Magnificat!

As are many of you, I'm still "basking in the glow" of this past Sunday's worship with our Bishop Wright.  However the unusual day's beginning with doubly troubled cars had its effect what transpired once the church was full and we were singing was already a remarkable moment.  And it kept on happening as a beautiful combination of prayer book order and spiritual spontaneity unfolded before us all.  It was a unique gift for each of us to be party to Sunday's events.  

Lots of thank you's to go around:

• The members of the vestry who waited anxiously to recognize with the bishop the gift of the rectory and prayed together in gratitude and blessing for the property and its donor.
• The members of our Altar Guild and Flower Guild who staged our church for the multi-faceted orchestration that was 2 baptisms, 3 confirmations, 3 anticipated reaffirmations and 6 others who responded to the bishop's invitation to present themselves for reaffirmation. 
• The parishioners and others -- those present and those who could not be -- for giving in multiple ways to make this special "joint" service possible.  Evidenced not only by the healthy representation of "8 o'clock-ers" but those who joined us via comments on Facebook and email messages.
• To those who pooled together, set-up, food donations and clean-up for the reception. Especially the clean-up that happened before the reception, and the flowers again!  
• Thanks to the Eastons, Bucks, Cronics, to Nancy Bush who prepared so conscientiously for this important day for Brennan, Poppy Grace, Camden and Cade, and Nancy herself, who each gave us a glimpse of God's image we will not forget.  
• To Faith Roman, Paul Roman, Flossie Dodge, Rick Crown, Avery Jackson, and Jeffrey Hagy who showed us even more of what a life renewed by God can look like.
• To Daisy Jane Buck for FaceTiming her grandmother so she could join us while recovering from back surgery.
• To our Bishop Wright for his preaching, his persistence, his presence of mind and heart, his spontaneity and generosity, his invitation to a new evangelism and his sharing for our diocese and our Episcopal church.  

There are more, so please do not hesitate to remind me of my omissions.  We'll probably still be "basking" some next week and can share those thank you's, then.  

There's a connection with the songs in Luke's gospel to the events of this past Sunday and the days ahead.  It is perhaps the most important song, sung by Mary herself.  The Magnificat is her answer to God's calling her to a necessary and unique responsibility that will take from innocence,  to challenge, to struggle, to endurance, to heartbreak and ultimately to the highest blessing and beatification.

What she sings we should sing because God not only visits us in unique and stirring moments but because God calls each one of us.  Like her singing it will work for us to keep ourselves mindful and to do our own glorifying our own magnifying of God.  That is what will sustain us and forward God's purpose in visiting us in the first place.

There's a world that needs God's lifting and leveling, that needs God's enriching and balancing, that needs God's restoration and renewing.  We can bask AND we can sing:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!  My spirit rejoices in God, my savior. . . ."

Once in Royal David's City

It was when I was serving in Augusta, Ga. as Assistant Rector for the Church of the Good Shepherd that I first coined the phrase, "taking Halloween back from Wal-Mart."  It was in response to our having adopted the outline from Gretchen Wolff Pritchard's Offering the Gospel to Children of an All Saints' Day event.  Tricia Dodge, Infant and Childrens' Minister needed the youth which were in the program for which I had oversight to help. 

It was an incredible adaptation away from a "theologically sanitized" and more typical halloween carnival to a rich telling the story of how we could better understand sainthood as biblical people and by way of that understanding re-adopt Halloween -- All Hallow's Eve -- and "take it back" from the over-commercialized gluttonous affair it had become. 

We managed a couple of years of doing it here with the help of students from the Episcopal Center @ UGA.  I remember when someone's hayride trailer stopped and unloaded 20+ unexpected young guests we were going to run out of our more modest treats.  It was worth it. The lessons we taught and learned were invaluable. 

Advent presents a similar opportunity to teach and learn an alternative understanding of God at work in the world through a child born in Bethlehem that in many ways begins taking back Christmas from it's own over-commercialization. 

Our readings on the Sundays of Advent: prophets forecasting a vision of Israel's return and restoration, Paul, exuberant and glowing as he thanks God for the faith of the Thessalonians, Corinthians, Philippians. And mostly Luke's songs and narrative of those months before Mary gives birth. 

They are all preparatory, all about the work of redemption and Judgement that Jesus, the Christ WILL accomplish, about what God WILL do as the early church grows, how God WILL keep his covenant and continue to choose the jewish people to be his blessing of the world. 

We do our own preparation by the way we withhold gratification, not yet singing the songs and carols that radios and streaming devices have already made present, at least ambient is one the toughest lessons to learn. 

But . . . , I confess.  I need help!  Whenever we are planning our service of Lessons & Carols I always slip ahead and give into the impulse to sing at least one of those dreamy, pastorally sedative standards.  This year we will sing Once in Royal David's City.  That's the piece that traditionally begins the Christmas Eve -- no longer Advent -- service from King's College Chapel aired by BBC and NPR Every year! 

So please forgive me.  I'm still teaching and still learning and I love this hymn!

Once in royal Davids city,

Stood a lowly cattle shed,

Where a mother laid her Baby,

In a manger for His bed:

Mary was that mother mild,

Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,

Who is God and Lord of all,

And His shelter was a stable,

And His cradle was a stall:

With the poor, and mean, and lowly,

Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood's pattern;

Day by day, like us, He grew;

He was little, weak, and helpless,

Tears and smiles, like us He knew;

And He cares when we are sad,

And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,

Through His own redeeming love;

For that Child so dear and gentle,

Is our Lord in heaven above:

And He leads His children on,

To the place where He is gone.

The Songs of Luke's Gospel

There so many songs associated with our Advent observance.  The human response to God's presence as Redeemer and Judge elicits praise, thanksgiving, relief, confidence, commitment, and hope.  Even what we read in scripture in the story of God's coming into our world and the difference that makes is rendered in song after song.

This Sunday we'll substitute the Song of Zechariah for the psalm at the Gradual.  Zechariah's song was unique and was so by his being made mute until his son, John -- the baptizer -- was born.  He and his wife Elizabeth were like Abraham and Sarah, advanced in age and without a son.  When he questioned the angel Gabriel's announcing Elizabeth's pregnancy this is what happened:

Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” Luke 1:18-20

So when John is born, Zechariah's voice is restored and he gets to sing his song. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them! . . . "

There's lots of other singing in Luke's gospel.  Elizabeth, Mary, Anna, Simeon each take a turn rejoicing, praising, giving thanks, sighing relief, stirring confidence, making commitments, and proclaiming hope.

Off of the bad news that the world is falling apart at the seams -- remember what Jesus said last Sunday -- this good news that God is coming into our world totally releases so much that is muted within us; things we're afraid to mention, things about which we have little if any confidence, things of sadness, pain, and separation.

The songs -- some are carols -- of this season are honest about the darkness but without fail call forth the light.  There's lots of singing in Luke's gospel.  There's lots of Luke's gospel in our world, today.  We too can sing!

Hark a thrilling voice is sounding:

"Christ is nigh," it seems to say; 

"Cast away the works of darkness, 

O ye children of the day!"

Veni, veni Emmanuel!

There's is no Advent carol I love more than Veni, veni, Emmanuel, O come, o come, Emmanuel!

It calls for the coming of our redeemer and judge but it is moreso meant to be used so that we are moved day after day through history -- heilsgeschichte -- a holy history of God's salvation of the world.

Check our Hymnal 1982, hymn # 56 and you'll see in the left-hand margin a succession of dates beginning on December 17 that take us to December 23.  Each stanza re-calls God's saving acts that include Wisdom's accompaniment at creation to protect us from chaos, God's commandments on Sinai, the reign of David, and finally our being united in peace with our King.

December 17 - O come, O come, Immanuel,

and ransom captive Israel

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

refrain Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel

shall come to you, O Israel.

December 18 - O come, O Wisdom from on high,

who ordered all things mightily;

to us the path of knowledge show

and teach us in its ways to go. Refrain

December 19 - O come, O come, great Lord of might,

who to your tribes on Sinai's height

in ancient times did give the law

in cloud and majesty and awe. Refrain

December 20 - O come, O Branch of Jesse's stem,

unto your own and rescue them!

From depths of hell your people save,

and give them victory o'er the grave. Refrain

December 21 - O come, O Key of David, come

and open wide our heavenly home.

Make safe for us the heavenward road

and bar the way to death's abode. Refrain

December 22 - O come, O Bright and Morning Star,

and bring us comfort from afar!

Dispel the shadows of the night

and turn our darkness into light. Refrain

December 23 - -O come, O King of nations, bind

in one the hearts of all mankind.

Bid all our sad divisions cease

and be yourself our King of Peace. Refrain 

The Poppy Lady

Moina Belle Michael (August 15, 1869 – May 10, 1944) was an professor and humanitarian who conceived the idea of using poppies as a symbol of remembrance for those who served in World War I.  Her home was nearby in Good Hope and she was educated at Braswell Academy in Morgan County, and the Martin Institute in Jefferson, Georgia.

She became a teacher in 1885, initially in Good Hope and then in Monroe, Georgia. She taught at the Lucy Cobb Institute and Normal School, both located in Athens, Georgia. She studied at Columbia University in New York City in 1912-13.

She was a professor at the University of Georgia when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. She took a leave of absence from her work and volunteered to assist in the New York-based training headquarters for overseas YWCA workers.

On 9 November 1918, inspired by the Canadian John McCrae battlefront-theme poem "In Flanders Fields", she wrote a poem in response called "We Shall Keep the Faith".[2] In tribute to the opening lines of McCrae's poem – "In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row," – Michael vowed to always wear a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served in the war.

Her bust, sculpted in 1937 by beloved Steffan Thomas is displayed on the third floor of the Georgia State Capitol Building. 

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw 

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

By Moina Michael,1918

PS. Thanks Janet Mason and Wikipedia

How Jesus Voted

We all know this story of Jesus saying "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's. The accounts in Matthew 22:15–22 and Mark 12:13–17 say that the questioners were Pharisees and Herodians, while Luke 20:20–26 says only that they were "spies" sent by "teachers of the law and the chief priests".

Political concerns and troubles with government were not the first things on Jesus' mind.  This situation was thrust on him.  But his answer digs into a wisdom that exposes the pettiness and short sightedness of his questioners.  They wanted a "gotcha," so that they could maintain their place of privilege.  Let's trick him and take his proverbial head to the authorities.  Little Jack Horner visits Jerusalem circa 33AD.

The advantage of their position was that it required no discernment, no real decision, no effort but it allowed them to claim a position of power over others.   It was easy to go along with the status quo. That's how privilege works.  Especially for those near the top.

Oddly these were the same people who yearned for rescue from the very empire with whom they colluded. That was the other part of their challenge to Jesus.  They wanted the benefit of a messianic rescue without having to fight for it.  "Son of David, get rid of the Romans for us!"

Their picture of the messiah's coming was more guarantee than call to arms, more off the hook than on.  So when Jesus doesn't take the bait they double down on their entrapment attempts.  Jesus doesn't let up either.

Jesus' answer to them about marriage and divorce in heaven was just as convicting as his answer about taxes.  This is yours to do, but you have to change your mind and understand the consequences of your actions in a new way.

God's not waiting for you to perfect your earthly existence to be present with you.  Your categories especially the ones that create privileged and under privileged classes are not the standards God defends.  God will not save you because you are clean or righteous or properly aligned with power.  God is God and with you on God's terms.  God expects your gratitude not taxes.  God wants you to help lift everyone up to the privilege of grace and mercy.

Jesus didn't look for this trouble.  He didn't shy away from it.  He doesn't want us to shy away from it either. His response was to call them to turn their eyes toward God.  Seek ye first the kingdom.  Not because it's easier, or good insurance or more comfortable.  Seek so that the world will know more of grace and mercy, of justice and prosperity.

The Pharisees wouldn't let up and Jesus had to close this session with the jewel of his teaching about turning our eyes to God and living as if we've actually seen something of heaven on earth.

 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

Jesus: First "saint of brokenness"

Again I'm remembering the voices of students at the Episcopal Center @ UGA singing another hymn in a manner only they could sing.  It was the Lesbia Scott hymn, #293 "I sing a song of the saints."

Like so many of those elements obviously indicating or meant at least to appeal to children in our worship this hymn exudes a charm as well.  Wikipedia has a fine article, here.

The hymn means to be generous in imagining who our saints might be by saying "you can meet them" . . . anywhere!  And we always had fun with the verse that goes:

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,

and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:

and there’s not any reason, no, not the least,

why I shouldn’t be one too.

We learned instead to sing "and one was a beast, and one was slain by a fierce wild priest:"   It was fun.  It became a distraction.  As charming as the hymn is there is more going on than light hearted imagination.  Clearly the intent is to get us to consider the presence of sainthood.  Instead of it being ascribed to "those who have gone before us in the faith" we are to consider our pew partners, our Mah-Jong partners, our Rotary partners, our brothers and sisters as saints.

Several of St. Paul's letters begin with calling the members of the congregations receiving his instruction "saints."  So the concept of a present sainthood is not new to Christian thinking.

Then how do we move from the proper observance in thanksgiving and mourning of our "saints" to a proper observance to us as saints? For sure we delay and count on God to bring us to perfection in resurrection.  But in so doing could we be avoiding the harder task of seeing sainthood as made really present in brokenness?

The potential ubiquity of sainthood must meet that condition, not avoid it.  Thanks be to God that is exactly how sainthood works.  If perfection were the first qualifier then no saint would be known as:

patient and brave and true,

who toiled and fought and lived and died

for the Lord they loved and knew.

Yes there are "those who have gone before us."  Jesus was the first.  But his brokenness paves the way for all to follow as much as his always being perfect.  We are being perfected, then fully in resurrection but for now some of us will need patience, others will toil, all will die. I'm pretty sure none will be slain by this fierce wild priest.   

Jesus: The clear sun of righteousness

Our modern culture is spoiled by light. So spoiled that we are surprised by the stars in the sky when we are away from the glare of the city at night.  It takes an effort to get to where we can see the Milky Way.  The trouble that our constant use of electricity and that the convenience of 24 hours of illumination causes is caught up in the term "light pollution."

Pollution in all the other ways we describe it's impact is more dark than light.  Oil spills in the Gulf, coal ash ponds pushed into flooded waterways, smog, sewage pipes broken and over-flowing are all images of a kind of darkness.

So there must be more to make the term light pollution make sense.  It must have something to do with clarity, something to do with the binary contrast between the two.  Light pollution keeps us from seeing the stars by diluting the darkness between them.

When we look out at night and the precision and clarity we should expect is undone by our invention, bit by bit we settle for what is available, smile at and wish on the stars we can see and eventually forget how much we are missing . . . until.

My camping this past summer found such gifts on more than one night: Ponca State Park in Nebraska, Trail Creek Campground in Idaho and Arches National Park in Utah.  But as I returned through Austin and Houston, Texas I also was reminded that our southeastern humidity does some hazing over, too.  Even without human intervention the sky is not usually as clear for us.

Still we know the difference between clear and stained, between clean and muddy, between light and dark.  We crave the clarity as much as the light itself but we also crave light to see the difference, to know the precision, to show us the contrast.

That's what the Gospel of John tells us early on about the Word made flesh.  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1:5 NRSV)  With Jesus what was distant and alluring was now proximate and definitive.

When the students at the Episcopal Center @ UGA sang hymn #490, "I want to walk as a child of the light," it was missing the smooth lyrical flow and was instead syncopatingly punctuated and profoundly so at that one beat after the chorus phrase "the Lamb is the light of the city of God!" Slap!

When our pianist graduated we lost the rhythm that made the moment work but at least during her years there was this sharp, clear demarcation in our lives.  We want to walk in the light! Pow!  We want to follow Jesus! Smack!  I've never felt a hymn so profoundly and now have missed it so much.

The more sublime way we sing this hymn and we will Sunday, assumes we will walk in the light, rest in the light, bath in it.  But there is more to that light that meets us in the contrast and shock as it compares to a world darkened and foggy.  Those UGA singers craved clarity.  Sometimes we should, too.

I want to walk as a child of the light

I want to follow Jesus

God sent the stars to give light to the world

The star of my life is Jesus

In Him there is no darkness at all

The night and the day are both alike

The Lamb is the light of the city of God *

Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus

I want to see the brightness of God

I want to look at Jesus

Clear sun of righteousness, shine on my path

And show me the way to the Father

In Him there is no darkness at all

The night and the day are both alike

The Lamb is the light of the city of God *

Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus

Jesus Leading the Way

Seems like anytime we recognize that God is with us à la The Rev. Martin Smith, known to me in the saying "You can never talk behind God's back" we have to talk about incarnation.  That is the presence of God in the "Word made flesh," Jesus of Nazareth.

Historic and orthodox Christian understanding is that there was nothing of God's divinity missing and nothing of Jesus' humanity missing within that divine/human "encounter."  That is also to say that as Jesus dies and is raised and from the dead and 40 days later ascends we understand that he takes all his humanity with him into the gift of perfection that is being fully within God's presence.  Thomas touches the scars verifying the effect of incarnation and to heaven they go, too. 

This is not usual or an ancient human understanding of how one moves from this existence into the next.  Even the Bible shows a variety of attempts to understand life and after life.  Faithful Jews of the first century, as portrayed in the gospels, understood themselves has having a means of attaining perfection on earth and by virtue of that perfect righteousness a place with God beginning on the 'last day."

Jesus as the incarnate one did everything he could to change the minds of those "perfectionists" so they understood the limits of their own efforts and the effect of that practice on all those they deemed outside it's provisions.  I hear this need for change argument everytime Jesus says "the first shall be last and the last shall be first." 

So here's a look at Jesus that hopes to see his "work" as more than perfecting a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  I'm not negating that function but expanding my understanding his work.  Jesus also leads the way. 

Jesus is the leading presence of God,  always "pushing our envelope," urging us forward into a future described better by God's mercy than either our failures or our accomplishments. 

Indeed there is sacrifice but there is even more so leadership. So the old hymn can be sung,

Jesus calls us; o'er the tumult

of our life's wild, restless sea;

day by day His sweet voice soundeth,

saying, "Christian, follow me."

Jesus calls us from the worship

of the vain world's golden store,

from each idol that would keep us,

saying, "Christian, love me more."

Jesus (and the Church) as Midwife?

Brene Brown said “I went back to church thinking that it would be like an epidural, like it would take the pain away, like I would just replace research with church. And then church would make the pain go away…. Faith in church was not an epidural for me at all, but it was a midwife, who just stood next to me saying, “Push, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit.” It was a completely new experience going back for me…

I believe God is love. It makes total sense to me that Jesus would have to be the Son of God because people would want love to be like unicorns and rainbows. And so then, people go, “Oh my God, love is hard, love is sacrifice, love is eating with the sick, love is trouble, love is rebellious.” And so I was listening to this Leonard Cohen song, and it said,

Love is not a victory march,

Love is a cold and broken Hallelujah.

Love is not easy. Love is not hearts and bows. Love is very controversial, really…. In order for forgiveness to really happen, something has to die…. Whether it’s your expectations of a person, there has to be a death for forgiveness to happen. In all these faith communities, where forgiveness is easy and love is easy, there is not enough blood on the floor to make sense of that. And so I thought about why forgiveness is so hard in our culture. Because there are two affects (or emotions) that people fear the most,  and it’s  shame and grief.

If something has to die in order for forgiveness to happen, and people are deathly afraid to feel grief, then we just won’t forgive anybody. Because I don’t want to feel grief. I thought faith would say, I’ll take away the pain and discomfort. But what it ended up saying is that I’ll sit with you in it.

I just think for me, it’s about being with you. It can’t take away the pain. When we set that up as the parameter, that just does not work… Love weeps.”

Transformed instead of fixed

Still thinking about Jesus and looking at the stories of healing especially those in the Gospel of Luke.  Theologian Jürgen Moltmann sums this up beautifully. “Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly ‘natural’ thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized, and wounded.”  The thirteen occasions Luke records for us do not match.  Some are exorcisms, some restoring sight or hearing, others are healings someone not immediately present.

Often Jesus adds something to the actual healing.  My favorite is the story embedded in the story of Jesus bringing Jairus' daughter back to life, Luke 8:40-56. It's the moment when a woman described as "suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years."  This would have been understood at the time as a sign of guilt as well as a health issue.  Easy to imagine her neighbors wondering what she or even her parents had done for her to deserve such punishment.

She does the unthinkable and squirms her way through a crowd to get close enough just to touch the hem of Jesus' garment.  He notices and asks his disciples who has touched him.  They don't get it.  But he does and seeing her and hearing her explanation is immediately able to say "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."

Time and time again Jesus does more than just fix what's wrong.  Instead he proclaims the transformation of a life because of faith.  In other settings his proclamation is even more radical, "Your sins are forgiven!" and a man who was paralyzed can walk.  Not only does he walk he goes about proclaiming his good news.

We are not nearly as good at this transformation stuff.  Fixing is more our way of dealing with broken-ness.  As a parish it shapes much of how we typically respond to problems and conflict.
But in faithfulness we are to seek a new life, not just a cure; a changed mind and heart, not just a question answered or problem solved.

Our Bishop Wright has a blessing he pronounces often that speaks to this notion of transformation:

"Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us.  

Make us, 

melt us, 

mold us, 

fill us, 

use us.  

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. " 

Amen.

Jesus as Grace Fulfilled

I've been writing about how Jesus gives us insight into the direction of God's grace; that all of grace is from God and towards God's creation.  All that comes from God -- even those "corrective" moments when it feels like God is raising a voice of anger at us -- is grace.

Please let's not limit God to only having "nice" as a manner.  But let's also not limit our appreciation for God such that we continue to portray what we deem as bad for us or as punishment of us from some attribute of God absent that same grace that comes in the person of Jesus.

The prophets wrote often about God's wrath.  But it is our reading that misses grace and not God's actions.  Wrath without grace is not even the kind of spiritual maturity we hope for ourselves.  We must be careful when we think that God acts differently -- some times with grace, some times without -- towards us.  In the same way that parents strive for the same heart no matter the concern their children present.  Isn't there a smidgen of grace when we take away the iPhone, the car keys, the weekend plans?

It takes spiritual maturity to insure grace in our lives of parenting, collegiality and cooperative efforts.  But grace does not boast and is too often unrecognized as companion to correction, rejection.  Grace also will not coerce its way into our human interactions.  Without a commitment to grace -- which looks mostly like love -- our responses to challenge and disappointment sink into petty retribution and revenge.

In order for grace to be embodied in our actions we must commit to it, trust it, hunger for it, share it.  All of these and more are how God comes to us in the person of Jesus.  In every way grace comes but especially as the incarnate one we can see God's commitment.  It is not easy but it is God's commitment that Jesus' cries from the cross help us to see.

We may not recognize it but our freedom to choose is the result of God's grace in how we are entrusted and un-coerced in love.  God's hunger, God's desire is love and when and wherever that love goes unnoticed or is dismissed God's heart cries.  Whether in tears or gift God's grace is abundant.  Like seeds in the parable of the sower broadcast beyond the intended garden furrows and fences onto all sorts and conditions of soil and sun, read "life."

It is in the person of Jesus that all these ways that God is graceful find human embodiment.  The good news is that Jesus was just a fully human as divine.  Just as much us as God.  His uniqueness is our uniqueness.  His perfected, ours yet to be.  But we are each uniquely and all together graced and capable of committing to it, trusting it, hungering for it, sharing it.

Walking with Jesus

Walking with Jesus is a part of my dream life.  More than once I've roused from sleep in a mix of shame thinking I'm not good enough to be here and joy in amazement I was so lucky.  Just once I was afraid I was dead.

One time Jesus joined me on a long run.  I don't remember worrying about his robes encumbering him.  I do remember that it was a field of perfectly mown grass under our feet; mine in Asics Tigers, his in sandals.  Ah, those were the days/dreams.

Part of my thinking these days about the image of Jesus, the role model, the metaphor, the revelation is that we need God to be proximate.  Our theology always pushes God away toward omniscience, omnipotence, absoluteness, transcendence, eternality.  Jesus brings God closer.  Especially as we understand Jesus being the Word of God Incarnate.  Nothing shows us who God is better than Jesus.

So I'm musing again.  I'd be dreaming if I weren't awake.  I'm singing the old hymn, "O Master let me walk with thee."  Here are the words:

 O Master, let me walk with Thee

in lowly paths of service free;

tell me Thy secret; help me bear

the strain of toil, the fret of care.

 Help me the slow of heart to move

by some clear, winning word of love;

teach me the wayward feet to stay,

and guide them in the homeward way.

 Teach me Thy patience, still with Thee

in closer, dearer company,

in work that keeps faith sweet and strong,

in trust that triumphs over wrong.

 In hope that sends a shining ray

far down the future's broad'ning way;

in peace that only Thou canst give,

with Thee, O Master, let me live.

The Jesus we walk with is the best lens to see who God is.  Thanks be to God it's a dream coming true.

Jesus Towards Us

One of the descriptions of grace I remember hearing was from The Rev. Dr. James Carpenter of General Seminary.  When he said "God towards us" he surely said more but I got myself stuck on that and stopped following his train of thought that day.

I knew Jim because he had retired to Augusta, GA when I was serving as Associate Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd.  He was a gift to my time there. The light of his whimsy and imagination sparkled.  The heat of his ethical gaze was constant.  The demand for excellence in witness to and with a diverse creation was non-stop. 

I count it as one of the many graces from God that I received during my service in the CSRA, years ago.  Working with Rector Robert Fain and staff.  Living in our neighborhood of young med students and pharma reps on Bransford "off the brick" with Cindy, David and MC.  Clericus, Standing Committee, and summers at Honey Creek were some of the other graces given then. 

I've remembered Dr. Carpenter's definition from then because it is now how I understand who Jesus is for me.  He is a grace of God's, not just to me but to all time and space and thus to me, too.  It's what gets St. Paul to write in his letter to the Colossians:

. . . of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing--so among yourselves, from the day you heard and understood the grace of God in truth,  as you learned it . . .  (Col. 1:5b-7a, RSV)

Certainly there was grace on our creation whatever the extent to which sin has broken, removed or altered its original effect.  But it's not so much how much of our "original blessing" remains. What matters to me now is that that same grace of creation continues from God.  Otherwise there'd be little or no "bearing fruit and growing" "in the whole world" of which the church in Colossae is just a part. 

In short, God is always "towards us." There is always grace from God.  And that ultimate grace that was the Gospel's focus, Jesus who died and was raised is also "always."  Jesus is always "God towards us."

So . . . what, who, how is Jesus to you, now?  How do you recognize and receive God's always being towards us?  Are you willing to explore or question the ways in which "God towards us" is localized, embodied, incarnated in Jesus, not just 2000 years ago but now?  How does your appreciation of Jesus help you receive God's always being towards us?

Lots of questions, one Jesus, one God, always towards us.

Jesus as Role Model

From the beginning, Jesus’s ministry modeled the interplay between prophetic utterance, public theology, and intense spiritual renewal.*

Someone I love sent me a link to a youtube video.  The video was a patchwork of clips of evangelicalistic preachers, pop psychologists, and journalistic senationalists.  

I don't they were trying to enrage me or trigger some extreme response.  I think they were looking for a way to make sense without more absolutistic flailing and Facebook-ish anger.  They were seeking advice.  They were seeking peace. 

It is a constant now in ways I've not seen before.  How do we make sense, how do we make a way, how do we live in THIS world?

I've been writing about how Jesus is presented in scripture and how we can relate to his abiding presence in the 21st century.  Jesus as Invitation, Resting in Jesus, Jesus as Jewish mystic, social prophet, as wisdom teacher and more. 

It's important to understand that each of these views takes the risk of fragmenting the whole that in its fullness is beyond our understanding.  The language of our creeds avoids this parceling out of the fully divine - fully human reality that it claims from God in Jesus, the Christ.  

I think is is intentional.  It helps.  Otherwise, with more than "conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary" we'd be claiming to know more of how God did what God did than we can know.  Going beyond this core belief is the slippery slope of most early church heresies.  

So it appealed to me when I read the quote above.  Jesus modeled the interplay -- and I added in my mind -- between all our fragments of him.  His modeling was just as much in a world clamoring for absolutistic righteousness as is ours.  

We will always be the ones who break it down, who pick apart, who clamor and cry for final answers, for absolutes we cannot hold, much less hold against each other.  

Our following will be part prophetic utterance, part public theology, and part intense spiritual renewal and more.  It will not do for us to deny or avoid the interplay.  

Because ours is the hard work of following the one who died and was raised.  

*Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, second edition (Fortress Press: 2017), 9-10.

Jesus as Invitation

One of the old hymns I learned as a Southern Baptist child was "Jesus calls us o'er the tumult."  We have two tunes for in our hymnal at #549 and #550.  Neither are the tune I learned to sing.   The words work no matter:

Jesus calls us; o'er the tumult

of our life's wild, restless sea;

day by day His sweet voice soundeth,

saying, "Christian, follow me."

Jesus calls us from the worship

of the vain world's golden store,

from each idol that would keep us,

saying, "Christian, love me more."

In our joys and in our sorrows,

days of toil and hours of ease,

still He calls, in cares and pleasures,

"Christian, love me more than these."

Jesus calls us-- by Thy mercies,

Savior, may we hear Thy call;

give our hearts to Thine obedience,

serve and love Thee best of all.

The image of Jesus calling is a powerful one for me because it has been so much a part of my understanding for years.  It is the one that gets me to be constantly reminding us that following him is as much or more of what we should be doing as worshipping him.

In this Sunday's gospel, the complaint Jesus returns to those who cry about his and his disciples' hygiene is to quote Isaiah's prophetic critique that "in vain do they worship me." (Isaiah 29:13)  He is not at this point issuing an invitation to follow him but he is clearly indicating that worship is not enough.  Indeed because worship may be hijacked by pretence and power we must always check our hearts.

For sure following Jesus can be just as undone by human competition and pettiness.  Remember how the disciples argued over who was greatest.  But seeing Jesus as inviting us to follow, especially over tumults and toil clears a path for our hearts that the concerns for regularity and order in worship may obstruct or misdirect.

Jesus calls us over difficulties he has already confronted.  Jesus calls us through our own struggles.  Jesus calls us even as we create our own stumbling blocks and distractions.   Jesus calls us to give our hearts to love and service.  Jesus calls us saying "Christian, follow me."

Inviting Jesus

Thanks for going with me last week through the difficult news of Dick and Jim and Martha's lives coming to an end.  Our prayers continue for those whom they loved and those who mourn.  Grief is how we send love to those we've lost.  Let's keep sending love.

If you would please add Coy Wallace Carson to your prayers.  He was Papa to my David Wallace Brown and Mary Carson Brown.  Their mom Cindy was with him as his long descent into dementia and physical failing ended while he was sleeping.  Sending more love.

Part of how we can still have love to send is because of how Jesus continues to abide with us.  I characterized our wanting to "rest in Jesus" as kin to making Sabbath.  The rest we take away from the world's troubles is a good place to meet the one who goes before us to death and was raised.   We can trust him to be present.

But we must be cautious about how we allow our expectation of his being with us and protecting a place of sabbath rest and sanctuary for us to develop.  Simply, he wants to be invited and our presumption may not be the best way to call him over the threshold.

Maybe if we think about the character of the one we are inviting it'll help us to ask him in.  In a sermon delivered to Calvary Episcopal in 1999 during Lent Marcus Borg suggested 3 ways to see Jesus at the door.

First is to think of Jesus as a "Jewish mystic, as one who knew God, who knew the Sacred, who knew the Spirit. He was one for whom the Spirit of God was an experiential reality."

Secondly, Borg saw "the historical Jesus as a wisdom teacher of a way or a path,  the road less traveled, the narrow way, a subversive way to an alternative wisdom."

Thirdly Borg saw Jesus as "a social prophet, a radical critic of the domination system in the Jewish homeland in His day. Indeed, it was His passion as a social prophet that counts for Him getting killed.
To put that three-fold summary into three phases, there was to Jesus first, a spirit dimension, secondly, a wisdom dimension, and thirdly, a justice dimension."

These may not be the Jesus you have in heart and mind when you are seeking rest from grief, stress or struggle.  But these pictures of Borg's can inform how we move back into the world from our sabbath sanctuaries, from our grieving.

From Jesus the mystic we can return with a renewed sense of wonder and marvel at how the world continues to hold places and times for joy and celebration.  From Jesus the wisdom teacher we can expect new learning and new truths as we move forward.  With Jesus the social prophet we can be encouraged to find and fashion a better world for others and ourselves.

In each instance God in Christ waits on our invitation.  Ready to grieve, to wonder, to learn, to grow, and to strive again . . . with us.

Resting in Jesus

It is an Advent hymn that comes to mind today.  Following the close watch my friend David and I kept with others for his mother as she lay in hospice and the sad news of the passing of former parishioner and vestry member Dick Hodgetts, just days after hearing from Ellen Warren about the passing of her little brother Jim.

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus

Born to set Thy people free

From our fears and sins release us

Let us find our rest in Thee

So many in this community have been keeping watch and the news is only a little comfort.  We mourn with Pat and family. And Ellen. And David. And we thank God for their release and rest now it has come.

Our need to meet Jesus never diminishes, never ends.  Back when I was writing about the difference between Sunday and Sabbath I perhaps focused too much on the church and our activity in it as a sociological reality.  I don't remember identifying "being with Jesus" as a "sabbath rest."  

But that is exactly what the hymn expresses and it is echoed in the Collect for Saturdays in Morning Prayer:

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Christian version of Sabbath is not just absence from labor, stress, struggle, or pain.  It is to be caught up in the abiding presence of Jesus.  We understand that rest as provided or gifted to us and not as something we've earned or gained.  

Yes there are things we do to move ourselves into place, much like all our sacramental "regulars."  Dimmed lights, reduced noise, comfortable seating, empty schedules, rise to the level of liturgy.  They are our first part in what is finally fulfilled by God's blessing, God's effecting the very shalom/peace in which and for which God created us.  

Sabbath is encountered by God's grace not accomplished.  A grace that God knows and has experienced in the very first Sabbath.  Dick and Martha and before them Jim are in that grace -- a gift of Sabbath from God in the presence of their "long-expected Jesus."  

Meeting Jesus, Again

Marcus Borg died in January of 2015.  He was an important apologist for Christianity because he shared his recovery of faith by remembering how it felt to believe when he was young and allowing himself to feel that way again about stories and explanations that academic criticism and challenge had deconstructed and dismissed.  

Remember when we all were fascinated by the power and magnitude of Jesus' miracles or those Cecile B. deMile-ian moments from the Old Testament?  Like last Sunday's story of Mose's shining face after his encounter with God on the mountain, the stories are so big our wonder keeps us remembering until some challenge rises up out of textual variance or historical contradiction.  

Borg, who introduced himself to a wider audience with his charming and comforting "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time"  helped more than those whose nostalgia was darkened.  He helped the same scholars who had frightened away a generation of believers.  

Thanks to Phillip Clayton, PhD,  Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology for his development of these four aspects of Borg's impact so worth our attention, especially as we work through these Sundays informed by John's "I am the bread" gospel readings.

• Borg was hopelessly Jesus-centric. Nothing in the history of Christianity or its present-day institutions could turn him away from this Jesus — not the great ideas and theologies of intellectuals, not the debates over the historicity of the New Testament, not the frustrating trivialities of bureaucratic functionaries. If the entire institutional side of the Christian church should go down in flames — and many think that it is — Borg’s faith would be untouched. Borg was unwaveringly drawn to the Jesus of the gospels; he couldn’t imagine building his life around anyone else. I’d like to think that Emergence Christianity at its best does precisely this.


• Borg described a God worth believing in. Borg’s writings (and his person) consistently convey belief in a loving and compassionate God. He wasted little ink on theological disputes. The only thing he consistently wrote about God was that he was a panentheist: God is immanent in the world, as the world is immanent in God. The rest of the metaphysical debates about the divine went into the “optional” category for him. So did the battles over Christian orthodoxy, from substitutionary atonement to pre-incarnate Logos to pre-millennial eschatology.


• Borg’s unencumbered Christianity didn’t negate other religions and spiritual paths. It didn’t tell you that you have to hate gays or proselytize Buddhists or be wary of your neighbor’s doctrine of Scripture. Love is not a zero-sum game. Following Jesus is not first about propositions, stacking up true ones on your side and attacking the false propositions of your enemies. Borg’s humility, which so many of us experienced, was the natural expression of a Christian faith built around Jesus’ radical way of compassion first, with everything else a distant second. Isn’t it fair to say that what has drawn so many to the emergence movement is this same message: a Christianity without exclusion or intolerance?


• Borg knew that we have to pare Christianity back down to the basics... or else. The age of Christian Empire has passed (thank God). The Church is no longer the center of American society, as the Harvard Pluralism Project has so clearly shown. The fastest growing religious group in America are the non-affiliated. As the famous process theologian John Cobb said in a talk recently, “The more progressive denominations on the whole have been losing members and resources. There are many reasons. But I think the deepest one may be that what we do and say does not seem to be terribly important.”

We can use these highlights to help us read and understand the Gospel this month and maybe meet Jesus again for the first time ourselves. 

Long Roads and Two-way Streets: Part 4

Part of how we navigate these streets we share is to pray for God's blessing for those who travel and find their places along the way.  In Madison in particular those place often have intense historical significance.  Our own property is exactly one of those both historic and intensely so places.

On Tuesday I visited the Foster-Thomason-Miller house, now in the care of Madison-Morgan Conservancy.

The work being done both professionally and mostly by volunteers is another example of what I am calling intense and historic.  Washing away the soot to expose ornate wall coverings, finding an 8-point compass star aligned with Madison's northeast to southwest orientation, and clearing the heavy brush each trigger an intense response of wonder, curiosity, and surprise.

Hardly a minute passed during my brief visit that was not peppered with Look! Look here! Look at this!

The blessing prayers were for the property but more for those doing the work to restore and the hope they have for tomorrow.  Thanks to Christine McCauley and to all who through this effort have made the long intense road of history turn toward a future of hope.

Long Roads and Two-Way Streets: Part 3

It felt good to preach again, July 22nd.  That's one of things that my time away was measured by.  Preaching is so central to my calling as a priest.  Not preaching for two Sundays removed so much from my daily life.  No reading ahead, no Theolatte´,  no translation work, no context reading, no commentaries.

The mulling and reflection were easily replaced in my touring by the constantly evolving scenery.  I love the way each mile moves to another view, another center, another clime. 

It's why I wrote about the rivers last week.  Each crossing or parallel triggered questions and imaginings about those who first met and named their encounters.  Whose idea was it to name that Wyoming artery the Big Horn?  How has it developed that so many colleges in the west have initialed some nearby slope.  My favorite is Provo's "Y."  Why not?  Ask Brigham or Joseph. 

What is going on south of Idaho Falls?  The terrain is otherworldly!  Hardly a road between Interstate 15 and Atomic City south of US 20.  Everyday presented similar intrigue. 

Part of what I find out by not turning on the radio, rolling down the windows and driving mile after engaging mile across the country is how much we share by way of those regular Sunday morning homilies. At least I hope we are sharing.  I hope that what I am offering participates in that larger conversation that is the life of this parish. 

Now that I'm back and living with you my attention is caught and drawn into thinking about the little things you say as we shake hands and the often more revealing things you ask or comment after the "dust settles." 

I am always observing, always imagining, always reflecting, always wondering, always experimenting, always listening again and again to what you have shared with me.  Your sharing is my ever changing landscape now. 

My preaching is less dictation or advice -- talking to myself with the windows rolled up -- and more saying back to you from the view afforded me by a vehicle of lessons, collects, schedules, news and conversations; this is what I see and wonder, what I imagine and question, what I've experienced and learned. 

Our lives are long roads -- I'm almost halfway in my 9th year of service to this parish! -- and when we're sharing also two-way streets.  It's good to be back. 

Long Roads and Two-Way Streets: Part 2

It's good to be back.

Just so you know I drove nearly 5000 miles and almost 2000 miles my last three days from the 30% humidity at 8000 ft above sea level to our "cozy" 87% at 680 ft. in Madison.  After leaving Moab, Utah's Arches National Park and scurrying up Colorado's Mesa Verde I had one remaining "must stop."  It was the Flophouze Shipping Container Motel in Round Top, Texas.

That meant a "purposeful" 8 hours of driving via Albuquerque, Santa Rosa, Fort Sumner, and Clovis. Bedding down to push through another 8 hours through Muleshoe, Lubbock, Snyder, Sweetwater, Santa Ana, Lampassas, Georgetown to Giddings and finally to my well appointed metal can with kitchen, bath, bed and sitting room. Whew!

I woke up the next morning very aware that I had returned to lower, moister lands and closer, damper air.  Still, Round Top is 14 hours away from my "more familiars" of Sandy Creek Rd and Academy St.  My last day went well into Friday night but I was home and in my bed before 1:00AM.  Paddling up from Dyar Pasture into the Oconee current was the perfect close to a great trip. 

From Madison to Bozeman and back I crossed or followed rivers, creeks and bayous with names like the Chattahoochee, Tennessee, Cumberland, Ohio, Wabash, Illinois, Missouri, Redwater, Sundance, Donkey, Deadhourse, Powder,  Dry,  Negro, Clear, Rock, Prairie Dog, Pompey, Goose, Tongue, Little Bighorn, Slaughter, Bighorn, Alkali, Spring, Indian, Pryor, Yellowstone, Gallatin, Gardiner, Lava, Falls, Snake, Weber, Farmington, Jordan, Price, Green, Colorado, Dove, Animas, San Juan,  Rio Grande, Pecos, Yellow House, Deep, Cottonwood, Colorado(Texas), San Gabriel, Brazos, San Jacinto, Trinity, Din, Neches, Sabine, Houston, des Cannes, Vermillion, Teche, Atchafalaya, Mississippi, Pearl, Chunky, Tombigbee,  Black Warrior, and Coosa.

It was my intention all along but the fact that the AC on my little Prius died, confirmed my choice to drive with the windows rolled down and no radio playing.  I could smell the smells and feel the air as it changed moment to moment. 

I'm excited to visit the Four Corners part of the southwest again.  So maybe this spring I can just go out and back with none of my daughter's furniture in the "trunk."  This is a great part of the world with lots of highways and two way streets.

So thanks for the break! 

Long roads and two way streets

A short but important message while I'm still on the road.  

Thanks to Susan Kurtz for her extensive and extended care in leading the prayers of the Daughters of King, our "praying ladies."  Throughout my time in service to this parish no matter the stripes as well and more importantly throughout the many changes in her life she has helped this parish to pray for all sorts and conditions.  Close friends, friends of friends, some known and some unknown, family members, community members, specific troubles, general concerns and all kinds of celebrations has been lifted to a loving and constant God thanks to her steady hand.

Susan has claimed this time, is being intentional about her transition and will be letting go of this important role.  Our responsibility is to honor her and her love of this ministry by coming together as a community and in deep discernment to find how we can move forward with as healthy and deep a focus has we have so long enjoyed.  

That work will be first to be determined by the members of the Daughters of the King.  Certainly we all can return some of the favor we owe them by holding them in our prayers.  

Next we will move to new points of contact for the parish: myself as rector, Allison as administrator, Deacon Morehouse, Maryann Dartnell as vestry liaison, Tim Pridgen and others will have to track with each other those names and petitions that for so many years moved through Susan's ledger. 

Perhaps even a larger meeting of the hearts and minds of the parish as we learn to live this new way.  

All this and more is before us, it has been for a long time.  That's how we as a parish have lived and will live together.  

Long roads, some longer than we planned, and two way streets where we listen and share and make room for each other on this journey that is the Episcopal Church of the Advent.

My road is turning home and I'll be back late on Friday.  I'm looking forward to being with you on the river and in worship and farther on down this long road.

Thanks again Susan.  And thanks be to God for letting us in on your journey of prayer.

Ordinary is Surrender

" . . . from its first moments, change has been the call to those claiming to be believers.  Sometimes it's called repentance, sometimes conversion, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes surrender.  It goes by lots of names but God's ordinary always means change."

In order to understand how surrender is a way to change you have recognize the point of change itself.  Like surrender: repentance, conversion and forgiveness aren't the things we do just to bide our time or that we do once and are done. The point or hope of change is to fully realize union with God.  They are how "we live and move and have our being" thus are constant practices in a life of faith.

Like playing the piano or basketball surrender as an act of faith must be practiced and learned. That's why monastics make a vow of poverty so central to deepening their daily devotion.   Poverty and letting go of wealth and it's "security" is a real head start into understanding prayer as a surrender and not a performance that somehow pleases God. They were already experts in down-sizing and self-emptying (kenosis) and this outer “poverty” then "instructs" a spiritual poverty that is first of all for the sake of prayer, never an end in itself.

That's why we use language like "getting out of our own way" to recognize our part in living sacramentally with God.  We use the same elements of bread and wine every time we make eucharist to avoid the traps of pride and idolatry that come when we take control to improve or innovate.  We're not monastics but our practice can help us to become more like the symbols we use to remind us that God in Christ is really present with us.

Progressively we come to understand that surrender is a way not a moment.  By "giving up" ourselves in a willingness to be used we are changed from the glory that is God's creation in us into the gospel promised resurrected glories we are meant to become.

This glory that is by surrender is not by our own accomplishment.  By "letting go and letting God." By dying daily to sin we get to live a life of change that never has to stop.  God's ordinary is change.

Ordinary is Forgiveness

" . . . from its first moments, change has been the call to those claiming to be believers.  Sometimes it's called repentance, sometimes conversion, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes surrender.  It goes by lots of names but God's ordinary always means change."

Almost a year ago I wrote about how the proximity of God's reign makes a kind of forgiveness available to us to practice.  It is a non-transactional forgiveness.  I wrote:

"I understand [forgiveness as a dynamic reality] begun in the presence of God.  Forgiveness means trusting God's love enough to pursue healing instead of presuming to do God's work by punishing others. It is no longer a transactional housekeeping of rights and wrongs, of debts and favors.  It is a faithful and constant response to the 'reign of God being upon us.'"

I still believe this.  I also believe that even if we forget, or stumble, are hurt, or hurt each other God's reign does not shrink away from us.  Whenever we forgive others, especially when we do so out of God's love and forgiveness of us something changes.  

Its like a light comes on or a heavy load gets lighter or our breathing is easier.  Something changes.  

If we stop ourselves short of that understanding and restrict our acts of forgiveness to those tired old transactional methods then the darkness soon descends again, the load returns, the air gets heavy.  Better the devil we know than the one we don't and we are right back where we started. 

Maybe the allure of this transactional forgiveness is that it feels like power when we can look at others as indebted to us.  Isn't that the language we use, to say "he owes me an apology."  But this idol of this false power cannot free us.  It needs our stubbornness to hold its ground.  

God's forgiveness is not about power.  It's not about God holding some ground.  It's not about winning in a zero sum game with others.  

When we take our turn forgiveness in God's kingdom means both sides letting go of power and neither keeping accounts.  It means releasing all our presumptions of leverage or advantage over others so that all we're left is to be children in God's presence.  

It's like Paul told the Corinthians:

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see-- we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return-- I speak as to children-- open wide your hearts also. (2 Cor. 6:8b-13, NRSV)

Ordinary is Conversion

" . . . from its first moments, change has been the call to those claiming to be believers.  Sometimes it's called repentance, sometimes conversion, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes surrender.  It goes by lots of names but God's ordinary always means change."

The word conversion to a boy raised Baptist "South of God*" triggers all sorts of memories of arms flailing, people wailing, and tears flowing as childhood friend after friend came down the aisle to make their profession of faith saying they had accepted Jesus into their hearts and had been -- some said "got" -- saved.

Mind you the majority of these good people had never spent more than a week away from the safe homogeneous confines of a church culture that awarded perfect attendance and relentlessly reminded itself of the dangers of things like dancing, popular music, science fiction, etc.

Just being devout had already whittled away most of what would had been converted.  Instead we submitted and were moved to membership which mostly differed from our previous status in that we were eligible to receive communion and to vote on new members and other church business matters.  Otherwise my life stayed pretty much the same with the constant reminders of all those forbidden things that now would lead to back sliding.

I can see that part of what we were doing was maintaining a practice that was not meant just for us.  In its ideal form conversion was understood as an abrupt, one-time shift from one absolute to another: from denial to belief, from rebellion to allegiance, from sinful to saved.

But we were not deniers or rebels and our sinfulness was well constrained by heavy regulation and long practiced indoctrination.  Still we "got saved" so that we could identify with and "bring in the lost" who weren't believers, weren't allied but were living in sin and darkness and who proved their condition by drinking, dancing, etc, etc.

Another way to understand this is to note that the majority of baptisms were of children under the age of twelve.  There just wasn't much to convert.  Our transition was more like getting confirmed first and then getting baptized.  Still we had to maintain the model of abrupt one-time conversion.

I'm older now and I've danced a little.  I love sci-fi!  And I'm still getting saved.  That's how conversion works for me now.

My conversion then was more a tipping point moment when expectation, indoctrination, peer pressure and a new, developing capacity for self-determination combined and led me to stand with my dad before the congregation attending the Sunday night service at Boulevard Baptist Church in Anderson, SC in October of 1963 and to make a promise I am still keeping.

Now my conversion is ordinary and by way of this church I work on it everyday.



* Baptist South of God - a term coined by Rev. Dr. Carlyle Marney meant to counter the boasting that so often accompanied the term Southern Baptist.  

Ordinary is Repentance

" . . . from its first moments, change has been the call to those claiming to be believers.  Sometimes it's called repentance, sometimes conversion, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes surrender.  It goes by lots of names but God's ordinary always means change."

I've written a bunch about repentance.  Mostly because I need as many reasons and methods to accomplish it in my own life as any.  

I also have written about it because so many of us are stuck with one understanding that misses  the rich and complex biblical portrait as it is drawn using those deep and ancient terms of the Hebrew.

Two Hebrew words get translated repent.  The more familiar,  / "shuv" means to "turn around."  This call to repent catches us and expects us to change direction.  It has a singular momentary aspect to it and it also has a continuing and habitual aspect to it.  

The dynamic of that "singular" call is for us to stop those behaviors and practices that grow out of frail, failing, faulty humans.  Just stop!  

Think about all our family and friends in recovery from addiction.  But theyknow and we know in other ways that there is more to it.  That continuing and habitual aspect is exactly what recovery attempts.  

Both as singular moment and a continuing effort this call to repentance comes from God.  It comes from a God who loves us and wants a face-to-face relationship.  The biblical notion with  is that we don't just turn, we return.  

The other Hebrew word we translate repent is   / nacham.  It's what God does when he changes his mind and removes his threat to smite all of Ninevah.  It's what he did when Saul disobeyed. “I repent that I have made Saul king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.”  1Sa 15:11 RSV

We could say that God's expectations carry weight.  Sometimes God exerts that weight and other times God changes God's mind and withholds.  It's what Job does at the end of his ordeal.  He changes his mind and is OK with a new understanding that God is God even when bad things happen to good people.  "Therefore I despise myself and repent . . ." Job 42:6 RSV

Either way with  or   what you get is a call to change.   A change in behavior that births and grows a new understanding or a  change in understanding that demonstrates itself in new behavior.   Change is ordinary and so is repentance.

God's "ordinary" is change.

In the category of jokes that start with our asking the question, "How many ________ does it take to _______?" by far and away my favorite is the one that asks about Episcopalians and lightbulbs.

The answer could be but is not a number and an accompanying list of differing responsibilities like mixing drinks or forming committees.  The answer is another question charged with fear and trepidation: "Change the light bulb?  My GRANDMOTHER gave that light bulb to the church!!!"

It's worth the mention because we are reflecting on our lives together as worshippers in what is called "ordinary time."  The implication is that we will stick to a routine, Sunday in and Sunday out.

• Entrance Processional Hymn, 
• Opening Acclamation, 
• Collect for Purity, 
• Canticle of Praise, 
• Collect of the Day with the congregation kneeling,
• First Lesson, 
• Gradual Psalm read responsively by half verse while standing, 
• Second Lesson, 
• Sequence Hymn, 
• Gospel Reading, 
• Sermon, 
• Nicene Creed, 
• Prayers of the People,
• General Confession and Absolution, 
• Passing the Peace, 
• Announcements, 
• Offertory, 
• Presentation, 
• Holy Eucharist, 
• Postcomunion Prayer, 
• Blessing,  
• Exiting Processional Hymn, 
• Dismissal. 

No changes like Lent and Advent's Penitential Order, like Easter's standing for EVERYTHING! or lack of Confession.  For many, our worship in ordinary time is "the way its supposed to be," regular.  That's what ordinary means.  But liturgical "ordinary" means more than that.

It means more than that because our efforts to be regular in our worship are ultimately motivated to do everything we can to participate sacramentally with God.  Being regular only addresses some of that effort.  Otherwise persisting at a robotic lock-step uniformity would be our insurance that we had done all we could to participate with God.

Participating sacramentally with God means we must risk being changed.  Indeed from its first moments change has been the call to those claiming to be believers.  Sometimes it's called repentance, sometimes conversion, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes surrender.  It goes by lots of names but God's ordinary always means change.

There's ordinary and there's ordinary.

Check the graphic above.  We have just made our way clock-wise through the Great Fifty Days of Easter with our Pentecost celebration.  What we have on the calendar until November 25 are Sundays AFTER Pentecost or Ordinary Time.  It's that nearly half of the calendar on the left.  There are a few feast days like Transfiguration on August 6 and All Saints' Day on November 1st to perk us up but for the most part we will be following what is largely an in course reading of the Gospel according to Mark. There are no other seasons to organize our attention to scripture and the faithful living we expect to follow this attention.  That is the order.  That is why we call it ordinary time.  

Ordinary, not because of the missing embellishments of seasonal observances like Christmas and Easter.  But because a very ordered chapter by chapter reading of the gospel is our practice.  We are relying on the most basic appreciation of scripture.  We are going where the story takes us.

It reminds of those several attempts I made and only once succeeded in reading the Bible -- minus the Apocrypha -- straight through.  Genesis was big but it kept moving.  Exodus started to get bogged down around Chapter 25 with all the instructional material.  Leviticus killed me.  Numbers tried to get my attention, "bless his heart."  Deuteronomy was a repeat offender.   Done. 

The next time I even made it all the way through the genealogies of First Chronicles.  It was down hill from there!  Job was a grind, as were the Psalms even with their familiar moments.  Proverbs was fragmented and preachy.  So too was Ecclesiastes. Song of Solomon so distracted me with its romantic nonsense that I forgot what I was trying to do.  Done. 

The prophets got better each time I tried.  Ezekiel and Daniel were equally fanciful.  Lots more prophets.  I remember the time I turned the page and started Matthew immediately after Malachi.  Hooray!

I think that was on about my third or fourth try.  I did it and read all the way through the Bible.  It was the summer after my senior year in high school.  I was motivated as much by competition with Dan Hatfield, my roommate on staff at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly.  He won.  He got the girl, too.  

This time our ordinary reading is not so distracted or competitive.  We'll even take a break and read from John's gospel for the Sundays in August.  The break will be a good thing because Mark does bring his own pressure or urgency to these serial accounts.  We will be presented with vignettes that have very little of the staging or flourish used by the other synoptics.  No frills. 

Mark just keeps moving.  His orders are like the orders of a insurgent moving.  So this year's ordinary time will have some of that flavor as well.  It will keep us moving.  Which is a much better take on "ordinary."  

Moving. Being moved. Following. Being part of a movement.  Ordered by the urgency, a holy calling.  There's ordinary and then there's ordinary.