Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Let Your Light So Shine (Fr. Tony's Mid-week Message)

 


Let Your Light So Shine
Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
June 29, 2016

“Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

We heard last week here in Ashland a terrible story of one of the primary actors in the OSF troupe as she walked her dog near Railroad Park being harassed and bullied  with racist threats by a passerby. (To see her reaction, click:  https://goo.gl/790WOA).  Racism is alive and well in our community, as much as we would like to think it is a thing of the past.  Oregon’s long history of intentional exclusion and harassment of people of color still casts a shadow in our present.  We seem to be hearing of  and seeing more incidents of hate speech—either veiled or coded or in the language of open bigotry—in recent months.   

I think this is partly due to the overall demeaning tenor of political discourse in the country during this electoral season.  Some complain about “political correctness” and say that their freedoms are under attack by whatever it is they mean by this phrase.  Some politicians are profiting from demonizing foreigners, aliens, and what they call “losers.”  This has, I think, emboldened the closet bigot, who ends up thinking that somehow hate speech is a legitimate act of political expression.    

But the fact of the matter is this:  simple human decency and compassion mean we should not say or think things that are hurtful to others.  This is all the more true when such speech is part of a pattern of past and ongoing oppression of one group by another.    Tarting up such wrong behavior by believing that somehow it helps you “take back our country” actually reveals the nasty white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male privilege at his heart.   

“Political correctness” has nothing to do at its root with political ideology and everything to do with common decency and treating others as we ourselves would want to be treated.  Ethicist John Rawls’ rule of thumb here is advised:  what is fair if you don’t know anything at all about the people involved in a question of fairness (nothing about if it’s you or someone else, your group or another, etc.)  

As part of our baptismal covenant we promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor as [ourself]” and “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being” (BCP, 305).    Part of this means calling people out (including ourselves) when they use stereotypes and labels to dehumanize individuals and groups of people.  

We at Trinity are particularly well placed to show welcome to all, and embrace the glorious diversity of people in our community.  Let’s face this awful background noise of hate in our political cycle in the spirit of the African-American spiritual: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” 

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+ 

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Keep your hand on the Plow (Proper 8C)

 
Put Your Hand To The Plow And Don't Look Back, painting by Dana Vacca 

Keep your Hand on the Plow 
Homily delivered Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 8; Year C RCL)
26 June 2016; 8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 Sung Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland
1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen. 

It is hard to be kingdom people, followers of Jesus who see that the Reign of God is all around us, bursting in at the seams. If we are honest and clear eyed we have to admit that evil remains in us and in the world.  It can make us doubt the Kingdom’s presence.   But it can also make us try to pretend the evil is not there, or at least not bad enough to keep trying to do anything about it.   Or it can make us angry, and blame others, label them wicked, and want to call down fire on them. 

That happens to the disciples in today’s Gospel.  Jesus has hardened his face, set his jaw, and started on the final trip—the one to Jerusalem, where he knows he will die.  He goes through Samaria.   Local Samaritans, hearing that Jesus is headed for Jerusalem, the capital of their enemies, refuse to welcome him to stay overnight. The disciples are angry.  Jesus, after all, has been more welcoming and tolerant of the Samaritans than anyone else around. “Can we call down fire from heaven upon them?” they ask Jesus eagerly. 

They are thinking of the prophet Elijah, the star of today’s lectionary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures.   Elijah not only stopped the rain for three years to bring people back to God, he also called down fire from heaven on the soldiers of Ahaziah, King of—where else?—Samaria, when he turned Elijah away and sought Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, instead (2 Kings 1).

Elijah overshadows much of Jesus’ life.  When people in his hometown question him because he works wonders for strangers but not for them, he says, “No prophet is honored in his home town… There were many widows in Israel then, but Elijah was sent only to the widow in Zarephath in Sidon.  There were many lepers in the time of Elisha, but none was cleansed  except Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:24-27).   Luke introduces John the Baptist as a forerunner of Jesus by saying that “he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ..to make a people ready for the Lord” (Luke 1:17).   Herod reacts to stories about Jesus’ mighty acts by thinking Jesus is either John the Baptist or Elijah come back to life (Luke 9:7-8).  On the Mount of Transfiguration, it is Elijah, along with Moses, who appears and tells Jesus of his need to go Jerusalem to accomplish his “departure” (his “Exodus”) (Luke 9:31).   

But, now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus departs from the example of Elijah.   He scolds the disciples for wanting to burn down the Samaritans.   His calling is to proclaim God’s liberation, not to punish those who reject him.   Earlier, sending his disciples out, he tells them to react to rejection by simply moving on: “dust off your shoes and be on your way” (Luke 9:5).  Then when a disciple wants Jesus to silence a healer who uses Jesus’ name in exorcisms but is not one of his followers, Jesus says simply, “Let him do as he wishes.  If he’s not against us, he’s with us” (Luke 9:50).   No fire from heaven for Jesus. 

 
For him, the model prophet is not Elijah or even Moses.  It’s Jonah.  The Book of Jonah is read in its entirety in synagogue on the Day of Atonement, and was clearly important for Jesus.  Though the prophet at first runs away because he just can’t bear bringing repentance and salvation to a people he hates, and is brought to accept his call only by miraculously surviving being swallowed by a great fish, though even near the end of the story whines about the burning sun, the dead gourd bush, and having to preach at great personal risk in the great city, in the end Jonah finds compassion for its inhabitants and follows through.   He offers with boldness the possibility of God’s grace to the people of Nineveh, and they turn to God.   Later in the Gospel of Luke, when people ask Jesus for a sign, he says he can give no sign to them at all, other than the sign of Jonah.    Suffering in love even for those who despise him, Jonah brings them to God.  He is a sign of hope:  after three days in the belly of the Great Fish, he comes to life again. 

Jesus does not, like Elijah, call fire from heaven.  He does not, like Elisha, send the she-bears to kill rude teenagers for having mocked his bald pate (2 Kings 2:15, 23-4).   Like Jonah, he proclaims the gracious forgiveness and love of God, even if it means death.  He proclaims it to those who reject him:  the sign of Jonah indeed. 

Jesus calls his followers to follow this way of self-sacrificing compassion as well.   Earlier in this same chapter of Luke, after Peter affirms his faith that Jesus is Messiah, Jesus tells him that being Messiah means suffering and dying.   And he says that all who follow him must also take up their own cross of suffering as well.  

That’s why in today’s reading, Jesus seems so harsh to the man who wants to follow him, but begs for a day or so to bury his father.  That’s why he won’t let another even say farewell to his loved ones.  In today’s Old Testament lesson Elijah gives Elisha time to say farewell and settle things,  But Jesus knows the way of suffering and compassion is so hard that you must set your face toward your goal, and not look back. He says “let the dead bury their dead” and “keep your hand on the plow.” 

This is a sharp contrast from the scene last week, when Jesus tells the Gerasene demoniac whom he has healed “You’ve suffered enough.  Go back to your loved ones and family and share with them the grace God has shown you.”  Jesus has hardened his face.  He is on the way to Jerusalem.  And he expects us to be on the way with him. 

That’s why he says, “Keep your eyes forward, and your hand on the plow. No turning back and no regrets!”

It is hard to be kingdom people, followers of Jesus who see that the Reign of God is all around us, yet know that the world is still screwed up and needs fixing.  The problems we face are intractable, long-lived, and seemingly part of the way things are.  It’s depressing.  We may want to call down fire from heaven, or we simply may just give up.  We may simply become deadened to injustice and not see the world’s flaws.  This is all the easier if we are not the ones suffering injustice.   Feminist theologian Sharon Welch writes: 

“…The despair of the affluent, the middle class, … is … cushioned by privilege and grounded in privilege. It is easier to give up on long-term social change when one is comfortable in the present—when it is possible to have challenging work, excellent health care and housing, and access to the fine arts. When the good life is present or within reach, it is tempting to despair of its ever being in reach for others and resort to merely enjoying it for oneself and one’s family... Becoming so easily discouraged is the privilege of those … accustomed to having a political and economic system that responds to their needs” (Sharon Welch, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, 15).

Even if we avoid the urge to call down fire from heaven, and the siren call to say things are not all that bad and don’t need fixing, we inevitably run into compassion fatigue.  And it is here, I think, that all of us, at one time or another, have put our hand to the plow and looked back.   Jesus in Gethsemane certainly had second thoughts and doubts.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did too.  

In the middle of the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott in early 1956, he lost hope.  The boycott was not working, and seemed to be falling apart.  Early in the evening, an anonymous caller had growled out, “If you aren’t out of this town in three days, we’re going to blow your brains out and blow up your house.”  King couldn’t sleep, and drank coffee most of the night.  This is what he later said happened:

“. . . I bowed down over that cup of coffee . . . I prayed a prayer and I prayed out loud that night. I said, ‘Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right. I think the cause we represent is right. But Lord I must confess that I’m weak now. I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage. And I can’t let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak.’”  (Samuel Freeman, Upon This Rock, 143).    

The words of the African American spiritual, based on today’s gospel, came to him, “Keep your hand on the plow, hold on, hold on.”  And things turned around. 
Sisters and brothers, it is hard to be kingdom people.  It is hard to follow Jesus on the way of suffering compassion to Jerusalem. But we must not lose hope.  We must not lose our conscience and sense of what is wrong in the world.  We must not tire in working for justice.  We must not let anger overwhelm us.  We must not regret the past.  
 
Keep your hands on the plow.  Hold on, Hold on.

 

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Sweet amid bitter (Mid-week Message)



Sweet amid bitter
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
June 22, 2016

“The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to your own home, and will leave me alone.  Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.  I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace.  In the world, you will have tribulation.  But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.”  (John 16:30-33)

The strange thing about this saying of Jesus in John’s Gospel is that Jesus is pictured saying it at the very moment when he knows he will be delivered over to the Romans for death.  “I have overcome the world,” right as it seems that the world has overcome him. 

This upside down, topsy-turvy take on the world and suffering is reflected in other sayings by Jesus:  “your pain will turn into joy” (John 16:20), “to gain life, you must first lose it (Luke 9:23), and “pick up your cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

An old Zen story tells of a traveler who is surprised by a tiger.  He runs, the tiger pursuing.  Coming to a cliff, the man grabs a vine and swings down over the edge.  The tiger waits above, sniffing at the suspect vine.  The man looks down: there, far below, is another tiger looking up, waiting to eat him.   Then, to make things worse, two mice, one white and one black, start to gnaw away at the vine!  The man notices a small wild strawberry growing in the rock beside him.  With his one free hand, he reaches out to pluck and eat the berry.  How sweet it tasted!

Suffering is hard.  It takes patience when all our resources are used up.  It takes hope when no more hope is left.  Graceful suffering means not regretting what has been lost, but focusing on what little we are able to do.  It means letting go of trying to control outcomes, and only thinking about what next step we must take. 

George MacDonald wrote, “The Son of God suffered unto death, not that man might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like his.”    Praying to a God who has suffered, and indeed, still suffers, helps us meet what we cannot avoid.   Knowing that Jesus is right there on the cross along with us helps us see with him the victory even when things seem darkest. 

Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+ 


Sunday, June 19, 2016

An Army of Demons (Proper 7C)


Gerasene Demon, by Toonfed (Frederico Blee)

“An Army of Demons”
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7C)
8 a.m.said and 10:00 sung Eucharist 19 June 2016
Homily
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland
The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, Rector

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Most healing stories in the gospels are pretty simple:  There’s an afflicted person, and Jesus fixes them.  Here, Jesus confronts what seems to be a primal force of nature, uncontrollable and uncontrolled. “For a long time [the afflicted man] had worn no clothes… Many times [the demon] had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven into the wilds.”  This guy has been through the wringer—multiple possessions, getting worse until he ends up raving, naked, and bleeding in a graveyard.  Here is something deeper and darker than normal illness, something intractable and overwhelming.

Jesus starts to cast the demon out; it argues with him, “Why am I any of your business?   Don’t hurt me!”   Jesus asks the demon its name, a prelude to exorcism in that day and age. It replies, “We are legion.”  Not very helpful: more a taunt than a name.  “Legion” was a 6,000 soldier-strong battalion in the Roman Army.   “My name?  I am so numerous as to be almost chaotic, as strong as the Roman imperium, and as violent as an army.  My name? Legion.”     

These demons are violent and expect the same of Jesus.  They call him Son of God but think this just means someone more violent and powerful than they are: “Don’t torment us, or cast us into the pit!”  But instead, without using violence, he drives them out of the poor man.  He even gives them their wish, to go into a herd of swine.  But alas, the violence of the demons is just too overpowering: the pigs panic and run headlong into the sea, drowning.  This terrifies everyone there. They beg Jesus to leave, just as afraid of violence from him as the demons. 

This story is about healing a mental illness, since people then blamed demons for madness. But “demons” also had another meaning.  They often are the personification not just of personal interior conflicts, but also of the unseen movers behind the world we see, the drivers we cannot see or explain.  When Paul talks about “thrones, dominions, rulers, and powers” (Col. 1:16) in God’s creation, he is thinking of spiritual beings, whether angelic or demonic, at work in the world around us.    We identify these same forces more abstractly, and less personally. We call them institutions, cultures, governments, corporations, power structures, ideologies, and value systems.

That’s why the great social conscience theologian of our age, Walter Wink, entitled his books Naming…, Unmasking…, and, Engaging the Powers.   He saw with clear vision these dark forces in the world around us that fight against God’s good intention for creation: abundance, peace, and justice.


We saw dark forces at work in the world this last week: last Sunday morning’s news of murder of 49 people at a gay and lesbian nightclub in Orlando, most of them Latino or Latina.    It shocked, but did not surprise anyone: another case of assault weapons in the hands of an angry male run amok, a problem that our society doesn’t want to deal with.   Orlando’s mass murder, driven by hatred of gays, occurred one year to the week after the mass murders at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, driven by racism.   The killer made reference to his faith (he was from a Muslim family) and an allegiance to Da'esh in a phone call to the police during the shooting, but little evidence has been uncovered linking him to terrorist planning networks.  At the very least, we can say the act was a hate-crime against gay people.     

The demons, primal and intractable, that possess us as a people are seen in this.  These demons are not named Azazel or Beelzebub.  They have different names, and Jesus has something to say to each: 

Violence:  It seems that the violence that plagues us is uncontrollable, just like Legion.   We glorify violence in our arts, have movies that tell stories of the good guys blowing the bad guys away, use armed force as a major component of our foreign policy, proclaim it in our political memes, and think that capital punishment is the ultimate solution to horrible crime.  Guns are an important part of this culture of violence.  
 
Richard Slotkin in Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America says that our culture embraces the idea that there is no problem so severe that it wouldn’t improve if we could just shoot someone.  Walter Wink called this the false “myth of redemptive violence.”   To this, Jesus says, “those who live by the sword will die by it,” and “if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him your left.” 
 
Fear:  Closely tied to this fascination with violence, is fear.  Most people who buy guns and who argue for no restrictions on gun ownership appeal to “self-defense” as their motivation.  They buy guns and want others to buy guns because of fear.   Fear makes us hunger at a banquet, be stingy with abundance, and externalize all our problems.  To this, Jesus says, “be not afraid, I am with you.”   

Rejection of the Stranger: Blaming our problems on someone else, we scapegoat.  We  make them bear the blame, and take it outside the wall.  If you don’t have a wall, build one.  And make the stranger pay for it.   To this Jesus says, “welcome and care for the alien and foreigner, for you too were once aliens,” and “the only thing that will matter on the last day will be whether you cared for the most vulnerable and least able to care for themselves.” 

Disgust at the Strange:  Blaming our problems on other people might seem a bit too unfair. So we say “love the sinner hate the sin.”  We objectify evil and bad and identify it with anything that is different than we are, anything with which we are unfamiliar or uncomfortable.  Disgust is the most common emotion we experience as we do this, and we often link the object of our disgust with the impure, the unclean, the corrupt.  Disgust is an instinctual emotion that tries to keep us safe by keeping us from eating or touching poisonous or contaminated things.  But when it becomes part of a system of exclusion, oppression, or power relationship, it is a demon of great power.   
 
Using any reason—different sex, language, cultural practices, sexual orientation, skin color or hair texture—any reason to take away in our minds the image of God that God left in creating a person and replace it with a cartoon caricature that disgusts us is evil.  That is what the parable of the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, and stories about Jesus spending his time with sinners, drunkards, and whores are all about.   Disgust must never get in the way of generosity and welcome.  Let me be clear:  Homophobia is a sin.  Sexism is a sin.  Racism is a sin.  Xenophobia and nativist political ideology are a sin.  It’s that simple.   Jesus says, “the last will be first, and the first last,” and “follow me” when he spent most of his life with the very people his religion told him were unclean and unworthy.  And this was not simply so he could fix them and make them less disgusting.    Remember the story of him and the Canaanite woman?  He learned from her faith to accept what he previously found beyond the pale.

Of course, the demons of Power, Control, and Wealth are all here too. The gun lobby draws its strength from the money of gun manufacturers and sellers and the greed of politicians eager for it.   To all these, Jesus says “You need to lose your life in order to save it,” “not as I will, but as you will,” and “You cannot serve both God and money.”  

Bigotry seems always abetted by religious hierarchies seeking to preserve their privilege.  They shame and condemn those they see as unclean and unworthy of God’s blessing.  Some say the problem is a lack of godliness in our society, mainly in the groups they do not like.  “We are only trying to follow God’s commands,” they say.  The curious thing is that some of these are talking about the Bible, and others are talking about the Koran.   Christian and Muslim fundamentalist fanatics have many of the same habits and arguments.   Jesus says “love your enemy,” and, “sinners will go into the kingdom of heaven long before the religious and righteous who oppress them,”  and, “judge not, lest you be judged as well.”   

Unhappily, the Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all contain a few passages that incite violence against the ungodly and the impure.   These do not represent the heart of God.  The unstable and the unscrupulous can exploit them to stir up horror in the name of God.   These same Scriptures also all dream of a world from which murderous violence has been finally exorcised.  The prophets sing of a world where swords have become farming tools and where natural enemies dwell in peace together.   All three faiths teach that God’s most basic nature is steadfast loving kindness. 

Facing Orlando, San Bernardino, Roseburg, Charleston, Sandyhook and Columbine, we as a people are flummoxed.  We cannot even agree on the names of what is at work here. And we all tend to demonize those who disagree with us: violence and scapegoating are part of who we are.   

One definition of insanity is always trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.   In America, guns and our obsession with power and privilege have made us crazy.  Our original sin is racism and all the other “isms” of bigotry that mimic it.  This demon is both a mental illness and the powers at work in society.

Those songs of the prophets tell of a world no longer haunted by war, horror, or hunger.  This should should give us hope.  This is what God wants for us.  In the end, God will win.  Love will win. 

 Exorcism, tapestry, Andrei Madekin

Legion, breaking all the chains and bonds, bursts forth to terrorize us. Legion brings us to the grave mourning again and again.  Orlando, I fear, is the latest, not the last of his appearances.  We wait in the graveyard, head bloodied and body aching, for deliverance.  This legion of demons has us in his thrall.  So we wait, we pray, and we keep on trying to drive the demon out.   Gay people, straight people, trans people, whites, blacks, old Americans and newcomers, citizens and aliens, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and everyone else—we wait and we hope. We, not them and us.  And we pray that those songs of freedom and peace open all our hearts and that we work together to drive away the army of demons.   To do otherwise is to accept the fate of the Gadarene swine. 

Jesus in today’s story assures us one day we will sit together, clothed and in our right minds.  
Thanks be to God.  


Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Mystics All (Mid-week Message)




Mystics All
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
June 15, 2016


Today, June 15, is the commemoration of Evelyn Underhill, Church of England writer on the mystic experience, who died on this day in 1941 at the age of 65.

Born in 1875, she was in her mid-thirties before she began to explore faith.  She began with several studies on mysticism, culminating in her 1911 masterpiece, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness.  The book did much to rid the study of peak religious experience of the intellectual objectification and relative emotional sterility that had been introduced by William James’ 1901 book, The Varieties of Religious Experience.  By the mid-1920s, her faith journey had brought her back into full participation in the Church of England, where she had been baptized as an infant and confirmed as an adolescent.   Her 1936 book Worship was a meditation on the mystery of faith and “humanity’s universal instinct” toward adoration. Underhill taught that the life of contemplative prayer is not just for vowed religious like nuns or monks, but is the priceless heritage of each and every Christian.  All they need is the will to undertake its practices.   For her, modern psychological theory was not a threat to faith and contemplation, but rather a useful tool to enhance these.   In her later life, she spent much time leading retreats and giving spiritual direction.

A Prayer for Wholeness (by Evelyn Underhill)

O Lord, penetrate those murky corners
Where we hide memories and tendencies
On which we do not care to look,
But which we will not disinter
And yield freely up to you,
That you may purify and transmute them:
The persistent buried grudge,
The half-acknowledged enmity
Which is still smouldering;
The bitterness of that loss
We have not turned into sacrifice;
The private comfort we cling to; the secret fear of failure which saps our initiative
And is really inverted pride;
The pessimism which is an insult to your joy, Lord;
We bring all these to you,
And we review them with shame and penitence
In your steadfast light. 

“O God, Origin, Sustainer, and End of all your creatures: Grant that your Church, taught by your servant Evelyn Underhill, guarded evermore by your power, and guided by your Spirit into the light of truth, may continually offer to you all glory and thanksgiving and attain with your saints to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have promised by our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

Grace and peace,
Fr. Tony+


Tuesday, June 14, 2016

A Collect Against Gun Violence



A Collect against Gun Violence

All nurturing God, you cannot bear the violence of your creatures and have promised with a rainbow to keep your creation safe.  Turn far from us the violent, and keep us from vengeance, anger, and fear.  Heal us and help us to love. Remove from us the root of bitterness and bigotry.  Help us to find ways to reduce and eliminate the scourge of violence in our society, especially the harm wrought through firearms.  This we pray for your tender mercy’s sake,  Amen. 

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Open your Grief (Proper 6C)


“Open your Grief”
Fourth Sunday After Pentecost; Proper 6 (Year C)
12 June 2016
Homily at 8 a.m. said and 10:00 a.m. sung Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
 
“Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven,
               and whose sin is put away!
Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt,
               and in whose spirit there is no guile!
While I held my tongue, my bones withered away,
               because of my groaning all day long.
For your hand was heavy upon me day and night;
               my moisture was dried up as in the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
               and did not conceal my guilt.
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’
               Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32: 1-6).

Repentance and confession are themes that run through all of today’s lessons.   King David is confronted about and then confesses his murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathsheba.  As a result, the “Lord has put away” his sin, though its consequences remain.  Paul uses his own personal experience of trying to be super religious only to find he has been murdering people in the religion’s name to teach that trusting faith in Christ, apart from any actions, is what counts when it comes to a genuine experience of God.  The story of the sinful woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears in today’s Gospel exemplifies the role of remorse and sorrow for our failings in establishing such a trusting faith. 
Today’s Psalm is clear about the psychology involved: we feel alienated and shriveled up until we confess our guilt.   We tend to want to hide our sins from ourselves.  We justify them, or make excuses for them, or say they are not all that bid a deal.  Often, it is only in conversation with another person whom we trust, like the prophet Nathan, that we force ourselves to be honest about what we would rather forget or excuse. 

In the prayer book, the rite for Holy Eucharist is prefaced with an exhortation. It says in part:

“Beloved in the Lord: Our Savior Christ, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood as a sign and pledge of his love, for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, and for a spiritual sharing in his risen life. For in these holy Mysteries we are made one with Christ, and Christ with us; we are made one body in him, and members one of another…

“But if we are to share rightly in … those holy Mysteries, and be nourished by that spiritual Food, we must remember [their great value and worth]. … Saint Paul exhorts all persons to prepare themselves carefully before eating of that Bread and drinking of that Cup.

“For, as the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body. Judge yourselves, therefore, lest you be judged by the Lord.

“Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed.  And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, being ready to make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by you to others; and also being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven. And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food.

“And if, in your preparation, you need help and counsel, then go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest, and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the strengthening of your faith. …

Admission of fault and remorse for our wrongdoings are part of a healthy process of amendment of life.   Such confession and contrition are a necessary step in helping us to find peace with each other and within ourselves.   So we have a general confession of sin in almost all of our worship, both Morning and Evening Prayer and the Holy Eucharist. 

But in addition to general public confession and our private confessions to God in our prayers, the exhortation says we can go a step further. “Open your grief” it says, “to a discreet and understanding priest.”   The Prayer Book provides for the Reconciliation of a Penitent (pp. 446-452), an ancient ritual, and one of the Sacraments of the Church.

In the Episcopal Church, the rite usually takes place privately at or near the altar rail or the clergy's office.   It serves as an aid in personal repentance and amendment of life.  It helps us be more honest, less inclined to tell God how we think our failings should be understood, as we might if praying alone or confessing generally in public.  It allows for pastoral counseling and some spiritual direction.   And its absolution of sins makes present for the penitent the important truth that “the Lord has put away your sin.” 

We do not see private confession as a one-size-fits-all requirement: we say, “All may.  None must.  Some should.” That is, we welcome and encourage all to confess as they feel the need, we require no one to do so, and we recognize that some people really ought to avail themselves of this sacrament since it is such a powerful tool in helping us forgive ourselves for past mistakes and find reconciliation. 

Since private confession to a priest is not compulsory for us, takes time and effort, and, quite frankly, triggers fears of being embarrassed, many Episcopalians never bother to seek the sacrament.   This is a mistake.  Confession in the presence of a priest who can then pronounce absolution remains a powerful experience that helps us be honest, and amend our lives.   I have found in my own life that it is an important way to make a clear break with sins that we hope are past.     

At Trinity, we always open the church on Shrove Tuesday before Lent and on a day before Advent for confessions.  And they are always available by appointment.  To help ease the embarrassment, the priest usually faces in the same direction as the penitent, so you don’t have to feel someone’s eyes on you as you open your heart.  If you have never done this and are nervous, don’t worry.  There are two rites you can choose from, and both are simple and easy, and generally only take 5-10 minutes.  I or any of the assisting clergy here at Trinity can guide you through it if that makes you feel more comfortable. 

Rest assured that anything you say in this context is fully confidential, never to be repeated or referred to again.  Priests are under a strict discipline of respecting the seal of the confessional.  Your confession is between you and your God, even if you need a priest to help you focus on your sins and on Christ’s loving forgiveness.   Confession is about moving closer to God, not placing ourselves in the power of the confessor.    The confessor, again, can never refer to it again.  And, from personal experience I must say, we always seek to forget what we have overheard of the conversation of a parishioner and Jesus.  

In confession we unload our baggage, and dump the toxic waste we have been carrying around with us.  Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are loaded down and exhausted with a heavy a burden.  Take my yoke upon you and become my students.  I am gentle and kind and you will find a complete rest.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is so light you’ll think it nothing at all” (Matthew 11:28-30).   Confess your sins and God will separate you from them as far as the east is from the west. Confess them in the presence of another, expressing true repentance and amendment of life and you will find it easier to walk away from that past.  You won’t want to go back to the toxic waste you have unloaded.  And you will find that Jesus’ burden is light indeed. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Noticing the Dirt (Midweek Message)





Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
Noticing the Dirt
June 8, 2016

Just after the Elizabethan Eucharist, one parishioner came up to me and said, “It’s good to be reminded about how penitential the old Prayer Books were.  I am happy that our current Rite II is less beat-the-breast 'we are sinners all' than those in the past.  It’s been a while since I heard those words from the old general confession: '[we are] heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them intolerable.'   That, and the prayer of humble access, really touched me.   It’s good to be reminded from time to time of how far we are from the mark.”

This coming Sunday’s readings are all about confession and absolution of sin.  It’s important.  It is not about morbid self-loathing or overly dramatic and maudlin belittling of oneself.  It is about simply being honest.   I make a point of saying a general confession each day in Morning Prayer.  I try to have private confession with my spiritual director on a regular basis.   I think we do ourselves harm when we try to avoid confession or contrition simply so that we might be able to think "more positively” about ourselves.   Doing an honest moral inventory regularly and talking it through with ourselves, God, and another human being is an important spiritual practice that keeps us from self-deception.  Doing this with a “wise and discreet priest” who can give us sacramental absolution is an important way of making the loving and overwhelming grace and forgiveness of God  concrete for us in our very specific circumstances. 

C.S. Lewis wrote to a friend: 

“No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence” (from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II).  

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+