Christ is Risen! Now what?

It is Monday of Easter week, and I just got off a conference call with other clergy who are also leading redevelopment efforts in their respective parishes, all in California. It was a smaller group than usual, and we were pretty much all worn out from the busyness of Holy Week. Normally one gets into a rhythm: Monday you de-stress from the wildness of Sunday and, as the week progresses, you do both sermon and other service preparation in amongst all of the other things that leading a church involves--administration, pastoral visits, the occasional solicitation call, and hopefully time for prayer and some personal Bible study as well. With a weekly worship service, there is generally ample time to take a breath before the next Sunday rolls around. Not with Holy Week. We have a comparatively light schedule here (see last week's post), but the tiredness is still there.

There's a deeper weariness, though, that I also heard from my colleagues--the weariness of living in a world that appears stuck in Good Friday (death) while trying to preach and live Easter (resurrection life). It is also quite a challenge to lead an entire church composed of people engaged in this same struggle. What does a mission-minded church faithful to God's call look like in this place and in this time, and how do we get there from here? That is the challenge we face as individuals and as a community of faith.

One person's answer to that question, in that time and in that place, is my colleague Rebecca Stevens, founder of Magdalane. Becca's efforts just "went national" with a spot on National Public Radio (NPR). The story shows what transformation looks like--and how difficult it can be.



Regardless of our own context, the video does demonstrate one truth: we may not be able to do everything, but we can do something. For now, the "something" that our church can and does do is provide a place for various 12-step groups to meet, groups that respond to a real need and that have been life-changing for many people. God may be calling us to do even more, but that's where we are now.

We'll see where we go now....

The Day After Palm Sunday (or "Monday in Holy Week")

Less than an hour ago I finished praying Noonday Prayer as the first in the series of daily liturgies we will move through this Holy Week. We'll repeat Noonday Prayer tomorrow and Wednesday, then move to Eucharist and Stripping of the Altar at 7 p.m. on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday Liturgy and Solemn Collects at Noon on Good Friday, Procession with the Cross from Cambrian Park Plaza Shopping Center at 6 p.m. followed by the Stations of the Cross, then joining Trinity Cathedral on Saturday evening for the Great Vigil of Easter. All in all, a full week!

But for today, it was just me in a semi-darkened church reading Noonday Prayer, surrounded by the Palm Sunday decorations (palm branches reaching to the sky, palm fronds scattered in front of the altar, a lone palm cross left on the floor at the church entrance, etc...). As I prayed, I thought: "What must have that first Monday been like?" After the chaos, celebration, and fear of Palm Sunday, what might it have been like the day after? Perhaps some loose palm fronds scattered along the road, an expectant hush over the city wondering where the revolution (and the revolutionaries!) went, and everywhere the remnants of what must have been a wild day. In a short time, all of the palms will be gone from the church. In likely as short of a time, all traces of celebration would have been gone from the streets of Jerusalem.

I keep thinking about all of the "players" in this drama--Jesus, the disciples, the Pharasees, the crowds--what were they up to that first Monday? A week later and it would all be over--literally, death would be vanquished and the resurrected Jesus would begin a succession of appearances to his disciples. But, for now, the remnants of a celebration, and an expectant waiting....

Lent and "Enough"

As we count the days until Lent (finally!) begins, some of the "self-examination and repentance" might well focus on what we have and how much we need--how much is enough. A recent article entitled "When Rich People Do Stupid Things" makes the point that wealth can be just as addictive as anything else--some people never have enough. On the other hand, one only needs to go as far as St. Paul, who writes:

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (Philippians 4:12).

Most folks are not the über-rich described in the article. Yet how much of our time, energy, even prayers are consumed with consumables? How much of our lives are focused on our next paycheck, our next payout, or our next payback? Time for some self-examination and repentance, perhaps?

The author of the article ends it with the assertion that researchers are in agreement on the following:

"Money isn't the key to happiness. What really gives people meaning and happiness is a combination of four things: Control over what they're doing, progress in what they're pursuing, being connected with others, and being part of something they enjoy that's bigger than themselves."

I think pursuit of wealth is a symptom, not the disease. The problem is that we have (again, literally) been sold a lie--that wealth equals power and control. Who doesn't feel out of control these days? When people feel out of control, they look around for something the can control and that (they believe) can help them control their lives, and wealth is at the top of the list.

It's a lie.

Of course, wealthy people do have more choices than poor people do. The wealthy have more "discretionary income" and so their choices are expended beyond simply needing to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. But wealthy people ultimately have precisely as much control as anyone else--and that is not much. We don't know whether an earthquake will take place tomorrow and wipe out our homes, businesses, even churches (witness the quake in Christchurch, New Zealand). Even individually, we don't know what is going to happen in our lives.

What faith can do, and what church can strengthen, are the last two items in the list: being connected with others, and being part of something they enjoy that's bigger than ourselves. As we enter Lent, perhaps the best self-examination and repentance we could engage in is identifying how much time, effort, money, and even prayer goes in to maintaining that illusion of control and diverting that into strengthening one's own faith in God and support for the church. Who knows? God may do something new...

The times, they are a changin'--fast

In a recent response to a FaceBook posting by Diana Butler Bass regarding the current economic struggles, I wrote:

The challenge is that we are getting to the point (if we're not already there) in which the current model is unaffordable and unsustainable. The same "back to the good old days" mantra that reverberates throughout the church does so in politics and economics as well. The question is: How do we get a sustainable and compassionate economic system and how can we get enough of a momentum shift to elect folks to implement it?

I've previously spoken and written about the fact that the age of Modernity, which began to decay fifty years ago, has reached it's final years, if not months. In the face of the aftermath of the Great Recession, governments from school districts to states to our nation can no longer afford to keep alive the systems and patterns of life that all but the Greatest Generation (who are rapidly dying off...) accept as normal parts of life. We have come to the end of being able even to pretend to afford the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed--economically, socially, ecologically, even spiritually. The difficulty is that as we ask "What next?" very few people are willing to ask the question "How do we get a sustainable and compassionate system?" in any area of life. Most are looking backwards and warning of terrible calamities if some people (generally not them) don't "sacrifice" something to return to the "good old days" of yesteryear. Never mind that the "good old days" were rarely, if ever, good for everyone. In other words, those who look longingly back at the "good old days" are generally those with the most to lose, and thus those with the greatest fear of what is to come. Hence the place we at which we have arrived in our political discourse.


A colleague of mine has recently blogged about the absence of fear by those who have spoken truth to power in Egypt and in other parts of the world. Coincidentally (or perhaps God-incidentally), the Gospel for this coming Sunday addresses exactly this sort of basic fear. Jesus says:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:24-34)

Keep in mind that Jesus is speaking to people in a much more materially precarious position than most of us are experiencing today. In Jesus' time there was no social safety net, no homeless shelter, no soup kitchen, not even any government that even pretended to be the least bit responsive. The people Jeus is speaking to live a tenuous existence in a region occupied by a hostile foreign army. Human life, as Thomas Hobbes would describe it more than 1500 years later was very often "...nasty, brutish, and short."

The point, then and now, is not to simply sit around hoping and praying for divine provision and deliverance. Jesus doesn't say "don't worry, be happy!" What Jesus does say is "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness." What that means for us is that we are called not to be paralyzed by worry, nor to react in fear, but to proactively partner with God in bringing God's kingdom to fruition in our own lives and in the lives of the people and systems that surround us. It is a call to action (strive) not reaction (worry). If we can get over our worries and our fears, what might God accomplish through us?

Light and Life: Epiphany

Hail! the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
risen with healing in His wings.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
-- Charles Wesley(1707-1788), 1739

A little light-hearted (pun intended) offering for today:



Several days ago, we marked the end of the Christmas season on Epiphany (January 6), the celebration of the arrival of the Magi at the stable in Bethlehem. Never mind that the chronology is problematic (i.e. how did they get there in 12 days, and why were Joseph and Mary in the same spot 12 days later, but I digress...). The point (I think...) is that Jesus was worshipped by Jew and Gentile alike from the moment of his birth--there was a recognition that God was doing something new and momentous in the world.

I always choke a bit on Christmas carols, such as Away in a Manger, that like to romanticize the birth narrative of Jesus. There is a sense from these songs that Mary and Joseph wandered into the sleepy little town of Bethlehem after a quick trip down the interstate, dropped by a local Motel 6, saw a "No Vacancy" sign, and settled into a nice comfortable stable where Jesus was born in serene silence with some nice heavenly music playing in the background. To the extent that the story is accurate, what you really have is a young couple forced by the authorities (occupying forces, no less) to make a perilous journey through often dangerous places to a town that had probably quadrupled in population, likely spending at least hours if not days trying to find somewhere, anywhere safe, to have a child that was literally in the process of being born and finally ending up in a cave or shabby outbuilding amongst none-too-clean animals and finding only a feeding trough to lay the newborn Jesus in as Roman soldiers patrolled the streets outside on alert for trouble. I'm guessing that Jesus probably was like most other children and screamed his lungs out at his birth. So, the story is pretty much of a young couple in trying circumstances having a baby in a filthy stable after being exhausted by travel and a fruitless search to find adequate lodging. Hardly the scene for the most important birth in human history!

Oddly enough, the story of the Prince of Peace being born in less-than-ideal circumstances, into a highly unsafe territory occupied by Roman forces gives me plenty of comfort. As I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday, Jesus is not born into peace, Jesus is our peace. God did not wait for ideal circumstances to break into the world in the person of Jesus--the flight into Egypt to avoid Herod's massacre of the children of Bethlehem demonstrates that. What God does do is come into our messy, harried, less-than-ideal lives and transforms them from the inside out. Slowly, even imperceptibly, but constantly and surely.

That's really what this Epiphany season is all about: light in darkness. The liturgical season of Epiphany highlights that in the midst of the winter darkness and cold, the light of Christ breaks in, warming and illuminating our lives. How will we each carry that light into the world?

Jars of Clay or Feet of Clay?

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. - 2 Corinthians 4:7

Last week I was thinking about the Gospel passage for this past Sunday, the Second Sunday of Advent, I thought about the Gospel as meaning "good news" and how much bad news surrounds us, even bombards us, on a daily basis. The economy is a shambles, people continue to struggle to make ends meet--even governments are struggling to make ends meet--and there seems to be a daily litany of people who we have put our hopes in to get us out of this mess and inevitably disappoint us with either personal failings or failing to move in the direction we think they should. They truly have "feet of clay," easily shattered.

By contrast, John the Baptist is not the least bit setting himself up as the solution to any problem. In fact, he is probably the least likely person you would want as a problem solver. He has this distressing habit of speaking his mind, no matter what that is, and he's not one for subtlety. As I thought about him and his message, I recalled the above passage and several things seemed to click. The fact is, all of us are clay jars--unadorned, perhaps dirty, hardly worthy of a second look from outside. And yet we have a treasure within us: the power of God to transform us and those around us. That's what the Incarnation is all about--God with us. May we know ourselves to be bearers of the light of Christ just as Mary was the bearer of the Christ that first Christmas.

Setting Us Free

"The inherited churchly institutions in the United States are typically engaged in inducing people to join, support and attend church ... in order to worship the church, not to glorify and enjoy God, and in order to enhance some churchly cult, not to esteem and enact the Gospel.  The sanction for this appeal is a venerable one - the sale of indulgences.  (People) are persuaded that by serving the church, by spending time and money and talent on the church, they can accomplish and exchange for merit and gain a justified status with God.  Yet secreted in the idolatry of church is the same futile worship of the power of death inherent in any idolatrous relationship. And from that, even when it is shrouded in the trappings of church, has Christ set (us) free." -- William Stringfellow, Imposters of God

A colleague of mine recently wrote a very interesting blog post referencing the above book. As someone who is Priest-in-Charge of a church in what I have often referred to as "the rebuilding phase" of its life, the above is pretty convicting--too often the church can become an end in and of itself rather than a means to the end of proclaiming the Gospel in word and deed. Though we have already set out our mission and vision at St. Edward's, the challenging part remains--discerning how God is calling us to live out, or incarnate, that mission and vision.  This morning I talked about the "the hope to which he has called [us]" (Eph 1:18b) to which St. Paul refers. That hope is the hope of All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day, that even death has been overcome to such an extent that we can make fun of it by dressing up as ghosts and goblins!

So where do we go with that hope? What do we do with it? How do we communicate it? And who will go with us? Stay tuned....