Surrender to Win (Proper 8C)

Surrender to Win 

Homily delivered Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 8; Year C RCL)
30 June 2010; 8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 Sung Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland, Oregon

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. 

I remember very vividly the moment when I knew I needed to leave the denomination of my youth and become an Episcopalian.   I read in Thomas Merton’s book Zen and the Birds of Appetite a passage that said something like this: “Any God that needs to be kept alive through constant effort of mind and acts of will is an idol." The next day, I read in Merton's Meditation and Spiritual Direction, "God does not expect us to be a robot army of victim souls.”  The two passages, taken together, spoke to me clearly and struck me to the core. 

 

I remembered that St. Paul says the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).   These things were not present in what I had been calling my “spiritual life,” but I had glimpses of them in Episcopal worship.  The God I had been experiencing really did seem grim, set upon my becoming a robot.  I felt victimized by religion, and was angry.

I realized I had been worshiping at the altar of an idol, and needed to come to the Table of Christ, the altar of the loving, gentle God of all. 
 
Jesus in today’s Gospel has his “face set to go to Jerusalem” and seems particularly grim, if not outright fierce.  He scolds a man who wants to take a day or so off so that he can fulfill that most basic obligation of a child, to bury his father.  “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he says.   He then refuses to let another go and bid his loved ones farewell.

These are two of the so-called “hard sayings” of Jesus.  It is important to understand what he is saying.

It is not that he wants us to be heartless robot souls.  He is not calling us all to be irresponsible people negligent of our duties and common decency.   Even in these verses, he reproves his followers for mean-spiritedness and he seems almost wistful in telling the other disciple just how hard the path he has chosen has been for him.

Jesus is set on the road to Jerusalem, where he will fight on behalf of all God’s creatures the final battle with Evil, the Powers of this world, Law, Guilt, Sickness, and with Death itself.    He is focused on the real and true dynamics of evil and death in the world.

These hard sayings are about a key issue, the very one behind Merton’s insight.  God is Love itself, Reality itself.  We must love God above all others.  All else—no matter how good—if put before God is thus corrupted and become part of the reign of Evil that God sent Jesus to overthrow.  

Danish theologian Søren Kirkegaard said “Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God . . . Faith is: that the self in being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God.”

The first of the Ten Commandments tells us something profound about the nature of sin and evil:  “I am the Lord Your God, and you shall have no other God before me.”   Jesus says that the first and most important of all the Law’s commandments is “You shall love God with all your heart, might, and mind.”  He then joined this with a second commandment, on par with the first, to love truly our neighbors as ourselves.

When I was young, I took the image of a jealous God very literally, as if God were a very petty, insecure person who just couldn’t bear having us love anything or anyone beside him. After long, painful experience trying to find my sense of self worth apart from God I realized that the image of a jealous God is a distorted mirror image of us when we place other things in God’s stead.   It describes how our relationship with God feels to us when we don’t put God first. 

Everyone gets their sense of worth, of being distinct and valuable, from somewhere or something.  Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s duty, sometimes it’s relationships, sometimes it’s a search for one’s will or one’s own pleasure.

Kierkegaard’s point is that we are made in such a way that we must love God supremely, center our lives in him above anything else, and build our sense of worth and distinctness on him. As Saint Augustine famously says in the Confessions, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee!”

This means that sin is not just choosing bad things.  It means that sin also includes choosing anything over God, even good things.   Even things like family relationships, obligations respected, and religious practices upheld.

These are good things.  But all good things, if pursued in the wrong context, in improper amounts, or without right motives, by their nature become distorted, become exploitative or harmful.

Think of the difference of the innocent pleasure of alcohol moderately indulged in among friends and the bitterness of the addiction of alcoholism, and its destruction of relationships and all enjoyment.   Contrast the loving joy of physical intimacy between newlyweds, and the exploitation and ruined self-esteem from intimacy outside of the right context.   Contrast the faith and religion of the truly humble who seek God’s will, whatever it may be, and try to do it as they find out more and more of it, with the harm done by religious people who are sure they have already found God’s will, close their hearts to further light and truth, and then insist that one size fits all.

Even such a basic good institution as the family can be distorted and turned into something very ugly if it is pursued as an end in itself.  “The family” without God is the Mafia.

The choice we have is this:  love God above all else or eventually lose all the other loves.  This is not because a petty jealous God will blast them to spite you, but because without that hole in our hearts filled by God, we place too much expectation on these other loves, and we twist and ruin them.  

A right ordering of loves, putting love of God above all, redeems other loves already corrupted, and sanctifies and purifies all our loves, so that they be what God intends as he creates us.

You have to be willing to give the other loves up.  Not that you actually have to give them up, though this may be necessary, but that you be willing. 

Jesus said you must first lose your life in order to find it (Matthew 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; John 12:25).  He was describing from the inside what it feels like to reorder things, to put God at the center.

Twelve-Step recovery programs stress that the first steps in recovering from any addiction is admitting one’s powerlessness, coming to believe in power greater than oneself, then turning one’s will and life over to that greater power.

Several years ago, my wife and I encountered some real problems in our relationship.  We went in for couples counseling to help us sort things out.  It was a lot of hard work, but both of us wanted to make the marriage work.  Part of the problem was my wife’s burden of emotional hurt caused from years of selfish behavior on my part.  As long as I wanted to keep the relationship going for my own purposes, the counseling made little headway.   I then realized that out of love for her I needed to be willing to lose her and have her go her separate way if that is what she needed to be whole.  Only then was there a breakthrough.    Only when I was willing to lose her for her sake (and for the sake of God) were we able to start actually making progress in repairing the relationship.

Love is always a risk, whether it is love of God or love of others.  We often are afraid of trusting our fragile hearts to someone else, especially if our heart has been bruised or broken.  But not loving is not an option.

 

C. S. Lewis writes:  “Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation.”

 

Jesus is saying in this passage that you have to be willing to give up everything for God.  You have to put your whole heart, might, and mind at risk.  It’s as simple as that.  Whether you do this from desperation because nothing else seems to work, or out of pure love because of grace you have experienced, is irrelevant.  This side of paradise, our motives will always be mixed.  As St. Julian of Norwich taught, do the right thing regardless, and God will redeem your motives.  Just don’t think that this trusting God, this willingness to give up all for God, is somehow an act on your part that will make you worthy and put God in your debt.  Doing so would be just setting up another idol you will be putting ahead of God.

Putting God first, surrendering to God, means letting your own will and desires take second place.

It means having an open heart rather than a closed one.

It means sensing God’s love, and giving love in return.

It means doing good because we love it and want to, not because we are obligated to.  It means avoiding evil not because it is against the rules, and breaks the commandments of Law, but because it is not what we know God wants for us.

In Church life, it means focusing on first things first.  In the baptismal covenant we commit ourselves to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.”  It was this reverence before God that I first felt when I first came into an Episcopal Church.  It is what drew me into Anglicanism when I realized I had been worship at the altar of a false God. 

We further promise to “persevere in resisting evil and whenever [we] fall into sin, repent and turn to the Lord, … proclaim by word and example the Good News in Christ, … seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor as [our]self, … strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every person.”  This is the heart of our faith.  Loving God first means doing this.

We are damaged goods, all of us. But God made us for a home we have not yet ever seen, and that we can barely even imagine now.   And he loves us dearly, each and every one.

The death of our Lord on the cross, and his glorious coming forth from the grave not only shows us the way, but also gives us the power to return God’s love.

Let us all make the effort.  We must lose our lives to find them.  We must surrender to win.

In the name of God,  Amen.

James Weldon Johnson (Mid-week Message)

-->

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

June 25, 2013

James Weldon Johnson

Today is the feast day of James Weldon Johnson in the Holy Women, Holy Men cycle of commemorations.   One of the founders of the NAACP, the lyricist of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (the unofficial African-American national anthem), early African-American U.S. diplomat, and prolific author, Johnson was one of the great poets who helped the African-American people find their voice.  His memoirs from his consular assignment in Central America in 1906-12, with their pointed description of craven and venal Congressional delegation visits and the problems he experienced in helping poverty-stricken expatriate U.S. citizens, ring as true today as when they were written.  

Eternal God, we give thanks for the gifts that you gave your servant James Weldon Johnson: a heart and voice to praise your Name in verse. As he gave us powerful words to glorify you, may we also speak with joy and boldness to banish hatred from your creation, in the Name of Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

I first heard the following poem by Johnson from one of the ambassadors I worked for as a Foreign Service officer, the Honorable Ruth A. Davis, later to become the first African-American woman to serve as Director General of the U.S. Foreign Service.    Ambassador Davis was a great public speaker, and gave a dramatic reading of the poem at an African-American History Month program I organized as the director the American Cultural Center in Benin, West Africa.  The poem sums up Johnson’s love of God and of life, and his embrace of the preaching tradition of the Black Church.  

The Creation

And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely —
I'll make me a world."

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, "That's good!"

Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, "That's good!"

Then God himself stepped down —
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.

Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, "Bring forth! Bring forth!"
And quicker than God could drop His hand.
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said, "That's good!"

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, "I'm lonely still."

Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, "I'll make me a man!"

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;

Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

© James Weldon Johnson. All rights reserved 

Here is a link to a tape of Johnson reading the poem in 1935: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XH-7xZ2QYA

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

Legion (Proper 7C)

 

“Legion”
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7C)
23 June 2013
Homily
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland

The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, Rector

Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:18-27; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

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

When I was first ordained a deacon in preparation for being priested, I was living in Hong Kong and working as the Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate there.  The Consulate was just a 10 minute walk down the hill from our apartment, Saint John’s Cathedral another 2 minutes further.  I often had gospeling or assisting duties at 7 a.m. before my work opened at the Consulate, or sometimes at noon.  And I was supposed to be in clericals when I was at the Cathedral, and a regular business suit at the Consulate.  So I often found myself changing clothes in my office at the Consulate before or after the brisk walk to or from the Cathedral.  One day, as I was changing, a knock came on my door.  “Just one moment, please,” I said, and when I had finished changing, opened the door.  It was my deputy, with some urgent question that he needed me to answer before I took off for my lunch hour work in that other world.  He eyed my newly-donned clerical collar with a raised eyebrow.  “Kind of like Superman in the phone booth, huh?” he said.  “But the question is,” he added, smiling, “who are you now—Superman or Clark Kent?”    As humorous as this was, I found the question very helpful in the coming months and I found myself coming back to it several times—which was my real identity and which was my assumed one? Was I a priest putting on diplomat’s clothes to earn my bread, or a Government organization-man play-acting as if I were a churchman? Where were my closer relationships—with my fellow State Department officers at the Consulate, or with my fellow priests at the Cathedral?   Where did the heart of my identity lie? 

Last week, we saw Luke telling us that it is relationships and not roles that matter.  Today’s strange reading from Luke is about identity, that subtle mixture of the roles we play and the relationships we have.  Jesus crosses Lake Tiberias, the “Sea of Galilee,” over into the land of the Gerasenes, or, in some less reliable manuscripts, “Gadarenes.”  Gergasa and Gadara were both large towns in the highland area just across the Lake from Galilee. This is gentile territory, what is now called the Golan Heights.   There Jesus finds a man not in his right mind—naked, dwelling among the tombs, hurting himself. 

Luke says this man is possessed by demons, the normal way the people of that era accounted for what we today would call various dissociative types of of mental illness.  This man is not only possessed by demons—he is occupied by an army of them.  When Jesus asks his name, the man cannot even tell him. 

“We are legion,” says the occupying multitude within him.  You may remember that the Roman Army was organized by Legions, something like a battalion in a modern army, and its full complement was 6,000 armed soldiers. 

“We are legion.”  Clearly whatever has happened to this poor man, he has very little identity left to call his own, very little “I” left.    That us why he lives apart from human society, separated from other people, naked among the graves of the dead, and that is why he hurts himself.

“We are legion.”  The man has no name of his own.  He is not Elijah, or Joseph, or Samuel, or Matthew.  He has no name at all left but the names of what it is that assails him, has occupied him, has thrown him naked among the tombs and binds him there.  No identity left but what causes him to hurt himself, isolate himself, frighten others, and wander in bewilderment and confusion. 

“We are legion.”  I suspect that most of us have known someone in our lives—a family member, a co-worker, or a neighbor—with some kind of severe mental illness.  Whether perceived as demonic possession, illness, or sin, we lose ourselves.  Whether called obsession or compulsion, schizophrenia, bipolarity, schizoid affects, dissociative identities (what used to be called multiple personalities) or addiction to drugs, alcohol, or a range of self-destructive and hurtful behaviors, such conditions really are like being enemy-occupied territory.  Who we are, our relationships and what makes us particularly us, all this goes by the boards and we are left with nothing we can rightly call us.   

 

Now I’m not saying that all these things can or should be cured or remedied by faith healing.  As medical science has learned more and more on these conditions, it is able to assist more and more.  But the basic problem with lost or weakened identity remains, and loss of identity is not just a pathological problem.  It is also an effect of society. 

A case in point is our consumer economy and advertising culture. 

“We are legion.”  Hundreds of times each day, we are exposed to carefully crafted images and messages telling us that we are inadequate, insufficient, not whole, and that we need only to buy or use some product of the economy to be recover our true selves. We are too old, not old enough, too fat, too skinny, too boring, overly controlled, not muscled enough, too muscled, too light, too dark, too short, too tall, not smart or witty enough, too much of a snob, not enjoying our lives enough.  Men are not virile enough; women not alluring.  Our teeth are too stained or crooked.  Our bodies have bad odor, as does our breath.  Our clothes are out of style. 

If only we use a particular product, buy a particular  treatment, take a special course, get new and stylish items to wear, then we shall be fixed and be glittering, happy people like the beautiful smiling ones we see in the advertisements.  Billions of dollars a year in commercial advertising are  spent trying to make you feel inadequate, unhappy, and dissatisfied with who and what you are.    With all the varied and contradictory roles and identities advertising seeks to assign you, it is easy to lose oneself. 

Think about the things that have made you at times lose your identity, confuse who and what you are, forced you to lose your way.  The expectations of others are often a major demon that threatens to occupy us.  Our own fears and guilts can hide our true self’s light.  Mental templates and stereotypes, held by others or ourselves too can be deadly. 

 

In today’s story, Jesus heals the man occupied by the Legion of competing identities.  He puts him in his right mind, and then overthrows the many spirits that have been tormenting the man, dementing him.  This all takes place in the land of the Gerasenes, gentile central, and not in our society with the PETA and the SPCA.  Jesus lets the demons go and madden a herd of swine, farm animals raised for the unclean tables of foreigners in this foreign land.  Presumably, as the swine that bore them fall off the cliff into the water to drown, the demons go back into the chasm they mysteriously asked Jesus to save them from.  Apparently such drivers of unsettled hearts cannot end up anywhere else but the chaos they bring into the lives of the demented that they torment. 

It is Jesus who crosses the boundaries and enters into the land of the Gerasenes.  Joan Puls, in her magnificent book Every Bush is Burning, writes about such border crossings, “We live limited lives until we 'cross over' into the concrete world of another country, another culture, another tradition ... I have left forever a small world to live with the tensions and the tender mercies of God's larger family.”

It is Jesus who reaches out to the one lost amongst the tombs, naked, hurting himself, muttering in one voice and then another, the voices of the chaotic committee inside his head. 

It is Jesus who drives away the false identities, the fears, illusions and delusions that torment one who has lost his or her identity.  That’s why the people around the demoniac who have witnessed the scene are terrified by Jesus.  He is bad for business that profits from identity loss, from identity theft.  And perhaps they fear he will reveal their own true identities to them, and they cannot bear this. 

Jesus tells the healed man to go home, reconnect with his loved ones, wash up, have a good meal, and then “tell what God has done for you.”  Tell others how you found who you truly are through Jesus.

Sisters and brothers, know that each and every one of you is a beloved child of God, a unique and beautiful work of the creator of all.  As I tell the children each week when they come to the altar rail, Jesus loves you.  Lose your roles and build relationships.  Forget the expectations and fears, the sins and obsessions, the twists and turns that make your forget who you truly are.  And then tell others what God has done for you. 

In the name of Christ,  Amen.

Growing Old (Mid-week Message)

"When I'm Sixty-four" image courtesy of 

 http://hermes-trismeg.blogspot.com/2012/08/when-im-64-wallpaper.html

Growing Old

I saw recently a couple of quotes about the art of aging gracefully.  I am sharing them since many of us are facing what some would consider old age: 

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child until old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm." - Aldous Huxley

and

                    Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess

   Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.   
   Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.  
   Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.
   Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.
  I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.
   Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces.
   Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so.
Amen”

--Margot Benary-Isbert

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+

(sent from Newport, where Fr. Tony and Elena are on a short vacation)

Two Parables (Proper 6C)

 

“Two Parables”
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6C)
16 June 2013
Homily
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland

The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, Rector

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15; Psalm 32; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3

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

One of my priest friends in Hong Kong tells the story of a former parishioner who was somewhat of an enigma to others in the parish.  Over the years, little by little, details about the introverted man came out, his hobbies, his career, etc.  But people didn’t even know whether he was partnered or single, and this on occasion made planning social events including him awkward.   People suspected that perhaps his reluctance to volunteer any personal details came from the fact that he was in a relationship that might not meet up to the approval of some of the more judgmental members of the parish.  When finally an appropriate private moment arose when the question seemed a reasonable request for information for social planning purposes rather than prying, my friend asked gently, “are you in some kind of relationship, do you have a partner?”  The quick and embarrassed reply came swiftly, removing all doubt that here was a simple case of a desire for privacy by a painfully introspected person: “Oh no—I’m not in a relationship, I’m married.”     As it turned out, the man’s wife was home bound due to a physical disability, and both were somewhat ashamed of sharing this with others. 

“I’m not in a relationship, I’m married.”  This doesn’t say much for the institution of marriage, does it?    Marriage is, after all, a personal, intimate relationship.   But we often reduce it in our minds to a mere social institution, and our participation in it as conforming to expected roles rather than nurturing a relationship with another person. 

 

Today’s scripture lessons include two parables—Nathan’s parable of the precious lamb and Jesus’ parable of the two debtors.  In their own ways, they reveal a great deal about the difference between relationships and roles, between evaluating and judging ourselves and others in terms of expectations rather than simply building relationships.

 

 Today’s reading from 2 Samuel is only the climax of a longer story about King David:  the sorry tale of his adultery with Bathsheba, the resulting pregnancy and her husband Uriah’s stubborn refusal to provide a cover story for it, David’s murder of Uriah by arranging his death in battle, and David taking Bathsheba into the Palace as one of his wives.  Here, the Prophet Nathan comes to the King with a simple but chilling story of a greedy and over-grasping rich man with large flocks who murders a poor herdsman to steal his sole, dear lamb to be served as a meal to a houseguest.  David is enraged at the “pitiless” rich man, says he deserves death, but orders a serious fine to punish him.  “You are the man” is the reply of Nathan, who then prophecies civil war and horror for the Davidic House.  David, horrified at Nathan’s unsparing view of what David has done, openly admits his fault and remorse.  Nathan replies that because David has admitted his fault, he has been forgiven, but says nevertheless the crime will have consequences—the civil war predicted and the death of Bathsheba’s son.   

I have to say, I hope you were disturbed by this story.  First of all, Bathsheba is never mentioned by name after the first identification.  She is always referred to as “the wife of Uriah.”   Though she might be precious, she is mere chattel, property, like the lamb in Nathan’s parable.   I wish Nathan had condemned David’s actions against Bathsheba—using the difference in social status and power between them as a means of forcing himself upon her.  But he only condemns David’s actions as offenses against Uriah and against God, not so much violation of any relationship as of breaking roles and expectations: David’s role as King and the expectations set by the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery.  You shall commit no murder.”  Bathsheba is a mere prop in this stage piece, as is that poor baby. 

This unspoken theme of roles vs. relationships is expressed in the odd fact that though Nathan says “the Lord has put away your sin” after David’s confession, punishment remains.  This story is part of the Deuteronomistic History that runs from the Book of Deuteronomy all the way through the end of 2 Kings.  In this work, obedience to the Law is rewarded with Blessing and disobedience is punished by Curses:  conformity to role and expectations is blessed, nonconformity is punished.  But since David is a “man after the Lord’s own heart,” despite his failings, and he freely admits his guilt to Nathan because of this, the Lord “puts away” David’s sin as part of the restored relationship between David and his God. 

One really important point in this story is this—there is such a thing as sin, and readily admitting our fault when we fall into it is key in restoring our relationship with God and those we have hurt.  That is the point of today’s Psalm—we feel alienated and shriveled up until we confess our guilt.  We tend to hide our failings from ourselves, and sometimes we need a Nathan pointing to us and saying, “You are that Man!”  “You are the pitiless bully in this story!” It is the need for such interactive self-correction that lies behind the practice of individual private confession and absolution. 

I know it is somewhat faddish to say that our worship is too penitential, and complain that we have too many “confessions of sin” in our Sunday Liturgies.  Some suggest that we replace these with more thanksgiving and praise for a happier, less morbid tone of worship.  But I think that our Prayer Book tradition has this about right.  Simply reminding ourselves each time we pray that we fall short of the mark is a useful spiritual practice, and if we keep it free from too much drama or tragedy that flatters our egos, such regular general confession helps us to take our sins to heart, but not ourselves too seriously.  

The story of the sinful woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears in today’s Gospel contrasts judgment of role and expectation with how healthy relationships are made and maintained.  The Pharisee host sits back the whole time thinking, “Hmmph!  If Jesus were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this lady is, and he would not have her all over him like this!”   Jesus replies to the unspoken judgment that he does not conform to the role of a prophet, just as the woman does not conform to the role of a decent person, with the parable of the two debtors.  One is forgiven a debt 100 times larger than the other, and as a result loves the creditor who forgives the debt that much more.  Just as Nathan tells David, “You are that bully,” Jesus implies that the Pharisee is the debtor who loves little because he has been forgiven little.  He is a person who prefers to judge and sit on the sidelines analyzing and criticizing, where the weeping woman is a person in a full, warm, and life-giving relationship with Jesus, even with all its messiness.

And at the heart of the two debtors parable is the idea that it is relationship, not role, that matters.  Note that Jesus does NOT sum the story up by saying, “because she loved me much I have forgiven her much.”  He says, “she loves so deeply because she has been forgiven so much.”  

Now that may seem at odds with the usual use we hear made of the Epistle today—salvation by faith in Christ alone, apart from any acts, or, put less exactly, Christ forgives you because you have faith in him.  But this is backwards and not at all what Paul intends.  “Having faith in Christ” here is not an act by which we conform to the role of a believing Christian, and thereby merit forgiveness and salvation.  Rather, Paul is saying it is our relationship with Christ that saves us and that relationship is expressed in faith, trust, and, ultimately, in an amendment of life and loves.  It is relationship, not role, that counts.  

That doesn’t mean that role doesn’t matter.  Attention to conformity to role and expectations is what allows someone like Nathan to be able to say, “You are that bully!” 

Elsewhere, Paul writes to the saints in Corinth warning them that he is on his way to sort out troubling stories he has heard of how they have behaved badly since he last visited, how they have not maintained their role as good Christians.  He says, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith.  Test yourselves!”  Then he adds, bringing the question back to the ultimate question, the question of relationship, “ Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless, of course, you fail to meet that test!  I hope you will find out that we have not failed!” (2 Cor. 13: 5-7). 

Brothers and sisters, it is important to check on occasion how we’re doing, and how we conform to roles and expectations.  It is important to listen to prophetic voices in our lives telling us, “You are that bully!”  And it is important to confess our failings.  But when all is said and done, the only thing that matters in the end is how we live in relationship.  The judgment implied in criticism and evaluation of performance, roles, and expectations generally tends to undermine relationship.  It throws up resistance, alienation, and sometimes hurt.  It is important to nurture shared feelings, values, and perspectives.  That is probably why Nathan was well advised to first tell his parable of the little ewe lamb and get David’s buy-in before he pointed his finger and said “You are that bully.” 

Relationship, not role, is what really matters here.  It is the heart of how we learn to change. 

Whether with each other, with Jesus, or with God the Father, nurturing and caring for the I and the Thou of interpersonal relationship is at the heart of finding joy and peace in this life and in the world to come.

 
In the name of Christ,  Amen.

Koinonia (Mid-week Message)

 

Koinonia

 

Each week at the end of the Holy Communion service, we send forth Eucharistic Visitors to take the Sacrament to those in the Parish who are physically unable to join with us in worship at Trinity.  The Deacon (who organizes this visiting ministry as part of the work of taking the Gospel to the larger community) gives the charge to take the Bread and the Wine; the congregation responds, “We who are many are one body, for we all share in one bread, one cup.” 

 

This response is based on a passage from St. Paul: 

 

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion (koinonia) in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of that one bread.”  (1 Corinthians 10:16-17) 

 

Different English translations render the Greek word koinonia variously as participation, sharing, fellowship, communion, or community.   The word means all of these.  Paul’s idea is that as we eat and drink the bread and the wine, we participate in Christ’s body and blood, we are formed as a community in him, we share with Christ and with each other.   And this koinonia, or shared common life in one bread, one cup, makes us—despite all our differences, varieties, diverse backgrounds and status—one body in Christ, just as various members of a body are still parts of the same body. 

 

The idea of koinonia goes against all our modern American ideas of rugged individualism, autonomy, radical freedom and independence.  But it is essential to a life that is truly Christian.  It lies behind our Episcopalian/Anglican focus on worship as Common Prayer and our baptismal covenant’s commitment to “continue in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, and in the prayers.” 

 

People of our age and community like at times to deride “Organized Religion” and think that perhaps we all individually should just “plug directly into God.”   But our tradition of shared life and worship suggests that perhaps doing that might just get us electrocuted—we need community and sacraments to form our mysticism, to mediate the experience of the Divine Beauty and Glory to us at the various places where we might be in our faith journey.  The loving guidance we give and receive from others, the transformation wrought in us as we love and serve and let ourselves be loved and served, and the gentle, quiet amendment of life and perception fostered by participating in and sharing the Sacraments and ongoing Common Prayer—all this is what makes us One Body in Christ.   And that, I think, is what Trinity Church is all about. 

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Fr. Tony+

Giving without Wealth (Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Giving without Wealth

June 5, 2013

Internet memes are dangerous, especially when you can’t track down their source!  That said, I wanted to share with you a little article that has been circulating in the Chinese blogosphere and facebook posts for a couple of years that I think is really thought-provoking.

It purports to be a dharma teaching of the Buddha, though again, I can’t find any source, either in Chinese or English.  Here is my translation: 

“There was a person who complained to the Buddha: “No matter what I do, I fail.  Why?”  The Buddha said: “Because you never give alms!”  The person replied: “But I am a poor person with absolutely nothing to my name!”  The Buddha explained: “Wrong! Even if you do not have wealth, you can give seven kinds of alms!”

1.  The Alms of a Peaceful Face:  Showing others a peaceful face and a happy visage is a gift.

2. The Alms of Words: To say good things to others is a gift.  Storing up good in your heart, produces good deeds, and these produce a good person whose speech expresses that goodness, and encourages others to conscientious action.

3. The Alms of the Heart: A heart that can put itself into someone else’s place, this is a gift of the heart that can be given to all sentient beings.

4. The Alms of the Eye:  Using compassion and kindness to perceive others.

5. The Alms of the Body: Using your bodily strength to assist others.

6. The Alms of a Place to Sit:   Giving your seat to others who need it more.

7.  The Alms of Observation: Being able to discern someone else’s heart even without asking, this is the gift of making other’s lives easier by giving them what they need.

If you can personally give these seven alms, then improvement is possible in this life.  Life is suffering:  There are burdens, an evil side to human nature, and bullying all around.  But in the end, all these can work for my good.   Suffering can actually turn out to be a blessing. Life, again and again, is not perfect.  But at last it will always be perfect.”

Alms-giving is not an exclusive privilege reserved for those who have money, but the choice to get involved by people who have hearts!

Think about the point—our giving should not be dependent upon our over-abundance but rather on our generosity.  It should come naturally from the heart and include all the gifts we are able to give. We mustn't beat up on ourselves for not giving what we do not have....  

And anyone who might be able to track the source down for me, let me know.  I can send you the text in Chinese if that helps….   

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+