Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 21, 2010
The anointing of Jesus is one of the few stories other than the crucifixion itself that appears in all four gospels. But there are such significant differences among the gospel accounts, that it is not at all clear they are describing the same event. John’s version bears some resemblance the story in Mark and Matthew. In all three, there is a clear connection between this story and the crucifixion.
Two pieces of music have been running through my head today. First, the beautiful hymn by Isaac Watts, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” It will figure in my sermon tomorrow, but not in the obvious way. Watts quotes Paul’s statement in Philippians, tomorrow’s epistle reading, “My richest gain I count but loss.” Perhaps it’s the sheer familiarity of Watts that brings him to mind so often: “O God our help in ages past” is perhaps his best known. Watts is probably the most important hymn-writer in the English language, if only because he was the first person to write a significant number of them.
The second piece is one of the movements of the Brahms Requiem, which uses a text from Psalm 126:6-7. I won’t work with it in my sermon, although the beginning of the Psalm appears.
At a previous transition point in my life, I said that one of my goals in life was to sing the Brahms Requiem. Well, I did it, in Spartanburg, some years ago, and it was a deeply moving experience for me.
There’s a recent interview with John Milbank, the founder of the theological school known as Radical Orthodoxy. The interview, and much of the theology associated with the movement, is obscure to the point of incomprehensible. Still, I found the work of Milbank’s students helpful in rethinking the relationship between the pre-modern Christian theological tradition and contemporary philosophy. It’s a bridge I found difficult to construct for myself, in part because of my own theological training.
I read a great deal of German neo-orthodoxy in college (Barth, et al). Then I went to Harvard where I encountered constructivist theologians like Gordon Kaufman, critical theologies like Feminism and Liberation, and the writings of Derrida and Foucault. Putting it all together was impossible. That may be why I retreated into historical study. But I studied history because I thought it continued to have relevance to the life of faith today, and making it relevant was in some sense my ultimate goal.
There are aspects of the project of Radical Orthodoxy I find helpful–especially the attempt to rethink traditional categories, rituals, and the like with an eye to contemporary questions, and to offer a critique of the Enlightenment project from the perspective of earlier thinkers. Thus, Augustine provides an interesting foil to Descartes (see Michael Hanby, Augustine and Modernity).
The interview with Milbank made clear that there is not only a philosophical project, there is also a political one. That I find somewhat alienating, if only for odd statements like “Marriage and the family, for all their corruption and misuse, are at base democratic institutions,” which is so patently false from an even cursory reading of history.
In addition, there seems to be something of a nostalgia for another time, when Christianity was in some sense “given;” when children were raised in the faith. Such times are long past, and it is silly for theologians or pastors to try to recapture them.
In many ways, we are living in a post-Christian age, when the churches have retreated from the central role they played in culture and society. Whatever the loss, Christianity’s new role holds out exciting possibilities for creating new ways of being faithful, and reaching with new language to embrace people into our communities.
News came out today that Mary Glasspool has received the necessary consents from Diocesan standing committees and from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction. The news and reactions from various corners of the Anglican world are here.
She will be ordained and consecrated as Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles on May 15. The reason for the wide interest in her election is that she is the first openly-gay candidate elected bishop in the Episcopal Church since Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire. In the aftermath of his election, and the actions of General Convention 2003 in consenting to the election (there are different procedures in place for regular elections, and those that occur in the months before the triennial meeting of General Convention), there has been ongoing turmoil among worldwide Anglicans.
The news from the diocese of Los Angeles came at the same time as the sexual abuse scandal has resurfaced in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI himself has been implicated directly in the cover-up of abuse and the protection of abusive priests. The German press has been particularly keen on following this story but there are also extensive reports in the American press and blogosphere.
And today, the Archbishop of Dublin, who is also under fire for his actions thirty years ago as a canon lawyer, addressed the issue directly in his sermon for St. Patrick’s Day (it doesn’t get any more high-profile than that in Ireland). The Episcopal Cafe’s post on Cardinal Brady’s sermon immediately precedes the report on the consents to Glasspool’s election.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition. A woman who has lived in a committed relationship for twenty years becomes a bishop and is the target of vitriol from conservative Anglicans, some of whom are considering the invitation from the pope to become Roman Catholic.
Lent reminds us that we are broken vessels living in a broken world, that the institutions we hold dear–even the church, the Bride of Christ–have deep flaws. We live in a culture and a religion deeply divided and conflicted over sexuality. Sometimes that boils over into culture wars like those the Episcopal Church and the Anglican world have suffered, sometimes it results in deep internal division, conflict, and brokenness that manifests itself in clergy sexual abuse.
I’m the youngest of five children; I have four older sisters. There’s a story in my family, at least it’s the story three of my four sisters tell, that my parents wanted two children, a daughter and a son. And having had a daughter the first time around, they kept on trying, having children until they got their wishes, their longed-for son, and then stopped. Of course, that’s not the end of the story, the end of our family mythology, because what lies behind that story is a perception that there were two favored children, three who were not. But given the reality of the world, there was really just one favored child, me, the only son.
If you’ve followed my blog, or my sermons, you may have gathered that hymns are an important part of my spirituality. I’ve been surrounded by them all my life and they have helped to shape the way I experience the love of God in Jesus Christ, and fellowship in the body of Christ.
As I’ve been working on my sermon today, the gospel being the parable of the prodigal son, fragments of an old gospel song have kept coming back to me. The refrain is
Welcome, wand’rer, welcome!
Welcome back to home!
Thou hast wandered far away:
Come home! Come home!
I’m not sure how often we sang it when I was growing up, but for some reason it touched me deeply. Looking at the text after thirty years, it’s a little bit maudlin, and definitely evangelical, and focuses one’s attention on the parable in question toward areas I don’t find particularly interesting. Still, there’s something about it.
The tune I know it sung to was written by Ira Sankey, who wrote hundreds of hymn tunes, working closely with Dwight Moody. That much I remembered. I was surprised to find out that the text was written by Horatio Bonar. Bonar was a prolific hymn writer and several of his works are in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982, including “Here, O My Lord, I see Thee face to face”–one of the great Eucharistic hymns.
More about Horatio Bonar, including many of his hymns, is here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/o/n/bonar_h.htm and more about Sankey here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/a/n/sankey_id.htm
Today is the commemoration of Pope Gregory the Great, one of the shapers of medieval Christianity. A member of an old senatorial family who rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy in Rome, he withdrew from public service, founded a monastery in one of his family’s homes in Rome. But his education and diplomatic expertise pressed him into service as a papal legate to the Emperor in Constantinople. He returned to Rome and was acclaimed pope in 591.
Among his achievements: the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury to England, liturgical revision (the common name for medieval chant “Gregorian” chant bears his name). He was profound theologian, exegete, and pastor. His On Pastoral Care shaped the ministry, his Moralia in Job a model of biblical scholarship for centuries. He used his family’s wealth to feed the Roman people during famine and pestilence, and his administrative skill secured papal primacy in the west.
Among the most popular legends of Gregory in the later Middle Ages was the story that once as he was celebrating mass, he heard someone deny transubstantiation. Praying for a sign to prove the reality of the bread and wine becoming Christ’s body and blood, suddenly an image of the crucified Christ appeared before him and all the people. Here’s artist’s rendering of that legend:
I’ve been at Grace now seven months and I’m settling in somewhat. I’ve learned a great deal about the parish, the job, and about myself in the process. One of the things I’ve learned is that my day is quickly filled with routine administrative tasks–everything from dealing with tension between volunteers and staff, thinking about issues in the homeless shelter or security, or of course financial matters. And then there’s the dishwasher.
What that has meant is pastoral care has played a minor role in my work so far. A large reason for that minor role is the fact that Grace has a cadre of Eucharistic Visitors who regularly take communion to our homebound and hospitalized members. In addition, we have a very gifted and energetic deacon who has taken responsibility for much of our pastoral care needs.
I finally made space today for making some pastoral visits of my own. It’s about time, after seven months. I spent the morning with a parishioner in his home, admiring his art collection, getting to know him better, and sharing our interests in the relationship of body and mind, and our concern for the homeless.
This afternoon Deacon Carol and I made the rounds of Oakwood. We spent a lovely afternoon with parishioners who are rarely able to make it to services. I got to know them a little bit, we shared something of our lives, our interests, our hopes and fears. And at the end of it, I was totally exhausted, as drained as I would have been had I spent the afternoon going over our financial statements (which I had done on Tuesday). But I was also exhilarated by the opportunity to get to know people, make connections, and think about ways of spending time with them on a regular basis (as I was coming home, it struck me that a monthly service at the facility where we spent the afternoon today, would be a great way of connecting regularly with our parishioners there.
And, OK, since it’s Lent, I’ll make a confession. I’ve got two close relatives, a brother and sister of my dad, who are in difficult medical situations. Feeling helpless to respond to their situation, it’s probably made it more likely that I would reach out to people I can visit.
It seems like it’s inevitable. Every time some great tragedy happens, whether it be 9-11 or hurricane Katrina, or the earthquake in Haiti, Pat Robertson is going to make news for saying something outrageous about how this event is God’s punishment on someone.
But it’s not just Pat Robertson and it’s not just great disasters like those I’ve just mentioned. We do it too. We do it when we seek an explanation for the suffering of a friend or loved one, ourselves, or even a stranger we hear about it. What did they, or we, do wrong, to deserve this?
I saw “Crazy Heart,” the Jeff Bridges movie, for which he has received well-deserved plaudits. In many ways, it’s a typical Hollywood film about a musician. The plotline is familiar from the Ray Charles and Johnny Cash biopics of a few years ago: a great singer has a rotten personal life and eventually gets it all back together. But this movie does have its charms. Maggie Gyllenhaal, for example, no matter how unbelievable the notion of her falling for a drunk, has-been country singer is always luminous on-screen.
Bridges himself, who brings intelligence and sensitivity to a role that in those other movies I mentioned seemed somewhat lacking. And, Robert Duvall. He was one of the producers. I love watching him, especially at this point in his career, where it seems like he is just having a great time (kind of like Paul Newman’s late performances).
I’m somewhat curious why in Hollywood redemption for middle-aged or late middle-aged men always seems to involve much younger women. In this case, however, Bridges didn’t get the girl in the end, even if their relationship was a catalyst for his transformation.
The music is pretty good, too. I’ve not been listening much to country music of any sort in the past few years. There was a time that my hour-long commute was accompanied by tunes from WNCW, so from the late 90s through say 2005, I got to know lots of alt country. I realized today, I kind of miss it, but lacking a commute, I’m probably not going to have the opportunity to listen to the likes of John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and all those other artists I enjoyed during those years.
Preaching Grace on the Square 