DioBeth newSpin

Andante: Starving Artists ... by Bishop Paul Marshall (2 of 4)

Andante: Starving Artists
© Paul V. Marshall

[Bishop Paul Marshall of the Diocese of Bethlehem served as conference preacher for the June 2012 Association of Anglican Musicians in Philadelphia. He preached four sermons. This is the second.  "Andante" is a musical term meaning "to play with a moderate tempo, in a light, flowing manner.]

Grave: TRINITY
© Paul V. Marshall

[Bishop Paul Marshall of the Diocese of Bethlehem served as conference preacher for the June 2012 Association of Anglican Musicians in Philadelphia. He preached four sermons. This is the first.  "Grave" is a musical term meaning "played slowly and seriously."]

- See more at: http://diobeth.typepad.com/diobeth_newspin/2013/03/grave-trinity-by-bishop-paul-marshall.html#sthash.CjbHsxIl.dpu

Grave: TRINITY
© Paul V. Marshall

[Bishop Paul Marshall of the Diocese of Bethlehem served as conference preacher for the June 2012 Association of Anglican Musicians in Philadelphia. He preached four sermons. This is the first.  "Grave" is a musical term meaning "played slowly and seriously."]

- See more at: http://diobeth.typepad.com/diobeth_newspin/2013/03/grave-trinity-by-bishop-paul-marshall.html#sthash.CjbHsxIl.dpuf

Grave: TRINITY
© Paul V. Marshall

[Bishop Paul Marshall of the Diocese of Bethlehem served as conference preacher for the June 2012 Association of Anglican Musicians in Philadelphia. He preached four sermons. This is the first.  "Grave" is a musical term meaning "played slowly and seriously."]

- See more at: http://diobeth.typepad.com/diobeth_newspin/2013/03/grave-trinity-by-bishop-paul-marshall.html#sthash.CjbHsxIl.dpuf

The first lesson this morning from Numbers 11 is an unfortunate example of the humorlessness of lectionary makers, who have trimmed a story from the wild side into something perhaps too neat and tidy. In its context Numbers chapter 11 is another of those stories that is many layers deep and thoroughly soaked with irony. It starts with the people being tired of miraculous manna – there is the first movement of a cantata right there. In any event, they are sick of the miracle food and remember the Chateau Briand, Hagen Dazs®, and single-malt back in the ghetto in Egypt. Sure, they may have been slaves, but they had all the basic food groups.

Moses is caught completely off guard by this concern popping up when they are finally getting on track with their mission, and we see him here overwhelmed, losing his vision. So he complains to God for most of the chapter, ending up with a stunning combination of blaming, sacrcasm, and whining:

{12} Did I conceive all this people? Did I bring them forth, that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries the sucking child, to the land which you swore to give their fathers?' {13} Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, 'Give us meat, that we may eat.' {14} I am not able to carry all this people alone, the burden is too heavy for me. {15} If you are going to deal with me this way, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness."

YOU gave me this rabble, this motley crew – all of a sudden he forgets he is part of “them.” I’ve been there; you’ve been there, everybody in this room who cares about the church has been there in one way or another. And for some who serve the church, if the truth were told, there are brief moments when death seems likes like a pretty good way out, and the number of church professionals who maintain unhealthy habits is by no means small. Moses speaks for many.

God and Moses, I suppose, could have debated theology and catering strategy for hours, and then they could have moved on to discussion of Moses’ inner child. But God doesn’t argue back, and simply goes to work on Moses’ near-burnout condition, dealing only with Moses’ inner adult.

And the great surprise is, God’s answer to the kind of burnout that only the very gifted and driven experience is… colleagues, community, lots of company on the journey. Moses’ prayer for a quick death is not only ignored, he is plunged headlong into a re-creative and redemptive experience of community. All of a sudden he has 70 co-workers, burden-sharing, perspective-maintaining colleagues who no doubt had active listening skills as well. And those people had been there all the time.

But the interesting thing is that this isn’t exactly a music committee, a choir picnic, or a vestry. They “prophesied,” we’re told. Now that’s an interesting word, because only much later in Israel’s history did “prophet” come to mean unattractive or irritating speech-maker. In the period of our story it means being full of the spirit, being in ecstasy, shouting, dancing, singing words from the Lord in a totally unrestrained state. In short, although the 70 shared in Moses’ spirit and helped bear his burdens, they were more than his briefcase-carriers: they were outside his control. A few verses later somebody immersed in control issues comes up to Moses all upset that although Eldad and Medad (the Old Testament Blues Brothers) – although Eldad and Medad hadn’t been up on the Mountain to be regularly and validly commissioned (sort of like the people who don’t come to rehearsals and expect to sing on Sunday), they were prophesying anyway, right there in public, shouting, singing, dancing, and generally scaring the orderly types.

And through Eldad and Medad’s disorderly conduct Moses gets the point at last. He replies that it would be of great practical value if all of God’s people prophesied. I happen to believe that stories like this one were saved precisely because of the comic, ironic and slightly embarrassing light they shed on great and small figures in the life of God’s people. If we can chuckle at them, it’s probably safe to take a closer look at ourselves in our desperate moments.

First of all, when it all seems too much, it’s good to remember the manna, the miracles around us that have brought us this far. It’s a long pilgrimage, and it pays to remember not only the goal, but how far we have come in our lives, and how God has sustained us. I will explore this a bit more tomorrow.  But let’s encourage each other not to get bored with the miracles of word and sacrament, faith and community, with which God nourishes us regularly. Sacraments and liturgies seldom bring entertainment, but they surely bring sustenance.

And with Moses, I have to confess that it is Eldad and Medad who surprise me, constantly, in my own life. I treasure the encounters with friends but am often stunned back to sanity by perhaps chance acquaintances who often sustain and guide me. Who are Eldad and Medad for you? On the other hand, which of your colleagues is a little too isolated, and might need a phone call? I have a musical example, one that people in this room this morning have taught me to love.

Many of us play it and some of you have recorded Elgar’s “Nimrod,” so perhaps you can hum along as I talk about it as it helps us remember Moses. The longest of the original Enigma variations, the Nimrod movement is not coded with someone’s initials, but marked with that strange Biblical moniker. Genesis merely says that “Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord,” but various ancient traditions assign him everything from keeping Adam’s original loincloth (!) to ruling Babylon and/or Ninevah. This variety invites much wonderful speculation, all of which could be profitable in other contexts, but in Elgar, Nimrod slyly and simply stands for a conversation he had with one August Jaeger, a man from Duesseldorf whose name just happens to mean Hunter, and I mean to invoke Jaeger’s presence as a reminder of how God touches us Mose-types in the unspectacular.

More than his music editor, Jaeger was, for Elgar, both a comfort and source of courage. Recall how in Nimrod he begins sadly, with echoes of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. Elgar, of course, was plagued both by depression and his actual exclusion from many an inner circle because of his religion. Like Moses, he was often burnt-out. Once he was so low that Jaeger had take him out for a walk to remind him of Beethoven’s personal struggles and doubts, all of which were overcome by Beethoven’s strength of character and devotion to vocation. This was far more than a command to suck it up; it was an affirming reinforcement of character and identity, an invitation to borrow some of Beethoven’s strength.

What happens to the music after the sad encounter is thrilling, in a measured way, and reminds us yet again that mere words seldom have the last word. Without erasing the sadness, the music steadily builds in hope, confidence, and fullness (even with tympani in the orchestral version)…but it never reaches the anticipated Edwardian boisterousness, triumphalism, nor does it offer any oblivion to the pain that is expressed early in the piece. In fact, just when the peaking crescendo could explode into another Elgar hit like Land of Hope and Glory, the music fades very rapidly to a centered and calmer version of its somewhat sad beginning. We rush to tromp down the expression while reducing the registration. Then the music stops, without a note of further explanation.

As must sermons. But we here can hear the whisper through the closed swell shades, never lose heart for our work and always encourage each other to thrive. Just as you are doing by being here this week.

Grave: TRINITY by Bishop Paul Marshall (1 of 4)

Grave: TRINITY
© Paul V. Marshall

[Bishop Paul Marshall of the Diocese of Bethlehem served as conference preacher for the June 2012 Association of Anglican Musicians in Philadelphia. He preached four sermons. This is the first.  "Grave" is a musical term meaning "played slowly and seriously."]

Gratitude is the chief word I have for the opportunity to share this week with you, gratitude and a little awe, but with your permission I will not go into that now beyond acknowledging the keen pleasure I take at the invitation to be among this company in this hallowed place.

You have given me a tough place to start, however, as our propers are “of the Holy Trinity.” 

You know better than I that Gustav Mahler was asked why, given the immense spirituality of his compositions, he had never composed a mass. His reply was telling, “Do you think I could take that upon myself? Well, why not? But no, there’s the credo in it.” Fair enough, but then he went on to recite the creed in Latin, keeping the ambiguity of the encounter high. 

I think of Mahler today just because his story is tantalizing. We cannot say with precision exactly what if any brand of faith he had. Nobody can prove what his conversion was ultimately about, and there are lots of opinions. That multitude of opinion about the very same information reminds us that all beliefs, including our own, are motivated, motivated by many things going on inside of us in our deepest unconscious, so we may perhaps put nagging historical questions in favor of the theological one when we think of this story. Mahler would not have been the first to write a mass with no creed (of course, he couldn’t write anything-Brevis); why would he have focused on the very existence of credo as a reason to bow out of mass-writing entirely?

Let me thicken that question. More than one of the great composers of religious music in the Anglican tradition, when pressed about theology, have chosen to declare for atheism or agnosticism as did Vaughan Williams. Others will mount an esoteric heterodoxy like that of my beloved Parry. Again, we can speculate about their deepest motives, but is it not possible that for those who sing of God and the Lamb the language of dogmatic theology is, forgive me, not always very interesting, and perhaps quite alienating? Bach is the greatest exception here, but he is always the greatest exception. But for Mahler and my English examples, perhaps it was one thing to set the earnest prayer “Veni Creator Spiritus” in a symphony of a thousand, and quite another thing to set to music a group of propositions. Not all of us believe with words. Not all of us believe with words.

Perhaps the dogmatically hesitant have a vital point to make, at least in the present culture that speaks so trippingly of the uncertainty principle and parallel universes. That is, I have to remember that for the orthodox Christianity of Mahler’s day, the creed was for the most part data, not a song. So perceived, it ultimately reduced God to an object, capable of study, dissection, and definition, the fuel for debate and even persecution. Such talk of a domesticated and definable God does not invite the ecstasy of music. Who would want to set the periodic chart of the elements to music?—well, of course, Tom Lehrer did just that, but you get my point.

To those for whom the idea of God as object is unthinkable or at least uninviting, it is life-giving to observe that the creed has gotten more musical of late. The revival of Trinitarian theology in the last two generations has been at its heart the rediscovery by western Christians that what the ancient church chose to say about God is not in the first place data; it is doxology. That doxology (and let us steadfastly remember that all doxologies get an Amen played at the end, just as one is said at the doxology in each prayer!), that doxology comes from reflection on both practical and ecstatic experience, and Trinitarian doxology comes to the conclusion that God is, in God’s deepest self, in relationship, from before time and forever.  Many have observed that the Greek word for that relationship is very like the word for dance. Three distinct persons in one eternal Dance. Delicate, rhythmic, supple, inviting.

It is also worth reflection that over the course of the years most of the so-called Trinitarian heresies that have been rejected have one thing in common: each of them simplified words about God, made God seem to be understandable and manageable, pedestrian, and certainly less lyrical. What we call the heresies often moved theology from the mystical dance to something like bad Powerpoint. (This is not to say that the Arians, for instance, didn’t have popular songs, but their songs were apparently shallow, slogan-like, and not very sophisticated musically—but that was a long time ago.)

So to the part of us that resonates strongly with Mahler and other spiritually rich composers who balked at dogma perhaps because of its ineradicable unmusicality, there come two words. The first is that our God worshiped with the creed is not worshiped as a datum, but is adored as the eternal dynamic relationship, and that we perceive that very God inviting us to join the dance. The second word is that if I try to figure God out rather than relax and adore the mystery, and lose myself in it, I condemn myself to theological tone-deafness and will not get to dance.

We can focus this by asking what does any of this doxological dance look like when it is at home?

Let me illustrate by mentioning the spirit of a musician who hovers over this meeting. A colleague[1] in my office wrote this about Gerre Hancock back in 2000:

“When I was a seminarian and the thurifer for a Sung Eucharist one Sunday, I opened the ambulatory door as quietly as possible to see how soon incense would be needed in the service.  The ambulatory was empty, and the view from that door to the organ bench is perfect.  And there was Uncle Gerre sitting on the bench, unaware that someone was watching.  The heels of his shoes were cocked on the beam beneath the bench itself.  His hands were just outside his knees, gripping the bench.  His head was bowed, and his shoulders were slumped.  I put it to you that he wasn’t trying to remember how to play Merbecke….

“He was doing that rare thing, rare for church employees everywhere, both lay and clerical.  He was praying.  He’s based his life on the conviction that he’s on earth for one reason: to praise God.  And, he does it with his playing.  He does it with his composing.  He does it with his conducting.  He does it with his teaching.  All of which is to say he gives thanks and praise unto the Lord with his whole heart.”

I left those verbs in the present tense, because that is where they belong. Gerre Hancock touched many in this room with his authentic blend of faith and art. Perhaps as we honor his memory by singing it, we may also experience just a bit more gladness to feel, experience, and say, “Credo.”

---

[1] The Venerable Howard W Stringfellow III, whom I quote with permission.

Deacons Driving Deftly – Bishop Paul

Sermon by Bishop Paul Marshall
Ordination of Deacons, 12/21/2012
John Davis, Foster Mays, Andrew Reinholz and Kimberly Rowles Reinholz
Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

I remember the first time I let my son take the car out by himself at night. I also remember the first time I drove by myself as a teen. One coin, two sides. The handing over of the keys, even temporarily, is a very intriguing thing to contemplate. The receiving of the keys is noteworthy as well.

As a young person, I remember my pride, satisfaction and sense of power when I first took that 1961 Oldsmobile wagon out of the driveway and headed into the setting sun. I never, of course, acknowledged that I was also a little leery of the whole thing. A little frightened, in fact, but about that I never said a word to my father.

As a parent I was proud of my son’s obviously good genes in the department of steering large amounts of metal through the impossible tangle of New Haven’s grid of one-way streets and back alleys. I was also worried about him, and didn’t go to sleep until I heard the 1985 Crown Victoria authoritatively rumble back into the driveway. I told him I was proud of him. I never told him I was scared.

You can see where this is going.

The celebration of diaconal ordination is more than one thing. It is a joyful acknowledgement of the vocation and accomplishments of four people who have worked very hard to get to this day. It is an affirmation of the Church’s life and mission. It is a reappropriation of the unique ministry of servanthood that guides and goads the church into action. It is, however, always the beginning of an inter-generational transmission of the Church’s tradition, and to be honest, a handing over of power within that tradition. “Receive this Bible as a sign of your authority…”

And so it is also possible for there to be a variety of feelings about the passing on of tradition, responsibility, and power to Andrew, John, Kim, and Foster.

Side one is simple. Ordinands are eager to go. It is not an easy road to get to this date, and they have accumulated knowledge, skills, and debt. They have tried out the theory and practice of ministry in a variety of more-or-less controlled experiments in what is mysteriously called “the field, ” rather than “the string.” They are ready, but who among them with an ounce of sense would not feel a little anxiety about taking on the responsibilities of ordained ministry? What they say and do “counts” now in a way that may not be fair or right, but is nonetheless real, public, and perceived in many, many ways. Like it or not, from this day on, they become huge projection screens, but that is another sermon.

On the other side of the coin, we who entrust ordained ministry to four ordinands tonight recognize that we are passing something on. Passing something on, even through prayer and the laying-on of hands, is also letting go, a surrender of the future in both hope and anxiety. A new generation is going to have new perspectives. Some refreshing, some perhaps unsettling.

Assuming any of this is true for them as it was for me when I was in their shoes, the first lesson tonight addresses the anxiety ordinands may feel by describing a cyclical pattern of growth that will carry them through the challenges and stresses of ordained ministry. It also explains the existence of the slightly notorious Bible content examination that we unapologetically administer in this diocese.

That first lesson from Ecclesiasticus describes a permanent pattern of engagement with tradition that supports, heals, and inspires.

As we see the devout described in the lesson, study of the scripture and wisdom of those who have gone before control the functioning of their minds. It is the non-optional, non-transcendable, mandatory content of our vocation. But important as it is, sitting with your Bible and other books isn’t enough in the words of this passage: going out among people and observing how humanity behaves, and taking that study and observation to prayer, give ordained ministry its solid core. Interestingly, this pattern of study, observation, and prayer is not described as the route to becoming an authority. No, the passage says that more you learn, the more you will be aware of your own limitations, and the first prayer that is suggested in the text jumps non-defensively into what makes real students; it shows them, as a result of their learning, praying for pardon. We live in that daily office tension between the psalm’s “my sin is ever before me” in the psalm and St Paul’s apprehension that “my grace is sufficient for you.” At that point, when learning, experience, and humility come together before God and in God, there come the gifts of wisdom and eloquence to which we dare to aspire.

Just as I believe that the more metal you have around you when you drive, the safer you usually are, I believe that the better you know scripture and tradition, the safer you are from heresy, schism, error—and badvestments.com. Thus to be of use to God as clergy, we enter a life that requires yet goes beyond our native intelligence. It requires yet goes beyond our savvy about the “real world” of human potential and pain. It requires yet goes beyond knowledge of the Bible and tradition. We hear in this lesson the call to blend knowledge and perceptions in a way that touches our hearts and makes us both earnest intercessors and deep contemplatives, permanent penitents yet eternally filled with hope. Then the Spirit can and does lead with the wisdom that is grounded in living tradition, a wisdom that also moves the tradition ahead.

That, I hope, begins to minister to the ordinands’ anxieties. But what about the anxiety we may feel in passing the torch, about letting go? I feel more at peace about this tonight than I sometimes do. I will tell you why, and I have permission to do this. On Wednesday of this week I opened Ember letters, those quarterly reports that ordinands make about their state of body, mind, and spirit. Such letters necessarily hover between confession and salesmanship. One of them will stay with me for a long time because of the tears of gratitude and hope it brought me.

Again, with permission: The writer reflects on traumas suffered personally, by the church, and finally by the nation in the tragedy at Newtown last week. The letter goes on:

 “Paradoxically, these events, to some extent, have done wonders for the centering and focus of my prayer life, which has allowed me to shift from an inadequate clinical processing of events and circumstance to a surrendering of them before the paschal mystery of Christ and its transformational ability to provide perspective and healing. This processing through prayer allows me to tap into overlooked or otherwise un-recalled reservoirs when my own resources are inadequate. Significant in this is the reminder that prayer makes room for reasonableness and responsiveness amid stress, anxiety, grief, and doubt, each of which otherwise clouds or impairs my ability to be fully present.”

That would be enough to gladden the heart of any person concerned for the stability and future of the church. That a potential deacon can integrate the clinical, theological and personal dynamics of our religion with such wisdom and devotion says something is very right with our church, and is a reminder to us all of what we look like when we are putting the pieces together inside a pattern of study, observation, repentance and renewal. The center of it all is the dying yet risen Jesus and his call to his disciples to serve the world in his name.

It seems a shame to make a person who could write that take on the ordeal of ordination exams, but I have learned never to tinker with initiatory rites.

[ordinands stand] Sister and brothers: we know that the Church is being reborn in ways we are only beginning to see. Venerable types and shadows have their ending, much-loved bath water may need to gurgle down the drain, and familiar forms may well need to pass into footnotes. But cannot we sense new life, new hope, new ways of relating and worshiping lying low in this sometimes bleak mid-winter in order to sprout and bloom in the very near future? With you but also guided by you we wait, we work faithfully, and we walk on. For those who know Christ and stay immersed in the mystery of his passage from death to life, the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night do not pass away. The word of the Lord abides forever. Live in it. Take the keys. We trust you and we trust the God who has called you.

 

 

 

 

Where is the Shelter?

Sermon by Bishop Paul Marshall
Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Christmas Eve 2012
5:00 p.m. Eucharist

I have been coincidentally reminded several times this week that it was here in the Lehigh Valley that I have celebrated my only Spanish confirmation service, along with two of my few Spanish eucharists. Learning to say the Spanish liturgy is not hard—the major trick for somebody with my background is to remember that it is NOT Latin. What was the more complex gift to me in getting involved in that phase of Trinity Easton’s ministry was learning more of the customs of Latino Christians so that my halting conversations with them could be a little more meaningful. And they were generous in teaching. Not surprisingly, many Latino church customs are a unique blend of non- or pre-Christian culture with the overall faith of the Church, just as are many familiar customs that are imported, such as the Advent Wreath and Christmas Tree that come from Germans. When cultures mix with faith, powerful traditions grow.

There is a Central American custom that I hope we will pick up as the culture of the USA becomes more diverse. It is an observance of the nine days before Christmas as Las Posadas, the dwellings. It is originally from Spain, but in troubled America Central it took on a certain passion.

That is, people who have deep memories of oppression, homelessness, and persecution, gravitate naturally to the fact that when Joseph and Mary as poor people sought shelter, they had to take whatever hospitality they could get, if they could get it. When at long last Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem, there was no room for such as them as they went from inn to inn. “No room for them” should be read as “no room for THEM,” as it was anciently a polite expression of contempt. They were poor, dirty from travel, and there were rumors about her. And just as they flashed on in this country in the 1950s, the motel sign repeatedly switched to “no vacancy” when the couple from Nazareth appeared. So they wandered, seeking La Posada, seeking some shelter.

Nowadays, on the nine evenings of Las Posadas, Dec 16-24, Latino people practice going to each other’s dwellings, and the hospitality they celebrate is an affirmation of decency and compassion. It is also defiance of anything in human nature that rejects Christ by denying, marginalizing and ignoring those who are even a little different. Especially children. They ask at each place they visit, “¿dónde está la posada?,” where is the dwelling? Wouldn’t the world be different if we asked that of ourselves each day.

There are regional variations on Las Posadas, but in each version the heartbreak of Mary and Joseph’s story is felt yet overcome. The end of the story on these nights is that Joseph and Mary are recognized as who they are, lights are lit, and there is general rejoicing.

When Central American people celebrate Las Posadas, they celebrate the light, celebrate hospitality, and then party with the kids. (There are plenty of YouTubes you can watch.) They remember together that sure, it was only a stable, but someone was decent enough to let the very pregnant Mary have a shelter in which to have a baby. From that shared space comes a great joy which shall be for all people.

Las Posadas ends up with parties for the children and the famous piñata appears: nobody ever needs to apologize for enjoying children, and, ahem, especially grandchildren.

But it was quite a move on God’s part to enter the world as a child, and in that child come to save us, wasn’t it? God knows that we are at our most receptive when we encounter a child, and as we sing Silent Night every heart opens a crack more toward a deeper relationship with our maker and redeemer. There is chance to open ours wide. Where is the dwelling we make for him?

Beyond the children, though, the nine days of Las Posadas are nine days about ritually remembering being outcast, marginalized, unwanted and rejected. It is about remembering that all three of the stories we hear in church tonight were told in times of threat and pain. Almost every group in America has experienced alienation at one time or another. In Las Posadas, each of us remembers our ancestors journeying, whether that journey was voluntary or in chains. Each of us remembers that nobody creates their own life and that we are redeemed because of a simple act of ancient hospitality by which Christ could enter the world.

But most of all, in a difficult and tragic year in our country, we may wish to remember the light and the piñata at the end of Las Posadas. It is in the darkness that we best see the light. As to the strangers themselves, we remember that Jesus had in mind our own coming to life spiritually when he told us, “whatever you do the least of my brothers and sisters you do to me.” The Posada Principle, if Robert Ludlum wrote sermons.

Jesus would spend his life at the margins of society, would usually have no place to sleep unless friends helped him out. He lived and worked largely among those whom he called “the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” He, poor as he was, says to them and to each of us that we should come to him with our burdens and he will refresh us. He gives us new life by sharing his life, sharing his life of prayer and care for the sick and needy, sharing his life by pouring it out for us.

Do any of us need cheering up this season? Think of Las Posadas and welcome Jesus, Mary and Joseph and see if it doesn’t help. Smile at a stranger as you walk around the corner at New Bethany. Sign up for “Home for Supper” on Jan 25 at Nativity and you could enter someone else’s dwelling for the first time, mindful of what is being enacted. The next time you give a hand-out on the street or serve somebody at a soup kitchen, tell them your name and ask them theirs. The simplest things can point to the ancient Bethlehem dwelling that takes us all under its roof.

But more than that, when we remember this night’s events in Bethlehem of Judea, the light the star and the radiance the angels shed change the way we look at those around; it changes the way we see those struggling in any way with life; it especially changes how we see the physically needy and endangered, the people who at this very moment live under the Hill-to-Hill Bridge, the New Street Bridge, the parking garages…and the people who will this week come to churches like Nativity for shelter on the coldest nights of the year.

We who know the light of Christ find our brightest moments when we give home and hospitality to the souls and bodies of all we meet.

¿Dónde está la posada?

[point to heart] Está aqui.

 

 

What Should we Do?

Sermon by Father Daniel Gunn
Advent 3 (16 December) 2012
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Pro-Cathedral, WB

May we seek Truth together in humility.  Amen. 
               
Today we arrive at the third Sunday in Advent.  This is supposed to be a day of rejoicing with Mary.  It is supposed to be a brief respite as we anticipate the advent of our Lord.  Thus we hear the voice of the prophet Zephaniah telling Zion to “Sing aloud” and “shout . . . rejoice and exult with all [our] heart.”  And today’s Epistle bears much the same message to Paul’s pet congregation: “Rejoice always, again I say rejoice” he says.  Yet we should take note how these lessons of joy are juxtaposed with the Gospel, which probably better tells where we are today.  In that Gospel we hear the voice of John the Baptist seemingly condemning us, and so we ask as those who came to hear John, “What should we do?”  In fact, I would wager that we are filled with many questions today in light of the events of this past Friday.  I am speaking, of course, of the cold murder of 27 people, mostly children, in Connecticut.  This horror is in many ways no worse than the other mass shootings we have witnessed in recent years, but to many it feels worse.  Before asking “what should we do,” we are compelled to first ask, “Why?”  If God is good, then how and why would God allow such evil to exist as we witnessed this past Friday?

Questions of this nature belong to a branch of theology called Theodicy which examines why a good God allows evil to exist.  Many better minds than ours have grappled with this, and came to unsatisfactory conclusions.  Some have said that God is not all benevolent; others that he is not all powerful, still others have tried to explain how all goodness could coexist with evil by saying that because God is good evil must exist to prove his goodness.  While still others have speculated that God limits God’s self thus allowing evil to exist.  I have read and studied them all, and find that every answer falls short.  Ultimately there are no satisfying answers and we are left with the paradox that two things can be true at the same time: God is good and evil exists.  All other attempts to explain become straw, and so we fall upon our faces before that good God and ask for mercy, forgiveness, and peace.  We humbly pray that God would deliver us from evil.

Forgive me my soapbox moment: If I had my way today I would call for a moratorium on gun sales, but having grown up around guns I know this alone is not the answer.  Guns are but one symptom of a greater problem.  What I do pray for is that we will get beyond our romance with weapons and in every way possible work to end our culture of violence.  The fundamental message of John was for the people to change their ways.  In a word: repent.  What should we do?  Repent.  It is in the act of repentance that we change our culture.  It is in the act of humbling ourselves that we change our world.  It is in the act of growing to love our neighbor as we love ourselves that change our culture.  And may we teach that love and humility to each other as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.

Many of us will object, “I have done nothing wrong.  I didn’t kill 20 children.  Why should I repent?”  And we hear the voice of John crying out to us in the crowd: Bear good fruit.  Inasmuch as we participate in our culture in any way and in any part, we are called to repent.  The redemption of the world depends on the action of one person, Jesus the Christ, that is the message of Christianity.  It still depends on the actions of individuals—each of us.  Ending violence in our culture begins with you, and it begins with me.

Last week I was watching that hard-hitting news program called The Colbert Report as the anchor interviewed Sister Simone Campbell, the organizer of “Nuns on a Bus.”  Sister Simone explained the mission of the Church and of every Christian.  She said we are called to “Touch the pain of the World.”  Even before the events of this past Friday I was moved by her words.

So where is our hope today?  Our hope lies in the love of a God willing to live among us as one of us.  Our hope is in the fact that our God was willing to “touch the pain of the world.”  Our hope is in the fact that evil will never conquer good, darkness will never conquer light, and violence will lose to peace.  When we ask like those in today’s Gospel whose hearts were piqued: “What should we do?” we have the answer already.

In these thoughts may we find truth.  Amen.

A Homily Preached at Diocesan House

By Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
9 August 2012
Judges 8:22-35, Psalm 27, Saint John 1:43-21 (Feria)

With a practiced finger, the sales clerk pushed the bridge of his spectacles half-way up his nose and squinted.  “You could ride this bicycle all the way to heaven.”  The young lady, just twelve, returned her answer, “All I know is that I want to ride and to ride and to ride.  How shall I know if I get to heaven?”  “First of all,” the sales clerk said, “you’ll be on your way by doing what you really want to do.”  With practiced skill, he continued.  “And you will know you are there, because you will forget to ask your question along the way.”

And so it is.  The Lord who made us made it possible for us to find him by following what he made us to enjoy.  I have staked my life on this proposition: where there is truth, there is God.  It is not really possible to misappropriate truth.

In the Gospel today, Nathanael asks Jesus, “Where did you get to know me?” (1:48).  The answer “I saw you under the fig tree” means something like “How could I not know you?”  You see, we are his, and his forever.  Our paths lead to him.  Our paths are in him.  I know I have forgotten to ask my questions along the way.

Enduring as the person you are in the calling you have received

Sermon at Diocesan House
Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
The Thursday after Pentecost VI
Feria, 12 July 2012, Proper 9
Romans 9:19-33, Psalm 62, Saint Matthew 24:1-12 (Daily Office, altered)

The internet radio smoothly and unmistakably sounds.  The announcer proclaims clearly, “When you’re here, you can do anything.  You can be anyone.”

Crafty people, those advertisers.  They know some of us want to be somebody else.  They know that some of us want to be doing something else.  And they will use that to advertise, of all things—a casino.

You can do anything and be anyone, and you can lose and lose and lose all the way to the point that nothing else remains to be lost.

The kingdom of our Lord and the Christian life differ somewhat from a casino.

The Lord points to the difference in the Gospel today.  “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Saint Matthew 24:13).

Living, really living, is not about doing something else or being somebody else.  It’s about enduring as the person you are in the calling you have received.  The person you are and the calling you have come from God, and making that connection saves you, saves you from losing and losing, and preserves you to eternal life.

On Irenaeus, a sermon by Anne Kitch

Diocesan House, Bethlehem
June 28, 2012

Last night our Diocesan deputies to General Convention enjoyed a wonderful dinner hosted by our Bishop. The evening was part of our preparation for General Convention, which begins in a few days. It was a delightful gathering. And while we did discuss issues and schedules and the place of our diocese in the larger Episcopal Church, perhaps the most important part of our preparation was the fellowship, laughter and camaraderie we shared. I can truly say I am grateful for my companions as we travel to Indianapolis next week to take our part in the counsels of the Church.

A Time for Prophets

Sermon, Bishop Paul V. Marshall
At the Ordination of
Mary Lou Divis and Charles Warwick
St. Stephen’s Wilkes-Barre – May 18, 2012

        When any person first has the apprehension that God is real everything changes.

What is different about this night is that two people have worked very hard and very faithfully to get here through unusual circumstances. Lou in particular has cheerfully walked a complicated road that I can only admire.

What is also different is that for the third time at St. Stephen’s I take my lead from the music, and want to say a few words about Isaiah’s vision in our first lesson, because you will hear it powerfully portrayed in the offertory anthem.

742, the year King Uzziah died, was not a good year. The good times were over. Uzziah’s reign was for years nearly as prosperous as Solomon’s. It had been a good time to be a Judean. And even when the king fell prey to the sin of pride and was smitten with leprosy, the material prosperity continued for a while under his son the co-regent. But it wasn’t the same anymore. The Assyrians were gearing up and rattling the newest military technology –– iron swords that cut through other weapons like butter –– and there were many in Judah who were frightened or wanted appeasement. The northern kingdom was already an Assyrian vassal state. Suddenly it wasn’t such a good time to be a Judean. Suddenly (increasingly shaky) material prosperity didn’t feel like enough, and come to think of it, the stronger Assyria got, the weaker the stock market was looking in Jerusalem. The pro-Assyrian party was growing in Judah, which meant that that worship of Yahweh was seen as irrelevant or useless by increasing numbers of people. Economic downturn and the seeming irrelevance of religion … is any of this starting to sound familiar? That’s where we start our story.

Isaiah may well have been a priest, but whether or not this is so, his experience of call was in the temple and has a good deal to say about what we do tonight, as we seek vision in an age of recession and violence, an age when we have made ourselves a tributary province of a number of Asian countries, and there is plenty of evidence that we have neither moral compass nor characterological GPS in public or private life..

Isaiah’s call is not a vision with lots of words and instructions –– that would come later. Isaiah’s call was a fundamental experience of who he was as a person and in relation to Almighty God.

Here Mary Lou and Charlie will understand particularly well. Isaiah was not possessed with any strong ambition to be a prophet: it was messy and dangerous work if you weren’t an official state prophet, a hired religious yes-man. No, Isaiah was called to be unpopular by the experience of God’s holiness and God’s mercy. The call came because he was about the business of a faithful person: he was praying.

I wonder how many who have been ordained for a while remember this. Isaiah’s call starts with a vision of God, a kind of intersection of parallel universes: he is in the temple but he is also standing in the heavenly council. He says those simple but devastating words, “I saw the Lord.”

When any person first has the apprehension that God is real everything changes.

After the angels sing what we call the Sanctus and the incense begins to clear, Isaiah makes the right choice.

He doesn’t feel special, privileged or entitled, nor does he feel entrepreneurial about this theophany as St Peter would. He certainly doesn’t Google Whipple’s website for a prophetic mantle. No, he is completely flattened by what he sees and hears. Awe and humility are the only authentic response to a vision of God. Any priest who believes he or she has domesticated God will lead many souls to perdition. Humility is one of the basic tools of our trade.

No, Isaiah’s response to a vision of the Lord of Hosts is the realization that he is quite unworthy to be in that presence, and that goes double for his culture. He is inclined to slink away and go say some penitential psalms.

We must acknowledge the reality of our unworthiness to stand before God’s people and proclaim the word and break the break, but if we stop there we will become useless, because there is more than masochism to ministry.

The “more” is the next moment in this story. Just as Isaiah is getting a good debilitating guilt going, a seraph, carefully covering its “feet” (whatever they were) with one set of wings, presses a glowing coal from the altar of incense against Isaiah’s lips. I would have preferred a cooling dab of holy water. But that’s the point. The sizzling, crackly, burning away of Isaiah’s sin is meant to be an unforgettable experience of God’s cleansing Grace. You stand here tonight because the cleansing Grace of God in Jesus Christ has touched you and changed your heart and lips, as searing as the experience may have been. Just so in Isaiah’s story: the man of unclean lips is both forgiven and cleansed.

Years of therapy are telescoped in this story for a reason. That is, Isaiah has been granted a vision of the divine not for his own spiritual fulfillment — it is not clear to me that our contemporary sense of personal spiritual fulfillment is a biblical concept — Isaiah has been granted a vision and experience of cleansing so that he can hear God asking the heavenly council, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

And this new person, this temple sight-seer become Tzadik, says …“Send me.” I think you know the rest. He went on to speak of wolves and lions, virgins conceiving; he said comfort my people; reminded then that though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow. Isaiah was not a pussycat, though. “What do you mean to beat the vineyard and grind the faces of the poor?” To all the ages he said, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.” The man, all three of him, could hardly speak without uttering a quotation.

Fast forward to 2012. To say that we are a people whose moral life is out of order is understatement. It is now a matter of law in this country that the legislative process may be owned by the highest bidders and there cannot be much doubt that democracy is in decay. Far worse, Christianity’s good name has been hijacked: an astonishing 91% of young people in a recent poll gave as their first association to the world Christianity, “anti-gay.” Christianity and religious freedom are having their names hijacked to oppress women in ways we thought were over decades ago. Who will in clear words and compassionate acts dare to say that the first word about Christianity is not “anti” anything, that its first word is not a word of corruption or oppression but the word that God loved the world and gave a Son; that the Son did not come into the world to condemn the world?” Who will say that word? I believe that God hopes it is you who will speak.

But you know, if you are faithful you will have the same problem Isaiah did — read his book: Calling for mutual accountability will always be sneered at as inciting class warfare. But the prophets called for it anyway. Preferring plowshares to swords will always be sneered at as weakness, but that is what Isaiah did. Suggesting that the poor themselves have responsibilities and teaching them to meet them may well be seen as patronizing or sometimes racist, but that’s what Ezra did. Resisting First-Amendment bullying by the much larger denominations is going to mean embracing some ecumenical embarrassment, and we will have to remember Paul confronting Peter. Urging a nation to repair its moral character rather than to look for quick fixes is the particular burden of your generation of clergy, just as it was repeatedly for the prophets of both covenants.

Now let me make that harder. The clergy who have been “occupying” various buildings have not brought much aid to the poor or repentance on the part of those they oppose. Banking laws are a little too complex to reform in an ashram — again the importance of restoring impartial government. The battle with sin is defined differently these days. By the year that the King of Rock and Roll died, the revolution of the 60s and 70s was over. We have to be smarter, wilier, sweeter than the merely confrontational. You might think of Desmond Tutu or Dorothy Day as effective models here. Our tools of incarnation, presence, integrity, and adamant dedication to justice all come straight out of the Bible. We just have to be wise as serpents as we attempt to follow Isaiah in transforming our culture.

The courage to do this comes from the presence and power of the Lord Jesus himself. It comes from your life of daily prayer and frequent feasting at the Eucharist. It comes from the examples of thousands of years of faithful predecessors in prayer and prophecy. Jesus’ faithfulness was vindicated, as yours shall be, and he has promised to be with his church for ever, including you and me.

Think this over during the Creed. If you still hear the voice calling, if you still can remember the seraphim flying, if you still want to say “send me,” I’ll meet you by that chair over there in a few minutes. I hope you will come.

 

Sermon preached by Bishop Paul Marshall at the Marriage of Andrew Reinholz and Kimberly Rowles. 1/14/12

Christ Church, Reading
(c) Paul V. Marshall
Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7; Colossians 3:12-17; Matthew 7:21,24-29

We are all here to express in one way or another our love for Kim and Andrew, our joy in their happiness, and our hopes for their long and happy future.

And to have a party. That, it turns out, is the very biblical thing to do.

At the same time, the bride and groom are trying to express something to us. I don’t think I have ever seen a couple put as much time and care into the choice of scripture lessons, thus our attentively reflecting together on the texts they have chosen is a way of honoring Kim and Andrew, giving their choices serious attention.

Memories are made of this

Sermon, All Saints Day, 2011
Ordination of Frances Hlavacek and Charles Warwick to the Sacred Order of Deacons.
The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Marshall, Bishop of Bethlehem

Dean Leander Keck used to say that a sermon is biblical if it has the same function of the text. How, then, might we duplicate what St. John saw in his vision for our new deacons?

Let’s try this. When you visit Rome today, on its rush to St Peter’s Basilica, the tour bus passes a much smaller church with a disproportionately large dome. If you make your way back to it, you find yourself in a former Roman temple, the Pantheon, the building once dedicated to all the gods.

When Christians took over the Pantheon they re-dedicated it to St. Mary and all the martyrs. What had been the temple of all the gods had become the shrine of Christ’s holy ones.

The Pantheon is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, and the dome makes the building. The dome is constructed with molded coffers, indentations, and the rays of the sun play with them as it moves through the sky. But when the light entering from the top is just right, the dome shimmers. The statues of the gods must have seemed alive and present to visitors at such moments, a bit of heaven. Out of all the recycled temples, this is the room Christians took over to remember their heroes of faith, bathed in heavenly light and still with them, holy ones always praying for them as they worked to be faithful disciples.

Since I first saw it, I have often imagined what it was like to live in a world before electricity and to go into the Pantheon, to be stopped still in one’s tracks by the light, aware of the holiness that is always all around us and now concentrated so that we can see it better. The builder’s intent was that you would be transfixed, and it works. I also wonder what it was like to enter that space a little tired, a little discouraged perhaps, and just stand there. Stand there letting the light do the evangelizing as it changed the room and bathed the images of the saints in the light. On such an occasion the unspoken words might be “you are not in this alone; many have walked the path; many garments have been cleansed in the blood of the lamb; they dwell in light—and they pray for you, they cheer you on. How God is glorified in them!”

All Saints Day has fallen onto hard times of late, and currently exists for many people as a kind of memorial day for remembering everyone they ever knew and loved. It seems that the skinny cow of All Souls Day has swallowed up the fat cow of All Saints Day. I cannot do anything about that latest victory of sentimentality except regret it. Let me nonetheless remind our ordinands that for most of our history, this day was a celebration for those martyrs and other believers who struggled very intentionally to make Jesus Christ real in this world at considerable cost to themselves. The Church gratefully cherishes their memory and humbly invokes their prayers.

Of course they of the skinny cows are right when they remind us that everybody has her or his own little pantheon of more contemporary people who have touched them, and those memories are vital to the shape of their own souls. I have my list of people who shaped me, and am profoundly grateful for them as I pray for them on All Souls Day. All Saints day is about corporate memory, however, a concept it took about four centuries for the Church to develop under a number of influences. The result is that on All Saints Day we remember those lives in which Christ’s people together have seen God at work, mightily, subtly, beautifully and for the sake of Jesus. At all times, and in all places, nations, languages and people. Sentimentality and individualism are only overcome by great common stories, myth in the best sense. Myth provides the common story into which individuals grow. A people without a common mythology fragments into solipsism and hedonism, and this is a point any newspaper illustrates every day. It is why there will always be a price to pay for the Reformation’s necessary emphasis on the individual. People with a common story have common will and are very effective. That is why we tell the stories of the saints as our story, not my story. The saints show us how the wheel came to be invented, so that task need not delay us.

Fran and Charlie, this great feast day speaks to the occasion of your ordination.

Memory is a pretty flexible thing, if I recall, so let that fact work for you and install a memory with me now. Whenever our common ministry seems challenging or heavy, “remember” how you and I stood together in Rome under the shimmering dome of the Pantheon on that bright summer day not too long ago. Especially remember the light. We are always walking in and toward the light, doing our best to assist God’s people on that very same journey to the central flame of the Light of Christ. Remember the light.

Remember how many saints we saw there that day. As deacons you will interpret the needs of the world to the Church. This is why corporate memory and corporate awareness are so important. You will indeed spend much of your ministries attending to the needs of individuals. That is necessary and saintly, but even more is asked of you. Because you deacons are on the front lines, so to speak, you are in the very best position to reflect on what you see and hear, and get us to see and hear it too. When you have a reverence for who we are together, your ability to speak gracefully and in proportion can only grow in effectiveness. When you are aware of the great company in which you stand, you have so much more to offer to people whose defining quality may be crushing aloneness. Invite those lonely or hurting souls to meet the family.

The saints of the undivided church are the heroes of the Bible, the apostolic era, and the centuries following. Martyrs, teachers, servants, they are none of them perfect—even Jesus’ mother had to be corrected by him on at least three occasions. They were, however, all willing to use the particular gifts God gave them in service to the kingdom. It is vital that you internalize this truth. Our heroes did not get everything right, and it is a tragedy when those invested in the work of the church grow despondent over their own imperfections. There are certain basic competencies ordinands must have, and you two have demonstrated them in order to be here tonight. Beyond that, God and the Church ask that you use the gifts you actually have, to hone the skills that are uniquely yours. Leave it to others to perfect cold fusion.

There are shadows in the Pantheon; that is how the building works. In tonight’s gospel Jesus promises all of his followers that if they follow him intentionally they may expect to be reviled and they may expect to be persecuted. The Barnabas Fund says that 160,000 people were murdered by Muslims in 2010 just for being Christian. The grand total of Christian deaths for the year is over half a million by their count. Let’s say the Barnabas Fund is exaggerating, and it is only a quarter of a million slaughtered. I understand that it is not this or any other administration’s state interest to make these deaths a cause, but why are Christians so silent in the west? Where are the deacons?

Persecution in our own culture is usually more polite, if not benign, unless you start meddling, and meddling is, alas, the deacon’s duty, so be ready. Historically, quite a few people on our calendar of saints died at the hands of fellow Christians, and we who preach remember our patron John Chrysostom in just that regard.

So it happens, it can happen to you. Along with the reminder to stand up for all victims of persecution, Jesus says do not be discouraged or even particularly surprised if your devotion to serving him in the person of the poor, the troubled, or the dishonored gets you into difficulty. Do not be surprised if even conventionally religious people push back when you speak for the voiceless.

Science tells us that being immensely powerful and hugely successful does indeed create a chemical rush that changes brain functioning. That rush does not excuse, but does explain how family values politicians can also be molesters and not think it odd. In our vocabulary, it is one of the expected consequences of superbia, malignant pride. The lesson for deacons is that it is hard to speak truth to power because power doesn’t think you have anything to say because it is too busy being drenched in serotonin. I do not say this to aggravate your defiance circuits, but as a reminder. I want to evoke that part of you that is wiser than a serpent—and deacons must be very wise. What are the means of persuasion left to you when shouting does not work? Well, for just one example, Jesus exposed evil by naming it, submitting to it, showing it up for what it is. He is the one whom God vindicated, and in him we all are vindicated as we strive to be faithful.

When the push-back comes in big or little ways, Jesus asks you to remember that you are in good company. One of the marks of being a prophet is being persecuted. But how will you remember that if you haven’t been studying their stories?

When the push-back comes, remember how you and I visited the Pantheon that summer day and marveled at how many, more than anyone could count, had come through all manner of tribulation and now praise God eternally.  Remember how our hearts were brave again and how our arms grew strong—and back to the work we will go, remembering, aware of the light that is and remains around us.

May God bless many through your ministry as deacons.

After the Three-Legged Stool, This

Sermon, Clergy Day 11/3/11
Commemoration of Richard Hooker
The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Marshall, Bishop of Bethlehem

Would you, with all your gifts and talents, want to be remembered for a piece of furniture? I thought not, so let’s mention the three-legged stool and move on.

As our own Phil Secor and countless others have reminded us, Richard Hooker was no mere pragmatist or compromiser. He was a theologian. As John Booty has pointed out in his Reflections, some of Hooker’s major themes are community, worship, and sacramental completeness.

Just coming from All Saints Day, we have had occasion to think about “happy are they,” happy being a limping translation for makarios, a Greek word for that state of completeness, integrity, and way-beyond-good-feeling that the gods enjoy. Hooker’s explication of community and worship were not so much meditations on the Elizabethan settlement as they were exploration of what it takes to make people “happy.” For him the answer was wholeness of relationship to God and society.
 
The Church was, for Hooker, a special locus within general society where mutuality and cooperation were manifest. In his time people argued about the “marks” of a true church, and it is instructive to imagine how those lists would have changed if mutuality and cooperation were benchmarks against which each body tested itself and others.

Mutuality and cooperation. That is not a pragmatic formulation from the mind of one who sought peace at any price. These words reflect how Hooker understood the universe: “God has made nothing for itself.” (Sermon on Pride)

In a famous passage in the first book of The Laws, Hooker points to the whole cosmos working together in all its parts, concluding that our attention to the facto of fundamental created interrelatedness is “the stay of the whole world.” Do we do our part to keep the cosmos humming smoothly?

Our times demand that we add emphatically that Christ the reconciler is the center of that world. For Hooker, our response to recognition of the truth that the world is centered in fundamental interrelatedness is worship, awe, and…wonder. Hooker is way ahead of us is anticipating that delightful prayer that concludes the baptismal rite, asking for the new Christian, “the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.” To be makarios, happy, is to have the joy of contemplating God’s creation of a universe of interrelation. That will preach 411 years after his death.

That attitude of wonder is Hooker’s “needful sword” to slice through the knot of eucharistic theology. After, all, one cannot come to the table doing math. Hooker the communicant was ready to leave Hooker the academic at home and came as his more basic self when he came to communion:

“Why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this, ‘O my God, thou art here, O my soul, thou art happy.’”
 
Hooker considered the shape of the liturgical container for this experience of happiness a non-trivial matter. Rather like Jacob’s Dream or a Gary Larsen cartoon about the afterlife, Hooker imagined worship as including a kind of two-way escalator, with angels constantly bringing down truth, and taking back praise and prayers.

Occasioning such an event was not to be an off-hand matter. Book Five of the Laws has historical and theological concern for liturgy, but it argues for the maintenance of public form and private freedom in a highly pastoral way (and forgive me here for reading from my dissertation of 30 years ago). Hooker says that fixed liturgies work to help that imbecility and weakness in us, by means whereof we are otherwise of ourselves the less apt to perform unto God so heavenly a service, with such affection of heart, and disposition in the powers of our souls as is requisite. To this end therefore all things hereunto ap­pertaining have been ever thought convenient to be done with the most solemnity and majesty that the wisest could devise. It is not with public as with private prayer. In this rather secrecy is com­mended than outward show, whereas that being the public act of a whole society, requireth accordingly more care to be had of external appearance. (V.21.1)

Imbecility. Participating in a common liturgy invites me to confront my own randomness, immaturity, and lack of direction by letting the rite, the cosmos, the community, and my apprehension of those escalator angels shape me. Imbecility ministered to by majesty.

There is a warning here. We who are asked to lead the church must always care for our imbecility through liturgy and personal prayer, as Hooker says. And care for the imbecile next to you.

Care for the imbecile next to you. I have spent many years now noticing chatter, sometimes even running commentary, by clergy and other church leaders gathered for public worship. I have seen crowds talking away while world-class musicians have played world-class music. I have known some of you to tell me that you won’t sit by so-and-so because you cannot worship through the constant chatter. Let’s respect the imbeciles around us. Some may be bearing heavy burdens; others may be struggling to see light; still others may trying to lose themselves in adoration of God.

I’ve wondered why we do this. Is it anxiety about not being in the driver’s seat in this liturgy? Is it difficulty in accepting that other people have ways of functioning that reflect integrity as much as ours do?  Or is it a defense, a defense against the numinous or even a defense against our doubts? Is it a way to cut God down to size?

In any case, Hooker calls us to transcend such behavior so that the neighbor and we ourselves are more free to notice the angels going up and down, receive what they bring, and load up their pouches with our praise and prayer. In this, he says, we will be happy.

Remembering Richard Hooker is remembering that ultimately God makes us happy by making us connected, connected to the universe, our maker, and each other. He invites us to discipline ourselves for wonder, to care for our imbecility and the imbeciles around us, that that all may say, “O my God, thou art true; O my soul, thou art happy.”

Come to the Mountain

Come to the Mountain

By Bishop Jack Croneberger
October 8, 2011
Diocesan Convention Eucharist Sermon
Cathedral Church of the Nativity

“Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites, you have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation.’” (Exodus 19:3-7)

Brothers and sisters, it is time for us to go up to the mountain, to God, for God is surely calling to us. We shall be borne on eagles’ wings and brought to God’s presence and we...we are called to obey God’s voice and keep God’s covenant, for we are God’s treasured possession. A priestly kingdom, a holy nation.

O.K., O.K...Then tell me how come I frequently don’t feel much like a treasured possession or a priestly kingdom and certainly not a holy nation!

Let’s try this...called to obey God’s voice and keep God’s covenant. Obeying God’s voice requires the sharpest of our listening skills, listening for God’s voice in the panoply of creation; from the beauty or the devastation of wind, or water, or fire; from the roaring sounds of the world around us to the still small voices of the world within us.

How is God’s voice being spoken to us this day? Can you hear it? Can you share it?  Can you do it? What if it’s not popular or politic? I call upon you this day, at this convention and Eucharist to come to the mountain...to hear the voice of God.
Be careful now, for if you hear God’s voice, you will inevitably be called to keep God’s covenant. And not just the “Do you believe” but also the “Will you continue, will you persevere? Will you proclaim, will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, will you strive for justice and peace among all people?”

Just when I believe I might have a handle on all the “Will I’s?” of the covenant, the old fears come to visit again. Something is not right! Something is missing! It’s too much! I cannot possibly do all the covenant asks of me. Forgive me, Lord.
And just then, Jesus steps into my screen...this time in the form of a “Peanuts” cartoon strip. Lucy is crying bitter tears over a decision her mother has made. She wails, “You promised me a birthday party  and now you say I can’t have one! It’s not fair!”

Enter Lucy’s brother, Linus, who is the theologian in the group, who calls her aside to offer some advice. “You’re not using the right strategy,” he says. “Why not go up to Mom and say to her, ‘I’m sorry, dear Mother. I admit I’ve been bad, and you were right to cancel my party, but from not on, I shall try to be good.’”

Lucy thinks about it. She even rehearses the little speech to hear what it sounds like coming from her. Then she thinks about it some more. Finally, in the strip’s last panel, Lucy cries out, “I’D RATHER DIE!!”

Sometimes I think I’d rather die than say “I’m sorry.” Rather die than repent. But then dying to self is really what repentance is all about. Perhaps it is because I seem to be surrounded by death and dying, some expected and some very unexpected, but within the context of these finite lives of ours we need to be prepared. We need to wash our faces in the waters of baptism and put on the wedding garments of faith and our active response to faith. So let’s do whatever dying we need to do now, in order that we might be ready to live. To live with Christ and in Christ, now and forever.

 “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’” (Matthew 16:24-25).

Diocesan Life for October 2011

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Sermon at Interfaith Service of Remembrance and Hope

Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
September 11, 2011

On behalf of the Episcopal Church in these fourteen counties of NE PA, it is my privilege to welcome to this place the distinguished leaders of several Lehigh Valley religious communities, and indeed all of you who are present at this moment of remembrance and hope.

It is, as each of us knows and feels, the anniversary of the vicious destruction of three thousand human lives ten years ago. Our worship tonight beautifully brings the riches or our several traditions together to assist us in the remembrance of those who have died. It expresses our concern for those who still live with the burden of grief or injury. We also remember those whose efforts at rescue and recovery ten years ago have cost them and their loved ones dearly.

Our technology allows us to relive the disasters of 9/11 on our screens at the touch of a button or click of a mouse. That fact informs some, but it has also kept wounds open for many more victims than we might suspect, and we remember all of those who are imprisoned by horrible memories.

Yet the words said and sung here may not in the long run be as significant as the very fact of our gathering together.  Our presence enacts our wish to work together in a way that promotes a just peace in every place.  We meet not on the level of our strengths or our defenses, but on the level of our grief, on the level of our tears. When we risk being vulnerable in each other’s presence, healing can happen.

The title on your leaflet is “Remembrance and Hope.” Remembrance and grief are well expressed in this worship service. We may have differing notions of what it means to remember the departed before Heaven and to ask the Creator to remember the dead. But surely we agree that to some degree the aspect of hope is left up to us to accomplish. I want to say a brief word about making way for hope.

This is hardly the occasion to say anything new, but I will try to put what we already know, and perhaps feel, into some kind of structured reflection. I hope I do so humbly and carefully.

The first hopeful observation is that tonight we suspend or at least transcend our reservations about those whom we perhaps sometimes presume to categorize as “other.” What we can do today we can do tomorrow, if we want to. Tonight we suspend or transcend our reservations because, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said, while we may not share a single faith we certainly share a single fate. Only a change in all of us at the cellular level can avoid that devastating fate.

There have been, as there always are, people who wish to mitigate the evil of 9/11 through a version of “understanding” the perpetrators. I find that abhorrent. The idea that if one has suffered enough one has license to be a monster must be rejected out of hand. What moral authority organized religion has left must, I think, say that clearly.

The sad truth that concerns us as religious people is that 9/11 happened because an evil man used religious language to foster in alienated and angry people a hatred cold, vicious, and refined enough for them to murder three thousand human beings without warning or opportunity to defend themselves.

We who uphold spiritual values must confront in our fellow believers such a misuse of religion if there is to be hope for the world. It is for each of us to ask how much and how often we have confronted the extremists in our own communities. How often do we give bad behavior a pass because we do not wish to be seen as critical of our own side—and the others are looking?

There are followers of every religion I have encountered who have used religious language and religious loyalties to instill attitudes or even incite deeds that defy the will of the One who called Abram so that all the world might find a blessing. We must forbid that defiance of Heaven—not among others, but among our co-religionists. I speak not of old-fashioned brotherhood or tolerance, of even King Empathy itself, but of the survival of our species.

If there is to be a future, it belongs to our children. In that regard I report that I am essentially a city boy, and have been around long enough to know that every religious group—and lots of religious sub-groups—have words of casual distain for those who are not like them. Our words shape our thinking. Does training for hatred start as our children hear these expressions that are so much a part of many vocabularies? Can we live without them? Do we want to live without them?

I know a country girl whose earliest memory of seeing a black man is neurologically fused with her experience of her mother clutching her hand somewhat desperately as the stranger approached. What might have come from such an experience? Again, I am not interested at this moment in good feelings, but in survival.

In the interest of survival there is a need for every group and nation to cease rationalizing their own behavior or the behavior of those they support while condemning the same acts when others do them. Can we who lead religious groups, while surely decrying the evils we see, also root out in ourselves all that degrades others? Can we root out   all that externalizes blames and projects our negativity onto others? And here our various groups very much need each other’s feedback, as difficult as it may be to offer or to hear it. What is a casual remark in one vocabulary may be a grave insult in another.

We who bear, preserve, and hand on religious traditions have a very heavy responsibility in this regard. Religion by its nature touches and moves parts of us that are not entirely rational, not even conscious, and this can be a very good thing. Spiritual practices require a deliberate regression, just as art and music do, if we are to experience meaning deeply. It is because people come to religious moments in a regressed state that they are open to the sublime.

They are also open to demagoguery and hatred in those moments. They are especially vulnerable if they are afraid, or wounded, or if the speaker has some powerful slogans. If there is to be hope, those of us who lead or teach or influence religious institutions must remember the vulnerability of those who hear us and frame our words very carefully. A student once said to a professor that “with a little work you could be a mesmerizing speaker.” The professor told him that he worked even harder not to be mesmerizing. Our religious discourse ought never deprive our hearers of the ability to make moral and ethical judgments on their own, to say, “Hey, this is wrong.”

Just one more point. When I was a student back in the 60s, it was the politics of the left that was very critical and rejecting of the state. At this moment it seems that the right is having that experience. I don’t take a side here, but point out that everyone is capable of an attitude of alienation from their own country. The prophet Jeremiah, whom our several traditions all revere, had a word about that. To captives and exiles who had every reason to be bad citizens, he wrote: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

In its welfare you will find your welfare. I don’t expect to live long enough to see them teaching Civics again to high school students, and that is a pity. We must do it. We need to teach by word and example the values of community, the responsibilities of citizenship, the importance of fair play, and respect for the potential that lies in every human being. Actively seeking the good of humanity right where we live defies narcissism, greed, and hatred--and opens the path to peace.  That is a hope worth pursuing if we are to survive and our children to thrive.

 

 

 

The Ordination of Eddie Lopez to the Diaconate

Sermon by Daniel Gunn
Rector, St. Stephen's Pro-cathedrl
On the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (24 June) 2011
St. Stephen’s Pro-cathedral, WB, PA

May we seek Truth together in humility.  Amen.

Eddie, I have a question for you.  This is the last exam you will have to take in this LOOOOOONG process.  Are you ready?  (That was not the question.)  Here it is: Do you hear voices?  Think carefully before you answer.  This is not a trick question.  You’ve already passed your psychologicals, so you don’t have to lie.  Do you hear voices?  If you answer “no” then I withdraw all my support, because I believe that you do hear voices, and to this point I have known very few people who have heard and heeded that voice more than you.

I’d like to help you fine-tune that voice this evening.  First by offering some suggestions from Isaiah, and then by offering you some advice I receive from an elder priest some years ago.  Let’s look at Isaiah.  Today is the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist.  Since that is a mouth-full, let’s dispense with that, and just talk about John the Baptist, or in this case Isaiah.  Today you are being ordained to the Sacred order of Deacons.  This in some sense means that you belong to the people.  As I understand it, you exceed me, or any other presbyter, because you are directly under the bishop, and as such you have a responsibility to him (or her) to be among the people.  First there were Apostles, THEN deacons, and only thereafter, priests.  You, my friend, have a six-month tour of duty with the general.  But you need not fear.  You already have the field manual from Isaiah, and he gives you the instructions.

Ordinarily when we hear this lesson from Isaiah we are in a season of preparation and anticipation—Advent.  God spoke to Isaiah instructing him to comfort God’s people.  You’re an old hand at doing this.  In fact, you’re engaged in a system that comforts people already (that’s if being a chaplain at a concierge hospital counts).  (That reminds me: how do you pay for rich people when they have splinters removed?  I’m joking, of course.)

In all seriousness, you are called to comfort people who feel as though they are in the wilderness.  You are called to enter the wilderness and be with them.  You are called to prepare a place for God in the wilderness of people’s lives.  But how can you comfort people?  People are like grass and flowers that flourish one moment and the next they wither and fade.  Ah, but Isaiah reminds us that you have an especially comforting tool: you have the word of our God.  As you know, deacons have a special calling to proclaim the Word of God—the Good News—among the people.  So Eddie, comfort God’s people with the word; remind them that God will come to them.  Remind them that God will feed them, and when necessary, carry them.

Now let me transition to some advice I received from an elder clergy person, and one from Bishop Paul.  I am going to give you these 11 nuggets, trying not to elaborate.  I keep these on the inside of my office door as a reminder.

This first one comes from Bishop Paul: “You can’t refute a sneer.”

Start daily with devotionals.

Empowerment is good for spiritual, emotional, physical, etc. health.

Keep office door open.

Answer own phone and keep own calendar.

If Rosanna (your significant other) does not like an idea – pay attention.

Can’t build efficient staff with a committee.

Clergy get paid for being Christians – laity don’t – respect them for their commitment.

It does not matter how effective or efficient you are as a priest if I flunk as friend and husband.

People are always more important than ideas.

The work of Holy Spirit is most discernable in interruptions.

My friend, you and I have been on this journey for some time; Now GO, comfort God’s people!

In these thoughts may we find truth.  Amen.

The Good Shepherd and Functioning Up

Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
Preached at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton
Easter IV, Year A, 15 May 2011

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit” (Saint John 10:1).

Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is a special day for the Church of the Good Shepherd.  For today is “Good Shepherd” Sunday, the Sunday every year that we recognize that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and that we pray we shall follow where he leads.  The case could be made that today is our Patronal Feast, the day when we recognize that our Patron is Jesus the Good Shepherd and that our identity (among many) is in following the Good Shepherd.

Rather than preach about sheep, and shepherds, and shepherds’ crooks, and pastures, and wolves, and gates, I want to move in another direction and speak about “functioning up.”  I frequently ask groups to function up.  And I remember a particular occasion here at the Church of the Good Shepherd when I asked everyone, including me, to function up.  It was about twenty months ago.  You may remember the time.  We were in the midst of the controversy about the Garden.  There were hurt feelings.  There were people who wanted to use those hurt feelings to get their way, and I held firm and asked people to function up.  What does functioning up mean, any way?

Someone asked me that the other day, and I confess I had no specially good answer.  But one came my way.  I was trying to say that functioning up means seeing the whole situation from the big perspective and not one’s own narrow point of view.  It means transcending your personal myth about how you are right most of the time and how other people, consequently, and not right when the two of you don’t agree.  And I couldn’t come up with a way of conveying the idea in a way that was compelling.  But, as I said, one came my way.

Like some of you, perhaps, I have been fascinated recently with the Navy SEALs, those soldiers so thoroughly trained, so competent, and so courageous, who so successfully completed the mission they were given, a mission they did not choose, just two weeks ago.  And I saw an article in The Wall Street Journal that spoke about functioning up though that term was not used.  The writer was explaining how difficult SEAL training is, how few recruits actually complete the course, and how few of them have the opportunity to put to work in the field the things they have learned.  About the recruits who made it through the rigorous training, the author wrote:

Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality.  Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear and ask: How can I help the guy next to me?  They had more than the ‘fist’ of courage and physical strength.  They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose (Eric Greitens, “An Inside Look at the SEAL Sensibility,” 7 May 2011).

Putting aside our agenda, whatever that may be, for the good of the parish is functioning up, and functioning up in a powerfully impressive way.  And, we are called to do it.  We are called to pursue a mission and a ministry.  We are called to pursue the mission of restoring “all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP, page 855).  And the Church pursues that mission “as it prays and worships, proclaims the Gospel, and promotes justice, peace, and love” (BCP, page 855).

And to do these things we have to put ourselves aside.  We have to put God and God’s mission first; we have to seek more than our vindication; we have to seek more than evidence that we are right, as usual.  We have to put the good of us all beyond the pleasure and fuzzy feelings of each one of us.

It is not lost on me that we have a powerful example of setting aside ourselves for a greater good.  For I believe that the Good Shepherd functions up on our behalf.  Specifically, I believe the Good Shepherd functioned up on our behalf when he made the supreme sacrifice of himself on the cross for you and for me, and for everyone who was, who is, and who is to come.  And by that sacrifice, he opened the gate to let any one of us in who puts her or his trust in him.  If he gave his life for us (and he did), can we not do likewise following his example?  Can we not lose our pride, our assurance that we are always right, our determination to have our way, our conviction that no one else gets it as clearly as we do?  Can we not put ourselves aside for the good of us all?

The Christian life is not, of course, a military operation though expert military have something to teach us.  They can certainly teach us how to follow a mission not our own; they can show us how to follow where the Good Shepherd leads.  They can show us how big a difference there is in following him rather than doing what we want and calling it what he wants.  They can give us an example of hearing our Leader’s voice, who calls each of us by name, and following where he leads (BCP, page 225).  And if we persevere, if we succeed, the Good Shepherd will not have failed, either.  He will have given us life, and we shall have it abundantly (Saint John 10:10).

Where Charisma and Order Meet is Where We Are Born Again

A Sermon for Chrism Mass
Diocese of Bethlehem
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Thursday, April  14, 2011
The Rev. Canon Andrew T. Gerns
John 3:1-17

There is a little boy that I know who loves gadgets. He loves to learn and understand how they work. He loves to watch them in action. When his family buys a new appliance or tool, he will want to know all about how it works, and think up reasons why he should run the air conditioner with the remote or vacuum something or wash a dirty towel.

Lest you think that this a housekeeping Godsend, every mother’s dream, consider this: he disdains picture books and the usual children’s literature and would much rather read the instruction—or better yet, the service—manuals for all these contraptions. Out loud. Right now.

He especially loves the troubleshooting guides in those manuals. And when you try to distract him from his need to tell you or any of his siblings in graphic detail all the possible solutions to any potential problem by saying something like “when something happens, you will be the first person I call” he will say to you in all seriousness “But if you wait until it’s broken, it will be too late.”

Don’t ask me why, but I really identify with this kid…and not just because I am A-V kid emeritus. I really love his enthusiasm when something new, shiny and fascinating comes along. I love that he wants to know how things works…he wants to understand. It is not enough to know what button does what but how each function happens. And I love how he wants to tell everyone about the new gadget in great, energetic, fascinated detail.

This wonderful little boy and the family he inhabits dramatize a truth about Christian community.  When we “get” something, we want everyone to “get it”. And when we have found what works we want to understand and manage it.

'I Think He Colors his Hair"

by Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
Preached at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton
on Ash Wednesday 9 March 2011

I heard it the other day.  Someone said, “I think he colors his hair.”  And there he was for all the world to see.  A seemingly quiet, unassuming man whose ends were a sort of medium ash brown, and whose roots were as white as a newly-fallen snow in downtown Scranton.  “I think he colors his hair.”  There he was, unmasked, a man different from what he appeared to be.

You know that you can tell the truth, and you can use the truth to hurt people.  That’s got to be sinful.  And you can say out in the open what we all know to be true and to the detriment of the person involved.  That’s got to be sinful, too.  You don’t have to live very long or travel very far before you realize that most of us can observe, most of us can unearth, a lot of truth that is hurtful.  We can wield the truth as if it were a weapon.  But in most of our lives there is a lot of truth that we aren’t facing.  There’s a lot of truth about ourselves that we aren’t coming to terms with.  That’s got to be sinful, too.  And it would be hurtful for anyone to urge that truth upon us.  Anyone would be devastated to be told that he is doing something in some area of his life that is very like dyeing his hair.

Today is the day that begins the season when we try to undo a self-deception or two, when we do something very like letting the roots grow out.  We let vanity go, and we let God do the make-over.  We put ourselves in God’s hands, in the hands of Reality Itself, and ask that the truth remake us, reshape us, so that we may more closely resemble God’s truth that lives in us already.  It is the season when we accept that it is God who made us and not we ourselves.  It is the season when we face our dependence on God for our creation and preservation, as well as our redemption and salvation.  To return to that reality, to that relationship with God, we do what we have to do to keep it whole, to keep it intact.  And what we do may concern that funny business about the money.  It may have to do with pretending to pray and pretending to serve God.  It may have to do with exercising our bodies or our minds.  It may have to do with that person not our spouse whom we have on the side.  It may have to do with eating more rather than less if we haven’t been able to accept the waistline God has given us.  It may have to do with tiny and numerous selfishnesses so petty as to seem unmentionable but gathered together may be enough to weigh us down, keeping us from rising to new life in Christ.

Whatever it may be, the point is to let God, God’s reality, in, into our lives.  This is the day for a right beginning, a new start, confident that the God who made us is the God who wants to see us redeemed and wants to see us saved.  Whatever we do, whatever we want, we can let the reality that is God in.  And that requires honesty, an honesty disarming in its force and keenness.  We have to put away the dye, and take on the truth; put away the hypocrisy, and take on humility; put away the self-congratulation, and put on the praise of Christ.

Preliminary thoughts on lilies and birds – Epiphany 8

By Bishop Paul Marshall

[On Monday, Feb. 21, Bishop Paul posted the following note on the gospel passage for Epiphany 8, Sunday, Feb. 27, on Bakery, the interactive online discussion of the Diocese of Bethlehem.]

As some of you have had occasion to know, I view Matt 5-6 as Jesus' prolonged attempt to get people to think, to take religious living away from rote recitation and robotic performance to something much more profound and liberating. Sermons on these texts have to be preached in awareness that something is going on that is more than the total of passages we've been following.

Lilies and birds are fine in their way, but as far as we know, they do not experience consciousness the way we do. We experience ourselves as "I" that has to manage the business of living and which seeks meaning, an "I" that has power and responsibility and feels consequences. If the train of thought from the last two chapters has not been derailed, Matthew's Jesus points these fellow creatures out, I think, hoping that people will say both "yes" and "yes but."

In the gospel texts we have been following, Jesus has dealt with happiness (blessedness), relation to the past, authority, non-violence, and compassion for those on the outside.

And this week we have anxiety, now translated as worry. As we think of anxiety outside of medical terms (which are by no means irrelevant if one has a crippling anxiety disorder), there might be help in a passage scooped up from the web's usual suspect info site:

"The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in The Concept of Anxiety, described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In Art and Artist (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation and differentiation.

"The theologian Paul Tillich characterized existential anxiety[22] as "the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing" and he listed three categories for the nonbeing and resulting anxiety: ontic (fate and death), moral (guilt and condemnation), and spiritual (emptiness and meaninglessness). According to Tillich, the last of these three types of existential anxiety, i.e. spiritual anxiety, is predominant in modern times while the others were predominant in earlier periods. Tillich argues that this anxiety can be accepted as part of the human condition or it can be resisted but with negative consequences. In its pathological form, spiritual anxiety may tend to "drive the person toward the creation of certitude in systems of meaning which are supported by tradition and authority" even though such "undoubted certitude is not built on the rock of reality".

"According to Viktor Frankl, the author of Man's Search for Meaning, when a person is faced with extreme mortal dangers, the most basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat the "trauma of nonbeing" as death is near."

Well, maybe that helped and maybe it didn't. But it does suggest some thoughts.

First, you wouldn't want to take a pill or other substance to make any of those examples of anxiety go away! You would want to work with the anxiety to detect the necessary spiritual quests that set if off. Jesus seems here to drive people to examine their basic attitude toward life (we already know that in Matthew he will elsewhere commend prudent, even creative, planning). This is certainly the ground where theology and therapy meet--we call it spiritual direction for good reasons.

1) In District III tomorrow (Tuesday), I will be asking how Tillich's view of spiritually anxious folk creating "systems of certitude" applies to our national and church life today.
--Is the political or religious right a symptom of a deeper hunger which Jesus is eager to feed?  If so, how exactly do we feed it?
--For the militantly uncertain we ask, Is the political or religious left so intent on soothing symptoms that the underlying spiritual challenges are not engaged? If so, how do we encourage them to think beyond co-dependence with the entire species?
--As a rule, is our disapproval routinely engaged by the right and our blind spots by the left? Or is it the other way around? Where have we built systems of certitude, even about uncertainty?

2) I am an enthusiastic Frankl fan and was glad to see him in the last paragraph quoted above. Still, I wonder if the concept of a "trauma of nonbeing" as Frankl puts it isn't a very western and individualistic way to look at these problems. What if non-being is what our organisms finally desire so that stimulus will cease and evolution can get on with it? Cells that don't know when or how to die become cancer. Can Christians engage at all with the concept of Nirvana other than to criticize it? Listen to Bach's "Come Sweet Death" on the organ at played by Virgil Fox or Peter Conte (available as single mp3 files at either Amazon or iTunes), and ask the question again. The lyrics are made superfluous by the music, but they are in German and English here.

3) Jesus places trust in God above our symptoms and our misdeeds. How has that worked out for the Sudanese? If you answer that corporately there is a very hopeful answer. If you answer it from a theology of individual prosperity, other answers emerge and we have yet another theodicy problem. Is Matthew's recollection of Jesus using the plural ("you-all")  in addressing his audience here useful to our ears who can hear that a part of overcoming anxiety is to be self-consciously a member of the human community? Is that stretching the text a bit too far?

It's only Monday, and preachers have a long time to think about this set of lessons, which we haven't engaged in more than a decade.

Enjoy the snow. It helps keep the pace of the holiday pleasant.

+Paul