Yearning (Midweek Message)

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Yearning

August 30, 2017

All the smoke in the air from wild fires surrounding the Rogue Valley is aggravating my asthma.  I am needing to nebulize two or three times a day; otherwise, I find myself gasping for air and wheezing constantly.  The shortage of breath I experience when not medicating, something I have not felt so acutely since I left China 6 years ago, has brought to my mind the nature of need and yearning. My ache for a good deep breath is the most vivid expression for me of what yearning is:  a desperate need that is in the background at all times but at moments so acute that it pushes all other things out of the mind.  When I have enough breath, I am unaware of my need for air.  But when the smoke makes my breathing hard, I can think of little else. 

So it is also with our need for God.  

Saint Augustine said that we are all born with a hole in the middle of our hearts and souls, a God-shaped hole that only the Creator can fill.  Where many secular-minded people see the presence of evil things in the world as evidence that there is no God, I believe that it is our very revulsion at and lack of acceptance of such a state of affairs that is the clearest evidence of God in the world:  the very fact that we find natural beauty appealing and the very fact that we find unsatisfying and repellent the ugly things that are also naturally in this world--this is a reflection of the great unseen truth that there is something beyond and better than how things are.  A fish in a fishbowl is unaware of the water all about it; out of the bowl, the fish gulps and gasps and is acutely aware of its need for something that is not there but that it needs.     

Yearning is the entry point for the transcendent in our life.  Experience of illness, pain, or weakness often serves as an access point for us to God.   

Late Medieval mystic Bianco da Siena wrote a poem about this: 

Come down, O Love divine,

  seek thou this soul of mine,

  and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

  O Comforter, draw near,

  within my heart appear,

  and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn,

  till earthly passions turn

  to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

  and let thy glorious light

  shine ever on my sight,

  and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

And so the yearning strong,

  with which the soul will long,

  shall far outpass the power of human telling;

  for none can guess its grace,

  till Love create a place

  wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling. 

(tr. Richard Frederick Littledale [1833-1890]). 

Grace and Peace. 

Fr. Tony+

Upon the Rock, Against the Gates (Proper 16A)

Upon the Rock, Against the Gates

27 August 2017

Proper 16A

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (OR)

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Exod. 1:8- 2:10; Psalm 124;  Rom. 12:1-8; Matt. 16:13-20

Today’s Gospel tells about Jesus giving Peter a new name and what are called “the keys of the kingdom.”  In popular imagination, that means Peter has become the doorkeeper of heaven.  But that is not what today’s Gospel is about. 

The scene takes place in Gentile territory, near Caesarea Philippi, in the extreme north of Palestine in the foothills of Mount Hermon.  It is now known in Arabic as Banias, from its original name “Panea,” the City of Pan.  This Greek god, half man half goat, was always seen as drunk, playing happy tunes on reed pipes, and in a state of constant sexual excitement. The Temple of Pan was built on a face of exposed bedrock at the mouth of a large cave from which then flowed a spring, the headwaters of the River Jordan.  Pan’s Temple was built there because the cave opening looks like a spooky gate leading to the underworld, Hades.  

Jesus takes his closest followers with him on a day trip to a place that later Rabbis would rule as totally off-limits, a place seen as “Sin City.”  I imagine Jews at the time saying,  “What you do in Caesarea stays in Caesarea.” 

It is here that Jesus asks his followers, “Who do people say I am,” and “Who do you say I am?”  Simon replies, “You are the Messiah.  The Son of the Living God.”  Jesus says Simon’s recognition does not come from publicly available data, but rather from God speaking in his heart.   Jesus tells Simon who he thinks he is.  He gives him a new name:  Rock.  In the Aramaic they would have been speaking, the word is Qepha’.  It is where the name Cephas, one of the Greek names for Peter in the New Testament, comes from.    When you translate Qepha’ into Greek rather than just transliterate it as Cephas, it becomes Petros, our familiar name Peter. 

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Rock of Israel, the one reliable thing they can cling to when all else fails, is God himself.  It is also the place where God puts you when he wants you safe, “the rock that is higher.”  It is also the dry stones in the desert from which God can make water spring.  Simon is named “Rock” to remind him of the source of his knowledge and strength. 

“You are Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my Church.”  The Greek here uses two different words, one masculine (petros “stone”) and one feminine (petra “massive outcropping of bedrock”).  Jesus here corrects the image before them of Pan’s Temple on that bedrock in front of the Gates of Hades.  It becomes the Church of God built on a firm rock foundation, against which the gates of Hell cannot prevail. 

Roman Catholics have always insisted that it is the person of Peter, the role he plays in the Church, that is the foundation stone Jesus refers to.  For them, it is the Roman Papacy, an institution that over the centuries grew from Peter being the first bishop of Rome to a greater and greater primacy with monarchical overtones. Predictably, Protestants have always said the “Rock” at issue is faith alone, apart from works—Peter’s confession of Jesus as Son of God.   The Eastern Orthodox generally say that the Rock is divine revelation (“flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven”). 

Jesus follows his play on words with an immediate statement of Church authority (“what you bind on earth, God will bind, what you loose, God will loose”) and ultimate success (“the gates of Hell shall not prevail against you”).  This leads most modern scholars from all these traditions to agree that the story in Matthew is indeed about the leading role of Peter in the early Church rather than about later papal presumptions, salvation through faith alone, or Eastern Christian mysticism.  

Within three decades of Jesus’ death, Christians were divided between Jewish congregations who saw James the Brother of Jesus as the heir to Jesus as leader, and gentile congregations who saw this in Paul, the missionary who had converted them. Matthew’s Gospel takes as leader Peter, the “compromise candidate” who was a companion of Jesus but who also supported the Gentile mission.

 “You are Rock.”  From all the other stories we read in the New Testament, this “Rock” was not at the start all that solid.  “Rocky” might better describe him in his impetuousness, and extremes of devotion followed by failure.  In Mark’s version of this story, immediately after the confession of Peter, Jesus does not give him the keys to the kingdom, but rather criticizes him for not accepting his prediction of the coming passion and scolds him and says, “Get behind me, Satan!”  (Mark 8:27-30; 31-33).   We read a couple of weeks ago of Peter’s silly reaction to the marvelous epiphany on the Mount of Transfiguration.  Last week, we saw him walking on water through faith and then, faith faltering, sinking into the waves.  During Holy Week, we see him sleeping through Jesus' prayers at Gethsemane, and then denying Jesus three times during the Passion.  But finally, after Jesus has appeared to the women, Peter is the first male disciple (at that misogynistic time, the first legally acceptable witness) to see the Risen Lord.  One of the earliest fragments of early Christian tradition is preserved in St. Paul’s formulaic recitation, “For I passed on to you what was first passed on to me, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared, first to Cephas and the Twelve, . . . then to James and the apostles” (1 Cor. 15: 3-7).

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom.”   The image of keys that open irrevocably or close definitively is taken from a series of passages in the Hebrew Scriptures and Intertestamental literature.  The idea is that Peter’s actions will be definitive and reflect the will of God (cf. Isa 22:22, 23; Job 12:14; 1 Enoch 1-16).   

“What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  This is a polite way of saying, “What you declare as binding, God will bind.  What you declare as loosened, God will loose.”   In Matthew’s view, Peter’s ruling on the terms and conditions of gentile entry into the Church take priority over Paul’s or James’.

The Church built on this Rock, says Jesus, will be able to defeat even the “Gates of Hell.”   The image is a common Old Testament image for death itself (Isa 38:10; Job 38:17;  Psa 9:14;  Wis 16:13).   

Set here in Caesarea Philippi, the reference is image of the Church’s attack on and defeat of the evils of the world, as represented by the Temple of Pan build on the rocky outcrop sitting beside the mouth of the cave containing Pan’s Spring.  Gates were traditionally a symbol of defensive military action, not attack.  So here Peter’s rock-based witness and ministry and the Church founded upon that rock are seen as a vanguard in an effort to reclaim this enemy-occupied territory we call our world.    Based on the Rock of our Salvation, we simply cannot be defeated by the horrors of the world we see before us, including sick religion and death itself.    

All of us are like Simon standing with Jesus in front of the Temple of Pan.  What we see in front of us is not all there is.  What we see with our eyes and handle with our hands do not tell us who Jesus is, or who we ourselves truly are.  Jesus is asking us, even today, “Who do people say I am? And who do you say I am?”  He is offering us new names and true identities, the authentic names and selves we were created for but which we have wandered far from.  And he promises victory, against evil, disorder, and death itself. 

Faith is trust in unseen truth, and looks beyond the visible, beyond the temptations and distractions around us, beyond the Temple of Pan, the Gates of Hell, and beyond our messed up lives.  It looks even beyond suffering and Death.  If we rely on our Rock, and build upon the firm foundation of God speaking truth in our hearts, then our unstable, unsteady selves, our “rocky” selves, will be transformed.  And together, as a beloved community in Him, we will be unstoppable in charging up the rocky slope, breaking down the gates of Hell and Death, and changing ourselves and the world.   

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

God in the familiar (midweek message)

God in the Familiar

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

August 23, 2017

“O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever.  Amen.”  (BCP, Collect for Proper 9, p. 230-31) 

We often hear in church a call to stretch ourselves, to reach out beyond our previous limits, and practice pure love or charity by welcoming and serving those most unlike us.    But it is important to note that in addition to this, the Prayer Book and scripture talk regularly about the gentle natural love or kindness we feel for the familiar, affection.   This can be for people regularly about us, but also for familiar objects, pets, and activities.  One story from the Desert Fathers tells of an elder making a rope who is asked: “What must one do to be saved?” Without looking up from his work, he replies: “You are looking at it.”

God in the familiar is as important as, if not more important than, God in the overwhelmingly strange.  All creation comes from God, and God is in evidence in all his works.  “In Him we live and move and have our being” says St. Paul (Acts 17:28).  The reassurance we feel at the neighbor greeting us from over the fence, at the dog who licks our hand or curls up at our feet, or the gentle (or not-so-gentle) snores of our life companion in bed next to us—all these little bursts of affection are actually our souls responding joyfully to reflections of the Creator in creation.  

Life in the Church usually is marked by affection (Greek: storgé) and family-like love (Greek: phileia).  In the degree that our common life is filled with these feelings, it is a sign of the God’s presence in creation  When the kindness we feel for each other through familiarity is stressed because of bad behavior or puzzling and challenging difference, we see the limits of natural affection.  This is the time when our faith requires us to lean on pure love or charity (Greek: agape).  Often described as a “supernatural” (above-and-beyond-things-present-at-birth) gift of God, such love transcends our desire to have our needs met and is embodied in a disposition of the will to work good in the life of another person. 

That said, we must remember that natural affection itself is a gift of God in creation.  Being with friends or family, and truly being with them, counts.  The spiritual practice of focusing on the task at hand, even if the task at hand is merely keeping silence, of losing oneself in the present moment, of “being present,” helps us experience the joy and peace that come from being aware that we are in God’s presence. 

Grace and peace. 

--Fr. Tony+  

The Sin of Racism (Mid-week Message)

Norman Rockwell, "The Problem We All Live With", 1963. Oil on canvas, 36” x 58”. 

Illustration for "Look," January 14, 1964. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©NRELC, Niles, IL.

The Sin of Racism

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

August 16, 2017

“Take away from me the voice of your songs

I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters,

And righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:23-24).

The Church teaches clearly that racism is sin.  White supremacy is sin.  Hatred of Jews and of foreigners is sin.  Oppression of women is sin.  Hatred of gays and oppression of them is sin.  Privilege and unfair discrimination are sin.  In recent days, we have heard voices in our nation that have said somehow that these are not sin, but something needed to preserve the nation.  We have heard some say, while reluctantly confessing racism is wrong, that fighting against it is equally wrong. 

When we talk about things that are controversial or that trigger emotions, it is all the more important to be very clear in our use of language.  People often confuse and conflate “prejudice,” “discrimination,” and “racism,” but these words refer to very distinct, though related ideas.   “Prejudice” is a judgment or opinion about others made before all the facts are known, often unfairly applying stereotypes or caricatures of groups to individuals based on some label or group identity.    “Discrimination” simply means making a distinction, but in this context means making an unfair distinction, usually an action depriving a person of their commonly held human or civil rights.  “Racism” is the systematic oppression or exclusion of one group of people based on race, national origin, or skin color.  It is when those who enjoy a position of dominance use their power to discriminate on the basis of their prejudices. 

Imagine a weak person surrounded by strong bullies: he is on the ground on his back; they are all standing and kicking him.  This person, in desperation and self-defense, tries to use his feet to get the people around off of him.  Both the bullies and the person on his back are kicking.  But they are not doing the same thing at all, and there is no moral equivalence between them.   The difference is that one is from a position of privilege or power and is aimed at building or continuing oppression.  The other is from a position of the downtrodden, and simply seeks to escape oppression.   This does not mean that the downtrodden are free to practice violence.  As Jesus taught, those who live by the sword often die by the sword.  But it does means simply that we must not say it is the same as violence of the oppressor. 

This is why talking about “reverse racism” or equating the intentional violence of white supremacists and anti-Semites with efforts to resist such violence is so wrong.   The inability to see the difference is a mark of enjoying privilege and of having the system of oppression working on your side.  If a person sees a “Black Lives Matter” sign and sees it not as a statement that “Black lives matter too!” but rather as a “White lives don’t matter,” it is clear they are blinded by their privilege.  Again, these things are sins. 

This coming Sunday’s Gospel lesson includes Jesus’ revolutionary teaching that defilement and impurity does not stem from what we eat or drink (clear group identifiers in his culture), but from what we say and how we act.  “It is what comes out of the mouth that defiles, not what goes into it.” It also tells a story of Jesus trying to exclude a woman from blessing because she was not of the chosen people.  She gently reminds Jesus that dogs under the table, though excluded from the meal, get to lick up the crumbs fallen to the floor.  He hears her, marvels at her trust and faith, and then welcomes her to the banquet by healing her daughter. 

Jesus calls us to follow him in opening our hearts to those different from us, listening to them, and serving them.  There was nothing that made him quite so upset as the hypocrisy of people claiming righteousness, justice, and purity even as they ground others into the dirt.  He calls us to non-violently struggle against unfairness and crushing people under foot to maintain or reclaim our own group’s advantage.   

Grace and Peace. 

Fr. Tony+

Stillness in the Heart of God (Proper 14A)

Stillness in the Heart of God

Proper 14A 

Homily delivered at

Trinity Parish Church, Ashland OR

By the Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

8 a.m. Said and 10 a.m. Sung Mass

1 Kings 19:9-18; Psalm 85:8-13; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33

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

One of my favorite Bible stories as a boy was the story in 1 Kings 18 about Elijah’s conflict with Ba’al worshipers. He challenges Ba’al’s priests to a great “Who hears our prayers?” contest on Mount Carmel.   He dares them to go face to face with him and build competing altars:  whichever God sends fire from heaven and consumes the sacrifice, he is the true God.  The Ba’al worshippers, favorites of King, Queen, and all the rich and powerful, build theirs, put all sorts of dry tinder around it, and begin praying.  I always added the detail in my mind that they doused the wood with way too much charcoal lighting fluid as well, like my Dad starting a barbecue.  Their noisy, self-flagellating prayers lead to mere silence.  “Is your God sleeping?” taunts Elijah, “or perhaps gone to the restroom?”  The priests of Ba’al pray all the louder: again, nothing.  Then Elijah builds his altar, sacrifices a bull, and even pours water all over the wood. He prays, “Show ‘em what’s what, Lord!”  His prayer is immediately answered by a flash of lightning and fire from heaven that consumes his sacrifice.  Elijah wins, and the outraged crowd of spectators chase and kill the priests of Ba’al. 

I think I liked the story so much because it was dramatic, at points funny, and had all the color of a Hollywood Western.  Elijah beats the priests of Ba’al just like Sherriff Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday beat the Clantons and McLauries at the O.K. Corral.  Law prevails; the bullies are defeated.  Heady stuff for an 8 year old boy.  

It was only later, when I was 10 or so, that I learned the sequel to the Mt. Carmel story, today’s Hebrew Scriptures lesson.  And I was an adult before I learned that unlike in the film, the OK Corral did not solve anything, but only deepened and enraged the conflict in Tombstone.  

In the Elijah story, Ahab and Jezebel retaliate for the murder of their priests, sending soldiers to massacre the prophets of YHWH, and Elijah flees for his life.  He hides in a cave on Mt. Horeb or Sinai, where Moses had received the Law.   And there, in one last great epiphany before he prepares to end his ministry and turn it over to Elisha, he learns that maybe he had misunderstood things on Mt. Carmel. 

Archaeological digs have turned up dozens of small representations of Ba’al and his bedmate Asherah, as well as texts with prayers and liturgies from the Ba’al cult.  The picture we get from these sounds strangely contemporary and familiar.  One scholar summarizes it thus:

“The supreme good, the good life, consists in satisfaction of human material needs.  This is all we ask of the gods, and this is all they can give us.  They bless us in full when we they satisfy these needs not only in the minimum necessary for survival, but in abundance, so that we enjoy not only the simple life, but also the material comforts of life.  We ask of the gods more than meat and drink; we ask wealth, to that degree which will enable a man to purchase every satisfaction which he craves.  The highest of pleasures is the pleasure of sex: life offers nothing finer, nothing which raises a man to the level of the divine.  Consequently, the difference of the sexes exists only that the male may have this supreme satisfaction; woman is his possession, and her noblest function is to satisfy his sexual appetite.  When she does this, she is a goddess; otherwise, she is a high-grade domestic animal, a drudge, not fully a human being.  Society exists, under the patronage of the gods, to create the conditions in which this good life may be attained.  We must have law, order, restraint, but only to that degree which will prevent human crime from corrupting the good life of the group; the important thing is that law and government should protect wealth, material goods, and should make it possible for every man, within the limits of his capacity, to enjoy himself as he desires.  But the power which puts these good things within a man’s reach should not be restrained, and law and order should not protect the weak; for ultimately it is power that makes the good life possible.  Such is the life of the gods, and such, when the gods are well disposed, is the life they offer to men.”  (John L. McKenzie, SJ, The Two Edged Sword: And Interpretation of the Old Testament [Milwaukee: Bruce, 1956], p. 54). 

Ba’al was a god of wealth, power, and pleasure.  He was seen as backing the winners and abandoning losers.  With Ba’al on your side, you could treat subordinates with impunity, cheat those with whom you did business, take advantage of the poor and downtrodden, treat the objects of your sexual desire as mere things to be graded and scored, use bullying and force to have your way with others, perhaps even have gold-plating on your bathroom fixtures.  You could enjoy unjust privilege with impunity and not a whiff of shame or guilt.  Ba’al devotees were “quality,” winners,” and the “best, smartest, and strongest” of all.  Ba’al is described as a thrower of lightning and thunder, an earth shaker, and source of all great wealth, including big families and a lively economy.  For his enemies, he sent woes such as whirlwinds and wild fires.  His name, Ba’al, means “Master” or “husband,” and so he was often confused and conflated with YHWH, whose regular use name was Adonai, or “Lord” or “master.” 

But YHWH was the God of all, not just the powerful.  YHWH took care of the widow and orphan, the alien and sojourner, and raised the poor from the ashes.   YHWH was also seen as the source of blessing and prosperity as well as woe, but this was not based on partisanship or support of privilege.  Things that displease YHWH included oppressing the poor, cheating others, dissembling and lying, and practicing malice against the powerless.  YHWH demanded trust and ethical behavior from his people, and ethics meant first and foremost fairness, honesty, compassion, and integrity.  And these things were constraints upon how one enjoyed the blessings, how one took one’s pleasure.      

Elijah does not want anyone to confuse Canaan’s petty fertility fetish, enabler and support of the powerful, the rich, and the lustful, with the Holy One of Israel, who demands justice and compassion from all. 

On Mt. Carmel, Elijah dares his opponents to a contest to see whether it is YHWH or Ba’al who, after all, is the true giver of blessing.  The flash, fire, and fury vindicates Elijah and he massacres the priests of Ba’al.  But perhaps as satisfying as this story is as a Western, it does not end here.  Elijah’s opponents, the ones with power and might they say was bestowed by their god, turn the tables.  Elijah learns, as Jesus later teaches, that those who live by the sword die by the sword.   Apparently, all that fury and fire on Carmel didn’t really give Elijah what he needed to defeat the great bully god. 

The text in Hebrew of this story is subtle in its use of verbal forms, and when you render these in English it becomes clear that the point of this story is YHWH and Ba’al are not at all alike.

“A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing the rocks, before the Lord, but the Lord was no longer in the whirlwind.  Then an earthquake, but the Lord was no longer in the earthquake.  And then a fire, but God was no longer in the fire.  Finally, there was a still breeze, and the sound of sheer silence.  And when Elijah heard this, he hid his face in his cloak” because he knew that this is where God was.

The power and love of God are not found in God’s ability to give us what we want.  God is not a supporter of privilege and abuse of the down-trodden.  God is not in the flash, the fire, and fury.  We sully God by putting him on par with the petty idols of all those about us. 

 photo credit: The Christian Century

“God blesses us materially when we do what’s right and curses us materially when we do not”—this is the great heresy of the “Prosperity Gospel” taught in many of America’s evangelical churches today.  It is, simply, Ba’al worship, idolatry.   Look at those white supremacists in Charlottesville VA this week: many say they are Christian even as they bully others, chant neo-Nazi slogans, and shout that they want their (!) country returned (!) to them.  Many white Christians in the last election voted for a candidate who models bullying behavior toward women, the poor, and aliens, boasts his wealth as a sign of his competence to rule, and declares without a whiff of irony that he has nothing of which he should repent, confess, or regret.   In the degree that they support him because of these misdoings rather despite them, they fall down at the altar of Ba’al trying to “make America great (white?) again.”

But God is in utter silence, not the sound and fury.  Listening to silence, contemplating quietness, waiting for subtlety—these are the hallmarks of a life devoted to pursuit of the true spirit.  Noise and flash might on occasion happen, but usually God speaks to us in the silence of our stumbling hearts, seeking coherent expression and understanding, in what the King James Bible translates as “a still, small voice.”

St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”

As today’s Epistle says, the justice that comes from trusting God is not far away, high in the heaven or low in the abyss, but is at hand, in our very heart.  God does not favor one race or nation over another.  As the Gospel says, the flash and awe of seeing Jesus walking on the stormy sea is not enough to keep us on top of the waves.  Flash and awe do not drive out the fear that sinks Peter.  To walk, we must fully trust Jesus.  Trust comes in moments of silent reflection, not in noise and fury. 

May we learn to sit in silence.  May we learn in that silence to hear the voice of the God who is love itself.  May we cast away our idols and worship of Ba’al with his flash and fury.  Amen. 

Happy are They who Build Peace (Mid-week Message)

Hiroshima in flames on the afternoon of August 6.  By hibakusha (nuclear-bomb survivor) 

Nakano Kenichi, 47 years old in August 1945.  The inscription tells of ‘living Hell in this world.’

Happy are They who Build Peace

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

August 9, 2017

“Happy are they who build peace; they are God’s own children!”  (Matt. 5:9)

When Jesus says God’s blessing rests on and is found in the work of peace-makers, he is thinking of peace not simply as an absence of conflict and violence, but as shalom, the abundance of life that is God’s intention for creation.   It implies justice and fairness, but also gentleness, compassion, and mercy.   It is premised, of course, on forgiveness and reconciliation, and in organizing our common life as truly a thing shared, no longer with “us” vs. “them.” 

Hearing the current mutual threats of violence and war of the top national leader in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and in the United States, it is easy to chalk it all up to macho chest thumping and bloviating, angry eructation, “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  But in this week that marks the 72^nd anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we cannot be too blasé when we hear the U.S. President threaten to rain down “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never known” upon the people of North Korea if its leaders do not cease threats against the U.S., and the North Korean ultimate leader reply by specifically threatening to nuke Guam.   In this among all months, we should remember that Barbara Tuchman’s fine history of the start of World War I, The Guns of August, describes the accidental but irresistible slide into world conflagration in 1914 as a series of shriller and shriller chest thumping and threats by petty national leaders thought by their nations’ elites incapable of actually pursuing the unthinkable. 

Building peace does not come through mutual threats and hatred.  It does not come through stronger and stronger armaments in an arms race.  It does not even come through ostensibly “non-violent” sanctions and measures seeking to put irresistible pressure on one’s opponent.  No—all of these things actually build war, not peace. 

I worked for 25 years as a small part of the U.S. government’s North East Asia security team and know very well it is no simple task to design and implement productive policies to help encourage a regime as vicious and fragile as the DPRK to cease hurting its own people and threatening its neighbors.   But now, as a minister of the Gospel, I must point out the obvious:  bullying never brings peace.  And when a bully tries to force another bully to back off and stand down, only bad can result. 

This does not mean that use of force or threat of use of force by nations’ seeking to safeguard their own security is never allowed or recommended.  But it does mean, at the very least, that such tools be handled very, very carefully and with the greatest wisdom.  “Be smart as snakes,” says Jesus, “but harmless as doves”  (Matt 10:16). 

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

Glory into Glory (Transfiguration)

The Transfiguration, Fr. John Giuliani 

Glory Into Glory

The Feast of the Transfiguration
6 August 2017; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Parish Church

Ashland, Oregon

Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36; Psalm 99

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

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the subject of our Gospel reading.  On Mount Tabor, light and brilliance burst forth from the face of Jesus, Moses and Elijah stand beside him in the cloud, and the voice of God declares who Jesus really is. The Hebrew Scripture lesson tells of Moses coming down from meeting God on the Holy Mountain with the brightness of God still on him.  The epistle has Peter tell us that his faith is based on this moment of clarity about Jesus. 

The glory of God reflecting in the face of Jesus is a revolutionary fact:  it challenges Peter's assumptions.  He confuses things, and thinks somehow that Jesus is getting his authority or endorsement from the appearance of the ancient prophets.   That’s why he calls Jesus Rabbi (“Master”) and wants to build those three Succoth, booths or temporary shelters showing God’s care and end-time promises.  But God intervenes and sets Peter straight.  A light-filled cloud appears and covers everything. A voice identifies Jesus as the first thing, the real item. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to what he says!’   The cloud disappears, and all that remains is Jesus himself.  Moses and Elijah are not longer around. 

The transfiguration is a moment of sudden clarity for the disciples that they don’t fully “get” until after the resurrection.  This is what we read in that epistle passage:  Peter has grown in understanding, and has been changed by looking at Jesus in glory.  He realizes, in the words of John’s Gospel, “Whoever has seen [Jesus] has seen the Father.” 

St. Paul in 2 Corinthians says that Christ is the image of God, and that we all, beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ, “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). 

Looking upon Jesus’s beauty and glory changes us.  It takes us from where we are, with whatever amount of God’s glory is already shining forth in us, and pushes us beyond.  It drives out the darkness.  We ourselves are transfigured, are metamorphosed.  

How is it that we can "gaze upon the glory" of our Lord?   How can we “listen to what he says” rather than build tents on the hillside, memorials to our own pre-conceptions? 

It is important to reflect on our Lord and Savior often and regularly.  That is why daily prayer and scripture reading is an essential part of any Christian’s effective spiritual discipline.  Regular Church attendance helps, but in gazing upon the Lord's glory, we must be the Church, not simply attend Church.  It is not just a passive act of admiration.  Following Jesus in doing corporeal acts of mercy, in loving and serving the least of these, members of Jesus’ family, in standing with the outcast, the downtrodden, and the sick, in not giving up in any of this when results don’t seem to appear as we would have them—these  give us an experience of who Jesus is and what he does. 

Given the stresses of life, it is easy to lose heart.  It is easy to believe that people cannot change.  It is all too easy to believe we cannot change.  But the miracle and mystery of our faith is this—we can change because God changes us.  In the Apostles’ Creed we affirm that we believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”  This makes no sense at all if you don’t believe that God is at work transforming us, and that we shall be changed. 

Just as God sent that shining cloud to drive away Peter’s silly preconceptions and plans, God works with us as we look into the glorious face of Jesus and try to hear his voice. 

The faith that we are being changed from one glory to another in the direction of the image of Jesus is reflected in the classic line from African-American preaching quoted often by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Lord, I know I ain't what I outta be.  And I know I ain't what I'm gonna be.  But thank God Almighty, I ain't what I was!"

Such change is sometimes hard, so hard that at times we do not know whether we will be able to bear it.  At other times it is easy, a refreshment and a relief: finally kicking that habit and getting that monkey off our back.

When Paul says this turns us into "the image of Christ" he is not saying it removes our individuality.  What he describes is a transformation into our true selves, the individual people God intended when He created each of us, with all that makes us who we are, but absent the brokenness that we so often mistake for what makes us who we are. 

One of the greatest foundation stones of my personal faith is the experience of seeing transformed brothers and sisters around us, and seeing ourselves over the years as God works with us and changes us.  It doesn’t mean we are perfect, only that God is making progress in finishing his creation in us.

Charles Wesley in one of his hymns summed it up this way--

Finish then, thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
'Till in heaven we take our place.
'Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.  

It is not just in heaven when all of God's creation is done that this happens.  As we are transformed here and now, quickly or slowly, it makes us look around us in amazement of these tokens of God's love and then gaze all the more, "lost in wonder, love, and praise," on the author and pioneer of it all. 

As we look upon Christ's glory, may God so work with us all and change us, from glory into glory.   

 In the name of Christ, Amen.

Living with Liars (Midweek)

Living with Liars

Fr. Tony's Midweek Message

August 2, 2017 

"[What] gave Adam free access to God in Paradise and which also gives us access to Him in the new Paradise opened to the world by the Passion of Christ, was based on confidence in the truth of God's mercy. But the sin of Adam which robbed him and us of paradise was due to a false confidence, a confidence which deliberately willed to make the option and experience of believing a lie." (Thomas Merton, The New Man [New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1961] p. 101)

One of the great misfortunes of political life in our country for the last half century is the preponderance of "spin doctors" on both sides of the aisle whose work is to shape narrative that is to the best political advantage of their employers: Take the facts, shave out the ugly or inconvenient ones, tell a moving story made up only of the facts that work in your direction, and then focus on the pithy and memorable message of the day.   

Such unidirectional messaging has gradually choked off two-way political discourse in the country, stifled bi-partisan cooperation and compromise, and shattered to bits the things that hold us together in a common life. But at least spin doctors had to submit their version of the world and truth to what was commonly called "the laugh test," that is, whether things were spun so far away from the facts on the ground everyone knew that the reaction they would likely provoke was derisive guffaws at the unbelievable story they told.  

One of the effects of the "narrow-casting" of internet media and the partisan partitioning of radio and cable news (lefties watch MSNBC or CNN; righties watch Fox) is an "echo-chamber" where we hear only voices we agree with. And this has led in some cases to a loss of effective control of the laugh test. As a result, we are in an environment where spin often no longer even seeks any connection to reality at all. In a word, we live in a world surrounded by many liars. Witness the rise of such terms as "alternative facts" and "fake news."  

As Christians, we are called to live in truth, as hard and uncomfortable as truth may be. People of the lie are doomed to live in fear, avoidance, and manipulation. But as resurrection people, we live in the light, in the truth. Truth drives out fear. As the Johannine Jesus said, "The truth shall set you free." We need to listen to those with whom we disagree, if only to catch facts that we may have filtered out of our view. But we also need to be truthful, and call a misrepresentation or distortion of things what it is—a lie. 

Grace and peace.  

    Fr. Tony +