I had a wonderful retreat at OHC's Holy Cross Priory in Toronto last month, and it is time to write about it.
I took Amtrak up to Toronto on Sat., Feb. 18, for an eight day individual retreat at OHC's Priory there. The train trip was quite restful, and while Amtrak is not the ne plus ultra of train travel, it was comfortable, the microwaved cheeseburger was more or less edible, the Canadian immigration people were polite, and we were only about an hour late getting in. Brothers David Bryan and Randy met me at Union Station.
I had started to develop a cold before I left and by Sunday morning it was in full flower. I actually spent the first three days of my retreat laying low, except for a planned visit to the Royal Ontario Museum with May Kong, a friend of OHC and an expert in Chinese art. The brothers were very kind, and I gradually began to emerge.
The prayer life at the Priory is simple but follows the full OHC schedule using our Monastic Breviary. David Bryan and Reginald work outside the house, Richard is engaged in scholarship at home, Randy is attending seminary at Wycliffe College, Christian is retired but still active, and Leonard was in Ghana teaching, as he has for some years. But everyone (except Leonard, of course) comes back for dinner every evening, and there is a warm family feeling to community life. I grew to love our Priory more and more every day.
My agenda for the retreat was to rest (which the cold forced me to do), learn a bit about Chinese and Canadian art, pray with the community, read a new theologian (this time Margaret Barker and her work on Old Testament temple theology) and have lots of time to pray quietly. All of which was exactly what I was able to do.
OHC's Fr. Turkington, who was resident at the Priory in Toronto for many years, was an unrelentingly positive person, and always said that whatever was being done just then by the community was the best he had ever seen. So I guess I am channeling him when I say, This was the best retreat I ever had!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Abba John the Dwarf and Lent B
I preached at the Monastery on March 4, Lent 2B. The Old Testament lesson was God's promise of a child to Abraham and Sarah. The Gospel was Jesus' prediction of the crucifixion, to which Peter objects, and which earns him the famous rebuke, Get behind me, Satan! In looking for the common link, I thought of the old story of Abba John the Dwarf, whose own abba when he was starting out had him water a stick planted in the ground as a discipline. Pointless, or so it seemed.
The sermon was well received, so I thought I would include a link to it here.
The sermon was well received, so I thought I would include a link to it here.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Church of England European Chaplaincies - Some Thoughts
Tony Jewiss asked me to write a little something about my experience with the congregation at Limoux for the Chaplaincy Newsletter, and so I did. With his permission, I publish it here. I think it is mostly self-explanatory, but just a little background:
There are (surprise, surprise) Brits scattered more or less everywhere in the world. Some places have well-established Anglican churches, including all the Anglophone countries and the former colonies. But there are parts of the world that never were British nor which learned to use the English language as their national form of communication. In such places (most of Europe and the Middle East, for example) the Church of England has formed chaplaincies. They have various origins and manifestations. Their common characteristic, as I see it, is that they bring together the Anglican British diaspora for worship and characteristic Christian activities in countries where Anglicanism is a rare and exotic flower. Most do not seem to have full time clergy, or buildings, or many of the other trappings of your usual Anglican bodies when in full fig.
So here goes:
_____________
One of the joys of the last two years has been coming to know the Church of England congregation which meets in Limoux. I came to know it through Fr. Tony Jewiss, the pastor, who is an old and dear friend. It is a completely unexpected joy. I never thought I would be in Languedoc-Roussillon for any time, and I certainly did not expect to find a church home there, and so many friends.
The congregation at the chapel of St. Augustine in the heart of Limoux is warm and welcoming and faithful and friendly and full of fun. It is small, but the congregation does all the things I would expect an Anglican congregation to be doing – good preaching, music, lay ministries, Bible study, Christian education for children, a variety of liturgies, coffee hour after the service, charitable and ecumenical outreach, pastoral concern for its own members and for the British diaspora in the Languedoc-Roussillon. In fact, I imagine if all the things the congregation does were listed, people would be pleased and a little surprised at how much is done! Where do they get the energy?
What I see in Limoux interests me very much. It is no surprise to anyone that the whole Church faces challenges today, and we Anglicans have our own set. Smaller numbers and not enough money and the anxiety that brings; buildings which are frequently both beautiful and expensive; our dear and very accomplished clergy, who when they work full time cost rather a lot; a large and complex institutional structure. These challenges from within sometimes leave little energy for engagement with the political, social and theological challenges believing Anglicans face from outside the Church.
So it is interesting to me to see in the Limoux congregation, and I can guess in others as well, a different model of doing church than most of us are used to, and which may have something to say to the wider church.
Here are some of the “disadvantages” I see in the Limoux chaplaincy, and perhaps in others: using someone else’s not always ideal buildings; part time clergy who are older, usually retired, and compensated for expenses and little else; the necessity to rely on volunteer lay people rather than paid staff; geographical dispersion and the lack of town or village focus, making communication a challenge; a very wide range of churchmanship in a single congregation; and of course, not very many people and not very much money.
But are these really disadvantages? Rephrase them and they sound something like: freedom from building maintenance worries and expense; experienced, and possibly wise, elders leading the congregation at small cost, and a witness to the value of older people; the development of lay ministries essential to the heart of the Church; developing new ways of being in touch with people and creating community, and with fewer meetings; a widely comprehensive appreciation of theology, liturgy and practice; intimacy and simplicity and energy released from seemingly insoluble problems which can invigorate small congregation ministries.
Perhaps the chaplaincies are in some ways “church lite”. They don’t have to bear all of the burdens of regular parishes, whose life is so vital to the Church. But perhaps it is not such a bad thing for some parts of the Church to tread lightly on the earth when so much of the Church doesn’t.
And perhaps it is good to concentrate on creating worship, faith and community with few resources, and to worry less about buildings, money, numbers and structure. Not the Church model for all, certainly, but a witness of great value, whose form of life can enrich the Body of Christ.
There are (surprise, surprise) Brits scattered more or less everywhere in the world. Some places have well-established Anglican churches, including all the Anglophone countries and the former colonies. But there are parts of the world that never were British nor which learned to use the English language as their national form of communication. In such places (most of Europe and the Middle East, for example) the Church of England has formed chaplaincies. They have various origins and manifestations. Their common characteristic, as I see it, is that they bring together the Anglican British diaspora for worship and characteristic Christian activities in countries where Anglicanism is a rare and exotic flower. Most do not seem to have full time clergy, or buildings, or many of the other trappings of your usual Anglican bodies when in full fig.
So here goes:
_____________
One of the joys of the last two years has been coming to know the Church of England congregation which meets in Limoux. I came to know it through Fr. Tony Jewiss, the pastor, who is an old and dear friend. It is a completely unexpected joy. I never thought I would be in Languedoc-Roussillon for any time, and I certainly did not expect to find a church home there, and so many friends.
The congregation at the chapel of St. Augustine in the heart of Limoux is warm and welcoming and faithful and friendly and full of fun. It is small, but the congregation does all the things I would expect an Anglican congregation to be doing – good preaching, music, lay ministries, Bible study, Christian education for children, a variety of liturgies, coffee hour after the service, charitable and ecumenical outreach, pastoral concern for its own members and for the British diaspora in the Languedoc-Roussillon. In fact, I imagine if all the things the congregation does were listed, people would be pleased and a little surprised at how much is done! Where do they get the energy?
What I see in Limoux interests me very much. It is no surprise to anyone that the whole Church faces challenges today, and we Anglicans have our own set. Smaller numbers and not enough money and the anxiety that brings; buildings which are frequently both beautiful and expensive; our dear and very accomplished clergy, who when they work full time cost rather a lot; a large and complex institutional structure. These challenges from within sometimes leave little energy for engagement with the political, social and theological challenges believing Anglicans face from outside the Church.
So it is interesting to me to see in the Limoux congregation, and I can guess in others as well, a different model of doing church than most of us are used to, and which may have something to say to the wider church.
Here are some of the “disadvantages” I see in the Limoux chaplaincy, and perhaps in others: using someone else’s not always ideal buildings; part time clergy who are older, usually retired, and compensated for expenses and little else; the necessity to rely on volunteer lay people rather than paid staff; geographical dispersion and the lack of town or village focus, making communication a challenge; a very wide range of churchmanship in a single congregation; and of course, not very many people and not very much money.
But are these really disadvantages? Rephrase them and they sound something like: freedom from building maintenance worries and expense; experienced, and possibly wise, elders leading the congregation at small cost, and a witness to the value of older people; the development of lay ministries essential to the heart of the Church; developing new ways of being in touch with people and creating community, and with fewer meetings; a widely comprehensive appreciation of theology, liturgy and practice; intimacy and simplicity and energy released from seemingly insoluble problems which can invigorate small congregation ministries.
Perhaps the chaplaincies are in some ways “church lite”. They don’t have to bear all of the burdens of regular parishes, whose life is so vital to the Church. But perhaps it is not such a bad thing for some parts of the Church to tread lightly on the earth when so much of the Church doesn’t.
And perhaps it is good to concentrate on creating worship, faith and community with few resources, and to worry less about buildings, money, numbers and structure. Not the Church model for all, certainly, but a witness of great value, whose form of life can enrich the Body of Christ.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
A Weekend in Oxford
I've been home now for two weeks, and what with one thing and another have not had the opportunity to finish blogging on my trip. So here goes.
The day before I left from Toulouse, Tony and I spent the day there. Besides being a charming town, there are two major churches there. The earlier is the Cathedral, dedicated to St. Sernin, a magnificent Romanesque building built between 1080 and 1120. The later is the Dominican basilica of the Jacobins, Gothic, 13th and 14th century, where the bones of Thomas Aquinas are now honored under the modern altar. Toulouse was the historic center of the Dominican Order for centuries. The Jacobins is unique, as far as I know, among major basilicas, in that massive pillars march down the center, making any unobstructed view of a high altar (which it lacks) impossible.
I spent the final weekend of my vacation in Oxford with a friend and Associate of the Order, Bob Jeffery. Bob has had a distinguished career in the Church of England, beginning as a curate in the North of England, then working in the C of E central offices in Westminster, then secretary of the British Council of Churches, Dean of Worcester and Sub-Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. There were other jobs along the way, including Vicar of Headington, near Oxford. Bob also writes C of E obituaries for the Times of London.
He also knows just about everyone. So in September when he mentioned his good friend Henry Mayr-Harting, I could not contain myself, and somehow a dinner party was contrived with the M-H's. What a joy it was! Mayr-Harting is one of the greatest living scholars of ecclesiastical history, and held the Regius Professorship, being the first Roman Catholic to do so. Along with the professorship come duties as a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, so Bob had the happy task of teaching this ecclesiastical scholar how to be an Anglican cathedral canon, which the Professor vastly enjoyed. He and his wife Caroline are utterly charming.
My good friend Robbin Clark has landed in Gloucester as the Dean of Women Clergy for that diocese, after retiring from a very successful tenure as Rector of St. Mark's, Berkeley. Robbin had been an exchange student from CDSP to Cuddesdon College, a seminary near Oxford, back in the 70's, and I think it is fair to say that it changed her life. She cultivated her relationships in the C of E for many years, and at a reunion a few years ago at Cuddesdon, where she was honored as their first woman seminarian, she let it be known she would be open to an interesting ministerial challenge upon retirement, and lo and behold! Robbin came over Saturday for lunch and met Bob, and then she drove me out to Cuddesdon, which I had never seen. Such a beautiful place! And the seminary is apparently doing well on all fronts. Deo gratias.
On Sunday, Dec. 11, I went with Bob to St. Peter's, Wolvercote, a short distance outside Oxford, where he presided and preached. The place was full, a wide range of ages, full bench of acolytes, and the six bells were pealed by an expert team for half an hour or so before the service. Of course, the Anglican world being approximately two inches wide, there was someone there I knew: Joanna Coney, who is now the head of Franciscan Tertiaries in Europe, and who had been at West Park in September for the international Anglican Franciscan leadership conference. A joyous reunion. And a joyous morning!
In the afternoon we went to the Ashmolean Museum, completely reworked, with a beautiful atrium and staircase. I am afraid, however, that the museum has chosen the route of educational and informative display, so that there are relatively few objects on view and a plethora of large, explanatory posters to tell you all about them. I would rather see more objects, but I suppose even Oxford needs to cater to the uninformed. My old friend the Alfred Jewel was there, however, so I was consoled.
We had tea and Vespers at the All Saints convent. They are few -- nine, I think, with seven in attendance at Vespers -- but very warm and welcoming. I cannot think of a nicer way to end the weekend and my vacation.
The day before I left from Toulouse, Tony and I spent the day there. Besides being a charming town, there are two major churches there. The earlier is the Cathedral, dedicated to St. Sernin, a magnificent Romanesque building built between 1080 and 1120. The later is the Dominican basilica of the Jacobins, Gothic, 13th and 14th century, where the bones of Thomas Aquinas are now honored under the modern altar. Toulouse was the historic center of the Dominican Order for centuries. The Jacobins is unique, as far as I know, among major basilicas, in that massive pillars march down the center, making any unobstructed view of a high altar (which it lacks) impossible.
I spent the final weekend of my vacation in Oxford with a friend and Associate of the Order, Bob Jeffery. Bob has had a distinguished career in the Church of England, beginning as a curate in the North of England, then working in the C of E central offices in Westminster, then secretary of the British Council of Churches, Dean of Worcester and Sub-Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. There were other jobs along the way, including Vicar of Headington, near Oxford. Bob also writes C of E obituaries for the Times of London.
He also knows just about everyone. So in September when he mentioned his good friend Henry Mayr-Harting, I could not contain myself, and somehow a dinner party was contrived with the M-H's. What a joy it was! Mayr-Harting is one of the greatest living scholars of ecclesiastical history, and held the Regius Professorship, being the first Roman Catholic to do so. Along with the professorship come duties as a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, so Bob had the happy task of teaching this ecclesiastical scholar how to be an Anglican cathedral canon, which the Professor vastly enjoyed. He and his wife Caroline are utterly charming.
My good friend Robbin Clark has landed in Gloucester as the Dean of Women Clergy for that diocese, after retiring from a very successful tenure as Rector of St. Mark's, Berkeley. Robbin had been an exchange student from CDSP to Cuddesdon College, a seminary near Oxford, back in the 70's, and I think it is fair to say that it changed her life. She cultivated her relationships in the C of E for many years, and at a reunion a few years ago at Cuddesdon, where she was honored as their first woman seminarian, she let it be known she would be open to an interesting ministerial challenge upon retirement, and lo and behold! Robbin came over Saturday for lunch and met Bob, and then she drove me out to Cuddesdon, which I had never seen. Such a beautiful place! And the seminary is apparently doing well on all fronts. Deo gratias.
On Sunday, Dec. 11, I went with Bob to St. Peter's, Wolvercote, a short distance outside Oxford, where he presided and preached. The place was full, a wide range of ages, full bench of acolytes, and the six bells were pealed by an expert team for half an hour or so before the service. Of course, the Anglican world being approximately two inches wide, there was someone there I knew: Joanna Coney, who is now the head of Franciscan Tertiaries in Europe, and who had been at West Park in September for the international Anglican Franciscan leadership conference. A joyous reunion. And a joyous morning!
In the afternoon we went to the Ashmolean Museum, completely reworked, with a beautiful atrium and staircase. I am afraid, however, that the museum has chosen the route of educational and informative display, so that there are relatively few objects on view and a plethora of large, explanatory posters to tell you all about them. I would rather see more objects, but I suppose even Oxford needs to cater to the uninformed. My old friend the Alfred Jewel was there, however, so I was consoled.
We had tea and Vespers at the All Saints convent. They are few -- nine, I think, with seven in attendance at Vespers -- but very warm and welcoming. I cannot think of a nicer way to end the weekend and my vacation.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Avignon, Nîmes and Preaching in Limoux
I am now in the final week of my stay in Alet-les-Bains with my good friend Tony Jewiss. We had a wonderful short trip last week to Avignon and to Nîmes. There are three outstanding reasons to visit these places, apart from their own civic virtues: the Papal Palace in Avignon and the Arena and the Maison Carrée in Nîmes.
It is hard, I suppose, for any medievalist to visit the Papal Palace in Avignon and not have a world of reactions. The French papacy of the 14th Century and then the papal schism (1378-1417) were a huge part of the religious background to the age of Chaucer, Piers Plowman, and early English mystical writings like The Cloud of Unknowing, to say nothing of the vast Christian culture beyond England. So as Tony and I wandered around the vast palace, I had a wonderful meditation on the place of renewed Church administration in Christian culture (the Avignon popes modernized, in their own terms, the administration of the Church) and on the role of Church patronage of the arts.
The Arena and the Maison Carrée in Nîmes are among the best preserved ancient Roman buildings anywhere, both being the most perfect examples of their type that exist in Europe. The Arena is a medium-sized amphitheater for gladiatorial shows and other blood sports. It was used for other purposes through the centuries and its restoration first undertaken by Napoleon. It is still used for concerts, operas, and even for skating in the wintertime. The Maison Carrée is a temple built to honor the two sons of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, whom the Emperor Augustus, Agrippa's best friend, had adopted as his own. Exquisite!
Tony invited me to preach twice while I was in Limoux. The first was on Christ the King two weeks ago, and I preached extemporaneously. The second was yesterday, Advent II. I wrote it out early in the week so that it could be sent to the lay readers of the Church of England Chaplaincy in this area -- there are not enough priests to cover all the congregations, and it was Tony's turn to provide the sermon. I found it strange preaching a text that I had written some days ago, and to realize that several others might be preaching it as well. To facilitate others' reading, it was devoid of personal reference, which my sermons generally include. My usual practice is to write sermons the day before I preach them, so they are fresh in my mind in the morning. On Sunday I found myself reconsidering and reframing the material in my mind and then, in delivery, modifying and embellishing and providing background as I went on, which made it longer than I had intended. So here is the original text:
Isaiah 40: 1-11
2 Peter 3: 8-15a
Mark 1: 1-8
“Comfort ye”, in the words of the Authorized Version used by Handel in Messiah: “Comfort ye.” Israel in exile in Babylon has just learned that they are to return to Jerusalem. What they thought impossible is about to happen: the cruel exile, in which they had been ripped from Jerusalem, from Zion, from the City of David and the City of the Temple of the Most High God, is about to end. The magnificent poetry of the prophet of the end of the exile, whom we call Second Isaiah, begins with these words, and unfolds not only the joy of an Israel renewed, but one of the most profound meditations on the nature of God and reality in human thought, and not just in abstract thought: The one who comes with might, whose arm rules for him, is also the one who feeds his flock like a shepherd, who carries the lambs in his bosom and gently leads the mother sheep. What joy to contemplate the hope of return, God’s peace accomplished in the love of the Almighty for his flock.
This return of God’s people from their exile is how Mark begins his Gospel, the image he uses as the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ: Prepare the Way of the Lord. John the Baptist is calling Israel out into the wilderness so she can discover what she really is: a people in trouble, a people who need to turn around, which is what repenting is. Leaving behind their sins in the desert and being washed in the Jordan links them not only to the people returning from the Exile, but to the people escaping Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, receiving a new identity, a new life and a new direction at Sinai and at last entering into the Promised Land. John wants a new beginning. He doesn’t know what that beginning will be or who will lead it, or where it will go. His job is to get the people ready, get them to the River. He is the new Moses, waiting for the new Joshua.
When we confront scripture, especially texts as beautiful, multi-layered and moving as the beginnings of Second Isaiah and Mark, there are always several things going on in us at once. One is just to understand the text itself, where it came from, who it was written for and why, and what it meant at the time. Our Bible studies and private reading and continuing studies help us with that. What we learn about the language and history and customs of these times is preparing us for the second step, which is to imagine ourselves back into those days and into the lives of people and what happened to them. What joy must have gripped the Israelites in Babylon, even as they contemplated the hard journey ahead, trusting that steep mountains and deep valleys would be made passable on their journey back to Palestine. And what fearful anticipation must have gripped Israel as the Baptist announced that Something was about to happen, and that there was a way they could be made ready for it. People must have pondered all those things they had done and left undone, and rejoiced that there was a way to deal with them.
But when we have done our work of study, and when we have allowed our study to instruct our imagination, something else also remains. The Scriptures are the Word of God at least in part because they speak to us, to us as we are now. The Scriptures demand our best efforts to understand them as they are as texts and as they were as events, but all that is preparation for the life they give us.
The writer of Second Peter seems to have pondered this double sense of time, time then and time now, the conflation of the ancient time of God’s actions with his people in the past and the urgency of our time in the present. “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years.” The past and the present are one in God’s time. The Lord is not slow, but patient. Nevertheless, the day of the Lord will arrive like a thief in the night. So the time of the past and the time of the future come together in the present, in our lives now. The Babylonian Captivity, the Jerusalem of the unspeakable Herods, the Israel of then, is also ours today.
Who among us has not been in exile, been shut out, been carried away from our true home, whether in physical fact or in the sometimes greater reality of our inner lives, and longed for return? Who among us has not known deep in our hearts that our lives have gone wrong, and longed for the call to the wilderness, where they can be cleansed and made ready for something new? The truth is that the human condition is often to live in an alien land, sometimes objective and real outside ourselves, sometimes deeply interior. The truth is that it is our nature to go astray, at best to wander off into paths that take us nowhere good, or at worst, to take the roads that lead us into deep trouble. There is yearning deep in our hearts for the home we have left. There is a deep need in each of us to find what we have done wrong and right it, so that we can begin to be who we should be. These are Advent yearnings, Advent needs: We want the one to come who will save us, rescue us, and bring us home.
St. Augustine of Hippo was one of the great psychologists and doctors of the human heart. He confronted this longing in his own life and did something about it: he turned from the way of self to the way of God. And along the way he came to a profound understanding of himself, an understanding that can unfold some of the yearning, the desire for change and the conflation of time that these great texts give us. He locates it in our very natures, in the image of God written in our hearts at the moment we came to be, which is so powerful that it animates all our desires: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Our hearts are restless. We feel we are somehow in the wrong place, even when we are happy. We know our lives need change. And somehow we know that nothing in this world will completely satisfy those needs. It is not where we go or what we do or what we get or what we have that give us the peace and joy we crave. It is the love of God that gives us the hope we need, the hope that He will take us in his arms and tenderly lead us home, that when we meet him in the wilderness we will be made ready for his coming among us.
It is hard, I suppose, for any medievalist to visit the Papal Palace in Avignon and not have a world of reactions. The French papacy of the 14th Century and then the papal schism (1378-1417) were a huge part of the religious background to the age of Chaucer, Piers Plowman, and early English mystical writings like The Cloud of Unknowing, to say nothing of the vast Christian culture beyond England. So as Tony and I wandered around the vast palace, I had a wonderful meditation on the place of renewed Church administration in Christian culture (the Avignon popes modernized, in their own terms, the administration of the Church) and on the role of Church patronage of the arts.
The Arena and the Maison Carrée in Nîmes are among the best preserved ancient Roman buildings anywhere, both being the most perfect examples of their type that exist in Europe. The Arena is a medium-sized amphitheater for gladiatorial shows and other blood sports. It was used for other purposes through the centuries and its restoration first undertaken by Napoleon. It is still used for concerts, operas, and even for skating in the wintertime. The Maison Carrée is a temple built to honor the two sons of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, whom the Emperor Augustus, Agrippa's best friend, had adopted as his own. Exquisite!
Tony invited me to preach twice while I was in Limoux. The first was on Christ the King two weeks ago, and I preached extemporaneously. The second was yesterday, Advent II. I wrote it out early in the week so that it could be sent to the lay readers of the Church of England Chaplaincy in this area -- there are not enough priests to cover all the congregations, and it was Tony's turn to provide the sermon. I found it strange preaching a text that I had written some days ago, and to realize that several others might be preaching it as well. To facilitate others' reading, it was devoid of personal reference, which my sermons generally include. My usual practice is to write sermons the day before I preach them, so they are fresh in my mind in the morning. On Sunday I found myself reconsidering and reframing the material in my mind and then, in delivery, modifying and embellishing and providing background as I went on, which made it longer than I had intended. So here is the original text:
Isaiah 40: 1-11
2 Peter 3: 8-15a
Mark 1: 1-8
“Comfort ye”, in the words of the Authorized Version used by Handel in Messiah: “Comfort ye.” Israel in exile in Babylon has just learned that they are to return to Jerusalem. What they thought impossible is about to happen: the cruel exile, in which they had been ripped from Jerusalem, from Zion, from the City of David and the City of the Temple of the Most High God, is about to end. The magnificent poetry of the prophet of the end of the exile, whom we call Second Isaiah, begins with these words, and unfolds not only the joy of an Israel renewed, but one of the most profound meditations on the nature of God and reality in human thought, and not just in abstract thought: The one who comes with might, whose arm rules for him, is also the one who feeds his flock like a shepherd, who carries the lambs in his bosom and gently leads the mother sheep. What joy to contemplate the hope of return, God’s peace accomplished in the love of the Almighty for his flock.
This return of God’s people from their exile is how Mark begins his Gospel, the image he uses as the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ: Prepare the Way of the Lord. John the Baptist is calling Israel out into the wilderness so she can discover what she really is: a people in trouble, a people who need to turn around, which is what repenting is. Leaving behind their sins in the desert and being washed in the Jordan links them not only to the people returning from the Exile, but to the people escaping Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, receiving a new identity, a new life and a new direction at Sinai and at last entering into the Promised Land. John wants a new beginning. He doesn’t know what that beginning will be or who will lead it, or where it will go. His job is to get the people ready, get them to the River. He is the new Moses, waiting for the new Joshua.
When we confront scripture, especially texts as beautiful, multi-layered and moving as the beginnings of Second Isaiah and Mark, there are always several things going on in us at once. One is just to understand the text itself, where it came from, who it was written for and why, and what it meant at the time. Our Bible studies and private reading and continuing studies help us with that. What we learn about the language and history and customs of these times is preparing us for the second step, which is to imagine ourselves back into those days and into the lives of people and what happened to them. What joy must have gripped the Israelites in Babylon, even as they contemplated the hard journey ahead, trusting that steep mountains and deep valleys would be made passable on their journey back to Palestine. And what fearful anticipation must have gripped Israel as the Baptist announced that Something was about to happen, and that there was a way they could be made ready for it. People must have pondered all those things they had done and left undone, and rejoiced that there was a way to deal with them.
But when we have done our work of study, and when we have allowed our study to instruct our imagination, something else also remains. The Scriptures are the Word of God at least in part because they speak to us, to us as we are now. The Scriptures demand our best efforts to understand them as they are as texts and as they were as events, but all that is preparation for the life they give us.
The writer of Second Peter seems to have pondered this double sense of time, time then and time now, the conflation of the ancient time of God’s actions with his people in the past and the urgency of our time in the present. “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years.” The past and the present are one in God’s time. The Lord is not slow, but patient. Nevertheless, the day of the Lord will arrive like a thief in the night. So the time of the past and the time of the future come together in the present, in our lives now. The Babylonian Captivity, the Jerusalem of the unspeakable Herods, the Israel of then, is also ours today.
Who among us has not been in exile, been shut out, been carried away from our true home, whether in physical fact or in the sometimes greater reality of our inner lives, and longed for return? Who among us has not known deep in our hearts that our lives have gone wrong, and longed for the call to the wilderness, where they can be cleansed and made ready for something new? The truth is that the human condition is often to live in an alien land, sometimes objective and real outside ourselves, sometimes deeply interior. The truth is that it is our nature to go astray, at best to wander off into paths that take us nowhere good, or at worst, to take the roads that lead us into deep trouble. There is yearning deep in our hearts for the home we have left. There is a deep need in each of us to find what we have done wrong and right it, so that we can begin to be who we should be. These are Advent yearnings, Advent needs: We want the one to come who will save us, rescue us, and bring us home.
St. Augustine of Hippo was one of the great psychologists and doctors of the human heart. He confronted this longing in his own life and did something about it: he turned from the way of self to the way of God. And along the way he came to a profound understanding of himself, an understanding that can unfold some of the yearning, the desire for change and the conflation of time that these great texts give us. He locates it in our very natures, in the image of God written in our hearts at the moment we came to be, which is so powerful that it animates all our desires: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Our hearts are restless. We feel we are somehow in the wrong place, even when we are happy. We know our lives need change. And somehow we know that nothing in this world will completely satisfy those needs. It is not where we go or what we do or what we get or what we have that give us the peace and joy we crave. It is the love of God that gives us the hope we need, the hope that He will take us in his arms and tenderly lead us home, that when we meet him in the wilderness we will be made ready for his coming among us.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Remembrance Day
I am happily into my vacation in Languedoc-Roussillon, having arrived a little fatigued on Friday (American frm JFK to Madrid, long wait at Madrid/Barajas, and then a little less than an hour to Toulouse). My friend Tony Jewiss, with whom I am staying, is the priest for the Anglican congregation in these parts, a delightful group of expatriate British who meet in the old Augustinian convent church in Limoux. I will preach there this coming Sunday. Sunday the 13th was Remembrance Day, which is sort of like Veterans' Day but with a lot more to it. C of E Churches generally make a thing of it, and it's a reminder of how much more closely the C of E represents the official English culture than the Episcopal Church does the American. Morning Prayer with sermon. A turnout of about 35 or so. A good coffee hour (with actual coffee) afterward, and then more than a few repaired to the Limoux town square for an aperatif.
I thought Tony's sermon was quite good, and asked him if I might share it on this blog. So here goes:
Zephaniah 1:7,12-end
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
Psalm 90:1-8
A friend of mine is the organist at West Point Military Academy, not far from the Monastery at West Park where Fr. McCoy lives. The chapel at West Point, coincidentally, has the largest organ in a public worship space in the country.
Meredith plays every Sunday and for many events throughout the year. There, as in most places boasting elite branches of the services, graduation is a spectacular event. Massed marching, bands and plenty of pageantry – not quite as much as you are used to perhaps, but a good attempt to imitate England’s undisputed superiority when it comes to marching about, accompanied by bands, anyway.
Even organ music, as the chapel is used for ceremonial events as well.
Meredith knows hundreds and hundreds of cadets and officers by name. She sees them arrive, all gangly and awkward, from hometown wherever it may be, and sees them whipped into shape, taught to walk ramrod straight, turned out to be officers, then sent off to war.
Not war really. Actually, there are no wars at the moment. War requires formal declaration and that in turn establishes some rules. The many conflicts around the world right now fall into other categories – in the case of the ones we hear about most, Iraq and Afghanistan, these are technically Interventions. There are no rules for Interventions. The War on Terror is just a loose use of words, made all the looser by the absence of a War on Illiteracy, a War on Poverty or a War against human trafficking.
Meredith’s duties at the Military Chapel have another dimension, and it is to play the funerals of some of her cadets who come home in a box. There are usually several every week, and occasionally, several in one day. She says it is rare for her not to be able to recall the name of the young man or woman now being eulogized as a hero,
and then put to rest.
In the western world, these events are solemn and restrained. Grief is controlled, losses borne stoically, and usually with great dignity.
A small town in the UK welcomes each cortege that passes through, bearing the bodies of fallen servicemen and women from their arrival at the nearby air base. It is their ministry, their expression of solidarity and sympathy. It is quiet and very moving.
The last few years have given us very graphic images of how different things are in the Middle East. The loss of an Arab boy or girl results in noisy crowd scenes, women throwing themselves over the open coffin being borne, lurching precariously through the streets. Young men fire rifles into the air, and it is chaos.
Yet mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, wives and children everywhere are equally devastated at their losses. All ask the same question, and it is the very question we must also keep before us as we are gathered here to do honor to, and pay respect to, those who have died in the service of their country.
I do not like the expression – “gave their lives for their country.” That to me implies some kind of intention to go and not return. Armed conflicts have always relied upon that sense of invulnerability that the young enjoy, to send them with a certain eagerness to play a role in the Army or the Navy or the Air Force. I think, and hope, that all of them have every intention of coming home fit and well, appreciated by their country and with a sense of having furthered the cause of peace. But even among the survivors, it is not always that way.
In my last job in New York I was asked to be on the selection committee to choose a national chaplain to oversee the activities of the Church’s corps of service chaplains – several hundred of them stationed all over the world. The candidates were narrowed down to three, and it was a hard choice as they were all very well qualified. Each candidate told us things we did not know. Things that change and expand the ministry of chaplaincy in terms of scope and in terms of longevity. They all spoke of the very substantial percentage of service men and women who came home with devastating injuries. In times past they would have all died, but now modern field medicine saved their lives, but not their limbs.
Thousands of them suffer brain injuries caused by their heads being banged about in those large and instrument-laden helmets – designed as much to provide tactical information and communications, as they are to protect the head.
We don’t think much about this aspect of the lives and work of those who fight for us, even on days such as Remembrance Day, although we should. Nor do we think deeply about who these men and women are. The life in service is not for every one, no, not at all. If it is for the sons and daughters of the rich and famous at all, it is through the portals of officer school and the privileges of rank.
As far as the rank and file in concerned, the Service life is an option when jobs are scarce and one’s social rank prevents a life in banking or commerce or politics.
Here are a few statistics that I think you will find shocking – a recent study shows that almost 60% of veterans suffered physical abuse as children, and almost 40% suffered sexual abuse. In one country, in 2010, the Army reported more deaths by suicide than deaths in the field.
Over 50% suffer some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and almost all have heightened awareness, and reaction to, excessive light and sound.
Much has been written in recent years about how congregations can help returning service people find peace and reconciliation after their field experiences. I don’t believe we have that opportunity but hundreds of congregations do, and are treating this ministry as vital, learning how to avoid clichés and platitudes and how to gently ease these men and women, injured as much psychologically as physically, back into the mainstream of community life.
Military families need support as well. It is hard to even imagine the pressures placed on a family unit as the returning veteran deals with spouse and children who cannot really conceive of the things he or she has so intimately experienced.
The words from Zephaniah may not resonate easily with us. At first one wonders what has possessed the compilers of the lectionary to choose such a reading for today. But I might speculate that they would resonate clearly with someone whose memories are shot with the terrible possibilities of which Zephaniah speaks.
The uncertainty, the apprehension, the sudden percussion, the falling rubble, the dust, the debris, the shattering noise, the blinding incendiary. Thank God most of us will never know it – but every veteran does.
The words of Paul to the Thessalonians may not resonate immediately with us either, but they are actually words of encouragement.
Certainly Paul employs some military imagery but he is really saying that there is an alternative to conflict. This reading is a kind of mirror image to Zephaniah. It shows that there is another way, another ideal, another possibility. We need to hold these peaceable possibilities in mind even as we remember those who carried those ideals into the field of conflict itself.
Last week the Prime Minister entertained the organization that offers support to veterans, at a party at 10 Downing Street. His remarks, aimed as much at the cameras as at those present, were a study in political opportunism. His speech writer had dredged up every cliché possible. Apart from his probably intimate knowledge of the line item in the national budget, it was pretty obvious that he had no real empathy with the work of rehabilitating veterans.
I wish his speechwriter had instead translated the gospel story we’ve listened to this morning into a more meaningful and more sincere message for the cameras. Even when delivered by well groomed and sleek Prime Ministers, the truth can be convincing.
The resources delegated to the servants in the story were in fact immense. The responsibility therefore delegated to them was immense as well. The talent was a huge amount of money, and the risks involved in investing it were huge as well.
Time is a crucial element in the gospel story as well. Jesus is preparing his hearers for the uncertainty of the time element – they were expecting His return to be immediate but he says that is not to be the case. Instead, that information is hidden, and therefore the need for proper preparation and anticipation.
Next, actually possessing the money in the first place is not evidence that the enterprise will succeed. The talents were bestowed because the owner believed his servants already had ability to succeed. The entrusting of the money did not necessarily carry with it the actual ability to succeed.
Then, there is the element of risk, and as we know, one of the servants did not take any risk. He kept his part of the money secure, but he did not use it to achieve anything. He did not do the work that the other two did. His was a passive engagement with the task; theirs was active.
Lastly, the issues of reward and punishment. There are consequences to every decision, every action, every engagement.
The men and women of the armed services are a priceless resource – they are people, they are real, and their value as children of God is immeasurable.
They are given tasks that do not fall into the ideal definition of life. They must take enormous risks, make value judgments and deploy their resources with boldness and with not much time to ponder decisions. There are not many rules as to who succeeds or fails to succeed – but their trajectory has to be forward. They cannot be idle, like the third servant.
All three servants respond to their own view of the Master – two are inspired to please him and to succeed in the goals he has set. The third does not trust the Master and fears his reaction if he should not succeed. It is as if he said to himself “I knew you were unreasonable, and that there was no way to please you, so I decided not even to try”.
This tells us that both conflict and opportunity must be met by people who may or not be qualified. Trained, yes, but temperamentally qualified, not necessarily.
Either way, what we ask of the women and men of the armed forces is not reasonable, yet we expect it of them anyway.
And therein lies the real reason we gather today. Rising to do the work of war is the response to an unreasonable request – and in some cases, demand. Yet veterans did respond, did grasp the higher vision, and did what we have come to call duty
despite the risks.
We remember the ones who could not return. We care for the ones whose injuries prevent their being able to enjoy a full life. And we nurture back to health the ones whose experiences have wounded them in other ways.
And we commend them to God’s loving and healing care, even as we earnestly continue to pray for the peace that they have tried to attain.
I thought Tony's sermon was quite good, and asked him if I might share it on this blog. So here goes:
Zephaniah 1:7,12-end
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
Psalm 90:1-8
A friend of mine is the organist at West Point Military Academy, not far from the Monastery at West Park where Fr. McCoy lives. The chapel at West Point, coincidentally, has the largest organ in a public worship space in the country.
Meredith plays every Sunday and for many events throughout the year. There, as in most places boasting elite branches of the services, graduation is a spectacular event. Massed marching, bands and plenty of pageantry – not quite as much as you are used to perhaps, but a good attempt to imitate England’s undisputed superiority when it comes to marching about, accompanied by bands, anyway.
Even organ music, as the chapel is used for ceremonial events as well.
Meredith knows hundreds and hundreds of cadets and officers by name. She sees them arrive, all gangly and awkward, from hometown wherever it may be, and sees them whipped into shape, taught to walk ramrod straight, turned out to be officers, then sent off to war.
Not war really. Actually, there are no wars at the moment. War requires formal declaration and that in turn establishes some rules. The many conflicts around the world right now fall into other categories – in the case of the ones we hear about most, Iraq and Afghanistan, these are technically Interventions. There are no rules for Interventions. The War on Terror is just a loose use of words, made all the looser by the absence of a War on Illiteracy, a War on Poverty or a War against human trafficking.
Meredith’s duties at the Military Chapel have another dimension, and it is to play the funerals of some of her cadets who come home in a box. There are usually several every week, and occasionally, several in one day. She says it is rare for her not to be able to recall the name of the young man or woman now being eulogized as a hero,
and then put to rest.
In the western world, these events are solemn and restrained. Grief is controlled, losses borne stoically, and usually with great dignity.
A small town in the UK welcomes each cortege that passes through, bearing the bodies of fallen servicemen and women from their arrival at the nearby air base. It is their ministry, their expression of solidarity and sympathy. It is quiet and very moving.
The last few years have given us very graphic images of how different things are in the Middle East. The loss of an Arab boy or girl results in noisy crowd scenes, women throwing themselves over the open coffin being borne, lurching precariously through the streets. Young men fire rifles into the air, and it is chaos.
Yet mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, wives and children everywhere are equally devastated at their losses. All ask the same question, and it is the very question we must also keep before us as we are gathered here to do honor to, and pay respect to, those who have died in the service of their country.
I do not like the expression – “gave their lives for their country.” That to me implies some kind of intention to go and not return. Armed conflicts have always relied upon that sense of invulnerability that the young enjoy, to send them with a certain eagerness to play a role in the Army or the Navy or the Air Force. I think, and hope, that all of them have every intention of coming home fit and well, appreciated by their country and with a sense of having furthered the cause of peace. But even among the survivors, it is not always that way.
In my last job in New York I was asked to be on the selection committee to choose a national chaplain to oversee the activities of the Church’s corps of service chaplains – several hundred of them stationed all over the world. The candidates were narrowed down to three, and it was a hard choice as they were all very well qualified. Each candidate told us things we did not know. Things that change and expand the ministry of chaplaincy in terms of scope and in terms of longevity. They all spoke of the very substantial percentage of service men and women who came home with devastating injuries. In times past they would have all died, but now modern field medicine saved their lives, but not their limbs.
Thousands of them suffer brain injuries caused by their heads being banged about in those large and instrument-laden helmets – designed as much to provide tactical information and communications, as they are to protect the head.
We don’t think much about this aspect of the lives and work of those who fight for us, even on days such as Remembrance Day, although we should. Nor do we think deeply about who these men and women are. The life in service is not for every one, no, not at all. If it is for the sons and daughters of the rich and famous at all, it is through the portals of officer school and the privileges of rank.
As far as the rank and file in concerned, the Service life is an option when jobs are scarce and one’s social rank prevents a life in banking or commerce or politics.
Here are a few statistics that I think you will find shocking – a recent study shows that almost 60% of veterans suffered physical abuse as children, and almost 40% suffered sexual abuse. In one country, in 2010, the Army reported more deaths by suicide than deaths in the field.
Over 50% suffer some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and almost all have heightened awareness, and reaction to, excessive light and sound.
Much has been written in recent years about how congregations can help returning service people find peace and reconciliation after their field experiences. I don’t believe we have that opportunity but hundreds of congregations do, and are treating this ministry as vital, learning how to avoid clichés and platitudes and how to gently ease these men and women, injured as much psychologically as physically, back into the mainstream of community life.
Military families need support as well. It is hard to even imagine the pressures placed on a family unit as the returning veteran deals with spouse and children who cannot really conceive of the things he or she has so intimately experienced.
The words from Zephaniah may not resonate easily with us. At first one wonders what has possessed the compilers of the lectionary to choose such a reading for today. But I might speculate that they would resonate clearly with someone whose memories are shot with the terrible possibilities of which Zephaniah speaks.
The uncertainty, the apprehension, the sudden percussion, the falling rubble, the dust, the debris, the shattering noise, the blinding incendiary. Thank God most of us will never know it – but every veteran does.
The words of Paul to the Thessalonians may not resonate immediately with us either, but they are actually words of encouragement.
Certainly Paul employs some military imagery but he is really saying that there is an alternative to conflict. This reading is a kind of mirror image to Zephaniah. It shows that there is another way, another ideal, another possibility. We need to hold these peaceable possibilities in mind even as we remember those who carried those ideals into the field of conflict itself.
Last week the Prime Minister entertained the organization that offers support to veterans, at a party at 10 Downing Street. His remarks, aimed as much at the cameras as at those present, were a study in political opportunism. His speech writer had dredged up every cliché possible. Apart from his probably intimate knowledge of the line item in the national budget, it was pretty obvious that he had no real empathy with the work of rehabilitating veterans.
I wish his speechwriter had instead translated the gospel story we’ve listened to this morning into a more meaningful and more sincere message for the cameras. Even when delivered by well groomed and sleek Prime Ministers, the truth can be convincing.
The resources delegated to the servants in the story were in fact immense. The responsibility therefore delegated to them was immense as well. The talent was a huge amount of money, and the risks involved in investing it were huge as well.
Time is a crucial element in the gospel story as well. Jesus is preparing his hearers for the uncertainty of the time element – they were expecting His return to be immediate but he says that is not to be the case. Instead, that information is hidden, and therefore the need for proper preparation and anticipation.
Next, actually possessing the money in the first place is not evidence that the enterprise will succeed. The talents were bestowed because the owner believed his servants already had ability to succeed. The entrusting of the money did not necessarily carry with it the actual ability to succeed.
Then, there is the element of risk, and as we know, one of the servants did not take any risk. He kept his part of the money secure, but he did not use it to achieve anything. He did not do the work that the other two did. His was a passive engagement with the task; theirs was active.
Lastly, the issues of reward and punishment. There are consequences to every decision, every action, every engagement.
The men and women of the armed services are a priceless resource – they are people, they are real, and their value as children of God is immeasurable.
They are given tasks that do not fall into the ideal definition of life. They must take enormous risks, make value judgments and deploy their resources with boldness and with not much time to ponder decisions. There are not many rules as to who succeeds or fails to succeed – but their trajectory has to be forward. They cannot be idle, like the third servant.
All three servants respond to their own view of the Master – two are inspired to please him and to succeed in the goals he has set. The third does not trust the Master and fears his reaction if he should not succeed. It is as if he said to himself “I knew you were unreasonable, and that there was no way to please you, so I decided not even to try”.
This tells us that both conflict and opportunity must be met by people who may or not be qualified. Trained, yes, but temperamentally qualified, not necessarily.
Either way, what we ask of the women and men of the armed forces is not reasonable, yet we expect it of them anyway.
And therein lies the real reason we gather today. Rising to do the work of war is the response to an unreasonable request – and in some cases, demand. Yet veterans did respond, did grasp the higher vision, and did what we have come to call duty
despite the risks.
We remember the ones who could not return. We care for the ones whose injuries prevent their being able to enjoy a full life. And we nurture back to health the ones whose experiences have wounded them in other ways.
And we commend them to God’s loving and healing care, even as we earnestly continue to pray for the peace that they have tried to attain.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Election postponed
After a year of hard work on the part of so many, particularly the committee whose task it was to present nominees to the diocesan convention, that convention has been postponed until November 19 because of a big snowstorm headed our way. What a frustration to everyone concerned! I have planned for a long time to spend a month's vacation with a dear friend in Europe beginning Nov. 10, so it looks like not only will I not be the convention chaplain, I won't even vote!
I arrived in NYC around 4pm to stay at the House of the Redeemer, and had planned to have dinner with Carl Sword, OHC. Looks like dinner and a late train back tonight.
There must be an appropriate scriptural passage for this sort of thing. If it occurs to me, I'll log back in and add it. Something about the best laid plans going a'glay, or however the Scots spell it. They're all good Calvinists steeped in scripture, so even if it isn't in the Book it probably should be.
I arrived in NYC around 4pm to stay at the House of the Redeemer, and had planned to have dinner with Carl Sword, OHC. Looks like dinner and a late train back tonight.
There must be an appropriate scriptural passage for this sort of thing. If it occurs to me, I'll log back in and add it. Something about the best laid plans going a'glay, or however the Scots spell it. They're all good Calvinists steeped in scripture, so even if it isn't in the Book it probably should be.
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