Support the Troops - Seek Peace

Memorial Day has always been a preaching challenge for me. The first Memorial Day sermon I ever preached caused the wife of the Junior Warden to leave in a noisy huff because I dared to start off by acknowledging my pacifist tendencies. She didn’t hear me say that I felt that the best way to honor our war dead was to work for peace so that their deaths would not have been in vain. It’s too bad that she didn’t stay or at least talk to the retired Bird Colonel who came up to me afterwards and thanked me. He’d been there; he’d sent young men to their deaths and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He agreed that the perpetual soldier mill wasn’t getting us anywhere.

Then I spent two Memorial Days in France. I stood surrounded by white grave markers in a cemetery on a hill outside of Paris. As I proclaimed the blessing, aging French veterans stood in homage to the American youth buried in their soil. Their expressions holding the memories of sixty years before when brash young GIs, modern cowboy heroes stormed into that beautiful city and chased away the enemy. The explosives wired to the elegant bridges of the Seine and all of the beloved buildings and monuments were never detonated. The German commander had stalled long enough to give the Americans time to save the city. Every time the Fuhrer called him and asked “Is Paris burning?” he had managed to keep buying time. And finally, those young, wonderful soldiers rode in and set the city free. The Americans who died liberating Paris have now become a part of that city, of that land and of that people. Whatever the current spitting contest between France and the US might be – the French people will always be grateful and respectful of the sacrifice made on their behalf. Memorial Day is flavored with all of that for me.

These last two Memorial Days have had their own interior conflicts. I came home from France to a nation torn by this war. I saw lots of signs and bumper stickers encouraging support for the troops. Whenever I’m at a stop light, behind one of those cars, I want to go tap on the window and ask “What does that mean to you?” Does it mean, “don’t question why we’re there?” Does it mean “you have to hate someone else?” Does it mean “be outraged that our soldiers are sent ill-equipped to fight this war – that their families had to have bake sales to buy body armour?” What does it mean?

I will not put one of those stickers on my car but I will ask why our Commander in Chief cannot bring himself to acknowledge how many are dying. I will ask our congressman why funds for tending the wounds of soldiers who come home broken is not a priority in the enormous budget for what we are doing in Iraq. Did you know that soldiers at VA hospitals for more than 90 days were expected to pay cash for their meals? Considering how little a buck private makes – the first five grades all make under $20,000, expecting them to come with hundreds of dollars a month so they could eat while recovering from war wounds is not my idea of supporting the troops. It took Senator Barak Obama of Illinois to bring this situation to light and shame our elected leaders into changing it. Our troops need people to truly support them – but to do so means asking the hard questions about this war.

Ultimately, supporting the troops should focus on ending the conflict – bringing them home. As Christians, that’s the work we’re called to. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That wasn’t a throw away line from Jesus’ speech writers. It is a mandate for us to resist the very idea of war and the wasting of precious lives.

I’m tired of our President mouthing his support for “a culture of life” while ignoring the death we’re causing. A culture of life does not turn young men and women into killers. Each life is precious, and we support troops by remembering that they and those they fight are beloved of God. War forces people into violence and often into inhumanity.

I have a son, you met Brady when he was here at Easter. He tells me that if he were drafted, he would go. I respect that but as worried as I would be for his safety, I know that I would be as worried about what the experience would turn him into. Would he come back the same funny, loving person that he is now? I doubt it. How could he?

The number of soldiers returning, who spirits are as broken as their bodies, is rising. They cannot find peace with what they have seen and sometimes with what they have done. What kind of help will they receive to find peace, forgiveness and reconciliation? According to the military, one out of every six returning soldiers will have a mental disorder. Maybe the human psyche is telling us something here. War is too destructive in too many ways.

Let me tell you how I’m going to do to support our troops on this Memorial Day. I’m going to start working with The Peace Alliance which is a “citizen lobbying effort to create a U.S. Department of Peace. The primary function of a United States Department of Peace will be to research, articulate and facilitate nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict.

The Department would focus on nonmilitary peaceful conflict resolutions, prevent violence and promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights.”

The legislation to create the Department of Peace will be reintroduced in September. It currently has 55 sponsors; our Congressman is not among them, nor are any Republican members of Congress. I suggest that if Congressman Cox hears from enough of us, he might consider adding his name to the list. I invite you to join with me in this effort believing that seeking peace is the best way to support our troops. Seeking an end to war is holy work.

I leave you with the words of today’s collect. “O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ or Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

The Trinity - Brought to you by the letter P

Who is the Trinity? You are music. You are life.

Source of everything, Creator of everything,

Angelic hosts sing your praise.

Wonderfully radiant, Deep, Mysterious

You are alive in everything,

And yet you are unknown to us.

These words of Hildegard of Bingen, the 11^th century religious Wonder Woman sum up the common experience of trying to understand the Trinity. “It’s wonderful, it’s beautiful, it’s a mystery, OK, now let's talk about something real!”

Talking about the Trinity in its traditional mode has a number of challenges. It has been approached as an intellectual concept and not something particularly relevant to our lives. It is a mathematical impossibility – three and one equal the same thing? It makes it possible for critics of Christianity to claim that we are not monotheistic after all – it’s clear that we have three gods. Beyond “oh, yeah!” we don’t often have a coherent answer other than ‘three and one are the same thing.’

In a world since the women’s movement, liberation and feminist theology, the traditional language of the three persons of the Trinity grates as hierarchical and over-poweringly male. While this is comforting in its familiarity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, I would ask you to think of it from the perspective of a six year old girl who hears that God is a he, all that is holy is he, and where does that leave her? Can she really be holy, a part of God if she isn’t a he? All the serious voices tell us that God has no gender, indeed transcends gender, but our practices say otherwise. If we claim to believe one thing, but continue to deny it with our practices and languages, we have a disconnect. We grope for a better way to name the Triune God. It is a work in progress.

Naming the Trinity is not the only challenge. Historically, it is the most complex theological idea in Christianity. That complexity often leads preachers and listeners to ignore it. Let’s be braver than that. I’ve got a good place to start. Dr. David Cunningham’s, book These Three Are One; The Practice of Trinitarian Theology was written while he was a professor of theology and ethics at Seabury Western Theological Seminary. The book has been recognized as the most exciting work on the Trinity in a long time. Cunningham starts at an elementary place, the idea of doctrine. Doctrines are “official statements or teachings of the faith…that are not formulated as an end unto themselves; they draw meaning from, and are meant to have some effect on the practices of the believing community.” So how do we understand the Trinity and the practices of the Christian community?

As a professor of theology and ethics, it is no surprise that Prof. Cunningham wove the idea of virtues into his understanding of the Trinity. Virtues are those “characteristics that God has by nature, and that are bestowed freely upon us, as part of God’s work of producing the world. They are not forced on us; but we can allow them to form us.” He cites three Trinitarian virtues, brought to you by the letter P; polyphony, participation and particularity. The first virtue is a musical term, polyphony, which is many sounds or notes that occur simultaneously. A symphony is a complex musical composition with instruments managing their distinct musical lines. To be complete, they must sound together. The three melodies of God are played simultaneously without damage to God’s unity.

The second virtue of the Trinity is participation, which is a way of understanding communion and fellowship that is beyond “being in relationship.” Relation is to participation in the same way that being involved is to being committed. It’s the old example of a bacon and eggs breakfast – the chicken is involved, the pig is committed. Participation is not something we choose as we might choose our friends but it is an indwelling in which lines of identity are blurred. In the One God, the Three participate in the life of God so that they cannot be divided into individuals. John Donne understood this:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”

The third divine virtue is particularity. This is a tricky one. Particularity is a way of understanding individual identities within the context of the relationships that define them. While there are identities within the unity of God, they so depend upon one another for definition that they are inseparable. One cannot be a parent without a child, I cannot be your pastor and vicar without you. We all have our identity, but they is mostly understood by the ways in which we are related to others. Jesus cannot be known as the Son of God without God from whom he comes.

These three virtues, Polyphony, Participation and Particularity are all things that we can know about God, the Three in One. Great, but we can’t stop there. The importance of Divine virtues is that in some way, we are caught up in them and it is here that David Cunningham brings us to the practices – how these virtues relate to our understanding of the world and our role in it.

Because Professor Cunningham is interested in the Practices, he feels compelled to bring us more words that start with P to explain the Trinity at work in the world; Peacemaking, Pluralizing and Persuading. Peacemaking finds its life in the harmonious relating of the Trinity. Cunningham says “In its affirmation of difference that does not devolve into strife, the doctrine of the Trinity establishes the theological priority of peace. In this polyphonic orchestration of oneness and difference, Christian thought finds its highest good and greatest perfection. When violence strives to eliminate difference we deny rather than participate in the life of God.

Pluralizing is not to be confused with pluralism – in which the celebration of difference is ultimate. Pluralizing is a dynamic, eternally moving tension of difference and unity. Difference must always look for that which defines it as a part of something greater and Unity must celebrate itself as a tapestry of many colored threads. The vastness of the whole world into which we are to carry the Gospel challenges us to bring the message in ways that are accessible to people who are so different. Ways of worship need creative expression to engage people of many sensibilities. The idea of family has changed greatly over the last few years. Can we make room for newly defines expressions of “family?”

The final practice is persuading. God does not coerce us into growth, but continually calls us to come closer and know ourselves as made in the image of God. The idea of persuasion has implications for our interactions with one another, particularly in the “exercise of authority” – which has, too often, been modeled on the coercive power of the nation-state, rather than the persuasive power of the triune God.” We are called to exercise authority in teaching and being in ways that respect the many members of the body. This is a helpful notion in our families as well as our nations.

I hope that this is helpful, it may, however, feel more like taking a drink from a fire hose but if we want to think seriously about God in the world and the world in God we have here lots of food for thought. And it is after all the practice of sharing our heavenly food that illustrates so elegantly the presence of this complex God that makes us one.

(David S. Cunningham, PhD., These Three Are One; The Practice of Trinitarian Theology, 1998, Blackwell Publishers, Ltd.)

First you have to listen

Learning to live in a foreign language is a truly humbling experience. The longer I lived in France, and as my catalogue of linguistic follies grew – I became convinced that all mistakes in French invariably lead to something naughty. There are the run of the mill mistakes that every one makes – never say that you are full after a meal or you will have just announced an impending blessed event. Be really careful not to use the verb form of the innocent word for kiss – “baiser” – never use that as a verb in polite company. Those are the mistakes everyone makes. I, however, appeared to have a real gift for creative humiliation. Starting with trying to explain why I liked a car with a stick shift and then moving on describing a recipe for apple crisp that apparently called for a liberal sprinkling of some crude version of a scoundrel. But my specialty was liturgical funnies that attributed certain biological functions to God that we would all rather not think about. Where was Pentecost when I needed it?

The idea of Pentecost or all things Pentecostal referring to speaking in tongues is really a bit off the mark – as you heard in the reading from Acts today, the manifestation of the gift was to be able to understand when someone spoke in a language that you normally couldn’t understand. This story has echos from the story of tower of Babel in which the common language of people was scrambled. I was always mystified about why God would scramble the ability to of people to understand each other. Luckily, Rabbi Steven Greenberg explained it all to us at the annual clergy conference a couple of weeks ago. The hubris of Babel was an attempt to replicate the universe in a walled city and make a place in which humans rule, forsaking relationship with God. They attempted to impose man-made unity on divinely created diversity. God loves diversity. The infinite variety of human possibilities is not be limited by fear or anxiety over difference. God’s action at Babel interrupts humanity’s bunker mentality and disperses those who had huddled together in fear behind walls.

Pentecost doesn’t overshadow diversity – the apostles are fully aware that they are comprehending speech in various tongues. What it does is to give us the ability to understand those beyond our borders. Borders are not limited to lines between countries – they are also personal and ideological. Pentecost says to us – “don’t be afraid.” Getting to know someone usually overcomes the idea that their difference is somehow threatening. It can also help you to appreciate your own traditions more. My first two years of seminary were spent in an ecumenical seminary – there were 25 denominations represented. Classroom discussions often highlighted how different churches approached subjects and methods. As I heard my friends discussing their traditions, my own took on new clarity. I had always appreciated the Episcopalian way of doing things – the engagement of the intellect, the respect for difference, the willingness to recognize the grey area between black and white absolutes…all of those things. But in that circle of diversity I was given an context within which a deeper, more critical, understanding of why I am an Episcopalian began to emerge. My sense of belonging was not threatened by exposure to other traditions, indeed it was strengthened. That seminary was a kind of lived Pentecost – we could understand and appreciate what other were saying and sharing. More than once – friends would tell me – I wish my church did things the way yours does. I thought that was amazing. Their statements were not however, precursors to mass conversions to the Episcopal church – those statements were a part of my friends own critical process – on the way to deeper insight into themselves.

As I said before, the message of Pentecost is “Don’t be afraid.” There’s a second message which is implied in the gift of understanding. Gifts are given to be used and you can’t use this ability to hear what someone else is saying if you don’t listen.

When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain – in the presence of Peter, James and John, the voice from heaven that they heard said “This is my son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Now on the Feast of Pentecost, we are told – listen to each other.

A great deal of the work of marriage and family therapy involves the work of listening, hearing and understanding. Teenage angst is usually expressed as “no one understands me.” Communication is frequently a stumbling block for couples. Dr. Deborah Tannen wrote her marvelous book You Just Don’t Understand on the difference between male and female styles of communication. I recommend it highly because as it turns out, it’s helpful to know that men and women have fundamentally different reasons for communicating. Men see communication as a vehicle for solving problems and women see communication as a means of building and maintaining relationships. Not understanding this can lead to crazy making conversations and what couples are left with are “What does she want?” and “He just doesn’t get it!” Learning to listen and understand is work made holy by Pentecost.

When couples don’t know how to listen and hear each other it can cause strife in the home. When nations don’t know how listen and hear each other, the stakes are higher. Molly Bingham is a photojournalist who spent 10 months in Iraq beginning in 2003 working on stories about the growing violent resistance to the American military presence. While she was there, doing what she thought was good journalism, she had to deal with many people back home, some of whom were her fellow journalists, who questioned her patriotism because she thought that hearing and relating to a situation from the other side was important.

Ms. Bingham provides some real wisdom into the work of listening. In an article published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, she writes:

One of the hardest things about working on this story for me personally, and as a journalist, was to set my "American self" and perspective aside. It was an ongoing challenge to listen open-mindedly to a group of people whose foundation of belief is significantly different from mine, and one I found I often strongly disagreed with.

But going in to report a story with a pile of prejudices is no way to do a story justice, or to do it fairly, and that constant necessity to bite my tongue, wipe the smirk off my face or continue to listen through a racial or religious diatribe that I found appalling was a skill I had to practice. We would never walk in to cover a union problem or political event without seeking to understand the perspective from both, or the many sides of the story that exist. Why should we as journalists do it in Iraq?

Why indeed? The need for Pentecostal listening very much alive today. We need those tongues of fire to burn away our stubbornness and fears. The new life that springs up after a fire is an awesome testimony to the creative life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. It draws us into the future God would have us help create. Hallelujah!

The Divine Work of Mothering

Preached at Faith Episcopal Church, Sunday May 8, 2005, The Seventh Sunday of Easter.

The language in today’s Gospel – Jesus’ words to God about the people entrusted into his care are words that, as a mother, I can hear easily. “They were yours, and you gave them to me…” “I’m not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.” This is the way I always felt about my kids – they were not mine in any kind of ownership way. They were mine to care for, protect, encourage, teach, nurture and ultimately to let go. I was not supposed to mold them into some little version of me or into anything other than what they were inherently meant to be. Most of all, I always knew them as God’s, not mine. Mothering in God’s place – a steward to those tiny bodies and fabulous hearts and minds. If I’ve been a good mother, it’s because I understood the responsibilities and the limits of my role.

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the role of mothers in the Bible – overshadowed as they are by the patriarchs. Eve is more often associated with precipitating expulsion from paradise than with her place as the mother of humankind. But she remains as the first to give birth, the first mother, the first grandmother, the one through whom all the rest came.

Consider Sarah. She is the first woman listed by name in any of the Bible’s genealogies. Before her, men became the father of their children without so much as a nod to women who did all the work. But then, there she is, in Ch 11:29 “Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. It then goes on to say that “Sarai was barren, she had no child.” Soon after Abram is called by God, he’s told that he will be the father of many nations. Given the definition of marriage at that time, Sarai’s inability to have children would probably not have been of great concern to Abram, afterall, it was not a world of one-woman men. Indeed eventually, a son is born to Sarah’s maid, Hagar. But throughout the story, it becomes clear that God is equally intent on Sarah presence in the gene pool. Twice God rescued her from the lascivious attention of foreign kings, and even after she was well past any child-bearing possibility, God says that it will be Sarah who will bear the promised child. God intended Sarah every bit as much as Abraham to be the parents of the chosen people.

Time and time again in the bible, when there is an important child to be born, God carefully chooses the mother. Manoah, the barren wife of Zorah from the tribe of Dan was told by an angel that she would have a special child. She did indeed and his name was Samson, the strong man with a full head of hair who was a hero to his people. Elizabeth, another elderly, barren woman has a son, John and the same time her cousin Mary is expecting her special child. Mothering any of these special children is not left to chance, it is too important because mothering is inherently important – it is one of the great blessing bestowed on humankind.

My favorite image of motherhood is an some footage of a mother elephant in a nature documentary. The elephants were being tagged to be able to track them and the crew was trying to separate a baby elephant from the herd to examine him and put his radio collar on but they hadn’t anticipated his mother. The baby had been shot with a tranquilizer dart and was groggily lying on the ground. A helicopter was flying low to disperse the herd but his mother would not leave him. As the rest of elephants watched from a way off she put herself between her baby and the hovering chopper. She kept nudging him with her foot as she bravely faced this unidentifiable monster, waving her trunk at it and trumpeting. Don’t mess with Mom. Mothering is serious business. Mothering is an activity of the divine.

Julia Ward Howe is the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Putting an end to slavery was important to her, but after seeing some of the devastating effects of the Civil War- death, disease, famine and poverty - she began advocating for a mother's day for peace in 1870. This was her Mother's Day Proclamation:

“Arise, then, women of this day. Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears. Say firmly, we will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us wreaking with carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes out with our own. It says, disarm. Disarm. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other, as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, and each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.”

Julian of Norwich, that marvelous mystic writer of the 15th century wrote that in Christ, God chose to be our mother in all things. Julian’s writings are well known and loved. Less remembered is Marguerite d’Oingt, the leader of a priory in Southern France in the 13th century. These are her extraordinary words;

“Jesus, are you not my Mother? Are you not even more than my mother? My human mother after all laboured in giving birth to me for only a day or a night; You, my tender and beautiful Lord, laboured for me for over thirty years….Oh with what measureless love you laboured for me!...But when the time was ripe for you to be delivered, your labor pains were so terrible your holy sweat was like great drops of blood that ran from your body onto the earth…Who ever saw a mother endure so dreadful a birth? When the time of your delivery came, you were nailed to the hard bed of the Cross…and your nerves and all your veins were broken. How could anyone be surprised that your veins broke open when in one day you gave birth to the whole world?” (Andrew Harvey, Teachings of the Christian Mystics, 1998)

This Sunday is not merely Mothers Day – it is the Sunday after the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Having lived among us, as one of us, having died dreadfully, resurrected, he has now taken our human experience with him and makes at home in heaven. He has again been our mother, delivering us in heaven. It has never been more true to say “A mother’s work is never done,” for in Christ we are continually mothered, protected, nurtured, encouraged, and raised as children on our way to spiritual adulthood. Thank you, Jesus. Amen, Alleluia!