With gratitude...

One of my dear blogging buddies, the gifted author and musician Pam McAllister, has written a variety of beautiful and sensitive reflections on a variety of hymns. She recently sent me this one knowing of my grief and affection for my dear friend Rick who passed from this life on Sunday morning. As you can see, her spiritual depth and compassion is profound. I share it with you so that you, too, might be nourished and comforted as I was.

Something God Alone Can See

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree...

There is so much we don’t understand. Young people go to their deaths, abrupt and brutal, on highways and battlefields, while beloved elderly drift away ever so slowly, on little ice floes of dementia. Why?  We want to make sense of what seems senseless. What does God see in all this beauty and suffering? With voices full of hope, we sing of seeds and hidden promises, mysteries and melodies. We sing, too, of darkness, doubt, and death. There is no judgment here, but there is the reality of unanswered questions.

Peace and civil rights activist William Sloane Coffin was pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan from 1977 to 1987. In one of his most memorable sermons, delivered just days after his son was killed in a car accident, he told the congregation about a quiche-bearing woman who, meaning to comfort, muttered sadly about the mystery of “God’s will.” Coffin, by his own account, unleashed his grief and rage at her. He explained from the pulpit: “My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992), American church organist and composer, was only 62 when she died of cancer at the height of her creativity. Her hymn is one of overlapping circles rather than straight lines. In writing it, Sleeth borrowed from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” --  “In the end is my beginning...” and wrote, in the spirit of Ecclesiastes, of seasons more than reasons. 

Merciful God, we are impatient with what we do not understand. Hold us close when we struggle to make sense of our suffering, longing for answers to be revealed, for the impossible to be explained. Cradle us -- the living and the dying -- in your loving arms, and help us find comfort there. God, you see what we can’t. See us in our distress.  

Some mysteries about a death's impact...

Why do some deaths cut like a knife while others are sad but effect your soul in only marginal ways?  Like falling in love or the unpredictable reasons why some people embrace recovery while others can not do so not matter how hard they try, so too the mystery of the various ways death impacts our hearts.  It is, indeed, incomprehensible.
I understand part of it: Joy Davidman once told C.S. Lewis as they wrestled with her death by cancer that the "pain then (after a death) is part of the happiness now. That's the deal." And if we have experienced profound happiness now - if we have been blessed with friendships and loves that have integrity and verve - then part of the deal is that we will hurt like hell when it is over. I pretty much understand that part - and maybe that is all I will ever comprehend - but I often wonder why some deaths seem to reach up from out of nowhere and grab me by the throat while others have little to no impact on me at all.

I mean I didn't know either Lou Reed or Philip Seymour Hoffman personally, I valued their artistic work, but both of their deaths kicked my ass.  And in my 30+ years of ordained ministry, I can think of only a handful of people in my various churches whose death ripped my heart in two in ways that some of the deaths in my family did not:

+ In Cleveland, a wounded but beautiful servant, Don Wooten, destroyed me for a time. We spent a lot of time together, to be sure, we played music and cared for children, he adored my family and we spent a great deal of personal time at the movies, too. And when he died on the operating table at the Cleveland Clinic I thought my mind was going to break. Indeed, the pain then was connected to the happiness now.  Twenty years later, another Clevelander by the name of Michael Daniels, died and he, too ripped my heart out. I hadn't seen Michael in years, but I had helped him get clean and sober and we shared a love that transcended race and class and even distance. I felt like someone had sucker punched me when news came of his lonely death.

+ In Tucson, there were two soul-wounding deaths:  Mary Stoft and Dolores Brown.  Two very different professional women, two very different deaths but both were complicated and trying.  Mary had been a three time cancer survivor when her last cancer became more virulent than any treatment could change. She was gentle with a fierce commitment to live - and I knew and loved her family as if they were my own. Upon reflection, I think it was her absence from our lives that was so anguishing. Life truly was a little less  vibrant without her.  And Dolores... she was a big-hearted and big woman from Oklahoma who started out teaching Spanish at Smith College in Northampton, MA.  She took a 1 year visiting professor post at the University of Arizona in Tucson and never looked back. She was a peace activist, loving auntie and gracious servant of God in extraordinary ways. Her death was one of the most beautiful and intentional acts of dying I have ever experienced. We often spoke of the ingredients to a "good death." And when she had put her life in order - and said her farewells - she took off her wig and slowly went to sleep in the Lord. I was blessed to have journeyed with both of these women into their deaths - and while I am grateful beyond words - they both hurt like hell.

+ And now in Pittsfield.  First there was Vicki Forfa, a beloved local teacher and mom, who died way too early.  It was during my first year in town. She worked on my staff as our Christian Educator and had been a vigorous supporter on my search committee. Her cancer was vigorous and before I celebrated my second Christmas in the Berkshires, she was dead. And now Rick Weber, another cherished teacher who brought art to young people all over this region, has gone home to the Lord. He was vibrant, bold, loving and totally faithful. He painted in the plein art style and during the past two years of his retirement had created some truly stunning works of art. Last night I wept and wept and wept for his family and, to be honest, for myself because I loved to share life with this man.
A colleague and friend from seminary wrote to me last night saying that as she ages - and experiences more and more death - it is becoming clear that maybe one of the final gifts we can offer to our children has to do with teaching them about a good death.  I think that is true and I hope I can rise to the occasion; because, God knows, the deaths we have encountered in my immediate family have not been good deaths. We shall see. And in the mean time, the mystery of why some deaths hurt so much and others pass away will haunt me.

Tears of heaven...

This morning I found myself taken over by tears during the hymn

before my message.  It is a hymn I first heard years ago at Bea Wightman's funeral. An old colleague from Michigan's mother was a member of my congregation in Tucson. And when she passed, he asked if we might use "The Hymn of Promise" in her memorial service.  It is lovely:

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me. From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery, Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

A couple of background notes:  1) One of my dear church members and an even more precious band mate sings a descant to this hymn that is stunning; it is even more so as this hymn was dear to her beloved but now deceased pastor from Wisconsin: to hear her soar on the high notes a midst her own tears is very moving to me; 2) Half-way through singing this hymn today I realized where I first heard it - at Bea Wightman's funeral - and then as I remembered this I also recalled that later today I was going to be in worship with Bea's son - my old colleague - who was the preacher at this afternoon's gathering of Congregational people meeting to honor our African American church's 168th anniversary.  And, then of course, I have been in deep prayer and grieving over two beloved people very close to my heart:  my buddy from Tucson, Roger, and a dear man in my Pittsfield congregation, Rick.

So, as my tears overwhelmed me this morning as I was about to share my reflections on I Thessalonians 4 - we do not want you to grieve, beloved, as those who have no hope - it seems that my sweet friend Rick was dying. Just as I was about to lay down at 4 pm for a quick nap, his wife called to let me know that at about 8:45 am Rick slipped away quietly and in peace. I knew he was close - we had talked about letting go and resting deeply in God's love on Thursday during the blizzard - but I didn't know it would happen so fast. But it did - and while I am heart sick with missing him - I am also deeply relieved that for Rick all sickness and pain are ended.  Indeed, we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

So tonight I will drink a toast to my dear friend who has just gone home to the Lord, watch a little "Downton Abbey" with my honey and steel myself for working on his funeral next week. It is a beautiful but agonizing thing to love so deeply... it is in times like this that I feel a bit of the mystery and I give thanks to God.

Living like an icon...

I have long been moved by certain icons. I particularly like the contemporary

icons born of the Orthodox Church in America as well as those from the Roman Catholic artist Robert Lentz for their clarity and vibrancy. Perhaps my two favorites, however are the Theotokos of Vladimir and the Theotokos of the Hagia Sophia - with the Virgin of Guadalupe a very close second. In this love of iconography I am a bad Protestant.

Diana Butler Bass writes in her Christianity for the Rest of Us that in in 600 CE Bishop Serenus of Marseilles "destroyed all the pictures in every church in his city. Apparently the bishop felt that the images somehow cheapened the sacred words of Scripture... in 723 CE, the Eastern Emperor Leo III outlawed the use of icons and "ordered their destruction... and mass rioting broke out across the empire."  The first wave of iconoclasts were elitists "whose piety was based on words and the Roman love of rhetoric. (They) wanted to eliminate icons for fear that illiterate masses might take over the church." (pp. 101-103)

John of Damascus, however, articulated a strong defense for the power and value of icons.  "Every image is a revelation and representation of something hidden... Humans have limited knowledge; therefore images aid in our capacity to experience what is beyond time and space: the image was devised for greater knowledge, and for the manifestation and popularizing of secret things ... Icons are not idols but symbols. We do not make obeisance to the nature of wood, but we revere and do obeisance to Him who was crucified on the Cross... for Christ himself is an image, his human nature a reflection of the invisible nature." Bass notes that with the rise of the Reformed tradition in the 1500s a new wave of iconoclasts arose as "Protestants rejected the medieval heritage and returned to the Roman emphasis on rhetoric alone."

Carol Howard Merritt recently noted that she, too, comes from iconoclast stock as a Reformed follower of Jesus Christ.  She writes:

I come from a history of iconoclasts. I often wonder about the person who stood before the icon, seeing the face of Christ, knowing that each brushstroke was painted with a breath of prayer—and defaced it. It was, of course, a theological act, as the iconoclasts defied idolatry.

Yet, as I observe the outcome, I worry that our iconoclast history was more of an act of conquest than it was an undertaking with enduring theological gumption. We know the many rituals of conquest: force military might, imprison the charismatic leaders, scatter the intellectual base, rape the women, enslave the children, and defile the sacred images. 

As Protestant people, the trajectory of the treatment of our images has twisted into something terrible. Where is that iconoclast spirit? We yawn as cheaper, mass-marketed pictures take the place of icons. Jesus smiles from our bumper stickers and T-shirts. Now we trade in Rublev for Sallman, without much protest. If we're going to give up our iconoclast ideals, shouldn't we do it for the sake of decent art? It's not just our divine images. We exchanged our magnificent architecture for concrete blocks.

Tomorrow I will go to lead worship in a Sanctuary that is the polar opposite of a utilitarian concrete block. Ours is a stone, neo-Gothic structure born of a theology of glory that is magnificent in every way: there are a host of rich and vibrant stained glass windows, there is a gold gilded Chancel, intricately carved wood filled with symbolism as well as a striking marble Celtic cross. We are in the process of designing and creating a sculpture for Lent that will be filled with candles. And we have reclaimed an almost medieval understanding of how to use this sacred space to evoke awe in the pursuit of God's grace and Christ's compassion.  In seven years we have gone from just 40 people in worship to 80+ with the fastest growing group exploring participation among those 35-50 years old.

Don't get me wrong, we have not experienced the parousia and we are far from where God wants us to be as a community. But as I reflect on our 250 years of history I am struck by the fact that this congregation had to go through a near death experience before it was able to risk living like a fool for Christ in this generation. I know that was true for me as a pastoral leader - I had to hit bottom before I was empty enough for God to find room in my life - and I think the same is true for our once mainstream congregations, too. Ours was once the "country club at prayer." Our Sanctuary, as majestic as any in the Northeast, was at least as much about our own power and status as it was the gospel of Jesus Christ. And such an identity dies hard - within and among us - and it still sometimes plagues us with hubris and prejudice.

But renewal would never have happened without our fall from grace. St. Paul speaks to this in II Corinthians 12: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. 

And while I would never discount the role of leadership - lay or ordained - in church renewal, I am certain that without our near death experience the heart of the congregation wouldn't have been empty enough to trust God's grace alone. In I Corinthians 4 Paul puts it like this: We are fools for the sake of Christ... To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day. 

That is one of the challenges congregations in New England face - we're too proud of our habits and heritage to become empty fools for Christ - and it will keep us from working for Merritt's call for an iconoclast reversal. Steve McSwain in the Huffington Post spoke to this in an article from October 2013:  Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore. (http://www huffington post.com/steve-mcswain/ why-nobody-wants-to-go-to_b_4086016.html) He carefully observes that everything from the crisis of leadership in our major religious institutions to demographics, our fear of technology and competition for value in a busy life has diminished our culture's interest in religion. In a word, pride and habit make it very hard for most congregations to break free from their past.

And that's why I have come to see that in addition to all the work we've done with our space - and all the creative experiments we have explored with truly artistic liturgy - one of our biggest commitments for the next five years of renewal will be learning to LIVE like an icon. Letting our lives show something of the grace of God that is within us to those beyond the church community. Like Henri Nouwen said over and over again towards the close of his life: all we can do is be present with another and share something of the love God has already shared with us.  New England Protestants are great at being practical - and we have a deep passion for compassion and justice - but we are horrible at talking about it.  And not always so good at doing it in public. 

I haven't quite figured out everything I mean by living like an icon but I know it has something to do with letting the light shine through us so that we give both shape and form to the mystery of God's love. If you get the chance, go to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC where they have recently installed Xu Bing's Phoenix display in their Sanctuary. It will blow your mind and help you grasp what living like an icon might mean. Bing constructed this work of art from the cast-off debris of China's great industrial drive of this decade. In a mind-expanding way, he took what had become garbage to make something of great beauty. (read the full story here:  http://www. nytimes.com/ 2014/02/15/arts/design/xu-bing-installs-his-sculptures-at-st-john-the-divine.html?_r=0)

In 20 years 70% of our churches will be closed...

So this morning, after receiving about 14 inches of snow yesterday, I awoke to perhaps another 8-10 inches. Small wonder the local authorities extended our snow emergency to Saturday morning. Here's what it looks like out of my study window.

(photo: James Lumsden)

What I want to consider with you today is a small rant and then an extended reflection on the pursuit of beauty as a spiritual practice. First, the rant: as I was watching the evening news yesterday - with their various reports of snow fall and program closings - there was one odd story about how health clubs and gyms were doing a booming business during the blizzard. One earnest fellow said with no apparent irony, "On a day like this you just HAVE to get out of the house for a little bit or you will go crazy!" He then gave the camera a look and a shrug that suggested only a moron would willingly stay inside a warm and quiet home for 24 hours when s/he could be going to the gym.

Apparently I was disturbed by both the comment and the man's look - and I must have fretted about it in my sleep - because it was still fresh in my thoughts when I rolled out of bed this morning. "Why is his obsession with busyness so disquieting to me?" I wondered. After all, I went out with snow shoes to play with the puppy in the midst of the downfall; how is that any different? Well, there are some obvious differences:  I schlepped into the woods behind my house while he drove on snow encrusted roads; my exercise was out in the quiet of nature while his took place in the bustle of a pay-as-you-go exercise emporium. 

But ultimately those differences aren't important, right? A gym - the woods - who cares? Different strokes for different folks and all that. No, what really troubled me was his almost obsessive need to get away from the quiet to DO something. I kept wondering: aren't all the game boys, computers, video challenges and 57 channels with nothing on enough to distract you from the bewitching quiet for 12 hours? What about a nap? Or reading stories to the children? Or cleaning the basement? Or playing a board game with a loved one? Or who knows what...? I hate the snarky and judgmental quality of my words here, but this little human interest story really struck a nerve.  In less that 120 seconds, this news clip cut to one of the growing sicknesses in our society:  we have become terrified of the silence.

(photo: Ben Garver)

Mother Theresa once said: We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls. At another time she observed that the United States was the most broken place she had ever visited - sick and diseased she actually said - but not with HIV/AIDS or other communicable diseases:  our sickness involved loneliness and a broken heart.  Her exact quote is as follows:

The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.

That set in motion a variety of thoughts this morning - and in the quiet of yet another snow day - I took the time to ponder them in solitude. Eventually, I noticed that my friend Mark had sent me a link to a recent posting from Carol Howard Merritt. Her reflection mirrored an on-going conversation we have been having over the past 15 years about the death of religious denominations in the USA. At the core of our concerns - and her blog posting - is this double-whammy: a) Within twenty years more that 70% of our existing once mainline churches will be closed; and b) these faith communities could still have a role to play in the redemption of our culture. It isn't likely, of course, that these churches will let themselves be opened to both the charism and need of this generation - most are too stubborn and afraid - but it could happen in some places. (check out her full posting at the Christian Century here: http://www.christiancentury.org/ blogs/archive/2014-02/gutting-our-creatives)

One of Merritt's suggestions involves empowering congregations to be a part of a thoughtful revival of the arts.  She writes:

What would a religion infused with great art look like? How could we stage an iconoclast reversal? How could we celebrate the fact that we pay singers? And painters? And architects? And song writers? (Forgive my ignorance, but do we employ people with a decent salary to write our sacred music? If not, why not?) What would it look like if we began to allow pastors to take time to form the words of their sermon into something beautiful? In our local congregations, what if we encouraged creativity instead of punishing it? 

(photo: Dianne De Mott)

Aldous Huxley once said that "after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." But let's not stop with music; let's go deeper with all the arts. Not only do they touch the heart, but they can become encounters with beauty experienced in community. Shared blessings that embrace the silence rather than privatized excursions into ecstasy. 

Think of the work Mako Fujimora and IAM (International Arts Movement) has done with mostly Evangelical Christians. Or the ministry Gregory Wolfe and the IMAGE Journal has done from a Christian humanist perspective. Sadly, too little effort or interest has been generated for the arts in the once mainline congregations. But perhaps Merritt's comments hint at a change just below the surface? The once mainline congregations have some incredible buildings that once honored beauty unlike the all too utilitarian, concrete-block auditoriums of the contemporary evangelical world. Why not find new ways to use these treasures before they become museums?

Over the past seven years, we have been using our Sanctuary as a show case for local musicians and sometimes visual artists, too. For part of our 250th anniversary celebration there will be an exhibit of local photographic art and painting interpreting the mission and architecture of First Church. This display will be open to the public and will remain in the Sanctuary for a month. In Lent, I will be starting a 6 week conversation on discovering the sacred in the cinema. And in this Sunday's worship, in addition to the visual art we've created for Epiphany, there will be the music of Thomas Tallis, Appalachian folk song, traditional and contemporary hymnody and jazz.

And the reason I lift up our experience with the arts is simple: our compulsive, busy, addicted and obsessive culture needs healing and hope.  Our overactive but malnourished imaginations needs symbols of depth and beauty. And the Body of Christ has been charged with living as light and salt for the world. This is a hard time to do ministry - all bets are off because everything is changing - and many pastors and congregations have resigned themselves to closing. To everything there is a season, yes? But not all of these churches must board up their doors or sell their property to real estate developers. No, we can listen to the Spirit of this generation and refocus our work in much the way Merritt suggests.  Anything less, is a waste of our time.

As an afterthought it hit me that I shouldn't just carp but also offer a few excellent resources for those who might want to go deeper. These are some that I have found most satisfying:

+ Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts by Hilary Brand and Adrienne Chaplain.  These women worked with Jeremy Begbie on his art in the churches projects in the UK.

+ Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle. She is one of the best artists reflecting on the place of art in the journey of faith.

+ Theology and the Arts by Richard Viladesau. This is serious reflection on beauty in all aspects of the arts as divine revelation. Not for everyone but a real gem.

+ Visual Faith: Art, Theology and Worship in Dialogue by William Dryness.  Another serious work of reflection on art and faith this time by a Reformed theologian.

+ Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts by Steve Turner. Not as rigorous as the previously mentioned texts but a helpful introduction that is very accessible.

+ The Substance of Things Seen: Art, Faith and the Christian Community by Robin Jensen. One of my favorites that offers useful tools for thinking about how to move into this realm.

My prayer...

A young woman met with me recently.  She said that when she came inside the Sanctuary on Sunday and saw this banner on the wall, she thought:  "Maybe... just maybe I've found a place I can trust."  God, I hope so. 

Open Hearts…

             Open Minds...

                           Open Doors...

                                                Open Table…

WWW.FIRSTCHURCHPITTSFIELD.ORG

The blessing of a snow day...

One of the many joys I experience in living in this part of the woods is something called a "snow day." Say what you will about being in the perpetual sunshine - and I loved every minute I was in the desert Southwest (and plan to make a winter pilgrimage part of my new rhythm of life) - there is nothing more serene and meditative than the hush that falls on the earth during a huge snow storm. It is, in very real ways, truly heavenly - and with predictions of 10-20 inches arriving by tomorrow morning that's a LOT of heaven.

Like much of our community, we closed up shop at 12 noon today both to get off the roads and to keep the streets safe for emergency traffic. So I will be home in the safety and warmth of our little house for the next 24 hours. We may sneak outside later on our snow shoes to take in the quiet of the woods - and to watch Lucie frolic in the snow. She is another delight on snow days because she can't get enough of playing in fresh snow. We already have about a foot of snow on the ground so today's romping will be a real treat!

Yesterday was filled with a host of small blessings - and I am deeply grateful - not only because they help me put ministry into perspective, but also because they bring a measure of balance to the hard parts of this calling. Fr. Keating speaks of them as "consolations" - those small events or feelings that are all about encouragement. To be sure, there are seasons without consolation - the dark night of the soul is clearly a time without much emotional refreshment - and the challenge in that season has something to do with finding rest in the absence of encouragement. Like Rumi's poem, even the emptiness can be a subtle sign of the Sacred presence.

One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
"So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?"

The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
"Why did you stop praising?"
"Because I've never heard anything back."
"This longing
you express is the return message."

The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.

Give your life
to be one of them.

Fr. Richard Rohr has recently written about this absence like this:

Alcoholics Anonymous would call Stage Six the First Step! Stage Six is: I am empty and powerless. Almost any attempt to save yourself by any superior behavior, technique, belonging system, morality, role, strong ideological belief, or religious devotion will not work. It will actually lead to regression. What the saints and mystics say is that some event, struggle, relationship, or suffering in your life has to lead you to the edge of your own resources. There has to be something that you by yourself cannot understand, fix, control, change, or even begin to deal with. It is the raw experience of “I cannot do this.” All you can do at this point is wait and ask and trust.

This is where you learn real patience, compassion, and forgiveness. I don’t know how else you learn to forgive other people until you see seventy-times-seven your own brokenness, your own incapacity to love and, in this stage, your inability to do anything about it except throw yourself into the arms of mercy and love (Luke 7:47).

This is the darkness of faith, and now you can trust that this darkness is a much better teacher than supposed certainty or rightness. God is about to become very real. Some even call this “God’s Waiting Room!”

When you finally accept your own powerlessness, you learn to plug into a different outlet and draw upon a Deeper Source. This is conversion. This is radical transformation. It is like an identity transplant. St. Paul describes his own conversion in this way: “I live no longer, not I, but I live in Christ, and Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). You will experience a much larger sense of self, and it is not all about “you” anymore!

At Stage Seven, you have a qualitatively different sense of your self. “I am so much more than I thought I was!” you might feel. The false self has died in a significant way and the True Self is starting to take over. But because you are not yet fully at home here, it will first of all feel like a void, an emptiness, but hopefully an okay emptiness. You begin to act for the sake of the action itself because it is true, because it is good, because it is beautiful, and not because it is popular or even because it works! 

There is no felt consolation most of the time, and there is lessening social reward. Yet there is great peace. You are being weaned of your reliance upon your feeling world, which means very little at this point. Because you are living in the Larger Self, all is okay. You know Another is now holding you. You do not need to hold yourself. You are at the heart of faith, and in a certain sensetrue spirituality only begins at this point! (Most of Jesus’ teaching proceeds from this level or higher, which is why much of the church has not been ready for Jesus.)

I think that one of the gifts I was given from my time wandering in the wilderness of the dark night of the soul has to do with gratitude. These days I find that I want to return thanks to God for all the little consolations that I notice even in some of the most ordinary events. Yesterday, for example, there were a lot:

+ The day began with a meeting focused on our upcoming 250th church anniversary. More and more I am regularly stunned at how meetings can become holy ground. Not all meetings, of course; some are so filled with bullshit that I can barely endure them. But some become sacred - and that was true for this one as we talked about enduring outmoded New England protocols, finding gentle ways of moving forward when others seem obsessed with the past and so much more. There was a lot of laughter about who we are and who we are becoming as a church - and it wasn't harsh or judgmental laughter - but rather a humble realization of our humanity.

+ No sooner did that meeting close when I had a chance to visit with a young person who is new to our community.  In a matter of minutes we were talking very tenderly about brokenness and the dark ways we have tried to block out the pain and emptiness. There were tears and prayers, confession and absolution - and more tears. There was also an awareness that in the womb of our dark night, we can truly be born again although there is nothing gentle or sentimental about this rebirth. It is always humiliating, frightening and oh so humbling. And it is also a blessing.

+ From there it was midday Eucharist - with friends who haven't been able to gather returning in what felt like a homecoming - along with a few others who were aching in grief. There was more laughter and hugs, prayers and tears and the sharing of the bread and wine. As I have noted before, this small gathering is very simple - not a lot happens - and that is the beauty. We just create a little quiet and safe place to be open to Christ's love and wait quietly as the Psalms encourage.

There were a few other meetings - planning among pastors as we build a local justice organization, conversations with artists for a new sculpture to be used during Lent - and then a new member orientation in the evening.  And that, too, became holy ground as we talked about how it is we came to find ourselves in this strange little community of faith.   One family was trying to get into another downtown church and couldn't find an open door (symbolic on so many levels, yes?) so they followed a young woman in what was "clearly a Sunday hat" into our Sanctuary - and they've been with us ever since. Another person said, "I wasn't planning on joining. Just coming and seeing what went on. But one Sunday I had a mystical experience in the Sanctuary that connected me with a loved one who had gone home to God - and I just couldn't ignore the sign!" Others came because of our Open and Affirming commitment - or our combination of tradition and innovation - the music and the preaching - as well as the way we welcome children.

As I was driving home, all I could think of was that the whole day was one beautiful collection of small consolations. It was just what I needed - and just what I had been praying about - as we move into our 250th anniversary events. We are NOT the church as it was in the past. Rather, we are a pretty broken and scruffy collection of real people who want to learn how to love one another and ourselves like Jesus. I rather like the way Diana Butler Bass puts it in A People's History of Christianity.

Trying to understand why and how Romans embraced Christianity, sociologist Rodney Stark states:" Conversion to a new religion involves being interested in new culture - indeed, in being capable of mastering a new culture." He argues that people converted initially, not because they found Christianity philosophically persuasive, but because Christianity was "efficacious." In other words, it worked.

And it worked in some very particular ways. During the second century's great epidemic, known as the Plague of Galen (165-180), in which hundreds of thousands of people died in the streets, Christians proved their spiritual mettle by tending to the sick. As Bishop Cyprian of Carthage would later claim, that plague was a winnowing process, in which God's justice was shown by "whether the well care for the sick, whether relatives dutifully love their kinsfolk as they should, whether masters show compassion for their ailing slaves, whether physicians do not desert the afflicted." Because they did not fear death, Christians stayed behind in plague-ravaged cities while others fled. Their acts of mercy extended to all the suffering regardless of class, tribe or religion and created the conditions in which others accepted their faith.

As I went about my work yesterday, I kept seeing signs that more and more of our folk were grounded in humility, hospitality and hope. And after seven years here, that was a wonderful gift to realize - a deep and encouraging consolation. So now, it is off to the snow with my honey and our puppy... thanks be to God.

NOTE:  No sooner did I post this than I got a call from the local hospital that one of our dear friends was back in the ICU.  I spent some time slogging through the blizzard to pray and listen to both partners.  What a hard journey - so much love, so much pain - and now more waiting. It is always and honor and privilege to be with these folks. Yet another small gift in the midst of real suffering, too.

worship notes: hope (part three in a series)

Note:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, February 16, 2014. I am moving away from the lectionary this week to deepen the on-going series re: humility, hospitality and hope.  

Introduction

The late Roman Catholic theologian and pastor, Henri Nouwen, once said: “Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.”  I think that is brilliant – clear, concise and completely challenging to any and all illusions of self-sufficiency!  We can never fully comprehend the magnificent abundance of God’s grace and love.  Never.

·  For now we see as through a glass darkly – said the apostle Paul – only later shall we see face to face.

·  Or as South African Bishop Desmond Tutu put it:  when it comes to knowing the fullness of God’s grace and love we are like people sitting in front of a fire in the winter; all you can do is sit there – you don’t have to be smart or anything – you just sit there and the fire warms you.

This morning I want to share with you some theological thoughts about hope – and specifically Christian hope – a hope that empowers us to live by faith beyond the darkness of our limited comprehension and also the totality of our fears.  And because I am going “theological” on you today, I wanted to remind you that a mature grasp of theology always recognizes and honors God's incomprehensibility. 

·   +  A wise and faithful heart, you see, humbly accepts our limitations even while striving for greater truth: True theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility.

·   +  Simultaneously a wise and faithful heart continues to be creative and curious especially when it comes to God’s grace.  That’s why I have taken as my foundational text for today the words St. Paul wrote to the young church in Thessalonica in about the year 52 CE: We do not want you to be uniformed, sisters and brothers, about those who have died – or fallen asleep – so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we trust that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring him those who have died.

In what is recognized as the first book of the New Testament, Paul is concerned that the young church in Northern Greece is confused about a few essentials.  After founding the church, Paul quickly moved on to Athens, sending his associate evangelist, Timothy, to fortify and encourage the Thessalonians.  And while their love and passion for God was strong, they were perplexed and worried about how to live their new lives within the counter-cultural claims of Christian hope.

In this, the Thessalonians were much like many of us who love God but also worry and fret about how to live faithfully.  So with the awareness that recognizes that now we see only as through a glass darkly, I am going suggest three insights about what it means to live into God’s hope for our generation. Truly we do not want you to be ignorant or uninformed, sisters and brothers… so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

Insights   

So let’s cut to the chase and wrestle with the hardest part first:  Christian hope is built upon trusting that after his execution on the Cross, God raised Jesus from the dead.  The resurrection we celebrate on Easter Sunday is where all Christian hope begins.

·   + Contrary to what most liberal Christians want us to believe, the testimony of those closest to Christ as well as the consistent message of the Scriptures states that the resurrection was not an idea – nor an emotional response to grief – nor even a poetic metaphor about new life(although all of those things can be true.) No, in some way beyond our ability to comprehend, God’s love raised Jesus from death into new life and Jesus walked among us, taught among the earliest disciples and even ate with Peter and the others on more than one occasion.  Paul, who met the resurrected Jesus, refuses to pull his punches about the source of our hope when he puts it like this in I Corinthians 15: 

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.  We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. So if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 

·   + At the same time, contrary to what most conservative fundamentalits want us to believe, the form and nature of Christ’s resurrection is never fully described in ways that we can comprehend. The resurrected Jesus that greeted Mary Magdalene in the garden, ate a fish breakfast with a despondent Peter by the shores of the Sea of Galilee and encouraged a doubting Thomas to place his hand within his wounds was neither some resuscitated corpse nor a ghost-like, disembodied phantom. Again, the apostle Paul tells us that in the resurrection we shall be raised up into spiritual bodies as the perishable puts on the imperishable:

How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that 3of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

This is our first challenge – not to comprehend or control the truth about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead – but rather to trust that it is true. We cannot figure out answers to all of our questions about this one.  It is too vast and we are too limited – and it will make us crazy if we persist in trying.  Which means, dear people, that only those who have been humbled and brought low – those who have lost all hope in their own ability to fix their problems or heal their lives – those who have come to surrender all illusions of control are empty enough to trust that God’s love is bigger than both death and our imaginations.

·   + Like I have been saying for the past few weeks, there is an intimate interweaving of humility with hope and authentic hospitality – they are kindred – and one strengthens the other.  So much so that I have become convinced that only the humbled can trust God enough to stake their lives on the resurrection.

·   + Remember the way Jesus himself put it in the Sermon on the Mount:  You are blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

So let me play the role of Paul with you for just a moment and tell you how I came to trust that God’s love is great and vast enough to fill my emptiness and push me to accept the resurrection of Jesus as my source of hope.  There were two factors:

·   + First, is the testimony of those in the faith I have trusted:  over the years I’ve met men and women of integrity and courage who trusted God’s love as their source of hope. Some have been in AA, some were peace activists, a few were conservative Pentecostals and a number were nuns or priests. As I watched how they lived – how they shared real compassion with people who were hurting and took incredible risks with their safety and resources – I found that at the very least I was willing to listen and learn from them.

Historically that is one of the ways people discover Christian hope:  from watching and learning and listening to others who have trust and faith.  Like the old preachers used to say:  I am just one hungry beggar telling another starving soul where to find bread.  That is one of the ways I came to trust God’s grace.

+  The second came in the form of the Serenity Prayer when my life was falling apart.  Like some of you, my life has fallen apart a few times – divorce, workaholism, shame and abuse – and I have to say that when I was at the end of my rope, when there was nothing to do to fix my pain except surrender to a love greater than myself, that was when I was lifted up and given another chance. 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. 

That’s the first part – and it was crucial for me to accept that there

were realities that I could not change or fix in my life – but God could.  And once I accepted that I was not God, then I could embrace the second part of the prayer that goes: Living one day at a time;  enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as Christ did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen. 

The witness of loving and faithful people in my life AND crashing and burning so that I HAD to trust God is how I came to rely on Christ’s resurrection as the source of my hope.  That is what Paul taught the Thessalonians 2,000 years ago and it is what I share with you in 2014: we do not want you to be ignorant or uninformed, sisters and brothers… so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

There are two other parts to a mature Christian hope, however, that I want you to know about and consider, too.  For once you start letting yourself trust that God’s love raised Jesus from the dead, then you start seeing how this truth plays out in other parts of life. The second text that I find essential comes from the words of Paul in the book of Romans – chapter five – verses one through five.  And for me it has become a way to practice trusting God’s resurrection power.

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope for hope does not disappoint us, because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  

Here’s what I make of Paul’s wisdom:  nobody is exempt from pain or suffering – it s a fact of life that is inescapable – so the question becomes what do we DO with our hard times?  We can give in to complaining and become cynics.  We can carp and moan and demand that we are suffering like no one else in creation has ever known and act like we’re something special.  Or we can use our hardships and challenges as a pathway through the Cross towards resurrection.

·   + Suffering produces endurance – that is strength and humility and the ability to keep on loving even when it hurts.  This isn’t doctrine or theology, it is applied spirituality: practice transforming your suffering into endurance and before you know it you will be living as a person others trust because your character will look something like Christ’s.

·   + Endurance produces character:  Paul doesn’t say endurance produces characters, he says it can result in fortitude, honesty, faith, hope and love – moral and ethical qualities that you can make real in your own flesh by giving shape and form to the character of Jesus through your suffering.  This isn’t automatic and we don’t always get it right.

·   + But the more you practice transforming your suffering rather than complaining about it the stronger the character of Christ grows within; and the stronger the character of Christ lives within you the more you will see and experience signs of hope in your world. Because hope is not merely a feeling; Paul tells us our ability to see and experience hope in a broken world is actually God pouring the Holy Spirit into our lives. 

Did you get that?  Hope is God pouring out the Holy Spirit into our hearts – the same Holy Spirit that brought order out of the chaos at the beginning of time – the same Holy Spirit that gave Jesus his strength for ministry out in the wilderness and that gave courage to the disciples after the Lord’s death on the Cross.  Remember how Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel as “the comforter?”  I will send you the Advocate – the Comforter – who will lead you into new acts of love greater than anything you can imagine.

Earlier this week we held our first new church council meeting with David Noyes as the Moderator. It was a wonderful and spirit-filled meeting:  we sang and prayed, we laughed and wrestled with hard choices.  At one point, we were talking about our finances and a plan we are working to apply that is totally built upon Christian hope as made flesh by Christ’s resurrection. Over this next year, you see, we will be talking with people all over the region in pursuit of a mission partner with deep pockets.

·   Based upon the work and encouragement of a financial investor – who will be helping us – we are going to look for a mission partner who not only wants to help keep First Church strong but will help us find the financial resources necessary to make this happen.

·   Now to some people – maybe even some in this room – this sounds crazy. Improbable. Maybe even magical thinking that is totally delusional.  And that’s why I said out loud to Council:  Look, some around this table might think it sounds impossible and crazy to believe that God’s Holy Spirit is going to bring to us mission partners willing to help us grow even stronger – people with deep pockets and open hearts – who want to become allies with us.  But I believe that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead – and if God can do that then it isn’t too hard to believe that God’s Spirit is going to lead us to the mission partners we need.  What we have to do is have faith – and do OUR work.

The second truth is applied resurrection living that practices transforming suffering into an occasion for the Lord to pour the Spirit into our hearts.

Conclusion

And the third is what the disciple Bono of U2 says about grace:  grace trumps karma.  Grace is bigger than sin, greater than history and completely under God’s authority and control.  Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 11 that he understood that they were tired and weary.  He got it that sometimes they were discouraged.  So, using Peterson’s reworking from The Message, he said: Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. And you will learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

You will learn to trust that grace trumps karma.  You will learn to count on the fact that even in the worst suffering God will pour the Spirit of hope into your heart. But you have to come to me.  You have to quit acting like God. You have to be still – and surrender – accept and listen so that grace can teach you the unforced way of living even in these dark days.

Beloved, I don’t pretend to understand WHY God works this way.  Like Nouwen said, it is truly incomprehensible to me.  But as I trust it – and practice it – and build my life on it as a real foundation, it works.  It is better than living in anxious and fear. It is superior to acting like I have to figure out every answer for myself.  And it is liberating in a gentle, merciful and hopeful way.  That’s what I sensed I needed to share with you today so let those who have ears to hear, hear and you, too will learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

credits

1) Chidi Okoye, In Search of Hope, @http://www.modernartimages.com/insearchofhopewatercolor.htm

2) Elizabeth Chapman, Lighthouse @ http://melizabethchapman.blogspot.com/2011/11/lighthouse-modern-art-contemporary.html

3) Krishana Samarao Kulkarni, @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-luce/goddess-lion-peasant-prie_b_840990.html

4) http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200406/user_image-1086273609nbi.jpg

5)B Weil, Untitled Art @ http://www.untitledart.co.uk/portfolio-items/beach-series-2/

6) Nesis Eleshiva,The  End of the Holiday, @ http://www.artmajeur.com/en/artist/nesis/collection/woman-and-wine/1287805/artwork/the-end-of-the-holiday/4020058