One of the themes behind our modern practice of Lent is "being tested." Loosely imitating the story of Jesus being driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit we use the 40 days to fast from excess and pray more steadily, more deeply.
In effect we test ourselves, our resolve, our appetites, our capacities and more. We begin with great and in most cases reasonable hope that on the other end something will be proven more trustworthy more reliable, more fit for demands of our lives during and after Easter.
Though it is God who saves us and we are totally dependent on God's mercy to do that still we strive to get better as creatures, as incarnations of love and faithfulness. I like to use the phrase "to make God's job a little easier."
Most of our Lenten disciplines are heavy on the law side of the religious equation. Measuring pounds lost is "of the law." Keeping track of calendar moments like my daily environmental reminders or extra classes like Mudhouse Sabbath, or devotional/worship sessions like Stations of the Cross require a law-like measurement and attendance.
Fear not. This version of the "law" has little punitive authority or power, mostly because it is of each individual's designing. But the principles that direct our practice are like rules and standards.
Sometimes the testing of our own design is too much or it fails to move us forward. Even by our own self assessment and before Lent moves into Holy Week we have abandoned our fast or study.
Thanks be to God the measure applied from the one who watches over us is grace. God's grace is always next whether we attend every session, say every prayer, or avoid every temptation. God's grace is always next.
Perhaps we could acknowledge those instances when our own disciplines expose a truth to us well before the 40 days are past. All that takes is for us to consider that these tests of our design just may be able however unintended to show us more of who we are, more of how we are God's, more of how the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is God's greatest grace to us.
No matter the test, God's grace is always next.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Lenten Choices: Balance and Capacity
It seems like every year I'm adding something to my spiritual practice during Lent. As a parish priest I've always been interested in using this season to provide options for the spiritual practices of my parishioners. In most cases the hope is not only that "those things may please him which we do,"(Ash Wednesday, BCP 269) but that a forty day rehearsal of them will "stick."
We continued our practice of Night Prayers for more than two years after introducing them in Lent of 2015. Morning Prayer, Rite 1 on Wednesdays continued after it's introduction during Lent a couple of years ago. Theolatté started during Lent.
There are other ways to categorize the practices of Lent because some of them aren't meant to "stick" such that they become permanent or dominant features. We fast during Lent; some do on Fridays until sunset, others on Sunday mornings until they have received communion. But we do not intend for fasting to replace eating as the norm.
Fasting only works the way it does because eating is the norm. Fasting works because of how it contrasts with the established standard of -- even well moderated -- consumption.
To continue a practice of fasting after Lent is finished requires continuing the contrast as well. The intent is balance and not wholesale change from one practice to another, from eating to not eating.
Regardless our Lenten practices can be meant to and in most cases should continue; saying our Morning Prayers every Wednesday now year after year or introducing and nurturing balance in our consumption is as worthy after Lent as during.
Our practices call on us to be aware of our capacities and our energies. This concern for our capacity along with the value of balance moderates that stereotypical approach to Lent that imagines great changes -- never say "never?" -- in one's behavior or life-style.
Instead we are encouraged by the hope for balance and by a recognition of our capacities -- call it "knowing our limits" -- to use Lent for rehearsals, for practice and for growth. That way we can finish our 40 days changed and able to continue changing.
We continued our practice of Night Prayers for more than two years after introducing them in Lent of 2015. Morning Prayer, Rite 1 on Wednesdays continued after it's introduction during Lent a couple of years ago. Theolatté started during Lent.
There are other ways to categorize the practices of Lent because some of them aren't meant to "stick" such that they become permanent or dominant features. We fast during Lent; some do on Fridays until sunset, others on Sunday mornings until they have received communion. But we do not intend for fasting to replace eating as the norm.
Fasting only works the way it does because eating is the norm. Fasting works because of how it contrasts with the established standard of -- even well moderated -- consumption.
To continue a practice of fasting after Lent is finished requires continuing the contrast as well. The intent is balance and not wholesale change from one practice to another, from eating to not eating.
Regardless our Lenten practices can be meant to and in most cases should continue; saying our Morning Prayers every Wednesday now year after year or introducing and nurturing balance in our consumption is as worthy after Lent as during.
Our practices call on us to be aware of our capacities and our energies. This concern for our capacity along with the value of balance moderates that stereotypical approach to Lent that imagines great changes -- never say "never?" -- in one's behavior or life-style.
Instead we are encouraged by the hope for balance and by a recognition of our capacities -- call it "knowing our limits" -- to use Lent for rehearsals, for practice and for growth. That way we can finish our 40 days changed and able to continue changing.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Lenten Choices: Accumulating and Sharing
One of my ministerial BFFs let me in on a concern he experienced in another denomination. Since 90+% of what Episcopal clergy do looks like what clergy in just about every other denomination do it made sense to hear his concern as addressing something of our lives, too.
He talked about how too many churches in his group operated to provide all that was needed both place and program of the spiritual practice each member attempted. The article he shared called it simply, "program piety."
The implied message was "we've got what you need. Come and get it." Pushing through the implication were other veiled messages about soul competence, value of membership and perhaps most of all individual subservience to an institution.
In our Episcopal world the old monster of "program piety" looked like clericalism. "Father knows best" supported by a Book of Common Prayer. It's not all bad but we still have a foot in that world.
Our annual parochial report measures first and foremost Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) to indicate the congregation's vitality. Along with the comings and goings of communicants we are evaluated on a kind of Sunday morning "program piety."
The priest and other leadership plan programs that are seasonally appropriate, that affirm a gentle and broad orthodoxy, that foster mostly personal and therefore individual spiritual practices and that do not interfere or contradict engagement that is measured by the annual parochial report.
I'm not complaining. It makes sense especially because we are so bound by tradition, custom, history, etc. But it also too often makes us work against our own best interests.
The question isn't so much "how to do the new thing so more people will come to church?" but more so "how do we help initiate, nurture and share our spiritual lives at all age levels such that growth is obvious?"
ASA can't measure that. Our Bishop and diocese agree and provide a "page five" so that we can at least give some narrative recognition to growth not measured by ASA.
Let's use Lent to share and grow and to do so in all the ways we have, both measurable and abstract, numbers and spirits, ASA and "page five" and more.
The change will not be found in how we exercise or increase "program piety." We're going to do that anyway. The best indicator of growth will be in noting how we share with each other as many of those aspects of our individual and corporate piety and we can.
The movement Jesus initiated with his life, death and resurrection was not a system of delivering a "program piety" packaged and quantified for the records. It was first, foremost and finally, sharing.
He talked about how too many churches in his group operated to provide all that was needed both place and program of the spiritual practice each member attempted. The article he shared called it simply, "program piety."
The implied message was "we've got what you need. Come and get it." Pushing through the implication were other veiled messages about soul competence, value of membership and perhaps most of all individual subservience to an institution.
In our Episcopal world the old monster of "program piety" looked like clericalism. "Father knows best" supported by a Book of Common Prayer. It's not all bad but we still have a foot in that world.
Our annual parochial report measures first and foremost Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) to indicate the congregation's vitality. Along with the comings and goings of communicants we are evaluated on a kind of Sunday morning "program piety."
The priest and other leadership plan programs that are seasonally appropriate, that affirm a gentle and broad orthodoxy, that foster mostly personal and therefore individual spiritual practices and that do not interfere or contradict engagement that is measured by the annual parochial report.
I'm not complaining. It makes sense especially because we are so bound by tradition, custom, history, etc. But it also too often makes us work against our own best interests.
The question isn't so much "how to do the new thing so more people will come to church?" but more so "how do we help initiate, nurture and share our spiritual lives at all age levels such that growth is obvious?"
ASA can't measure that. Our Bishop and diocese agree and provide a "page five" so that we can at least give some narrative recognition to growth not measured by ASA.
Let's use Lent to share and grow and to do so in all the ways we have, both measurable and abstract, numbers and spirits, ASA and "page five" and more.
The change will not be found in how we exercise or increase "program piety." We're going to do that anyway. The best indicator of growth will be in noting how we share with each other as many of those aspects of our individual and corporate piety and we can.
The movement Jesus initiated with his life, death and resurrection was not a system of delivering a "program piety" packaged and quantified for the records. It was first, foremost and finally, sharing.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
MItch Revisited
This is a repeat from February 2016.
Lent according to Mitch
His name is Mitch. He is married and working on a dairy farm near Indianapolis. We were introduced by another student. They knew each other from their summers as leaders at Boy Scout Camp. I baptized him at the Episcopal Center @ UGA early in his time as a student.
Each year after Mitch's baptism he became more and more important to the student community as a leader and in a more meaningful way, as a prophet.
He always asked really good questions. He always wanted things not to just make sense but for the end result of any decision to be just and fair.
Mitch taught me how to "do Lent."
You may already know that I'm not inclined to work too hard on giving things up for Lent. I've so seldom found "a thing" that once given up didn't return into my life and in a few cases trivialize all that my Lenten discipline had intended. Every time I've given up a food or confection -- coffee and chocolate come to mind -- I've binged on those same items as soon as the egg hunts are started.
For me Lent is better used to grow into more prayer, more study, more of those things that help me in my life of faith. So I take on things for Lent that are most often churchy and that require a continued commitment once the forty days are over.
What I learned from Mitch was that my Lenten disciplines could -- perhaps should -- help make the world a better place. At the very least I should learn something from them.
The lessons I learned from Mitch started the Lent he decided to go bare-footed. Yes in the dead of a fairly intense and lingering winter Mitch took his shoes off. He made some reasonable adjustments, one was to leave a pair of shoes at his work place so that he could continue his employment. They would have fired him otherwise.
He made a concession to the group on those few occasions when we decided to meet together at a restaurant or bar. That is from where the name Theolatte´ came. We would meet at an Athens coffeeshop and discuss our spiritual lives and the issues of the days. I gave him a pair of flip flops that he could carry in his book bag so he could enter when the sign said, "No shirt? No shoes? No service."
We learned so much as a community from Mitch's bare feet. Especially when we saw one of Athens' homeless in the same state, not by choice.
The next year Mitch kept all his garbage to himself. If a food item came in a bag or a disposable container he carried that refuse with him for the rest of the forty days. Thank goodness he learned how to minimize his exposure especially to the waste generated by fast food restaurants and super markets.
Think of how many ketchup packets are thrown away unopened! By the end of the season he had learned to avoid many places and customs we as quintessential consumers never second guessed.
Mitch's Lent was for Mitch and because he did not hide his efforts, was for us as well. We learned so much from his bare feet and stuffed sack. Can our Lenten disciplines teach us as much?"
Lent according to Mitch
His name is Mitch. He is married and working on a dairy farm near Indianapolis. We were introduced by another student. They knew each other from their summers as leaders at Boy Scout Camp. I baptized him at the Episcopal Center @ UGA early in his time as a student.
Each year after Mitch's baptism he became more and more important to the student community as a leader and in a more meaningful way, as a prophet.
He always asked really good questions. He always wanted things not to just make sense but for the end result of any decision to be just and fair.
Mitch taught me how to "do Lent."
You may already know that I'm not inclined to work too hard on giving things up for Lent. I've so seldom found "a thing" that once given up didn't return into my life and in a few cases trivialize all that my Lenten discipline had intended. Every time I've given up a food or confection -- coffee and chocolate come to mind -- I've binged on those same items as soon as the egg hunts are started.
For me Lent is better used to grow into more prayer, more study, more of those things that help me in my life of faith. So I take on things for Lent that are most often churchy and that require a continued commitment once the forty days are over.
What I learned from Mitch was that my Lenten disciplines could -- perhaps should -- help make the world a better place. At the very least I should learn something from them.
The lessons I learned from Mitch started the Lent he decided to go bare-footed. Yes in the dead of a fairly intense and lingering winter Mitch took his shoes off. He made some reasonable adjustments, one was to leave a pair of shoes at his work place so that he could continue his employment. They would have fired him otherwise.
He made a concession to the group on those few occasions when we decided to meet together at a restaurant or bar. That is from where the name Theolatte´ came. We would meet at an Athens coffeeshop and discuss our spiritual lives and the issues of the days. I gave him a pair of flip flops that he could carry in his book bag so he could enter when the sign said, "No shirt? No shoes? No service."
We learned so much as a community from Mitch's bare feet. Especially when we saw one of Athens' homeless in the same state, not by choice.
The next year Mitch kept all his garbage to himself. If a food item came in a bag or a disposable container he carried that refuse with him for the rest of the forty days. Thank goodness he learned how to minimize his exposure especially to the waste generated by fast food restaurants and super markets.
Think of how many ketchup packets are thrown away unopened! By the end of the season he had learned to avoid many places and customs we as quintessential consumers never second guessed.
Mitch's Lent was for Mitch and because he did not hide his efforts, was for us as well. We learned so much from his bare feet and stuffed sack. Can our Lenten disciplines teach us as much?"
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Hymn of Reversal or Repentance?
I've been looking for songs in Luke. The one's I found so far have been about Jesus and how his "first advent" has changed the world's fortunes. Mary's in the middle of her Magnificat sings
She is how we come to see Jesus as joined to this eternal purpose of God for reconciliation and justice.
Simeon's song turns this fortune forward and by celebrating his own "departure" out off waiting and hoping and yearning identifies for us the saving vision and new light that enlightens the nations and glorifies Israel.
And now in his "Sermon on the Plain" almost singing we hear Jesus speak of blessings and woes, of good fortune and trouble, of consequences and outcomes.
Unlike Matthew's "Sermon on the Mount" Luke's version is balanced in indicating how God's work of reconciliation and judgement, of redemption and blessing will impact the world that Jesus now inhabits. Blessings for the poor, hungry, weeping and persecuted are layered against warnings for the rich, full, the laughing and the well regarded.
Jesus sermon feels like a hymn of reversal. But there is much more to this than a simple flipping of tables. The reversal will undo temple authority, social stigma, ethnic purity standards and the very definition of righteousness.
Before we presume ourselves to be the poor ones, as did many to whom Jesus preached that day let's leave ourselves open to possibilities other than getting even with the Romans. Think tax collectors like Levi becoming disciples, elite widows like Joanna who visit his tomb, or centurions of great faith.
Maybe reversal isn't the best way to characterize this change of fortune. If we are to have part in God's setting things right our part will look more like trust, more like repentance, more like following in faith.
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.You can feel things changing. Mary sings from the perspective of a faithful Hebrew maiden and she credits God having done great things. Her confidence grows from this recognition.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich He has sent away empty.
She is how we come to see Jesus as joined to this eternal purpose of God for reconciliation and justice.
Simeon's song turns this fortune forward and by celebrating his own "departure" out off waiting and hoping and yearning identifies for us the saving vision and new light that enlightens the nations and glorifies Israel.
Simeon is how we come to see Jesus as joined to this desire of God for redemption and blessing.Lord, you now have set your servant freeto go in peace as you have promised;For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,whom you have prepared for all the world to see:A Light to enlighten the nations,and the glory of your people Israel.
And now in his "Sermon on the Plain" almost singing we hear Jesus speak of blessings and woes, of good fortune and trouble, of consequences and outcomes.
Unlike Matthew's "Sermon on the Mount" Luke's version is balanced in indicating how God's work of reconciliation and judgement, of redemption and blessing will impact the world that Jesus now inhabits. Blessings for the poor, hungry, weeping and persecuted are layered against warnings for the rich, full, the laughing and the well regarded.
Jesus sermon feels like a hymn of reversal. But there is much more to this than a simple flipping of tables. The reversal will undo temple authority, social stigma, ethnic purity standards and the very definition of righteousness.
Before we presume ourselves to be the poor ones, as did many to whom Jesus preached that day let's leave ourselves open to possibilities other than getting even with the Romans. Think tax collectors like Levi becoming disciples, elite widows like Joanna who visit his tomb, or centurions of great faith.
Maybe reversal isn't the best way to characterize this change of fortune. If we are to have part in God's setting things right our part will look more like trust, more like repentance, more like following in faith.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
The Seraphim's Song
Christians are trinitarians. It is a given. It is necessary. It is creedal.
It has taken up so much of our lives in praise and prayer that even our baptismal covenant is built on our belief that God is three in one. The historic language is to say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We can modernize these titles but must always be careful to leave something metaphorical, something analogical, with nuance and range if we are to say things trinitarian in the twenty-first century.
As good as it is to be "made in the image of God," our thoughts about the eternal are not eternal thoughts.* Lots of heresies ancient and modern have occured because of how we push our language too far and say too much without a respect for our finitude, our limitations as human beings.
One way to speak about God that invokes a trinitarian appreciation comes from song in Isaiah. It's the song sung by seraphim in the temple as the man Isaiah is being called to a life of prophecy. Seraphim -- plural for שְׂרָפִ֨ -- are fantastic creatures both ethereal and terrifying. The word comes to hebrew use from more ancient cultures especially those who used snakes for their venom to produce hallucinations and the like.
It makes sense as long as we allow the moment to be somewhat mythical. Especially if we hear their song:
It has taken up so much of our lives in praise and prayer that even our baptismal covenant is built on our belief that God is three in one. The historic language is to say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We can modernize these titles but must always be careful to leave something metaphorical, something analogical, with nuance and range if we are to say things trinitarian in the twenty-first century.
As good as it is to be "made in the image of God," our thoughts about the eternal are not eternal thoughts.* Lots of heresies ancient and modern have occured because of how we push our language too far and say too much without a respect for our finitude, our limitations as human beings.
It makes sense as long as we allow the moment to be somewhat mythical. Especially if we hear their song:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
the whole earth is full of his glory."
While they are dashing about with their six wings flying and hiding their faces and their feet, it's fiery serpents who sing this song.
For centuries Hebrew monotheists and then Christian trinitarians have sung it and are still singing it to say how magnificent and omnipresent God is. Built into Isaiah's story is a permission for modern thinkers to be imprecise because our many wings are hiding so much and yet just as gloriously we can hope to be praising God.
We have adopted the phrase "holy, holy, holy" as trinitarians and in so doing have not forced a precision or exactness into our conversations about God. Instead we sing it and can if need be imagine just as fantastically as did Isaiah a sense of God's presence. Thanks be to God for those flying fiery serpents and their song.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Song of Eternal Presence
For this season after the Epiphany I have been focusing on the songs sung by all those players in Luke's nativity narrative. Luke wants the world not only to recognize that Jesus is the beloved Son of God, the Christ but to celebrate the extent to which this gift has its effect on all the wrongs and misdeeds causing imbalance and suffering for the nations and for Israel.
Much of what Luke has his players sing is not new. Simeon's song harkens all the way back to Abraham and Sarah who are released to the peace of their fathers as God promises to watch the generations after them. Zechariah's song is full of the ancient Psalmist's praise. You can hear echoes of Hannah in the songs of Elizabeth and Mary.
How fortunate it was that the scroll was opened to Isaiah that day when Jesus returned to his home and stood to read in the synagogue:
It is often, too often a fault of human making. Most of us have a view that reduces our lives to mechanisms of cause and effect. Even some of the best arguments for the existence of God are those unmoved mover, first to love, creator of creativeness arguments. So much of how we understand the world and its workings is to describe a linear process with beginning, middle and end.
What if what Jesus was sharing of Isaiah's song was about another way to understand God's relationship with us? Wouldn't a "normal" word to the poor be to blame them for their lack of initiative or cast blame on some greedy oligarch or landlord? Shouldn't the oppressed just rebel against their oppressors?
But Jesus/Isaiah just proclaims it, the year of the Lord's favor. It is a Jubilee year and all debts are forgiven, prisoners freed. The blind can see.
Who are these blind ones? No others benefitting from this reversal of fortune are so singularly situated. Aren't the poor part of the system of cause and effect imbalanced by greed and inefficiency? Aren't the oppressed someone's victims? Do not captives have jailers?
Could the blind ones be someone besides the victims of oppression, besides those made poor by another, besides those imprisoned? Could it be that the blind are the oppressors, as well? Could the greedy be missing something, blind to the same truth.
Could it be that this well-remembered home boy Jesus is calling the wrong people blind? It could, couldn't it? Could it be that in our small world of cause and effect we have imprisoned everyone -- oppressor and oppressed -- away from God's Jubilee? What if the way God relates to us is as much eternal presence as a divinely begun progression of cause and effect?
I keep hearing Martin Smith's reminder, "you can never talk behind God's back" so now I'm wondering will we ever sing Isaiah's jubilee, knowing that God is always and fully with us?
Much of what Luke has his players sing is not new. Simeon's song harkens all the way back to Abraham and Sarah who are released to the peace of their fathers as God promises to watch the generations after them. Zechariah's song is full of the ancient Psalmist's praise. You can hear echoes of Hannah in the songs of Elizabeth and Mary.
How fortunate it was that the scroll was opened to Isaiah that day when Jesus returned to his home and stood to read in the synagogue:
Heady stuff and before the subtlety of those words hits home they all puff up a little that they know this Jesus and his family. But as they come to see that the reading says as much of what is not happening yet and what they are preventing or at the very least not accomplishing themselves their puffery turns to offense and they shout to throw him off the nearest cliff.18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,because he has anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captivesand recovering of sight to the blind,to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
It is often, too often a fault of human making. Most of us have a view that reduces our lives to mechanisms of cause and effect. Even some of the best arguments for the existence of God are those unmoved mover, first to love, creator of creativeness arguments. So much of how we understand the world and its workings is to describe a linear process with beginning, middle and end.
What if what Jesus was sharing of Isaiah's song was about another way to understand God's relationship with us? Wouldn't a "normal" word to the poor be to blame them for their lack of initiative or cast blame on some greedy oligarch or landlord? Shouldn't the oppressed just rebel against their oppressors?
But Jesus/Isaiah just proclaims it, the year of the Lord's favor. It is a Jubilee year and all debts are forgiven, prisoners freed. The blind can see.
Who are these blind ones? No others benefitting from this reversal of fortune are so singularly situated. Aren't the poor part of the system of cause and effect imbalanced by greed and inefficiency? Aren't the oppressed someone's victims? Do not captives have jailers?
Could the blind ones be someone besides the victims of oppression, besides those made poor by another, besides those imprisoned? Could it be that the blind are the oppressors, as well? Could the greedy be missing something, blind to the same truth.
Could it be that this well-remembered home boy Jesus is calling the wrong people blind? It could, couldn't it? Could it be that in our small world of cause and effect we have imprisoned everyone -- oppressor and oppressed -- away from God's Jubilee? What if the way God relates to us is as much eternal presence as a divinely begun progression of cause and effect?
I keep hearing Martin Smith's reminder, "you can never talk behind God's back" so now I'm wondering will we ever sing Isaiah's jubilee, knowing that God is always and fully with us?
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