Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“When you give alms, do not let you left hand know what your right hand is doing…“Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door…“When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face…“...where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Lent can be so grim. It can be a season of “mourning for sin.” Our sin and the sin of the world. Weeping, gnashing of teeth, sack cloth. Giving up things we love and reveling in the misery, or at least feeling sanctified with the ascetic nature of our practice. And Christ’s exhortations to us in this passage from St. Matthew supports that. Not only are we directed to do all that, give alms, pray and fast, He tells us that we are to do all these good works in secret so that we do not get the satisfaction of feedback from admiring or impressed humans. The thinking is that God smiles more brightly on us when things are hard, or we are miserable in God’s name. There are another ways to look at this.
When Jesus tells us do these good things, give alms, pray, fast, He follows up with the order to store up our treasure in heaven because “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What he is telling us is that we need to get our minds right, we need to get our priorities straight, we need to have our eyes on the right prize; and that prize is nothing less than being in right relationship with God Almighty and all those we share this life with.
It is not that often that Christ offers so clear a teaching, one with practical instructions and soteriological implications, that is the technical term for things relating to salvation. He tells us to do things this way… When you are generous, giving alms, do not publicize it, give for giving’s sake. No naming rights. When you pray, don’t show off, do it to the glory of God, not your own. When you fast, don’t look miserable, get on with your day because your private spiritual practice is just that, private, it is between you and God. And why do we do these things? To focus our attention where it is supposed to be focused; that is not on frivolous things like approval, not on worldly, profane things, but things of substance. Things of quality. Things coming from and going to God.
Well, that is what I take it to mean when Jesus tells us to store our treasures in heaven. I think we need to take His words to mean that we need to invest our energy and attention in what is right and good and beautiful in this world. Heaven on earth, the Kingdom of God. We need to work on, work for, create enduring things, edifying things, things of grace and beauty AND justice. We need to focus ourselves on things worth paying attention to, things worth dedicating energy to, to throwing our lot in with. A stand of old growth trees up in the Cascades; a patch of rich silt loam, real blackstuff like you see in the fields right below Mt. Pisgah, an institution that is doing God’s work in the world, your own vocation… these are where we store our treasure.
What we do in this world, matters. Co-equal, what we intend to do in this world matters. This is the meaning of this passage. We become our intentions. If your intentions are on Godly things, good and wholesome and life giving things, then you grow closer to God because God understands our intentions and our intentions generally lead our bodies and minds in the same direction. When we surround ourselves with things of God, things pleasing to God, we become them. Things from God are most easily recognized for their elegant, simple, enduring qualities. Surround yourself with such things and you will become them.
This Lent, immerse yourself in things that you know will please God. Surround yourself with beauty, and where it is lacking, create something beautiful. Surround yourself with outrageously alive things; a farm in spring, a river engorged with vernal run-off, children, and where life is lacking, create life. These things are not easy, they often take work, but life takes work. The good life takes a lot of work. This is the best preparation we can make for the coming dark days of Holy Week. Have a constructive Lent. AMEN
Monday, February 27, 2012
February 19, 2012, Last Sunday after the Epiphany Yr. B
Last Sunday after the Epiphany/The Transfiguration of Our Lord
February 19, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’”
Contraception. O what times are we in, that contraception is the center of a boisterous national debate. Part of me wants to say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” We have more important things to worry about than that. Poverty, war, racism, climate change, a faltering economy… Then again, birth control is in fact a really big deal. Easily accessible contraception undoubtedly has had an impact on the character and practice of heterosexual sexuality, and that is no small thing in our species. In the end, all this recent hubbub about contraception and Roman Catholic institutions, beyond the question of who pays for the pill, the issue is how God reveals right and wrong to us, and what we do with that knowledge once we have it.
The Catholic doctrine that prohibits contraception is poorly understood. It is actually not as outlandish an idea as it might seem, and it is rather consistent with their whole doctrine of the sanctity of life. It says that the purpose of human sexuality is procreation. Our sexuality is a joyous gift from God, and it is for a single perfect purpose. So, if making babies is not your goal, you should not be doing it, therefore birth control is anathema to proper use of our bodies. You see, while sexual reproduction is an elegant and expressive way to propagate a species, it is also a primary center of human sin. This is a fact. We generate a massive amount of energy around our sexuality; some it a most poignantly loving, creative energy, and some of it the ugliest, most exploitive and violent energy we are capable of channeling, towards ourselves and others. And it is a part of our existence about which we are capable of being unbelievably careless and mindless. The Roman idea is that contraception enables mindless use of our bodies and blocks God’s plan, to in all things, increase the quantity and quality of life. And when you tie that into the larger Catholic doctrine of the sanctity of life, reflected in being against the death penalty, against war, striving to alleviate poverty and illness, even certain objections to abortion, it is pretty consistent if noting else. That’s the rough party line about why contraception is wrong. What do you all think about that? ____ I must say, that theoretically at least, it is not all crazy talk.
Sexuality is something that our culture and many of us personally take far for to cavalier an attitude towards. Culturally we have a disordered relationship towards sex, dangerously disordered. But, and that is a massive but, there are some major shortcomings in this theology. First, it is patently untrue that education about and availability of contraception encourages any kind of sexual activity.
Second, human sexuality is a gift, and birth control allows people to have more control over their own reproduction. Medical science has provided reasonably safe ways to have control over an important aspect of our bodies and lives. Sex can be for more than just baby making and that is perfectly fine. This means also that for gay folks, and others whose sexual lives do not include the possibility of pregnancy for whatever reason, a healthy sexual life is possible. And so long as it is done in love, it will be one that God smiles upon.
Next, pragmatically, folks are going to have sex no matter how wise it may seem from afar and easy access to contraception and access to safe abortion services are a necessary part of our medical landscape. That is just the fact. If you do not believe in these options do not exercise them. Finally, and most damningly to the interpretation and enforcement of the doctrine of the sanctity of life, it is really all about controlling and oppressing women. Really, if the bishops spent half the energy on ending capital punishment or ending war that they spend trying to control the lives and bodies of women, the world would be different. It would be better. What would it look like if senators who supported the invasion of Iraq, or supported the death penalty, or the procurement of nuclear weapons were denied communion and not the folks who support abortion rights? So much of the energy expressed under the guise of “life” are simply unsubtle programs to domesticate the enormous de facto power that women have in our society, in our churches, in our families and government dictating policy to religious bodies based on what the government sees as right and wrong. What if in hiring our new nursery workers, we could not use willingness to sing Christian songs or read bible stories in the nursery as a criteria in hiring? Or willingness to pray with the kids? What if you could not use nature of religious beliefs or theological positions in hiring someone, like, I don’t know, say me? What if the government tried to mandate that we support something with our health insurance that we did not believe in, I had trouble thinking of examples, we are liberal and by nature don’t say never very often, but say what if we were forced to pay for female circumcisions. Or pay for the quackery of Love Won Out, therapy to “cure” homosexuality. I don’t want our money paying for that. Or if a doctor could be compelled to preside over an execution. Or an abortion, for that matter. When it comes to the big things, life and death kind of things, or maybe even more importantly, right and wrong kind of things, the will of God kind of things, we need to be very, very careful about speaking in absolutes. We have to be very, very careful about making decisions for other people based on our understanding of God’s will. And very, very careful about whom we concede such authority to.
But then hospitals are part of the social infrastructure. They are heavily publically funded. What is it, 62% of Catholic Charities’ work is paid for with tax dollars? That’s what I heard on Colbert. They are public institutions, and denying basic medical care, i.e. in our species. It is shameful. Anti-contraception theology is anti-woman theology plain and simple.
Contraception. I disagree with the Church’s position on it. That said, I hesitate in discounting the whole argument against the contraception, to employees and patients, many of whom have no other option for employment or health care seems to me unjust.
The problem is that sometimes, often it is hard to know what God’s wants of us. It is hard to tell right from wrong sometimes, particularly in those murkier places where perhaps the theoretical right and the true nature of things do not line up. Or when people in good faith come up with different conclusions about what is right and what is wrong. And sometimes things are good and bad at the same time. No one is happy about having an abortion, it is always a tragedy; and countless people, men and women, are grateful beyond words that they are available and safe. It is, like so many important things, both/and, or many/also. How do we know what to do? What to believe?
“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’” The thing is, God is not usually as clear as God was in our Gospel this morning. This is called a theophany, which means God’s embodied appearance in the world. The burning bush; the whirlwind in Job; the baptism of our Lord; theophanies are scandalously rare. And I must admit that I am pretty suspicious when someone claims such a specific revelation of the will of God. God does not generally speak to us so clearly and we are still completely responsible for discerning God’s will, discerning right and wrong, discerning who we are supposed to be in this world and how. What are the faithful to do?
We are going to be talking about discernment a lot over the next couple of years. Discernment is the primary work of the church. We have to discern our collective vocation in the world. We have to discern the future of this relationship, between you all and me. Many of us have personal discernment needs, locating God’s will for our lives, finding our own vocation. The church needs to be a resource. We are about to assemble a discernment committee for someone hoping to become a priest. I’d love to explore convening discernment committees for others, not just the ordination minded. What about for high school or college juniors? The laid off? Recently widowed or divorced? The bored?
I’ll plant one seed of discernment today. It is a practice to add to your prayer lives, and it comes from the work of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. He was all about discerning what was from God and what was not from God. One tool he used was holding the choice, the topic, holding it in prayer, imagining it as a drop of water. As it drips, if it hits the ground like it were asphalt, hard, went slap, splat… Maybe it is not from God. However, if those drops fall on something soft, moss, a lichen covered branch or a cluster of ferns, drop, drop, drop… Perhaps that would be a sign it was from God. Hold it there. Is it gentle; or sharp? Soft or jarring? Moss or concrete?
God speaks to us, every moment of every day. Urging us towards wholeness, wholesomeness and life, towards what is a right and good and joyful thing, always and everywhere. Our task is to listen for that still small voice, to discern nothing less than the will of God. We’ve got a lot riding on it. AMEN
February 19, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’”
Contraception. O what times are we in, that contraception is the center of a boisterous national debate. Part of me wants to say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” We have more important things to worry about than that. Poverty, war, racism, climate change, a faltering economy… Then again, birth control is in fact a really big deal. Easily accessible contraception undoubtedly has had an impact on the character and practice of heterosexual sexuality, and that is no small thing in our species. In the end, all this recent hubbub about contraception and Roman Catholic institutions, beyond the question of who pays for the pill, the issue is how God reveals right and wrong to us, and what we do with that knowledge once we have it.
The Catholic doctrine that prohibits contraception is poorly understood. It is actually not as outlandish an idea as it might seem, and it is rather consistent with their whole doctrine of the sanctity of life. It says that the purpose of human sexuality is procreation. Our sexuality is a joyous gift from God, and it is for a single perfect purpose. So, if making babies is not your goal, you should not be doing it, therefore birth control is anathema to proper use of our bodies. You see, while sexual reproduction is an elegant and expressive way to propagate a species, it is also a primary center of human sin. This is a fact. We generate a massive amount of energy around our sexuality; some it a most poignantly loving, creative energy, and some of it the ugliest, most exploitive and violent energy we are capable of channeling, towards ourselves and others. And it is a part of our existence about which we are capable of being unbelievably careless and mindless. The Roman idea is that contraception enables mindless use of our bodies and blocks God’s plan, to in all things, increase the quantity and quality of life. And when you tie that into the larger Catholic doctrine of the sanctity of life, reflected in being against the death penalty, against war, striving to alleviate poverty and illness, even certain objections to abortion, it is pretty consistent if noting else. That’s the rough party line about why contraception is wrong. What do you all think about that? ____ I must say, that theoretically at least, it is not all crazy talk.
Sexuality is something that our culture and many of us personally take far for to cavalier an attitude towards. Culturally we have a disordered relationship towards sex, dangerously disordered. But, and that is a massive but, there are some major shortcomings in this theology. First, it is patently untrue that education about and availability of contraception encourages any kind of sexual activity.
Second, human sexuality is a gift, and birth control allows people to have more control over their own reproduction. Medical science has provided reasonably safe ways to have control over an important aspect of our bodies and lives. Sex can be for more than just baby making and that is perfectly fine. This means also that for gay folks, and others whose sexual lives do not include the possibility of pregnancy for whatever reason, a healthy sexual life is possible. And so long as it is done in love, it will be one that God smiles upon.
Next, pragmatically, folks are going to have sex no matter how wise it may seem from afar and easy access to contraception and access to safe abortion services are a necessary part of our medical landscape. That is just the fact. If you do not believe in these options do not exercise them. Finally, and most damningly to the interpretation and enforcement of the doctrine of the sanctity of life, it is really all about controlling and oppressing women. Really, if the bishops spent half the energy on ending capital punishment or ending war that they spend trying to control the lives and bodies of women, the world would be different. It would be better. What would it look like if senators who supported the invasion of Iraq, or supported the death penalty, or the procurement of nuclear weapons were denied communion and not the folks who support abortion rights? So much of the energy expressed under the guise of “life” are simply unsubtle programs to domesticate the enormous de facto power that women have in our society, in our churches, in our families and government dictating policy to religious bodies based on what the government sees as right and wrong. What if in hiring our new nursery workers, we could not use willingness to sing Christian songs or read bible stories in the nursery as a criteria in hiring? Or willingness to pray with the kids? What if you could not use nature of religious beliefs or theological positions in hiring someone, like, I don’t know, say me? What if the government tried to mandate that we support something with our health insurance that we did not believe in, I had trouble thinking of examples, we are liberal and by nature don’t say never very often, but say what if we were forced to pay for female circumcisions. Or pay for the quackery of Love Won Out, therapy to “cure” homosexuality. I don’t want our money paying for that. Or if a doctor could be compelled to preside over an execution. Or an abortion, for that matter. When it comes to the big things, life and death kind of things, or maybe even more importantly, right and wrong kind of things, the will of God kind of things, we need to be very, very careful about speaking in absolutes. We have to be very, very careful about making decisions for other people based on our understanding of God’s will. And very, very careful about whom we concede such authority to.
But then hospitals are part of the social infrastructure. They are heavily publically funded. What is it, 62% of Catholic Charities’ work is paid for with tax dollars? That’s what I heard on Colbert. They are public institutions, and denying basic medical care, i.e. in our species. It is shameful. Anti-contraception theology is anti-woman theology plain and simple.
Contraception. I disagree with the Church’s position on it. That said, I hesitate in discounting the whole argument against the contraception, to employees and patients, many of whom have no other option for employment or health care seems to me unjust.
The problem is that sometimes, often it is hard to know what God’s wants of us. It is hard to tell right from wrong sometimes, particularly in those murkier places where perhaps the theoretical right and the true nature of things do not line up. Or when people in good faith come up with different conclusions about what is right and what is wrong. And sometimes things are good and bad at the same time. No one is happy about having an abortion, it is always a tragedy; and countless people, men and women, are grateful beyond words that they are available and safe. It is, like so many important things, both/and, or many/also. How do we know what to do? What to believe?
“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’” The thing is, God is not usually as clear as God was in our Gospel this morning. This is called a theophany, which means God’s embodied appearance in the world. The burning bush; the whirlwind in Job; the baptism of our Lord; theophanies are scandalously rare. And I must admit that I am pretty suspicious when someone claims such a specific revelation of the will of God. God does not generally speak to us so clearly and we are still completely responsible for discerning God’s will, discerning right and wrong, discerning who we are supposed to be in this world and how. What are the faithful to do?
We are going to be talking about discernment a lot over the next couple of years. Discernment is the primary work of the church. We have to discern our collective vocation in the world. We have to discern the future of this relationship, between you all and me. Many of us have personal discernment needs, locating God’s will for our lives, finding our own vocation. The church needs to be a resource. We are about to assemble a discernment committee for someone hoping to become a priest. I’d love to explore convening discernment committees for others, not just the ordination minded. What about for high school or college juniors? The laid off? Recently widowed or divorced? The bored?
I’ll plant one seed of discernment today. It is a practice to add to your prayer lives, and it comes from the work of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. He was all about discerning what was from God and what was not from God. One tool he used was holding the choice, the topic, holding it in prayer, imagining it as a drop of water. As it drips, if it hits the ground like it were asphalt, hard, went slap, splat… Maybe it is not from God. However, if those drops fall on something soft, moss, a lichen covered branch or a cluster of ferns, drop, drop, drop… Perhaps that would be a sign it was from God. Hold it there. Is it gentle; or sharp? Soft or jarring? Moss or concrete?
God speaks to us, every moment of every day. Urging us towards wholeness, wholesomeness and life, towards what is a right and good and joyful thing, always and everywhere. Our task is to listen for that still small voice, to discern nothing less than the will of God. We’ve got a lot riding on it. AMEN
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
February 12, 2012, 6th Sunday after the Epiphany
Year B, Epiphany 6
February 12, 2012
The Reverend Dr. Brent Was
“If you choose, you can make me clean.”
So a man goes into the butchers shop and looks at the big case. Inside he sees a couple of cow tongues. “Yuck,” he thought, “that has been inside a cows mouth.” And to the butcher, he says, “Just give me a dozen eggs.”
What is clean? What is pure? What does God have to do with it?
As mentioned two weeks ago, leprosy included any ailment involving skin lesions. If you were afflicted, you were banned from the temple, so in effect you were unable to be in a proper relationship with God. Further, you were banned from any contact with society. You were put out of your home and family. The Levitical code indicated that you had to wear torn clothing and disheveled hair, and that as you moved around you had to shout “unclean, unclean,” giving proper warning to others that they may give a wide berth. In many ways, being unclean made you dead to society. This healing miracle in Mark has been called a little resurrection, resurrection from a form of living death. Of course it was a lot more than just leprosy that would get you demoted to this untouchable social status.
But there is Jesus, touching him. It was forbidden to do this, touch the unclean. You’ve got to love the audacity of Jesus. When a rule needs breaking, he breaks it. Eating on the Sabbath, dining with tax collectors and prostitutes, taking water from Samaritans, evicting money changers. And, on the other hand, when a rule needs enforcing, when something is in fact important, there he is. “Present yourself to the priest...” Our history and traditions are important. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Caesar is actually not that important, so don’t fuss. “Pray this way.” It works. “Follow me.” You have to. “Stay awake.” I need you.
So what do you think… clean, unclean… where is this in our society? Who is treated as “unclean”? ______. The homeless. The mentally ill. Folks with HIV/AIDS. Folks with cancer – lots of folks working through cancer describe themselves as feeling like lepers. What about convicted felons? You cannot get a job in that condition. Gay folks. Transgendered folks, for sure. Few things attract more morbid curiosity than uncertainty of gender; it throws people off and inspires violence. People suffering from addiction. The burned, the disfigured. Teen moms are shunned, shamed away. Survivors of domestic violence, rape, sexual abuse. If that is part of your life story, that part is not welcome in polite company. What about the poor? It is exceptionally unpleasant to be conspicuously poor in our society. You will be treated badly. Really, being a minority of any kind, being different in any given setting equates with being treated as unclean in our world.
I sat for a while thinking about all these folks that are socially unacceptable, who are in some fashion “unclean.” Please, let me be clear, I am talking about people who are treated as “unclean,” because of course they are not actually unclean, not ritually, not spiritually. It can be challenging encountering folks in these categories, folks society casts aside. Feelings like “thank God their story is not my story” are very common, are very human. It is feeling of sadness mixed in with some form of relief. Is that the definition of pity? It feels terrible inside. You know the feeling, right? Let’s be honest, priests, nurses and doctors, social workers, therapists, lawyers, everyone who works with suffering people have the same kind of thoughts that everyone else does. Lousy thoughts, some times. They feel shameful. But beware projecting perfection on professions. We will fail you. Guaranteed. And the pain of that failure gets worse the higher the expectations. I will fail you. I am guaranteed to disappoint you sometimes. Do not forget that.
So there is Jesus encountering this leper and Mark tells us that Jesus was “moved with pity…” The translations that we have before us are not very clear. They are hazy. The problem is in what was moved in Jesus. It can be translated as “moved with anger,” maybe at the leper for disturbing him, maybe at the disease, which at the time would have had a demonic association – as if he were angry with the demon, or he could have been angry with the system that excluded this sick man. Angry. But the word used for movement also implies a movement of feeling, of deep feelings, and in that time and place, thinking did not happen in the head, it was here, in the heart, and feeling, emotions, happened in the gut. According to some scholars the original connotation was that seeing the leper, Jesus’ guts were moved, there was a deep reaction. He had a very human reaction to an encounter with a devastating malady; with something socially unacceptable; with something, someone who was considered “unclean.”
Now I with trepidation mentioned that we, priests, and others in the helping professions have human reactions to difficult, to challenging encounters. I am sure to get a note from the priestly guild reminding me “thou shall not lift the veil and reveal thy (our) humanity.” But even Jesus Christ, in the more forgiving translation, feels pity. No one welcomes pity. No one wants pity. Most importantly, no one needs pity. And, and, even in that pity, or in that anger or in that gut twisting that Jesus experienced, whatever was going on in him, he put that aside, “he stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’”
Helping professionals move through those feelings, those angers and wrenchings, too. There is a lot of training to do this, of course, but mostly, mostly it is more of a lifting of ignorance than a learning to do anything. In seminary we don’t learn that much about disease or mental illness, about the inner workings of domestic violence or the actual challenges presented by poverty. We get introductions to these things but we are not clinicians by any stretch of the imagination. What we do learn is that whatever ailment you have, whatever situations you have found yourself in, whatever you have done or have had done to you, that is not “You.” You are you in that you are a manifestation of the Spirit. You are you in that Jesus loves you. That is definitional love. You are you in that you are a child of God. And even if your brothers and sisters don’t want you, God wants you. Even if we, your neighbors cannot understand you, God understands you. Even if we turn our backs on you, if we leave you behind; God never leaves you. And those hard parts, the broken parts, the parts that others recoil from, yes, they may define your experience of the world, but they do not define you.
That is a very short course in pastoral theology. And I lift the veil of professional secrets this morning because I am not the healer here. I am not the caregiver here. I am not the leader here. I am a healer, here. And gladly. I am a caregiver here. I am a leader here. One of many. Who does the heavy lifting in ministry around here? You all. Who is most responsible for being emissaries of this church in this community? You all. Who are the missionaries of Christ in our little plot of the world? You all. And your work is harder than mine. I go out in this collar and people are put off if I do not act really nice, really welcoming, really religious. It is easier to be good when it is expected of you. You all can choose to be incognito Christians. Please don’t.
So what are you to do? Remember, Jesus healed that man primarily in offering him a hand. The hand of welcome. Yes, it was a radical welcome. In stretching out his hand Christ broke the standing orders; He violated conventional wisdom, but always, always, always remember conventional wisdom gave the world atomic weapons and thalidomide and Round Up and Goldman-Sachs.
What are you to do? Reach out your hand to others. Widely. Reach our far to people you are uncomfortable with. That is the Jesus way. We all have the mantle of Christ upon you when you reach out the world, when we offer radical hospitality. We can move through the discomfort, the not knowing exactly what to say, the feelings of pity, of “thank God that did not happen to me” and the following shame. Challenge yourself, this week, engage with someone you would rather not. The really grumpy guy at the office who you know just needs a friend. The person asking for money at the stop light. Give them a dollar and wish them a good day, or the blessing of God. Call your mother-in-law. The more we engage across categories; the more we relate with folks that society has discounted, that we feel complicated feelings about; the more we, you reach out that hand, the closer, truly, to God in Christ you, they, we all become. AMEN
February 12, 2012
The Reverend Dr. Brent Was
“If you choose, you can make me clean.”
So a man goes into the butchers shop and looks at the big case. Inside he sees a couple of cow tongues. “Yuck,” he thought, “that has been inside a cows mouth.” And to the butcher, he says, “Just give me a dozen eggs.”
What is clean? What is pure? What does God have to do with it?
As mentioned two weeks ago, leprosy included any ailment involving skin lesions. If you were afflicted, you were banned from the temple, so in effect you were unable to be in a proper relationship with God. Further, you were banned from any contact with society. You were put out of your home and family. The Levitical code indicated that you had to wear torn clothing and disheveled hair, and that as you moved around you had to shout “unclean, unclean,” giving proper warning to others that they may give a wide berth. In many ways, being unclean made you dead to society. This healing miracle in Mark has been called a little resurrection, resurrection from a form of living death. Of course it was a lot more than just leprosy that would get you demoted to this untouchable social status.
But there is Jesus, touching him. It was forbidden to do this, touch the unclean. You’ve got to love the audacity of Jesus. When a rule needs breaking, he breaks it. Eating on the Sabbath, dining with tax collectors and prostitutes, taking water from Samaritans, evicting money changers. And, on the other hand, when a rule needs enforcing, when something is in fact important, there he is. “Present yourself to the priest...” Our history and traditions are important. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Caesar is actually not that important, so don’t fuss. “Pray this way.” It works. “Follow me.” You have to. “Stay awake.” I need you.
So what do you think… clean, unclean… where is this in our society? Who is treated as “unclean”? ______. The homeless. The mentally ill. Folks with HIV/AIDS. Folks with cancer – lots of folks working through cancer describe themselves as feeling like lepers. What about convicted felons? You cannot get a job in that condition. Gay folks. Transgendered folks, for sure. Few things attract more morbid curiosity than uncertainty of gender; it throws people off and inspires violence. People suffering from addiction. The burned, the disfigured. Teen moms are shunned, shamed away. Survivors of domestic violence, rape, sexual abuse. If that is part of your life story, that part is not welcome in polite company. What about the poor? It is exceptionally unpleasant to be conspicuously poor in our society. You will be treated badly. Really, being a minority of any kind, being different in any given setting equates with being treated as unclean in our world.
I sat for a while thinking about all these folks that are socially unacceptable, who are in some fashion “unclean.” Please, let me be clear, I am talking about people who are treated as “unclean,” because of course they are not actually unclean, not ritually, not spiritually. It can be challenging encountering folks in these categories, folks society casts aside. Feelings like “thank God their story is not my story” are very common, are very human. It is feeling of sadness mixed in with some form of relief. Is that the definition of pity? It feels terrible inside. You know the feeling, right? Let’s be honest, priests, nurses and doctors, social workers, therapists, lawyers, everyone who works with suffering people have the same kind of thoughts that everyone else does. Lousy thoughts, some times. They feel shameful. But beware projecting perfection on professions. We will fail you. Guaranteed. And the pain of that failure gets worse the higher the expectations. I will fail you. I am guaranteed to disappoint you sometimes. Do not forget that.
So there is Jesus encountering this leper and Mark tells us that Jesus was “moved with pity…” The translations that we have before us are not very clear. They are hazy. The problem is in what was moved in Jesus. It can be translated as “moved with anger,” maybe at the leper for disturbing him, maybe at the disease, which at the time would have had a demonic association – as if he were angry with the demon, or he could have been angry with the system that excluded this sick man. Angry. But the word used for movement also implies a movement of feeling, of deep feelings, and in that time and place, thinking did not happen in the head, it was here, in the heart, and feeling, emotions, happened in the gut. According to some scholars the original connotation was that seeing the leper, Jesus’ guts were moved, there was a deep reaction. He had a very human reaction to an encounter with a devastating malady; with something socially unacceptable; with something, someone who was considered “unclean.”
Now I with trepidation mentioned that we, priests, and others in the helping professions have human reactions to difficult, to challenging encounters. I am sure to get a note from the priestly guild reminding me “thou shall not lift the veil and reveal thy (our) humanity.” But even Jesus Christ, in the more forgiving translation, feels pity. No one welcomes pity. No one wants pity. Most importantly, no one needs pity. And, and, even in that pity, or in that anger or in that gut twisting that Jesus experienced, whatever was going on in him, he put that aside, “he stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’”
Helping professionals move through those feelings, those angers and wrenchings, too. There is a lot of training to do this, of course, but mostly, mostly it is more of a lifting of ignorance than a learning to do anything. In seminary we don’t learn that much about disease or mental illness, about the inner workings of domestic violence or the actual challenges presented by poverty. We get introductions to these things but we are not clinicians by any stretch of the imagination. What we do learn is that whatever ailment you have, whatever situations you have found yourself in, whatever you have done or have had done to you, that is not “You.” You are you in that you are a manifestation of the Spirit. You are you in that Jesus loves you. That is definitional love. You are you in that you are a child of God. And even if your brothers and sisters don’t want you, God wants you. Even if we, your neighbors cannot understand you, God understands you. Even if we turn our backs on you, if we leave you behind; God never leaves you. And those hard parts, the broken parts, the parts that others recoil from, yes, they may define your experience of the world, but they do not define you.
That is a very short course in pastoral theology. And I lift the veil of professional secrets this morning because I am not the healer here. I am not the caregiver here. I am not the leader here. I am a healer, here. And gladly. I am a caregiver here. I am a leader here. One of many. Who does the heavy lifting in ministry around here? You all. Who is most responsible for being emissaries of this church in this community? You all. Who are the missionaries of Christ in our little plot of the world? You all. And your work is harder than mine. I go out in this collar and people are put off if I do not act really nice, really welcoming, really religious. It is easier to be good when it is expected of you. You all can choose to be incognito Christians. Please don’t.
So what are you to do? Remember, Jesus healed that man primarily in offering him a hand. The hand of welcome. Yes, it was a radical welcome. In stretching out his hand Christ broke the standing orders; He violated conventional wisdom, but always, always, always remember conventional wisdom gave the world atomic weapons and thalidomide and Round Up and Goldman-Sachs.
What are you to do? Reach out your hand to others. Widely. Reach our far to people you are uncomfortable with. That is the Jesus way. We all have the mantle of Christ upon you when you reach out the world, when we offer radical hospitality. We can move through the discomfort, the not knowing exactly what to say, the feelings of pity, of “thank God that did not happen to me” and the following shame. Challenge yourself, this week, engage with someone you would rather not. The really grumpy guy at the office who you know just needs a friend. The person asking for money at the stop light. Give them a dollar and wish them a good day, or the blessing of God. Call your mother-in-law. The more we engage across categories; the more we relate with folks that society has discounted, that we feel complicated feelings about; the more we, you reach out that hand, the closer, truly, to God in Christ you, they, we all become. AMEN
Monday, February 6, 2012
February 5, 2012, 5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
February 5, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth?”
I asked the following question of your new vestry at our meeting on Thursday: What is your favorite place in the world? It doesn’t have to be a certain place, a specific outcropping of rocks just south of Yachats, it doesn’t have to be a place at all, it could be imagined or more a state of mind, like being snuggled up by the fire with a little one reading a book. Let’s pause for a moment. What is your perfect place in the world?
My perfect place is walking with Willow through the fields at our old farm in the late afternoon sun, right before the mosquitoes come out. I walk up and down the rows, seeing what is ready, deciding what to make my family for dinner and harvesting it. I always pause in front of the chicken tractors just to keep them sharp. Otherwise I would weed here and there, take stock of things, tie up a tomato plant or two dozen, think about tomorrow’s tasks or maybe try to think about nothing at all. My perfect place is beautiful. It is a productive place; there is plenty to share. It keeps my attention. Gives opportunities for meaningful, creative work. It is quiet. I am alone but others, my family and community, the people who eat the food, they are on my mind and in my work. That is my vision of perfection, of the perfect place.
Everyone at our meeting shared a bit about our perfect places and there was amazing continuity. Common elements included being beautiful, quiet, being with companions, a place of welcome, of good food, being warm and dry though not necessarily in a warm and dry place, a place without clocks, and most, somehow, were set in the out-of-doors, in non-human engineered settings, except the idea of a café in Paris, but that is understandable; God loves cafés in Paris.
Then I was a little sneaky. Well, not sneaky, but religious.
Religion is at its best when it forces us to look at something from a different perspective. Jesus is constantly doing that. I asked everyone what that perfect place had to do with the Kingdom of God. And it worked. Everyone guffawed a bit. None of us had spoken of notions of justice, or inclusion, or Eucharist, or angels and archangels or any of the company of heaven, or really anything to do with church at all, now that I think of it; well, nothing about what we generally consider to be churchy. Hmmm? We describe our perfect place as one thing, and it is genuine, but then putting our thoughts, desires and imaginations in the context of something like the Kingdom of God, perfection takes on a different character. It is funny that our visions of the perfect place did not look like church as we know it. In reality, though, and my take home from the exercise is that for most of us, our vision of the perfect place did not look like the church as it is right now…
“Have you not known? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth?”
I led this exercise to begin what will be a long process of discernment here in this community. What we are discerning is no less than the Will of God Almighty. What does God want of us? Who does God want us to be? How does God want us to serve? What is the best use of the resources we have concentrated through grace and hard work? What is our mission? What is our vocation? This began with the leadership core of the parish, the vestry, we started on Saturday at our retreat. Listening here, right now, your participation in the revelation of our vocation commences. We need prayer for our work as leaders, we need prayer for your own vision, and once you get the shadowy first revelations of a vision, we need meditation and reflection on them. We need deep thinking and study and conversation. We need each other. And God in Christ with the Holy Spirit.
“Have you not known? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the Earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.” I am not concerned or worried that none of us had overtly churchy visions of the perfect place. Jesus surely spent time in “religious” places, he wore the title Rabbi. Like last week, our Gospel reveals Jesus teaching and casting out demons in the synagogue. But the whole of Capernaum gathered outside of Simon and Andrew’s house for healing. And when he prayed, he went off to a quiet, deserted place as he was want to do. God is everywhere. Church, religion is useful in that it helps us on our journey to union with God. The prayers, the rituals, the words, even our Holy and Blessed Sacraments are useful only in that they help us grow more deep in our relationship with God and neighbor. And we are all so broken that we have a long, long time before things church, things religious are obsolete. That our vision of the perfect place did not match church is OK, it is like imagining an ordained ministry, we usually hope it is not like seminary; or a vocation in the law hopefully will not resemble law school. Our eyes were, I believe, set on perfection, were set on the kingdom of God, it is just that the pedagogical tool that the church is was transparent. The church, even this Church, is a means, not an end. The Kingdom of God is the end.
Really, I am pretty confident that the Kingdom of God looks, or, at least feels more like a quiet walk on a misty Oregon beach with the love of our life than a Sunday morning at Mass. And don’t get me wrong, I love Mass. And I am also confident that a sizeable proportion of us, of humankind, we need to go to Mass or its equivalent a whole bunch of times before we are able to really see, to really even begin to feel let alone have revealed to us that the Kingdom that is sitting right in front of us.
What filled me with hope in our exercise was that all of our notions of perfection had something to do with the way things are in their natural state. Our visions did not require changes in the world. The world seemed perfect when we were the changed ones. It was the same landscape we always see, it was the same path we always walk, but in the absence of chatter, in the absence of distraction, of clocks; the world became different, it became perfect in our mind’s eye. The perfection of the world is obvious when that stagnating cloud of sin is blown out to sea, when our distance from God is closed, when we live authentically in righteous, generous community. When we live the words we are saying together right now in this Mass.
This is our God: “God counts the numbers of the stars and calls them by their names…covers the heavens with clouds and prepares rain for the Earth; God makes grass to grow upon the mountains and green plants to serve humankind. God provides food for flocks and herds and for the young ravens when they cry.” God is good.
Isaiah reminds us that God is in fact good. Look around, what is lasting, what endures? The princes? The rulers of the earth? No. Scarcely are they planted “when God blows upon them, and they wither.” The psalmist reminds us that God is not “Impressed with the strength of a horse, has no pleasure in the strength of a man…”
What is God impressed with, whom does God favor? “God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless,” God stands with “those who wait.” “The LORD has pleasure in those who fear him, in those who await his gracious favor.”
I asked the questions about a perfect place because we as Christians have the mission to help realize, to help reveal the Kingdom of God. So we need to imagine what the Kingdom looks like, feels like, tastes like, so that we can begin our work together. If your perfect place involved silence and peace, being free from fear and want, full of beauty and not a single clock anywhere, how can the Church, how can THIS church work make that happen? For your sake, for our sake, for the sake of the world, may our prayer and our work ever please Thee, O LORD. AMEN
February 5, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth?”
I asked the following question of your new vestry at our meeting on Thursday: What is your favorite place in the world? It doesn’t have to be a certain place, a specific outcropping of rocks just south of Yachats, it doesn’t have to be a place at all, it could be imagined or more a state of mind, like being snuggled up by the fire with a little one reading a book. Let’s pause for a moment. What is your perfect place in the world?
My perfect place is walking with Willow through the fields at our old farm in the late afternoon sun, right before the mosquitoes come out. I walk up and down the rows, seeing what is ready, deciding what to make my family for dinner and harvesting it. I always pause in front of the chicken tractors just to keep them sharp. Otherwise I would weed here and there, take stock of things, tie up a tomato plant or two dozen, think about tomorrow’s tasks or maybe try to think about nothing at all. My perfect place is beautiful. It is a productive place; there is plenty to share. It keeps my attention. Gives opportunities for meaningful, creative work. It is quiet. I am alone but others, my family and community, the people who eat the food, they are on my mind and in my work. That is my vision of perfection, of the perfect place.
Everyone at our meeting shared a bit about our perfect places and there was amazing continuity. Common elements included being beautiful, quiet, being with companions, a place of welcome, of good food, being warm and dry though not necessarily in a warm and dry place, a place without clocks, and most, somehow, were set in the out-of-doors, in non-human engineered settings, except the idea of a café in Paris, but that is understandable; God loves cafés in Paris.
Then I was a little sneaky. Well, not sneaky, but religious.
Religion is at its best when it forces us to look at something from a different perspective. Jesus is constantly doing that. I asked everyone what that perfect place had to do with the Kingdom of God. And it worked. Everyone guffawed a bit. None of us had spoken of notions of justice, or inclusion, or Eucharist, or angels and archangels or any of the company of heaven, or really anything to do with church at all, now that I think of it; well, nothing about what we generally consider to be churchy. Hmmm? We describe our perfect place as one thing, and it is genuine, but then putting our thoughts, desires and imaginations in the context of something like the Kingdom of God, perfection takes on a different character. It is funny that our visions of the perfect place did not look like church as we know it. In reality, though, and my take home from the exercise is that for most of us, our vision of the perfect place did not look like the church as it is right now…
“Have you not known? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth?”
I led this exercise to begin what will be a long process of discernment here in this community. What we are discerning is no less than the Will of God Almighty. What does God want of us? Who does God want us to be? How does God want us to serve? What is the best use of the resources we have concentrated through grace and hard work? What is our mission? What is our vocation? This began with the leadership core of the parish, the vestry, we started on Saturday at our retreat. Listening here, right now, your participation in the revelation of our vocation commences. We need prayer for our work as leaders, we need prayer for your own vision, and once you get the shadowy first revelations of a vision, we need meditation and reflection on them. We need deep thinking and study and conversation. We need each other. And God in Christ with the Holy Spirit.
“Have you not known? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the Earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.” I am not concerned or worried that none of us had overtly churchy visions of the perfect place. Jesus surely spent time in “religious” places, he wore the title Rabbi. Like last week, our Gospel reveals Jesus teaching and casting out demons in the synagogue. But the whole of Capernaum gathered outside of Simon and Andrew’s house for healing. And when he prayed, he went off to a quiet, deserted place as he was want to do. God is everywhere. Church, religion is useful in that it helps us on our journey to union with God. The prayers, the rituals, the words, even our Holy and Blessed Sacraments are useful only in that they help us grow more deep in our relationship with God and neighbor. And we are all so broken that we have a long, long time before things church, things religious are obsolete. That our vision of the perfect place did not match church is OK, it is like imagining an ordained ministry, we usually hope it is not like seminary; or a vocation in the law hopefully will not resemble law school. Our eyes were, I believe, set on perfection, were set on the kingdom of God, it is just that the pedagogical tool that the church is was transparent. The church, even this Church, is a means, not an end. The Kingdom of God is the end.
Really, I am pretty confident that the Kingdom of God looks, or, at least feels more like a quiet walk on a misty Oregon beach with the love of our life than a Sunday morning at Mass. And don’t get me wrong, I love Mass. And I am also confident that a sizeable proportion of us, of humankind, we need to go to Mass or its equivalent a whole bunch of times before we are able to really see, to really even begin to feel let alone have revealed to us that the Kingdom that is sitting right in front of us.
What filled me with hope in our exercise was that all of our notions of perfection had something to do with the way things are in their natural state. Our visions did not require changes in the world. The world seemed perfect when we were the changed ones. It was the same landscape we always see, it was the same path we always walk, but in the absence of chatter, in the absence of distraction, of clocks; the world became different, it became perfect in our mind’s eye. The perfection of the world is obvious when that stagnating cloud of sin is blown out to sea, when our distance from God is closed, when we live authentically in righteous, generous community. When we live the words we are saying together right now in this Mass.
This is our God: “God counts the numbers of the stars and calls them by their names…covers the heavens with clouds and prepares rain for the Earth; God makes grass to grow upon the mountains and green plants to serve humankind. God provides food for flocks and herds and for the young ravens when they cry.” God is good.
Isaiah reminds us that God is in fact good. Look around, what is lasting, what endures? The princes? The rulers of the earth? No. Scarcely are they planted “when God blows upon them, and they wither.” The psalmist reminds us that God is not “Impressed with the strength of a horse, has no pleasure in the strength of a man…”
What is God impressed with, whom does God favor? “God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless,” God stands with “those who wait.” “The LORD has pleasure in those who fear him, in those who await his gracious favor.”
I asked the questions about a perfect place because we as Christians have the mission to help realize, to help reveal the Kingdom of God. So we need to imagine what the Kingdom looks like, feels like, tastes like, so that we can begin our work together. If your perfect place involved silence and peace, being free from fear and want, full of beauty and not a single clock anywhere, how can the Church, how can THIS church work make that happen? For your sake, for our sake, for the sake of the world, may our prayer and our work ever please Thee, O LORD. AMEN
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