August 31, 2005

Bends

A couple of our friends came for supper the other evening. They’re moving soon.

He will enter seminary to weather out three of the waning years of his forties and lead on into the priesthood. She will continue her home computer-managed profession as an editor and writer. The both of them will adopt a new Chinese baby into their newly adopted home. Talk about a bend in one’s history.

After dinner, I invited my friend in to look over my theology library, to choose what books, if any, that he’d like to have, that I’d tell him whether he can have them, better said, whether I can part with them. He took quite a few. I managed to part with every one. It’s a strange feeling, but a good one. I shall miss them along with my friends, as well. It’s a kind of bend in my history, too.

My books and I have been together a long time, some of them for over fifty years. I’ve not read them all, but I have used most of them in one way or another. The big Greek-English lexicon, for example, also made a splendid doorstop. Quite a few of them came from my seminary days when a colleague and I who were in its founding class also started its bookstore — and our libraries. Every time a classmate would stop by to order a book, we’d inevitably order a copy for ourselves.

It is well that my friend can start his fifty years with some of my books. I’m surprised and pleased that he’d want any of them. I’m glad they can look forward to making a home in another parson’s library.

Heaven knows there are lots of newer and surely more refreshing spins on the Good News out there these days to keep these old books company. Jesus knows, too, and maybe even sometimes wonders about it all. John certainly did (Jn 21.25).

August 30, 2005

Deserve

It was only a casual exchange when my friend and I met, and he asked, How are you doing, and I said, Better than I deserve. And he said, Well, you must have a mighty low opinion of yourself.

And I thought, why did I say that Better-than-I-deserve thing? Why do I always say that when someone asks after my well-being? And there came to me an answer something like that I was trying to be humble, maybe. My friend knew me, though, and I knew that he was probably pretty sure as was I that humility and I didn’t have all that much in common.

So maybe he was right. Maybe I do I have a low opinion of myself. Maybe it’s justified, and maybe it’s not. But who am I to say?

Could be that I, least of all, know what I deserve and what I don’t deserve. Could be that God knows better, a lot better, than I. Could be that if Jesus died for me (though sometimes I wish he hadn’t), it was partly to make me better, so maybe if I am worth that, I am worth a lot more than I can ever imagine even without trying. Maybe my saying that Better-than-I-deserve is an insult to God who imagined me into being and thought pretty well of his imagination and of its product like he said in Genesis about Creation in general and, of course, also gave his only-begotten son to show that he meant it. I had only one begotten son die, and I was far from willing about it. I’ve never got over it, nor do I expect ever to. I wonder if God has.

I’ve noticed over the years that there are folk who when you say nothing more than Hello to them, they answer, Fine. I always thought that rather strange, but maybe it’s not when looked at in the long, Judaeo-Christian scheme of things dating back beyond and before the Big Bang — somewhere back in God’s imagination.

August 29, 2005

Katrina

Lewis Thomas, philosopher-scientist-physician, likened the earth as alive and contained in its atmosphere ever so much as a living cell. All its parts, including us, are similarly connected, he believed, inseparably interdependent.

One way of imagining those living cell walls is as Holy Spirit joining us, birthing us, sustaining us from our first breath unto our last and in all the ghostly mystery in between and beyond. God calls us to be stewards of that mystery, to remember daily that it gives and sustains our lives. Global warming, a phenomenon that some foolishly deny may exist at all, is something of a measure of our stewardship, embarrassing though it may be.

Katrina, the mother of all hurricanes and servant of Spirit, reminds us of who we are, of how, indeed, we are connected, and that, as Jesus said of Holy Spirit, blows wherever she damn well pleases (Jn 3.8).

August 26, 2005

Extremism

It was Barry Goldwater, that noblest of all patrons of conservatism, who reminded us that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” When all the shouts and applause and shudders resounding over this potential election-winning mantra died down, one might have thought he was a shoo-in for president.

Passing strange he might find it now only a short time since his ecstatic pronouncement, how we’ve turned our war with the terrorists into a struggle against extremism. Our leaders have a way of defining things for us to help us know what we think and apparently must have just got themselves another PR firm.

Yet people die all the same, maybe even more of them if for no other reason than that our “struggle” has turned up even more of the kinds of people who want to make some other kinds of people dead. In wars or struggles, whatever, there are no winners, only losers. It’s a helluva way to warm a globe.

Anyhow, we’re defending liberty all right. We’ve got ourselves the Patriot’s Act, named, I suppose, for all those worthies who won this country for us, but hardly consistent with their dreams. Trouble is, we’re defending liberty so vigorously that we’ve locked it up and thrown away the key. We’re even redefining justice to make it look okay.

But the senator was right. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. But you know, when all the hoopla died down, he went on quietly to say with a simple and correcting phrase we seem only too readily to forget.

“Let me remind you also,” he added, “that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

August 25, 2005

Gardens

Pentecost 15/17A

“I never promised you a rose garden.” That’s often the familiar copout when the chore we took on for somebody doesn’t turn out as comfy as we thought it would. I don’t know why roses. Rose gardens are lovely, but anybody who ever planted one knows they’re no snap to nurse, and that their thorns last a lot longer than their blooms.

Being faithful to the call of God is like that. Do it, and life right away gets complex and tumultuous rather than simple and peaceful. Jeremiah and Paul and Jesus can all testify to this and do in their stories that make up today’s lections. The common theme? Faithfulness will get you nowhere or maybe somewhere you’d rather not be.

Jeremiah tangles with God’s dynamic and swings between faith and doubt, peace and turmoil, certainty and confusion (Jer 15.15-21). Paul’s commitment to the Gentiles only drives a deeper wedge between himself and the Jews (Rms 12.1-8). Jesus’ certain awareness of the perils ahead challenges the loyalties of his disciples and puts their relationship on very shaky ground (Mt 16.21-26).

Any church worth its salt lives in this kind of tension all the way from leaving its doors unlocked 24/7 and risking theft and vandalism to exposing — even wasting — its program and budget in the interest of the sick and the poor and dispossessed. Too many of us never get that far being preoccupied with orthodox niceties like we so often are. Faith is always risky and even clumsy, especially when we try to use canon law and discipline as a vehicle for grace and love.

Today’s church is busily setting standards for membership in pew and pulpit and requiring of its clergy to withhold its blessing for love wherever and in whatever form we may find it. When Jesus sets the demands for discipleship — Take up your cross and follow me — he does not talk in terms of rules to be followed or specific tasks to be accomplished. He talks about the need for us to get out of the way of ourselves with an open invitation to follow him when we have not the vaguest notion where his Way will lead and are not all that sure that he does, either.

As well with Paul’s counsel to the Romans. “Do not be conformed to this world… ” but be “transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Do not be conformed to the world’s obsession with the symbols of power and prestige, but be transformed in Christ. Do not be conformed to the exploitation of others, but be transformed by letting your love be genuine. Do not be conformed to the way of vengeance and hatred, but bless them that persecute you and, as Jesus urged, even love them and offer them justice.

Facing the world’s current traumas, how is such a ministry informed and shaped? What might the world’s families be like now had we set out to conquer poverty and genocide as our response to 9/11 by pouring our billions into such a mission rather than into the explosive and interminable violence of Iraq? How might the victims of 9/11 and their families feel about love and generosity and justice in their name and the memory of their loved ones? How might our armies of death now function and what might they have accomplished had we enlisted them rather into legions of peace? What if we had truly risked modeling our constitutional democracy in a palpable community of justice more consistent with our founding?

A couple of memorable gardens — Eden and Gethsemane — stand prominent in our tradition. A garden of irresistible temptation and a garden of redemptive commitment. I don’t remember any rose gardens ever figuring in the scheme of things.

August 24, 2005

Bartholomew

Bartholomew was probably as surprised as the next guy when Jesus chose him as an apostle (Mt 10) . Nevertheless, there he was without a miter to his name, charged with a nonstipe job to heal sick Jewish dropouts and raise a few from the dead, including cleansing any who were leprous and exorcising any demons that got in the way.

It was a tough and dirty job, but it was one that Simon, the Samaritan sorcerer, was willing to die for and more than likely wished he had (Acts 8.18-21). Anyhow, it all helped start what we get so carried away with that we now call it “apostolic succession,” only with more puffery and trappings and fewer exorcisms. We seem to prefer and claim the mainstream and pretty well forget the creeks and rivulets where those other itinerant mendicants who loved their Lord prayed and preached and simply settled for a little apostolic success here and there, now and then.

They did, however, most of them, just like old Bartholomew, end up getting called a “saint” and with their own red-letter day on the calendar. But for whatever that’s worth, it sure cost them a bundle.

(This rerun is turning into a St Bartholomew’s Day special, but so far, nobody’s suggested issuing it as a DVD.)

August 23, 2005

Hair

By my early forties, I knew it was inevitable. My mom’s genes were systematically removing my elegant and carefully coiffed head of hair, one strand at a time. It was not even much comfort to know that God was keeping track (Lk 12.7a). I’d have preferred he spent his time with something more vital to peace and justice and the like. So, if he was of no avail (I didn’t much think it was worth trying to convince him to change), I decided to try, instead, the comb-over.

That was a mistake from the beginning, but I was the poster child for denial even of what I could see in the mirror, on the floor, and on my hair brush. So comb-over, I did, only to discover I was suddenly spending very little time outdoors on windy days.

Years later, but never too late, I got into a 12-step program and ran head-on (the appropriate contact point) into honesty. Not the hair! I thought, please not the hair. But having it trimmed one time, I said to my lady barber that one day, I would simply have to stop (aka cut off) the masquerade. I knew I wasn’t fooling anybody but me.

She said, that’s right, so either do it or stop talking about it. I asked had I been talking about it? She said, every time you come in, I’ve lost count of the years. She was good. She had a lot more time in the program than I. So I gritted my teeth and said, do it.

It only took a couple of major snips and off it went, straight to the floor and under foot. I said, aren’t you going to save it in an envelope? She ground it in just to make sure it was under foot and that I knew it.

Suddenly pleased was I by the joy of it if not by the sight of it. I was working on the third step at the time, the one about turning over my will and my life. So when I added my hair, I was downright refreshed by the memory that if God insisted on keeping track of it, he now had more time for the really important stuff.

August 22, 2005

Economics

A lot of so-called common knowledge remains altogether uncommon to me. Take economics.

It was reported recently that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that China must make significant structural changes in its economic policies, lest it remain “a problem for the international economy.” Her unusually sharp criticism was a clear indication of the administration’s ambivalence and frustration with China.

I’ve also learned that China is reported to be a major bankroller of the US&A and keeps on buying our treasury notes or whatever they’re called. Then we take the money and spend it all struggling against extremists running up the “extremest” debt in our entire history leaving us with hardly any treasure at all, except maybe a lot real estate, if it’s not already obligated as collateral somewhere else.

Do you suppose this could be one of the investment policies that cause the administration’s ambivalence over China being “a problem for the international economy”? If we continue to be so discomposed, maybe we might adapt Groucho Marx’s famous counsel and send the Chinese a diplomatic communiqué asking them please to accept our resignation. Surely we don’t want to belong to any such international economy that would accept us as a member.

August 19, 2005

Fern

With the light and all, our glassed-in dogtrot entryway (aka The Narthex) is a good place for plants. Among other contenders, there’re three ferns — a Dallas, an African, and a Korean called Suzy Wong. The Dallas must be the earliest because it always gets the worm.

Thanks to her long, experienced years of gardeneering, CP can outsmart worms. A little black one had set about systematically dismantling Dallas the other day when she spied it and dispatched it. It had made the mistake of crawling in plain sight on top of a frond and even still had a chomp of green in its mouth.

Intelligent Design (aka ID), however, must move fast, for the next day one of the worm’s colleagues crawled out of sight underneath a frond. It was even tidier with its table manners, but it had not been designed well enough to contend with herself.

Ferns — and worms — have been around a long time. In my geologist days, I’d occasionally find a fossil fern, fronds so delicately preserved in 400 million year-old Devonian shales that only the color had disappeared. They make nice markers to keep one from getting lost in the geologic column.

I don’t know what ID says, but the Creationism guys say God puts stuff like this around just to trick us into not believing with old Bishop James Ussher that the world was only 6001 years old last January. I’d just as soon we don’t teach this in the public schools, but I suppose it’s okay so long as Albert Einstein’s assurance that God doesn’t play dice gets equal time.

August 18, 2005

Who?

Pentecost 14/16A Mt 16.13-20

Well, finally. He asked.

Whether or not Jesus was really curious regarding what people were saying about him — and he doesn’t really strike me as the type — things had gone on long enough. So when he asks his traveling mates the question, even if rather tangentially and somewhat loaded, it seems that he really wants to know how they are sizing him up more than just to hear what’s the skinny on the street.

“Who do (people) say that the Son of Man is?” The answers are consistent and probably not all that surprising. John the Baptist. Elijah. Jeremiah. Or surely one of the prophets. Then Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter finally caught on. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And right there on the spot, this realization — profound in its simplicity — wins the Big Prize — a set of keys to the kingdom. And that’s not all. To go with them, Peter is handed the very authority of heaven to forgive, and a very handy gift in itself considering that in only a very short time he will deny he ever knew Jesus and need some mighty big time forgiveness, himself.

So how about us? Whom do we say is this Son of Man?

Well, if there’s anything the church has, it’s answers. They’re not always answers to the questions people ask, but they’re answers, all neat and organized, systematized and religionized. On this one, the church is already overloaded with what we call Christology, a study full of answers all neatly once-removed from where those first-century sandals met the road. “You are the Christ!” Peter realized, as do we. But I doubt he had anything like the Athanasian Creed in mind.

The recent “What Would Jesus Do?” fad had its fifteen minutes of fame. But it always seemed to leave Jesus’ question to his colleagues unanswered and only implied. “Who am I?” We’ve got to get that straight not only about Jesus, but about any of us, if we’re ever able to walk the talk. The two go hand-in-hand, but the sequence is imperative, and then comes the action, the ministry, the service, the sacrifice, the forgiving.

Like the lady attending her first Quaker meeting and being overwhelmed with the silence. She quietly asked her neighbor in the pew, “When does the service begin?”

“As soon as the Meeting is over,” came the gentle reply.

The Baptismal Covenant sets us altogether straight on this service and emphatically answers our Lord’s question once and for all. “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” the Covenant asks. “And whom do I say is this Christ?” we could well reply. “Youm. Thass whom!” always comes the answer.

“How can one know the will of God?” I once rather impertinently asked one of the church’s leading theologians. “Follow your hunches,” came his instant answer. Look for the Christ, for Jesus in yourself, for that’s where he is. That’s what this ministry is about. Those called out to follow the Way need no further creed, no further confession, no further systematic theology, no further catholic orthodoxy and, God help us, no further denominations.

With old Peter, each of us baptised are given the keys. We’re given the authority to forgive and restore and reconcile. We’re commissioned to seek out this Jesus in ourselves, in our God-given hunches, and so importantly, also to seek for him and serve him in others.

Maybe we should be grateful on the face of it that our leaders have gone so far to the religious right. Maybe thus we can assume they’ve got a pretty good idea who is this Jesus. So, reflecting on the pattern and focus of his ministry in his time, is it beyond reason that we can respectfully hope — and, indeed, demand — that they begin to religiously right some wrongs so that all this won’t appear to be mere political Christianism and ideological fetishism?

I can’t imagine this Jesus I know showing obeisance to baser interests like the petroleum, pharmaceutical, and defense industries or altering, suppressing, and overriding scientific findings on global warming, missile defense, HIV/AIDS, pollution from industrial farming and oil drilling, forest management and endangered species, environmental health, non-abstinence methods of birth control and sexually-transmitted-disease protection, let alone grossly misleading of the public on stem-cell research.

Well, finally, Jesus did ask. Sometimes, I’ll bet some folk wish he hadn’t. But he did. Now, isn’t it time we successors to Peter and his crowd turn loose of all our obsessive navel-gazing, focus those God-given gospel energies, and ask, ourselves?