Monthly Archives: March 2010

Wednesday in Holy Week

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The gospel appointed for today is John 13:21-32. Two things in this text fascinate me. First that the gospel writer states “Jesus was troubled in spirit.” It’s something of an anomaly for John, because throughout the gospel Jesus is well aware of what is going to happen to him. For example, in chapter 12, Jesus says, “And what should I pray? Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” It seems almost as if it is John’s direct contradiction of the scene in Gethsemane in the Synoptic gospels, where Jesus prays that “this cup may be taken from me.”

The second interesting thing is Judas. We are fascinated with him, we want to understand why he betrayed Jesus. That attempt to figure Judas out is present already in the gospels. We see it hear, with the reference to Satan entering him. But we may be misdirecting our focus.

This takes place at the Last Supper, just after Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet, including the feet of Judas, and after he explained his actions as a model of servanthood for his disciples to imitate. Chapter 13 begins, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” What may matter most about Judas is that Jesus loved him, modeled that love in service, and invited him to participate in a life of loving service.

Tuesday in Holy Week: Collect and Reflections

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Here’s the collect of the day:

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Apparently adapted from a collect in the 1928 English Book of Common Prayer (so Hatchett), it is Pauline in theology “glory in the cross of Christ” but perhaps shades over into something less healthy with the expressed desire to “gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of … Jesus Christ.”

There’s a tendency in much of Christian piety toward self-abasement. Left unchecked, it can be destructive both on a personal level and for the whole community. I suppose that what bothers me in the collect is the repetition of the word “shame.” Surely “shame” was not at the heart of Jesus’ experience of the crucifixion. Did it play a role in early Christian reflection on the cross? Folly and shame are not identical; nor is shame a stumbling block as Paul observes of the cross in today’s reading from I Corinthians 1:18-31.

It begins:

The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

That’s the expression of the central paradox in Pauline theology: the contrast between wisdom and folly, strength and weakness, and the assertion that when we see Jesus Christ at his weakest (i.e., on the cross), we see God at God’s most powerful. It’s an important inversion of our values and expectations, one that Paul seems to have learned through his own experience (the thorn in the flesh mentioned in II Corinthians). To translate these concepts, and this paradox into shame seems to diminish the power of what Paul is expressing.

Given the perversion of the Christian message by folks like Glenn Beck, and the Christian militia, it’s a useful reminder this week that as we approach the cross and Good Friday, understanding what it means remains elusive and easily misused.

Tuesday in Holy Week: Reaffirmation of Ordination Vows and Chrismal Mass

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It’s customary during Holy Week for the clergy to gather with their bishop for the reaffirmation of our ordination vows. I’m not a big fan of it, on the theory that either we mean what we say when we make our vows at ordination, or we don’t mean it. But I went, in part because I now have a new bishop and it seemed appropriate to reaffirm my vows. I also went because traditionally it is also the time when the bishop consecrates a new supply of oils (oil of the sick, chrism for baptizing, and oil of the catechumens).

Something Bishop Miller said in his homily struck home and the whole notion of reaffirmation began to seem significant. He began by mentioning 2 recent news items concerning Christianity: the continuing sexual abuse scandal in Roman Catholicism as well as the reports coming out of Michigan about the Christian militia group that was arrested. He pointed out the importance of trust–the trust our congregations in us as clergy and the trust that is important in our relationships with one another.

Once lost, trust is very difficult to regain and re-establish. Moreover, we live in a culture in which distrust of one other is profound and distrust of institutions is ubiquitous. Simple things like reaffirming the vows one made at ordination symbolize the work we all need to do to trust one another.

There’s a rawness about Holy Week. It feels like emotions are laid bare as we walk through the events of Jesus’ last days, that our defenses are stripped away as Jesus was stripped by the soldiers, and the altar is stripped on Maundy Thursday. In the end, we stand before the cross on Good Friday naked before God, with our only hope the prayer we say at the conclusion of the liturgy that day: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, we pray you to set your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and our souls, now and in the hour of our death.”

When all of our self-deception and self-defenses are stripped away, that is how we stand before God, and what we have to hope for; and it might be a good place to begin to establish trust.

More on Monday in Holy Week

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What a difference a few verses makes. The gospel appointed for today is John 12:1-11. All of the propers for the day are here. We read much of the same gospel two weeks ago, on the fifth Sunday in Lent. That gospel is here.

The key difference is that the Sunday gospel concludes with “You always have the poor with you. You do not always have me with you.” Today’s gospel added three verses that put it into the context of John’s theme highlighting the increasing conflict between Jesus and “the Jews.” Here are those verses:

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

The addition of these three verses completely transforms the gospel reading from a story about a woman anointing Jesus, modeling discipleship, to intense, and intensifying anti-Judaism. I never preach sermons on weekday services (unless it’s a major feast, of course) so I rarely do more than begin to struggle with the text and with what preaching the “gospel” from this text might be.

I suppose, if pressed hard enough, I might be able to come up with something, but given that tonight is the first night of Passover, all I could do was mull over the anti-Judaism of the Gospel of John, and the Jewishness of Jesus.

Monday in Holy Week

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The Collect for the Day:

Almighty God, whose dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Written by the Rev. Dr. William Reed Huntington, it first appeared here in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. It is also the collect for the station at the door on Palm Sunday, and is a Collect for Friday in Morning Prayer.

It is a powerful reminder of the via crucis–the way of the cross that we share with Jesus Christ as his disciples. It does something more however, by reminding us that bearing the cross can be a light burden as Jesus promised in Matt 11:28-30:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

I spent some time sitting in the nave today in silence and prayer. It was something of a guilty pleasure given what still needs to be done this week. The bulletins aren’t ready; I don’t have all of the slots for readers and Eucharistic Ministers filled; I don’t know what’s going to happen at any of the services this week. At least I’ve got a start on my sermons.

I certainly am praying these words this week–that the way of the cross, the way of Holy week, may be none other than “the way of life and peace.”

Reflections on Palm Sunday

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Holy Week is going to be interesting. I probably didn’t articulate it to myself or to anyone else, but my approach coming into Grace was to experience worship and then to make changes to reflect my own theological and liturgical concerns. My predecessor gave me a very clear road-map and when talking to worship leaders and altar guild, it seemed that they were expecting something of the same of me.

Instead, I wanted to experience it. Part of that has to do with the people, their gifts, assumptions, and needs, but a great deal of it has to do with the space. One of the questions that I ask repeatedly is “How do we best worship in this space?”

But I’m also interested in shaping the liturgy in ways that I find meaningful. There were already some last-minute changes. Someone pointed out to me the rather obvious starting point of the Guild Hall for our Palm Sunday procession, rather than the undercroft. It made sense, both for those of our parishioners who have trouble climbing stairs, and because it was a beautiful day.

There’s the other challenge, the one created by the hybrid nature of Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday. How do you move effectively from the joy and celebration of Blessing of Palms and Procession to the Passion?

What I want to know is how to use the church’s space to help make that transition.

Stay tuned.

Two Processions

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Palm Sunday

Grace Episcopal Church

March 28, 2010

Two processions approached Jerusalem that week nearly two thousand years ago. The first is the one we re-enacted. In fact, we didn’t even re-enact the story that we heard in Luke. Luke doesn’t state that it was a triumphal entry. He doesn’t even say that Jesus entered Jerusalem. Nor does he mention of palm branches. Instead, he puts the event several miles outside the city.

According to Luke’s version, an obscure Galilean prophet on his way to Jerusalem staged some sort of demonstration with his followers outside of the city. How many people were there? Fifty? 100? A man riding on a donkey, hailed by people: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” This was a claim of Davidic kingship. What did Jesus have in mind? What did his followers intend? Did they mean to stage an uprising? A revolution?

The second procession, even though it wasn’t recorded in history, was much bigger, much more impressive. This particular procession, in the year 30, wasn’t recorded, but we know of it from other years, other Passovers. The Roman governor came into Jerusalem with his troops, as he did every year at Passover, for one reason, to make sure that things would remain quiet. But it wasn’t simply a march into town by the local governor and some troops. When Rome came, it came projecting its imperial power and majesty. It came to demonstrate to one and all that Rome held all of the power and would keep the peace.

Jump forward to today. This morning we reenacted that first procession, waving palm branches and saying Hosanna! This morning, even though we didn’t have a donkey and someone playing Jesus (they loved doing things like that in the Middle Ages), we were the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem.

There’s a sort of schizophrenia about Palm Sunday. The mood shifts drastically from the time we begin the service. We begin in joy, celebration, waving palms and singing “All glory laud and honor.”

Then we settled into our pews to hear the reading of the Passion Gospel. We hear the drama of the last days and hours of Jesus’ life—his betrayal, trial, crucifixion and burial. The service that began in joy ends in sorrow.

But before we heard the story of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, we heard another reading, one of the most powerful texts in all of the New Testament: Paul wrote to the Philippians:

“Let the same mind be among you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.”

Everything in our devotion, our hymnody, even our theology, drives us to see what happens in Holy Week, to see the crucifixion as all about us and our sins, about Jesus’ dying for our sins. The hymn we just sang, “Ah Holy Jesus, how have I offended?” is an excellent example of this tendency. It presents a conversation, really a set of questions that we humans ask Jesus as he suffers on the cross. We have put him there, the theology goes, he is suffering for and because of us, and all of that should intensify our sense of guilt, and the forgiveness we receive. We answer our own question in the second stanza of the hymn: “I crucified thee.” That’s a great part of why Holy Week is so powerful and evocative.

But the gospel writers may have had something else in mind. Certainly, Paul when he paints this image of Christ emptying himself, and being obedient, is not using it to emphasize our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness. Rather, he is using it to make a point: “Let this mind be among you…” In other words, this is how you should act; this is what you should do.

Two processions approached Jerusalem that week. One was led by an obscure Galilean rabbi, the other by a ruthless Roman official. At the end of the week, Jesus was brought into the presence of Pilate. He was all alone but Pilate was surrounded by all the trappings of Roman power and majesty. Jesus left Pilate’s presence, a condemned man. Pilate remained what he was. Rome and their surrogates in Jerusalem, everyone who had a stake in the preservation of Roman power, saw to it that Jesus was executed like so many others who challenged Rome. The imperial records of Rome record nothing of the events told about in the passion narratives of the gospels. What happened in Jerusalem that week was so insignificant that the empire didn’t even notice.

But to read the passion narrative in this way, faithful to the text of the gospels, is to interpret Jesus’ life and death as the outcome of a confrontation with power. In all that he did and said, Jesus taught love. He was love—incarnate. He offered his listeners an alternative to a world in which those who have get more, where they dominate over the poor, the weak, the powerless. He offered a different way of being in the world, a very different kind of kingdom. He humbled himself, taking on our form, and became obedient, even to death on the cross. The kingdom he proclaimed was symbolized by the donkey on which he rode. Yet in the end, his way was thwarted, at least for a moment, by the powers that be.

Where do we stand? Are we in that procession, that little band of disciples who walked with Jesus from Galilee, who heard him say, “If you would be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me?” Are we in the smaller procession, those women who followed Jesus from Galilee and continued on to the very end. Luke tells us they watched from afar while Jesus was crucified? Are we members of that little group of women who had come with him from Galilee and stayed for the very end?

Or are we in that other procession, among those who marched in our weapons at hand, to display Rome’s awesome power? Or perhaps would we be among those who sought Jesus’ death, because he threatened to upset the status quo, our comfortable life and our power? To ask these questions is to penetrate the heart, the power, and the meaning of the passion story. And if these questions unsettle us—all the better.

“We haven’t done the work yet”

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It’s a lament we keep hearing from the Archbishop of Canterbury, from the Primates, from every group that pronounces. The Episcopal Church hasn’t made the theological case for same-sex marriages and for the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. A recent example is from Pierre Whalon, Bishop of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe.

This complaint puzzles me to some degree. There have been any number of attempts, the Virginia Report in the 1990s, and more recently, “To Set Our Hope in Christ” which was presented at some gathering that I can’t recall any more.

So the House of Bishops gave its Theology Committee the task of writing on the topic. There was some controversy last year about who precisely were the theologians involved in the effort. Whatever. They presented their work to the House of Bishops meeting this week. It’s available here:

The disappointing thing is that the panel of theologians, four “traditional” and four “liberal,” quickly went their separate ways, apparently unable to agree on anything. Perhaps they couldn’t, still it would have been interesting to see if there was any point of consensus among them.

I’ve not read the work carefully, but in skimming through it several things stand out. First, the “traditionals” seem to discount the importance of “human flourishing” (an Aristoteelean phrase) as including our life on earth. They readily acknowledge that most gays and lesbians will never find fulfillment in celibacy or heterosexual marriage and offer them only the possibility of chastity, comparing their plight to the disabled, widows, or those who choose to defer marriage for a career, only to find it impossible later in life to find a soulmate.

On the other hand, the liberals seem to make several problematic moves in their argument. For me the most obvious is this one:

Thus, both same- and opposite-sex marriage may represent the marriage of Christ and the church, because Christ is the spouse of all believers. Men do not represent Christ by maleness alone, nor do women represent the church by femaleness alone. Same-sex marriage witnesses to the reality that a male Christ also saves men and a female church also saves women. p. 55

This seems to discount the important role bridal mysticism has played in Christian spirituality, for both men and women. Both men and women have written eloquently of themselves as the Bride of Christ, viewing themselves, and their souls, as Christ’s spouse. It’s not necessary to posit a sexual relationship to make sense of this imagery.

But this, too, seems insufficient:

What is a sexual orientation? It is an orientation of desire. Since Christ “satisfies the desire of every living thing” (Ps 145:16), a sexual orientation, theologically speaking, must be this: a more or less settled tendency by which Christ orients desire toward himself, through the desire for another human being.

This is a rather striking divergence from the traditional Christian understanding of desire, especially Augustine (who is quoted rather liberally throughout the document). To argue that Christ orients desire toward himself through anything, seems to border on idolatry.

But their closing pages did leave me with some things to ponder more deeply, above all this:

“Why did Jesus not climb down from the cross? – because he held himself accountable to put his body where his love was.” 65

To argue from the incarnation, to argue from the embodied nature of human existence, and the embodied-ness of salvation, seems to me the way to beginning putting sexuality and sexual relationships in the proper Christian perspective.

There is still work to be done and it needs to be done in conversation with one another, not by writing at one another.

“Unruly wills and affections”

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The Collect for the Fifth Sunday in Lent is one of my favorites, full of rich imagery and language.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

It has an interesting history. It derives from early sources (the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries), where it was used in the Easter season. Cranmer’s appointed it for the Fourth Sunday after Easter. His translation was altered in 1662, introducing the phrase “bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners.” The 1979 Book of Common Prayer moved it to its current location.

I’m taken by the understanding of human nature expressed in the prayer: “our unruly wills and affections,” which certainly implies sin, but doesn’t dwell on human sinfulness. But there is also an appeal to God working in us to effect our salvation, the request to God to give God’s people grace “to love what you command and desire what you promise.”

It then moves out to put us in our context–amid the swift and varied changes of the world and expresses the hope that we might focus our attention not on the constantly changing scenery around us, but on our true hope.

I followed the last days of the debate over healthcare in the House fairly closely, and when I read this prayer, especially “the unruly wills and affections” I found it rather appropriate to what went on in Washington.

Pastors who doubt

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There’s a discussion in the Washington Post about doubt among the clergy. Some of the entries are interesting. I would especially recommend Martin Marty’s. On the surface, of course, it all seems obvious. How can you continue to do your job, if you no longer have faith?

And put that way, the answer does seem simple. But faith and doubt are not opposites; they can exist simultaneously, the classic prayer of Augustine, “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief,” being a profound example.

Marty talks about obvious examples where pastors and religious leaders of Lutheran denominations no longer accept elements of the sixteenth-century confessions, that the pope is the Anti-christ, to take one case. The same is true in Anglicanism. It is still the case that clergy in the Church of England have to subscribe to the 39 Articles, but there are very few of them who could accept all thirty-nine.

Part of the issue is that the authors of the study in question understand “faith” in propositional terms; that is to say, they seem to think that to be a Christian pastor, one must accept literal scripture or literally accept the creeds. But neither scripture nor the creeds are propositional; indeed, faith itself is not propositional. It does not operate in the same way that empirical evidence does. We believe the world is round, because it can be proven to be round, in a number of ways.

Religious faith is rather different. The best way I have of understanding it is to see faith as the early church fathers did, as involving not simply assent and certainly not intellectual assent to a proposition. Rather, it involves all of one’s being, and a crucial part of faith, perhaps the crucial part, is will, or to use patristic synonyms, desire, or love.