In 1985 when I was at the end of my thirties, I took a year away from the Episcopal seminary where I had been studying to work as a youth minister in a parish in a small town in Northern California. It was a big step forward, meant taking myself more seriously than I had ever done before and, by the middle of the year, it seemed to be going very well. I was getting good marks for the teaching, preaching and pastoral work I was doing, I was working well with colleagues and congregants, making friends and influencing people, I had even been going to the gym regularly, even faithfully, and was in the best shape of my life.
So when it came time to go back to Berkeley and report to my seminary for the mid-year review everything was working well, except for a broken transmission of my car, so I found myself on a long bus trip from the Northern California town to San Francisco to catch a BART train to Berkeley where this black guy, African American came up alongside of me on the subway platform and it seemed that he wasn’t walking too steady and his clothes looked a little rough and he might have smelled, though from work or dirty clothes or booze I don’t remember. And he said, “Where do I get the train to Oakland?” and he was standing right next to me.
So I looked towards the track to the right and said, “I think you’ll find it over there.” And he raised his voice a bit and said, “I don’t want to know what you think, I want to know what you know.” And I thought, “Well, here it comes” and I looked down and said, “It’s right over there.” And he said, “Look at me!”
So I took a breath and looked at him – and I saw a man who was probably a bit older than I, and tired, probably harder working than I had ever been, who had a few scars and some real serious dignity that he had likely had to fight for over the years. And I felt sorry, for him, yes, but more surprisingly, I felt sorry for myself, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. So I said, “The train for Oakland will be on this platform. He looked at me for a few seconds and said, “Thank you,” then walked away.
And I saw clearly something about me that I hadn’t seen before. Something about how narrow I had become, how snobbish, self-serving, and insulated by my own concerns in a way that kept me disconnected from a world that was big and unpredictable and unsafe and full – maybe – of messengers of God that I might have overlooked in my narrowness of vision. I saw that day that I didn’t see much at all. It’s been over twenty years since then, and I can still see his face. I never knew his name, never will. But I do have a strong hunch where he might have come from and why he spoke to me.
There are some similarities in the Gospel for today. The people in the synagogue thought they knew Jesus well enough. They could tell you all about his history, his genealogy, probably his prospects too, all the stuff that mattered, and there were to be no surprises there. And that’s the saddest thing, because they didn’t see him clearly, couldn’t be surprised, couldn’t see the miracle in the middle of who he was, and who he could be for them. Even Jesus was astonished at their lack of belief, “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”
Let’s link that up with two bits, pericopes that show up earlier in Mark: First, Jesus said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’ That connects with last Sunday’s lessons with Mark’s story where the story of the healing of Jairus’s daughter and the unnamed woman who touched Jesus’ garments) are a world away from this insular little community. So what makes the difference? (and here I am quoting from the recent sermon of an American friend from those Berkeley days that I am back on touch with courtesy of Facebook).
“What brings these two people together [Jairus with his dying daughter and the woman with the issue of blood] is their shared desperation and pure, naked need. They have nothing to hide behind or to hide from. Nothing has worked for them, despite the fact that they have each played by the rules and done what they're supposed to do, according to their religion.
“What brings them together is a decision to step outside the boundaries of their society [and I would add their taken-for-granted reality and their religious conventions] and to go directly to Jesus... Interestingly, Jairus and the woman make no confession of faith, no expression of belief in Jesus as Christ. They simply both bring to Jesus their wounded selves, and he responds with generous grace.
"And this is what [is going to] bother... the authorities of the day. God's grace as expressed in Jesus seems nearly wild, it is so far outside of the boundaries of society and religion...That God wishes to touch each and everyone personally and collectively through Jesus Christ. God's grace cannot be limited, even by the structures of...religion... God's generosity, expressed in the grace of Jesus Christ, goes beyond anyone's expectations.”
Unless you already have him all figured out. Unless your structure is built so tight and strong, your scripture, your tradition, your community, unless Jesus himself is so well wrapped that there’s nothing to learn, to see, to surprise, and then it’s all boxed up safe and tight. There is nothing to be learned here unless you can break out of that situation by the new light of Christ.
To quote that wonderful film “The Philadelphia Story”, “The time to make up your mind about people is never!” And the same may be true in the life of faith.
For faith and Love both come in waiting in hope for the unexpected, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”. That’s where Paul’s line about “power... made perfect in weakness.” makes sense. In the loss of old certainties, new versions, virtues and visions, possibilities and people can break through. The bad news is that they often crack open in crisis, in those dangerous opportunities where old ideas and understandings stumble and die and new possibilities bear forth new beginnings, and it can hurt like hell.
But to reach for God’s light in the moment when we’re caught in an old trap can also open new doors of perception, new understandings, new revelation and new relationship to the reality of God. And that’s a paradox, and a good one. To quote Paul again, “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me... For whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” For God can be new, amazing, surprising, revelatory when we see him anew, when new possibilities emerge, when the old road dies and leaves us newborn again on another way.
The man on the subway platform in San Francisco forced me to look at him, and in that moment I saw parts of myself that I had never seen before. But I also realized that when we were looking at each other, when he forced me to meet him face to face, that he forgave me. It took me a little longer to come to terms with the depth of my racism and classism and the shallowness of my egoism: all that took awhile and in some way it is still working its way out. But that was my problem and my possibility, not his. He had already forgiven me. It was both all over and all new at that moment and he had left me seeing a world that was somehow all new. And for that I was very thankful. I hope that unsought got surprise happened to some of the people who were left behind after Jesus left that rather self-satisfied synagogue and went on his way.
So maybe that’s why we come together as church sometimes, in this particular subway station of the sprit, in the midst of our disciplined travels and well-planned lives, to be surprised enough to look for God in those we overlook, to be forgiven by those we’ve never seen clearly before, including our Lord: to be renewed in a new vision of the neighbor, the stranger, our very selves. Sometimes it is not easy, but it can be wonderful. So we stop here on in the middle of the journey of our lives, to come to the table and take the nourishment, bread and wine, living water, the flesh and blood and love of God into our lives. So that we can see it all – the world, the friend, the neighbor, the stranger, more clearly when we meet them all face to face, here in the outer suburbs of the Kingdom of Heaven and so that we can continue the ministry of Christ, to be messengers of repentance, refreshment, forgiveness and renewal, enlightenment. To see the world in God’s light and God’s love and God’s life. All in the name of Christ.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Pentecost Sermon 2009
Pentecost 2009
St. Peter’s Eastern Hill
Robert Whalley
Acts 2: 1-11
Galatians 5:16-25
John 15:26-27; 16:12-15
According to authorities, the easiest way to trap a monkey is to take a coconut, punch a smallish hole in it, empty it, tie it to the ground and fill it with a few pieces of good food. I am not sure what qualifies as good monkey food, maybe straw, and I am inclined to go for pizza and chocolate, but am prepared to see that as pure projection. Anyway, when the monkey comes exploring, he sees the food inside the coconut and puts his hand in. He finds he can’t grab hold of the food and get his hand out at the same time. And he won’t let go. Supposedly a monkey will try to hold onto the food even when the people with the nets come ‘round, even when he’s going to get trapped, lose everything, he’ll still try to hold on.
This story scares me a bit, because there is something in me that often wants to hold on, to an old idea, to an old idol, to an old plan or an old pain. But what is more important than saying yes to life and to God in the present moment? What are we trying to hold onto? Is there an old idea of failure or success? Is there a worn out list somewhere of people we tried to impress when we were younger? Is it an old idea of our religion, of how to act it out and live it out? What are we holding on to that holds us back, that can trap us, trip us up, keep us from turning around to say yes to the present reality of celebrating life and love right now, when that’s what might matter most?
Now most days I believe the kingdom of heaven, the realm of the spirit, the way of Jesus, the reign of God, is not a place to be tight-fisted. It is also not easy to get hold of, not easily condensed into a book or a creed, not a winning ticket, not even just a place to rest. Don’t get me wrong, none these things are bad or wrong; we need benchmarks and rest-stops, records, starting points, places where we can turn around and begin to live again. They are all valuable, but they are not the way, and there is even a danger that they can turn into detours, get us out of the way. There is such a deeply human tendency to think that checking out the cookbook is like eating the meal, or looking at the map is like moving into the territory.
But the way of Jesus is a way to live and move and have our being: it’s more of a walking tour where you start right here! Because in life in Christ there is so much “here” right here! Here in a way you walk, inhale, exhale, accept, receive and give over every minute. Every time that you take it in, turn it over, put it out, love your neighbor as yourself, heaven happens here and now. A way that is forever new and renewed in the making and giving and taking the gift of the moment. Again, nothing you can get your head or hand around, less like a bank account or a lesson plan, more like a flower or a fresh breeze, or love: Jesus sings a song of the intimacy of God breathed by the spirit in every moment of creation. That’s the gift, that’s the way the way works in each of us as well as in all of us together. We can’t lay hold of it easy, but that’s the way.
That’s why I think we have four Gospels which don’t quite fit together, to show us how wide the way is, because the truth of it isn’t tailored to suit us all the time. I’ve said this before, but I figure the evangelists have four family albums, four sets of snaps from different sides of the family tree, with different vantage points, different focus, pointing towards a different purpose with different results. So when you look at all the records together you find important stuff that doesn’t add up and won’t fit in your outline. You can’t use it easily for as a morality to suit your own mentality. And that’s good!
For you get something far better; a kind of moving picture that emerges by living with the Bible, looking into it and through it, like a kids flip book, that you can use as a kind of moving-picture of faith in motion. So you learn the way of Jesus by watching him move, you learn by moving with his rhythm, following his lead, walking his walk, learning to dance, to partner with him: both companions in the intricacies and rhythms of your own life and times as well as that of all the disparate and communities where he loves to be found: the communities where you are bound to find love. And that can be good news.
Because if God’s openhanded way and truth is the way to follow; then the self-directed documentary of who we want to be and where we ought to go, all the plots, hopes, fears, memories and desire, or follies and forecasts that we hold on to, we can let all that go! For then we can be held in the free-gift of God’s true love, right here, right now. In a way willing to be filled with "God-shaped events," instances of creativity, redemption, blessed mercy and surprise; when the world ignites with Pentecostal connection, compassion, wisdom, justice, love.
But there is something is us that wants to fight that, keep our hand in, get what we want. That relates to what Paul is talking about in the Epistle to the Galatians with his nasty little list: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing” are all attempts to grip power, passion, come to control, to make the world our way. But listen to the other list: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” All openhanded ways to be companions, neighbors, lovers, freely giving without the need for control or power. A bright dance, a procession from the heart of creation, from the deepest heart of love in the fragile centre of the human journey.
We see those instances shining brightly in the life of Jesus, a moving pattern of the will and the love of God, and learn to breathe that spirit here, in the middle of our lives. We come here to learn to walk that way, walk in that hope.
And that takes us to John’s Gospel. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” Perhaps what this spirit declares in the Book of Acts, where each person hears it anew in the tongue of their tribe or family; is that the biggest of those “deeds of power,” is that the tender power of love will win, will live forever. But for most of us these are only “hints and guesses.” We will only know this fully in walking the way and see it clearly at the end, finally, in the light of heaven, under the kind eyes of the saints and through the grace of an empty cross, under the wide sky of eternity where we will eat the bread of heaven. We are here on the way to ease into that truth.
So don’t let your hand be caught in holding on to what you wanted in life, instead let yourself come home to Christ in the midst of the world of living and dying, in the hope of heaven. Deitrich Bonhoffer writes, “Christ bids you come and die,” and that is not easy, but it can be very good. Die to the fiction of a controlling life so that you can live for the truth of abounding and outpouring love. Stop grasping at dried straws. Give up a lonely living death, and begin to lose yourself in the hope of Christ’s dying-rising life. Live to breathe, move, dance with all the wild, incomparable, highly unlikely, quickly passing by, possibilities, in a stewardship, partnership, friendship, kinship with God in Christ, in communion with everybody else, a dance that will breathe us, neighbors to the last, and, lay us to rest, take us along, raise us up and bring us home.
Welcome to Pentecost!
St. Peter’s Eastern Hill
Robert Whalley
Acts 2: 1-11
Galatians 5:16-25
John 15:26-27; 16:12-15
According to authorities, the easiest way to trap a monkey is to take a coconut, punch a smallish hole in it, empty it, tie it to the ground and fill it with a few pieces of good food. I am not sure what qualifies as good monkey food, maybe straw, and I am inclined to go for pizza and chocolate, but am prepared to see that as pure projection. Anyway, when the monkey comes exploring, he sees the food inside the coconut and puts his hand in. He finds he can’t grab hold of the food and get his hand out at the same time. And he won’t let go. Supposedly a monkey will try to hold onto the food even when the people with the nets come ‘round, even when he’s going to get trapped, lose everything, he’ll still try to hold on.
This story scares me a bit, because there is something in me that often wants to hold on, to an old idea, to an old idol, to an old plan or an old pain. But what is more important than saying yes to life and to God in the present moment? What are we trying to hold onto? Is there an old idea of failure or success? Is there a worn out list somewhere of people we tried to impress when we were younger? Is it an old idea of our religion, of how to act it out and live it out? What are we holding on to that holds us back, that can trap us, trip us up, keep us from turning around to say yes to the present reality of celebrating life and love right now, when that’s what might matter most?
Now most days I believe the kingdom of heaven, the realm of the spirit, the way of Jesus, the reign of God, is not a place to be tight-fisted. It is also not easy to get hold of, not easily condensed into a book or a creed, not a winning ticket, not even just a place to rest. Don’t get me wrong, none these things are bad or wrong; we need benchmarks and rest-stops, records, starting points, places where we can turn around and begin to live again. They are all valuable, but they are not the way, and there is even a danger that they can turn into detours, get us out of the way. There is such a deeply human tendency to think that checking out the cookbook is like eating the meal, or looking at the map is like moving into the territory.
But the way of Jesus is a way to live and move and have our being: it’s more of a walking tour where you start right here! Because in life in Christ there is so much “here” right here! Here in a way you walk, inhale, exhale, accept, receive and give over every minute. Every time that you take it in, turn it over, put it out, love your neighbor as yourself, heaven happens here and now. A way that is forever new and renewed in the making and giving and taking the gift of the moment. Again, nothing you can get your head or hand around, less like a bank account or a lesson plan, more like a flower or a fresh breeze, or love: Jesus sings a song of the intimacy of God breathed by the spirit in every moment of creation. That’s the gift, that’s the way the way works in each of us as well as in all of us together. We can’t lay hold of it easy, but that’s the way.
That’s why I think we have four Gospels which don’t quite fit together, to show us how wide the way is, because the truth of it isn’t tailored to suit us all the time. I’ve said this before, but I figure the evangelists have four family albums, four sets of snaps from different sides of the family tree, with different vantage points, different focus, pointing towards a different purpose with different results. So when you look at all the records together you find important stuff that doesn’t add up and won’t fit in your outline. You can’t use it easily for as a morality to suit your own mentality. And that’s good!
For you get something far better; a kind of moving picture that emerges by living with the Bible, looking into it and through it, like a kids flip book, that you can use as a kind of moving-picture of faith in motion. So you learn the way of Jesus by watching him move, you learn by moving with his rhythm, following his lead, walking his walk, learning to dance, to partner with him: both companions in the intricacies and rhythms of your own life and times as well as that of all the disparate and communities where he loves to be found: the communities where you are bound to find love. And that can be good news.
Because if God’s openhanded way and truth is the way to follow; then the self-directed documentary of who we want to be and where we ought to go, all the plots, hopes, fears, memories and desire, or follies and forecasts that we hold on to, we can let all that go! For then we can be held in the free-gift of God’s true love, right here, right now. In a way willing to be filled with "God-shaped events," instances of creativity, redemption, blessed mercy and surprise; when the world ignites with Pentecostal connection, compassion, wisdom, justice, love.
But there is something is us that wants to fight that, keep our hand in, get what we want. That relates to what Paul is talking about in the Epistle to the Galatians with his nasty little list: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing” are all attempts to grip power, passion, come to control, to make the world our way. But listen to the other list: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” All openhanded ways to be companions, neighbors, lovers, freely giving without the need for control or power. A bright dance, a procession from the heart of creation, from the deepest heart of love in the fragile centre of the human journey.
We see those instances shining brightly in the life of Jesus, a moving pattern of the will and the love of God, and learn to breathe that spirit here, in the middle of our lives. We come here to learn to walk that way, walk in that hope.
And that takes us to John’s Gospel. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” Perhaps what this spirit declares in the Book of Acts, where each person hears it anew in the tongue of their tribe or family; is that the biggest of those “deeds of power,” is that the tender power of love will win, will live forever. But for most of us these are only “hints and guesses.” We will only know this fully in walking the way and see it clearly at the end, finally, in the light of heaven, under the kind eyes of the saints and through the grace of an empty cross, under the wide sky of eternity where we will eat the bread of heaven. We are here on the way to ease into that truth.
So don’t let your hand be caught in holding on to what you wanted in life, instead let yourself come home to Christ in the midst of the world of living and dying, in the hope of heaven. Deitrich Bonhoffer writes, “Christ bids you come and die,” and that is not easy, but it can be very good. Die to the fiction of a controlling life so that you can live for the truth of abounding and outpouring love. Stop grasping at dried straws. Give up a lonely living death, and begin to lose yourself in the hope of Christ’s dying-rising life. Live to breathe, move, dance with all the wild, incomparable, highly unlikely, quickly passing by, possibilities, in a stewardship, partnership, friendship, kinship with God in Christ, in communion with everybody else, a dance that will breathe us, neighbors to the last, and, lay us to rest, take us along, raise us up and bring us home.
Welcome to Pentecost!
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Friday, May 01, 2009
Sermon, Trinity College Theological School, St, Philip and St. James
A bit of a preface. Three bits of homiletic advice you didn’t ask for: first, always preach on the Gospel. Second, always write a new sermon for every occasion, and even if a ten year old sermon from another seminary in another country starts to surface like a very appropriate gift for the base coat, don’t use it! And third, if you do, don’t tell anyone.
Two Quotes to start: first, the poet e.e. cummings, in a play called HIM.
"I feel only one thing, I have only one conviction ...
I am an Artist, I am a Human, I am a Failure
and always I am repeating a simple and dark and little formula...
always myself mutters and remutters ... I breathe and I whisper:
"An Artist, a Human, a Failure, must proceed."
Then, in the Gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
So I want to talk about art, humanity, Jesus, discipleship, failure, and thanksgiving as an aid to walk the way, tell the truth and live life fully.
Jesus is certainly the ultimate artist, if you look at the work and the words of the man in the gospels you see a tapestry that combines radical obedience and complete freedom. Jesus paints with all his pallet, uses all the words, makes paintings and poems in languages we never thought of before, using every color and combination, text and context, sight and sound, melody and mood to make a point. In all his teachings and actions he artfully lights up the glory of a human being fully alive and in love with creation and God.
He is fully human and, in that, somewhat of a failure too. Look at his life and ministry. He has family difficulties, and certainly a less than perfect track record on choosing disciples and friends. Often misunderstood, he clashes with the religious and political establishment of his time. He would not have done well in most seminaries or ordination processes in most dioceses. There are moments in his ministry when he must feel he is in the middle of a maelstrom of fear, anger and frustration. When he gets to the top of the mountain he is alone, feels forsaken, and cries out to God as the curtain slowly falls. And that is the model for us here. For he moves in faith all the way through failure into something else that we can’t quite get a handle on. Something else that just might be handling us.
Now I always hoped that having faith would make the road of life easier, that my life as a Christian would make me healthier, more able to follow the pilgrim way with flexibility and grace,; sort of a spiritual Pilate’s class, and in the long run I think it does. But there are tough times in the process, especially in seminary as well as in professional ministry, where life is not easy, where breakdowns, occur as well as breakthroughs. At least if we do it right. And that hurts.
Because, for most of us, answering a call, coming to seminary meant taking ourselves more seriously than ever before. To say, "I believe that God is asking me to serve in a new and professional way," stretches us out, feels a bit surrealistic, can be hard to share. So even if it is right, it is never easy. Personally I wish that the call to the spiritual life had certain technological adaptations: like Call Waiting and Call Forwarding. Maybe a preview application, so that when you got a call, you could see if you wanted to open it now you now or after lunch: maybe years after lunch!
But you take the call, getting encouraged, for the most part, from friends and family, cohorts and compatriots, and as you follow the new life of service to God you find yourself stretched beyond capacity. In my experience of ministry and church, this seems sometimes inevitable! I am sorry, but you’re likely to crash and burn somewhere in the process. It goes with the territory. If you haven’t been hurt yet, you will be.
If you haven’t had a vestry or a commission or council or congregant or a friend or an ecclesiastical enemy betray you; if you haven’t been stymied by the demands of a syllabus or a final paper or a partner, hang around, there’s always tomorrow, everybody has a good Friday someday.
This is not to say that it is always for the best, Thomas Merton says, just because it’s a cross, it doesn’t mean it’s a cross for you now! And the church can be dysfunctional at times, even sadistic, we don’t do power real well. So don’t take all the crucifixions that come, but do take the ones that come seriously for it seems to be part of the package:
Ministry is an uphill ride. And the question is how do we take it, where do we go with it? Ephesians says, “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." And it may take a bit of a miracle to understand that sometimes. For the old words mean different things on the different sides of the cross. The justice we find is made perfect in mercy the prudence we practice comes in letting go of who we think we are and what we believe we will do. The strength comes when all our life is given wholly to God as an offering. The way and the truth and the life happen in the midst of detours and falsehoods and dead-ends, and in the cacaphony of major contradictions.
That is why you’re here. It is part of the package. Why you are painting with more colors, using wider words, stretching for life that stretches you beyond ease, so that God can take more place in your life and your ministry. So that God can speak bigger words through you and so God can grow more gracefully in the lives of other people. We are here to become a new language, Christ being the model for the keynote address as well as the corner-stone; And it hurts, for this language is built on the history that we bring to God and the history that God brings to us - and by gut-wrenching grace they may be the same - which leads to making us painfully part of the alphabet of glory, leading us to be love letters from God posted in peculiar places. Because God says something specific and unique in the lives of each of us.
And I think that this depends upon our failure at some specific point. So that God can succeed in some new way we could never envision. That is where Christ’s baptism, teaching, healing, crucifixion meets ours and changes it into resurrection and eternal priesthood.
People in Alcoholics Anonymous say the easiest way to make God laugh is to explain your plans, and over the years I think this chapel has probably made God rock! So today, right now, please, surrender the ideas of both success and failure. Give them all up, then take up the care and ministration of God which comes as a gift, take it all up and make Thanksgiving!
Listen: we join in the Eucharistic banquet because we are the Eucharistic banquet! The feast of shared love we recollect today is built by God’s grace in the broken flesh and spilled blood of our own incomplete lives and unfinished journeys. All washed clean in the font of Christ’s love. And it is up to us to finally learn that the way to pass the test and get past the temptations and the pain is to simply ascent to be lost in the heart of the journey. This is tough news for those of us who are trying to make a judgment call about what it means and where we are going, but know this: God is hidden, waiting to be discovered, in both the pain and the glory, in the good times and bad, failure and fullness; waiting to be discovered as the way and the truth and the life, right here and right now in the middle of it all.
Amen.
Two Quotes to start: first, the poet e.e. cummings, in a play called HIM.
"I feel only one thing, I have only one conviction ...
I am an Artist, I am a Human, I am a Failure
and always I am repeating a simple and dark and little formula...
always myself mutters and remutters ... I breathe and I whisper:
"An Artist, a Human, a Failure, must proceed."
Then, in the Gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
So I want to talk about art, humanity, Jesus, discipleship, failure, and thanksgiving as an aid to walk the way, tell the truth and live life fully.
Jesus is certainly the ultimate artist, if you look at the work and the words of the man in the gospels you see a tapestry that combines radical obedience and complete freedom. Jesus paints with all his pallet, uses all the words, makes paintings and poems in languages we never thought of before, using every color and combination, text and context, sight and sound, melody and mood to make a point. In all his teachings and actions he artfully lights up the glory of a human being fully alive and in love with creation and God.
He is fully human and, in that, somewhat of a failure too. Look at his life and ministry. He has family difficulties, and certainly a less than perfect track record on choosing disciples and friends. Often misunderstood, he clashes with the religious and political establishment of his time. He would not have done well in most seminaries or ordination processes in most dioceses. There are moments in his ministry when he must feel he is in the middle of a maelstrom of fear, anger and frustration. When he gets to the top of the mountain he is alone, feels forsaken, and cries out to God as the curtain slowly falls. And that is the model for us here. For he moves in faith all the way through failure into something else that we can’t quite get a handle on. Something else that just might be handling us.
Now I always hoped that having faith would make the road of life easier, that my life as a Christian would make me healthier, more able to follow the pilgrim way with flexibility and grace,; sort of a spiritual Pilate’s class, and in the long run I think it does. But there are tough times in the process, especially in seminary as well as in professional ministry, where life is not easy, where breakdowns, occur as well as breakthroughs. At least if we do it right. And that hurts.
Because, for most of us, answering a call, coming to seminary meant taking ourselves more seriously than ever before. To say, "I believe that God is asking me to serve in a new and professional way," stretches us out, feels a bit surrealistic, can be hard to share. So even if it is right, it is never easy. Personally I wish that the call to the spiritual life had certain technological adaptations: like Call Waiting and Call Forwarding. Maybe a preview application, so that when you got a call, you could see if you wanted to open it now you now or after lunch: maybe years after lunch!
But you take the call, getting encouraged, for the most part, from friends and family, cohorts and compatriots, and as you follow the new life of service to God you find yourself stretched beyond capacity. In my experience of ministry and church, this seems sometimes inevitable! I am sorry, but you’re likely to crash and burn somewhere in the process. It goes with the territory. If you haven’t been hurt yet, you will be.
If you haven’t had a vestry or a commission or council or congregant or a friend or an ecclesiastical enemy betray you; if you haven’t been stymied by the demands of a syllabus or a final paper or a partner, hang around, there’s always tomorrow, everybody has a good Friday someday.
This is not to say that it is always for the best, Thomas Merton says, just because it’s a cross, it doesn’t mean it’s a cross for you now! And the church can be dysfunctional at times, even sadistic, we don’t do power real well. So don’t take all the crucifixions that come, but do take the ones that come seriously for it seems to be part of the package:
Ministry is an uphill ride. And the question is how do we take it, where do we go with it? Ephesians says, “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." And it may take a bit of a miracle to understand that sometimes. For the old words mean different things on the different sides of the cross. The justice we find is made perfect in mercy the prudence we practice comes in letting go of who we think we are and what we believe we will do. The strength comes when all our life is given wholly to God as an offering. The way and the truth and the life happen in the midst of detours and falsehoods and dead-ends, and in the cacaphony of major contradictions.
That is why you’re here. It is part of the package. Why you are painting with more colors, using wider words, stretching for life that stretches you beyond ease, so that God can take more place in your life and your ministry. So that God can speak bigger words through you and so God can grow more gracefully in the lives of other people. We are here to become a new language, Christ being the model for the keynote address as well as the corner-stone; And it hurts, for this language is built on the history that we bring to God and the history that God brings to us - and by gut-wrenching grace they may be the same - which leads to making us painfully part of the alphabet of glory, leading us to be love letters from God posted in peculiar places. Because God says something specific and unique in the lives of each of us.
And I think that this depends upon our failure at some specific point. So that God can succeed in some new way we could never envision. That is where Christ’s baptism, teaching, healing, crucifixion meets ours and changes it into resurrection and eternal priesthood.
People in Alcoholics Anonymous say the easiest way to make God laugh is to explain your plans, and over the years I think this chapel has probably made God rock! So today, right now, please, surrender the ideas of both success and failure. Give them all up, then take up the care and ministration of God which comes as a gift, take it all up and make Thanksgiving!
Listen: we join in the Eucharistic banquet because we are the Eucharistic banquet! The feast of shared love we recollect today is built by God’s grace in the broken flesh and spilled blood of our own incomplete lives and unfinished journeys. All washed clean in the font of Christ’s love. And it is up to us to finally learn that the way to pass the test and get past the temptations and the pain is to simply ascent to be lost in the heart of the journey. This is tough news for those of us who are trying to make a judgment call about what it means and where we are going, but know this: God is hidden, waiting to be discovered, in both the pain and the glory, in the good times and bad, failure and fullness; waiting to be discovered as the way and the truth and the life, right here and right now in the middle of it all.
Amen.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Some News!
Life changes and I've been very busy lately. In March I started working at a new full-time job in mental health chaplaincy. There are three aspects of the work, The first focus is “service planning and strategic planning, identifying, consultating, networking with potential partnerships in education and service delivery areas as well as advocacy and promotion in networking with agencies, hospital networks and faith communities”. Second is “research and development of education materials and programmes relating to spirituality and mental health”. And finally some hands-on chaplaincy, working for a day a week in two settings: a forensic hospital and a private mental health hospital and clinic, both offering a broad spectrum of services.
It is a nice stretch for me, with a lot that draws on my work in tertiary chaplaincy as well as moving into some new skills and practices. It also takes me back twenty years to my original training in Clinical Pastoral Education, which took place on a mental ward outside of San Francisco, so there’s a bit of a circle here as well. I am working with an interesting team of chaplaincy types and am enjoying the staff at both hospitals. I am also doing a lot of reading/research on spirituality and mental health, so there’s a good learning curve as well.
And it’s pretty exciting. When I left RMIT last year, I was aware that I might have a tough time getting any job, let a alone a good one, so this new beginning is very good news as well as a chance to grow ministry and gifts in a new area. I am looking at doing a unit of CPE (part-time) and maybe another grad degree in the process. So, with all that, it's keeping me very busy.
It is a nice stretch for me, with a lot that draws on my work in tertiary chaplaincy as well as moving into some new skills and practices. It also takes me back twenty years to my original training in Clinical Pastoral Education, which took place on a mental ward outside of San Francisco, so there’s a bit of a circle here as well. I am working with an interesting team of chaplaincy types and am enjoying the staff at both hospitals. I am also doing a lot of reading/research on spirituality and mental health, so there’s a good learning curve as well.
And it’s pretty exciting. When I left RMIT last year, I was aware that I might have a tough time getting any job, let a alone a good one, so this new beginning is very good news as well as a chance to grow ministry and gifts in a new area. I am looking at doing a unit of CPE (part-time) and maybe another grad degree in the process. So, with all that, it's keeping me very busy.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Building your own Worship Place. Lent 3B 15 March 2009
On Friday mornings this semester I’m taking the 19 tram to the Theological School at Trinity College and teaching a class on Spirituality and Prayer. Last week I began our time by asking the 12 students in the class to check in and share a bit of their present situation by finishing the sentence, “if I were a plant, I’d be...’” The answers were wide and wonderful, with responses like a rose, a gardenia, a storm-tossed eucalyptus, and a bare branch with some promise of new growth. So next week I am going to begin by asking: “if you were a worship space, what would you look like?” Since I get to think about this early I already know my answer! If I were a worship space I would be a circular room with doors and some windows and four artifacts hanging on the wall, equally spaced, one in each direction, plus an altar placed square in the middle. Seven things in all
I’d start with some clear and simple windows - so we can see, light and air; both important things and a very scriptural way to begin with. Look at the first chapter of Genesis, starting at the creation, void, darkness and a wind from God, then God creates light and sees that it is good! We can lose sight of that: that breath and light, good in our sight, are prime vehicles of grace and spirit. So we can take a breath and see where ywe are, where we’re going, who we’re with, what’s good and bad, what matters and why. For all that we need God’s light and air from the very start. So room for the air to move and windows to let the light in. Probably some candles too, but most of the day I’d let the light come through the windows in this particular room.
Then on one wall, I’d have the Ten Commandments; maybe both the version from Exodus as well as the version from Deuteronomy we’ve heard today, plus a few more good laws from the Hebrew scripture. Since we’re talking personal preferences I might have the line from Micah, “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God; the speech in Deuteronomy that starts, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor”, Plus some other lines from the Psalms, I am always surprised by “The river of God is full of water” and “In the temple of the Lord, all are crying glory”. I would also throw in a few inconvenient truths so I don’t get lazy: lines like “Do not lend money for usury, or lend food for a profit”. plus the big ten: “I am the Lord your God, don’t have others Gods, don’t use my name wrongly, keep the sabbath, honor your parents, don’t kill, no adultery, don’t steal, lie, covet or desire anyone or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” These are important truths, and we need them in prominent places! But we don’t need them to be a God in themselves. There’s a danger there. They are means of discernment and service, but not the thing itself, and to make these laws into little deities on their own is like honoring the dinnerware but not eating the meal!
So to balance it out, on the other side of this circular room, Jesus’ summary of the law from Matthew’s Gospel: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And there is a second like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' The whole of the Law and the Prophets depends on these two commandments."
So the summary set right across from the other verses: lines and laws from scripture, so we can look back and forth, move from one side to the other: law and love, imperatives and incentives, what we need to do and why, but keeping them in close contact so that the law doesn’t get dead and rigid, and so love will keep fresh, won’t go all stale and sentimental; keeping a little tension between the two in that back and forth motion, while keeping room for light and grace in the middle because some important and deeply faithful questions can come up in that space, lively questions:
“If a marriage has gone dead, does it make sense to stay in it? Is divorce and remarriage in that case an instance of adultery? If parents are abusive, do they need to be honored, is it a sin to say good-bye? If a hungry child needs food on the Sabbath, can we gather food in the field, buy meat in the market, steal it if necessary? Would that be all right on the Sabbath? Is there room for a Sunday brunch with an old friend? And what about war, the line says don’t kill, but what about killing the guy that’s threatening to blow up the plane, the plan, the playing field, the schoolyard? Is this my neighbor? Is this someone loved by God, need this person be loved by me?
Moving back and forth between law and love in a life and death dance between God’s given grace and our taken necessities can be tough, and there are often not easy answers in the middle, but it can also means your questing and your questions and the quality of your answers are fresh in the air and light of the present day. It’ll keep you busy, and that’s no bad thing!
So two more things for rest and recreation; first, a crucifix. For the Lord of life died on that tree, and while I still don’t have all the answers as to why, I am convinced that this is the truest picture of how and where God’s love does not stop, but instead comes closest to the failure and ultimate loss of life for everyone. One big cross with Jesus right there, but maybe a place for others too; temporary pictures nearby as they come to mind: pictures of casualties of fire, flood, war and famine, of HIV and old age, of sagging heart and sad souls, bad drugs and gang wars, victims of powers and principalities, economics, lust, desire and greed. Pictures of the places where everybody gets lost! Right next to the crucifix.
For Jesus is there as a sign that God’s love, grace, wisdom is right there too, Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. That’s where Paul is right! Because the last place you’d want to look is where the greatest hope can be found.
And last, across the way an empty cross as well, maybe even a gold one. Because the crucifixion is not the last word on the way. We walk the way of the saviour, the tenuous road between the light of the law and the gravity of grace so that we may be surprised by the empty cross, the hope of resurrection, to be ever surprised that the world is this large, surpassing all we could ever understand: because standing beyond the crucified end is an open promise that God’s love is beyond death, has defeated death, shown it to be lie, points to the ultimate truth of love, this Jesus, who stands there for life, life for us.
And perhaps that’s one of the reasons why he went to cast out the money changers out of the forecourt of the temple in the Gospel reading for today. It was known to be an unjust system, where merchants, often in collusion with temple priests, making unfair profits from pilgrims, with overcharging as the norm. But (and this might be a more subtle issue) it was also a way to turn these transactions of temple tax and sacrifice into a theology of “you get what you pay for” instead of “all is yours by Grace”, and that makes the temple too narrow for this wide drama of love and redemption and death and life and love.
So Christ has given us another temple and another table in the middle of a sacred place, as well in the middle of our lives, where he meets us in the wide field between law and love and life and death, where we can take our questions and quandaries, and meet him in a enduring and surprising answer of light and grace. The altar in the heart of the church is one of those tables, and there are others. And I think that is why we are here.
Teachers can do terrible things sometimes, even give unannounced quizzes, so I will leave you with this one. “If you were a place of worship, what would you look like?” Because, of course, you are.
I’d start with some clear and simple windows - so we can see, light and air; both important things and a very scriptural way to begin with. Look at the first chapter of Genesis, starting at the creation, void, darkness and a wind from God, then God creates light and sees that it is good! We can lose sight of that: that breath and light, good in our sight, are prime vehicles of grace and spirit. So we can take a breath and see where ywe are, where we’re going, who we’re with, what’s good and bad, what matters and why. For all that we need God’s light and air from the very start. So room for the air to move and windows to let the light in. Probably some candles too, but most of the day I’d let the light come through the windows in this particular room.
Then on one wall, I’d have the Ten Commandments; maybe both the version from Exodus as well as the version from Deuteronomy we’ve heard today, plus a few more good laws from the Hebrew scripture. Since we’re talking personal preferences I might have the line from Micah, “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God; the speech in Deuteronomy that starts, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor”, Plus some other lines from the Psalms, I am always surprised by “The river of God is full of water” and “In the temple of the Lord, all are crying glory”. I would also throw in a few inconvenient truths so I don’t get lazy: lines like “Do not lend money for usury, or lend food for a profit”. plus the big ten: “I am the Lord your God, don’t have others Gods, don’t use my name wrongly, keep the sabbath, honor your parents, don’t kill, no adultery, don’t steal, lie, covet or desire anyone or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” These are important truths, and we need them in prominent places! But we don’t need them to be a God in themselves. There’s a danger there. They are means of discernment and service, but not the thing itself, and to make these laws into little deities on their own is like honoring the dinnerware but not eating the meal!
So to balance it out, on the other side of this circular room, Jesus’ summary of the law from Matthew’s Gospel: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And there is a second like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' The whole of the Law and the Prophets depends on these two commandments."
So the summary set right across from the other verses: lines and laws from scripture, so we can look back and forth, move from one side to the other: law and love, imperatives and incentives, what we need to do and why, but keeping them in close contact so that the law doesn’t get dead and rigid, and so love will keep fresh, won’t go all stale and sentimental; keeping a little tension between the two in that back and forth motion, while keeping room for light and grace in the middle because some important and deeply faithful questions can come up in that space, lively questions:
“If a marriage has gone dead, does it make sense to stay in it? Is divorce and remarriage in that case an instance of adultery? If parents are abusive, do they need to be honored, is it a sin to say good-bye? If a hungry child needs food on the Sabbath, can we gather food in the field, buy meat in the market, steal it if necessary? Would that be all right on the Sabbath? Is there room for a Sunday brunch with an old friend? And what about war, the line says don’t kill, but what about killing the guy that’s threatening to blow up the plane, the plan, the playing field, the schoolyard? Is this my neighbor? Is this someone loved by God, need this person be loved by me?
Moving back and forth between law and love in a life and death dance between God’s given grace and our taken necessities can be tough, and there are often not easy answers in the middle, but it can also means your questing and your questions and the quality of your answers are fresh in the air and light of the present day. It’ll keep you busy, and that’s no bad thing!
So two more things for rest and recreation; first, a crucifix. For the Lord of life died on that tree, and while I still don’t have all the answers as to why, I am convinced that this is the truest picture of how and where God’s love does not stop, but instead comes closest to the failure and ultimate loss of life for everyone. One big cross with Jesus right there, but maybe a place for others too; temporary pictures nearby as they come to mind: pictures of casualties of fire, flood, war and famine, of HIV and old age, of sagging heart and sad souls, bad drugs and gang wars, victims of powers and principalities, economics, lust, desire and greed. Pictures of the places where everybody gets lost! Right next to the crucifix.
For Jesus is there as a sign that God’s love, grace, wisdom is right there too, Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. That’s where Paul is right! Because the last place you’d want to look is where the greatest hope can be found.
And last, across the way an empty cross as well, maybe even a gold one. Because the crucifixion is not the last word on the way. We walk the way of the saviour, the tenuous road between the light of the law and the gravity of grace so that we may be surprised by the empty cross, the hope of resurrection, to be ever surprised that the world is this large, surpassing all we could ever understand: because standing beyond the crucified end is an open promise that God’s love is beyond death, has defeated death, shown it to be lie, points to the ultimate truth of love, this Jesus, who stands there for life, life for us.
And perhaps that’s one of the reasons why he went to cast out the money changers out of the forecourt of the temple in the Gospel reading for today. It was known to be an unjust system, where merchants, often in collusion with temple priests, making unfair profits from pilgrims, with overcharging as the norm. But (and this might be a more subtle issue) it was also a way to turn these transactions of temple tax and sacrifice into a theology of “you get what you pay for” instead of “all is yours by Grace”, and that makes the temple too narrow for this wide drama of love and redemption and death and life and love.
So Christ has given us another temple and another table in the middle of a sacred place, as well in the middle of our lives, where he meets us in the wide field between law and love and life and death, where we can take our questions and quandaries, and meet him in a enduring and surprising answer of light and grace. The altar in the heart of the church is one of those tables, and there are others. And I think that is why we are here.
Teachers can do terrible things sometimes, even give unannounced quizzes, so I will leave you with this one. “If you were a place of worship, what would you look like?” Because, of course, you are.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
On the way home
Currently at the Frankfurt airport on the way to Heathrow and then an overnight to Bangkok; three days there and home to Melbourne! It's been a wonderful trip, and I am happy to be returning down under again.
Here's a snowy day in Dresden, it will be different in Bangkok!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Getting ready to move!
In three days, right after the Christmas Day service, my best friend and I are heading out for an amazing trip! First stop is Singapore, then points north with a White Christmastide in Sussex. I will try to keep some photos and impressions online as the journey progresses. And it's usually not difficult to document endless pleasures and diversions.
But first, getting some cleaning done and preparing a major Christmas Eve Feast!
But first, getting some cleaning done and preparing a major Christmas Eve Feast!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Farewell from the Senior Chaplain
Dear Friends of the RMIT Chaplaincy,
The season of Advent is a time of great tension and creativity within the Christian community. Culminating with the birth of a new relationship between the most sacred and most mundane in a very surprising way and place, it is both an end and a beginning. It is also a time when new ways often come clear. This has been especially true for me this year.
I have decided that 2008 will be my last year as Senior Chaplain: there are several reasons. First, the job has changed remarkably as the number of chaplains has increased from 3 to 8, and while I have deeply enjoyed recruiting and coordinating a collegial community of professional religious volunteers who bring considerable gifts to RMIT, it has changed the focus and scope of the work. New rooms in the Spiritual Centre and increased relations with student clubs and societies embedded within faith, wisdom and justice traditions have also brought new responsibilities and duties. To juggle all these, along with increased and welcome requests and referrals for pastoral care from other University areas, within the existing and limiting structures and budget, has proved both difficult and frustrating. At this time I will likely request a year “on leave” as an Anglican Chaplain on this campus, but I will consider that option over the summer as I reconsider the priorities of my work at The Merton Centre and Trinity College, University of Melbourne.
There are so many people to thank: Chaplains Jo Dirks, Riad Galil, Rob Miller, Yvonne Poon, Simon Rande Tony Salisbury and Chaplain Soma (plus Linda Kent as our able assistant) have made the job a real pleasure. Working with Sergio Fabris as the Wellness manager was a privilege and joy, and I wish Kitty Vivekanda well in that interim position. Jane Stewart was remarkable in her oversight and we shared some happy moments. So many more should be thanked, but I must stop here.
“Opening Silence”, our regular meditation sessions, has been a bright spot for me in the last few years, and it might be good to gather one more time. I know it is late in the semester, but I will be sitting in the regular place at the regular time (Spiritual Centre, Thursday, starting at 12:30) I hope to see you there,
In any case, please know that the good people of RMIT, past and present, have given me much joy in this time, and to quote the American poet, e.e. cummings, “I will carry you in my heart.”
Peace,
Rob
PS - if you wish to keep up, check my website: themertoncentre.org or visit my blog, chaplinesque.blogspot.com
The season of Advent is a time of great tension and creativity within the Christian community. Culminating with the birth of a new relationship between the most sacred and most mundane in a very surprising way and place, it is both an end and a beginning. It is also a time when new ways often come clear. This has been especially true for me this year.
I have decided that 2008 will be my last year as Senior Chaplain: there are several reasons. First, the job has changed remarkably as the number of chaplains has increased from 3 to 8, and while I have deeply enjoyed recruiting and coordinating a collegial community of professional religious volunteers who bring considerable gifts to RMIT, it has changed the focus and scope of the work. New rooms in the Spiritual Centre and increased relations with student clubs and societies embedded within faith, wisdom and justice traditions have also brought new responsibilities and duties. To juggle all these, along with increased and welcome requests and referrals for pastoral care from other University areas, within the existing and limiting structures and budget, has proved both difficult and frustrating. At this time I will likely request a year “on leave” as an Anglican Chaplain on this campus, but I will consider that option over the summer as I reconsider the priorities of my work at The Merton Centre and Trinity College, University of Melbourne.
There are so many people to thank: Chaplains Jo Dirks, Riad Galil, Rob Miller, Yvonne Poon, Simon Rande Tony Salisbury and Chaplain Soma (plus Linda Kent as our able assistant) have made the job a real pleasure. Working with Sergio Fabris as the Wellness manager was a privilege and joy, and I wish Kitty Vivekanda well in that interim position. Jane Stewart was remarkable in her oversight and we shared some happy moments. So many more should be thanked, but I must stop here.
“Opening Silence”, our regular meditation sessions, has been a bright spot for me in the last few years, and it might be good to gather one more time. I know it is late in the semester, but I will be sitting in the regular place at the regular time (Spiritual Centre, Thursday, starting at 12:30) I hope to see you there,
In any case, please know that the good people of RMIT, past and present, have given me much joy in this time, and to quote the American poet, e.e. cummings, “I will carry you in my heart.”
Peace,
Rob
PS - if you wish to keep up, check my website: themertoncentre.org or visit my blog, chaplinesque.blogspot.com
Monday, December 15, 2008
POETRY AND THE OLD MAN - I just wrote this!
Poetry and the old man are friends,
Have been through many rooms and times,
Served a shared apprenticeship for all
The curved rhythms in the midst of words.
Poetry remembered many moments
Like sunlight coming through an open window
Or laughter down the hall. It loved to
Weave past and present towards some promised future.
Then things changed and even the silence begins to send its own message;
The spacious place between the beginning of breath and the start of speech
Breezed in and left packages not needing to be opened. Now
Poetry and the old man have less to say
But they listen more, with open ears
To growing things, moving light, silent addresses
That leap like the ocean spraying the sky, and
Suddenly make everything wonderfully wet.
Have been through many rooms and times,
Served a shared apprenticeship for all
The curved rhythms in the midst of words.
Poetry remembered many moments
Like sunlight coming through an open window
Or laughter down the hall. It loved to
Weave past and present towards some promised future.
Then things changed and even the silence begins to send its own message;
The spacious place between the beginning of breath and the start of speech
Breezed in and left packages not needing to be opened. Now
Poetry and the old man have less to say
But they listen more, with open ears
To growing things, moving light, silent addresses
That leap like the ocean spraying the sky, and
Suddenly make everything wonderfully wet.
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