will but always an inspired gift from beyond our control. The book of Leviticus, therefore, gathers together cultic rituals from Israel's pre-history - ceremonies that suggest a linkage between holiness and social justice - in order that life beyond exile in Babylon might be saturated in careful living and social equality.  "The term holiness," Brueggemann writes, "bespeaks separateness, almost in the manner of an elemental religious taboo, the affirmation that God is so different and distinct from Israel that Israel dare not draw near to God or be in God's presence except with the most careful preparations and qualifications." (Brueggemann, p. 67) At the same time, such intentionality towards God has:

... an ethical direction so that (holiness) may also refer to righteousness and justice according to the requirements of the Torah. The term has such rich and varied usage precisely because it seeks to articulate what is most characteristic, and therefore most hidden and inscrutable about God.

After revisiting the scholarly works of Bernard Anderson as well as Robert and Mary Coote on this matter, I am clear that Brueggemann is on solid ground: Leviticus looks backwards in time to Moses and" the Sinai tradition of covenantal commandments" through the lens of priests enduring the shame of the Jerusalem Temple's destruction and the grief of exile after 587 BCE. The final redactors of Leviticus incorporate traditions and practices that likely extend back as far as 1500-1250 BCE, yet their wilderness story is always informed by the realities of 550 BCE and beyond. These priestly editors may be writing of Moses and the physical desert but their true wilderness involves finding their way through the wreckage of political, spiritual and emotional exile within the presence of the Living God.  As Brueggemann notes about an earlier Torah passage in Exodus:  "If these are episodes told, shaped, and imagined in the sixth century (as now it may be thought for much more of the narrative), then it is possible that the "pharaoh" of at least these particular plagues is readily understood as Nebuchadnezzar, the great and feared Babylonian ruler who assaulted and conquered Jerusalem." (p. 54)

The upshot of such a critical awareness is the chance to see that any episode of the narrative can be read with references to any encounter with overwhelming, abusive power; consequently, the theme of YHWH versus Pharaoh functions not as historical reportage, but as a retelling of paradigmatic confrontation with reference to a particular tyranny and a particular or anticipated rescue. 

Where once I was bewildered by the detail of the holiness rituals and ceremonies in Leviticus -

especially from my training within the non-conformist Reformed tradition - I now understand the character of Leviticus to be both a celebration of ancient Israel's relationship with YHWH, and, a collection of activities designed to restore wholeness to a people broken by either of sin or disobedience. Leviticus is more about reconciliation and grace than I ever imagined.  First, there is personal and community reconciliation. Then, in chapter 19, there is a call to healing between strangers and aliens - the second great commandment of Jesus in the New Testament - love of neighbor.

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be with you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were once aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19: 33-34)

Then there is the great chapter of Jubilee in Leviticus 25 wherein the blessings of Sabbath rest take on economic and political significance.  "A corpus of commandments that has its focus on cultic purity... readily spills over into the secular (that is, the non-cultic dimensions of life) so that holiness becomes a practice of neighborly justice." (p. 73) Indeed, the whole of Leviticus "underscores the cruciality and urgency of the practice of obedience, of holiness that takes the form of justice." (p. 73) 

Now remember that my investigation into Leviticus started with St. Luke's retelling of a healing involving Jesus and 10 lepers. In all the other settings, Jesus instructs the healed ones to go and present themselves to the priest. So I wondered what this was all about. In the next installment of this unfolding reflection I will outline the complex and clearly prehistoric healing ritual described in Leviticus that seems to be born of Semitic shamans, worship in the Tabernacle and later Temple and then the disruption of exile.

credits:
1) jerryandgod.com
2) www.jpost.com
3) archive.artsmia.org

more questions following Jesus and the 10 lepers...

NOTE:  This is part two of an expanding reflection on Luke 17: 11-19 - including the specific Old Testament texts of Leviticus 13-14 that exist behind the acts of Jesus and the words of the early evangelists - addressing a time when Jesus brought healing to 10 lepers on the road to Jerusalem.  It has evoked in me both a desire to better understand the meaning and rituals related to cleansing those diagnosed as ritually unclean for life in community; and, the importance of reevaluating how the Christian gospels tell this story.  As Winston Churchill observed, "History is written by the victors." By the 4th century of the Common Era, Christianity and the Empire of Rome were interpreting the legacy of a Jew named Jesus in ways that not only erased his Hebraic heritage, but demonized Judaism. Two millennia later we are still dealing with religions and political policies infected with the disease of anti-Semitism.

+

Walter Brueggemann writes in his recent Introduction to the Old Testament: the Canon and

Christian Imagination, that until Christianity is healed from our historic misrepresentation of Torah as a collection of wooden religious legalisms that steal the grace of God's love from Judaism, we will celebrate and even bless the violence and hatred that the world inflicts upon Jews. We will continue to believe the heresy of supersessionism - that Christianity has replaced the sacred covenant between God and Jews - we will perpetuate the historic anti-Semitic lies the New Testament teaches as God's truth, and we will blind ourselves and others to the beautiful possibilities for solidarity in the real world that await birthing by all who cherish "the steadfast love of the Lord that endures forever."

Torah may literally be translated as "the Law" - and many may still choose to ignore its poetic wisdom with willful ignorance - but the truth of Torah is more about living in "a way" that honors "miracle and gratitude" and the love of God embodied in history against all odds.  As Prof. 
Brueggemann writes, there are poems and commands, rituals and insights that "operate in the life of listening Israel as intentional and self-conscious acts of discipline whereby this community at risk may sustain itself in its wonder and gratitude."

The Israelites (not to be confused with modern Israel) knew concretely that if Israel did not have specific disciplines as a way of navigating its demanding cultural environment, it would soon or late helplessly and hopelessly submit to the commands of another Lord:  Pharaoh of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, or Cyrus of Persia... It is to be noted concerning the commands that a conventional a Christian stereotype of "Jewish legalism" completely misses, the point of what the commands intend... There is little doubt that such dismissive caricatures of the commands of Torah on the part of Gentile culture have in face succumbed Enlightenment notions of freedom that culminate not in covenantal fidelity but in autonomy, a posture from which it is impossible to maintain a distinct, primal communal identity. (p. 24)

Brueggemann notes that exile, in all of its historic and thematic possibilities, shapes the writing and practice of Torah. He notes that much of the written material in Torah - the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament and Jews knows as Tanakh - are "materials for the social construction of reality and the socialization of the young into an alternative world where YHWH lives and governs. It cannot be overstated that the Torah, in its final, normative form, is an act of faithful imagination that buoyantly and defiantly mediates a counterworld that is a wondrous, demanding alternative to the world immediately and visibly at hand. (p. 26) 

While we Christians are accustomed in Western Christendom to take the Bible as the ultimate source of our "given world," in fact the Torah is recurringly a contradiction of the world we regularly regard as "given." It was in the ancient world of hostile powers with their cultural hegemony where social "givenness" resisted the rule of YHWH. It is, moreover, surely so in the modern world of Enlightenment rationality or in the postmodern world of fragmentation and its privatization of meaning.  It has been a characteristic task of Jewish teaching, nurture and socialization to invite the young into the world of miracle, and so to resist assimilation. 

Only late have alert Christians in Euro-American contexts noticed that the challenge that has always been before Jews is not a fresh challenge for Christians as well. As the Western world has been perennially hostile to the claims of Jewish faith, so the merging contemporary world of commodity grows more hostile to the claims of Christian faith as well. ...now the Church is having to rethink and act to maintain a distinct identity for faith in an alien cultural environment. While the church will characteristically attend to the New Testament in such an emergency, a study of Torah already alerts us to the resources for this crisis that are older and deeper than the New Testament. The Jews is exile reported themselves dismayed about singing the songs of Zion in a strange land (Psalm 137).

And now Christians face that same issue. The liberal Christian temptation is to
accommodate dominant culture until faith despairs. The conservative Christian temptation is to fashion an absoluteness that stands disconnected from the dominant culture. Neither of these strategies, however, is likely to sustain the church in its mission. More likely, we may learn from and with Jews the sustain power of imaginative remembering, the ongoing, lively process of traditoning that is sure to be marked by ideological interest, that in the midst of such distinctiveness, may find fresh closures of reality not "conformed to the world." The preaching, teaching and study of Torah is in order to "set one's heart" differently, to trust and fear differently, to align oneself with an alternative account of the world. All this Israel fashioned and practiced - imaginatively resolved, ideologically driven, inspired beyond interest - under the large, long, fierce voice of Moses. (pp. 26-27)

Torah, therefore, offers us a style and practice for strengthening our unique identity in the world as people of the Christian faith. We have been inspired to meet and love the Lord our God through acts of faithful compassion and radical trust in God's abiding grace. Further, the creative and tender application of this spiritual practice born of Torah can help us dislodge the ugly and misleading anti-Semitic interpretations of Jesus (and the Church) that continue to corrupt our knowledge of Christ's calling in the world. 

Just as James Fowler has taken Erik Erikson's "stages of human development" and

constructed a useful and fluid hierarchy of "stages of faith," I would suggest that there is a comparable way of reading and apply the wisdom of Scripture.  As children, there is the awe, joy and terror of the story - especially the miracles. In this stage we learn the movement of God's presence among God's people. In time, we see this lived out in community life and worship so we join in the telling and retelling of the stories on Sundays and feast/fast gatherings as well as potlucks and mission events. At adolescence, we begin to differentiate ourselves from our elders - including the Word - and let doubt and anxiety disrupt trusting the literal truths we have come to trust in Scripture. In early adulthood, we explore healthy new insights beyond our tradition and rarely even consider the Bible. This is a time for bold exploration and learning. 
At some point, however, one of two other developments takes place before old age: 

a) Fear and disappointment turn us back towards our childhood experiences. We reclaim Scripture and tradition in a fundamentalist fashion and hang our hopes on promises of security amidst a harsh world.

Or b) we journey with God through our hurts and wounds to a deeper trust in mystery. Using the Scriptures as a poetic but not literal guide, we move through Good Friday and Hell into Easter knowing that we have experienced a love greater than ourselves that we cannot control. 

One path is fear-based and ultimately regressive, the other is love-based and creates community. Both shape our aging, too:  the first pushes us towards ever greater mistrust while the later encourages deeper compassion and generosity.  To put this another way, one refuses to learn from the darkness while the other embraces what the Serenity Prayer calls acceptance as the path to inner and outward peace. In the next installment of this on-going reflection I will:  1) share a few thoughts about how anti-Semitic bias corrupts the blessings of the gospels in the New Testament; and 2) consider how the imaginative traditioning of Torah offers a corrective.

credits
1) www.myjewishlearning.com
2) fineartamerica.com
3) fineartamerica.com

questions i am asking about luke's story of the lepers - part one

In a section from the Iona Community's New Wee Worship Book, one of their worship experiments includes asking this question after a Bible story: “If you had been present, and could ask a question to anyone in this story, who would you want to speak with and what would you ask?”  It is a great question and I've been pondering it almost non-stop for most of yesterday and today in relation to Sunday's reading from St. Luke's gospel.  The appointed text is as follows:

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

My first question would be to the gospel's author - not Jesus or the lepers - but to the one we know as St. Luke:  "Why did you retell this story of the Lord's healing of a leper in such a way as to denigrate Jews?"  As best I can tell, there are two previous healing stories in the Synoptic Gospels where Jesus heals one leper:

+ The earliest text, Mark 1:40-45, finds Jesus coming down from a time of quiet prayer in the mountains when a leper recognizes him as a holy man of healing.  The unclean one is healed and urged to go to the priest, present himself according to Torah (Leviticus 13-14) and rejoin community life after the necessary probationary waiting (8 days.)  Jesus urges the one who has experienced healing to keep silence - the Messianic secret of Mark - but the man does not practise discretion. Consequently, the text tells us Jesus had to remain in the border areas of Galilee because the crowds grew too large whenever he entered a town. Most scholars agree that Mark's gospel was written for Gentile Christians fleeing the violence in Galilee during the time of Rome's destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 65-70 CE.

+ The next chronological story, Matthew 8: 1-4,  also has Jesus coming from a time of solitude in prayer in the mountains.  Once again the action involves a cry for healing, the response of Jesus - who chooses to touch the unclean man and heal the man's diseased, unclean skin - and admonitions to remain silent but present himself to a priest.  Matthew's text goes on to note that radical trust is essential for disciples for they, like Jesus, will be able to bring healing to even those afflicted by demons. It is likely this text comes from the Jewish Christian community living in exile in Syria sometime after after Rome waged war against Jewish zealots and  decimated Jerusalem.. A date of 70-80 CE is common.

+ The third story, Sunday's lesson from Luke, adds embellishments that point towards the growing conflict between Jews, Jewish Christians and Gentile believers in the way of Jesus and emphasize Luke's universalist concerns. Jesus in this telling is on the road to Jerusalem when 10 lepers cry out for assistance. They all recognize him as "Master" and plead for his healing. Jesus assures them it will become theirs and sends them off to their priest for examination and the cleansing rituals of Leviticus 14 that will restore them to community.  As Jesus prepares to resume his trek into Jerusalem one of the healed lepers returns and thanks Jesus - falling at the Lord's feet in gratitude - and claiming to have encountered the "glory of the Lord" (a sense of God's presence." This prompts Jesus to wonder aloud why only one of the healed lepers responds with gratitude - and how odd that it should be a foreign Samaritan! Luke's audience in 80-90 CE was a well-educated, Greek speaking house church in Rome who were more interested in a universalist religion than one beholden to a specifically Jewish Messiah. 

Many scholars believe that one reason why Luke-Acts carefully distinguishes Christians from Jews is to win favor with the Roman Empire. After the desecrating sacrilege of slaughter, rape and the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, this was no small concern. As James Carroll puts it in his harrowing history, Constantine's Sword and  Christ Actually, ."since the Gospels were all written during the catastrophic years in which Jews were traumatized by the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem:"

it would be odd if that crisis were not reflected in how the story of Jesus was told, since the entire point of composition just then was to put Jesus forward as the solution to the problem of the destroyed Temple. The Jewish experience during the savage violence of what I presume to call the first Holocaust, in other words, could be expected, in the scales of narrative composition, to weigh as much as, if not more thank the remembered actualities of Jesus' life four decades earlier. The crisis of Temple destruction in 70 was enough for the Jesus people to put the Temple at the center of their explanation of his meaning - and they did.  (Christ Actually, p. 68)

Carroll makes a strong case that the war against Jews and the destruction of the Temple in 70 colors each of the Gospels. Regarding Mark - especially the apocalypse of Mark 13 - Carroll continues:

If we keep our focus on the Roam War as the defining key to (the interpretation) of Jesus actually, there is a simple explanation for the frankly shocking portrait of Peter as a cowardly unreliable man. If the Gospel of Mark was addressed to a frightened, demoralized collective of Jesus people holed up in Galilee, to people threatened on all sides by marauding Romans, revenge-seeking Jewish Zealots, or Jews associated with rabbis who insisted that acceptance of the false Messiah Jesus threatened the survival of what remained of Judaism; and if those Jesus people, additionally, bore the burden of guilt at their failure to join in the anti-Roman resistance, or were tempted to believe the accusations of cowardice hurled at them by their fellow Jews; and if they had even lost faith in their Lord, whose rescuing return had yet to come about -- well, what in the world would good news look like to such people? In contrast, the message of Mark was straightforward:  do not feel guilty because you have faltered in the faith; do not feel disqualified because you have lost h ope; do not count yourselves lost - because look! The most intimate friends of Jesus behaved in exactly the same way, including, especially, the exalted Peter, whose name everyone reveres. What you need to hear in this time of grotesque tribulation is that Jesus extends his call not to heroes, but to cowards, who fail him. An honest reckoning with such failures is the starting point of discipleship. (ibid, pp 76-77)

If Mark's account of Jesus was shaped by the Roman War - and it was - so, too was Luke's - with an important distinction:  his community lived at the heart of the Empire. Small wonder that throughout Luke the antagonism Jesus faces in opposition to his ministry is not with Rome, but rather among the leaders of the synagogue in Nazareth and later with his kin in the Temple and schools of Jewish Jerusalem.  Wrestling with this reality helps explain the evolution of how a secret healing of one leper eventually became a public scolding of ungrateful Jews in another. In part two of my review and questions for Luke 17, I want to spend time coming to terms with the shamanistic roots that shape the cleansing ritual for leprosy in Leviticus 14.  This wildly earthy ceremony has long been forgotten in contemporary Christianity and I want to make sense of it for my faith as well as within Jewish spirituality.

credits
1) pastoralponderings.wordpress.com
2) bd-clan.eu

returning thanks for ALL our connections...

Yesterday we celebrated our unity will ALL of God's creation during the "Blessing of Our Pets" liturgy...

... and today we got word that Dianne was accepted into the CELTA program (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) - another connection with our solidarity with sisters and brothers in creation in need.. We rejoice. And after heading to Kentucky to celebrate the wedding of Christabelle and Irene on October 14th - and Louie's birthday number three a week later in Brooklyn - we are off to Montreal for 2 days so she can interview and set up her course work.  We still need to raise significant dollars for her study - and are working on grants - but if you are interested in helping, check it out at: https://www.gofundme.com/ diannedemott?ssid=758674265&pos=1

Our goal is to help in-coming Syrian refugees - in Pittsfield and Canada - as we move into a new realm of ministry. Today, we are rejoicing..

ramblings for a late sunday afternoon ...

As noted elsewhere, I love being the celebrant at the St. Francis "Blessing of Pets" liturgy: it is laid back, gentle, open to the Spirit and just a ton of fun. This year in addition to the wonderful dogs who joined in the feast, there were pictures of cats, hamsters and fish. As I said to Di at the grocery store after worship, "I love leaving church with a sense of God's gentle grace instead of the anxiety I sometimes feel because of carping - or my insecurities - or people who can't seem to wake up. Today was just... right." The music was right, the hymns were right, the celebration of Eucharist was right, the animals were right and the gathered faithful felt right as we opened our hearts to God for a day of blessings.

After worship, a number of people hung around afterwards to help our volunteers count the donations our CROP Walk Team gathered yesterday on Park Square. For the past three years, a small group of volunteers gives up the better part of a Saturday to stand at the red light in the center of town and invite contributions to go to Church World Services development and hunger programs. Over the past two weeks, John and Lauryn (and their angel helpers) have secured $2,941 from our friends and neighbors. There are three more weekends, too before the event on Sunday, October 23, 2016. Our goal is $6,000.  (NOTE:  If you are intetested in helping our team reach this goal, please go to the secure Church World Service CROP Walk Website and make a donation on-line @ https://www.crophungerwalk. org/pittsfieldma /Team/View/25526/First-Church-of-Christ-Pittsfield)

Before we left church, two other things took place that made my heart sing: a number of our folk have taken on sharing the responsibility of helping a woman who is not a member of our faith community (or even our spiritual tradition) get the transportation and food needed in her post-surgery transition. I found out that one faithful old soul sat with her for hours last week in pre-op. Others have made themselves available throughout the coming weeks to make certain she eats well and gets to medical appointments. I was moved and touched by the authentic  generosity of people whose lives are full to overflowing finding ways to go the extra mile. 

Then, as I was getting out of my worship gear, Di stepped into my study and said another couple had made a donation to our Kentucky sojourn: there were four $100 bills in an envelope. That brings to nearly $800 the gifts our people have shared with us to help us get to the wedding ceremony of a young woman who was part of our church in Tucson. She has been through ups and downs without a lot of support from parts of her family since coming out. When she asked if I would celebrate her wedding as officiant, without batting an eye I said, "Yes!" And now our people have come forward to help us fund it - including putting our wacky dog in the kennel so we can be away. These are the days I need to remember when other stuff is too lively, yes?  I am so very, very grateful.

listening to new music as an encounter with the sacred...

Dianne is at work today - and I have a wreck of a house to clean.  Thankfully, I have four new audio friends to accompany me in this task:  Madeleine Peyroux's "Secular Hymns," David Bowie's "Pop Rock," Paul Simon's "Stranger to Stranger," and Radiohead's "A Moon Shaped Pool." I am old school when it comes to listening to new music:  I need to listen to the whole album straight through - no shuffling artists - because I want to get a sense of what is at the core of their composition.

I once read Rosanne Cash comment about creating a seamless recording in an age that is filled with interruptions. She noted that most music today is not heard in its context, but rather in snippets and snatches that are treated like stand alone songs. But that is not how serious artists work with an album (a term that is antiquated, I know, but still evokes a bigger picture.) No, they want the arch of songs to tell a story that awakens our senses and, at least for 25 minutes, offers another slice of reality beyond our own habits and limitations.  I think T Bone Burnett captured this challenge in his recent keynote address at the AmericanaFest when he observed that the Pope chose not to censor Michelangelo's painting in the Sistine Chapel:

When Michelangelo was painting the great fresco The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, he came under intense criticism from various members of the church, particularly the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies — a man named Cesena- who accused him of obscenity. Michaelangelo’s response was to paint Cesena into the fresco in the lowest circle of hell with donkey ears and a serpent coiled around him devouring, and covering, his nether regions, so to speak.

Cesena was incensed and went to the Pope demanding he censor Michelangelo for this outrage, and the Pope said, “Well, let’s go have a look at it. ”So, they went down to the chapel, and when the Pope stood in front of the fresco, he said to Cesena, “You know, that doesn’t look like you at all.”

See, the Pope didn’t want to jack around with Michelangelo. Michelangelo was making things that were going to last for hundreds of years. His stuff was going to outlive the Pope’s ability to do anything about it, so the Pope bowed to the inevitable. The Pope was afraid of a painter. The painter could create another dimension between Heaven and Earth. Flat ceilings seemed to come down into the room in three dimensions. He painted rooms where priests and the church could sit and be transported to- and engulfed in — a higher realm, learning ancient stories- thoughts kept alive over centuries. And he did it by mixing together things he found laying around on the ground- sand and clay and plants. He was a fearsome alchemist.

Burnett goes on to remind us that artists create not simply for the marketplace - or our time schedules - but as a holy pursuit. (Read the rest of this philosophical and moving speech @ http://americansongwriter.com/2016/09/t-bone-burnetts-americanafest-keynote-address/) Burnett also goes on to articulate that the totality of an artist's creation tells us something about how our world must change if beauty is to triiumph over commodification:

Every person worthy of the name artist, from Rembrandt to Paul Cezanne to Picasso to Jackson Pollack - From William Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams to James Baldwin and Jack Kerouac - From Bach to Stravinsky to Mahler to John Adams - Every one of those artists made art that to be understood, the world had to change.

They did not adapt to the world, the world had to adapt to them. The technocrats suggest we crowd source. I suggest we not. The very thing an artist does is figure out what he likes.

The technocrats — the digital tycoons — the iTopians — look down on artists. They have made all these tools and they think we should be grateful — subserviant even — and use their flimsy new tools happily to make them ever more powerful. But we can make art with any thing. We don’t need their tools. Music confounds the machines.

So the iTopians have controlled the medium and the message for a generation now. And they are making a complete hash of things. The clearest and most pervasive proof of this is the psychedelic political season we are in, which we can see playing out in every election around the world.

My point is simple:  to grasp beauty in art we must devote time and attention. Twenty years ago someone told me that:  "I already owned all the time that there is - it is up to me to figure out how to use it for my deepest values - or else be used by market manipulators for their goals." That is one of the reasons we struggle to honor the Sabbath. That is also why I must make time to listen to new albums from start to finish. The artist has given her/his time in creating something they sense is worthy of sharing. The only way I can respect and value their commitment is by giving them my deep listening and serious attention. I know in advance of today's music that I will sit down with a few key compositions later today and play them over and over simply because they touch me at a deep level. 

I don't know how you take in music. Or honor the artists effort of creativity. I came of age when listening to new music was a sacred trust. Music was part of our worldview and identity and we wanted to mature and go deeper into that which advanced hope, compassion, beauty and peace.Today's music scene is more technocratic - and manipulative - but I continue to believe that beyond the noise there are people aching for more than amusement and distraction. I remember the awe and mystery surrounding the first time I played the Beatles' "Revolver" or "Sgt. Pepper." Same was true for the Stones' "Beggars Banquet" and Springsteen's "Darkness" and "River" albums. My life changed listening to "Born in the USA" - and the tour that accompanied that masterpiece. And let's not forget Joni Mitchell's "Blue," Paul Simon's "Graceland," Frank Zappa's "Absolutely Free" and the Airplane's "After Bathing at Baxters."

 I'll keep you posted after today's first listening session as each of these artists continue to speak to my soul in unique ways: Que la fête de la musique commence! 
credit:
1) unityinmarin.org

2) earthtones.org