Sermon: Confession, Repentance and Commitment to End Racism Sunday September 6, 2015

In today’s gospel, Jesus does something that troubles me, but it’s probably not what you think.

Here’s the offending passage:

They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 

Not what you thought, was it? Let me explain to you why this is a problematic passage for me.

My first career was in Deaf Education and I received my degree in Educational Interpreting from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, NTID.  While there, I got to meet many people who identified as culturally Deaf, and who objected to the identification of deafness as a disability. They looked at developments such as cochlear implants as a way of pathologizing deafness, when many are in fact proud of their history, language, culture, and traditions.

So when I hit this reading, I instantly see it through that lens. And then, when you see it that way, there are other parts that make it problematic:

1. The deaf person doesn’t seem to have a say in what happens to him. He is brought by others.
2. Who is this “they”? Are they close friends who know what the person wants? Are they the disciples, in which case, why are they bringing him?
3. What is the motivation? Is it to bring healing and restoration? Is it to make the community more comfortable? And does this motivation matter, in light of what the deaf man actually wants?
4. “They” were astounded – but how did the formerly deaf man feel about it? Though the story says “he spoke plainly,” we never actually hear his words.

Then there’s the problem of suddenly being able to hear. When you grow up being able to hear, the sense of hearing has a powerful ability to filter out background noises. When I grew up in Alameda, I was under the flight path of the Oakland airport, but I never noticed the airplanes until someone was visiting and pointed out how loud they were. Similarly, one of the things that’s difficult for people who get fitted with hearing aids is suddenly they hear everything; they can’t filter out the background noises.

So when someone who has been deaf can suddenly hear, it’s not like sounds automatically make sense. 

For me,  the story ends on a false positive note, where we never actually hear the man say anything, and instead, this mysterious “they” announce that  Jesus “even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak,” rather than say, “he has helped us to be reconciled with our friend and brother.”

**

On Tuesday, the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies issued a letter calling on Episcopal congregations to participate in "Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday" this Sunday.

On the plus side, this was requested by African American leadership of the AME church.  As AME Bishop Reginald T. Jackson writes, "Racism will not end with the passage of legislation alone; it will also require a change of heart and thinking. This is an effort which the faith community must lead, and be the conscience of the nation. We will call upon every church, temple, mosque and faith communion to make their worship service on this Sunday a time to confess and repent for the sin and evil of racism, this includes ignoring, tolerating and accepting racism, and to make a commitment to end racism by the example of our lives and actions." I am more than happy to honor this call.

On the other hand, if we are truly committed to ending racism, this cannot happen on 5 days notice, with a guest preacher, on a holiday weekend. 

It seems to me that for many of us, racism has become a background noise we’ve learned to filter out. One of the powerful changes in this past year is that many of us have finally heard the constant background noise of racism as we see videos of police brutality and learn the names of those who have died in police custudy.

As I looked at the liturgical material offered for this Sunday, I was struck by the first line of a “Litany for those who aren’t ready for healing,” from the ELCA: 

“Let us not rush to the language of healing, before understanding the fullness of the injury and the depth of the wound.” 

Understanding the fullness of the injury and the depth of the wound requires listening: re-training our hearing to hear the things we’ve learned to screen out.

It requires not presuming we know what the injury is: what we may presume to be pathology may instead be celebrated as culture, and what we presume to be health may instead be a coping mechanism.

It requires time and commitment: not just this sermon, this confession, this Sunday, but an ongoing commitment to understanding.

May those who have ears to hear, truly listen.

World In Prayer, February 13

It was my week to write the World in Prayer prayers. The top news stories were the peace accord hammered out in Ukraine, and the murder of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, NC. But the story that struck me was that of a group of 6 prison inmates in Taiwan who had taken some prison guards hostage and, after a 14-hour stand-off, committed suicide. 

These were not nice people, it sounds like. And yet I felt very called to pray for them. Which then moved me to pray for other people that I would much rather not pray for. And I was reminded of the great commandments, and of Jesus' words, "I was in prison and you visited me," and "Whatever you do for the least of these, you have done for me." And that led me to these prayers.

As we prepare ourselves for the holy season of Lent, let us reflect in prayer on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: that when we love the least of these, we love you, Lord.

Help us to love the least of these in prison. We pray for prisoners throughout the world. We pray that they may receive justice, that those who are innocent may be freed and those who are guilty may be restored and reconciled. We pray especially this week for Taiwan where 6 inmates held several guards hostage before committing suicide.

Help us to love the least of these who are refugees. We pray for the souls of the 300 migrants who drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. We pray too for all those who tried to rescue them, as they have done so many times over the past months and years, and help them deal with the grief and horror of the tragedy. We pray for the children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and elsewhere, held in family detention camps in New Mexico, USA. We pray for all those who have been displaced from their homes.

Help us to love the least of those who seek peace. We give thanks for the ceasefire announced in Ukraine and pray that it may hold. We pray for Syria, Burkina Faso, Iraq, Afghanistan, and for countries affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, especially Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger.

Help us to love the least of those of all faiths and tribes. We pray for Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad and her sister Razan who were killed this week in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA by their neighbor.

Help us, O Lord, to love our neighbors as You have commanded us to do. Help us to see in them the image of the living God who has come to dwell with us. And may we be transformed when we see You before us in the face of the least of these.

Amen.

A somewhat incomplete sermon on sin

A very abbreviated and slightly altered version of the sermon I preached on Sunday.

I've been noticing a theme running through my recent sermons and blog posts: you can't tell by looking. You can't tell who's hungry by looking; you can't tell who's poor by looking; you can't tell who's suffering by looking. And now, a new variation on the theme: you can't tell who's sinned by looking.

So let's talk a little bit about sin today. Won't that be fun?

First of all, the readings today are fun because of the way that they talk to each other. When you hear the gospel and it talks about the "woman in the city, who was a sinner," I don't know about you, but my mind immediately goes there, and I think you know what I mean. But then when you look at the Old Testament reading about David, who has just been caught out after his affair with Bathsheba and having Bathsheba's husband killed, he doesn't say, "I am a sinner." He says "I have sinned." And the reading from Galatians really drives the point home that this isn't about sex when Paul writes, "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners." So a sinner in this context is someone who does not live according to Jewish law.

But how very different it is to hear that someone is a sinner as opposed to someone has sinned. The first says sin is a person's identity, and the second that sin is an activity. And those sound very different.

So Simon the Pharisee has in his mind that sin is not his identity. But in this gospel story, Jesus turns identification upside down by pointing out to Simon what the woman did -- and what Simon neglected to do. Things done and left undone, as we say in the confession. Simon didn't do anything wrong; he didn't break any laws. But there is a lot he left undone, and Jesus points that out to him. Simon didn't offer water for Jesus' feet; he didn't greet him with a kiss; he didn't anoint Jesus' head. And the woman did all of those things. Simon thinks he's gotten it all right, and what Jesus points out to him is that he's missed the essential point of loving God and loving neighbor.

That's what Paul is trying to drive home in his letter to the Galatians: that it's not in following the Law exactly right that we're going to be free from sin. Instead, it's in what we do, what we offer, what we share, how we love.

And if and when we sin, Paul promises that grace abounds more. It's not in our own goodness and our carefulness not to break the rules that we are free from sin, but in God's forgiveness freely given. God's grace comes to us not because we have been good, but because God is good.

Maybe instead of worrying about what we have done wrong, we should be looking at those around us and asking, "What has been left undone?" How can we offer our love to others today?

Random thoughts from sermon prep

I had a dickens of a time prepping the sermon last week because it was one of those weeks when I had too much I could say. I had to keep telling myself "pick one thing and focus!" So I picked sin. Isn't that fun? Well, sin and grace. Because I've been on a grace kick these past few weeks, probably because of Galatians. But I'm not sure I actually need an excuse.

One thing about last Sunday's readings is that they interpreted each other in a revealing way. In the Gospel, we are introduced to "a woman in the city, who was a sinner," and I confess my mind went there immediately. So it was incredibly helpful that in the reading from 2 Samuel, in which David's affair with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah is brought to light, David's confession is not "I am a sinner," but "I have sinned against the Lord." Even better, in Galatians, Paul writes, "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners," thus making it clear that something else is going on here.

The Interpreter's Bible 1952 (praised be its exegeses forever) had this fantastic insight on the Gospel reading: "Who or What Sort?--Jesus knew who the woman was; the Pharisee knew--or thought he did--of what sort she was." Isn't that great?

In general it may be observed that Jesus was interested in concrete things, not in abstractions; and categories and classes are abstractions. Jesus said to Simon, Do you see this woman? That is no casual question, but an exceedingly searching one. And the answer would need to have been "No." The woman was exactly what Simon did not see and was not able to see. He could not see the woman herself because of his preoccupation with her sort...How do we see people and act toward them: as persons or as sorts of persons?

Zing-ola!

All of this fit into an overarching theme that I have found both in my preaching and in this blog: You can't tell by looking. In this case, that you can't tell who has sinned by looking at them.

Sermon notes in a little bit (as a reward for getting more work done).

The Dust on your Feet

Here's the post I wrote for today's edition of 50 Days of Fabulous. You get the special bonus content of "before" and "after" pictures of the shoes I wore in Uganda.

Read:
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”

Luke 10:8-11

Reflect:

Before

Do you know how hard it is to get dust off your shoes? I learned this during the brief time I spent in Uganda, walking on dirt roads every day. And every day, Alex, the houseboy (and let’s talk about how uncomfortable that was), would take my shoes and try to scrub them clean, but the dirt never really came off. My shoes still have some of the red dirt from those roads.

In this passage from Luke, Jesus gives his disciples instructions before sending them out and is brutally realistic about the fact that some of these visits are going to be a total failure.

I’m trying to think of anyone who told me that sometimes my ministry is going to be a bust. I’m not coming up with anyone (though it’s possible I simply ignored them and believed it would never happen to me). But I’m here to tell you: sometimes what you work on is going to be a total bust.

Here are two mistakes I’ve made when it comes to failure. The first was to keep banging my head against a wall when something wasn’t working. I believed that any failure must be my fault; that if I spent a little more time, put in a little more effort, explained myself a little bit better, then everything would work. But Jesus is very clear: if something isn’t working, don’t pretend that it is. It’s not that you’re doing something wrong; it’s that you are not welcomed. Move on to someplace that’s going to welcome you and your work.

As of now--and I got back in 2008.

My other mistake was to believe it’s easy to brush it off when something fails. “Shake the dust off your feet,” I’ve heard many times, and thought it was supposed to be a simple thing. I didn’t realize that dust clings. I didn’t know that it would take effort and time to wipe it all off.

But here’s the third thing I see when I look at this reading today: Jesus calls us, not to succeed, but to bring the kingdom of God near. Success or failure was not the point. Actually, I now believe that success and failure don’t look like what we think they look like. If we have brought the kingdom of God near, we have succeeded by the only important measure.

Respond:
Are you spending your time on a project you should leave behind? Take the first few steps on to the next town.

Are you still worried about the dust of failure clinging to you? If something you tried to do didn’t work, be sure to say “That failed,” not “I failed.”

Who am I doing this for?

Cross-posted on the 50 Days of Fabulous site.


Read

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
And I shall keep it to the end.
                                                -Psalm 119:33

Reflect:
I was just starting my first job out of seminary, setting up a college chaplaincy at Kenyon College, and I needed help and advice on what to do. So I went to Chicago and met (among others) the great Sam Portaro who was then chaplain at Brent House at the University of Chicago.

He had all sorts of fantastic advice on setting up mailing lists and creating calendars and the nitty-gritty of getting things done. I took notes furiously, overwhelmed at everything I would have to set up in the month I had before classes started. And at the end of our meeting, as I looked over everything on this huge list, I probably radiated anxiety. I certainly felt it anyway. And Sam looked at me and gave me this advice: “Just love those kids.” I didn’t write it down, but I’ve never forgotten it.

The section of Psalm 119 that’s in today’s lectionary has always struck me because of one word — and the word is “it.” At first I thought, shouldn’t it be “them”? After all, it’s about following God’s statutes, all 613 of them. But although “statutes” is plural, it’s not the statutes that the Psalmist is hoping to keep; it is the way of the statutes, the basic underlying premise. The Psalmist asks God to teach me that one way, the singular thing that keeps all of those statutes together in one place, and that is of course the way of love.

This way of love isn’t simply a mushy-gooey excuse for not planning. When I returned to Ohio, I got to work and dug into the nitty-gritty details. But knowing that the underlying premise of all my tasks was to “Just love those kids” gave me the assurance that even if I didn’t do things perfectly, I was still headed the right way.

Respond:
Before you start work today, instead of focusing entirely on what you need to do, take a minute to think about who you are doing it for and say a prayer for them.

Being with people in the valley

This is a bloggified version of the sermon I gave on Good Shepherd Sunday.

There's a reason Psalm 23 is so popular, but I hadn't really realized it until I read it in the midst of the  rotten week we had last week.

Here's the verse that leapt out at me:

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

As I thought about it, one of the things that's hard about helping people who are in the valley is that it feels like you aren't doing anything. We want so much to do something that will make it better. But  in the Psalm, it doesn't say, "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and you take care of everything and make it go away." Accompanying someone through the valley isn't about zapping everything into perfection, but being with a person for the long haul to the other side. The Psalm captures that perfectly.

I thought it might be helpful to share what we can do to be with people when they are walking through the valley of the shadow of death -- and what we can hope for when we're going through it ourselves. And so here are three suggestions of what not to do, and three suggestions of what we can do to help those when they are walking through that valley.

What not to do:

1) Do not compare or rank suffering. When someone is having a hard time, it is not helpful to be told that other people have it much worse than they do. I saw that a lot with the bombings in Boston, with people saying, "Oh yeah? Well, think about Syria." There is no denying that other people are suffering, but if your object is to provide comfort, that will not help. It will, in fact, simply put up walls between you and the other person.

Another way we do this that seems encouraging but is simply another form of the same tactic is when we say to people "Cheer up! It could always be so much worse!" Again, this is not helpful. Comparing one person's suffering to another, or to an imaginary worse situation, denies or minimizes a person's situation. It sends the message that they should not feel the way they do. The fact is, they do feel the way they do. How anyone else feels or what anyone else is going through at that moment is irrelevant.

2) Do not give advice. The desire to give advice may come from the best of motives and the honest impulse to want to fix things. But the effect of giving advice often merely exacerbates the pain a person is going through.

I recently read a reflection from someone who talked about how giving advice to someone with chronic illness is, in fact, an isolating experience. For someone who has already tried everything and still feels stuck in the valley, advice is not only meaningless, it becomes a source of pain. It says to the person, "I'm healthy and you're not and if only you had X, Y, and Z, it wouldn't have happened to you. And if you only do 1, 2, and 3, you would get yourself out of it." Advice implies "I don't want to be here with you; I want you to come here with me." For someone in the valley, this is not helpful. The valley is not traversed by advice.

3) Do not make assumptions. Do not assume you know what's really going on. Do not assume you know what a person is feeling. Do not assume you know how things are going to turn out. Because the truth is, you do not know what people are experiencing. You cannot tell by looking. And even with what they tell you, dollars to donuts you are not getting the whole story.

Again, thinking of the bombing in Boston: You do not know who you know who might have been affected by this personally, so please be kind in your comments. I've never even been to Boston and yet I received an email this week from a friend who had worked with one of the people who was killed. What are the chances of that? Much higher than you might think.

What you can do:

1) Do reach out. You may worry that people won't want to be reminded if they're having a bad time. Believe me, they haven't forgotten. In fact, one thing that's hard for people who are in the middle of the valley is feeling like they are always the ones who have to reach out. Even if you don't have anything to say, just calling someone up and saying, "Hey, I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you" can mean a whole lot. The valley can be a long hard slog and the very people who seem to be handling it best because they "don't want to bug you" are the very ones for whom a simple word will mean the most.

2) Do ask what would help. Simply saying, "What can I do for you?" even if the answer is "nothing" is helpful. You can also ask some more specific questions, like "I'm going to the store/library/downtown; is there anything you need?"

3) Do listen. You don't need to have answers. Simply ask, "What's the latest? How are you? What's going on right now? How has your day been?" and let people tell you. Even when it's not what you want to hear. Even when it's discouraging. Even when you want to jump in with something to cheer them up. Just let them tell you. Just be there.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is simply be in the valley with people. As I said earlier, it feels like we're not doing anything. But that's not true. We're being with people, where they are, when things are hardest, even when we can't do anything about it. That's not easy. In fact, that's really hard work.

I hope you've been able to find people to be with you in the valley, and I wish you strength and good courage to accompany others.

***
Here's another article that offered helpful suggestions on how to be with people who are suffering: For a Sick Friend: First Do No Harm

And this one (which I've referenced before) sums it up in the terrifically helpful mantra Comfort IN, Dump OUT. Always good to remember.

Triduum redux: more than you really wanted to know

Well, I've gotten the official Easter cold like I do every single year. This year, I can officially point fingers at my parents, who had colds, but unofficially, it's really not their fault. Holy Week simply wears a body out. Don't tell them that though. Let them stew.

This year, Holy Week and Easter moved away from words and texts and into visuals for me. And that translated into preaching as well. This year, perhaps for the first time, I saw the washing of feet as a parable, and in seeing it that way, I started seeing the rest of the events that happened almost as performance art as well (somewhat shocking to think that about the crucifixion, but that's where my mind went).

So here's what happened:

Maundy Thursday

St. Michael's didn't have a foot washing, which was fine by me. I've got to say, I don't understand why we encourage pedicures before ritual footwashing, when I believe part of meaning of the washing is "Come as you are, with dirt on your feet."

I wanted to do something that would disturb the congregation to illuminate what I sensed was the same sort of disturbance in seeing Jesus step out of his "proper" role. So a great deal of the sermon was in silence, as I stepped forward, took off the stole, took off the cincture, took off the alb, then went into the congregation and, one by one, brought each person forward to sit at chairs the lay minister and I had set up in the sanctuary around the altar. As I walked them forward to their seat, I talked to each person individually, thanking them for coming and making some small talk.

It really did make people nervous, which is what I wanted. I was amazingly nervous, too.

Oh for My sake, Peter!

I spoke for a couple of minutes after everyone was seated (as Jesus did after washing people's feet), explaining why I'd done what I'd done. I also said that this time, I thought that whole side story of Peter refusing to have his feet washed was hilarious. I imagined Jesus doing a facepalm and saying, "Just...go with it, Peter. OK? Just go with me, here."

The big problem with this service? I'd explained to the lay minister my whole plan, but hadn't spoken to the organist. So that was a bit of a train wreck. Ah well.

Good Friday

There wasn't a group of lectors to read the parts of the Passion Narrative, so I was going to reading the whole thing by myself. Whew! I figured that was a lot for listeners to concentrate on, so I hoped to be able to include visuals to help people see while I was reading. St. Michael's used to display all the bulletin material on a large flatscreen in the upper right of the building. So I put together a PowerPoint with art depicting various scenes from the Passion.

Unfortunately, the flatscreen has been disconnected. Ah well. But I, at least, had some pretty vivid images in my mind of what was happening.

What really struck me was the movement from dark to morning to midday to sunset as you read through the story. Unfortunately, that's about as far as that thinking got.

Sermon-wise, I thought I was going to pull from the Good Friday service I did the previous year, which I thought had worked out very well. It began "It was all perfectly legal," which I still think is a pretty kick-ass opener. But as the day went on, I realized I had something else to say. I just wasn't sure what it was.

As I read the text, I was struck by the reversal of roles, as Peter goes from faithful follower to scared denier, and Nicodemus goes from secret follower to openly burying Jesus. My point became "We are not stuck in one place forever." Unfortunately (again) it didn't really get fully developed.

Still...not a bad service overall. I had to do a whole lot of talking, though. No music at this service.

Easter Vigil

Someone else preached at the Easter Vigil -- yay! And she said something that I had been thinking: about how Holy Week is a river and you just catch little glimpses of things passing by.

I had picked five of the readings, but it turns out we only had three lectors. So, a few minutes before the service started, we settled on the three readings. And we hadn't exactly gone over the canticles or anything, so we didn't have any. We're just going with the flow here.

Luckily, the fire worked well because that afternoon I suddenly thought, "Hmmm...I wonder if anyone has got something for the new fire?" And lo! We went to the local Ace hardware and bought a little grill and some firestarter thingeys and tested them out and they worked great. So, yeah, fire.

And I got to sing the Exsultet. So that was fun. For me, anyway. I feel very clever: I photographed the Exsultet on my iPad so that I could have it backlit as I sang it in the dark. Isn't that clever? OK, I'll stop being smug about that now.

And I remembered to talk to the organist. So that's good.

That's more than enough for now. I'll cover Easter Sunday in another post.

The way we think about charity is dead wrong

I've been meaning to watch this TED talk for a while and finally got around to it today, thanks to the Episcopal Cafe. I am in total agreement that our thinking about the non-profit sector and our assignment of morality to money is detrimental to work we would like to do.

As we saw in yesterday's gospel, people get very wound up about issues of money and morality. We often miss the forest for the trees.



I hope you'll take 20 minutes to watch it. Or you can read the transcript.

St. Augustine makes the case for Martha

Martha is up again in the second round of Lent Madness against the seriously kick-ass Harriet Tubman, so I have no idea how Martha will do. But in doing the research for quirks and quotes, I came across this sermon by St. Augustine that I think puts a beat-down on the whole "You should be more like Mary" argument that gets bandied about. I mention it in passing in the write-up, but thought I would post the whole thing here, with key quotes highlighted. [The other Augustine quote in the Lent Madness write-up comes from, of all things, his writings on The Trinity.]

It's a bit dense, but I think if you read just the bolded bits, you will get the gist of the argument. And if you get nothing else, I think the quote I pulled in the image sums the whole thing up succinctly.

Sermon LIV.

Again, on the words of the Gospel, Luke x. 38, etc., about Martha and Mary.

1. When the holy Gospel was being read, we heard that the Lord was received by a religious woman into her house, and her name was Martha. And while she was occupied in the care of serving, her sister Mary was sitting at the Lord’s Feet, and hearing His Word. The one was busy, the other was still; one was giving out, the other was being filled. Yet Martha, all busy as she was in that occupation and toil of serving, appealed to the Lord, and complained of her sister, that she did not help her in her labour. But the Lord answered Martha for Mary; and He became her Advocate, who had been appealed to as Judge. “Martha,” He saith, “thou art occupied about many things, when one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her.” For we have heard both the appeal of the appellant, and the sentence of the Judge. Which sentence answered the appellant, defended the other’s cause. For Mary was intent on the sweetness of the Lord’s word. Martha was intent, how she might feed the Lord; Mary intent how she might be fed by the Lord. By Martha a feast was being prepared for the Lord, in whose feast Mary was even now delighting herself. As Mary then was listening with sweet pleasure to His most sweet word, and was feeding with the most earnest affection, when the Lord was appealed to by her sister, how, think we, did she fear, lest the Lord should say to her, “Rise and help thy sister”? For by a wondrous sweetness was she held; a sweetness of the mind which is doubtless greater than that of the senses. She was excused, she sat in greater confidence. And how excused? Let us consider, examine, investigate it thoroughly as we can, that we may be fed also.

2. For what, do we imagine that Martha’s serving was blamed, whom the cares of hospitality had engaged, who had received the Lord Himself into her house? How could she be rightly blamed, who was gladdened by so great a guest? If this be true, let men give over their ministrations to the needy; let them choose for themselves “the better part, which shall not be taken from” them; let them give themselves wholly to the word, let them long after the sweetness of doctrine; be occupied about the saving knowledge; let it be no care to them, what stranger is in the street, who there is that wants bread, or clothing, or to be visited, to be redeemed, to be buried; let works of mercy cease, earnest heed be given to knowledge only. If this be “the better part,” why do not all do this, when we have the Lord Himself for our defender in this behalf? For we do not fear in this matter, lest we should offend His justice, when we have the support of His judgment.

3. And yet it is not so; but as the Lord spake so it is. It is not as thou understandest; but it is as thou oughtest to understand it. So mark; “Thou art occupied about many things, when one thing is needful. Mary hath chosen the better part.” Thou hast not chosen a bad part; but she a better. And how better? Because thou art “about many things,” she about “one thing.” One is preferred to many. For one does not come from many, but many from one. The things which were made, are many, He who made them is One. The heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that in them are, how many are they! Who could enumerate them? who conceive their vast number? Who made all these? God made them all. Behold, “they are very good.” Very good are the things He made; how much better is He who made them! Let us consider then our “occupations about many things.” Much serving is necessary for the refreshment of our bodies. Wherefore is this? Because we hunger, and thirst. Mercy is necessary for the miserable. Thou breakest bread to the hungry; because thou hast found an hungry man; take hunger away; to whom dost thou break bread? Take houseless wandering away; to whom dost thou show hospitality? Take nakedness away; to whom dost thou furnish clothes? Let there be no sickness; whom dost thou visit? No captivity; whom dost thou redeem? No quarrelling; whom dost thou reconcile? No death; whom dost thou bury? In that world to come, these evils will not be; therefore these services will not be either. Well then did Martha, as touching the bodily—what shall I call it, want, or will, of the Lord?—minister to His mortal flesh.

But who was He in that mortal flesh? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God:” see what Mary was listening to! “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us:” see to whom Martha was ministering! Therefore “hath Mary chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her.” For she chose that which shall abide for ever; “it shall not be taken from her.” She wished to be occupied about “one thing.” She understood already, “But it is good for me to cleave to the Lord.” She sat at the feet of our Head. The more lowlily she sat, the more amply did she receive. For the water flows together to the low hollows of the valley, runs down from the risings of the hill. The Lord then did not blame Martha’s work, but distinguished between their services. “Thou art occupied about many things; yet one thing is needful.” Already hath Mary chosen this for herself. The labour of manifoldness passeth away, and the love of unity abideth. Therefore what she hath chosen, “shall not be taken from her.” But from thee, that which thou hast chosen (of course this follows, of course this is understood) from thee, that which thou hast chosen shall be taken away. But to thy blessedness shall it be taken away, that that which is better may be given. For labour shall be taken away from thee, that rest may be given. Thou art still on the sea, she is already in port.

4. Ye see then, dearly Beloved, and, as I suppose, ye understand already, that in these two women, who were both well pleasing to the Lord, both objects of His love, both disciples; ye see, I say (and an important thing it is which whosoever understand, understand hereby, a thing which, even those of you who do not understand ought to give ear to, and to know), that in these two women the two lives are figured, the life present, and the life to come, the life of labour, and the life of quiet, the life of sorrow, and the life of blessedness, the life temporal, and the life eternal. These are the two lives: do ye think of them more fully. What this life contains, I speak not of a life of evil, or iniquity, or wickedness, or luxuriousness, or ungodliness; but of labour, and full of sorrows, by fears subdued, by temptations disquieted: even this harmless life I mean, such as was suitable for Martha: this life I say, examine as best ye can; and as I have said, think of it more fully than I speak. But a wicked life was far from that house, and was neither with Martha nor with Mary; and if it ever had been, it fled at the Lord’s entrance. There remained then in that house, which had received the Lord, in the two women the two lives, both harmless, both praiseworthy; the one of labour, the other of ease; neither vicious, neither slothful. Both harmless, both, I say, praiseworthy: but one of labour, the other of ease: neither vicious, which the life of labour must beware of; neither slothful, which the life of ease must beware of. There were then in that house these two lives, and Himself, the Fountain of life. In Martha was the image of things present, in Mary of things to come.

What Martha was doing, that we are now; what Mary was doing, that we hope for. Let us do the first well, that we may have the second fully. For what of it have we now? How far have we it? As long as we are here, how much of it is there that we have? For in some measure are we employed in it now, and ye too when removed from business, and laying aside domestic cares, ye meet together, stand, listen. In so far as ye do this, ye are like Mary. And with greater facility do ye do that which Mary doeth, than I who have to distribute. Yet if I say ought, it is Christ’s; therefore doth it feed you, because it is Christ’s. For the Bread is common to us all, of which I too live as well as you. “But now we live, if ye, Brethren, stand fast in the Lord.” I would not that ye should stand fast in us, but in the Lord. “For neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”

***
Thank you, Augustine. Now, let's have no more of this talk of Martha's work being somehow irrelevant to the life of the Christian.

Go Team Martha!

A Plea for Martha

Martha is up against Therese of Lisieux today in the first round of Lent Madness and I am completely partisan, having done the write-up for Martha (and as a big, big fan of hers). The Plea for Martha is not my own, however, but that of the Interpreter's Bible (1952), of which I am also a big, big fan. I mention one snip from this exposition in the Lent Madness write-up, but it is transcribed in full below.

The exposition is by Arthur John Gossip (1873-1954) who deserves a write-up of his own. He was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland and was a chaplain with the Glasgow Highlanders in WWI. He later served as professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Glasgow from 1939-1945.

N.B.: I'm not responsible for the "weaker nature" comments about Mary. Remember: the author is a 70-year-old Scotsman, born in the 1870's. I'm simply happy to share him as a fellow Martha fan. Enjoy. And vote for Martha!

Commentary on John 11:1-2

A Plea for Martha. -- Although in these verses Mary is mentioned first, as if she were the more important, everywhere else throughout the narrative precedence is given to Martha, who would appear to have been the eldest of the family, as Lazarus almost certainly was the youngest; and indeed, in Luke  10:38 we are told that the house was hers.

As the records unfold themselves in the N.T., it seems that we are obviously meant to regard Mary as the finer of the sisters. Yet, obstinately and distinctly, may not one prefer Martha as being both the stronger character and the more likable as well? She looks at us out of the pages, a curiously vivid personality; downright, honest, practical, unselfish; a little flustered at times, it may be, by the lesser rubs of life, but in a major crisis splendidly and unshakably calm and steady-eyed. While Mary is of a softer and much more emotional type, apt to be swept away into extravagances of mood and action, a little trying surely for those round her. Thus, although Martha is obviously deeply wounded by her brother's death, an iron self-restraint allows no outward show of feeling; which terrible silence is as a rule the sign and proof of the most poignant grief of all. "I tell you hopeless grief is passionless." [E.S. Purcell, Life of Cardinal Manning (New York: The Macmillan Co, 1896), I 123.] When Manning lost his dearest, "Do not speak to me," he said, "I can just bear it when I keep quite quiet." But Mary's weaker nature could and did find relief in recurrent bursts of passionate weeping (vss. 31,33).

Again, Martha is much the abler of the sisters. When she meets Christ (vss. 20-27), there is something vastly impressive in the stanchness [sic] of her loyalty, and the depth and reach and stability of her faith. Whereas Mary says nothing, except to repeat that cry of the heart, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died," which Martha had already used; making one feel that the two desolate souls had often said to one another in the days of waiting, "Oh, if only he were here!" Martha it is who does things needing to be done, who takes command of sudden situations, who meets emergencies and sees them through, who spends herself for others. And if, in Luke 10:40, distracted with much serving, with half a hundred things to see to, hot and rushed and bustled that their guest might lack for nothing, she allows herself to be irritated because her younger sister, cool and at her ease, seems to have no wish to lend a hand in what she must know has to be done, but sits there drinking in what Christ was saying, oblivious of the fact that her sister was missing it all, had she not a right to be annoyed? She too would have preferred to listen. But someone had to get the meal prepared and think of the guest's comfort. And so Martha forgot herself and did it. Yet she was surprised at her sister; and so are we.

No doubt our Lord's surely smiling half rebuke implies that this willing energetic soul was almost fussy in her kindness, as such good people can be, and a little overwhelming in her determination to give her very best and do all that was in her power. Still, in comparison with Martha's thoughtfulness for others, Mary seems selfish, or at least self-absorbed, now in her own grief, now in her own spiritual profiting. And one can be as selfish about spiritual things as about anything else. And Martha was not selfish. Neither at home nor at Simon the leper's, could she sit still, letting others serve, but had to be up and about, in and out of the kitchen; again, on thinks, perhaps a little fidgety and fussy, but actively helpful. And when the Master reached her house of mourning and she went out to meet him, much as it mattered to her to be with him, she did not keep him to herself, but broke away to call her sister, that Mary too might miss nothing of Jesus Christ, the sister who, on her side, could sit so absorbed in listening to him that she forgot Martha altogether!

In any case, it is Martha, and not Mary, who is the patron saint of this generation; she, and not the other, who represents the type of goodness which we can understand and which we would like to reproduce. To our shame be it spoken, we have small aptitude for contemplation, and not much liking for communion with the Master in the hush and secret of his presence; and, compared with our forefathers, not much zeal in prayer. But we would fain be helpful to our fellow men, and long to leave a saner and more brotherly world behind us. [yes, yes, forefathers, men, brotherly. 1950's.] If Christ can accept that from us, we are ready to offer it. All of which may to some appear rootless and superficial. Yet the tests Christ gives us, whereby the value of our faith and lives is to be assessed at his judgment seat, are dreadfully practical. Not how much time we spent in prayer, but what came of our prayers in actual unselfishness and helpfulness to others; not simply what did we believe, but did these beliefs of ours compel us to spend our lives for those who needed kindliness and succor. That is the note that constantly rings out in the N.T, e.g., in the epistles of John, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death....If any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth" (I John 3:14, 17-18). "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also" (I John 4:20-21).

In any case, it is written that Jesus loved Martha. And no more is said of Mary. And indeed what better could be said?

Interpreter's Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1952). Volune 8 "Luke, John," pp. 636-637.

Go team Martha!

The Rev. Judy Upham: Love and the long haul

As you may know, I'm one of the so-called Celebrity Bloggers for Lent Madness, the yearly competition where saints fight it out to see who wins the Golden Halo. I'm writing up the bios for my first round picks and this morning was doing some research on Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian shot and killed in 1965 while participating in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama.

Photo taken by Jonathan Daniels

But as I did so, I noticed that he had not been the only seminarian there, and I wondered what happened to his fellow seminarian, Judith Upham.

God bless Google, which led me to this interview with the Rev. Judith Upham, now 70, who still serves as an assisting priest at St. Alban's, Arlington, TX. And I found myself moved to tears as I realized that, after leaving Alabama, Upham had far more to fight.

Upham spent time as a director of religious education, then earned a degree in social work. When General Convention approved ordaining women as deacons in 1970, she said, “for me it was like bells ringing.” 

She began working for women’s ordination to the priesthood, becoming a founding member of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus and serving as an alternate deputy at the 1973 General Convention. She was ordained a deacon in 1975, a priest on Epiphany 1977.

Note, too, that Arlington, where Rev. Upham now works, is in the Diocese of Fort Worth which Episcopal Church watchers will know was a diocese that refused to ordain women and whose bishop decamped, claiming the diocese was under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Not surprisingly, her work there is reconciliation.

On Sunday, when we heard the reading from 1 Corinthians 13, I was struck by how many descriptors of love include the long haul. It's not "love is kind, love is patient," but "love is patient, love is kind," and it struck me that this was key to understanding the work of love. That the work of love requires endurance and a grasp of the big picture, rather than instant gratification. The arc of the moral universe is long, as Martin Luther King said, but it bends toward justice. Because, I would say, the arc of the moral universe depends upon love which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I am not about to take anything away from Jonathan Daniels and his witness and sacrifice, but I want especially today to celebrate the long work of love exhibited by the Rev. Upham and wish her every blessing in her continued ministry. Thank you for your endurance.

Their Own Country

Cross-posted on the Confirm not Conform blog.

I had an epiphany a couple of days ago.

I have heard many a sermon on the magi that talked about how they traveled home by a different road. But this year, it was the snippet of a phrase immediately before that that caught my attention: “they left for their own country.”

It reminded me of a sermon I heard many, many years ago, probably when I was a teenager myself. I even remember the title: “The three unwise men.” And the argument made by the preacher was, “It’s all well and good that they came to worship Jesus, but why didn’t they stick around?” Thinking about it now, that seemed to be a pointed jab at the Christmas and Easter crowd for Not Faithfully Attending, but I remember being annoyed at the time on behalf of the wise men who had made the effort to travel a very long way. After all, the chief priests and scribes who told the magi where the child would be born were in a town just a few miles away. Why weren’t they there?

But that’s not the epiphany. The epiphany was this: people live in different countries. Metaphorically speaking, I mean. And believe me when I say I think our church can do a heck of a lot better job keeping people involved and included – people for whom our churches are their native land.

But I think a lot of us are like that preacher long ago: we believe that to be truly faithful, you need to stay in our country. Never mind how far you have traveled. Never mind what efforts you have made. If you don’t stay with us, then clearly you are not truly faithful. And all our efforts are spent on making sure you stay in our country, our denomination, our worship services, our programs.

Maybe this year we need to do some more traveling. Maybe this year, we need to visit their countries – not to change people, not to convince them, not to draw them back, but simply to visit, to bring gifts, to rejoice, to pay homage, and to return to our own country, transformed by the God who leads us home.

Let's go, Oakland! Guest posts from the Parental Units

Photo by Michael Macor, SF Chronicle

I have been a half-hearted fan at best this season. I never even got to a game. But my parents were there today for game 162, so I asked them for their take on the final, and division-clinching, game of the seasons.

Here's my mom's contribution:

5 games behind the Texas Rangers with 9 games to play. 

Then, on October 3, 2102 the amazing A’s, on the last day of the regular season, game #162, won the third game of their series with Texas, 12-5, to take the American League West Championship! And…we were there (along with 36,000 other hopped up fans) The weather was perfect, high 70’s with a nice gentle cool bay breeze. Great ball park food: nachos, hot dogs, ice cream, popcorn, cotton candy, soft drinks and beer, beer, beer. Only once did the team and fans falter, when, in the 3rd inning Texas scored 5 times to take a 5-1 lead. But when the A’s answered in the 4th with a big 6 run inning, thanks in part to Josh Hamilton’s unbelievable error on a routine fly ball, everyone got refocused and never looked back. The fans roared for every strike an A’s pitcher threw, and got even louder for every out. You could know what was going on with your eyes closed just by listening to the fan responses. No one sat still, folks jumped up to see the plays then flowed up and down the isles. The Coliseum rocked. It was a very satisfactory day. Oh and did we mention that the A’s won?

Now we get to fidget as the post season begins.

Dad's take:

Proverbs 24:17

Oh, to heck with that. Go A's!

Unless you want my tomatoes, quit asking for my tithe!

Seeing Father Tim's great post asking for music to put on a Stewardship Soundtrack made me realize I'd better get in quick if I wanted to get this off my chest:

It is just as inaccurate to talk about the Biblical tithe as proof you should give 10 percent of your income to the church as it is to talk about selected passages in Leviticus as proof that homosexuality is a sin.

I ask you: how many times has your church talked about tithing as the Biblical standard of stewardship? And that tithing means you should give 10 percent of your income away? In all that time, has anyone actually ever even shown you the passages where it says that? It was only a couple of years ago that I realized I'd never actually looked at the texts, and since then each year I've only grown more peeved at how we have abused the Bible to, frankly, no good end.

Let's visit our old friend Leviticus, shall we? Here's Leviticus 27:30-32:

All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord's; they are holy to the Lord. If person wish to redeem any of their tithes, they must add one-fifth to them. All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd's staff, shall be holy to the Lord.

Now from Numbers 18:11-13, 21

[The Lord spoke to Aaron:] This also is yours: I have given to you, togther with your sons and daughters, as a perpetual due, whatever is set aside from the gifts of all the elevation offerings of the Israelites; everyone who is clean in your house may eat them. All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the choice produce that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. The first fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours; everyone who is clean in your house may eat of it...To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for a possession in return for the service that they perform, the service in the tent of meeting.

And Deuteronomy 14:22-27

Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if, when the Lord your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the Lord your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose; spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together. As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you.

Got that? Tithing applies to agricultural products. This is why Jesus talks to the Pharisees about tithing "mint and rue and herbs of all kinds." And if you preferred to do cash instead, well, it cost 20 percent more, according to the Leviticus reading above.

Seriously, can you take those passages above and make a case for saying "This means today that you should give 10 percent of your income to your local parish"? If we are serious about Biblical context for other Old Testament texts, it's rather sloppy of us to say there's an easy equivalence between these texts and the annual pledge drive.

Here's the context: Unless you owned land and had crops and flocks, tithing did not apply to you. What applied to you non-landowner types was offerings.

Take a look at Exodus as an example. In Exodus 25,

The Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to take for me an offering; from all whose hearts prompt them to give you shall receive the offering for me. This is the offering that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine linen, goats' hair, tanned rams' skins, fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and for the breastpiece. And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.

So here you see that gifts are asked of people--in no particular amount, but for the specific purpose of worship, "from all whose hearts prompt them."

But here's what's particularly interesting to me: in Exodus 36:2-6, we read

Moses then called Bezalel and Oholiab and every skillful one to whom the Lord had given skill, everyone whose heart was stirred to come do the work; and they received from Moses all the free-will offerings that the Israelites had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the artisans who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task being performed, and said to Moses, "The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do." So Moses gave the command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp: "No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary." So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.

So you've got two kinds of freewill offerings: the offerings of goods, and the offerings of services. And at a certain point, they had enough to do the work God wanted of them. It wasn't a set percentage based on income; it only had to do with the actual ministry and tasks to be performed!

Tithing is a quick and easy short-cut; 10 percent, done. You know you're set with God and the church for the year. But a) should we be bound by Old Testament law in the first place? and b) does setting the tithe as a standard do anything to help us examine either our hearts or understand our ministries? I would argue no, and no.

I feel that using the tithing short-cut actually damages our churches. Tithing sets up a disconnect between stewardship and mission, making giving all about "how much" and not what the gifts are supposed to do. In asking for a tithe, we ask church members to conform to an external standard rather than the more challenging work of coming to terms with God and one's own conscience.  It encourages guilty giving rather than joyful and generous giving. How can we be generous people if all we know is the demand of a certain dollar amount?

I really wish churches would think about stewardship in terms of getting the resources to do mission that stirs people's hearts to give rather than targeting people to commit a particular percentage amount of income to the church. The case for the Biblical tithe is flimsy at best, to begin with. Given that as Christians, we are no longer bound by the Law, it's irresponsible to use the tithe as our standard of giving, even if it weren't applicable to agricultural products.

On the other hand, I do have some zucchini to share.

Every wind of doctrine

Consider this your "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" Bible study post. But, hey, this passage will come up again:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:14-16

Here's the thing that struck me reading it this time. So. It seems to me that people toss around that phrase "every wind of doctrine" to mean "every newfangled thought that comes along." Is that how you've heard it used? But it occurred to me that at the time the letter was written, Christianity was the newfangled thought. And Paul was an innovator even within this newfangled sect of Christianity, welcoming the uncircumcised, calling a slave his brother (and his owner's brother), expecting a radical equality among genders and races and incomes. He was doing crazily new stuff, way out of the mainstream.

So it makes me wonder if doctrine here doesn't mean new doctrine, but what we usually think of when we think of doctrine: those beliefs that are settled and static and cast in stone.

What if this isn't saying, "Don't be blown about by the latest fad," but instead is saying, "Don't be blown about by 'the way we've always done it'"? Don't be blown about by those forces that wish to deny new truths that have been brought to light through Jesus Christ. 

Remember that grim hymn "Once to ev'ry man and nation"? It has this great couplet:

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

And of course let us not forget the great Thomas Cranmer's delightful introduction to the first Book of Common Prayer (1549, of course): "There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted."

Darn right.

So the next time someone throws that old "every wind of doctrine" line at you, I'd recommend you say, "That's exactly why we need to speak the truth in love, so that we are not continually battered by doctrines that no longer fit our understanding of God and of the world." The winds of doctrine isn't about new ways of thinking; the winds of doctrine are the ones that try to blow us backwards as we attempt to make progress, promoting the body's growth.