when love comes to town

Friday, October 7, 2016

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

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

Monday, October 3, 2016

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..

Sunday, October 2, 2016

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.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

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

Friday, September 30, 2016

taking delight in the Sabbath...

Today was our Sabbath: a time away from work, fretting, business as usual and most of the

chores that take up so much of our ordinary days. Dianne and I have been committed to radical Sabbath keeping for most of our time together. And while we have not always lived into the full promised rest of this sacred discipline, we have consistently cherished that promise - and this has kept us on track. Abraham Joshua Heschel has been our guide. His wisdom on Sabbath keeping continues to ring true:

To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern...

All around us we see that life has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. At the same time it is exquisitely

beautiful, too. And within that beauty there is a message of hope for us: God is in control even when lunatics dominate our political life and violence claims the day. Heschel noted that only when we know the "inner Temple" of solitude and trust can we be free from the manic demands of the dominant culture.

Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time. Our intention here is not to deprecate the world of space. To disparage space and the blessing of things of space, is to disparage the works of creation, the works which God beheld and saw “it was good.” The world cannot be seen exclusively sub specie temporis. Time and space are interrelated. To overlook either of them is to be partially blind. What we plead against is man’s unconditional surrender to space, his enslavement to things. We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.

And so we moved slowly through the day, free from any demands from beyond, and fully connected to the moment and the time we share. Later I read a comment from one who left an encouraging word on a recent blog post. I had shared my worship notes for this coming Sunday - the blessing of our pets for the Feast of St. Francis - and was summarizing the cosmic unity that God set in motion in the beginning. His note made my heart sing. This is what we can trust if we rest into the promise of deep Sabbath.

I am awed when I consider that 8 billion years ago the entire known universe was composed of nothing but hydrogen and helium. Nowhere in the universe were there conditions even remotely capable of supporting life. And no reasonable observer of that state of affairs would have concluded that such conditions would ever be possible. It's hard to imagine a situation more apparently hopeless. Yet here we are. It makes being an optimist in face of today's difficulties relatively easy. :)

I sense that Bill is right...

Thursday, September 29, 2016

closing the season of creation: worship notes for the feast of st. francis...

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for this Sunday, October 2, 2016, on the Feast Day of St. Francis (actually October 4th). We bring to a close our observance of the Season of Creation and move into the wonderful transitions of autumn. (As I continue to "play" with the new design here I will be experimenting with font color. Please be patient until I get the right combo, ok?)

Introduction
This is one of my favorite holy days in the whole Christian calendar: The Feast of St. Francis, All Saints Day, the start of Advent and the Paschal Triduum – Maundy Thursday to the Feast of the Resurrection on Easter morning – each carry a unique charism that brings nourishment and stamina to my soul:

+ All Saints’ Day connects heaven and earth for me as we remember those within the community who have crossed over into glory with God forever – and who pray without ceasing for those still living in this realm. The clarifying silence of the start of Advent opens me to all of the longings I carry in my heart like the Virgin Mary pondering the birth of the Christ Child. And the cluster of liturgies that begin on Maundy Thursday and continue seamlessly through Good Friday into the dawn of Easter’s renewal helps me trust that God has not yet given up on me – or us – or all of creation. The arch of this story tells me there is still hope if we trust God rather than ourselves.

+ And then there is today – the Blessing of Our Pets on the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi – at the close of the season of creation. There are a lot of reasons to like this celebration – the presence of our pets, the giddy excitement of our children, the hint of chaos and possibility of barking or squawking and more. But here’s why I cherish this day: it makes visible the interconnected reality of God’s blessing in creation as the Lord intended it. For a moment in time, we realize if only obliquely that we are part of a web of life: flora and fauna, water and wind, earth, fire and air and cosmos.

+ The Feast Day of St. Francis gives shape and form to something we have known intuitively forever but have only confirmed scientifically in the last few decades: namely that we are all made from the same star dust that created the planets, the sun and the moon, the rain and the stars as well as all the multiple universes beyond our galaxy at the beginning of time. So, it is not an exaggeration to say that God’s wisdom for life has united us all into a cosmic tapestry of interdependence since before there was time.

And having our pets all around us in a place that is usually reserved just for people awakens this truth for me in a unique way. Our animal friends help get me out of my head and into my heart and body where I can feel something of God’s blessed unity. Like the old church camp song used to say: We are ONE in the Spirit, we are ONE in the Lord – and we pray that all unity will one day be restored.

Insights
So let me share with you three thoughts about our cosmic unity that are ours to treasure and nourish if we are willing to get out of our own way and live more boldly into this sacred wisdom. First, the heart of creation is Eucharistic. Gathering around the communion table to remember Christ’s life, death and resurrection is not simply a Christian ritual, it is a spiritual and symbolic re-enactment of God’s wisdom revealed to us in time, space and matter.

+ Astrophysicist, Karel Schrijver, put it like this in a National Geographic: "When the universe started (8 billion years ago) there was just hydrogen and a little helium and very little of anything else. Helium is not in our bodies. Hydrogen is, but that's not the bulk of our weight. (After the explosion that set creation into motion “in the beginning” as the Bible says) stars became like nuclear reactors. They take a fuel and convert it to something else. Hydrogen is formed into helium, and helium is built into carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, iron and sulfur—everything we're made of. So when stars get to the end of their lives, they swell up and fall together again, throwing off their outer layers (and scattering the essence of star dust throughout the universe.) If a star is heavy enough, it will explode in a supernova” sharing the stuff of new life with the cosmos through its own death.

+ The gospel of St. John has Jesus saying much the same thing albeit in mystical poetry rather than scientific prose: "unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies... it will not bear fruit. I give my life and love so that you may have life – and have it in abundance.” This is Eucharist for those with eyes to see: we gather to return thanks to God for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus through whom we experience forgiveness and new life. And then, after dying to self, we move back into the world to share a life of gratitude with others.

In liturgical language we celebrate in communion what the scientists have confirmed in the cosmos: we are all taken and blessed, broken and shared, so that by dying to ourselves we might bring new life to the world. This is the wisdom and rhythm of the holy built into creation since before the beginning of time. Creation is Eucharistic.

Second, in countless ways, our spiritual tradition has been trying to help us grasp the ethical implications of this cosmic wisdom of Eucharist for over three or maybe four thousand years. In Genesis 2, the first book of the Bible, we read that on the day the Lord our God created human beings, formed as we were from the dust of the earth and filled with the breath of God, the Lord also created a garden from star dust and filled it with bounty and harmony so that more life could be set into motion.

The Scripture says: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the dust of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. And the animals were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. There was unity and creativity born of spirit and flesh.

Jesus seems to be saying much the same thing in that part of St. Matthew’s gospel we know as the Sermon on the Mount. Listen as he reminds us that we are all connected to one another according to God’s plan: I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

Life, as God intends it, is grounded in honoring our unifying and creative place within the cosmic tapestry of creation. Community and solidarity lay at the heart of this plan – sharing and compassion are woven into the essence of a sacred life of balance – and the more we respect this truth, the better able we are to serve the Lord throughout the whole cosmos. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the ethics of creation like this in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail: In a real sense all life is inter-related. All of us are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.

And this points to the third insight for this Feast Day for Blessing Our Pets: as a part of the Eucharistic rhythm at the heart of creation and God’s bold, cosmic interconnectivity, we have been charged to live as God’s image in creation. Not Lord or King or Queen– not someone else’s part nor the role of the animals, water, the heavens or the land – just our part. In Genesis 1 we read that after all of creation was formed, God made human beings in the image of God to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and every living being. And this word dominion is tricky: back when the Bible was translated into English, it was the age of European empire and exploration. So when the King James Version was written, it was natural to translate the Hebrew word, rawdah, in the spirit of the age.

It actually made sense in that day to speak of the image of God in terms of nobility, control and

power. But as time changes and we become more insightful about the nuances of culture, language and scripture, scholars now agree that dominion really doesn’t work – especially because the ancient Hebrew story in Genesis does not portray the first people as nobility or even divine unlike all the other creation stories of that era. No, we were formed in the image of God to strengthen and cherish creation as did the Lord – exercising a “special and unique power and privilege – a tender responsibility – to share love, interdependence and respect” just as God did in the beginning.

+ The Reverend Dr. Ellen Davis of Duke Divinity School puts it like this: to exercise the rule or reign of God in creation – rawdah in Hebrew – is always related to the image of God in reality. That’s why she suggests a more evocative translation where we are to exercise a skilled mastery of balance amongst the creatures of creation.

+ God has already set an order and rhythm into motion in the cosmos: the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are to be fruitful and multiply – not just human beings – so what we’re encouraged to do is live in a way that honors and strengths the blessings God has already set in motion. Not control them. Nor act in self-absorbed or ruthless ways, but rather to become the image of God as the Lord intended since the beginning.

Conclusion
I love this day in the life of the church because it calls me to honor my place in God’s creation – and do so knowing that as I exercise tender care in the world, I am living into the image of the Lord. Jan Richardson, a United Methodist clergy person and artist, wrote a blessing poem for our pets that gets the heart of this right and brings my message to a close:

You who created them and called them good:

bless again these creatures who come to us as a blessing

fashioned of fur or feather or fin, formed of flesh that breathes with your own breath,

that you have made from sheer delight, that you have given in dazzling variety.

Bless them who curl themselves around our hearts,

who twine themselves through our days

who accompany us in our labor, who call us to come and play.

Bless them who will never be entirely tamed a

nd so remind us that you love what is wild,

that you rejoice in what lives close to the earth, that your heart beats

in the heart of these creatures you have entrusted to our care.

Lord may it be so within and among us all. Amen.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

spiritual depth communicates across generational lines...

As I continue to explore next steps after moving into a part-time role as minister sometime in 2017, three leads include:

+ playing more music and gigs

+ deepening my work as a spiritual director for individuals

+ sharing my time, head and heart as a celebrant for those who are spiritual but no religious

To say that I am excited about moving into new ministries would be an understatement. As this summer's discernment process made clear, our small congregation must learn to do more with less even as we reshape our ministries according to the Spirit's lead. We are NOT simply about bottom lines, but rather the invitation to let our hearts sing in creative ways. And today, celebrating the baptism of a sweet child made my heart sing. I know and love the family well. I have travelled to Turkey playing jazz for peace with some. I celebrated the parents' wedding. I have worked with them on community renewal projects. So, when they asked if I might work with them to reform a baptism liturgy of their child, it was a no brainer. I began by saying:

Welcome in the name of God, giver of life, who creates us all and loves us all: Creator,

Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen. Today we gather both to celebrate the gift of this beloved child into the world – and our lives – as well as to baptize her into a community of love. In all spiritual traditions – including the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam – the passage of time is honored and marked with rites of passage and rituals of dedication. This day we join ourselves with people of spirit in the circle of life. Throughout the world, in many faiths, and countless ages, our elders understood that we must welcome our children into a community of love: God’s love, our love and the love that is at the heart of all creation. For unless we guide and shape our children by love and responsibility, they remain unfocused and unable to use their wild hearts to protect the common good.

In my Christian tradition, we remember that often there were those around Jesus who wanted to keep the little children away from him. But he insisted that they should be included in the circle not only to receive a blessing, but also because they can change our hearts, too. His saying that some of the first shall be last and the last shall be first suggests that there are times when our children are the best teachers, imams and rabbis we’ll ever meet. But only if we are awake and paying attention, not taking our little ones for granted or diminishing them in anyway. And so we gather to bless and baptize this child in a celebration of love and life for this is our commitment as adults, family and friends: we will guide and cherish her as a precious gift from God. Let us pray: Creator God, source of love, life and blessing, we offer this prayer of thanks for the joy given to us this day. You have shared new life with this family. You have bestowed new responsibilities and sacred insights upon both mother and father And you have called us together now to join in their delight and responsibility in caring for this precious child. Guide us with your Spirit that we may be patient and understanding, ready to share and forgive as life requires; so that in our love for her she may know true love. May she learn to love your world – and the whole family of creation – as did Christ Jesus, in whose spirit we are guided this day. Amen.

After sharing three readings - from Ecclesiastes 3, Rumi and I Corinthians 13 - I offered a brief homily including these words:

What we are doing today is holy: we are reclaiming an ancient truth that has all too readily been sacrificed on the altar of expediency. We are, you see, celebrating the arrival of this child into our lives in a sacramental and mystical way: we are training ourselves to claim beauty in the ordinary and hope within our humanity at a time when so many human beings are filled with fear and despair. Like one of my favorite writers, Sr. Joan Chittister, says: the awakened ones of creation practice seeing the eagle within the egg. Or as the Sufi poet, Rumi, puts it:
We are to become midwives – all of us – who know that not until a mother’s womb softens from the pain of labor will a way unfold for the infant to be born…

So let me be clear with you about this mystical, sacramental celebration: religion and spirituality are changing in our era – and that is a good thing. We are no long rule or culture bound; we have liberated ourselves to find new meaning in old traditions, new insights in ancient wisdom, and new ways of living within the human condition. As a culture shaped by the Enlightenment, we’ve relied upon science and rational thought to be our guide for more than 500 years and this way has brought blessings to all of creation to be sure. But it has also limited our ability to access the deeper truths of heart and soul and love. It has fostered the illusion that we are in control of our lives when, in truth, that is arrogant folly. And so, like many here today, we’ve given up on traditional religion in pursuit of a new/old way of integrating head with heart and body with soul. For us much of the church has become oppressive, irrelevant, wooden and punitive. It is without heart and soul and we ache for refreshment.

Take our use of water today: it is a universal symbol of both cleansing and refreshment. Both the human body AND the earth are mostly water – they are both about 60% water – and that is not coincidence. That is by design how-ever you wish to understand that word; human beings and all creation are mostly water – and the rest is star dust – carbon, hydrogen, helium arranged in a delicate balance tt gives us life and breathe and meaning.

We spoke together of what godparents might mean in our new setting - and vows - and even spiritual education in a multicultural context that still honors and reveres Jesus. And then, after giving the 80 people instructions, I invited them to come forward and offer signs or symbols or words of blessing to the child - and they did so with gusto. And the baby loved every minute of it. Then we prayed over the water, baptized her in a traditional way and evoked God's blessing upon us all. A party of gentle souls sharing food, sunshine and conversation followed at the country home of the grandparents.

I came away with two insights: informal but spiritually significant rites of passages still speak volumes to young people who may have abandoned the institutions of their youth. This is worth exploring more deeply. I also verified my hunch that integrity, self-deprecating humor mixed with authentic spiritual depth communicates across generational lines. I'll keep you posted on further developments.

photo credits: Dianne De Mott

Friday, September 23, 2016

cosmos sunday: insights for the season of creation...

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, September 24, 2016 - Cosmos Sunday - in the Season of Creation.

Introduction
Back in the early days of my formation as a person of faith I heard a song that touched my heart. It was written by Joni Mitchell in the days right after the Woodstock concert and festival and was soon recorded shortly there- after by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Their version was upbeat and rockin’ – an ode to youth and innocence – but that is not how Joni Mitchell wrote it or played it. Mitchell gave us a more moody meditation on our quest for meaning – part contemplation of our place in the cosmos, part prayer for peace and part lamentation over human hubris – and like many of her compositions, this one continues to add layers of nuance for those with ears to hear. On Cosmos Sunday, I am particularly drawn to two parts of Mitchell’s proclamation:

The opening verse evokes the naiveté of our yearning to re-enter the Garden of Eden after choosing self over the way of God. Like all people of good will who haven’t wrestled profoundly with the stain of sin, the protagonist thinks he can actually get the Genie back in the bottle all by himself. Linking Woodstock with the biblical story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, verse one goes like this:

I came upon a child of God he was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going and this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm, gonna join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land - an' get my soul free
We are stardust, we are golden
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

Two verses later, however, after celebrating the ecstatic promise of Woodstock’s festival of peace, love and music, Mitchell adds something more sobering with the insertion of two simple phrases into the closing chorus: We are stardust and billion year old carbon - we are golden and we’re caught in the devil's bargain. Mitchell is NOT a sentimental romantic. She understands that suffering is real. She knows that in our quest to ease the pain of human existence, good people often make choices that violate our connection to creation. We live like we have become the center of the cosmos rather than sisters and brothers all formed from that same billion year old carbon that science tells us gives shape and form to the moon, the plants, the animals and all of life.

With a theological sophistication that is unusually profound for artists in popular music, Mitchell tells us that we are caught in the Devil’s bargain: we have exchanged solidarity with creation for arrogance and the illusion of autonomy. We have abandoned living in harmony with God’s grace for the empty promise of being in charge. In the biblical story, Eve and then Adam allow themselves to be enticed by the Devil into eating the one fruit forbidden from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

+ They allow their yearning for more to lure them beyond the sacred rhythm of living as interconnected partners with the rest of life created from the blessings of the Lord. And once they raise their yearning – their pain – their hopes and desires above the order of the garden’s delicate balance, a dangerous and destructive momentum is unleashed that pollutes the air, fouls the water, brings disease and anguish to humanity and advances the tragic logic of war.

+ The Devil’s bargain, in both the Bible and Joni Mitchell’s song, is trading solidarity for arrogance – elevating our longings above living in balance with creation – exchanging the harmony of grace for the dissonance of selfishness. As Reinhold Niebuhr puts it: original sin is pride and hubris - and Mitchell grasps this truth with poetic and theological clarity.

Well, then can I walk beside you? I have come to lose the smog,
And I feel like I'm a cog in something turning.
And maybe it's the time of year, yes and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am, but life is for learning…
By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies above our nation.
We are stardust – billion year old carbon - we are golden - caught in the devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Unlike most contemporary Western people, Joni Mitchell not only honors the linkage between science and religion, she also knows that the Bible begins and ends with a story set in a garden. Genesis tells us of the breach but Revelation tells us of God’s restoration to grace as we live in harmony through the love of Jesus Christ.

What’s more, the biblical texts selected for Cosmos Sunday all sing from this same hymnal:

God has placed an order and impulse to life in every atom of creation – from the stars and planets to our souls as well as the wind, the waters, the mountains and Earth’s animals - we are all formed from the same star dust. Our DNA is connected to the Big Bang, the flora and fauna, our family and our enemies, the earth, the sky and the whole cosmos. Life is interconnected – not wildly independent or arrogantly self-centered – but rooted in collaboration. God’s plan and wisdom, the Lord’s order of creation, is revealed “in mutual, reciprocal interdependence… where no created thing is an island unto itself.” (Season of Creation commentary, p. 218)

Insights

This is what Christ reveals and it is how God leads us back into the beauty of grace in the garden. So let me suggest one of the blessings that can be claimed from today’s readings:

The purpose of life is compassion – not power or wealth – it is not about making ourselves happy in isolation. Rather, it is recognizing our relationship to every living thing – animate and inanimate – friend and foe – and sharing love as best we are able. Sometimes our love will be imperfect, right? Sometimes we will be afraid. Or confused. Or angry. Those times have also been built into the ebb and flow of God’s creation and are intended to help us learn to let go of our pride and arrogance. Indeed, Jesus promises to meet us in our failures and reconnect us to God’s original grace so that we might increase love in the cosmos as he did. But here’s the caveat: we must be willing to learn from our mistakes. The mystery of our wisdom tradition is simple: we do not learn from experience – we learn from reflecting on our experience – measuring our insights against Christ’s love and tenderness.

Bourgeoisie education and culture wants us to believe that we become wise by working hard, advancing only ourselves, winning various prizes and claiming power as individuals. But the way of Jesus and his wisdom – the truth that God has poured into every atom of creation – is relational. The Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit is not a doctrinal truth, but a description of the Divine in relationship with all of creation. That is precisely what the biologists, seismologists, historians and economists of our generation are discovering: “we live in a cosmos where order continues to emerge in complex ways revealing creation’s underlying impulse to life” (p. 215.) And, of course, such is the heart and soul of true spirituality. So consider these Biblical insights with me from today’s readings.

Proverbs 8 speaks of Lady Wisdom – the order of nature in the cosmos and the essence of interdependence and love in all of creation – who was given birth at the beginning of time as the first act of creation and who has shared the formation of life with the Lord for all eternity.

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth—when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command.

Here is what I find fascinating: First, that God gave birth to Lady Wisdom. Scholars have observed that in this text God becomes Wisdom’s birth mother – expanding our awareness of the Holy Famine beyond outdated notions of God as stern, punishing father – but also telling us something corrective about God’s love for Wisdom – and by implication – all of us. In verse 30 we read, “I was beside God like a master worker, his daily delight, rejoicing before him always.”

Now “master worker” is a medieval Latin translation of the Hebrew word amon which is more frequently translated as “darling – cherished one – intimate or even nursing child and confidant.” (p. 217) Confidant is how the Tanakh – the contemporary Jewish Scriptures – puts this verse and it points towards a tender relationship between “a doting parent and a playful, laughing child who works in close and trusting ways to create an Earth full of life that is a delight to the Lord.” (p. 217) In this my heart takes me to Psalm 131: O Lord, I am not proud, I have no special or haughty looks. I do not occupy myself with great matters or things to hard for me. For I still my soul and make it quiet like a child upon its mother’s breast – this is how my soul is quieted within me – in trust and deep tenderness. A sacred, tender, playful and love-filled compassion is how Lady Wisdom was created and how she experienced life with God from the beginning of time. That’s one important clue about how God calls us to live in creation.

The other is this: at the core of creation is grace. “Grace is a gift. Grace is unconditional love. Grace is about blessing… and blessing is the theological word we have come up with for goodness – a life-giving gift from the Lord” that we neither own nor deserve but cherish for it brings us into the way of love. (Natural Grace, Fox and Sheldrake, p. 55) Matthew Fox wrote that creation is grace: we didn’t do it – it was someone else setting the table for us and leading us to the feast. That is what Lady Wisdom is all about: we were brought into life by God’s grace to share God’s grace. The totality of creation is all about grace – living in harmony and relationship with creation as God intended – and we call this relationship gratitude.

Psalm 148 observes that when we know our place in the realm of grace we call the cosmos – when we honor God by gratitude – our natural response is to shout: Hallelujah! (And what does hallelujah mean? Praise the Lord!) For the only prayer we truly know from the inside out is thank you.

Small wonder then that Jesus tells us in St. John’s gospel that at his core he is bread: he feeds us, he nourishes us, he is within us and in relationship with creation by grace. By grace he gives himself be taken, to be broken, to be blessed and shared with all creation. And in this giving the wisdom of the Lord is revealed not as a blessing reserved or promised to Christians alone: it is for the cosmos. Please listen very carefully to the closing sentence of this passage: “the bread that I will give” – from the Greek word hyper that means for the sake of or on behalf of – “is for the life of the world” – kosmos in Greek – “it is my flesh.” Did you hear that? The living nourishment that Jesus gives for the sake of the cosmos is a life shared in compassion.

Conclusion
Jesus shows us the essence of Lady Wisdom – the cosmos shows us the essence of grace – and the bread which we break in his compassion shows us how we become bread for the world according to the will and plan of God. We are star dust, we are golden, even as we wrestle with the devil’s bargain. And there IS a way back into the garden, but not of our own making. When we allow God to nourish us with grace and learn from our failings how to reach out to others in compassion, then we reconnect with the cause of love poured into every atom of creation. And as we become allies of the very heart of the God, we reclaim the blessing lost in arrogance and advance the cause of Christ in the real world. And this, dear people, is the good news for today: so let those with ears to hear, hear and do likewise.