soulwerker

..Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flame by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy and a pavilion. It will be a shade by day from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and the rain” (Isaiah 4:5-6)

A word of explanation for the blog post titles for the past two days (and going forward through Advent):

Four years ago, when I was writing as “Tosa Rector” over on another blog format, I used the Daily Office readings from Isaiah as the basis of my daily Advent reflections. For those who may not know, the Daily Office lectionary repeats every two years, so the Episcopal Church is re-reading the same chunks of Isaiah again this year. I went back and looked at a few of the things I wrote in 2008, and decided, it wouldn’t be a huge blogging offense to re-publish the posts on my “Soulwerker” site. I will not simply copy and paste, though. If there’s a need for some updating or editing, I will be sure to do so.

Happy reading. Happy Advent!

Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen; because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, defying God’s glorious presence…The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and princes of his people: “It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?” says the Lord of hosts. (from Isaiah 3:8-15)

In today’s reading, the oracle from Isaiah of Jerusalem reiterates the connection between the equitable treatment for the poor (or lack thereof) and the faithfulness of the covenant people to the terms of the covenant given to them by God. As the Israelites made their way from slavery in Egypt toward the Land of Promise, they received the gift of the Law. While the Law spelled out in detail the various sacrificial rites, holy days and the like, it was not simply a customary for worship. The Law also contained provisions for the care of the poor and the stranger.

Time and time again in the Law, the Israelites are enjoined to remember their treatment as poor slaves in Egypt. They are commanded to remember what it felt like to be an “alien” — a stranger in a strange land. This collective memory is to be employed in real time to facilitate a society that is both hospitable to the stranger and merciful to the poor. Through these concrete actions, the people would give witness to the covenant that existed between Israel and God.

Isaiah of Jerusalem is apalled at the lack of attention given to the poor by the leaders of his nation. As he walks the city streets, he can see the results of a nation that has forgotten its covenant with God. He cries out, “O my people, your leaders mislead you, and confuse the course of your paths.”

In this first week of Advent, with its focus on the Second Coming of Christ, we could easily begin to believe that ” The Judgment” is out there in the far-away-future. We could fall prey to either dismissing “The Judgment” as an overly-imaginative mythology that has no place in rational thought, or overly-indvidualize it by believing that it is some sort of divine hazing ritual to determine whether or not we get through the “Pearly Gates”. Just as the Kingdom of God is already here but has not yet arrived in its fullness, judgment is right here, right now as well. The cries of the poor and the mistreatment of strangers in our midst are witnesses against us — by their very presence we are judged. How are we participating in crushing them? How are we complicit in “grinding their faces”?

One of my favorite theologians has this to say regarding the connection between Christ’s judgment and the unheard cries of the poor and disenfranchised: 

“Injustice cries out to high heaven. The victims of injustice never hold their peace. The perpetrators of injustice find no rest. That is why the thirst for righteousness and justice can never be repressed. It keeps alive the remembrances of suffering and makes people wait for a tribunal which will make right prevail. For many people, the longing for God is alive in this thrist for righteousness and justice.” (Jurgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 334)

The Kingdom of God will come in its own good time. To be sure, we cannot build God’s Kingdom with human hands. What we can do is give witness to the seed of the Kingdom that is present within each of us through our faithful care for those at the margins in the here and now. Without such care, without such hospitality, our talk of the Kingdom becomes little more than religious gibberish.

I took Spanish for five years in public school, beginning in eighth grade and continuing through high school graduation. As I recall, I mostly made “A’s” and “B’s” on the tests. I could conjugate verbs with the best. Vocabulary tests? I aced them every time. Reading passages and writing paragraphs in the language? I was passable. Translating from Spanish to English? No problem. Conversation? That’s another story. I never got too far beyond, “Muy bien, gracias.” I learned all the parts of the grammar, but I never learned how to put it all together. I now know I never learned to “think” in Spanish. I always “thought” English and then translated into the (most of the time) appropriate Spanish equivalent. In short, I couldn’t navigate the language in conversation because it never seeped into my being, it simply remained as random words floating around upon my cerebral cortex.

I’ve just finished teaching a group of adults and young adults in preparation for our bishop’s visitation this coming Sunday. He will be receiving many of the adults into the Episcopal Church. He will also administer the Rite of Confirmation for the young people who will be confirming the promises made on their behalf by their parents at their baptisms, as well as for a couple of folks who were baptized as adults. As I have chatted with these folks over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the language of the faith and how that language is taught and learned in the church. Words like, “Trinity”, “Incarnation”, “repentance”, “grace”, “redemption”, “Eucharist”, “mercy” (and lots, lots more!) get tossed around with ease in the liturgy. Preachers use these and other churchified words in our sermons without too much thought. I’ve been reminded, though, that most of these words function as “vocabulary words” for Christians. They are the sorts of words folks hear in the context of church, but may not ever encounter outside of an hour or two on Sunday. How can we expect people to become fluent in the faith if the only thing they get is a few weekly vocabulary lessons over the years?

Somehow, we’ve got to figure out how to connect those religious/churchy words to lived experience. Somehow we’ve got to get those words out of the Bible and dusty theological text books and into hearts, minds and souls. In the meantime, perhaps it’s time for me to take another shot at Spanish. Maybe making the effort to finally get a foreign language into my being will teach me something about teaching the language of the Faith.

I don’t know when it happened, exactly. When I started thinking from my heart more than from my head. When relationships became more important than technicalities. When having folks gathered became more desirable than making sure everyone passed some membership test for inclusion. Lately though, as I’ve read friends’ blogs and this or that press release from the Episcopal Church, or read how folks are wrestling with some of the issues being bantered about inside the walls of the ecclesiastical battle zone, I’ve realized it’s time for me to cease and desist from my “if we all love Jesus, we can all get along” fantasies.

I have recognized in myself a desire for peaceableness, that may have been misinterpreted as complicity with the status quo. I have recognized an activism for justice that, while passionate (and even, from time to time, articulate) does not sufficiently plumb the depths of the Christian theological tradition. I have slacked off in my fervency for being able to give account of my faith. I’ve been relying on whatever I happen to retain in my memory from seminary and a few continuing education classes since then. I have mostly kept my opinions to myself and figured the part of Christ’s Church to which I belong would wobble around long enough that something would change. I would wait for change, but I didn’t see myself as having any way to contribute to whatever change might be on the horizon. I have been too timid. I have been too cautious. I have been too worried about keeping my nose clean and my mouth shut. I’ve got plenty of things from which to repent. So, I’m turning away from the intellectual atrophy today. I figure it will take a good year to get my brain back in shape. But nothing much will change until I do.

By the way, I don’t intend to lose heart. Relationships are still more important than technicalities. Gathering people around a table (whether the table is in the rectory, the parish hall or the sanctuary) is still more desirable than tests of membership. We probably won’t all get along, even though we all claim to love Jesus. And, yes, I realize most of the battles we fight inside the Episcopal Church are pointless (or even laughable) to the broader culture, but maybe we have to fight them precisely because we want to open our doors to those who pass by them on Sunday mornings on their way somewhere else. The love of Jesus and the call of the Gospel is probably enough for those outside our walls. For those inside the walls, a bit more intellectual fortitude will be required.

In a couple of hours I will travel to Madison, WI to participate in the annual business meeting for the Diocese of Milwaukee, commonly called “Diocesan Convention”. This gathering, comprised of the clergy in this diocese and laypersons who have been elected by their respective congregations to serve as deputies, will, amongst other things, worship together, receive reports of various sorts and conditions, hear the annual address from our bishop, approve a proposed budget and possibly pass another resolution or two. Betwixt all of this activity there will be opportunities to catch up on news from other parts of the diocese, greet folks we don’t get a chance to see that often, and maybe share a few stories, a few burdens and (hopefully) more than a few laughs.

This will be my ninth convention as a clergy person in the Diocese of Milwaukee. In addition I attended two conventions as a clergy in Southern Virginia (but they call their conventions “councils”), plus eight conventions in the Diocese of Florida (five as a deputy; three as a seminarian). The people are different. The venues have varied. The food quality uneven. But a few things remain remarkably consistent — governed by Robert’s Rules, guided by constitutions, canons and bylaws, most of the business, most of the time is transacted with the formality and decorum Episcopalians are known for.

Conventions, by and large, are reliable. If you sign up to go, you generally know what you’re going to get. Conventions don’t change much. And those who attend aren’t much changed by them. Most of the time most people don’t expect much to happen at a convention. Most of the time conventions fulfill those expectations. But I wonder…

What would happen if someone presented a “lately occasioned” resolution calling upon this diocese to liquidate its endowment fund and give all the money to the poor? What would happen if we spent a few hours listening to testimonies from folks about how some of our parishes’ ministries, in their respective communities, offered in the Name of Jesus had changed their lives? What it would be like for us to take a recess in the middle of our meeting and head out to do some hands-on ministry in the greater Madison community — what could a few hundred fired up Episcopalians accomplish in that span of time?

I know, I know. Most folks in attendance at a diocesan convention agreed to participate in a business meeting, not a revival. I understand that, as of now, business has to be transacted, ballots cast and decisions made — in decency and in order. I do believe, though, that where two or three are gathered in the Name of Jesus (regardless of where they’re gathered!), the Risen Lord is in our midst. He is as present at a business meeting in a hotel conference room as he is in at a Sunday liturgy in a church building. In the flurry of paper and the serpentine “rules of debate” this weekend, I will do my best to keep in mind this promise of Jesus to his followers. I plan to be on the lookout for glimpses of Jesus in the faces and stories of my fellow Episcopalians over the next twenty-four hours.

Who knows? In spite of our best planning and just when we least expect it, the Risen Lord could overturn a few conventions this weekend. He’s reliable like that.

“…Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

There is a difference between counting our age and numbering our days. Most of us know our birth day and birth year, so figuring out “how old we are” is something we learn to do fairly early as children. We arrive at this number by addition — counting the years, months and days we have lived so far and getting a cumulative total which represents our age. By this way of reckoning, as of this writing, I have lived 19,575 days (53 years, 7 months, 2 days).

The Psalmist has a different sort of math in mind, though. Psalm 90:12 is a part of a prayer to God, in which the writer reflects upon the brevity of human life. “We fade away like the grass,” the writer notes (90:5a). In verse 12, he is asks God for something that is far too easy to avoid in the scurry of living. In asking for God’s help to “number our days”, the Psalmist is asking to be reminded that each day is precious. One more day behind us means one less day in front of us.

No, the writer isn’t asking for help with addition. The Psalmist is asking for grace to be able to live with subtraction. There’s an end date for all of us. None of us gets out of this life alive. The difficulty is, of course, that we don’t know when our time will be up! Some of us will live a very long time — outliving our spouses, friends, family members, even our children. Some of us will leave this life much earlier. We just don’t know.

The Psalmist speculates that measure of a human life is seventy years, or perhaps eighty (90:10). My paternal grandfather, a Baptist preacher who lived until just short of his ninetieth birthday, was fond of saying from the time he reached eighty years of age onward, “The Good Book only gives a promise of eighty years. My warranty has expired. I’m on God’s grace clock now.” I think he had not only learned how to “number his days”, but to value them as well.

For the purpose of completing this exercise, I “numbered my days” in accordance to the Psalmist’s observation. Here are my results: 5,993 days remain until I reach age 70 (I get an additional 3,652 more days if I attain age 80). All of a sudden mortality feels much more real. No, I’m not in some sort of an existential funk. Rather, this is a great clarifying exercise. So many people die to their dreams, their plans, their goals, their enthusiasm and their joy long before their funeral. They die to this gift of life because they don’t take the second or two each day to examine the hue of a blue sky, smell a flower, watch a squirrel run up a tree, pet their dog or kiss a loved one.

Chances are, no matter how long we live, we will all face our end sooner than we want. Numbering our days is not about living in the fear of death. Numbering our days is about giving all the living we can to all of the life we’ve got.

Thanks to the Lectionary, it comes around every three years. Like clockwork. Mark 10:2-16. Commonly called, amongst the preachers who wrestle with it, “the divorce proper”. The words of Jesus are very straightforward — uncomfortably so. When he says, “What God has joined together, let no one separate” (or as in the King James Version, “let no one put asunder.”), he leaves no margin for error. “Til death do us part,” for Jesus means just that. No exceptions.

Only we preachers know the reality. The reality of lives broken by the tragedy of divorce will be sitting in the congregation looking up at us. So will the reality of marriages straining at the breaking point. Hardly a person under the sound of our voices tomorrow will be untouched by the hurt, pain, regret, guilt and shame that so often accompanies the death of a marriage.

Preachers don’t need to soft pedal Jesus’ words, though. In my experience, most explanations aimed toward convincing our hearers, “why Jesus didn’t really mean, this, he actually meant something else” fail miserably. Such explanations fail because all of our intellectual jujitsu merely underscores that it’s the preacher who is working very hard to make the Jesus of the Gospels more amenable to our own 21st century opinions. The starkness of Jesus’ words in Mark 10 must be faced, and faced directly.

Since I’ve been preaching in the Episcopal Church, this passage of scripture has appeared (including tomorrow) five times. I’ve preached on it four times — to three different congregations. Every time I have come face to text with Jesus’ words, I’ve had to confront my own story, because I am a divorced and remarried person. I have wrestled with the text and I have wrestled with my life. In the spirit of full disclosure and in direct contradiction to the homiletical commandment to “keep personal references out of sermons”, I have told those present in those congregations for those sermons the part of my history that remains a scar in my heart and a source of hurt in my soul. I haven’t given details. God knows all of those. And thankfully, God’s forgiveness is stronger than my guilt.

As tough as it will be for many people to hear the words from Jesus tomorrow about divorce, I think the passage provides an opportunity for all of us gathered around the text in the liturgy to reflect upon what it means to be a Christian community. For Christians, marriages aren’t privatized acts of romantic love between husband and wife alone. The community of faith is the context for marriage — and it is the community of faith that is charged with supporting husbands and wives as they attempt to live into the vows they made to each other. The community of faith is also the context for support and healing whenever a marriage dies. Sadly, in our attempts to maintain the facade of “everything is fine” and “my personal life is my business”, we often cut ourselves off from the very community that could surround us with love and care in the times when we feel unloved and most uncared for.

For all of the difficulties this Gospel text will present to preachers, though, there is a gift in the text as well. For a few minutes tomorrow morning, we won’t be able to pretend that what happens in church has very little to do with the rest of our lives. We will not be able to spiritualize this Gospel so as to distance ourselves from it. In my experience, this is also the passage that will elicit people’s stories. I often have more pastoral conversations after the “divorce passage” shows up in the liturgy than after any other Sunday of any other year in the three year Lectionary cycle.

I won’t be preaching tomorrow, but I will be listening to the sermon — and like every other separated, divorced and remarried person I will be listening for the Good News that proclaims grace, healing and resurrection in the face of guilt, hurt and death. My divorce, now 26 years old, cost me and my ex in ways neither of us could have imagined. The pain was deep and the journey toward healing and forgiveness long. Tomorrow, I’ll get to revisit memories and emotions. I’ll also receive the assurance of forgiveness and the opportunity to feast upon the grace of God in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. And I’ll have the opportunity to be with a group of people — my community of faith: single, widowed, married, partnered, separated, divorced, and remarried. We are the whole people of God — even when we are broken.

OK. The mainline denominations get it. We know we’re declining. We know we have buildings literally crumbling around us because of deferred maintenance. We know that these buildings, often constructed to be permanent fixtures in neighborhoods, are now, in many cases fixtures where neighborhoods no longer exist. We know our congregations, as a rule, are “graying”. We know that fewer and fewer congregations can afford to compensate a clergy person as a full time vocation. We know that there will be more congregations going out of business than starting up operations for the foreseeable future.

Whenever we sit long enough to stare into the face of some of this data for any period of time, we get (understandably) anxious. Some of us get misty-eyed about the glory days long gone. Some of us have feelings of sadness and grief as we contemplate the passing of our local congregation and/or our denomination. Some of us get angry — at the people who have left, or our judicatory officials for not providing leadership, or at our denominational bodies for making this or that controversial decision about a particular issue in years past that we think expedited the decline.

During the time I was in seminary (1999-2002) and in the years since, the conversations have been intense, sometimes entertaining, occasionally inspiring. Episcopalians love to talk — in committees, in conferences, in meetings, in digital media, and by spilling ink on paper. We have talked and talked and talked. We’ve used biblical language. We’ve used sociological language. We’ve used generational language. We’ve used business/organizational language. We’ve sliced and diced, analyzed and scrutinized our circumstances — from one angle after another. And my, oh my, how we have talked. This week, I’ve probably read a few more scores of blog posts and news articles relating to the situation; I’ve had several conversations with clergy and lay colleagues about these matters. We’ve constructed, without meaning to do so, one humongous ecclesiastical echo chamber. I know that, through the years, I’ve contributed my own verbiage to the swirling slurry of opinions pinging off the walls.

For all of our incessant organizational navel gazing and endless conversations, there seems to be one group of people missing from most of our discussions. We don’t ever seem to hear directly from the people who live in our communities, but who, for whatever reason opt not to participate in any sort of organized religion. To be sure, plenty of sociologists have studied this group and talked to them. From the research we’ve learned to draw some generalizations. But the people who live near our churches aren’t generalizations. They are very specific! They have specific histories, specific challenges, specific disappointments and specific dreams. Many of them are our friends. We like them and they like us. It would seem these folks could give us some first person insight as to how a community of faith might engage them or be beneficial in their lives. Through such conversations we might better understand how we could more effectively serve our neighbors — you know, the ones Jesus called us to love?

Now if we actively engaged such a project, here’s what I’m pretty sure will not happen. We will not see a dramatic increase in Sunday worship attendance. We will not see the annual operating budget balanced. We will not suddenly be flush with volunteer labor to do all the church chores that have multiplied, like dandelions, in local congregations through the years. So if we’re not going to get more people, more money or more volunteers, what would happen if we risked talking to our neighbors?

To be honest, I’m not sure, but I’ve decided I’ve got to try and find out. It’s time for me to get out of the office and into the field. It’s time for me to start asking questions and spend time listening to what people have to say (even if some of what they say may not be easy to hear). I don’t expect such an experiment will come easily. There’s always plenty of e-mails to answer, books to read, meetings to attend and blog posts to write. Somehow, though, I will have to break the gravitational choke-hold of busy-ness and get on with the business of Jesus, which seemed to include a fair amount of talking to folks — not organizing them. From time to time I’ll post an update about what I learn. For all of the uncertainty I have around this project, I am, becoming clearer and clearer about one thing.

We church types can no longer simply be content with talking to ourselves.

Early in my time as a priest, one of my mentors (who had been ordained nearly 50 years at the time) said to me, “Get used to people taking pictures. Don’t fight it. They’re simply trying to capture the moment, whether it be a baptism, wedding or special event. Moments are fleeting and life speeds by. Besides, one day, long after the event, you may come across a picture someone else has taken of you and wonder, ‘Who was that priest in the picture?’ You might even learn something from asking that question.”

At the time, I neither agreed with nor understood what he was trying to tell me. His wisdom ran counter to the prevailing wisdom I had received from plenty of other clergy. Their admonitions included numerous reminders to be resolute in forbidding “photography of any sort” in a liturgy, since such a distraction would spoil the dignity of the proceedings. Everyone else had either a story of a liturgy ruined by enthusiastic shutter bugs or the time when they had halted a liturgy to call out someone for snapping a quick pic. My mentor’s advice seemed too sympathetic, too accommodating. I wondered if he had gone soft after almost a half a century dealing with non-churchy people at weddings and baptisms.

Over the years, especially with the advent of the ubiquitous smartphone, I’ve modified my own stance about pictures in liturgy. I simply ask these days that folks don’t use a flash — a small paparazzi at a baptism plays havoc with my astigmatism! For the most part, people oblige and I’ve made my peace  with that accommodation. Folks get their pictures and I don’t come across as a grouch. But I had never had occasion to ask the question, “Who was that priest in the picture?” Until yesterday.

Almost four years ago, a young woman at Trinity lost her fight with the debilitating, horrific and incurable auto-immune disorder known as scleroderma. Skita was already sick with the disease when I became her pastor in 2004. The disease took many things from her through the years, but it did not take her optimism, her love for her family, her faith in God, or her resolute spirit. Through multiple hospitalizations, plenty of trips to the ICU, more needles, tubes and meds than most of us would be willing to bear, Skita, would often say to me, “Don’t forget I’m praying for you and for all the folks at Trinity. God is good.” The day of her funeral was a testimony that Skita’s shorter-than-it-should-have-been life had touched many. The church building was packed for the liturgy and the procession of automobiles to the cemetery stretched out for over a mile.

Today is Skita’s birthday. She would have been 37 years old. Yesterday, Skita’s mom, who now lives in their native Liberia, posted some pictures. PIctures from the funeral. To be honest, the funeral liturgy for Skita was so joy-filled and moving, I didn’t even know pictures were being taken. Certainly, for most Americans, funerals are what we try to forget, not remember. The picture that called me up short was taken at the cemetery, right at the moment I was pronouncing the words of the Committal, “…ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord make his face to shine upon her and be gracious to her, the Lord lift up his countenance upon her and give her peace. Amen.”

Who was that priest in the picture?

A priest who had been pastored by a parishioner. A priest who had been taught the power of prayer — not because prayer took away the pain, but because prayer made it possible to endure the pain. A priest who had witnessed a family’s love and devotion to each other through years of hardship and challenges that would have caused many a family to split asunder. A priest who had been schooled in how to die with grace and in hope. A priest who was wiser because of a young woman who lived a wisdom beyond her years. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Skita had given me a crash course in Christian hope — not the sort of hope longing for a happy ending, but the hope looking forward to a new beginning. The picture brought it all back to me.

Just last week, my mentor priest friend died. He was 91. I am thankful for Fr. Bill and for Skita and the lessons they taught me. They offered me “embodied” lessons — the sort of lessons not found in books or articulated in seminary lectures. They were living, breathing testaments to the love of God and the faithfulness of Jesus. May both of these saints rest in peace and rise in glory.

Sometimes in the rush of life, it’s easy to forget all we’ve learned and how we’ve changed. Sometimes we lose sight of who our teachers have been along the way. Sometimes we forget that following Jesus isn’t an individual project; we are constantly being taught by our sisters and brothers in the faith. Sometimes we need a reminder. Today’s reminder for me came in a picture. Thank God.