Vocational identity

7 March 2010
Lent 3C
Luke 13:1-9


In the name of God. Amen.

I remember my fear and disappointment when my parents first told me that I would be going to Kindergarten. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to school – both of my parents worked so I had been going to preschool for as long as I could remember. The thing was, to my four-year old mind, Kindergarten sounded like something I wanted no part of.

My father was – I’m pretty sure – born a city boy, but the thing was, he grew up in the country. So while he was always more comfortable once he left that small town of his childhood, there were tools of that lifestyle that he carried with him, even into the cities where I grew up. And while he eagerly left the “country life” for the opportunities of cities, I think there was a piece of him that always tried to have it both ways.

Our suburban houses with small yards always had something of the feeling of a farm – at least in miniature. No matter how small our yard, Dad would insist on having a riding lawn mower. Moreover he would insist that it be referred to as a tractor. One of our first tasks whenever we moved to a new place was to put a shed out back. And that shed would be called the barn. Not long after that a piece of the back yard would be partitioned off. On these ten square feet of earth, my father would put in his “crop”.

The crop was my least favorite part.

It always seemed to require a lot of work, but never seemed to pay off quite enough to make it seem worthwhile for me.

So this was my angst about Kindergarten. It was a big, strange word, but the one part I did recognize was “garden”. I was convinced my parents were sending me for some kind of agricultural training so that I could do more work in the garden at home, and I wanted nothing to do with that!

Though, with all of this talk about trees and bushes in the lessons today, a little agricultural training might just have come in handy.

In the Gospel lesson we hear the parable of the fig tree. It consumes the earth but has nothing to show for it. It doesn’t bear fruit. The owner of the tree, exasperated from three unfruitful seasons, tells his gardener to cut it down. “Why should it be wasting the soil?”

But the gardener intercedes for the tree. Give it one more year. Let me feed it and work with it, and perhaps then it will begin to bear fruit. If not, then we’ll cut it down.

At the other end of the scale we have a bush.

Moses is tending to the flock of his father-in-law in the wilderness. Wandering through the hills and the sparse vegetation he comes upon a peculiar bush. Clearly it is on fire – there are flames leaping from it, yet it is not consumed. It is a vehicle for God’s communication with Moses.

So a dichotomy is set: a tree that sucks the life out of the good earth with nothing to show for it, and a bush – largely useless to Moses on a normal day – but on this day, hosting a flame that speaks the salvation of God’s people, though does not consume.

There was a lot that I didn’t learn in school. To my delight, I didn’t learn very much at all about agriculture; but, I also didn’t learn much about economics. What I do know, however, is that from the vantage point of our consumer-based economy, neither of these stories makes much sense. How can this bush be so productive without being consumed? How can one justify keeping a tree that has shown itself to be of no use for three years? Why waste more time and energy on something so unproductive?

It reminds me of the quote from Gail Godwin’s book, Evensong. She says, “Something is your vocation if it keeps making more of you.”

In our Monday night Lenten series we’ve been exploring the concept of mission in churches and looking at examples of churches that have developed a missional identity. One of the common threads is that churches that are successful at identifying their unique mission in the world are churches that have figured out what keeps making more of themselves. They are churches that have discerned their corporate vocations.

This “making more” in churches usually has a numerical side effect, but the numbers of average Sunday attendance, membership, and pledges are not what the “more” is really about. By coming to know their place in the world – by hearing and responding to God’s call – they are more, not just in their numbers, but of themselves. Their spirits are richer. Their relationships with God and with each other are richer.

There’s a very fine line between the consumer-based economy of the world and the regeneration-based economy of God. While God is calling us to identify those ways of life that make more of ourselves, the world is seducing us into habits of making more for ourselves.

But God’s call is about abundance, not acquisition. Acquisition is the inverse of spiritual abundance.

We are told that more stuff will make us happier – that it will make us more. But that’s a lie. Acquiring more stuff only gives us more stuff. Of course it’s possible to both be happy and to have stuff. But acquisition is nowhere near the principle ingredient in the happiness recipe. It is, at best, a garnish. Abundance is much more central.

When we live our lives, as individuals or as a church, less as consumers and more as a people of regeneration – as vocational people who can’t help but keep making more of ourselves – then there is abundance. There is no need to fear that we will be cut down. There is no need to fear that we will be consumed. Because there is always more. There is always enough. Amen.

You'll Never Walk Alone

21 February 2010
Lent 1C
Luke 4:1-13


There’s a degree to which this can be something of an awkward text for a preacher to encounter.

Of course it makes perfect sense in the setting of the liturgical year. Just as we are in the early days of our 40-day period of preparing for Easter, our period of self-examination and penitence, it makes sense that we would hear about and study Jesus’ own 40-day period of preparation for his ministry among us. During that time he fasted and prayed and was tempted by the devil to consider taking an easier way out.

But while the timing makes sense, the subject matter remains a little… awkward.

One of the things that I believe about the church and its work is that we are not just called to remember and study these major events and teachings of the past. The work of the church is not just about us, being separated from the work of God by millennia, looking back with fondness at the “good old days” when God was walking with us. If that were so, I would be the first to admit that the church would be entirely irrelevant. We certainly should remember and study these ancient stories, but our relationship with them and with the truths that they hold is much more intimate than just that.

We are also called to participate in the ongoing drama of the life, death, and resurrection of the Christ as it continues in our own time. Through the work of community we are called to recognize the times in our lives when we see Christ alive. Through worship, prayer, and introspection we are called to respond when we sense Christ’s death in the people and events around us and in ourselves. And after it all we are called to revel in the resurrection. Like the cliché says, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Resurrection is always the end of the story.

Because I believe so deeply in the truth of the Christ-story – not just as something long ago, but also as something happening right now, even in this room – it can be a little strange talking about the temptation story.

The thing is, our culture teaches us that the devil is a Halloween character or a villain in films. Even in the church, we tend to not talk very much about the devil. We’d much rather focus on things like love and forgiveness and shepherds and lambs. Those are all very real parts of the Christian story – maybe even the most important parts – but they’re not the whole story.

It gets awkward, because I have to tell you, I think the devil is very real.

Certainly not in any “the-devil-made-me-do-it” kind of way. That’s just an excuse, if you ask me.

And maybe not even in any kind of “individual being lurking in the shadows” kind of way. I just don’t know.

But evil, as it is often represented as the devil, most certainly is real. Demons are very real.

Just as Jesus was tempted in the wilderness with an easy way out, so, too, are we all tempted by our own demons.

We tend to think of temptation as a mostly physical reality – in the sense of appetites that are either sustained or suppressed – but that is often to the neglect of the spiritual side of temptation. Like Jesus, we are tempted every day to look for easy ways out of the challenges of God’s calls for us. It might seem easier and more attractive, at least in the short term, to live our lives only for ourselves or for the protection of our loved ones. It can be very tempting to “look out for number one”.

But we aren’t just “islands in the stream”. We are not lone bodies resisting the eroding waves of life without help. We are the people of the God who lifts up the lowly and fills the hungry with good things. The real erosion that we fear happens when people do just “look out for number one”. That erodes relationships. And relationships are always God’s chosen vehicle for action.

During the season of Lent many of us will turn our physical temptations into a spiritual exercise by giving up some pleasure or taking on some discipline. But it’s important to remember that these Lenten disciplines are not just a kind of Christian equivalent to a “New Year’s Resolution”. It’s not about the desserts or the caffeine or the wine. It’s not even about the self-improvement that can result from our disciplines. The point of our Lenten disciplines is to be intentional about practicing and perfecting our responses to temptation. If we are in practice, there’s a better chance that we’ll be more prepared to face the more serious spiritual temptations that are very real and lurking in the dim corners of our lives.

We need the practice, because, like Jesus, sooner or later we will all be in our own wildernesses facing our demons.

Every year at about this time I begin hearing people talk about how they don’t really like this time in the church year. Certainly that’s not true for all of us, but for many people, Lent can feel like something of a “downer”. But the truth is, Lent doesn’t take us into the wilderness. It merely helps us open our eyes to the wilderness in which we already find ourselves. We spend so much time “faking it ‘til we make it” that we can fool even ourselves. We forget that wilderness is already our reality. None of us “has it all together”. To greater or lesser degrees all of us are already lost.

But we’re only truly lost if we fail to follow the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, so are we. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. The only question, really, is whether we are dragging her along or following where she leads.

It’s true. It takes a pretty stunning act of faith to follow the Holy Spirit. We may, like Jesus, be led into the wilderness. Following the Holy Spirit isn’t a “get out of jail free card” or a promise for some other easy path. In fact, it’s more likely the promise of a sometimes-difficult path. But more significantly, it’s a promise that on that path, we won’t be alone.

Like many of you, for the past week I’ve been occasionally watching the Winter Olympics. In general I’m not much of a sports fan, and quite frankly don’t care about the outcome; but, I have been intrigued by the spectacle of it all.

If you’ve watched much at all, you’ve probably seen that great Proctor & Gamble commercial. They scroll between scenes of mothers supporting their children in everyday life while singing that song from the old Rogers & Hammerstein musical, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. The climax is a mother singing from the stands at the Olympics.

I’m just enough of a sap to be brought almost to tears by such a commercial.

I’m not so sure about the connecting line between mothers supporting their children and Tide detergent, but the message to me is clear: none of us – whether Olympian or priest, Wall Street banker or Starbuck’s barista – none of us is an island. We exist in relationship and we all stand on others’ shoulders one way or another. We never walk alone.

That’s the message of the Gospel.

It’s the message of the Holy Spirit.

It’s the message of Lent and it points to the message of Easter.

Even in the wilderness – even in the face of temptations and demons and devils of every sort – even then, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. Even then, we’ll never walk alone.

Even in your own wilderness, follow the Holy Spirit. Walk on.

Amen.

Ash Wednesday

17 February 2010
Ash Wednesday
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

One of my favorite preachers of our tradition, the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, says that Ash Wednesday is the day when Christians get to attend their own funerals.

I think she’s right.

She translates it into the language of our popular culture, but what she says, I think, truly captures the spirit of Ash Wednesday: it is a day of reckoning; a day of judgment. And that’s a lot of what we’re acting out in the funerals we offer for our loved ones. In recounting their lives of service, devotion, and love, we are asking God to look on them with mercy as they stand before the great judgment seat of Christ.

On Ash Wednesday we put ourselves before the great judgment seat of Christ. We lay our lives open before God, and there is no response more appropriate in the face of such honesty than to beg for mercy.

We can fool each other, but we can’t fool God.

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.”

There’s a degree to which we can be tempted into performing our piety for it to be celebrated by others because we fear it is insufficient to be celebrated by God. We, more than any other, know our own inadequacies, so we try to wish them away. We wish our inadequacies away through our performance. But performance, on its own, always fails. It will always leave us empty. Only true repentance – the turning of our hearts – will fill us.

There is a lust in our culture for easy answers. But our faith is not easy. We see that in the text for today.

There’s something that seems almost sinister in the faith we are called to practice as it is expressed in the Gospel lesson for today. We learn that even righteous acts can be stumbling blocks to righteousness.

We are certainly called to give alms, and to pray, and to fast. But almsgiving, prayer, and fasting aren’t enough in and of themselves. Righteousness, in the sight of God, cannot be reduced to a series of check boxes – a “to-do list”. They must be done with a willing heart that seeks not its own reward.

There is a difference between acts of righteousness and righteousness itself.

In Lent we are invited into a season of self-examination. Disciplines of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting may well be tools to aid us in that self-examination, but they should not be confused for the fruits of self-examination. They may serve for us as paths to righteousness to the degree that they aid us in practicing true repentance – in turning our hearts ever more toward God – but they are not necessarily signs of righteousness in themselves.

This is what it means to keep “a holy Lent”.

As it now stretches before us, it may seem to be a pretty long road. But it ends with new life – just as our disciplines of repentance always do. Amen.

"More" is never "enough"

7 February 2010
Epiphany 5C
Luke 5:1-11


O God, the author of Peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom. Amen.

It’s a remarkable story that we hear in the Gospel lesson this morning.

Perhaps you will stand in awe of the crowds that followed Jesus. They knew him to be a worker of miracles, and the word of his wonders spread quickly throughout the region.

Perhaps you, like the people of that time and place, found it remarkable that he was able to lead these struggling fishermen to their catch despite their futile efforts up until then. Perhaps it is the miracle that grabs you.

Our bishop preaches on this text from time to time. He tends to be drawn to the instruction that Jesus gives to the fishermen – go deeper. Cast your nets into the deep water. It’s often a parable for our lives – just when we think we’re in over our heads, the answer is often to go deeper – to delve into the depths of a problem until the solution becomes clear. The advice is for us not to linger in the safety of the shallows, but to take a risk by venturing into the unknown for a greater reward.

I have, however, come to see this text as a parable of freedom.

“Freedom” is a kind of buzzword in American culture. It’s one of those words that we hear so much, that it begins to lose its power. We certainly hear about freedom in the context of national security – our soldiers around the world are fighting for our freedom; the terrorist threat is an attack on freedom. Our politicians talk about “freedom” as though it’s a commodity that can be bought from one supplier or another at competing prices. But perhaps the greatest degradation of “freedom” happened a few years ago with the suggestion of “freedom fries” – some politicians’ snarky attempts to shame the French for refusing to participate in the war in Iraq.

We spend a lot of time talking about freedom. But do we have any clue about what it really is?

To varying degrees, we are all captive. We are captive to our goals and ambitions. We are captive to those dreams and aspirations that linger just beyond our reach. We can be captive in our jobs or to the lack of them. We can be captive either in our relationships or to our loneliness. We are captive to both our possessions and to our lack of them.

I’m reminded of the movie of about a year ago, “Revolutionary Road”. In it Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet star as the Wheelers, a young couple on the edge of destruction. They had met, years earlier, as a couple of free spirits, each equally attracted to the promise of adventure held in the other. But as time progresses, their free spirits diminish at the hands of their plans for achieving freedom. They achieve their goals, but along the way they become seduced by the trappings of suburban mediocrity.

And they were trapped indeed. Trapped between a sense of security and a lust for freedom. Trapped between achieving their goals and achieving their heart’s desire. And when they recognized that entrapment, they were destroyed – as individuals and as a couple – by their unexpectedly competing lures.

I imagine that, were it not for the presence of Jesus, Peter, James, and John may have found themselves in the same kind of predicament as the Wheelers. They were fishermen. Their goal was to catch fish. It’s easy to imagine that throughout the long night of catching no fish they had prayed with all of their hearts that they might have a catch, for their own sustenance as well as for their livelihood. It was only once their goal was achieved that they were freed from it. Free to leave it all behind at the realization that their goal was short of their hearts’ desires.

Like the Wheelers, those first disciples had prayed for “more”. All the while what they actually needed was what they already had – “enough”.

We stand at the cusp of Epiphany and Lent. The joy of Christmas has softened into the glow of the Epiphany, but in just a few days’ time our collective focus will sharply shift. Like the cusp of a gothic arch, we will sharply plunge ourselves into a season of penitence – namely, penitence for the ways in which we inhibit our freedom in Christ.

Theologians often talk about the “cost of discipleship”. That is to say, following Christ very often requires leaving something behind: status or power or possessions. In the Lenten season, many of us will symbolically reenact this “cost of discipleship” by giving something up. And in the midst of that spiritual discipline we will recognize that in the “cost of discipleship”, the cost often gives way to “freedom for discipleship”.

Our faith in Christ is not all Lent – it’s not all about “giving up”. It is also Epiphany – the light, the invitation in Incarnation. And it is Easter – the dawn, the freedom of Resurrection.

We learn, in the Gospel According to Janis, that “Freedom’s just another word for ‘nothing left to lose.’” Freedom is the distinction between our goals and our hearts’ desires. The products of our goals entrap us, while the fruits or our hearts’ desires free us.

Peter, James, and John saw that their goals were fruitless when measured against the freedom that was offered in following Christ.

They got “more”. In fact, they got more “more” than they had imagined to be possible. But “more” wasn’t “enough”. It never is. “Enough” is enough. “Enough” is freedom. Amen.

Is there room for progressive politics in sports?

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I know, I know....  Two Rachel Maddow posts in a row.  But this is a REALLY good one!!

Not only is it live from New Orleans on the Friday before the Super Bowl in which the Saints are playing!!!

Not only did they change the graphics to read "The Rachel Maddeaux Sheaux"!!!  (which just give me endless enjoyment!)

But it's actually a very thoughtful segment.  Tim Tebow is getting lots of attention for his anti-choice, "Focus on only ONE kind of Family" television commercials that will air on Sunday.  But, as usual, though the conservative voice may be the loudest, it is far from the only voice out there.  Drew Brees and Scott Fujita - and to a degree, even Peyton Manning - are showing that's there's more than just the Tim Tebow's of the world who care about sports!

Just as the Christian community is not a single monolithic voice of "conservative values", so, too, is the world of sports more than just the Tim Tebow variety.

I promise, this blog isn't just becoming an extension of the Rachel Maddow Show, but this is too good not to post!

Enjoy!

Bishop Robinson on "the Family" and the National Prayer Breakfast

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I remain so proud to have him as a spokesperson for our church... Go +Gene!

No good thing will God withhold...

I have to admit it.  I'm the kind of person who tends to believe in signs.  I really do believe the words of our sisters and brothers in the United Church of Christ - "God is still speaking".  Certainly not in some superficial or (I hope not, anyway) some self-serving way.  Certainly not like the televangelist hucksters who boldly proclaim that God spoke to them and told you to send them money.  But I do believe that if we quiet ourselves, we are capable of being more open to the always quiet but always persistent lure of God drawing us into God's will.

In our Advent adult education series in the parish where I serve we did a brief study of different styles of Christian spiritual expression.  We looked at Celtic, Benedictine, and Franciscan spirituality and practices, and we were encouraged to find ourselves in each of these - which ones resonated most clearly with our own understandings of and relationships with God?  With our community's?

My answer to this was that I always find myself drawn to the practices and disciplines of Benedictine spirituality.  There's something about the largely predictable rhythm of being drawn into prayer periodically through the day that helps me.  I don't pray the Offices because I'm strong, or a particularly "good" Christian.  I pray the Offices because I am decidedly weak.  If left to my own devices I would fail miserably in keeping myself open to God's speaking in my day-to-day life.

Today was one of those days when the discipline was a gift more than others.

One of the Psalms appointed for Evening Prayer today was Psalm 84.

It has a way of sneaking up on me.

I know that one of the mantras of Integrity (the LGBT advocacy organization in The Episcopal Church with whom I have worked several times over the past few years) is Psalm 84:11 - "No good thing will God withhold from those who walk with integrity".  But even so, it always seems to surprise me whenever I stumble upon those words in prayer.

The Psalm that was chosen for my ordination as a deacon was Psalm 84.  Even so, I was deeply moved and surprised in the midst of the ordination as I spoke the words of the eleventh verse.  It had slipped my mind that that citation was significant to me in that way.  Despite my failure of memory, I believe that God was quietly moving in that moment and reminding me of a piece of my purpose in ordination.

The same thing happened tonight.

It started two nights ago, actually.  I was enjoying the reception before the dinner at our Diocesan Convention on Friday night - happily wandering through the crowds of friends and colleagues.  I ran into Louie Crew - the founder of Integrity, a giant of the progressive movement of The Episcopal Church, lay leader in my diocese, and my friend.  He quickly stuffed a little box into my hands and said, "Just stick this in your pocket and take a look at it later when you have a chance."

Of course I did as I was told.  I've learned to quickly follow the advice of Dr. Crew whenever I've been fortunate enough to have received it!  But admittedly, my curiosity quickly got the better of me and no more than a few minutes passed before I declared it to be officially "later".

In the box, I found this:

 

along with this note:

December 12, 2009

Jon+,

May your priesthood bring joy to absolutely everybody!

This cross was given to me at the first Integrity convention, at the Cathedral of St. James in Chicago, 1974.  I rejoice to share a stretch of the gravel on the Way with you.

Louie

In case the picture is too blurry, the cross reads: "INTEGRITY / Dr. Louie Crew / First Annual Award 1975".

On the back is inscribed, "Ubi caritas et amor deus ibi est" (Where charity and love are, God is there).

I am profoundly humbled and touched by Louie's generosity.

I've always said, there's something that feels a little strange about receiving gifts on the occasion of an ordination.  It's not that I don't appreciate the kindness, but that the ordination feels like such a gift in it's own right that it feels strange to receive other material expressions of the community's shared joy.

In this case - as has been so often the case with gifts from others over the past couple of months - that strangeness is compounded by the fact that Louie's real gift is his friendship.  It has been a source of such joy and honor for me to have had this chance to get to know him and to learn from him over the past few years.  For him to have shared this expression of generosity feels like almost too much to bear.

I was thinking about that for the past couple of days - how to say "thank you" in the face of such kindness and generosity.

But then tonight, that sneaky Psalm peeked in once more: "No good thing will God withhold from those who walk with integrity."

It's true.  I see it in my own life.  Even when I'm feeling down or tired or overwhelmed or lonely.  Even when I feel most distant from God.  Even then, God is calling.  When I dig through the clutter that so easily piles into life and find the quiet center, God is there with a quiet message - a familiar message - made new once again.

"No good thing will God withhold from those who walk with integrity."

I am blessed by the legacy of those saints, like Louie, walking their paths with integrity - a path on which I now endeavor to tread.  Just as the Psalm reminds us that our God is both sun and shield, this mantra is both what calls me home and directs my journey into the unknown.

I am indeed blessed.