Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year B, December 18, 2011
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Let us try something different. Take a look at that extra sheet of paper you have. It is a prayer called the Angelus. It is a great prayer. Use it. Let’s just say the Hail Mary together.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Anyone who grew up low church Episcopalian or from other more Protestant orientation, you feel funny saying the Hail Mary? Stick with it; it feels good eventually.
“My Soul Proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day on all generations will call me Blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and Holy is His name.” The Magnificat. It is a canticle, which is an excerpt from Scripture to be used ritually. The Magnificat is drawn from St. Luke’s gospel. Mary is reflecting on what happened in today’s reading, becoming miraculously pregnant under the shadow of God, the Holy Spirit. Quite a reaction for a thirteen year old. That is how old Mary probably was. Girls, young women, married directly after puberty back then.
It is such a striking statement, not only in the gracefulness of it, but that it comes from the lips that it comes from. Mary was very, very low in the social hierarchy of her day. She was a she. She was very young. She was poor. And worse than being just poor, she was landless and was betrothed to a landless tekon, carpenter, probably better translated as a framer, making posts and beams, door frames and the like. She lived in the boondocks of Galilee, a backwater province of a poor kingdom in the Empire. She wasn’t a slave or a gentile, which was good for her, but she was way far down the pecking order. She would have had no reasonable expectation to have a voice or an identity, let alone one that “From this day on all generations will call me blessed.”
The story of the incarnation of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the Person of God that became flesh and dwelt among us, or as I heard a local pastor say, that became flesh and Occupied, it is the story of unimaginable power and glory and honor arising from a place that society does not value. Doesn’t even usually notice. The powers that be, the patriarchy or kyriearchy tells us in so many ways that womb of a girl, particularly a poor girl, bears no good fruit, no fruit worth investing any effort or love into. That that fruit could be called Blessed never crossed anyone’s mind.
But here, in this brave little girl, a girl who did not ask for this task, did not ask to take on this burden, did not ask to take on the mantle of bearing, raising, loving, nurturing, a son, the Son of God and her also witnessing His torture and death, holding His dead body, burying Him… she did not ask for that and yet she did it. She rejoiced in it, AND she wept over it, AND she walked countless miles with Him in his life and work. And as soon as she was no longer perplexed by the messenger, her soul proclaimed the greatness of the Lord for it!
In thinking about Mary and the Magnificat and the Angelus, I was reminded of a talk by Eve Ensler that Windy shared with me recently. Eve Ensler wrote the Vagina Monologues. It is one of the TED talks, recorded in India in 2009. It is called “Embrace your inner girl”. It is on line. Watch it.
Ensler posits that we, all of us, men, women, boys, girls, all have this little part of ourselves, a cluster of cells that she calls girl cells. Our inner girl. These girl cells are where we carry compassion. Empathy. Our passionate self; openness, balance and relationship. It is intuition. It is Sophia. Wisdom. It is vulnerability and the understanding that vulnerability is our greatest strength. It is taking things personally. And it is, in her words, emotions, which “…have inherent logic, which lead to radical, appropriate saving action.”
Are these traits that are valued by our society? Do over achievers get kudos for their vulnerability? No. We are told that vulnerability is weakness. Is compassion something we put on a resume? No, compassion hampers our judgment. Do our political or business leaders brag about being emotional people? No, emotions cloud our thinking. They certainly were not teaching us about our inner girl when I was a young Marine Corps lieutenant at Quantico. You cannot build empire on empathy. You cannot concentrate wealth or exploit natural resources guided by our intuition. Resistance to structural adjustments is not suppressed by right relationship. Therefore these traits, the girl cells, are suppressed. And violently.
The suppression of our girl self means that we cannot feel what is going on. Good feelings, bad ones or indifferent, when the compassion, joy, emotionality, and relationality that Ensler calls our inner girl is squashed, we do not have the radical saving response in the world that that we need. Our girl self does not dig strip mines or do clear cuts; it farms organically. It does not pollute rivers or the air; but works cooperatively. It doesn’t force people into slavery or figure out how little someone can be paid; but makes sure everyone has enough. It does not hit or slap or punch or cut or shoot anyone, ever. It does not touch when not invited, particularly not children, or women, or anyone less physically capable than yourself, ever.
I am not down on men. I rather enjoy being one, we talked about that a few weeks ago. But for me, one of the signs that my inner life is in order is when tears come to my eyes easily. That is kind of girly. When I encounter something sad, or particularly beautiful… “This American Life”, on NPR. If I am a weepy mess, but not depressed after hearing that radio show, things are good. When I feel that I can ask for help, and I do it, that is me as a better person. When I can share that something is hard for me to do, or, God forbid, that I do not know something… when I do that I am being a better person, I am more the girl that I need to be. Really, I am that much more like Mary.
The Magnificat, the testimony of Mary reflects this inner girl. She is the essence of the inner girl that Ensler speaks of. The proud are scattered; the mighty cast down; and, the rich are sent away empty, sure but the greatest strength of God is God’s mercy. God’s mercy raises up the lowly. God’s mercy feeds the hungry. God’s mercy keeps promises. Mary witnesses not God Triumphant, but God the servant, God the Savior. A tender, loving God. God was alive in her 13 year old, probably malnourished body. Her intuition made this possible. She birthed Our God into the world in the form of a tiny baby boy born on the floor of a barn to parents too poor to afford a room. Her compassion made this possible. Her girl self rings through the ages. Her relationships made this possible. All generations have called her blessed. Her girlhood made this possible. And for that baby, that epitome of dependence and vulnerability, for Him, for our God, all of our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord, our spirits rejoice in God our savior. AMEN
Monday, December 19, 2011
Third Sunday in Advent, December 11, 2011
Third Sunday in Advent, Year B, December 11, 2011
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Windy and I spent time in Thailand some years ago. I was working on a book for a Thai dissident and Windy was expanding her massage education and learning about Thai culture. There was a major election going on for the Governor of Bangkok, a very powerful political position in the country. One of the candidates was named Chewit, and his claim to fame was that he was the brothel king of Bangkok. No small feat. Well, his campaign slogan was “It is not how good you are, it is how good you want to be.”
“A light Shines in the Darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.”
So last week we heard tell of the man in the powder blue windbreaker with the words “Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe” written on the back. We talked about John the Baptist, too. We talked about sin, because if we do not have a good sense of sin, then the whole idea of repentance is moot. And we had some homework over this past week, we were supposed to think and pray on the things that get in the way of our relationship with God and Neighbor; things that distract us, that pull us away from being the person we are meant to be, that we are capable of being. Any report back on sin?
Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe.
Everyone knows that we have the sacrament of confession in the Episcopal church, right? Does anyone know the official name of that sacrament? The Reconciliation of a Penitent. Reconciliation. Have we all heard of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa? Could someone explain what it was? -----
Right. The point of reconciliation is that the relationship that was broken, was damaged, was violated, is restored, and that the conditions that allowed for such breaking of relationships no longer exist. Having the opportunity to tell your story, the whole truth; having to listen to the stories of others with no rebuttal, no punishment… this process saved South Africa from turning into Zimbabwe. Truth and Reconciliation brings light to the darkness. It shines truth on horror. It holds everyone accountable to everyone else not by force or threats of force, but with the desire to get on with living the lives we have been given. It is this process that can save us, too.
Now I am not saying that I am clearing my Fridays from here on out to hear confessions. I am willing to, but when it comes to the rite of reconciliation I proscribe it in the spirit of Queen Elizabeth, “All may, some should, none must.” What I am saying, though, what I am saying with as much spiritual force as I can express, we all must repent. We all must do whatever it takes, every day of our lives, to pull the logs from our eyes, to cut off that offending hand, to reconcile our beings and our lives with God in Christ. And we must try day in, day out, to create the conditions so that we may thrive in the blessed lives that God Almighty has graced us with. This is the only purpose of being Christian. John the Baptist cries in the wilderness across the ages. Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe.
Repentance is setting ourselves right. It is realigning ourselves with the trajectory that God has set our lives on. Paul Tillich said that the arc of the universe is long and it bends towards justice. The constellation of relationships you live within, that is the arc of your life and it is long and it bends towards God. Repentance is the process we use to reconcile our lives with this arc. It is the primary work of the faithful, because if our relationship with God and/or our neighbors is left untended, we are of little use in fulfilling God’s mission to the world.
I can see that you are all following me theoretically. Notions of reconciliation just begs for good theology, and I do love my theology. However, theology is about religion, it is about God… what we need to approach a life reconciled with God and Neighbor, to be the human beings we are meant to be, to go beyond Chewit, and to be as good as we want to be… that takes actual religion. It takes practice, it takes instruction from those who have followed before us on the road upwards and inwards into Reality. How do we repent?
It is very simple. Paul gave us our prescription this morning. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” That about sums it up. You want the keys to the kingdom? You want to see God face to face and know that that face is God’s? You want to live a life characterized by truth and reconciliation? then listen to Paul: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. If you do that, you will be saved. Any questions?
Prayer is the answer. To what? Everything, but most importantly, to repenting. To reconciling our relationship with God and everything. Well, it is not just prayer, but I need to introduce this next word delicately: mortification. I bet you haven’t heard that in church for a while. Prayer and Mortification… these practices are the root of the spiritual life, the ancients in our church tell us this time and time again. Evelyn Underhill, the great Anglican writer and mystic who died in 1941 has a lot to say on this matter. Underhill’s direction to prayer and mortification is not a call to return to horsehair shirts and kneeling on dried peas. By prayer she means attending to God. By mortification she means dealing with ourselves. She writes that prayer is, “…first turning to Reality, and then getting our tangled, half-real psychic lives – so tightly coiled about ourselves and our own interests – into harmony with the great movement of Reality. Mortification means killing the very roots of self-love; pride and possessiveness, anger and violence, ambition and greed in all their disguises, however respectable those disguises may be.”
In prayer, we face ourselves towards God and… we do all sorts of things. Some of us seek silence. The deep, inner silence of apophatic prayer, like that taught by the great Carmelite masters, Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and the modern Centering Prayer movement. Vipassana meditation of Southeast Asia is an apophatic prayer form. Hindu Transcendental Meditation is, too. Some of us find the cadence and imagery of the rosary to be meaningful. Some practice intercessions, praying for others, this is the metta meditations of Loving Kindness of Mahayana Buddhism. Others of us rejoice in chant, alone or in Taize forms of worship, or find stillness in the journey in and out of a labyrinth. There are other physical prayer forms like yoga, tai chi and chi kung. And if you do not know where to start, pick up your BCP in the morning and turn to page 80. Saying Morning Prayer is a superlative form of prayer, a communal spoken form of prayer, and when the words “us” and “we” come up in the service, remember that countless others around the world are saying the very same words.
Prayer is all about holy habits. Having a little corner to yourself, twenty minutes of your own in the morning, the wherewithal to remember to do the rosary on the little bumps on your steering wheel, or to say the Jesus prayer when you are standing in line at the grocery store. (Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That is an ancient prayer. Say that unceasingly, and you will be called the child of God.) The other thing about prayer is that it is extremely hard to do by yourself. We need direction, instruction, encouragement. This is a goal of mine here at Resurrection: to build a practicing church. Let’s be observant Christians together. We have started saying morning prayer on Fridays. Keep your eyes open for some more opportunities to learn to pray well together.
Then there is Mortification… dealing with yourself… Mortification is all about building healthy habits and we do that by grace alone, because attending to ourselves, making better, healthier decisions for ourselves, it is not easy. Windy and I have dropped coffee from our lives. Wine, too, but for special occasions. No fun, but, but, better. Our life is better (crankier in the morning, but better). We stick to it by grace, as Flannery O’Connor wrote that “all human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” By grace we find the strength to live better than we might, certainly better than we want to. Eat better, develop some disciplines around food like Mark Bitman’s vegan before 6 idea of eating meat only at dinner. Exercise more, or at all. See a therapist. See a dentist. A doctor. Get enough rest. Try to learn how to do something new. Start being the person you want to be. This is mortification of the highest spiritual order. It is dealing with your own nature, with the express purpose of growing closer, to aligning our lives and our beings with the arc of God.
Repentance is all about returning to God. It is all about coming with a contrite heart and a plan to do things differently. This is the definition of reconciliation. Our sin hurts us more than it hurts other, largely. Sin is usually some form of breaking our own hearts. And that breaks God’s heart. Join me, please, in turning back to God in these coming years we will be working together. Let us work on praying together, and better. Let us learn mortification, dealing with ourselves, our bodies and our souls. Let us rejoice always, pray ceaselessly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. AMEN.
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Windy and I spent time in Thailand some years ago. I was working on a book for a Thai dissident and Windy was expanding her massage education and learning about Thai culture. There was a major election going on for the Governor of Bangkok, a very powerful political position in the country. One of the candidates was named Chewit, and his claim to fame was that he was the brothel king of Bangkok. No small feat. Well, his campaign slogan was “It is not how good you are, it is how good you want to be.”
“A light Shines in the Darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.”
So last week we heard tell of the man in the powder blue windbreaker with the words “Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe” written on the back. We talked about John the Baptist, too. We talked about sin, because if we do not have a good sense of sin, then the whole idea of repentance is moot. And we had some homework over this past week, we were supposed to think and pray on the things that get in the way of our relationship with God and Neighbor; things that distract us, that pull us away from being the person we are meant to be, that we are capable of being. Any report back on sin?
Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe.
Everyone knows that we have the sacrament of confession in the Episcopal church, right? Does anyone know the official name of that sacrament? The Reconciliation of a Penitent. Reconciliation. Have we all heard of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa? Could someone explain what it was? -----
Right. The point of reconciliation is that the relationship that was broken, was damaged, was violated, is restored, and that the conditions that allowed for such breaking of relationships no longer exist. Having the opportunity to tell your story, the whole truth; having to listen to the stories of others with no rebuttal, no punishment… this process saved South Africa from turning into Zimbabwe. Truth and Reconciliation brings light to the darkness. It shines truth on horror. It holds everyone accountable to everyone else not by force or threats of force, but with the desire to get on with living the lives we have been given. It is this process that can save us, too.
Now I am not saying that I am clearing my Fridays from here on out to hear confessions. I am willing to, but when it comes to the rite of reconciliation I proscribe it in the spirit of Queen Elizabeth, “All may, some should, none must.” What I am saying, though, what I am saying with as much spiritual force as I can express, we all must repent. We all must do whatever it takes, every day of our lives, to pull the logs from our eyes, to cut off that offending hand, to reconcile our beings and our lives with God in Christ. And we must try day in, day out, to create the conditions so that we may thrive in the blessed lives that God Almighty has graced us with. This is the only purpose of being Christian. John the Baptist cries in the wilderness across the ages. Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe.
Repentance is setting ourselves right. It is realigning ourselves with the trajectory that God has set our lives on. Paul Tillich said that the arc of the universe is long and it bends towards justice. The constellation of relationships you live within, that is the arc of your life and it is long and it bends towards God. Repentance is the process we use to reconcile our lives with this arc. It is the primary work of the faithful, because if our relationship with God and/or our neighbors is left untended, we are of little use in fulfilling God’s mission to the world.
I can see that you are all following me theoretically. Notions of reconciliation just begs for good theology, and I do love my theology. However, theology is about religion, it is about God… what we need to approach a life reconciled with God and Neighbor, to be the human beings we are meant to be, to go beyond Chewit, and to be as good as we want to be… that takes actual religion. It takes practice, it takes instruction from those who have followed before us on the road upwards and inwards into Reality. How do we repent?
It is very simple. Paul gave us our prescription this morning. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” That about sums it up. You want the keys to the kingdom? You want to see God face to face and know that that face is God’s? You want to live a life characterized by truth and reconciliation? then listen to Paul: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. If you do that, you will be saved. Any questions?
Prayer is the answer. To what? Everything, but most importantly, to repenting. To reconciling our relationship with God and everything. Well, it is not just prayer, but I need to introduce this next word delicately: mortification. I bet you haven’t heard that in church for a while. Prayer and Mortification… these practices are the root of the spiritual life, the ancients in our church tell us this time and time again. Evelyn Underhill, the great Anglican writer and mystic who died in 1941 has a lot to say on this matter. Underhill’s direction to prayer and mortification is not a call to return to horsehair shirts and kneeling on dried peas. By prayer she means attending to God. By mortification she means dealing with ourselves. She writes that prayer is, “…first turning to Reality, and then getting our tangled, half-real psychic lives – so tightly coiled about ourselves and our own interests – into harmony with the great movement of Reality. Mortification means killing the very roots of self-love; pride and possessiveness, anger and violence, ambition and greed in all their disguises, however respectable those disguises may be.”
In prayer, we face ourselves towards God and… we do all sorts of things. Some of us seek silence. The deep, inner silence of apophatic prayer, like that taught by the great Carmelite masters, Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and the modern Centering Prayer movement. Vipassana meditation of Southeast Asia is an apophatic prayer form. Hindu Transcendental Meditation is, too. Some of us find the cadence and imagery of the rosary to be meaningful. Some practice intercessions, praying for others, this is the metta meditations of Loving Kindness of Mahayana Buddhism. Others of us rejoice in chant, alone or in Taize forms of worship, or find stillness in the journey in and out of a labyrinth. There are other physical prayer forms like yoga, tai chi and chi kung. And if you do not know where to start, pick up your BCP in the morning and turn to page 80. Saying Morning Prayer is a superlative form of prayer, a communal spoken form of prayer, and when the words “us” and “we” come up in the service, remember that countless others around the world are saying the very same words.
Prayer is all about holy habits. Having a little corner to yourself, twenty minutes of your own in the morning, the wherewithal to remember to do the rosary on the little bumps on your steering wheel, or to say the Jesus prayer when you are standing in line at the grocery store. (Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That is an ancient prayer. Say that unceasingly, and you will be called the child of God.) The other thing about prayer is that it is extremely hard to do by yourself. We need direction, instruction, encouragement. This is a goal of mine here at Resurrection: to build a practicing church. Let’s be observant Christians together. We have started saying morning prayer on Fridays. Keep your eyes open for some more opportunities to learn to pray well together.
Then there is Mortification… dealing with yourself… Mortification is all about building healthy habits and we do that by grace alone, because attending to ourselves, making better, healthier decisions for ourselves, it is not easy. Windy and I have dropped coffee from our lives. Wine, too, but for special occasions. No fun, but, but, better. Our life is better (crankier in the morning, but better). We stick to it by grace, as Flannery O’Connor wrote that “all human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” By grace we find the strength to live better than we might, certainly better than we want to. Eat better, develop some disciplines around food like Mark Bitman’s vegan before 6 idea of eating meat only at dinner. Exercise more, or at all. See a therapist. See a dentist. A doctor. Get enough rest. Try to learn how to do something new. Start being the person you want to be. This is mortification of the highest spiritual order. It is dealing with your own nature, with the express purpose of growing closer, to aligning our lives and our beings with the arc of God.
Repentance is all about returning to God. It is all about coming with a contrite heart and a plan to do things differently. This is the definition of reconciliation. Our sin hurts us more than it hurts other, largely. Sin is usually some form of breaking our own hearts. And that breaks God’s heart. Join me, please, in turning back to God in these coming years we will be working together. Let us work on praying together, and better. Let us learn mortification, dealing with ourselves, our bodies and our souls. Let us rejoice always, pray ceaselessly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. AMEN.
Monday, December 5, 2011
December 4, 2011, The Second Sunday in Advent
December 4, 2011, The Second Sunday in Advent, Year B
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Windy and I grew up North of Boston, home to, among other things, the Topsfield Fair. It is the oldest county fair in the nation, this coming year is its bicentennial. It is great: rabbits, horse shows, fired dough, real honest to goodness carneys and consistently the place where the world’s largest pumpkins are shown, and did I mention the fried dough? The record is something like 1650 lbs.. The last thing I did in Massachusetts before leaving was go to the opening night of the fair with Win and the girls. The fair looms large in the North Shore’s imagination.
Back in high school, I was on my way into the fair and there was a man standing near one of the entrances. This man looms large in my imagination. He was wearing a powder-blue jacket like old men used to wear, and he had a holder, one of those old cigarette girl holders full of pamphlets, religious tracts. Written on the back of his jacket in black magic marker were the words “Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe”.
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins….”
That man in the powder-blue jacket was a voice crying in the wilderness. He looms large in my imagination much like John the Baptist does, probably because he was doing the same thing John was doing; being a religious wacko, going where he was not expected or particularly welcomed, dressing oddly, in general someone you do not want to have over for dinner. Mostly, though, both of these men, they spoke with conviction about repentance, the need to repent… No one, well, at least very few of us in Anglican/Episcopalian circles like to talk about repentance; I think because it begs us to be so repentant! No, actually I think we do not talk about repentance with any conviction because we too often do not talk with any conviction about sin. And let’s face it, the entire reason for the Christ Event, for the coming of God in the form of a human being is the whole problem of sin. “Lamb of God who….” The thing is, if we do not understand sin, then we cannot understand repentance. And if we cannot understand repentance, then we miss the point of John the Baptist and the guy in the blue wind breaker which means we miss the depth and breadth of the ministry of Jesus Christ whom they herald and if we miss that we might as well skip Christmas… so as not to be a grinch, let’s save Christmas and talk about sin. Sound good?
What is sin?
Ok, let’s try this on for size: Everyone pick up a BCP and turn to page 843. “An Outline of the Faith,” (Turn the page) “commonly called the Catechism.” Turn to page 848. Would someone read the answer to What is sin? “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” How does that sound? Sounds reasonable. Sin thought of this way could even be forgiveable, no? The catechism is not policy, it is not something we need to accept word for word, it is a point of departure for prayer and learning about our faith. And in it is a pretty good starting point.
Sin: “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Another way to say it is that sin is anything that gets in the way of right relationship with God and Neighbor. What this really means is that the sin we need to talk about in church, what John the Baptist got all excited about, what God is ultimately concerned with, is not so much a law forbidding specific actions or behaviors, but a recognition that some things we do and think are disordered, they prevent us from seeing others for who they really are, for seeing our selves for who we really are, for feeling the true consequences of our own action and inaction, that lays road blocks between us and God, the true nature of things. Sin is that which prevents us from being what we are supposed to be. When it comes to sin it is not so much about doing as it is about being.
Drinking too much is sinful not because of the drinking, but because of the drunkenness. It is the too much part that is sinful, and for some of us, one Drink is too much, it treads into the world of sin. Ever tried to pray drunk? Be a good friend drunk? No. Being gluttonous, hording material things, be it food, possesions, money, anything beyond what we need is sinful because, first, having too much means others can not have enough (neighbor) and second, whenever humans get too concerned with things we are not concerned enough with God. Anything that gets in the way you being your best self, is sinful.
Take sex. (Really, how can we talk about sin without talking about sex?) Sex is not a sin. It something that people do, and joyfully. Men, women, transgendered, in whatever combination, it does not matter to God who is having sex, or even how, so long as it is done in mutual love between adults. Sex becomes sinful, becomes adultery or worse when sex is used mindlessly or carelessly, exploitively, violently, in any way that anyone is harmed, and that includes harming yourself. Unsafe sex is a sin because it can cause harm. You can die from it. One of my closest friends is going to die because they had unsafe sex; once. Sex before you are physically or emotionally ready for it can be devastating. It is not the action that tells us if something is sinful, it is the result of the action. And yes, we are culpable, responsible for knowing this difference. We are beautiful, wonderful creatures, and we are very fragile creatures. We break easily. We are horribly distractible. We constantly get confused and treat things more importantly than they should be treated. Idolatry, treating as God that which is not God, this is our primary individual sin.
More conservative theologies of sin focus a lot of energy on the individual nature of sin. In the choices and actions that you, and you and I take; that is where the big break in relationship with God comes. We are certainly sinful creatures, but the big sin, to be a big, big sinner requires group effort. Reinhold Neibuhr’s Moral Man, Immoral Society teaches us that individually our sins are small, and primarily hurt ourselves, but collectively, joined together in sin as a society, that is how the Holocaust happened. That is how 6 million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far. 6 million and counting. That is how between 2009 and 2010 the homeless census in Eugene increased by 47%. That is how we have children living in campers in church parking lots, and who are glad for it. This is the result of what we call structural sin. Structural sin occurs when whole societies and cultures take on traits that prevent right relationship with God and neighbor. Structural sin the plight of women in Saudi Arabia, and many, most other places. Structural sin is the oppression of indigenous peoples in every corner of the world. Structural sin is the blatant and latent racism and continued segregation of our nation, he says to a vastly white congregation. That 1% can control wealth beyond imagining and hold all the keys to Caesar’s kingdom while student loan subsidies are being slashed by $18 billion, Social Security, Medicare and Medicade are on the chopping block. I have a 67 year old mentally retarded aunt on Mass Health, the equivalent of OHP, and her dental care was just eliminated. Sin. And she cannot get glasses any more. Sin. And in the worst employment climate in two generations, unemployment benefits are not being extended… When a society forgets its least of these… there is some sin of biblical proportion.
And original sin… we cannot forget that, but I don’t know. I take the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to represent the archtype of loneliness. The apple had the power to delude us into thinking that we are separate, even different from God and from each other. We are not. I heard this story about the author Madeline D’Engle and I think it is largely true. I heard it in a sermon, so you never can tell, poetic liscense and all. Some friends of hers had a 4 year old and a new baby. One day the 4 year old went into her baby sister’s room and the parents overheard her saying, “Please, tell me something about God, I think I am forgetting.” Is that what growing up means? Putting on original sin?
We have homework this week. This coming week I want you all to think about sin. I want you to think about the things you encounter in your life that pull your eyes away from the prize that is God. Think about what prevents you from being happy. Whatever is preventing inner happiness is sinful. I want you to pay attention to the things that get in the way of you being a peaceful family, that derail your efforts to be a patient friend, a good husband or wife or partner, or parent or grand parent. Think about the things that keep you from being the clear reflection of God Almighty, the imago dei that you are in spades. Next Sunday we will get back to John and the man in the powder-blue jacket. We’ll get on with repentance. The answer to our prayers. The reason for this and every season. And until then, no sinning. AMEN.
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
Windy and I grew up North of Boston, home to, among other things, the Topsfield Fair. It is the oldest county fair in the nation, this coming year is its bicentennial. It is great: rabbits, horse shows, fired dough, real honest to goodness carneys and consistently the place where the world’s largest pumpkins are shown, and did I mention the fried dough? The record is something like 1650 lbs.. The last thing I did in Massachusetts before leaving was go to the opening night of the fair with Win and the girls. The fair looms large in the North Shore’s imagination.
Back in high school, I was on my way into the fair and there was a man standing near one of the entrances. This man looms large in my imagination. He was wearing a powder-blue jacket like old men used to wear, and he had a holder, one of those old cigarette girl holders full of pamphlets, religious tracts. Written on the back of his jacket in black magic marker were the words “Jesus Saves: Repent and Believe”.
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins….”
That man in the powder-blue jacket was a voice crying in the wilderness. He looms large in my imagination much like John the Baptist does, probably because he was doing the same thing John was doing; being a religious wacko, going where he was not expected or particularly welcomed, dressing oddly, in general someone you do not want to have over for dinner. Mostly, though, both of these men, they spoke with conviction about repentance, the need to repent… No one, well, at least very few of us in Anglican/Episcopalian circles like to talk about repentance; I think because it begs us to be so repentant! No, actually I think we do not talk about repentance with any conviction because we too often do not talk with any conviction about sin. And let’s face it, the entire reason for the Christ Event, for the coming of God in the form of a human being is the whole problem of sin. “Lamb of God who….” The thing is, if we do not understand sin, then we cannot understand repentance. And if we cannot understand repentance, then we miss the point of John the Baptist and the guy in the blue wind breaker which means we miss the depth and breadth of the ministry of Jesus Christ whom they herald and if we miss that we might as well skip Christmas… so as not to be a grinch, let’s save Christmas and talk about sin. Sound good?
What is sin?
Ok, let’s try this on for size: Everyone pick up a BCP and turn to page 843. “An Outline of the Faith,” (Turn the page) “commonly called the Catechism.” Turn to page 848. Would someone read the answer to What is sin? “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” How does that sound? Sounds reasonable. Sin thought of this way could even be forgiveable, no? The catechism is not policy, it is not something we need to accept word for word, it is a point of departure for prayer and learning about our faith. And in it is a pretty good starting point.
Sin: “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Another way to say it is that sin is anything that gets in the way of right relationship with God and Neighbor. What this really means is that the sin we need to talk about in church, what John the Baptist got all excited about, what God is ultimately concerned with, is not so much a law forbidding specific actions or behaviors, but a recognition that some things we do and think are disordered, they prevent us from seeing others for who they really are, for seeing our selves for who we really are, for feeling the true consequences of our own action and inaction, that lays road blocks between us and God, the true nature of things. Sin is that which prevents us from being what we are supposed to be. When it comes to sin it is not so much about doing as it is about being.
Drinking too much is sinful not because of the drinking, but because of the drunkenness. It is the too much part that is sinful, and for some of us, one Drink is too much, it treads into the world of sin. Ever tried to pray drunk? Be a good friend drunk? No. Being gluttonous, hording material things, be it food, possesions, money, anything beyond what we need is sinful because, first, having too much means others can not have enough (neighbor) and second, whenever humans get too concerned with things we are not concerned enough with God. Anything that gets in the way you being your best self, is sinful.
Take sex. (Really, how can we talk about sin without talking about sex?) Sex is not a sin. It something that people do, and joyfully. Men, women, transgendered, in whatever combination, it does not matter to God who is having sex, or even how, so long as it is done in mutual love between adults. Sex becomes sinful, becomes adultery or worse when sex is used mindlessly or carelessly, exploitively, violently, in any way that anyone is harmed, and that includes harming yourself. Unsafe sex is a sin because it can cause harm. You can die from it. One of my closest friends is going to die because they had unsafe sex; once. Sex before you are physically or emotionally ready for it can be devastating. It is not the action that tells us if something is sinful, it is the result of the action. And yes, we are culpable, responsible for knowing this difference. We are beautiful, wonderful creatures, and we are very fragile creatures. We break easily. We are horribly distractible. We constantly get confused and treat things more importantly than they should be treated. Idolatry, treating as God that which is not God, this is our primary individual sin.
More conservative theologies of sin focus a lot of energy on the individual nature of sin. In the choices and actions that you, and you and I take; that is where the big break in relationship with God comes. We are certainly sinful creatures, but the big sin, to be a big, big sinner requires group effort. Reinhold Neibuhr’s Moral Man, Immoral Society teaches us that individually our sins are small, and primarily hurt ourselves, but collectively, joined together in sin as a society, that is how the Holocaust happened. That is how 6 million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far. 6 million and counting. That is how between 2009 and 2010 the homeless census in Eugene increased by 47%. That is how we have children living in campers in church parking lots, and who are glad for it. This is the result of what we call structural sin. Structural sin occurs when whole societies and cultures take on traits that prevent right relationship with God and neighbor. Structural sin the plight of women in Saudi Arabia, and many, most other places. Structural sin is the oppression of indigenous peoples in every corner of the world. Structural sin is the blatant and latent racism and continued segregation of our nation, he says to a vastly white congregation. That 1% can control wealth beyond imagining and hold all the keys to Caesar’s kingdom while student loan subsidies are being slashed by $18 billion, Social Security, Medicare and Medicade are on the chopping block. I have a 67 year old mentally retarded aunt on Mass Health, the equivalent of OHP, and her dental care was just eliminated. Sin. And she cannot get glasses any more. Sin. And in the worst employment climate in two generations, unemployment benefits are not being extended… When a society forgets its least of these… there is some sin of biblical proportion.
And original sin… we cannot forget that, but I don’t know. I take the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to represent the archtype of loneliness. The apple had the power to delude us into thinking that we are separate, even different from God and from each other. We are not. I heard this story about the author Madeline D’Engle and I think it is largely true. I heard it in a sermon, so you never can tell, poetic liscense and all. Some friends of hers had a 4 year old and a new baby. One day the 4 year old went into her baby sister’s room and the parents overheard her saying, “Please, tell me something about God, I think I am forgetting.” Is that what growing up means? Putting on original sin?
We have homework this week. This coming week I want you all to think about sin. I want you to think about the things you encounter in your life that pull your eyes away from the prize that is God. Think about what prevents you from being happy. Whatever is preventing inner happiness is sinful. I want you to pay attention to the things that get in the way of you being a peaceful family, that derail your efforts to be a patient friend, a good husband or wife or partner, or parent or grand parent. Think about the things that keep you from being the clear reflection of God Almighty, the imago dei that you are in spades. Next Sunday we will get back to John and the man in the powder-blue jacket. We’ll get on with repentance. The answer to our prayers. The reason for this and every season. And until then, no sinning. AMEN.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
