All posts by Miranda Hassett

Spiritual Practices, Worship

The Lord’s Prayer: Unity, not uniformity

What a difference a word makes when it’s a word you’ve known your whole life long. There is something extra-confusing about saying something where *most* of the words are familiar… but just enough are different to trip you up. Like, for example, “sins” instead of “trespasses.” (Or even “debts”!) Yes, I’m talking about how we say the Lord’s Prayer – the prayer Jesus offered as an example, when one of his disciples asked him how they should pray (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4).

At St. Dunstan’s, since I came to be your rector, we have used the contemporary Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father in Heaven…”). As liturgical leader, I have made that choice because the modern language makes the meaning of the prayer a little bit clearer for a child or someone brand-new to the church and its distinctive language. We don’t use “art” for “is” or “thy” for “your” in daily speech, so while that old-fashioned language is satisfying and beautiful in its own way, it can be disorienting and confusing.

Believe me: I don’t for a moment believe that the traditional-language Lord’s Prayer is dead – or wish it to be. It’s the one I learned as a child, immersed in the liturgy of the Episcopal Church, and I appreciate the grace of its language. I happily use it at weddings, funerals, and in hospital rooms – because in a mixed crowd, it’s the most familiar, and because it’s the version most people my age and older learned as children, and so it’s the version deepest in our hearts and memories.

There are parishes where they switch versions with the season – for instance, they might use the traditional language in Lent, and the modern language in Easter. I have never thought that sounded like a helpful approach; instead it sounds to me like a recipe for confusion. Many of us carry both versions in our heads, but more or less manage to pick one and stick with it, once we’ve gotten as far as, “Our Father, who art…” or “Our Father in…” I fear that alternating which version we’re using would have the effect of muddling up the versions in our heads and making it even harder to start one and follow through!

But this fall we’re trying out a different kind of muddle. The inspiration came from a couple of different places. One was my experience last summer of the liturgies at General Convention, the Episcopal Church’s great gathering of the tribes in Salt Lake City. In the daily Eucharists there, we were invited to pray the Lord’s Prayer “in the language of our hearts.” That meant that people in that giant roomful of worshippers were praying in both English versions, and in many other languages and versions. Offered that freedom, I myself tend to pray the New Zealand version that begins, “Loving God, may your name be held holy and your kingdom come!…”  My experience of those moments was that instead of the familiar rhythm of many voices saying the same thing the same way, I was paradoxically both more tuned in to my own prayer – thinking the words, meaning them – and more aware of all those voices around me, praying the same thing in beautifully different ways.

The second source of inspiration is our middle school youth group. In their weekly practice of saying Compline (BCP p. 127) together at the end of a Friday night of movies, pizza, and games, they’ve developed a preference for the traditional-language Lord’s Prayer. Several of them have a habit of sitting together in the front row at church on Sundays – and when I’m celebrating at the altar, I can hear them praying with the traditional language, as everyone else uses the modern language version printed in the booklet.

So in planning our autumn worship, I thought, Why do we all need to use the same version at the same time? Everyone here either has a version of this prayer engraved on their heart already – or is ready to choose a version and do the work of memorizing it. It doesn’t matter to me, and it most certainly doesn’t matter to God, which version you pray. Some might pray it in a language other than English – the language of your first family, or of a country you love. Some might pray it in a version that translates the Gospel’s Greek rendering of Jesus’ Aramaic words into English in a different way, as does the New Zealand version. Some might pray in silence, the prayer of the heart. We don’t need uniformity in prayer to have unity in prayer.

So this fall I invite all of us to pray the Lord’s Prayer in the language of our hearts. It will sound and feel different. I invite you to try it out. We’re printing both the traditional and modern language Prayer Book versions in the booklet, but by all means, look farther afield if you are so moved. Find (or create) another version of this simple, ancient, encompassing, gracious prayer. And let’s pray in unity of spirit, and diversity of voice.

Current Events, Sermons

Sermon, Sept. 4

Months ago – around the time the Supreme Court unexpectedly dropped to eight members – somebody out there commented that it appears to be the final season of America. Not in the apocalyptic sense, but in the television sense. America in 2016 feels like a TV show in its final days, in which the producers are throwing in all kinds of unlikely and bizarre plot twists, that strain our suspension of disbelief and our capacity to care about what happens to the main characters, and have caused many folks to tune out entirely.

Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that our current national roller-coaster ride is in fact being created or manipulated by some shadowy interest group. But unlike most of the swirling conspiracy theories, the fatigue, confusion, and frustration many of us feel are very real. This is a tough time. A lot of issues feel polarized and charged right now – not only, but especially, around this year’s presidential election. People on both the left and the right feel conflicted about their own votes, and struggle with the uncomfortable fact that even people who share our convictions and hopes are considering casting their votes differently, in ways that could have huge consequences for our republic and our common good.

What I’m trying to say is that 2016 has been a heck of a year for arguing with strangers on the Internet. Right? Because we’re all anxious, and conflicted, and scared, so we get shouty; but we don’t want to get shouty with people we know, with co-workers or friends or family. The Internet seems like a safe outlet – but then the rage and poisonous hate-speech online becomes its own toxic feedback loop and spills back over into real life.

Into the midst of that, on this Sunday 64 days out from Election Day, comes the Letter to Philemon. Philemon is one of the shortest books in the Bible. It’s a letter, written by the apostle Paul – there’s a broad consensus that this really is Paul’s voice. Paul is writing from prison, during one of his several incarcerations. He’s writing to a man named Philemon, who was a wealthy church leader in the church in Colossae. Philemon hosted a church community in his home. Paul is writing to Philemon about Onesimus. Onesimus used to be Philemon’s slave. Slavery was very common in the ancient world. Onesimus was likely a household slave of some sort. His name is Greek – it means “useful”. That sounds like a name he was given by a master, rather than a parent.

Onesimus might have been born into slavery, or sold into slavery because of poverty or debts. He might have a native of the region, or he or his parents might have come from the edges of the empire as spoils of conquest – Africa, Germany, Britain. You can picture Onesimus with almost any color skin or hair. But picture him as a young man, because of the way he becomes like a son to Paul. And picture him as unhappy or angry in his slavery, unhappy or angry enough to run away, despite the fact that the punishment for runaway slaves could include anything from a severe beating to execution. We don’t know how Onesimus connected with Paul. Maybe he had had met Paul in the past, and sought him out; maybe Onesimus was captured and imprisoned, and met Paul there.

The situation Paul is writing about is unfamiliar to us. But what Paul is doing here is actually quite familiar. He is talking with a friend or acquaintance about an area of disagreement, on which they both feel strongly. Some of us dive into conversations like that on Facebook or email or in person, on a daily basis. Some of us avoid them entirely, but write whole volumes in our heads of what we *would* say if we did speak up. But we’re all familiar with this kind of writing and speaking.  And Paul’s careful, wise work here might actually give us some encouragement for having those difficult but important conversations face to face, with people we know, instead of shouting at strangers on the Internet or holding our fearful and angry thoughts within, where they eat away at us until we disconnect or explode. So let’s look at what Paul does, step by step.

Step zero: He probably thought for a good long while about how to address this awkward situation. Consider how difficult and delicate this was for Paul: Onesimus has come to him, learned from him, become a Christian, and a dear friend, like a son to Paul, who never had biological children. BUT by right of law, Onesimus belongs to Philemon, a wealthy and influential church leader, who has every reason to punish Onesimus – and blame Paul. Onesimus probably really didn’t want to go back to Philemon. But for Paul to say to Onesimus, “Go on your way, forget your master, you are free in Christ now,” would burn bridges Paul can’t afford to burn – not only with Philemon but with any wealthy slave-owning person who might otherwise be sympathetic to the Christian faith. According to the ethics of his time and place, but also very much according to his pragmatic desire to build the Christian movement, Paul needs to make things right with Philemon somehow. But he also cares for Onesimus’ welfare and future.

Paul might have taken some counsel from today’s Gospel, in which Jesus says that following him fully may sometimes lead to strained or broken relationships. (As I said a couple of weeks ago: Niceness is a not a Christian virtue.) Jesus goes on to offer a couple of images: a person building a tower, a king going to war. In both cases, he says, it’s wise to go into the endeavor with a realistic idea of what it could actually cost you. Discipleship, living our lives as followers of Jesus, at certain moments can be a costly and demanding project. Paul, facing one such moment, undoubtedly took some time to calculate the risks and plan his approach.

When we’re facing conversation across differences, taking time to think and pray and plan, and reflect on the concerns and experiences we bring to the table, can be really helpful.

Step one: Paul engages with a friend – or at least an acquaintance whom he addresses as a friend. He undertakes this difficult conversation about the intersection of faith and life with someone to whom he’s already connected – not some stranger from the Internet, but a person who has some reason to listen and care what Paul thinks. And he begins – and ends – by affirming the relationship, alluding both to his friendship with Philemon and to the wider web of relationships that bind them together. Verses 1 through 3: “From Paul, who is a prisoner for the cause of Christ Jesus, and our brother Timothy, to Philemon our dearly loved coworker,  Apphia our sister, Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church that meets in your house. May the grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” And at the very end, verses 23 to 25: “Epaphras, who is in prison with me for the cause of Christ Jesus, greets you, as well as my coworkers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

When we’re facing conversation across differences, reminding ourselves that we’re connected by the bonds of friendship and community, and care about each other, can be really important.

Step two. Paul addresses Philemon on the basis of what they share, as followers of Jesus. In what Martin Luther once called “holy flattery,” Paul affirms their common framework, their shared hopes and commitments, and reminds Philemon of what a good Christian he is, before, during, and after talking about their awkward area of difference: Paul sees Onesimus as a beloved son, Philemon sees him as a runaway slave. Listen to Paul’s words as he reminds a wealthy man with a grievance of their shared faith in Jesus (verses 4 – 7): “Philemon, I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers because I’ve heard of your love and faithfulness, which you have both for the Lord Jesus and for all God’s people. I pray that your partnership in the faith might become effective by an understanding of all that is good among us in Christ. I have great joy and encouragement because of your love, since the hearts of God’s people are refreshed by your actions, my brother…”

And then a few verses later, when Paul comes to the big ask – that Philemon welcome, forgive, and free Onesimus – he again talks about the kinship in Christ that he, Philemon, and Onesimus share: “Onesimus is a dearly loved brother to me. How much more can he become a brother to you, personally and spiritually in the Lord.”

When we’re facing conversation across differences, grounding our conversation in the values and hopes we hold in common can help us stay connected even when we’re disagreeing, and keep our eyes on the bigger picture.

Step three. Paul is dealing here with a specific, concrete issue. I think it’s really important that we have some clarity on the ethics of the Kingdom of God, in which we are called to citizenship – big complicated holy demanding words like liberation, justice, mercy. But conversations across differences tend to be most fruitful when we can talk about something real and immediate.  Elsewhere in his letters to the young churches, Paul gestures towards a position that slavery has no place among Christians – since we become a new community in Christ in which there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female (Gal 3:28). One imagines that that passage might really get Philemon’s hackles up.

Paul knows this isn’t the context for that kind of language. He doesn’t write to Philemon to say, “Listen, now that you’re a Christian, I think you should consider freeing all your slaves. It’s what Jesus would want.” Instead he writes to Philemon with a very specific request: Receive Onesimus back into your household as a brother in Christ. Listen to Paul’s appeal to Philemon. Notice how he plays up the fact that he’s old, and in prison; how he calls Onesimus “child,” “brother,” and “my own heart” – and the puns on Onesimus’ name (verses 11 – 16): “I, Paul—an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus— appeal to you for my child Onesimus. I became his father in the faith during my time in prison. He was useless to you before, but now he is useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, which is like sending you my own heart…. Maybe this is the reason that Onesimus was separated from you for a while so that you might have him back forever— no longer as a slave but more than a slave—that is, as a dearly loved brother.”

Do I wish Paul had handled this differently? Sure! His tactful and deferential approach to the issue of slavery here helped Christians justify slavery for centuries. Both opponents and supporters of slavery appealed to this letter to support their positions during 18th and 19th century debates over slavery. I wish Paul had said more plainly what I believe he believed: that slavery was wrong, was a violation of the humanity of a child of God, a person for whom Christ died. Paul is compromising here, and it’s a compromise that we may, rightly, find unsatisfactory.

But Paul was trying to spread Christianity in a hostile world. He needed wealthy people to support the movement, for it to have chance to grow and spread. I’m sure he was anxious about alienating the wealthy, many of whom would have owned slaves. Having the elite classes decide that Christianity wasn’t for them, and was, in fact, rather troublesome, could have been terrible for the young churches.

You can look at Paul’s appeal to Philemon as letting temporal concerns constrain the truth of the Gospel. I think that’s a fair assessment. You can look at Paul’s appeal to Philemon as a strategic foot-in-the-door approach, based on a calculation that if Paul can get Philemon to follow the implications of his faith in this one instance, other ripple effects may follow. I think that’s a fair assessment too.

When we’re facing conversation across differences, it’s often helpful to focus on something specific and concrete, instead of hypotheticals or big abstract principals. Turns out the big abstract principals are embedded in the specific and the concrete, anyway.  Focusing on the particular – a situation, a policy – gives us the best chance to have our facts straight – and not only our facts but also our thoughts and feelings. And the best chance to be able to understand the other’s perspective and perhaps come to a common understanding, even if we still ultimately draw different conclusions.

Step four. Paul trusts Philemon with the outcome of this conversation. This is a hard one for me: if I’m going to try to change someone’s mind, I want to succeed. But Paul leaves this decision in Philemon’s hands.

Paul is pushy in this letter, no question. He is quite clear about what he thinks Philemon should do. But he doesn’t threaten him or order him – in fact, he makes a point of asking instead of commanding (vs. 8-9): “Though I have enough confidence in Christ to command you to do the right thing, I would rather appeal to you through love….” A few verses later he says that he considered just keeping Onesimus with him, but that he didn’t want to take the opportunity to make a righteous choice away from Philemon: “I didn’t want to do anything without your consent, so that your act of kindness would occur willingly and not under pressure.”

Now, “not under pressure” is a bit rich – Paul does pressure Philemon. He tells him how much he could gain by having Onesimus as a brother in Christ instead of a slave; he promises to pay back any money Onesimus owes to Philemon, whether from theft or the price of a slave’s freedom (verses 18-19) – and offers this little gem: “Of course, I won’t mention that you owe me your life.” And he hints that Philemon should expect Paul to visit soon, and see with his own eyes whether Philemon has received Onesimus in accordance with Paul’s hopes: “Also, one more thing—prepare a guest room for me.”

Paul is unabashed in asking Philemon to change his heart, to forgive and forget his grievance against Onesimus – in verses 20 – 21 he writes, “Yes, brother, I want this favor from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. I’m writing to you, confident of your obedience and knowing that you will do more than what I ask.”

Paul is pushy, here. But he puts the outcome in Philemon’s hands in a very real way: He sends this letter with Onesimus. Or rather – he sends Onesimus with this letter. Consider the alternative: he could have corresponded with Philemon first, keeping Onesimus with him until he knew how this would go. Until he had a promise of safe return for this young man he has come to love so dearly.

But he doesn’t do that. He says his piece, and he puts the whole matter in Philemon’s hands, entrusts it to Philemon’s conscience. Again, we might question Paul’s choice here – if the gambit had failed, Onesimus would have borne the greatest cost. But sending Onesimus with the letter, instead of writing first, seems like a strategic demonstration of confidence in Philemon. Paul is saying with his actions, I know you’re going to do the right thing.

And it worked. We know it worked, because we have the letter. This was private correspondence, unlike Paul’s other letters, written to be read aloud in a community setting. If Philemon hadn’t responded to Paul’s appeal, surely this letter would have just been burned or thrown away. Instead it was preserved by Philemon’s family and church, passed down until it became part of the canon of Scripture. I believe that could only have happened if Philemon did was Paul asked: welcomed Onesimus as a brother in Christ. Philemon must have shared the letter. And if he shared the letter, surely he shared it as part of explaining why he was going to free Onesimus, rather than punishing him.

While the letter gives us a glimpse of the story, with no clear ending, I believe grace triumphed here. I believe liberation, justice, and mercy were lived out, in this particular situation.

When we’re facing conversation across differences, it helps a lot to respect the intellect and conscience of the other person. It’s so easy to forget this – especially on the Internet, but in person too – but very few of us are actually monsters. Very few of the people who live and vote and think differently from you actually wake up in the morning with the intention to hurt people and ruin the world. Coming to those difficult conversations with curiosity about how that person came to see things the way they do, will get us a lot farther than assuming they’re simply wrongheaded and evil.

Trusting the other person’s intellect and conscience also means these conversations take time. It means letting your conversation partner think about it, giving them time and space to change. Trusting the other person’s intellect and conscience also means being open the possibility that I might have some thinking to do, and maybe even some changing to do, as well.

It’s not really the final season of America. I have too much faith in God, and in us, to believe that. But it’s a complicated, charged season in the life of our country, to be sure. Hard conversations across differences are always possible, and right now they feel probable, or even inevitable. And not just around the election and the candidates, but around all kinds of things. On my Facebook wall, they’re usually public schools and/or systemic racism. In church, we sometimes run into moments when people’s hopes and priorities differ, and have to be reconciled. On this Labor Day weekend I note our lively national conversation about a just and livable economy for working people. There’s lots to disagree about. We are passionate people!

I’m grateful for Paul’s voice in Philemon, in this season. For the reminder to think before I speak. To have real conversations with real people. To affirm what we share, even in disagreement. To stay focused, and to respect my conversation partner. And – but – above all, to have those necessary hard conversations, with faithfulness, humility, and courage.

Current Events, Sermons

Sermon, August 21

I looked at these readings and started thinking about them before taking a week’s vacation. Maybe laying down my priest identity for a while let my anthropologist identity come to the fore, because when I came back to actually write this sermon, I found I wanted to lead you in a bit of a word study. The word is, Nice.

Nice is a very anthropologically interesting word. Its most familiar/common meaning, what you’d probably say if I asked you, is something like agreeable, pleasant, friendly. But Nice is also a word we use to police behavior. To nudge one another towards following cultural and social expectations. Nice comes into play a lot in talk about gender norms – Nice girls don’t dress like that, or talk in a loud voice, or have strong opinions.

Nice comes into play when we talk about tradition and the way things are done. My favorite example comes from the film Bend it Like Beckham, or rather, from a little bonus video on the DVD of the film, in which the director, Gurinder Chadha, cooks several Indian dishes in her own kitchen under the supervision of her very traditional Indian mother and aunt. They disapprove of many of her choices as she cooks, telling her, if you chop the onions that way, “It won’t be nice.”

Nice comes into play when we talk about social order and appropriate behavior. It isn’t nice to make a fuss, to rock the boat, to be disruptive. It isn’t nice to say things that make people feel bad, or uncomfortable, or guilty. It certainly isn’t nice to disrupt business or traffic.

Niceness is very much in the eye of the beholder. One person’s “not nice” is another person’s heroic or prophetic. The Montgomery bus boycott was certainly not nice, in the eyes of the racist white society that it challenged. It was not nice to throw crates of perfectly good tea into Boston Harbor – think of the waste! the environmental impact! – and yet we regard the folks who did that not as punks but as patriots.

Anthropologically speaking, niceness about much more than being polite or friendly. It’s a word we use to maintain boundaries of respectability, police social norms, express disapproval of the inconvenient, messy, or disruptive. Back in 1964, Malvina Reynolds wrote a song called “It isn’t nice.” (By the way, Malvina was born 116 years ago this Tuesday – which means she was in her 60s when she was writing and performing various anthems of the civil rights movement!…)

The song says, “It isn’t nice to block the doorway, it isn’t nice to go to to jail. … There are nicer ways to do it, but the nice ways always fail. It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice, you told us once, you told us twice, but if that is Freedom’s price, we don’t mind. It isn’t nice to carry banners, or to sit in on the floor, or to shout our cry for freedom at the hotel and the store… It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice, you told us once, you told us twice, but if that is Freedom’s price, we don’t mind.”

This song, “It isn’t nice” has been stuck in my head this week – in part because this is the “It isn’t nice” Gospel. Jesus is teaching in a synagogue, a local place of worship. And a woman comes into the synagogue, who is crippled, bent over, with some disabling illness. And Jesus sees her and calls her over, and lays hands on her and heals her, And she stands up straight – that must have felt so good – and begins to praise God. Not “thank you God” but HALLELUJAH THANK YOU JESUS THANK YOU!

And then… the leader of the synagogue – my brother across the ages – starts to complain about what has happened. Here’s where Niceness comes into it. It isn’t nice to bother the Rabbi while he’s teaching. it isn’t nice to cure on the sabbath and disrupt our orderly worship. It isn’t nice for a woman to start loudly and emotionally praising God in the middle of the men’s nice intellectual conversation about Scripture.

Luke describes the leader as “indignant.” That’s how we feel when niceness is violated. When people do things that aren’t appropriate – respectful – nice. And he uses a word we use when our sense of niceness is violated: “Ought”. He can’t quite say that he’s sorry she was healed, so instead he criticizes how it happened: There are six days on which work ought to be done! She ought to have come on one of those days!

But Jesus “ought”s right back at him, makes one woman’s ailment a matter of historic, cosmic, and ethical significance: “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice, you told us once, you told us twice, but if that is freedom’s price, we don’t mind.

Now I’m going to tell you something really important. I learned this from a mentor back in the Diocese of New Hampshire, and I think of it often. Here it is: Niceness is not a Christian virtue.

Niceness is not a Christian virtue.

Now, some of the things we think we mean by niceness ARE Christian virtues. Mercy IS a Christian virtue. Compassion. Generosity. But not niceness. My friend in New Hampshire suggested that we work on substituting kindness for niceness. Kindness: a more everyday way of talking about mercy, about compassion, about caring for the welfare of our neighbor.

Kindness and niceness are superficially similar. In some situations the kind action and the nice action may be the same. But in other situations, they might not be. Because kindness is always concerned with the good of the other, full stop. And niceness … wants everyone to feel good, but also wants things to be nice.

Kindness was Jesus healing that woman as soon as he saw her. Niceness is what the synagogue leader wanted: Just come back tomorrow, this isn’t a good time. Niceness bundles up kindness with a bunch of other things – respectability and appropriateness and comfort – that the witness of Scripture tells us God is not very interested in. That, in fact, more often seem to come between us and God, between us and righteousness, than otherwise.

Niceness is not a Christian virtue. Prophets, saints, and Jesus himself have often been told their actions and words weren’t nice. Look at poor Jeremiah, called to prophesy as a young boy. His protest in today’s passage is because he knows he will not be well received. It is not nice for a young man – a boy – to go to his elders, religious and political leaders, and tell them they’re all wrong and that God’s judgment is coming to them. Not nice at all. But it’s what God is doing.

Because, in the vision of our Hebrews text, God is both a God of joy and generosity – of a heavenly city with its streets thronging with a perpetual angel festival, a God who bestows upon us freely the gift of a kingdom that cannot be shaken – and – and – a God who demands our reverence and awe, a God who is indeed a consuming fire. Consuming fires don’t care about nice.

The problem of this Gospel story for us – the story of the woman healed on the Sabbath – is how to read it so that it challenges us, instead of just making us feel smug. It’s too easy for us to read this story and simply think, Well, duh, compassion should win over pious rigidity. The synagogue leader was wrong wrong wrong.

Listen: the Sabbath was the heart of Jewish piety, one of the core practices that set the Jews apart from the society around them. The Sabbath honored God, provided rest for workers, meant time for family and song and prayer and play. Can anybody tell me you wouldn’t love to have one day a week in which you were not allowed to do any work? At all? There is nothing to sneer at about Sabbath observance.

And yet – it’s clear that the synagogue leader is mis-applying his piety. His sense of religious niceness keeps him from fully witnessing another’s pain, and fully rejoicing in another’s freedom. I believe the challenge this story has for us is to pay attention to the places where niceness, a human virtue, might be building a nice white picket fence around our capacity to exercise the holy virtues of mercy, generosity, and justice. Where our “niceness” glasses make it hard for us to see what God is doing. Or… to look at what humans are doing, with God’s eyes. This story asks us, Where might God’s purposes be in tension with our sense of order and propriety? And that should be an uncomfortable question.

My friend L and his teenage son are losing their apartment. They’ve been in this place for five years. He hasn’t always gotten the rent in right on time, but he’s been a good tenant. No trouble. But a new company has bought up his building – has bought up a whole chunk of the southwest side, in fact, about ten blocks south of the Hassett home. This has been one of the few neighborhoods in Madison where folks with lousy credit history could find a place to live. A lot of poor veterans were housed there; L was one of them. Most of the residents were African-American or Latino. For many of these households, losing these apartments means they are at risk of long-term homelessness. There simply may not be anywhere else.

The new company is moving folks along because it has a very different vision for this neighborhood. Madison’s housing crisis means that it can be a very lucrative proposition to turn over rental housing from low-income tenants to young middle-class tenants. Between the university and Epic, demand – and rents – are high. Back in early June there was a story in the Wisconsin State Journal about this new company and its lead investor, and what they’re doing to L’s neighborhood. The article talks about one woman in particular, named Myra. She’s African-American, 62 years old, with some health problems. The head of the company called her situation “heartbreaking,” and said, “She’s like the freakin’ model tenant.” And yet, when her lease was reviewed to see if she could stay, the answer was that she did not meet their new criteria, and would have to move out. The reason given was that her grandchildren act unruly when they visit.

This wasn’t an entirely nice neighborhood, sure. There’s no question in my mind that it’ll be nicer, once the apartments all have new paint, and new appliances, and new young mostly-white tenants with full-time jobs and great credit histories. But will it be kinder?

I was talking with L about losing his home one day, and I was just thinking about him and his son, where they would go, whether they would be OK, but he started talking about his downstairs neighbor, an older lady who lived alone. He said that when his anxiety started to get too high, about money, about taking care of his son, whatever, he would pace, and she would hear him, and call him downstairs, and talk to him, and help him calm down. She’s being moved on too. All of them are. All of the folks who managed to make homes here, to make community here, in spite of peeling paint and late rents and litter.

What’s happening to L’s neighborhood will make it nicer. But it is not kind.

It’s easy to read this Gospel story, this moment that pits kindness against niceness, and feel a little smug. Feel like we’re securely in Jesus’s corner. We know that healing is more important than decorum. That freedom from bondage matters more than an orderly meeting that sticks to the agenda. We can send a contingent to the PRIDE parade, we can have thoughtful conversations about race and poverty. Well and good.

But, friends, the only reason we can feel smug, receiving this story, is that the niceness that matters to this synagogue leader is not the niceness that matters to us. The things that feel right, and orderly, and appropriate, and familiar, and proper, and safe, to him, are different from the things that feel that way to us. But we have those things. We have our nicenesses, too. And when our sense of nice is threatened, we get indignant. We start saying “ought.”

I think that instead of smugness, this Gospel story invites us into ongoing mild discomfort. The discomfort of realizing that our sense of Nice – and we’re Midwesterners; we’re big on Nice! – does not reliably track with God’s priorities. When something disturbs us, makes us uneasy or indignant, in our daily life or in our wider civic scene, this Gospel urges us to ask ourselves: Does it disturb me because it’s unkind? unjust? unloving? unmerciful? God cares about that, and so should we. Or it disturb us because it’s not nice? Because it violates our sense of respectability, order, and appropriateness?

And if after all it is our sense of nice that’s being challenged – then I think it’s incumbent upon us to hold that lightly. Because niceness can lead us astray. What Would Jesus Do? really can be a helpful question – as long as we remember that Jesus of the Gospels was almost unfailingly kind, but rarely bothered with nice.

Far from an invitation to smugness, this Gospel asks us, Where in our lives, in our world, might God’s holy purposes of healing and freeing from bondage be in tension with our sense of order and propriety? And that is an uncomfortable question.

Sermons, Stories

Sermon, August 14

The Rev. Thomas McAlpine preached this sermon, as the second of two sermons based on the Book of Tobit.  This year St Dunstan’s developed its Vacation Bible School around the Book of Tobit and the two Sundays after VBS bumped the normal Old Testament readings to continue the focus. 

Readings: Tobit 14:3-4a, 5-8; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

How do you live when you’re off the map?

Moses had provided a pretty clear map: live righteously and you’ll prosper in the land; live unrighteously and you’ll lose the land. But when you’re off the land through no particular fault of your own, what then? So it’s not surprising that we encounter a number of stories about that in the Old Testament: Joseph (minus his technicolor dreamcoat) in Egypt, Esther in Persia, Tobit in Assyria. The Joseph and Esther stories have a certain fairy-tale quality to them: Joseph becomes the #2 man in Egypt; Esther wins the beauty contest and marries the king. Tobit, after achieving some success in exile, gets bird poop in his eyes and goes blind, the loss which kicks off the main story in the book that eventually results in Tobit regaining his sight.

How do you live when you’re off the map? In addition to telling us a rollicking good story, complete with a carnivorous fish, a damsel in distress, and an angel in disguise, the book gives serious attention to that question. This morning we’ll look at two elements in its answer: bless God and give alms.

Bless God

God blessing us: we’re used to that idea. In the catholic (small c) tradition we believe that priestly ordination authorizes the priest to convey God’s blessing to us, and so we leave each Mass with “the blessing of God Almighty” ringing in our ears and working its way into our very selves. Scripture takes blessing as a given and so doesn’t define it. An approximate definition might include God’s presence, God’s generosity, health, fertility, success in ways designed to benefit us and those around us.

That’s important in Tobit. But Tobit focuses on our blessing God. We heard it in our first reading: “to be mindful of God and to bless his name at all times with sincerity and with all their strength.” It shows up at the beginning of some well-known psalms (Ps 103, 104). What’s that about? It’s like praise, but more oriented to the future: God’s reign really is beautiful; may it grow and expand! It’s like thanksgiving, but not tied to something specific I’ve or we’ve received.

We Christians haven’t done much with this, but our Jewish brothers and sisters have, and their practice might enrich ours. A Jewish prayer book puts it this way: “A berachah acknowledges God as the “Source” of whatever we eat or enjoy, or whatever natural marvels excite our awe.… The blessing makes us conscious that nothing in nature is to be taken for granted…”

So there’s a blessing before drinking wine or grape juice: Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

One for seeing beautiful trees or animals: Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, who has such as these in His world.

One for hearing good news: Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, who is good and beneficent.

One for hearing bad news: Blessed are You, the Lord our God, King of the universe, the true judge.

You get the idea. For the vision behind the practice we might look to Psalm 19. It starts:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows his handiwork.

It continues in this vein for a number of lines. The heavens clearly their act together. What about us? Notice how the psalm ends:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Blessing God is one of the quite lovely ways this can play out.

One more thing about this before I move on. Part of most people’s consciousness is this running series of responses that plays as a sort of sound track throughout the day, approving of this, disapproving of that, being anxious about this, being relieved about that. The practice of blessing God can be part of that running series, helping our responses to be more mindful, more realistic, perhaps less anxious.

Give alms

We heard that in our first reading too: “Your children are also to be commanded to do what is right and to give alms…”

What’s that about? In the last month or so our first reading has been from the prophets, Amos and Hosea. In coming weeks we’ll get a good dose of Jeremiah. And one of the primary prophetic themes is God’s passionate concern for the poor, God’s anger at how the poor are getting crushed. That anger explains why Tobit is in exile in Nineveh rather than home in the Upper Galilee. And the prophets were speaking directly to the folk in power, the folk who could do something about it:

Cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isa 1:16b-17 NRS)

But in exile, or in the bowels of some foreign empire the possibilities for doing something about it are severely limited, so God’s passionate concern for the poor translates into the repeated exhortation to give alms. Give, that is, to those at the bottom, to those who have no realistic prospect of paying you back or returning the favor.

The language for this practice is important: that “give alms” that we heard could be translated more literally as “do mercy.” “Doing mercy” is, of course, broader than giving alms, and in Tobit includes Tobit’s dangerous practice of burying discarded bodies. But “doing mercy” often, from context, means “giving alms” and that’s important because it connects the mercy we hope to receive from God with the mercy we’re exhorted to show to those who need it.

Being in exile makes it difficult to follow the Law’s commands regarding gifts for the sanctuary. And in exile the faithful connect those commands with almsgiving. So earlier in Tobit we hear Tobit tell his son Tobias: “Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practice it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.” (4:11)

This shows up in other writings of this period (Sirach), and lies behind some of Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Mat 6:19-20)

We, probably, are at a point somewhere between the prophets’ audience and Tobit’s audience. We have some power to “do something about it” with regard to the condition of the poor, and to that degree we need to listen to the prophets. But we often don’t have the power to do much, and to that degree we need to listen to Tobit, and pay attention to whether some of our resources are going into mercy, helping those in no position to return the favor. So Tobit is, alas, not particularly helpful for a capital gifts campaign, but very relevant when we pass the plate for the Middleton Outreach Ministry.

Bless God & Give alms

How do you live when you’re off the map? Bless God and give alms.

Looking at these two themes we might think of them as pointing to the twin virtues of gratitude and generosity. I could go on about this for a good stretch, but I’ll leave that for you in the coming week. Notice how many elements in our culture work against any sense of gratitude. Notice how nurturing gratitude, also through the practice of blessing God, helps us see our world more clearly. Notice how gratitude, in turn, frees us for generosity. The world is not zero-sum. God continually drenches the world with gifts. All of us have the privilege of blessing God for it, and mirroring God’s generosity in our own.

The privilege, that is, of doing so with Tobit and Anna, Raguel and Edna, Tobias and Sarah. And that’s not bad company.

Uncategorized

Sermon, August 7

IMG_6078Welcome to Tobit. Some of us have been eating, sleeping, and breathing Tobit for weeks now, or months, as we prepared for our Evening Bible & Arts Camp, which ran its course this past week. Some of us have dipped into it a little – coming to a Bible study or an art workshop, or just browsing the book on your own time. Some of us have still barely heard the name. Which is fine. Most Christians have never heard of Tobit. But today, and next Sunday, we’re going to fill you in. I can almost guarantee you that St. Dunstan’s will soon be the most Tobit-literate congregation in the Episcopal Church, maybe in the whole United States.

Tobit is found in a part of the Bible called the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha is a set of books written later than most of the Old Testament – within the last few hundred years before the birth of Christ – and written in Greek, rather than Hebrew. Protestant churches by and large treat the Apocrypha as a secondary kind of Scripture. It’s not included in most Protestant Bibles, including the ones we have around here. These books are more likely to be found in Roman Catholic Bibles, and study Bibles often include them in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments – so that if your church teaches that they’re not really Scripture, you can easily skip them! We Anglicans have treated them as a sort of secondary Scripture, of historical meaning, not excluded from our study of the Bible but not included on equal terms, either. The Revised Common Lectionary, the calendar of Sunday Scripture readings that we share with many other churches, includes a few Apocryphal texts – but nothing from Tobit, though there is a Tobit passage listed in the readings appropriate for weddings – Phil and I used it in ours, actually!

I first encountered the Book of Tobit, not in church, but in a religious studies course at Indiana University, during my senior year of college. The course focused on Last Words in ancient texts. The wisdom and moral guidance that people pass on when they’re anticipating death. The Book of Tobit was an obvious choice because Tobit gives a Last Words speech to his son Tobias TWICE – once early in the book, when Tobit has prayed to God for relief from his suffering and anticipates that God will take him soon; and once at the end of the book, at the actual end of his life.

Reading the Book of Tobit for class, I discovered a rollicking, engaging story. It was a lot of fun to read and talk about. I remembered it. And fifteen-plus years later, as a priest, rector of a parish, helping run summer programs for kids, Tobit floated back into my mind. I thought, this would be a great book to explore with kids. It has two young protagonists, no older than their early teens. It has a demon, and an angel in disguise. It has fish guts and bird poop. What more could you ask for?

Now, for those of you who haven’t read it yet – well, you should; there’s a link to an online version on our website, and the people who have read it this summer have told me, It’s actually really interesting and easy to read! But you can’t read it right this second, so with a little help, I’ll give you a very basic outline of the story.

Tobit was a righteous man, a Jew, who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, in the chaotic years just before the Assyrian conquest. He did all the things he was supposed to do, as a faithful Jew, even though most of the people around him didn’t care about following God anymore. He had a wife, Anna, and a son, Tobias, and he was reasonably well-off, wealthy enough to make generous gifts to the Temple. Then the Assyrians conquered Israel, and the family lost everything except each other. They were dragged off to live in exile in the city of Nineveh. It was a terrible time. Many Jews living there died of starvation or were killed by Assyrian masters. And Tobit would bury their bodies, even though he was forbidden from doing so by the ruler.

One night the family managed to scrape together an especially nice meal, and Tobit said to his son Tobias, Go out and find one of of our people in the street, somebody who’s hungry and in need, and call them in to share this meal with us. Tobias went out and instead of finding a guest, he found another dead body in the street. He rushed home and said, “‘Look, father, one of our own people has been murdered and thrown into the market-place, and now he lies there strangled.’ Tobit leapt up and rushed to recover the body. He wept for the misfortune of his people. And after sunset, he snuck out to bury this nameless victim. When he came back, he lay down to sleep in the courtyard of his home, so as not to disturb his family. And while he was sleeping, bird droppings fell in his eyes from sparrows nesting nearby, and caused him to become blind.

So Tobit became blind. And this misfortune on top of all the others was more than he could bear. He became bitter and angry. Finally on one especially awful day, he yelled at his wife Anna, who was working so hard to care for the family. And when Tobit realized how he was acting, he fell on his knees and asked God to set him free from his suffering, saying, “Command, O Lord, that I be released from this distress; release me to go to the eternal home… For it is better for me to die than to see so much distress in my life.” (3:6)

Now, at that very same moment, somebody else was also praying to God and asking to be set free from suffering. In another city, a young woman named Srah was in terrible trouble. She had been married seven times, but she was persecuted by a demon, who killed every bridegroom on their wedding night. People were fearful and suspicious of her, and there seemed to be no hope. Sarah was just as miserable as Tobit. She had even thought about killing herself, but she knew how terrible that would be for her parents. So instead, she asked God to set her free from her hopeless situation and the cruel words of others. She prayed, “Lord, I turn my face to you, and raise my eyes towards you. Command that I be released from the earth and not listen to such reproaches any more.”

And God heard these prayers, Tobit’s prayer and Sarah’s prayer, and God decided it was time to sort things out. Tobit expected to die, because he had prayed for death. So he sent his son Tobias on a journey. Tobit had a cousin in another city, far away, who was keeping some money for Tobit. Tobias would retrieve the money, and it would help him and Anna to survive once Tobit was gone. But the journey was long, and Tobias was still young; so he needed a companion. Almost as soon as he looked for a companion, he found this man named Azariah (so he said), who knew the way, and even knew Tobit’s cousin, and was eager to help out Tobias. Azariah was actually the angel Raphael in disguise, sent by God!

So Tobias and Raphael the angel in disguise set out. Along the way they stop to rest beside a river. Tobias went to wash his feet, and a giant fish jumped out and tried to eat his foot! They managed to catch the fish, and Raphael told Tobias to gut the fish and keep its heart, liver, and gall, which could be useful to drive away demons and to cure blindness.

So they go on their way again, with the fish guts. And Raphael tells Tobias about this young woman, Sarah. He says, She is sensible, brave, and very beautiful. (In that order.) And she is a distant cousin to Tobias, which in those days was the kind of person you were supposed to marry. Tobias says, I’ve heard of her; don’t all her husbands die? And Raphael says, Don’t you worry about that. Remember the magical powers of fish guts. We’ll be staying at their house tonight. I think she would be a perfect wife for you.

So they come to Sarah’s house. Sarah’s parents are delighted to meet them! The young people, Tobias and Sarah, like each other at once, and the families know each other, so just like that, Tobias and Sarah are married. They have a wonderful banquet, and then they go off to sleep.

Now, this is when the demon usually shows up! But Tobias burns the fish guts on the incense burner, and the smell drives the demon away, and Raphael chases the demon all the way to Egypt and binds it in chains, never to bother Sarah again. Tobias and Sarah pray for God to bless their life together, protect them, and allow them to grow old together.

Meanwhile, what Sarah’s father Raguel is digging a grave outside, just in case he has to quietly dispose of Tobias’ body! But when he peeks in and sees that Tobias is alive, he hurries off to fill in the grave again! [This is the scene we created in our photo project; take a look and notice all the details.]

Then there are two weeks of feasting and celebration, because Sarah is finally free, and she and Tobias are so happy together. The cousin with the money hands it over – we’d almost forgotten that, right? So everything has worked out… except that Tobit is still blind, and Anna, Tobias’ mother, is CONVINCED that her son is dead, because he’s been away for so long. Finally Tobias tells his father-in-law, I must go home! My parents will be so worried! So Tobias and Sarah and Raphael, and the dog, head home to Nineveh. There’s a very happy reunion. Tobit and Anna are delighted to meet Sarah. Tobias uses the fish guts to cure his father’s blindness!

And then in the midst of the rejoicing, Tobit says, Now, we mustn’t forget your traveling companion, this fellow Azariah. He’s been a great help to you; we must pay him from the money you got, and thank him. And then we get the great reveal: Raphael says, “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stands ready before the throne of God.” Raphael tells them, It’s God who is behind all of this, the transformation of your misfortunes into blessings. Thank and bless God always, and proclaim what God has done for you.” And he flies away, and is gone.

It’s a darn good story. That’s why I wanted to work with it. But what we have discovered, the Camp team and Tom McAlpine, who’s been helping us study it and will preach next Sunday, what we’ve discovered is that there’s more here than just a rollicking tale. There’s some real depth, some real meaning. Some surprising and powerful intersections with our lives, and our times.

There are actually many sermons possible based on the book of Tobit, many ways to bring its themes into dialogue with our lives. We were pretty far along in planning our camp, creating the the script for drama and developing art projects, when it dawned on me: Oh, these kinds of things usually have, you know, themes or morals or values that we are teaching the children. Maybe I should come up with some of those!… To my relief, it turned out to be quite easy to pull out some meaningful themes from each chapter of the story: faithfulness, prayer, resourcefulness, courage, gratitude.

Turns out, Tobit is actually a story intended for moral teaching. It’s a work of historical fiction – and has been understood as such since early on – with strong spiritual and religious themes. In some ways the book of Tobit – written more or less as a morally-instructive novel – speaks across the millennia more easily than other Biblical books, whose meaning is more tethered to their time and place. What Tobit can say to us, mean for us, is not all that different from what it said and meant for its first audience, Jews trying to maintain hope and faithfulness in exile or under colonial rule. It encourages people to sustain hope, mercy, and righteousness in difficult times, when bad people are in power. More on that theme next week, I believe.

And it encourages people to trust that God is working in our lives, even when we can’t see it. Even when it seems like everything is terrible, around us, or inside us. There are books of the Bible in which God is very visible as an actor – stepping in to save or destroy, speaking through prophets or miracles or a mighty voice on a mountaintop. There are books of the Bible in which God is entirely offstage – in which the action in the story is all in the lives of people shaped by God and by faith.

Tobit falls somewhere in between. The narrator only names God as a character in the story in one brief passage – when Tobit and Sarah’s prayers reach God, and God tells Raphael, Go sort that out. God delegates to the angel, who puts himself into the situation to see what he can do. Raphael in turn delegates to Tobias – Burn the fish guts! Marry the girl! – as the angel weaves the struggles of Tobit and Sarah together in such a way as to resolve them both.

The book of Tobit offers us a model for how God works in the lives of ordinary people – even people who, like Sarah and Tobit, have reached extraordinary depths of misery and despair. The story says, God sees you. God hears you. Even if it takes a while. Even if it seems like nothing is changing. Somewhere out there, possibilities are taking shape. Hope is being born.

Raphael the undercover angel has this in common with Jesus, God dressed in a human body: The Divine doesn’t show up in clouds of glory, guns blazing, overwhelming our human stories.  Instead the Divine might show up looking a lot like… your second cousin’s brother-in-law, whom you’ve never met but who sure came at the right time, and just happens to know something, or somebody, who can really help you out with this situation.

A big part of why I love the story of Tobit is that this just rings so true for me, this idea of God keeping an eye on us all, watching for the places where our needs intersect, giving a little nudge. Delegating the work of redemption, to angels and humans alike. Are there actual angels in disguise among us? I would not venture an opinion. But there have absolutely been moments in my life, my journey, when somebody has angeled for me, wings hidden under their sweater or alb or T-shirt, making the right connection, pointing me in a new direction, connecting me with fruitful possibilities. And I hope and pray that there have been, and will be, moments when I have angeled for somebody else. Been the agent and tool of God’s quiet intervention in human lives, God’s subtle work for hope, wholeness, and delight.

Over the past weeks, the Church Camp team, eating, sleeping, and breathing Tobit, has come up with some summaries of the book’s message. Like this one: “Always remember the restorative powers of fish guts.” Okay – maybe that one doesn’t apply to very many situations. The other one is, “Trust God; bring a shovel.”

Trust God; bring a shovel. The shovel is Tobit’s shovel, used to dig graves for the nameless dead in the streets, to offer them one final act of respect. A symbol of his stubborn faithfulness, his willingness to do God’s work when nobody else would. It’s also Raguel’s shovel, Sarah’s father – the one he used to dig a grave just in case the demon got Tobias, too! A symbol of… preparedness to do any clean-up that may become necessary?

Trust God, bring a shovel. You may need a shovel – or other tools – because God isn’t going to just make it all happen, burst into the story and clean things up and put everybody where they’re supposed to be. But – and – Trust God. God is keeping an eye on your story, and on the much larger story around you. Answers and possibilities and hopes may already be walking down the road towards you; or waiting for you when you set out to find them. Demons and bird poop may catch our attention, but there’s real wisdom in the Book of Tobit, to carry with us into our lives and our times. Pray your pain and struggle, as well as your blessings. Keep an eye peeled for angels – and for opportunities to do a little freelance angel work yourself. Be alert to the possibilities in everything, even fish guts. Take courage. Trust God, and bring a shovel.

Big Questions, Sermons

Sermon, July 31

God loves you. You’ve heard it before. It’s the summary of every Sunday school lesson, the gist of every progressive Christian bumper sticker, and many of the conservative ones, too. God loves you. But… how does God love us, exactly? How can we understand the love of God? Is the love of an infinite, all-powerful, eternal divine being even recognizable to little squishy short-lived hormonal bags of water like us?

Enter the prophet Hosea.

Hosea lived a little later than the prophet Amos, whom we met a couple of weeks ago. Like Amos, Hosea preached to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. But in Hosea’s time, the late 8th century before Jesus, the temporary peace had crumbled. The Assyrian Empire, remembered for its voracious cruelty and military might, had become an immediate threat. Israel had gone through several short-lived kings, and the king when Hosea began to prophesy was a vassal king for Assyria, under their thumb, committed to sending them the wealth of Israel as tribute. Ultimately, after a decade of instability, Israel was fully conquered by Assyria, and many of its people were killed or taken into exile. More on that next week, when we introduce Tobit!

Hosea, more than any other prophet, gives us a glimpse of the inner life of God. He speaks for God in a way that reveals God’s heart, the nature of God’s love for God’s people. The God we know through Hosea is not a detached and judgmental Ruler, but a Partner, a Parent, full of anger, grief, and tender, fearful love.

The Lectionary offered us a reading from Hosea last Sunday. But that text was pretty difficult to turn into a children’s homily! God speaks to Hosea for the first time, and this is God’s command: Marry a promiscuous woman, and have children by her, for the land of Israel has become promiscuous, and forsaken God. So Hosea married a woman named Gomer, who, indeed, is unfaithful to him. The text turns almost immediately from Hosea’s marriage to God’s relationship with Israel. God describes Israel as a faithless, shameless wife, who has run after her lovers, heedless of her marriage covenant. God promises to punish her, taking back all the gifts of grain, wine, and oil, of wool and flax; threatening to lay waste to her fields and vineyards, and make her festival days into times of mourning. Abraham Heschel, the great commentator on the Prophets, writes that through his marriage with Gomer, “Hosea became aware of the fact … that his sorrow echoed the sorrow of God… Only by living through in his own life what the divine [Husband] of Israel experienced, was the prophet able to attain sympathy for the divine situation.”

Gomer’s infidelity was presumably of the usual sort; the Book of Hosea doesn’t give us details. But it has a lot to say about the nature of Israel’s infidelity to God. The idea that Israel’s covenant relationship with God is like a marriage in its intimacy and seriousness is found throughout the Hebrew Bible. Adultery in that sense usually means worship of other gods. And that’s part of what’s going on in Hosea’s time – in chapter 4 God says through Hosea, “My people consult a piece of wood, and their divining-rod gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the whore, forsaking their God. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and make offerings upon the hills.” (4:12-13)

But Israel’s adultery in Hosea isn’t just religious; it’s also political. The Israelite kingship, established by God, has become purely a matter of human politics, and Israel looks for security not from her God, but from other nations, like Egypt and Assyria. Hosea says of Israel, which he calls Ephraim in this passage: “Ephraim has become like a dove, silly and without sense;    they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria… Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! … For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass wandering alone;    Ephraim has bargained for lovers.” (7:8-9, 11, 13; 8:9)

Israel, covenanted to God for many generations, has been unfaithful – shamelessly so – in both religion and politics. The marriage metaphor insists that faithfulness to God is as fundamental as marital fidelity, and that violating that faithfulness is just as disgusting and distressing to God as a wife’s adultery is to her husband.

Yes, this is sexist, and prudish, and old-fashioned. Yes, it rests on ideas of women’s sexuality as dirty and dangerous. But the purpose of this metaphor, which poor Hosea – and poor Gomer! – are called to embody in their marriage and household, is to help humans understand just how much our faithful love matters to God.

God loves God’s people like a man utterly in love with his wife. So in love that when she strays, it just guts him. So in love that he wants her back. Now, this is important. You don’t have to look far today to find stories of reconciliation after infidelity, in fiction or real life. But that was not how things worked in ancient Israel. In Jewish law and custom, a husband whose wife has been unfaithful CAN’T take her back. She is permanently defiled. But God as Israel’s husband, in Hosea, doesn’t care. God passionately wants Israel back. Those threats of punishment in Chapter 2 only last five verses! – before turning towards affection and yearning. God says, “I will persuade her, and speak tenderly to her; and she shall respond, as in the days of her youth… On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, My husband!… I will abolish… war from the land, and make you like down in safety; and I will take you as my wife forever, I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy; I will take you for my wife in faithfulness.” (Hosea 2:14-19, excerpts) And God likewise calls Hosea to take back Gomer, his wife, despite her infidelity – a fact which has scandalized and perplexed many commentators over the millennia. Heschel writes: “A husband publicly betrayed by his wife is prevented by law and emotion from renewing his marital life with her. But God’s love is greater than law and emotion.” (63)

God loves us – how? Like a spouse who, no matter how badly you treat them, wants another chance at love. Who still hopes to get back the sweetness of what you once had. The first chapters of Hosea invite us to see God as the singer in every sad “I still want you back” song on iTunes.

And then there’s this week’s portion of Hosea, which gives us another metaphor drawn from human families for how God loves us. Listen again: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. I taught Ephraim to walk, and took them up in my arms; I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks; I bent down to them and fed them…. Now the sword rages in their cities, and devours them because of their schemes. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me at the thought; my womb grows warm and tender.”

Now, the text in your bulletin says, “My compassion grows warm and tender.” The oldest versions of the Hebrew text use a word there that can be translated as either “compassion” or “womb,” “uterus.” For Biblical Hebrew, compassion is womb-feeling – the deep anxious care of a mother for a child she has borne. Our translators chose to translate the word as “compassion” here, but frankly I think that’s nonsense. Here we have two parallel phrases, a common form in Hebrew poetry, and they’re both about body parts, describing the physical sensations of anguished love – My heart recoils within me, my womb grows warm and tender. And once you make that more plain-sense reading, it becomes obvious that this whole passage is describing God as a mother. Cuddling and feeding a young child, leading him toddler with what must have been the ancient equivalent of those leashes parents use in airports.

God says to Israel, You have messed up, badly, and the consequences are looming; but even though you have turned away from me, and rejected everything I taught you, I can’t stop caring about you. I can’t stop wanting better for you. I still love you, and long for you.

Let me cast just a passing glance at today’s Gospel – which I think shows us a glimpse of that same loving divine frustration with the things humans choose to worry ourselves about. This is the “You can’t take it with you” Gospel. One of the nicer memes that goes around Facebook shows a crowd sharing a meal at table, and says, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.” That’s this parable in a nutshell. What especially reminds me of God’s voice in Hosea is the moment when this young man comes to Jesus, the wise rabbi, so confident that Jesus will address this inheritance dispute he has with his brother. It’s a matter of justice, right? And Jesus is all about justice, right?

Except Jesus, God among us, really, really does not share our preoccupation with stuff. Instead of settling the dispute, Jesus addresses the crowd and says, You know, y’all, life is not about what you own. The fellow with the inheritance issue must have been mortified. But can’t you hear God the Parent in Jesus’ voice there? Saying, Honey. I know you’re upset, but it’s just not that big a deal. It really isn’t.

God loves us – how? Like a parent who, no matter what lousy choices her child makes, still and always loves and hopes and yearns. Who watches the road, and keeps the lamps lit, and prays every night for that reckless irresponsible good for nothing child whom she loves, with her whole heart, in the depths of her guts.

God loves you. You’ve heard it before. It’s the summary of every Sunday school lesson, the gist of every Christian bumper sticker. God loves you. But… how does God love us, exactly? How do we understand the love of God?

I have a hunch that for a lot of Christians, our sense of God’s love is either as something so warm and squishy and nonspecific that there’s really no there there; or else as something so conditional and judgmental that it feels like love in name only.

Hosea offers us some real, human, emotionally resonant metaphors for divine love. These metaphors are painful, for some of us. For those scarred by infidelity, their partner’s or their own. For those who carry the grief and regret of seeing a beloved child walk away from them – or of being that child. I hope you understand that neither Hosea nor I offer these images lightly. Hosea’s intention is precisely that, by evoking the very real pain of real human relationships, he might give us a glimpse into the heart of God.

Even those who haven’t borne those particular hurts know what it feels like to love someone so much, heart and mind and spirit and guts, and to come to a moment where you can’t help them. Can’t fix it for them. Maybe can’t even reach them. Francis Spufford describes the love of God as “thwarted tenderness.” I know what that feels like, thwarted tenderness. I think most of us do, one way or another.

In our 21st century wisdom, we might offer God some advice. We might tell God that God has to draw some boundaries and practice some tough love with that child who keeps taking advantage of God’s motherly love. We might tell God that God could be a healthier individual if God could let go of this relationship with a partner who can never give God the kind of faithful love God longs for. But that’s not the point. The point is to help us imagine and even feel, in a sympathetic resonance deep in our guts, God’s love and longing for us. For you. For me.

Hosea spoke these words to the people Israel to give them some sense of God’s abiding care for them in a time when their nation was literally crumbling around them. However brutal the 2016 election cycle, that is NOT actually our situation. Yet. It’s good to know we have the words and witness of the Prophets for the seasons when we need them, in our corporate life.

But in the meantime I believe Hosea’s insight into the heart of God can bless us as individuals. For Israel, belonging to God was primarily a matter of their collective chosenness and observance of God’s laws. For us, belonging to God is primarily a matter of our individual choices to become part of a community of faith and walk the path of discipleship. And our capacity for discipleship, which is living in response to the love of God, grows as we know and feel and trust the love of God. As the words “God loves me” become more than just words, but a thing we experience, and believe.

We need Hosea’s witness, Hosea’s window into the thwarted tenderness of the heart of God. We need images that help us understand, in our hearts and our guts, the love of God, beyond squishy meaningless warmth and beyond the harsh father figure who only loves you IF. We need to hear and imagine and know God as One who loves us – who loves YOU – with the hopeless devotion and adoration of a smitten spouse, with the fierce unshakable tenderness of a parent.

We need to know God as One who weeps when we weep, takes pride in our accomplishments, waits for us when we wander, misses us when we’re out of touch and treasures our time together, grieves when we hurt ourselves, hopes for our future, and always, always, always, welcomes us home.

Creation Care, Kid-friendly, Sermons

Sermon, July 24

Jesus was praying in a certain place. (Luke 11:1)

We understand that, don’t we? Sometimes we just pray, we turn our thoughts towards God, wherever we are – in the car or at school or work or on Facebook or reading the news, whatever. But we also know about having certain places, special places, where we come to pray. We know that God is everywhere. But there are certain places where it’s easy for us to feel close to God. It’s easy to share our thoughts and feelings with God, and to listen for God’s voice in our hearts, and feel God’s love around us.

Some of those certain places are places like this – places made by people. Churches, temples, mosques.  But some of those certain places are natural places. Humans take care of them and protect them, but their beauty comes from God, and from Nature, which is God’s.

Often, when I ask people where they feel closest to God, they say, In Nature. And they seem to feel a little guilty about it! Like they think it’s a bad answer. It’s not a bad answer! Christians have known for a long long time that Nature shows us God’s glory and love and power. It’s in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and there are voices all through 2000 years of Christian tradition that tell us we can meet God in the natural world.

We heard one of those voices a little earlier – Thomas Traherne, who lived in the 17th century.  And he says, God made the world to be enjoyed, and God made you to enjoy the world; so it makes God very happy when you do what you were made for, by enjoying the natural world!

What’s your favorite thing in Nature?…

Have you noticed that in Nature, the more you notice, the more you find to enjoy and appreciate?  When you look harder, or you learn more, it just gets more amazing, doesn’t it?

My friend B, who is a nature educator, introduced our Creation Care Task Force to the work of naturalist John Muir Laws. Laws gives us a really good definition of love: Love is sustained compassionate attention. Sustained compassionate attention.

Let’s unpack that. Sustained means you do it for a while. You don’t just take a quick look and then move on.

Compassionate means caring. It means you look at something with a warm, open heart.

And you know what attention means,because your parents and teachers use that word, don’t they? When something has your attention, your eyes are on it, and not just your eyes, but your mind too. You’re focused on it. You’re really there.

So: Love as sustained compassionate attention. You could absolutely apply that to other human beings – but right now we’re talking about love of nature.  And the great thing about love is that, just like a child or a plant, if you feed it, it grows. Laws says, Every time somebody has an opportunity for sustained compassionate attention with a leaf, or a bug, or a tree, they fall in love a little bit more with the natural world.

And for us that means we also fall a little bit more in love with God, whom we know through the beauty and order and complexity of Nature.

Our Creation Care Task Force is still doing its work, but here’s one conclusion we’re reaching: We have a special gift and mission, here at St. Dunstan’s, to invite people deeper into love of nature, love of Creation. To offer ourselves and others opportunities to practice sustained compassionate attention. That’s where the gift of our grounds points us -and even our nave, where we are right now, where we can pray and sing and reflect while we look out at birds and trees and flowers and snow and rain. Where instead of stained glass, we have Nature’s beauty.

From here we went into this amazing exercise in sustained compassionate attention! 

Sermons, Spiritual Practices

Sermon, July 17

When I first read over these lessons, I felt torn. I wanted to give the prophet Amos his due. And this passage from Paul’s letter to the Colossians is so beautiful.  But they’re very, very different.  It seemed impossible to address them in the same sermon.

Amos and Paul lived and taught in very different settings. Amos was a prophet who spoke God’s word in the Northern kingdom of Israel, sometime in the 8th century before Christ. He calls out the king, the wealthy elite, and the religious leaders for failing to order their society in a way that reflects God’s righteousness and concern for the poor and vulnerable.

While Amos calls a whole kingdom to account, Paul speaks to a tiny group of believers trying to care for each other and grow in faith in a context of religious diversity and colonial rule. Unlike the people Amos addresses, the members of the church in Colossae have control over very little beyond themselves. Paul’s call to them is first and foremost to live their lives more fully in Christ, supporting one another in growing towards Christian maturity.

And yet – as different as the settings and messages are, there is a deep similarity. These are both texts of turning. Turning is one of the spiritual practices we named here in our work this spring. It’s shorthand for our capacity to be open to repentance, transformation, and call. Our affirmation that while God loves us just the way we are, God isn’t going to leave us that way.

The turn Amos calls for is a nationwide turn, away from an epidemic of affluenza, with the symptoms being rampant greed, indifference to the wellbeing of the poor, and superficial, perfunctory religious practice.

Amos lived in a time when David’s kingdom has been split in two, into the southern kingdom of Judah, where Jerusalem was, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria.Things were really good for the Northern Kingdom, under King Jeroboam: military success, wealth, peace, prosperity. For those at the top of the heap, things hadn’t been this good in generations. For ordinary folks, things were getting worse and worse, with increased inequality and exploitation of the poor.

Amos puts words to the greed of the times in today’s passage –

“We’ll use false balances and small measures when we sell wheat, and sell the trash of the threshing floor as grain, to maximize our profit, so that we can buy out the lives of the poor for the price of a pair of sandals.”

Amos himself came from a village in Judah, the southern kingdom. He worked as a shepherd and a tender of fruit trees. He wasn’t a member of one of the guilds of prophets; prophesy didn’t run in the family; he was just minding his own business when the word of God came to him and seized him: “GO, prophesy to my people Israel!”

Why might God have sent an outsider to Israel? We get a hint in Amos’ encounter with Amaziah, priest of Bethel, in last week’s lesson.  Bethel was a temple established by King Jeroboam, to make it more convenient for his subjects to fulfill their religious responsibilities without having to travel to Jerusalem.  Bethel was in theory a temple devoted to Yahweh, Israel’s God; but Amaziah’s words to Amos reveal whose power and authority are really honored there –  ‘Never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and.. a temple of the kingdom.’

I read this week that a gaffe is when someone in power accidentally says something true. Amaziah’s gaffe suggests that God’s word wasn’t being heard or preached in Bethel. And so God called Amos.

So what was Amos’ word, God’s grievance? … The book of Amos isn’t long; you could read all nine chapters in half an hour. But I think the image from last week’s reading is a powerful summary. God shows Amos the image of a plumb line. This is a plumb line. You can walk into the hardware store up the street and buy one. It’s an ancient, ancient tool of carpentry. It simply uses gravity to determine whether something is straight or not.

The plumb line: symbol of the rules that simply exist, always and everywhere. Gravity is gravity. You can build your house, or your society, all askew. You can balance a huge unwieldy class of wealthy people on the unstable base of the poor, hungry and angry.  But gravity will eventually do its thing. And so will the righteousness of God.

God says to, and through, Amos, See, I am setting a plumb-line in the midst of my people. They can’t escape the consequences of their actions any longer.  Their high places and sanctuaries will be made desolate, and I will send enemies against the house of Jeroboam. Like a shepherd trying to rescue a sheep from the mouth of a lion who only recovers perhaps a couple of legs, or a piece of an ear, so the people of Samaria will escape destruction only with the corner of a couch or part of a bed. (Amos 3)

There is a call here, if a desperate and pessimistic one. God says through Amos,  It is not yet too late! Turning is still possible! Seek the Lord, seek good and not evil, that you may live. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will yet have mercy – and save, at least, a remnant: that leg or ear rescued from the lion’s mouth.

When we come to the Prophets in our three-year cycle of readings, I eagerly pull one book off my shelf: Abraham Heschel, The Prophets. Heschel was a Jewish scholar who grew impatient with the intellectualism of academic study, and became convinced that the prophetic works needed to be studied with attention to heart, conscience, emotion – the prophet’s emotion, God’s emotion, our emotional response to these words that can touch and stir, agitate or comfort us across three thousand years.

Heschel talks about how one of the hallmarks of a prophet is a tendency to see everyday injustices not just as the unfortunate downside of an otherwise functional society, but as an indictment of the entire social order.

Heschel writes (pages 3 – 6),

“The things that horrified the prophets are even now daily occurrences all over the world. There is no society to which Amos’ words would not apply…. Indeed, the sort of crimes… that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice – cheating in business, exploitation of the poor – is slight; to the prophets, a disaster….

[The prophets’] breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as hysteria. We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery, but we rarely grow indignant or overly excited. [Yet] to the prophets even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportions…

[Yet] if such deep sensitivity to evil is to be called hysterical, what name should be given to the abysmal indifference to evil which the prophet bewails?…

Prophesy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony [of humanity].”

Elsewhere, Heschel writes:

The prophet’s words “wrench one’s conscience from the state of suspended animation…. The prophet is intent on intensifying responsibility.” (p. 8)

As a text of turning, the book of Amos bears a call to responsibility. From indifference to concern and action. A call to take the injustices we witness not as inevitable occasional failures of a basically functional system, but as urgent calls to the hard work of improving our common life. A call to measure the gulf between the straightness of the plumb line and the alarming lean of our society.

In contrast with Amos’ call to a society-wide U-turn, the turning to which Paul calls the Colossians is perhaps more like your navigation software telling you, “Proceed to the route.”

The people of the church in Colossae weren’t wrong in any big dramatic ways. They were a little confused about whose teachings to follow and how to practice their new faith. And Paul gives them guidance on those fronts, gently and lovingly. Elsewhere in his letters to the early Christian communities, Paul can be sharp and angry; but the tone of this letter is best described as tender.

Most of all, Paul simply urges them to grow in grace. To continue living more fully in response to Christ’s divine humanity. In today’s passage he writes eloquently about who Jesus was and is, and what it means for us as his people: Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the one in whom all things hold together. The one in whom the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through whom God was pleased to reconcile all things to Godself. Jesus Christ has reconciled you to God, to present you holy and blameless, forgiven, loved, and free.

Paul speaks eloquently about his hopes for this young community, gathered by their faith in Christ: that they may be encouraged and united in love; that they may grow into maturity in Christ, rooted and built up in him, and abounding in thanksgiving. That they may seek the things that are above, not worrying about earthly matters.

And then there’s this passage, in chapter 3: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

We could read that in church every week for a lifetime and still be encouraged and guided by it. Maybe we should.

As a text of turning, the letter to the Colossians bears a call to grow in grace. Paul passionately invites the people of that church to receive, with wonder and joy, the grace of Christ’s presence among them, and to live with one another as people formed by love, generosity of spirit, and gratitude.

Amos calls a kingdom to responsibility. Paul calls a church to grow in grace. Which are we? What do we hear?

I submit to you that maybe we’re a little of both. In many ways we are the little fellowship of faith in Colossae, surrounded by a pluralistic society that doesn’t share our values, uncertain about what our faith really requires of us, maybe nervous about being known as followers of Jesus. That passage from chapter 3 speaks my hope for how we will live with and care for one another in this church. We need to devote energy and time and resources and care to teaching and singing and loving and giving and forgiving. We need to cultivate our own and each other’s Christian maturity.  We are called to grow in grace.

And… in many ways we are the elites of the Northern Kingdom. We are people of voice and influence.I’m not making assumptions here about anybody’s wealth or connections. But I absolutely believe that if 50 St. Dunstanites decided that we were going to devote our energy and time and resources to changing something about the common life of our city, county, or even our state, we could move the needle.  We could contribute to meaningful change. Because we are citizens of a democracy, and showing up matters.  In the words of Margaret Mead, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.  And there are many forces in our world, sisters and brothers, which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. We are called to responsibility.

Let us pray. Loving God, you have given us your holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may hear their message to us, and give us grace to respond to the call to grow in grace, and the call to responsibility, as your children, gathered and sent. We pray this in the name of Jesus, the One in whom we are rooted and built up. Amen.

Big Questions, Sermons

Sermon, July 10

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of Jesus’ best-known stories. It’s only found in the Gospel of Luke, here in chapter 10. If you pull out one of our Gospel of Luke booklets and turn to chapter 10, you’ll see that kind of seems dropped in – it doesn’t fit the flow of the narrative very well. Scholars think that this probably really is a story Jesus told – it sure sounds like him! – and that it may have been circulating independently among the early churches, so that only Luke happened to have it to include in his account of Jesus’ life and teachings. But even if it reads like a slightly sloppy cut and paste job, stuck here between Jesus doing some disciple-training and visiting some friends, I’m very glad that Luke preserved this parable for us.

Let me take you through the story itself, briefly, because baby S, whom we are baptizing today, has never heard it before, and maybe he’s not the only one. The word “lawyer” here means a scholar of Jewish law, someone who interprets the Scriptures of the Old Testament to determine how the Jews are called to live out righteousness as God’s people. Different rabbis, teachers, like Jesus, had different interpretations, so this man is asking Jesus about his interpretation, what Jesus sees as the heart of righteousness and holiness. They discuss the standard summary of the Law: love of God, love of neighbor. Clear enough… and yet not so clear. This man has a question: Who is my neighbor? Who do I have to love, to be right with God? So Jesus does what he does when people ask questions. He tells a story.

A man was on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho – a notoriously dangerous road, where robbers and bandits often lurked. And robbers attack him, take everything he has, even his clothes, beat him, and leave him for dead at the side of the road. Now, two people come down the road, one after another, and both of them pass by on the other side of the road. One is a priest, someone who serves in the great Temple; another is a Levite, a member of the Jewish tribe who were set aside to tend to the holy things and places of the God of Israel while they were still in the wilderness with Moses, so long ago. As religious functionaries, men of God, both of these men have reason to be particularly attentive to the purity laws of Judaism. There are lots of things you can do or touch that render you ritually unclean, impure, and you can’t enter the Temple or serve God in that state. You’d have to do various things, or wait a certain time, to be cleansed and able to resume your religious duties. Touching a dead body is pretty high on the list of things that can make you impure.

There are other reasons these men might have stayed away from the man who had been robbed and beaten. Maybe they were afraid the robbers were still around. Maybe they had somewhere urgent to be. Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved. But those are reasons anyone might have, and Jesus tells us that these men weren’t just anyone: they were a priest and a Levite. Men of God. Men of holiness and righteousness. And they walk by on the other side.

And then a third man comes along. He is a Samaritan. Now, the phrase “good Samaritan” has entered our language to mean, somebody who helps a stranger. So we really have to remind ourselves, every time we return to this story, that for the original audience, “Samaritan” didn’t mean a kind and generous person. “Samaritan” meant lowlife scum who think they worship the same God as us, but do it all wrong, and in the wrong places, which is of course much more offensive than worshipping some entirely different God, like the Greeks and Romans. The Jews hated and looked down upon the Samaritans, and the Samaritans resented the Jews. To really get the challenge of this story, you almost have to swap out “Samaritan” for the kind of people that you like and trust least, in the privacy of your own heart. I can’t do that for you; that’s between you and God. But try it, sometime, and think about it.

So the Samaritan, this heathen creep, finally responds to the man with mercy. He goes to him. Cleans and tends his wounds. I know the oil and wine sounds a little odd, but it was what passed for medicine back then – wine to disinfect, oil as a balm. He puts the man on his horse and takes him to an inn, continues to care for him there, and pays from his own pocket for the man to be tended there while he continues on his journey.

And Jesus asks, Which of these three men – the priest, the Levite, the Samaritan – was a neighbor to the man who was robbed? And the lawyer says, “The one who showed him mercy.” It’s possible to read that answer a couple of ways. One commentator says, the lawyer maybe just didn’t want to say, “The Samaritan.” Because, ugh. Samaritans. But the answer also names, accurately, the simple gracious thing that makes the Samaritan a neighbor: He showed mercy.

What makes a neighbor is the movement of mercy.

We all understand this story. We all, even the kids, maybe especially the kids, understand that the people who walked past without helping were wrong, and that the person who stopped and helped, without counting the risks or the costs, was right. We get it. The challenge is, the challenge has always been, living it. Applying it. Going thou and doing likewise.

We know better and yet we STILL ask, “Who is my neighbor?” Who do I have to love, to be right with God? Don’t you ask that, way deep down? I know I do, when I’m honest with myself. I keep hoping maybe there’s a line. That maybe there’s some group of people who are so wrongheaded and offensive and unlikeable that it’s OK for me not to love them.

But there’s this detail in the story Jesus tells – or rather, a lack of detail. Each of the characters gets a label that lets us imagine them: priest, Levite, Samaritan, even the innkeeper. Except the main character, the victim – the man on the road. Jesus doesn’t give us any description at all. He might have been a Jew, a Greek, a Roman, an Ethiopian or Egyptian. He might have been wealthy and well-dressed, a great haul for the bandits, or he might have been so poor that they beat him out of spite. We aren’t told if he was a good man or a bad one. A righteous follower of God or a disgusting idol-worshipper. An upstanding citizen or a thoroughgoing scoundrel. Maybe he had a criminal record as long as your arm. Maybe he was on the road because he was a bandit himself, who got crossways of another group of violent criminals. Maybe he really had this coming. There’s not a single hint, one way or the other. He’s just a man. (I’m indebted here to Alfred Nevin Sayers’ sermon “The Good Samaritan and Social Redemption.”)

Jesus doesn’t tell us who the man is, because it doesn’t matter. What makes a neighbor isn’t somebody’s identity or deeds or deserving. What makes a neighbor is the movement of mercy.

I write my sermons on Tuesday, usually. So I was working on this sermon the day after the Fourth of July. Our neighborhood, the Greentree neighborhood on Madison’s southwest side, has a little celebration every year, coordinated by some committed volunteers. And it’s lovely. It’s totally Norman Rockwell. The kids of the neighborhood all gather in front of the school with their bikes and scooters, decorated for the holiday. A fire truck comes by and leads them in two-block parade over to a nearby city park. Folks come out of their houses to watch and wave. Then at the park there are brats and ice cream sandwiches and kids’ games and conversation with neighbors. Everyone’s wearing red and white and blue. It’s wholesome and adorable and community-building.

We’ve participated, I think, every year we’ve lived here. Somehow this year for the first time something struck me. Falk School, our neighborhood school, the school my kids attend, and St. Dunstan’s Adopt-a-School partner school, is about 75% non-white. It’s a big multicolored and multicultural mix of white, African-American, Latino, and Asian immigrant kids.

But that crowd of kids and parents in front of Falk for the parade was overwhelmingly white. Because while the school district’s boundaries mix us up, the neighborhoods we name for ourselves tend to sort us back out, by income and by race. Those brown kids may live a block away. but that is a different neighborhood, and they and their families were not invited to our party.

There are a lot of layers to the formation of neighborhoods; residential segregation is a big messy challenge; there’s no tackling that issue two-thirds of the way into a summer sermon. All I know is that on Monday, with the cheerful neighborly chaos of the party in the park swirling around me, I just couldn’t shake the shadow on my heart. A sense of sadness and of cynicism at the way this happy good-spirited celebration nevertheless revealed the profound brokenness of our city.

I’m not angling for a gold star for noticing this. I don’t deserve one; it took me six years. And I still don’t know what to do about it now that I’ve noticed it. It’s nice and easy to spend time with people who are basically a lot like you. And it can be hard and demanding to spend time with people who are not a lot like you.  That’s why we have those words from Jesus in the Gospel from Matthew that we received last Sunday – when he tells his followers, Listen, it’s fine if you’re nice to the people who are nice to you, and if your love the people who love you back, and if you act brotherly and sisterly towards the people who are so much like you that they might as well be your as brothers and sisters. But let’s be clear: everybody does that. Kindness towards your own kind is not a manifestation of your call to holy love.

If the contrast between the kids who are actually in the classrooms at Falk School during the school year, and the kids on their bikes out front on the Fourth of July, tells us anything, it tells us this: Living a block apart does not make a neighbor. That’s not enough. If it were, we would all been at that party. Together.

Who is my neighbor? Who do I have to love to be right with God? Maybe the gist of the story, of Jesus’s powerful answer to our perpetual question, is that we’ve got to stop thinking of neighbor as a noun. As the name of a person, place, or thing. What if we try using ‘neighbor’ as a verb? Neighboring. Making the movement of mercy. Or receiving it – both directions matter. Neighboring as a verb has to do with curiosity, with connection, with care. Neighboring as a verb has to do with Abiding, one of our core discipleship practices we name here at St Dunstans, the one that has to do with being where you are, looking around, paying attention, belonging and becoming. Neighboring as a verb has to do with Reconciling, another of the core spiritual practices we name here at St Dunstans, the one that has to do with intentionally unmaking all the categories in our world and our heads that tell us we are different from each other. The categories that make some neighbors undesirable, and others simply invisible.

In a moment here were going to turn to the baptismal covenant, as we receive baby S into the household of God. Our Baptismal Covenant quotes the summary of the law that’s found in this passage from Luke 10: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

This little story is Jesus’s commentary on those words. And we really need it to play in our minds and our hearts, every time we see or say those words: love your neighbor. At least, I know I need it. Because however intentionally inclusive I am, in my ministry, in my citizenship, in my personal life, there are still neighbors who are invisible to me. There are still neighbors whom I don’t want to know better. As familiar and well-worn as the message of this parable may be, I still need to hold myself accountable to it.

A neighbor isn’t made by living next door. That’s not what Jesus means, or the Baptismal Covenant either. A neighbor is something to discover, something to become. A neighbor is made by abiding, and by reconciling. A neighbor is made by curiosity, connection, and care. A neighbor is made by love, which makes the big world little and the little world big. A neighbor is made by the movement of mercy. Go thou and do likewise.

Big Questions, Church Seasons & Holy Days, Current Events, Sermons

Sermon, July 3

So this isn’t really a proper sermon, folks – I got back from vacation yesterday…! But as I planned this service I found I had a train of thought that seemed to want sharing.

We live in a cultural context in which religion and politics are understood as different things. That division is NOT intrinsic to the nature of things; in the vast majority of human history and cultures, there has been no clear distinction between religion and politics. But the cultural conditions to draw that distinction arose during the Enlightenment and it became a foundational principal of our nation.

There are really good things about the way religion and politics are legally separated in the United States. It makes it possible to be a pluralistic society, in which Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs and agnostics and atheists can all help vision and build the common good.

But I think that distinction can trip us up when it tricks us into thinking that religion is a private thing that only belongs in this 90 minutes on a Sunday morning. That it’s somehow inappropriate to have our faith convictions shape our civic and political engagement, and even more inappropriate to TALK about it – either out there or in here.

I believe that it’s not only appropriate to talk about faith in light of politics and vice versa; it’s necessary, in order for us to be truly faithful.

A couple of years ago I shared with you a sermon by one of the great early 20th century preachers, Harry Emerson Fosdick. It’s a powerful sermon; I re-read it about once a year. But there’s one point in particular that I think about often.

Fosdick, writing in the early years of the Great Depression, speaks to those who say that churches, and preachers, should stick to the spiritual needs of individual souls, and leave the social situation to the politicians and the public square. He is convinced that to talk about the Christian gospel as merely individual and not social is “dangerous nonsense” (his words).

But, he says, up to a point, those who criticize talk about political issues in church have a point. Fosdick writes, “If they mean that when people come to church on Sunday, having lived another week in the hurly-burly of the world, their ears tired with boistrous debate, they are seeking something other than a continuation of the secular dispute, then we had better agree with that. The church has lost its function which forgets how deeply people… need spiritual renewal. [Churches] do sometimes continue the secular debate which the newspapers conduct a great deal better through the week.”

Fosdick’s point is this: We as Christians, we as the Church, have to talk about the same issues being discussed in the public square. But we need to talk about them in a different way, not “continue the newspapers’ secular debate.”

The language we use to talk about any of the big issues affecting the common good and the welfare of our neighbors needs to be different from the language used in the newspapers, or in a flyer someone presses into your hand on a street corner, and, please God, it needs to be different from the way people talk about it in the nastier corners of social media.

In the past few months I’ve had conversations with two of our newer households, people who have come to St. Dunstan’s within the past year.

And they’ve both said that one of the things that’s really important about church for them is that it be a place where people who maybe vote differently, or who maybe vote the same way but for different reasons, people driven by different core concerns, people with different understandings of how best to get from where we are now to where we hope to be –

that all those people can be in genuine fellowship.

Nobody silenced. Nobody ashamed.

I’ve heard those conversations as a nudge from the Holy Spirit – a timely nudge in this election year. I hear a call to passionate nonpartisanship.  Not to avoiding the issues that are so much on our minds and hearts, but to talking about them here DIFFERENTLY than we talk about them at home, or among our circle of friends who all share our views, or on Facebook where you either FORGET that your racist uncle will read that post, or secretly hope he will and think it serves him right if he gets upset.

When other clergy ask me, So what’s the political leaning at St. Dustan’s?, I say, well, it’s probably about 90% progressive, left, liberal, whatever word you choose. And that means two things.

First, it means that that 10% of folks who see some issues in a different light are really really important, so that we don’t become an echo chamber. So that our political and religious views don’t completely collapse into each other. So that we remember to have a different kind of conversation here.

Second, it means that it can be hard to remember that that 10% is here. It can be hard to hold a space where people can ask questions, share experiences, talk about our deep-seated values and how they have been formed.

A call to passionate nonpartisanship. I’m trying to hold that in my mind and my heart, and now I’m passing it on to you, too.

What does that mean? What does it look like? I think that’s something to be discovered in the doing, to an extent.

It might look like gently encouraging ourselves and each other to talk less about what we’re against – which is far too easy – and more about what we’re for.

It might look like gently encouraging ourselves and each other to listen. To ask each other, Where do faith and life and politics intersect, for you?

I dare to hope that listening and reflection, on our own and others’ experiences and convictions, might actually help us feel less overwhelmed, less despairing. Might actually lead us towards more focused and energized action as God’s people in the world.

And above all, passionate nonpartisanship has to look like coming back to the Gospel, again and again and again. Coming back to what we share as disciples of Jesus Christ. As people called to be ambassadors of God’s reconciling love in the world around us.