Aspirations and Hope (midweek message)

 

Aspirations and Hope

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

October 30, 2019

A news item from this week started me thinking about the role of hope and aspirations in our worship and common life.  On October 27, Father Robert Morey, pastor of St. Anthony Roman Catholic Church in Charleston, South Carolina, denied communion to former Vice President Joe Biden, making a campaign tour in the state, when he presented himself at the St. Anthony’s altar rail.  Fr. Morey explained his decision this way: “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”

Even apart from the mis-characterization of Biden’s position, there is much in this statement that is just plain wrong.  Fr. James Martin, SJ, general editor of America magazine, explained it this way:  “Denying Communion to politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, is a bad idea and bad pastoral practice. For if you deny the sacrament to those who support abortion, then you must also deny it to those who support the death penalty, which is also a life issue. How about those who don't support programs to help the poor? Or refuse to help refugees and migrants? How about those who don't support [Pope Francis’ green pro-earth] ‘Laudato Si,’ which is, after all, an encyclical? Where does it end?  Besides, a priest has no idea what the state of a person's soul is when the person presents himself or herself in the Communion line. As we were taught in our theology studies, the person may have repented of any sins and gone to confession immediately before Mass. You have no idea.  Finally, as Pope Francis has said, the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.’  As Presbyterian minister Benjamin Perry wrote, “Do not deny anyone communion.  Ever.  Communion is not a reward.  It is not a privilege for the righteous.  It is an invitation to step towards God’s table where everyone has enough and everyone has a place.  Remember: Jesus fed Judas.”  

Of course, the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer and the Canons of the Episcopal Church do instruct priests to refuse communion to people whose stubborn persistence in notorious sin is a scandal to other people at the communion rail, most especially in cases where the faithful persist in open hatred of one another.  But in such cases, those turned away have a right of appeal to the bishop.  And very few Episcopal priests ever refuse communion to people for the very pastoral and theological reasons Martin and Perry give.   

Interestingly, the same Episcopal Church canon that tells priests to refuse notorious sinners communion also says that no unbaptized person can receive communion in this Church.  This is because baptism is the full, complete, and once and for all initiation into life in Christ, and Holy Communion makes little sense outside of the context of having been initiated into Christ’s body, the church.  But again, this is honored more in the breach than in the observance, since it is simply offensively bad pastoral practice to demand peoples’ credentials at the altar rail. 

A desire to protect the sanctity of the holy sacrament lies behind both refusing communion to notorious sinners and to the unbaptized.  After all it was St. Paul who taught that all who partake the sacrament unworthily, i.e., “who eat and drink without discerning the body,” “eat and drink judgment against themselves” (1 Cor 11:29).  But “defending people from hellfire” as a “loving” motive for refusing people communion rings hollow on the ears, whatever cause for the refusal. 

In addition to the pastoral concerns, there are solid scriptural and theological reasons for questioning the wisdom of refusing communion to anyone.  In the Synoptics, the sacrament is instituted at the last supper.  Jesus welcomed Judas to it.  In John’s gospel, the feeding of the 5,000 takes the place of the last supper as the origin of Holy Communion: and all are welcomed simply by virtue of their desire to be there.  There is no evidence of asking whether people had been baptized.  Jesus’ call for radical hospitality and welcome of the marginalized seems so strong that it might trump all other concerns. 

But I think that there is here a deeper issue:  the role of our worship and the sacraments in our lives, and how often these are aspirational and not legally conceived.  The Creed, for instance, is not a checklist of the minimum requirements of believing doctrines.  It is, rather, an affirmation of what the earliest church leaders taught, and by reciting it we affirm our desire to be part of what they began.  Again, it is aspirational, not prescriptive or even descriptive.  Many who recite the Creed need at times to “cross their fingers” at parts, depending on how their life at the moment is going and how their faith is.  But we recite it all the same.   Remember that the three great gifts of the Spirit are faith, hope, and love.  Hope is what aspirations are all about. 

Saying “the baptized are invited to the table, and the unbaptized are invited to baptism” may make theological sense, but enforcing it by a credentials check seems to short-circuit the work of the spirit who may touch and invite people to our common life and the Lord’s table at any stage in their life in Christ (even before formal catechesis and baptism, and even in the presence of real disagreement).  Denying communion as a pastoral teaching method of last resort may make sense if it is within the context of an ongoing pastoral relationship and there is real hope that reconciliation and forgiveness may be the fruit of such an action.  But it makes absolutely no sense as a tribal enforcement mechanism—if we use communion as a stick or a carrot to force conformity, we have cheapened it and denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.   When I give the sacrament to someone whose worthiness I doubt (or when I take it doubting my own worthiness), this actually is an act of hope and faith, aspiring that we all may one day be united in love and one in faith and doctrine.    

The driving factor in this should be love, and a desire to edify or build up one another.  So I invite and welcome all, and make sure when I find out that someone is receiving communion without having been baptized, I invite that person to an Inquirer’s Class to prepare for baptism.  That is also why I firmly support our use—our sincere use—of the Iona bidding to the table: 

This is the table, not of the Church, but of God.
It is to be made ready for those who love God
and who want to love God more.

So, come, you who have much faith and you who have little,
you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time,
you who have tried to follow and you who have failed.
Come:  It is Christ’s will that we should meet him here.

Grace and peace. 

Fr. Tony+

Two Kinds of Lonely (Proper 25c)

Two Kinds of Lonely
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25 Year C RCL)
27 October 2019--8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Readings: Sirach 35:12-17; Psalm 84:1-6; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone

and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

A popular song when I was a teenager went, “I'm in with the in crowd, I go where the in crowd goes.  I'm in with the in crowd and I know what the in crowd knows.”

Once, the executive of a senior political leader took me aside and said,  “Listen I know that you’re not like those others. They just don’t get it.  But you do, and I’m sure you can do this just like our boss wants.”  

Another time, in the rarefied air of a research institute in religion, a senior professor said to us graduate students, “We are knowledgeable and can handle the truth.   The many out there—pffff—forget about them.  Tell them whatever convenient simplicity will keep them happy.” 

Yet another time, I met with my boss Ambassador Jon Huntsman and the senior editor of a major fashion magazine.   In every phrase and gesture, every choice of clothing and mannerism, she passed the message, all so graciously, “We are better than all those little people out there, and we have a responsibility to lead.”   

Today’s Gospel is a parable that Jesus told against “those who belittled others because they thought they were better than they.” 

Two men who go to the Temple to pray: One is a Pharisee who keeps all the laws, an upright member of the community.  The other is a Tax Collector—a traitor, collaborator with the hated Romans, who gouges money for his own profit.  The parable praises the evil man and condemns the righteous. 

There are three ways that we commonly misread this parable.

The first is that Jesus is condemning in general the Pharisees, forerunners of all rabbinic Judaism, as heartless hypocrites.  But at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were generally seen as the most sincere, humble and open of the various Jewish sects.  Jesus is closer to them than any other group.  The point here is not to criticize Pharisees, but rather shock the listener into new understanding by contrasting an upstanding lover of God with a wicked traitor.

The second misreading is that Jesus is praising the Tax Collector’s chest-beating, over-wrought guilt as the one-size-fits-all proper approach to God.   This view is fostered and popularized by the grim pessimism of Saint Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther.   But when Jesus approaches the truly wretched, he does not beat up on them and tell them to further abase themselves. To such people, Jesus announces the jubilant arrival of God’s Reign.

The third misreading is that Jesus here is trying to teach salvation by grace alone apart from works, again, usually as contained in the writings of those pessimistic three. While this parable may provide a facile proof-text for such a doctrine, there is nothing in it to suggest that deeds do not matter.

So what does it mean? 

  

Jesus’ parables regularly turn things upside down.   An honored and righteous priest and Levite pass by a gravely injured fellow Jew, and it is a hated and loathed Samaritan that finally helps the poor man.   A shameless father, unconcerned about his honor, runs out and hugs, and then throws a big party for, a troubled son who had as much wished him dead and then frivolously spent half of his estate on detested vices.   

Jesus chooses shocking images to represent God at work:  the Reign of God is not seen as a great cedar tree or vine, but rather a vile mustard weed; ritually suspect yeast represents the Kingdom at work, not pure, unleavened Passover loaves.   Such scenes shock us out of our regular ways of thinking, and make us stand in wonder at God at work in the world around.

The righteous Pharisee stands in the center of things as he thanks God that he is not like all the other sinners around, drawing attention to himself, so that he can point out the differences between him from and those other “little” people.

The Tax Collector stands “afar off” to the side, out of shame.  He doesn’t dare raise his eyes up to heaven, and simply asks God “have mercy on me, a sinner.” He is one of the telones, a class of entrepreneurs who collected tolls, surcharges, and head taxes.  They were a rough lot, closer to what we would call the “muscle” of a loan shark operation than an IRS agent. They are traitors to their people.  This is what the tax collector bemoans as he beats his breast.

Jesus says that it is the Tax Collector and not the Pharisee who went out of the Temple that day having been made right with God.  Why? 

Jesus has chosen two stereotypes here:  the righteous, pious, and socially responsible Pharisee and the irreligious, unscrupulous, and morally tainted Tax Collector.

The difference between the two is in their hearts.  Though both stand by themselves, though both are lonely, there are two kinds of lonely here.  The Pharisee isolates himself because he has contempt for others and thinks he is better than everyone else.  The Tax Collector is lonely because he is ashamed and isolated because others look down on him, and he recognizes that perhaps they are right.  His standing far off is actually an act of solidarity with other people, recognizing their judgment of him.  So the loneliness of the Pharisee drives him away from other people and from God.  The loneliness of the Tax Collector drives him toward other people and God. 

There are not just two kinds of lonely.  When we think of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector and which one was closer to God, which one was neared to God, we need to remember that there are two different kinds of nearness also: what C.S. Lewis calls nearness of proximity and nearness of approach.

A hiker in the mountains comes out onto a ledge and sees, there beneath her, the small town where she wants to spend the night. It is only about 500 meters away—straight down. To get there, she must continue on the path, with its switchbacks and gradual descent. At moments, she must actually go farther and farther away from her goal—800 meters, 1400 meters as the crow flies—before the switchback turns. But all the time, she is actually getting closer to her evening resting spot. 

Jesus’ point in contrasting the two men in the Temple is that from the point of view of nearness of proximity, the Pharisee is much closer to God than the Tax Collector, but from the point of view of nearness of approach, and this is in the long run the only thing that counts—the Tax Collector is nearer to God by far, despite appearances and what stereotypes tell us to expect. 

The Pharisee here, against the better teachings of his own tradition, has let his contempt for others and his desire to be better than others close his heart.  The Tax Collector, against all expectation, senses that he is in this with all the others.

In a word, the Pharisee here is unable to get any closer to God or to his fellows.  The Tax Collector has made a start at both. 

If there is any such thing as an eternal hell, I believe its doors are locked not from the outside by God, but from the inside by the people suffering there. They do so because they persist in rejecting the love of God, afraid of accepting that they are in this with all the rest, one of God’s beloved creatures.

Better a wicked person who knows he or she  is one sorry mess than a “righteous” one with no clue as to how hard his or her heart has become.  This is the idea Jesus seeks to convey in the parable.   The self-satisfied religious, singing “I’m in with the in crowd,” is unwilling to relate to others except as inferiors, as “little” people.

I pray that all of us this week can find ways to connect with others in our lives, especially those upon whom we look down upon. Looking down upon anyone is a sign of dire spiritual illness, a sickness unto death. It might be best to learn to root it out of our minds, and erase it from our hearts.

In the name of Christ,  Amen. 

 

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Your Going in and Your Coming Out (midweek)

 

Your Going In and Your Coming Out

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

October 23, 2019

People who study ancient Hebrew in depth are usually impressed by how hard it is to express abstractions in this language.   There is a shortage of abstract nouns and limited ways of turning concrete adjectives or nouns into abstraction.  There is a notoriously “baggy” system of predication (the verb “to be” is often not used as a copula; equivalence of the “a = b” sort is often expressed simply by juxtaposing the two ideas to be joined.)  As a result, ancient Hebrew addresses abstraction periphrastically, i.e., it often talks around an issue so that the idea becomes clear without directly expressing it. 

Sometimes, abstractions are expressed by listing concrete examples of the unifying idea.  An example is the near endless examples of clean vs. unclean in Leviticus; another is cataloguing of types of animals or nations in the primeval history in Genesis 1-11.   Though expressed occasionally with such generalizing rules such as “that which has a cloven hoof and chews cud is clean; but if it has one of these but not the other it is unclean,” note that this is not expressed abstractly, but rather is followed by lists of concrete examples (Lev. 11:1-8). 

Another example is narrative story-telling.  The best example is Genesis 1, where the author talks about the creation of the framework of the world in days 1-3, and then, in mirrored format, about the ornaments that adorn the framework in days 5-6:  day 1’s division of light and darkness is paralleled by day 4’s appearance of the sun, moon and stars ; day 2’s division of  waters above and below by the firmament and then its separation of dry land from the waters below is paralleled by day 5’s appearance of flying birds above and sea creatures beneath; day 3’s production of vegetation from the land is paralleled by day 6’s appearance of land animals and human beings.   Such a framework/ornament structure is the author’s way of expressing ex nihilo creation: God making the universe from out of nothing. 

Another way of periphrastically expressing abstraction is listing polar opposites when what is intended is a diverse spectrum of reality between the poles.   Examples include: 

“Yahweh shall preserve your going out and your coming in” (Psalm 121:8), where this means “preserve you at all times”;  “I know your rising up and your sitting down” (Isaiah 37:28), where this means “I know you completely.” 

This periphrastic way of expressing abstraction is important to note since reading such phrases literally can make you totally miss the point.  “God created man in his own image, in the image of God, He created them, male and female created He them” (Gen 1:37 KJV) is often used as a proof text by Biblical fundamentalists for the immutability and prescriptive normativity of gender difference, a misreading strengthened by the mistranslation of ‘adam as “man” rather than “humankind.”  This is where the idea “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” comes from.     But here, polarities are clearly representing the spectrum between them and a much better translation should be: 

God created humankind in God’s image;
    in God’s own image God created them;
    male, female, and all in between:  God created them.

Grace and peace.  Fr. Tony+

A Wound that Heals Us (proper 24c)

A Wound that Heals Us
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 24 Year C RCL)
20 October 2019--8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Readings: Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone

 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When Ronald Reagan was running against incumbent president Jimmie Carter in 1980, only one presidential debate took place.  Reagan perhaps won the debate by use of a single memorable line.  Exasperated when Carter began to relist the deficiencies he saw in Reagan’s position on Medicare and Medicaid, Reagan interrupted, “There you go again!”  The audience burst into laughter.  Reagan had defused the criticism not through any refutation of fact, but just by strategically expressing well that most human of emotions, exasperation.

“There you go again!” These words express frustration at someone’s apparent inability to change, whatever the relapse.  Sometime we silently reproach ourselves with them.

Today’s Genesis reading tells the story of a man who had a hard time changing his conniving, self-seeking ways.  Even in the womb, he seemed to struggle with his twin brother.  When Esau was born first, the feisty younger twin rejected his second-place by grasping Esau’s heel.  So his parents named him Jacob, “Heel.”

A maneuverer from the start, Jacob plays on Esau’s simplicity and hunger to get him to ignorantly trade away his property inheritance for a dish of lentil stew.  Later, he impersonates Esau to steal his father’s spiritual blessing.

Esau, exasperated and resentful, plans simply to murder Jacob as soon as their father dies and take back his rightful inheritance and blessing.  So Jacob, ever wily, leaves town to lie low for a while.   He goes to his uncle Laban’s home far away to wait until things calm down.

Jacob clearly is in distress.  During his escape, he has a vision of a ladder into heaven, and for the first time connects with the God of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.  He calls the place Bethel, the House of God.  But he remains Jacob, the heel. 

Uncle Laban too is a trickster.   When he settles on a bride price for Jacob to marry one of his daughters, he tricks him into paying double—a work contract of fourteen years instead of seven—and taking on an unwanted daughter as well.  Jacob’s hard work and business savvy profits both nephew and uncle. When the shared assets grow to a size worth arguing about, tensions develop.  Jacob knows it is time to return to Canaan when, as he says to his wives, “Your father is not treating me a nicely as he used to.” 

 

Now comes the problem of divvying up the wealth. Jacob still has tricks up his sleeve, turning the tables by tricking the trickster.  He rigs the process of selecting flocks in his favor, and ends up with the lion’s portion.  So he has to flee his uncle by night too, just as he had to flee his brother.  “There you go again!”  

As Jacob returns to Canaan, he is afraid that Esau still will murder him.  So he sends messengers with kind words.  They return and say that Esau is coming to welcome him home—accompanied by 400 armed men!

Yikes.  The big hairy man may be dull, but he clearly does not forget a grudge. 

Jacob is prudent.  He divides his large caravan into two camps:  if Esau takes the first by violence, at least Jacob might have half his family and goods left.  Then he sends all the huge baggage and livestock train in several small groups ahead, all with the instructions that if Esau challenges them, they are to say they are gifts from Jacob for his dear brother Esau.   Finally, he sends his own immediate family.   But he still is too afraid.  He alone goes back to spend the night on the riverbank.

That is when today’s mysterious story occurs.  A stranger accosts Jacob and wrestles with him in the dark until the break of dawn, when the stranger, desperate to end the match, performs some kind of ninja trick on Jacob’s hip.  Jacob can no longer wrestle.  He might as well give up.  But he continues to hold on for dear life.  The stranger says, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”  Jacob replies, “Not until you bless me.” 

Jacob has run out of tricks.  He is desperate, unsure that his maneuvers will turn away Esau’s wrath.  He might lose everything in the next few hours.  The struggle in the dark in some ways represents the struggle going on in his heart:  his fears and plots versus the hope for a new day.  One of the great commentators in the rabbinic tradition, Rashi, says that Jacob here is wrestling with Esau's guardian angel.  All he can do is hold tightly.  “Bless me,” he begs, “Bless me.” 

The stranger asks, “What is your name?  Who are you?”  “Jacob,” is the answer, “a heel, a trickster.” 

This confession, this avowal of stark truth when all options and plans are gone, marks a real change in Jacob’s life.  The stranger blesses him in reply, “Jacob is not your name, but Yisrael: ‘It is God who Struggles.’”  “You are a heel no more.  You don’t need to struggle any more, for God is the one who struggles.” 

The day comes, and Jacob, forever changed, limps back to cross the river to his family.  His limp will stay with him the rest of his life.  He greets Esau later in the day, and the brothers are reconciled (with Esau in fine Asian style first refusing all the gifts, and then, after his brother’s urging,  accepting many of them.) 

Today’s Lectionary includes this story along with other scriptures telling us to persist in seeking God: Jesus’ parable of a corrupt judge cowed into granting a petitioner’s request simply to gain some peace and quiet, 2 Timothy’s counsel to persist whether the times are favorable or hard.   

But the story of Jacob’s wrestle is not about holding on tight, bulldozing ahead come hell or high water.  The key is in the words of blessing:  you don’t need to be a heel.  You don’t need to struggle.  Because God struggles with us, God struggles for us.  Be still and know that I am God. 

  

How many of us are Jacob here?  Do we say to ourselves: “There you go again! What can I do to get out of this fix? How can I turn back the clock?  How can I keep from the bad same old same old?”

When others have hurt us, how many of us are like Esau here?  Do we want to blurt out “There you go again,” and never again have anything to do with them, or worse, want to work them harm?

In all of this, God is there, loving us, supporting us, and holding us tightly.  In our exasperation, we have to hold tightly onto God, and not let go, even though everything is going wrong and we may get hurt in the struggle. “I won’t let go, not until you bless me.” 

The good news is this:  our failings and the failings of others are ways that God shows his love and grace.  St. Paul knew this when he spoke of the mysterious “thorn” God had placed in his flesh: “but [God] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’…  for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12: 9-10). As Leonard Cohen said, “the cracks in the world are the way the light gets in.” 

Sometimes people complain that our prayer book liturgy is too penitential. They are right to think that dwelling on sin alone can be pathological.  But worship must be rooted in honesty.  Like Jacob, we need to confess our name, recognize where we do not measure up.  Because it is in these very gaps that God seizes us.

The Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, is a celebration of thanks, if nothing else.  But it begins in honesty about who we are.  Jacob must speak his old name before he can be given a new one.  Each and every eucharist is a revolutionary act, subverting the system of oppression and accusation, including self-accusation. It tells us “heel,” “deceiver,” “fighter,” is not our true name. 

This week, find something in yourself that needs forgiving, needs remedying. And in your prayers, pray that God will help you with it, simply help.  And then be patient.   Say you won’t let go until he blesses you.  Be like that persistent annoying woman in the Gospel reading.  And forgive yourself.   

Also find something in someone in your life that needs forgiving, needs correcting, something that makes you angry.  And just forgive them.  If that’s not possible, ask God to help you forgive.  And say you won’t let go until he blesses you in this. 

In the name of Christ, 

Amen. 

A Prayer for the Poor (midweek)

 

 Christ of the Breadlines, woodcut print by Fritz Eichenberg.

A Prayer for the Poor

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

October 16, 2019

 “Father, may people be in awe

At how different you are from us. 

May the realm where you are in charge fully arrive,

May people do as you desire

Here on earth just as in heaven.

Give us today the bread we need for the morrow.

Forgive us the debts we owe,

Just as we forgive the debts owed us. 

Do not put us to the test

But rather rescue us from evil. 

Amen.”   

I have been reading Gerhard Lohfink’s magnificent little study, “The Lord’s Prayer.” In it, he points out that the Our Father is noteworthy among the prayers of Jesus’ day by its brevity, its focus on petitions to God rather than praise or thanks, and its sense of end-times urgency. This model of prayer is not to disparage other forms, but rather based prayer above all else in intimate relationship with and total dependence upon a God whose very being calls us to be better than we are.   

Many scholars note that the prayer on the lips of the historical Jesus was first and foremost a prayer of the poor: the real poor, those hungering for food, not able to make their income stretch from one payday to another and going into debt as a result.  Calling God Abba, or Father, establishes our intimate dependence and God’s loving care. “Your name be sanctified” uses a passive voice where we would probably use the active voice with an indefinite third person subject: may people make holy your name, i.e., honor who you are by recognizing how much better you are than we. “May your reign arrive and your will be accomplished.” The world about us and we ourselves are broken, not what God intends. Fix us, and the world about us. Teach us to grow and be better, and also care for us, as a good parent would. “Give us today (Luke: each day) our bread for tomorrow.” “Daily” bread is not what the Greek word epiousios or its underlying Aramaic probably refers to: rather, “bread for the upcoming day” is what is intended: enough for today and then a little more. “Forgive us the debts we owe” probably refers to real monetary debts. Jesus tells us to ask God to cancel debts, and help us cancel out debts. 

We recite the Lord’s Prayer at every Eucharist because “daily bread” was associated early on with the Eucharistic bread. But Eucharist was not a daily event for the first few centuries of the Church and this linkage came only later. 

But it is good to remind ourselves at the altar that we are all beggars before God, all helpless children in need of care. And in making this prayer of the poor a model prayer for us, Jesus taught that the quickest evidence of God’s Reign arriving is when we care for the “least of these, members of our family.” 

Grace and Peace.  

 Fr. Tony+

What is to Prevent? (midweek)

“What is to Prevent?” 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

October 9, 2019

Friday is the feast day of St. Philip the Deacon or Evangelist.  He is one of the seven Greek speaking Jewish Christians called by the Twelve in Jerusalem to help in assistance to the poor, particularly Greek-speaking widows and orphans who felt that they had been neglected by the alms-distribution organized under the Hebrew and Aramaic speaking Church leadership (Acts 6:5).  He plays a major role in how the Book of Acts portrays the increasing spread of Christian witness: from Jews in Jerusalem and Judea, to Samaritans, and then to Gentiles as far as “the end of the earth” (i.e., Rome) (Acts 1:8).  After the martyrdom of another of the 7 deacons, Stephen, in Acts 7, but before the conversion of St. Paul (Acts 9), Peter baptizing the gentile Cornelius (Acts 10), or Paul’s missions to the gentiles in Acts 13-14 and 16-28, it is Philip who takes the Gospel to Samaria (Acts 8:4-25), and then baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-39).  The Ethiopian eunuch represents an expansion of the scope of God’s grace:  though it is unclear in the story whether he is Jewish or a gentile attender of Synagogue, or whether he is actually a physical eunuch or merely a man who holds that name as a title for a court official, he is clearly seen as a foreigner beyond the pale of Judaism’s embrace, and thus is a key part of the expansion of God’s call to humanity.     

The story sees the eunuch reading a text from Isaiah.  Philip asks if he understands what he is reading, to which the eunuch replies in words that resonate to most of us who have been puzzled and stumped by Bible passages, “How can I, unless someone explain it to me?”  Using the passage, Philip explains the hope he has in Jesus, raised from the dead, and (presumably) mentions how baptism is the way we accept this grace: 

“As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.”  (Acts 8:37-38)

“What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”  Philip could have pointed to many reasons for not baptizing the Ethiopian: there were many such possible impediments.  A foreigner was not allowed to eat the Passover without circumcision (Exodus 12:48), and castrated men were barred from ever becoming part of the Congregation of Israel (Deuteronomy 23:1).  But Philip, recognizing that God’s grace and welcome is bigger than any of our little rules, baptizes away.  And in so doing, he becomes part of that major theme of the Book of Acts: the increasing scope and spread of God’s welcome. 

The process was challenging and painful.  Acts 15 tells of how the early apostles in Council developed rules of minimal standards of behavior for all to help bring unity to the expanding Church, split by division over admitting “unclean” gentiles without following the scripture-given rules to make them Jews and rid them of their uncleanness.   Despite divisions, the Church thrived as it set aside the old ways of doing things and followed the inspiration of the Spirit. 

Today, many evangelicals take issue with what they call “turning away from scripture” in a whole range of areas:  women’s roles, gay and lesbian priests, and same-sex marriage.  But at heart, I think, their argument is a call to preserve the Levitical distinctions between clean and unclean.  And in this, they are wrong.  Acts 15’s call to “avoid fornication” almost certainly means avoiding marriage within forbidden degrees of kinship rather than a generalized set of specific rules on sexual ethics.   The Holiness Code of Leviticus 17-27 does not make a distinction between ritual and moral rules: weaving a blended fabric garment or sowing a field of hybrid grain are both considered “abominations” every bit as much as “a man lying with a man.”  Such efforts at holding the line and keeping “old time morality” looks to me very much like another impediment that limits and places human bounds on God's grace.   We are called to chastity, fidelity, and eschewing promiscuity, to be sure, but beyond that, I doubt the Bible really bears the weight these efforts place upon it. 

When we are asked “what is to prevent us” from sharing God’s grace and love, our answer should be “NOTHING AT ALL.” 

Grace and Peace. 

Mulberry Heaven (Proper 22c)

Mulberry Heaven
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22 Year C RCL)
6 October 2019 --8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

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

Readings: Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone

 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When I worked at the Department of State in Washington DC, I often would go running on my lunch breaks.  I would run from State to the Lincoln Memorial to the Key Bridge and cross the Potomac into Virginia, then run past the Marine Corps Monument, then onto a footpath along the George Washington Parkway and then at the entrance to Arlington Cemetery run up the hill to Memorial Highway to cross  Memorial Bridge and run back to where I started.  At the top of that hill by Memorial Bridge, just down the hill from the Custis-Lee Mansion (Arlington House) and overlooking the graves of the cemetery, there stood an immense mulberry tree.  Almost at the end of my five kilometer run, I would often stand beneath its cool shade, reach up, and gorge myself on the black, ripe berries, re-boosting my blood sugar levels and rehydrating before I ran the kilometer or so back to State.   Once, I sheltered beneath it in a sudden summer rainstorm.  I loved that tree.  Later, when I lived in China, I learned that all silkworms feed on mulberry leaves only, and that you can tell in China if there is a silk factory nearby if you see an orchard of mulberries. All the more reason to love mulberries.  

 Memorial Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial, with Arlington House in the background.  

My Mulberry friend is the large tree just above and to the right of the equestrian statue on the right. 

Today’s Gospel uses a mulberry tree as an image for big, immovable nature, and says that even a little bit of trust in God is greater than anything in nature or our lives.

Jesus has just told the disciples that they need to forgive people who harm or hurt them even “seven times a day.”   The disciples respond with today’s line:  “Increase our faith!”  “Yikes!  To forgive someone who does us wrong over and over again we’re going to need a whole lot more trust in God than we have now!”

Jesus answers,  “If you had even just a little tiny bit of faith, say the size of a little seed, then you could do impossible things!”  In Matthew, it is “you can move mountains just by telling them to move.”  Faith removes obstacles.  Here in Luke, it is “you could tell that huge mulberry tree over there to plant itself in the middle of the ocean and it would thrive there!”  For Luke, the miracle of faith is not so much the removal of obstacles, but the thriving of the sweet good parts of our life in the face of a hostile environment: what gives us food, shade and shelter, and, in China at least, clothing, can endure and thrive even in that most desert of places, the salt sea. 

We often think of faith as working up a psychological state where we can affirm our assent to any number of things, be they the creed, a claim that “God” exists, or the content of some religious leader’s moral teaching.  But if that is what the word means, all we’re talking about is self-delusion, denial, and ability to mouth partisan slogans. This is not faith.  Faith is trust, giving your heart to God. 

Such trust will NOT make the world conform to your will.  But it will change you, and with you, your world. 

Beloved:  we all face hard things in our life, and often we try to tame and manage them by projecting our fear or our pain onto others, sometimes onto people we think, rightly or wrongly, caused the pain.  That’s why forgiving sometimes seems so hard.  But in the degree that we cannot forgive, but persist in projecting our pain and fear onto others—people who face hard things as well—we are constrained, limited, and trapped.  A little trust, a little forgiveness changes the world.  When we open our heart and set aside a desire to make those others pay for what they did, we open ourselves to the same grace from others:  that’s why the Lord’s prayer—that great prayer for the poor in need of bread each day, the poor who yearn for earth to be like heaven—is so clear:  forgive us the debts we owe, as we forgive others the debts they owe us.  

Jesus makes the point clear in his parable comparing us to slaves whose masters consider them “worthless” or “unprofitable.”  In this broken world, household staff who expect fair and equitable treatment will be bitterly disappointed.  Only those who set aside such demands will be able to prosper and grow, regardless of their condition.

The parable says faith or trust is all about expectations:  “Does the household staff get to rest and have dinner just because they’ve worked hard in the field all day? No.  They must first feed the Householder in proper style and only then can they take their meal and rest.  Don’t expect any better.  Do what’s expected of you, and then some, and don’t worry about getting nice thank-you’s or attaboy’s or attagirl’s.  Once you’ve done what was expected, and that without resentment, can you have some hope for refreshment and rest.”   

As most of Jesus’ edgier parables, this parable in its original setting may be a criticism of the economy and society of exploitation around him, one that remains with us today, whether or not we have the institution of slavery.  Jesus is saying that we cannot rise above where we are unless we are honest about how broken things are.  “Lower your expectations, give up your demands.  You might find it in your heart to forgive endlessly because you aren’t striving to have things your own way all the time.” 

He is telling us to trust—even a little bit—in a loving God, a God of grace, a God like that loving father of two wayward boys, the dissipate and the prig.  If you want faith, you have to have faith.  You need to trust God.  And God destroys our petty expectations by exceeding them. 

Jesus grew up reading and quoting from the Book of Sirach, which says, “My child, if you want to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for an ordeal” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1). Ordeal—dealing with the messes, the drama, and the scary stuff—is part of the job description of serving God.  It is part of the job description of being a disciple of Jesus. 

But faith in God—faith in the living, expectation-overturning Abba taught by Jesus—faith even in tiny tiny amounts makes it better.  It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality.  It’s about whether it’s real trust in that real loving God. 

When we trust, when we are deeply thankful and grateful, well, we stop keeping score.  Many things that once were intolerably hard become easy.  We seem to know the right thing to say at the right time.  And we no longer have a grudge against God or anyone else.  True faith—even in tiny amounts—is like that. 

If we help the homeless because we expect them to be grateful and thank us, we are bound to be disappointed.  If we hold grudges and keep scores, we will always be playing at a losing game.  If we do what’s right with an expectation that somehow that will earn us a place in heaven, heaven will always be beyond reach.

Thomas Merton wrote, “[Concern about] means and ends... is not the way to build a life of prayer.  In prayer we discover what we already have.  You start where you are, and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there.  We already have everything, but we don't know it and we don't experience it.  Everything has been given to us in Christ.  All we need is to experience what we already possess.  The trouble is, we aren't taking the time to do so.”

May we strengthen our life of prayer, and exert trust and faith—even just a little—in that living, loving God.

Amen.