A vision of plowshares

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on April 30, 2006.

Two years ago today was my first morning to wake up back in my own country. The whole week, indeed month, before my leaving Paris had been a whirlwind of goodbyes, official and personal, a trip to divorce court, weeding out and packing up, and one final spectacularly tearful and poignant au revoir at Charles de Gaulle airport. For quite a while, nostalgia was my main activity. After a few months, Bishop Bruno shook me out of that. By sending me here, he reminded me of the commitment that I had made to God. That commitment was to do God’s will, to find a way to interest others in God’s ways. Even before I was ordained I had made an offering of my life – literally using those words “God, I give my life to you. I’ll go where you want me to go. Show me what you want me to do.”

I truly believe that God put me here to help you build, to pick paint colors, to help you know that you can set the world on fire with the spirit of love and adventure, to be a companion in grief or trouble as well as joy, to be someone for you to lean on and to for me to learn that asking for help isn’t a sign of incompetence. I believe that God gave us a gospel of love and peace. I’d love to be able preach bunnies and sunshine for all of Easter but I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t want me to do that. I truly believe that God expects me to challenge you to move out of comfort zone and into gospel zone.

The prophet Micah is that voice of the uncomfortable gospel zone. His words thunder to us from thousands of years ago – they were ancient words at that first Easter. Little is known about Micah except from some of the autobiographical hints in his seven chapters. He was a farmer not an aristrocrat or scholar. He was a part of a busy prophetic era – the eighth century bce. He was a contemporary of the original Isaiah, Hosea and that thunderer Amos. These prophets all stood up and exposed injustice. Isaiah and Micah both spoke eloquently about the injustice of war. They are clear that the only way to true peace is through justice.

Listen to Micah’s words;

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths."

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines
and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;

How do we get from a culture of war to one that learns war no more? If those words were not new in Jesus’ time, they are much less new now and we’re no closer to living them, indeed with each passing moment we blithely accept war as the normal option in conflict. Bob Dylan was right, “When will we ever learn”

I have been slowly making my way through Dominic Crossan’s new book In Search of Paul. His overview of the book is stated this way… “This entire book is about the clash between those alternative visions of world peace. One is Augustus’s vision, following civilization’s normalcy, of peace through victory. The other is Paul’s vision, following Jesus’ radicality, of peace through justice. Crossan begins by comparing the building blocks within these opposing visions of peace. The building block within the global victory model is hierarchy. Within the global justice model it is equality. Paul understood that Easter, being part of Jesus’ resurrection, did away with all division and distinctions. In Christ, all of the ways we separate ourselves from one another, are simply gone. In Him, there is no Greek or Jew, no slave or free, there is no longer no male or female – all are equal in this new Easter life. Paul’s work promoting equality that leads to justice that leads to peace put him at odds with an empire that was steeped in the tradition of order (which is not really peace) through military victory and clearly defined roles and the privileges or lack thereof that go with them. For Paul, once he understood what the resurrection meant, he had no choice but to preach this gospel. He really got people upset. Crossan believes that the statements attributed to Paul about slaves obeying their masters and women being subservient to their husbands were later additions to make this subversive equality less threatening. Paul understood what it would take to make Micah’s vision of peace a reality. It’s been a tough sell.

My favorite passage from all of scripture comes from Micah. He answers his own question “With what shall I come before the Lord?” In the 8^th verse of the 6^th chapter Micah carves these words into my heart and imagination “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” But I would also say that to do those things and to follow through on them to work for the goal of peace requires courage. We’ve all seen examples of one person making a difference. Well I want to tell you about Ava Lowry, a 15 year old girl from Alabama who needed to express her feelings and frustrations about war in general and the war in Iraq in particular. A year ago she began her website called Peace Takes Courage and started creating what she calls animations. The first one I saw was called Wonderful World. Images of the suffering of war, particularly children, unfolding over Louis Armstrong’s gentle peaceful song broke my heart. Ava’s animations are meant to move us and they do. Ava has continued her work and now hundreds of thousands of people visit Peace Takes Courage each month. The hate mail that she has received would curl your hair. I listened to a radio interview she did on a San Diego station the other day and a more matter of fact, not self-aggrandizing person you will never find. Ava began her calls for peace because the images of war that we were seeing through the regular media did not adequately portray the horror. She is convinced that when we see what war is really like, we won’t be able to romanticize it and then we might actually do something about it.

The interviewer asked Ava whether she had a lot of support there in northern Alabama or was she a lone voice. She hesitated and then said “except for my Mom, really nobody else. I don’t think my Daddy’s even looked at site, he’s pretty conservative.” I would like you all to see a couple of her animations, particularly the one called The Time is Now. (Note from the Vicar, I did not show this during worship, but in my office afterwards.)

Ava is a modern day Micah. She was called out of comfortable private life and thrust into a prophetic role that is really shaking people up. That’s what Micah did, it’s what Jesus did and then Paul, it’s what God expects me to do, and oops, God expects it of you, too. Alleluia!

Easter senses

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on Easter morning, 2006.

Blessed, blessed Easter to you. We are not together today because of something that happened nearly two thousand years ago. We are together today because of something that is happening now, in every moment. Easter is a perpetual event. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, that mystery in a darkened cave outside of Jerusalem, was the beginning of Easter. Jesus’ battered and broken body was made new. Easter is the eternal sharing of that newness. It has no past. It has no future – no time that has never been, no time that waits to be. In Easter all is the present, now is eternity.

Eternity is like one of those brain teaser paintings by M.C. Escher. Is the water flowing up or down; are the stairs ascending or descending; is the spiral flowing inward or outward? The answer to all of these drawings is an “ Easter yes! ”

The nowness of Easter is our hope. The timelessness of the Risen Christ is the ultimate healing strategy for the world. It allows us to live God’s future in our present. In that kind of hope, no despair is lasting, no fear is unquenchable; no injustice is permanent. That ’s the good new of Easter. The spark of newness is always available in this mysterious present. Alleluia to that!

If we are not here today because of something that happened in some other time, we are also not here because of something that happened to someone else. I love the image of the moment of the resurrection as God’s presence and power and love pouring into the cold body lying in the tomb to the point that it overflows and spills out over all creation. The love is too great to be contained even by Jesus. All of creation is made new. We too are resurrected.

Meister Eckhart, was a 14^th century German theologian and mystic wise man. He said “ Though we are all God’s sons and daughters, we do not realize it yet.” I wonder if that is because we think the resurrection happened a long time ago to someone else? Is there something we simply haven’t figured out, something we haven’t found yet?

A beautiful answer comes from Jean-Pierre de Caussade – another wise mystic from another time and place – 18^th century France.

“What is the secret of finding the Treasure? There isn’t one. The Treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us every moment and wherever we find ourselves. All creatures, friends or enemies, pour it out abundantly, and it courses through every fiber of our Body and soul until it reaches the very core of our being. If we open our mouths they will be filled. God’s activity runs through the entire universe. It wells up around and penetrates every created being. Wherever they are, it is there also.”

Caussade, Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila and all of the great mystics of the Church throughout the millennia have given us the wisdom of finding God in all things. We have been given all we need to experience perpetual Easter – our physical senses and the Divine image within us as the intent to use them to apprehend God. Easter is every moment made new and holy, every moment is resurrection when you expect to find God in it. Every simple moment is worth an alleluia.

Years ago, I don’t even remember when except that it was fall, I was driving through one of the less than lovely parts of Indianapolis and looked up a street with run down houses and broken down cars when my eyes were riveted to a most gorgeous flaming scarlet maple tree. It was perfect in shape and in that moment it was as if the sun were pumping rhythmic light that danced in the leaves. Suddenly the poverty and decay receded from view. The tree was so magnificent and I realized that God, the artist, will strew beauty at will. The gift of that maple tree opened my eyes to how precious and worthy of beauty is every person and every corner of this world because God is present in it all. It was autumn but it was Easter.

Psalm 34 says “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Have you ever stood in a vegetable garden in August and sunk your teeth into a deep red tomato from the vine? I have and that flavor – or at least its memory has helped me through many a winter salad with nothing that resembles a red tomato in it. The taste of that product of pure summer must have been what God had just sampled when he said “ … and it is good.” Only nature can produce that flavor. God is in the things the earth gives us to eat and even more so when we share them at a table with others. The taste of real bread and wine always makes me wonder why we use such pale substitutes here at God ’s table. Open your mouth and let it be filled with the Easter sweetness of God.

Have you ever had the experience of visiting some place in which you spent lots of time during your childhood? The musty smell of an old attic or a closet with your grandfather’s favorite sweater hanging in it will take you back to that time immediately. Marcel Proust wrote in The Remembrance of Things Past of the power of scent which speaks of the eternity of Easter

“The past still lives in us …[it] has made us what we are and is remaking us every moment! … An hour is not merely an hour! … It is a vase filled with perfumes, sounds, places and climates! So we hold within us a treasure of impressions, clustered in small knots, each with a flavor of its own.” Breathe in the perfume of God.

When I was laid low a few weeks ago with the Martian Death Flu, Max – the Church Dog – decided that I needed him to sit on me as I lay suffering on the couch. When I gave up trying to make him move I realized that he was a very wise creature. The warmth and weight of him began to feel like a prayer and it felt like love. It was healing touch and I was grateful.

Max was responsible for the last sensory joy also. On Tuesday as many of us gathered for the first Seder supper ever held at Faith. We were enjoying all of ritual food and wine and fellowship and connecting to our story through this Jewish tradition. We were boldly singing one of the songs which we could do because it was set to the old Jewish tune “Clementine” when Max ran into the center of the room with his squeaky toy and joined in. The song and the squeaking and the laughter proved to be a perfect chorus of creation. I’m pretty sure I heard God exclaim, “Now, that was good! ”

The message of Easter is this – having flooded creation, God is hiding in plain sight in everything, every person, brother or sister, every moment, despairing or triumphant. Approach the ordinary moments of life as if you have been drawn near to God. Touch the painful past in an Easter present and the way to heal it will be found. Touch an ominous future in an Easter present and the wisdom to change it will be given to you. Surrender to the resurrection and by living for others you will find more joy, more hope and more love than you ever knew existed. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

"On this darkened night..."

A sermon preached at the Easter Vigil, at Faith Episcopal Church.

This is the only night of the year when we hear the Exsultet - that wonderful Hymn to the light of the Paschal Candle. The symbolism of this evening began with the lighting of the new fire – the spark that started it all came from a flint – not matches. Done so as to be a natural fire. Like the spark of God that got everything started way back when. The Paschal Candle is an ancient symbol of Easter, probably earlier than the fourth century. Often is it decorated with the Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end, inscribed with the year and pierced by 5 grains of red incense to recall the five wounds of Christ. During the middle ages, the glorification of the Paschal candle reached epic proportions. The candle at Salisbury Cathedral was 36 feet high and during the reign of Queen Mary, Elizabeth’s older half sister, it was made from 300 pounds of wax. It has quite a history.

We can only understand the resurrection in terms of symbols and images because it is a mystery beyond our grasp. The Exsultet, the hymn to this pillar of fire puts this evening into its proper cosmic perspective. It begins in heaven. “ Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing choirs of angels.” From the beginning we are to understand that the resurrection is not the property of the church – “Exult, all creation around God’s throne! Jesus Christ, our King, is risen! Sound the trumpet of salvation! ”

In that moment of resurrection – the God-life fills the Christ and spills out, over all creation. “ Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your King. Christ’s glory fills the earth and Darkness vanishes for ever! ” Only after the whole creation receives the light of resurrection is the church mentioned. We must be careful in thinking that that means Christians – here I believe that the Church is humankind. We receive Christ’s glory because we are a part of creation. The power of God that enlivened Jesus in the tomb shoots through creation like an electric current. Imagine what that would feel like in you – a holy defibrillator. The Exsultet describes it – “This night dispels all evil, restores lost innocence, casts out hatred, brings peace and humbles earthly pride.” You cannot escape your oneness with all of creation as you share the same cosmic electricity. That is the magic of this night. “Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth.”

To help us understand creation’s exaltation, the older version of the Exsultet lifts up the lowliest of creatures to be the hero of the candle – the bee. “Therefore in the joy of this night…Accept this Easter candle, a flame divided but undimmed, a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God. For it is fed by the melting wax, which the mother bee brought forth to make this precious candle. Let it mingle with the lights of heaven and continue bravely burning to dispel the darkness of this night.

In his book Awakenings, Father Thomas Keating describes what is possible tonight in this way. “You may even experience something like a volcano exploding inside you – a tremendous burst of joyful energy coming from the deepest place inside of you, which causes you to forget all your own thoughts, the fatigue of the evening of the Paschal Vigil. If you have such an experience, you are well prepared to celebrate the Paschal mystery. You touch the reality about which all the symbols of this night’s liturgy are stammering. You penetrate the mystery of the resurrection of Christ. You identify with Christ when you forget yourself and are filled with his joy.”

For this night to work its cosmic wonder in us, we must be open to it. In his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Matthew Fox challenges his readers to reclaim a living cosmology. He defines ‘cosmology’ as a three part way of understanding our existence. First he says we need a scientific story about the origin of our universe. Second we need mysticism, “ That psychic response to our being in a universe; and third we need art which translates science and mysticism into images that awaken body, soul, and society. When we have all three then we respond joyously to the awesome universe. Fox often quotes Meister Eckhart, a medieval German mystic who said

“ though we are God’s sons and daughters, we do not realize it yet.” Understanding tonight’s cosmic significance, the presence and power of the Cosmic Christ, will help us realize who we are.

We are the vessels of the resurrection. We are not only the stewards of creation we are every sunset, every beach fouled by pollution, every wild place taken over for commerce, we are every suffering child and we are therefore their hope. Whether on this night we are drawn into Christ or Christ is drawn into us, we become his body.

In the movie Contact, when Jodie Foster is making her journey into the unknown in the time/space travel machine she sees incredible images of stars, galaxies, impossible light and colors and she is moved to tears by the beauty and breathes her sense of inadequacy “ They should have sent a poet! ”

There is no greater poet for this night than St. John of the Cross and his haunting Dark Night of the Soul as interpreted by Loreena McKennitt.

Upon a darkened night
the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright
I fled my house while all in quiet rest

Shrouded by the night
And by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes
while all within lay quiet as the dead

Oh night thou was my guide
of night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other

Upon that misty night
in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on
and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still
it was a place where no one else could come

Oh night thou was my guide
of night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other

Within my pounding heart
which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
beneath the cedars all my love I gave
From o'er the fortress walls
the wind would his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
caressed my every sense it would allow

Oh night thou was my guide
of night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other

I lost myself to him
and laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
as in the morning's mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
there they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
there they dimmed amongst the lilies fair

A Day of Consequences

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006.

It’s been quite a week for things long hidden to come to light. First there was that fossil that appears to be a missing link between aquatic life and land-lubbing life. That was pretty exciting. Darwin must be enjoying a toast wherever he is.

Then we have the rather extraordinary news of the Gospel of Judas – the recently translated text of which is being released today. The papers have been full of the gist of this document which portrays Judas as Jesus’ close friend who was asked to play a necessary part in Jesus’ final drama. I’m feeling a little put out myself because I’ve always wanted to preach a Judas sermon that begins in God’s study. God tells a somewhat apprehensive Judas that he has a particularly difficult job or role for him to play; one that will end with everyone hating him and even going so far as to make his name synonymous with “traitor.” But God needs someone to willing to shoulder the burden of that role because it will be a necessary part of God’s great experiment – the incarnation. Only by living as one of us and suffering all of worst that humankind dishes out, only then will God bridge the gap between the Creator and the creatures. If God is going to help us through our flirtation with self-annihilation God needs to feel what it is to be human – to feel our joys and our sorrows and our hurts. God chooses to suffer along with us. “So, Judas,” God asks, “do you love me enough to do this for me?”

Well, my thunder has been stolen! But I’m always happy about things that get people thinking about their faith. Do you think there is any other way to think about Judas? The article in the LA Times on Friday said this

“Some scholars argue that the Greek word paradidomi in the original texts of the Gospels, normally translated as "betray," actually means "to hand over," suggesting that Judas was simply doing God's will.” But however you reframe Judas, he was a part of handing Jesus over to the people who wanted him dead. You could say that he did a wrong thing for the right reason.

The crowd on the other hand did the right thing for the wrong reason. They were right about Jesus being a king but he was not and would never be anything like the kind of king they wanted. They wanted someone to fix things, to chase out the Roman presence, to make them well and happy. They wanted Jesus to be responsible for their well being. Nothing about Jesus’ teachings indicate that he was that kind of a leader. Whenever Jesus said something like “I am the way,” he meant for people to get up and walk along that way. Walking Jesus’ path is a difficult one as today’s gospel will attest. Jesus was and is a king – but a king of love and peace and justice. Those are all hard things and none of them is very popular.

What would have happened if Jesus had some how been put into power? What kind of social and economic policies would he have tried to put into place? It boggles the mind. One thing is certain, a whole lot more people would have wanted him dead when he started talking about land and income redistribution and food and days off for everyone. How do you think he would have directed the public treasury? What sort of tax reform would he have proposed?

Jesus was never meant to be a political leader. He is meant to be the conscience by which we evaluate our common life because how we treat each other is how we treat him. But you don’t have to think that’s what he was or is. The Gospel of Judas shows that people disagreed about a whole lot of things from the very beginning of the Jesus movement. I’m glad that this manuscript has come to light right now. We need a reminder that there was not then and there is not now, a definitive interpretation of Jesus, of Christianity or any of its doctrines. My faith is not threatened by a different interpretation of Judas. I don’t need him to be the bad guy. In fact, he is more challenging to me as the heroic figure that played a part that no one else wanted. His suicide is understandable because he came face to face with the consequences of his action. Even if he were absolutely confident in the coming resurrection, the horror was overwhelming.

Palm Sunday is a day for understanding consequences. It is the day when Jesus’ ministry was celebrated – his popularity has brought adulation and the inevitable scrutiny by the power holders. They were the political and religious authorities. Jesus knew well that he was on a collision course that would end in his death. He accepted the consequences of his preaching and actions. Jesus knew that the only way to heal a broken system was to let it play out its violence on him. His death exposed the fanaticism of power. Only then could God’s intention be understood.

Consequences are the product of not only an action, but the intention and the means by which the action is achieved. Gandhi wrote that true peace could not be achieved by violent means. Peace achieved by violence does not last because along the path to peace, the seeds of more violence are sewn. They will bear fruit in their own time. Jesus’ intention was always to make the Kingdom of God real on earth. Jesus’ intention was love, his means were love and his death on the cross was the ultimate example of love.

The fall before the war in Iraq began, I preached a sermon at the Cathedral in Paris about the law of unintended consequences. It caused quite a stir – some thought I was unpatriotic some cheered. I reread that sermon the other day with an eerie sense of having been quite prescient – and given the state of Iraq, all of mangled and misstated intentions, the consequences are very real and deadly. Now there is talk of using war, complete with tactical nuclear weapons, against Iran. If we don’t take seriously the nature of the intention, the means and the reality of the consequences of such a move, we might unleash a horror beyond imagining on our world – on God’s world.

Palm Sunday is about understanding and accepting the consequences of our actions. It is also about trusting that God is present now and in the future we create. You are invited to walk with Jesus through this holy week. Sit at table with him and his friends for the Passover meal. Understand servant ministry as we wash each other feet. Be present at Calvary. Feel the emptiness and then be ready for joy.

Caught in our own web

This fable, Caught in Her Own Web, to me illustrates how we often let the wrong part of our brain do our thinking. The brain has three parts; the brainstem which controls automatic processes like respiration which operate solely for survival. This is the part of the brain we have in common with reptiles. The limbic system controls our emotional responses like love, hate, bond and play. It also mediates between pain/pleasure, fight/flight responses. This is the part of the brain we have in common with other mammals. These two parts of the brain function automatically and make up only 15% of our brain. The rest is the neo-cortex, it is the home of our creativity, our ability to analyze and symbolize. Using your neo-cortex allows you to learn new ways to cope and imagine alternatives. It is the human part of our brain. If you could locate where the image of God resides, it would probably be in the neo-cortex.

In his seminal work, called Generation to Generation, Dr. Friedman identified ‘reptilian regression’ as those times when because of some sort of anxiety we become reactive, impulse overwhelms intention, instinct sweeps aside imagination. The reptilian part of our brain takes over when what is most needed is the capacity to use the human part of our brain to find new and imaginative responses.

The Gospel of John today gives us Jesus’ version of this. “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Focusing on saving your life is survival thinking. Living the gospel is all about imagining different responses to the world but all too often, we allow our reptilian brains to rule the day. This country has been in the throes of a reptilian regression ever since September 11. We have allowed fear to make all of our decisions and very little creative thinking has gone into our responses to the world. The whole immigration issue right now is being played out in fear based reptilian thinking. There is proposed legislation that would make it a crime for churches and other aid agencies to help anyone who is here illegally. Cardinal Mahoney, for all of his failings on other issues, has been absolutely right to come out and say any law that tells the church not to feed the hungry and help the desperate and destitute is wrong. Immigration is a very complicated issue but if we operate from fear and anger we will block the imagination that is so need right now.

I’ve had several conversations lately with people here about fear. People are concerned about my being here at the church alone. Am I safe? When is keeping the door open and unlocked too risky? Now, I’m all for being smart and cautious when it is needed but I never allow myself to be afraid. I simply refuse to give fear any kind of power over my life and actions. When I moved into my little cottage at the church in Bloomfield Hills, MI., the senior warden was very concerned about my being there by myself. She wanted to put in an elaborate security system with motion detectors and rapid response and I said “no.” It was an incredibly safe neighborhood and I told her that I didn’t believe in being that afraid.

The only real security we have is faith that we are loved by God, that we don’t need to be perfect or perfectly protected from injury or upset. Life happens and it is up to us to respond to its challenges with our spirit and imagination in such a way that the world is made a better place for everyone.

This series of fables that I’ve read to you during Lent has been a beginning of looking at how we relate to one another and the world. When we begin to understand that we can choose how we act and respond to challenge and change we create a place for God to do new things. When we choose hope and sharing and justice and love, Lent is over and it’s always Easter.