Monthly Archives: November 2010

A Sermon for Christ the King, Year C

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November 21, 2010

We have come to the end of the liturgical year. We have also, in the gospel reading come to the end of Jesus’ long journey to Jerusalem. We have reached the culmination of both of those journeys and today, we hear again the words we heard last Spring on Palm Sunday when the whole of Luke’s passion narrative was read. The power and emotion of the passion narrative is such that it is difficult to pay attention to the details of the story in the midst of the overwhelming emotions of that important day.

One might think it rather odd to close the church year with this particular gospel reading, the account of Jesus’ death. Particularly odd, perhaps, given that the last Sunday of the liturgical year is known as Christ the King. That title conjures up images of majesty and power. The hymns we sing reinforce such images on a day like this. And for us at Grace, each time we worship, our eyes are drawn to the wooden Christus Rex, Christ the King that hangs from the ceiling behind me. Although it shows an image of Christ on the cross, the Christ who is depicted is not in agony, but rather is triumphant, having vanquished his enemies.

The gospel tells a very different story. Jesus is on the cross and the inscription on it, the charge leveled against him and for which he was executed—King of the Jews. But a crucifixion has very little to do with power and majesty. Instead, we think of Jesus on the cross as weak and powerless.

Luke’s story of Jesus’ crucifixion diverges markedly from the story told by Mark and Matthew. The question is not whether one version is closer to the truth or not—none of the gospel writers were present at the scene. What’s important is what each writer is trying to convey by telling the story in the unique way they do. Only Luke includes the interchange between Jesus and the two robbers. Only Luke has Jesus say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In Luke as well, the centurion who oversees the execution says, “Truly this man was innocent.” This contrasts with the confession that Jesus was the Son of God, as Mark and Matthew have it.

Luke tells the story in this way to underscore several of the themes he has emphasized throughout his gospel and in the Book of Acts as well, which he wrote in conjunction with the gospel. One of those themes has to do with forgiveness of sins. Repeatedly in the gospel, more often than in either Matthew or Mark, Jesus forgives the sins of those he encounters. It’s not just that Jesus hangs out with bad guys or demands repentance. Rather, to sin, in the ancient world was to be profoundly outside of the community. By forgiving sins, Jesus is restoring people to community, especially those, who by definition were sinners and excluded.

The second important theme for Luke is that this new Christian community of which he writes presents no threat to the Roman Empire. Time and again in the gospel and in Acts, Luke underscores the point that these Christians, no matter what they might be accused of, hold no desires of overthrowing Rome. Thus the centurion’s words, “Truly this man was innocent” are meant to stress that Jesus was not guilty of the crime with which he was charged—namely inciting revolt against Rome.

Typically, when we hear today’s gospel, we put ourselves in the shoes of bystanders who know what’s going on. The story of the crucifixion is so familiar to us, its meaning for our lives and for the world so often repeated, that to hear the story with fresh ears is exceedingly difficult. Jesus is crucified, by Romans and by Jews either because they think his talk of the kingdom of God constitutes some sort of political and military threat to the Roman Empire or because he challenges the religious power of the Jewish leadership.

In such a reading, the Romans, and perhaps the Jewish leaders got it wrong because they didn’t quite understand that Jesus’ kingdom was not in the here and now, it was the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew puts it, an internal, spiritual kingdom to which we all have access whatever our political affiliation. There is some truth in that view, but it misses the point.

There are two dramatic statements in today’s gospel. On the one hand there is the kingship to which the soldiers and the onlookers refer when they mock Jesus, telling him to save himself, and when they ridicule him for the inscription, or charge laid against him “King of the Jews.” On the other hand, there is the kingdom to which the one criminal refers when he pleads with Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

While the irony of the soldiers’ mocking of Jesus is clear, one wonders about what Luke, or the criminal might have meant by these words. What kingdom is possessed by a man dying on the cross? Luke’s gospel presses that question. It is a question we must ask ourselves as well.

The answer to that question is clear. The image of someone, his body broken, scourged, mocked, crumpled on a cross in a hideous crucifixion, is also the image of Christ the King. But lest we are tempted to say, “Christ’s kingship is not of this world” we need to remember one thing. Jesus was crucified because he was a king. He was crucified because the Romans did perceive him as a threat to their rule. Jesus’ kingdom may be of a very different sort than the Roman Empire, but it is a kingdom nonetheless.

To proclaim Christ as King is to proclaim the reign of God. But no matter how seductive all the trappings of earthly kingship and power might be, in the end, the reign of God is just what Jesus said it was, a community in which there is radical love and the King comes among us as one who serves. The reign proclaimed by Jesus Christ does present a challenge to the powers and principalities of this world. It proclaims that what matters is not wealth or power or success, but rather “the least of these,” the poor and the oppressed, the destitute and downcast. And it proclaims that Christ’s kingdom comes not in a blaze of glory or the destruction of its enemies, but in love and peace.

We humans lack imagination. When we attempt to think about the power and majesty of God in Christ, we fall back to imagery that is thousands of years old, imagery that draws on millennia of violence, power, and emphasizes the rich trappings of monarchy rather than the poverty in which most humans have lived. Today of course, to talk about kings and queens is almost meaningless; they are no more important than any other celebrity, and like other celebrities, what chiefly interests us are their lifestyles, their wealth, and their fame.

What we don’t see are the ways in which such imagery creates a certain attitude in us. Pomp and majesty are not just about the splendor and power of the ruler. They are also intended to keep the rest of us in our place. The trappings of empire are with us still. Did you know that most of the vestments we clergy wear have their origins in the costumes of the Roman imperial classes? The Roman Empire is with us still.

Jesus beckons to us with the promise of a different kingdom, a reign that begins not in power and majesty, but in a manger in Bethlehem. In one sense, it ended on Calvary. But in another way, Calvary is the clearest expression of Christ’s kingship. He rules, not by coercion or force, but by self-giving love.

To confess Christ as King is to confess, above all, that our primary allegiance and commitment is to God in heaven, not to anything in this world, whether it be a nation, our family, fame or fortune. To confess Christ as king, means that we seek to live as he lived, to give ourselves in service to human and to our fellow humans. To confess Christ as king commits us to seeking to realize his values, his message, his love in the world. Only then can we, with the criminal on the cross, plead, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”

The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

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I linked a couple of days ago to an article highlighting a study about the importance of spirituality to college students. Now comes an article from the venerable Christianity Today that examines the growing exodus of young adults from Christianity. The author, Drew Dyck, cites from a number of studies that young people are leaving church 5-6 times faster today than in previous generations; that up to 3/4 of those who grow up in church leave. It’s a dire prognosis, and Dyck places much of the blame on the response doubters get when they raise questions about their faith. He also suggests “moral compromise” contributes to the problem.

If you read my blog, you know by now that I’m not terribly concerned about such statistics; in fact, I think they offer the Episcopal Church an opportunity. Anglicanism used to be a tradition that encouraged intellectual reflection and fostered serious questions about the faith. We are also openly and publicly struggling with issues with which people struggle everyday.

The full article is here: The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.

But there’s an irony here. How is it that a study can find college students engaging spiritual questions more deeply, while at the same time they are leaving institutional churches? Perhaps because those churches are not safe places for engaging spiritual questions. I hope Grace Church and the Episcopal Church are safe and welcoming environments for such spiritual questions.

The spiritual lives of college students

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An interesting study reported on in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The study, Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives, is a longitudinal study of the religious and spiritual views of college students.

The key findings:

The authors use the term spirituality broadly, to mean people’s inner, subjective lives. They found that students’ level of spiritual quest, or seeking meaning and purpose in life, rose during college. By the second survey, eight in 10 students were at least “moderately” engaged in a spiritual quest. Students were more likely as juniors than as freshmen to say they wanted to develop a meaningful philosophy of life, seek beauty, become a more loving person, and attain inner harmony. …

And the authors found that students’ level of religious struggle, or questioning their beliefs, increased in college. However, their level of religious skepticism or religious commitment stayed about the same, even though their engagement in religion declined. Students also became less religiously conservative, measured by their responses to questions on issues like abortion and casual sex.

The full article is here

Shelter Renovations

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Today, Grace and Porchlight invited the community to a “Transformation Celebration” at the Men’s Drop-In Shelter.

Here’s an article from the Capital Times on the renovation

Following are the remarks I made at the event:

On behalf of Grace Episcopal Church, Porchlight, Epic Software Systems, the contractors, and especially all of the volunteers who have helped with the Men’s Drop-In Shelter over the years, I would like to thank you for coming. It was some twenty-five years ago that Grace first opened its doors to a shelter. That decision was for a one-year trial in response to a growing need in the city of Madison and Dane County. No one involved in making that decision then could have imagined that we would be standing here today.

Over the years, thousands of men have sought shelter here, thousands of people have volunteered with meals and in other ways. Grace has provided space; Porchlight and its predecessors have been involved in the day-to-day operations of the shelter; and the County, City, and State governments have provided funds, both for ongoing operations and for major renovations.

There are many people to thank today; and many of us will thank them. Porchlight, the people and vestry of Grace Church, the contractors and other workers, but especially Epic Software Systems. There is someone else who deserves our gratitude, however. Last February, Joe Tarr wrote an article in Isthmus entitled “Bleak House: Grace Episcopal’s Homeless Shelter.” In it, he raised concerns about conditions in the shelter. It aroused anger at Grace, at Porchlight and among the many volunteers who support the efforts here. He got an earful from me. The press is much maligned, but at its best it can rouse the slumbering consciences of a community or a nation. Joe’s article did that. Thank you.

It was a few days after the appearance of that article that I received a phone call from Bern Tan, of Epic. He said they wanted to help. I immediately assumed that they wanted to volunteer in some way. But no, Bern replied that they wanted to design and fund renovations. I was stunned. The process has been long and involved many groups of people, but we at Grace are absolutely thrilled at the results. We know the guests of the shelter are as well. Words cannot express the depth of our gratitude to Bern Tan and Todd Sloan of Epic who have overseen this project from start to finish; to Epic who made this possible and to all of you who continue to support our efforts to provide shelter to those who need it.

We at Grace responded to a need twenty-five years ago. It was controversial then. It remains controversial. But our mission is the same now as it was then, to follow the command of Jesus Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves and to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. Thank you to all who participate in these efforts.

 

Bodies–The Exhibition

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I’ve been seeing ads around Madison, in newsprint and on billboards, for this exhibition that is currently on display: Bodies–The Exhibition. A private company has apparently procured corpses from China, preserved them by replacing tissue with plastic, and displays them throughout the world in various poses. The exhibition is alleged to be educational and of scientific interest. I find the very notion macabre.

There has been considerable controversy over the years (the exhibition has opened in more than 70 cities worldwide). There are questions about where the bodies come from, with allegations concerning prisons, execution, and torture. Those are important questions, but for me, the most important question has to do with with what it says about our culture, particularly our understanding of bodies and death.

Scholars agree that one of the great appeals of Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity had to do with how both communities took care of the dead. They rejected cremation, the widespread practice in Greco-Roman culture, and saw to it that the bodies of all believers, even the poorest were cared for. This was done because both religious traditions took bodies seriously, especially that there was an unbreakable link between soul and body. Over the centuries, Christians have lost sight of that central doctrine, derived from the belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of all the dead. I happen to think that cremation is an important alternative to traditional burial practices, on environmental and on personal grounds. We have become such a mobile culture that the notion of binding our bodies to one place after death seems quaint, and a burden on our descendants.

What’s fascinating to me is that on the one hand ours is a culture that is obsessed with bodies, our own and those of celebrities, yet we can apparently disassociate our essential selves so completely from our bodies that we can look at preserved bodies with relative detachment. Eerie.

Covenantal Developments

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Canon Alison Burnett-Cowan, Directory of Unity, Faith, and Order of the Anglican Communion Office defends the Covenant, arguing that we should read it before criticizing it.

Responses: from the Mad Priest:

From the Episcopal Cafe: “It seems to this writer that people have read it very carefully and are not so willing to gloss over the words as easily as the ACO.”

And from Tobias Haller:

What sense, after all, does it make to turn an ad hoc impairment in communion into something that looks very much like an institutional severance in communion? Since participation in the Instruments is at least in part definitive for membership and participation in the Anglican Commuion, and as the Covenant declares as well, the means by which the members “are enabled to be conformed together to the mind of Christ” (3.1.2), anything remotely resembling permanent suspension by or from those Instruments as a “relational consequence” seems to indicate a serious and debilitating breach in the Anglican Communion and the body of Christ. And the Covenant provides a mechanism to promote it, and little in the way of helping to prevent it. It is the schema for an autoimmune disease in the Body of Christ.

This is a Bad Idea. Please, England, put it down.

And from the No Anglican Covenant blog: A point by point response to some of the more tendentious assertions

 

Covenantal Commentary

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More blogging and op-ed pieces about the Covenant, especially from England. General Synod will be convening soon and this will be high on the agenda.

Paul Bagshaw: “What is the Covenant for?”

Bishop Alan Wilson: “Will the Covenant kill or cure?”

Some statistics on the covenant and other Anglican matters from the Simply Massing Priest

From the Modern Church:

This reveals their main dilemma: how to produce a text which on the one hand is forceful enough impose its demands on the provinces, but on the other will persuade them to sign it. Their solution is to present the Covenant as an entirely voluntary agreement which does not affect a province’s governance or autonomy. Provinces signing it would, as before, act as they wished – so long as no other province objected. Once the Standing Committee upheld an objection, it would impose ‘relational consequences’, which would generally mean treating them like non-signatories.

And more (written for the Church of England)

How would it affect my church?

Is the Anglican Communion imploding of itself?

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Events are occurring with great rapidity.

  • The Diocese of Uruguay has petitioned to leave the Province of the Southern Cone. This is in response to a failed proposal to allow the ordination of women in that province on a diocese-to-diocese basis. Mark Harris points out how very different that diocese is proceeding in leaving its province than those dioceses of the Episcopal Church have tried to depart. If their petition is refused, they will appeal to the Anglican Consultative Council. Whatever happens, it’s a reminder that “realignment” works both ways. Fr. Jake points out the irony of a diocese petitioning the Province of the Southern Cone to leave, after the Southern Cone has attempted to poach dioceses from the Episcopal Church
  • Those “flying bishops” who are flying to Rome continue to generate comment. The great historian of English Christianity Diarmaid MacCulloch has written incisively about the absurdity of the original scheme to provide episcopal oversight to those who rejected women’s ordination in the Church of England. Here’s MacCulloch on the perspective this group represents:

They represent one faction, which those of us who enjoy grubbing in historical byways term ‘Papalist Catholics’. For about 150 years this group among High Church Anglicans have performed athletic intellectual gymnastics about what the Church of England actually is. They ignored the fact that it had a Reformation in the sixteenth century, and turned their churches into meticulous replicas of whatever ecclesiastical fashions the Roman Church decided to adopt, while equally ignoring the fact that successive popes considered their clerical status ‘absolutely null and utterly void’. Now they are thrilled to find that the Pope was wrong all along, so they can after all be received on special terms into the ample bosom of the Western Church of the Latin Rite (which is in the habit of arrogating to itself the more general title of the Catholic Church).

  • Another report mentions “50 clergy who are joining the Ordinariate.”
  • And the Anglican Covenant debate is heating up in the run-up to Church of England’s General Synod. Thinking Anglicans has links to the latest entries in the debate. On this side of the pond, the Episcopal Cafe links to presentations past and more recent, by Cheryl H. White, canon theologian for the Diocese of Western Louisiana. From what I can tell, it seems to be arguing that the Covenant is rooted in the Elizabethan Settlement, an attempt to use the Elizabethan Church in support of the Covenant, just as the no-covenant folk use Hooker to oppose it. As I argued with regard to that, let’s debate the covenant on its merits, not on its imputed historical or theological precedents.

Revisiting the Civil War

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It’s the 150th anniversary of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 and we’re coming up on the similar anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. The New York Times got the idea of “live-blogging” history and it makes for fascinating reading: DISUNION – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.

I’m not much of a Civil War buff, although I watched the Ken Burns documentary, and one summer read Shelby Foote’s history when I should have been working on my dissertation. Having lived in the South for fifteen years, the first five in Sewanee, the home of The University of the South, one of the “Lost Cause” colleges. The history of Sewanee is recorded in stained glass in All Saints’ Chapel, including when the Yankees blew up the college cornerstone. Charles Wilson Reagan’s Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause tells the story of how Christianity in the South was shaped by the Civil War. That was certainly the case at Sewanee, with the prominently-displayed portrait of “The Battling Bishop” Leonidas Polk in a Confederate gray uniform, with sword in one hand and prayer book in the  other.

I was bemused to learn that my former colleague’s lectures on the Civil War at the Greenville County Public Library in South Carolina have been picketed. Among the signs being held: “Lincoln was a mass murderer.”

It’s hard for Northerners to understand the complexity of the relationship Southerners have with slavery and with the Civil War. The comments in the Times blog offers evidence of that. Even liberal Democrats who live in the South may express their discomfort at certain historical arguments, or what one called “South bashing.” The response is more complex when it comes from the thoughtful, and progressive descendant of a slave owner. The war lives on in the South in ways it doesn’t up north and the commemorations in the coming years will no doubt raise emotional arguments over a history that still affects contemporary life.

Proper 28, Year C

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November 14, 2010

Today, after the 10:00 service, we will hold our annual meeting. It is an opportunity to look back on the past year, make some assessment of what we have accomplished over these twelve months. It is also a time to look ahead to the New Year. We’re somewhat out of synch with our larger culture and will continue to be so for the next month or so. For it’s not just that we are planning ahead for next year with respect to our finances and planning, but our worship is also coming to the end of one year and looking forward to a new one. The liturgical year does not begin on January 1 but rather on the first Sunday of Advent, which is two weeks from today.

Our lessons, coming at the end of a year of reading the Gospel of Luke, have us looking ahead in some profound ways. The gospel and the reading from Isaiah are both are eschatological, in that both have something to say about the age to come. They are sharply different in tone, however. Isaiah’s vision is a hopeful one; while the gospel promises Jesus’ listeners that they will suffer for his sake.

Today’s gospel comes from the section of Luke where Jesus is teaching in and around the temple. It is just a few days before his arrest and execution. It also comes immediately after the story of the widow’s mite—when Jesus observes a poor woman giving an offering in the temple and praises her generosity, giving all that she had, while other rich people gave out of their abundance.

Luke is writing his gospel at least a decade, perhaps longer after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. It was a cataclysmic event—catastrophic for the Jewish people who had to radically reconceive what it meant to be Jewish, and how to practice their faith, in the absence of the temple, the place where God dwelt and sacrifices were performed. It was cataclysmic as well for the early Christian community, most of whom came out of Judaism and still considered themselves to be profoundly Jewish, in spite of their belief that Jewish was the Messiah, the Savior of the World.

One can sense the anguish of both communities in the words Jesus says: “Not one stone will remain upon another, all will be thrown down.” He prophesies wars and insurrections, but cautions his listeners not to imagine that they are signs of his coming. He warns them that they will be persecuted for his sake. These are powerful words that are meant to evoke powerful emotions. Language like this permeates the New Testament and has contributed significantly to those strands of Christianity that look for signs of the second coming.

Of such signs there is no dearth. We live in an age of war and insurrection. Natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, Tsunami, and volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, hurricanes, drought and the like, seem ever more prevalent. We worry about global warming, famine and more. In our context, words like Jesus says in our gospel today contribute to a pervasive mood among many, Christians and non-Christians, that the world as we know it is coming to an end; that global catastrophe may be just around the corner.

Such language may increase our fearfulness and dread about what lies in the future. But Jesus’ words were not intended that way. Luke is using them quite differently, to reassure his readers that in spite of and in the midst of the troubles they were facing, God was acting in history. It is the same message we sang in the canticle, Isaiah’s song, “Surely it is God who saves me, trust in him and be not afraid.” Often such words seem meaningless in light of the enormous problems we face. And those problems may be intensely personal—a medical condition, grief at the loss of a loved one, unemployment. But the problems are also immense—war, climate change, a nation that doesn’t seem on the right track. It may be difficult, impossible to detect God’s working in the world.

This week, someone came to see me in desperation. Her life had fallen apart and she had lost everything. She wasn’t sure she could go on, that there was any reason for going on. It’s a story I occasionally hear; the surprising thing perhaps is that I don’t hear it more often. Feeling God’s presence in her life was impossible; all she could feel was pain and loss—the loss of friends and family, the loss of a future, her life, any hope.

While her situation was extreme, most of us have experienced at least something of that desperation, pain and loss. When we are there, words of encouragement sound empty and meaningless, even God seems to have abandoned us. But that’s not the case. The gospel reader reminds us that God is in the midst of our pain and suffering, God is present in history, and in our lives.

The reading from Isaiah offers a powerful challenge to any hopelessness we might feel, for ourselves or for the world. Isaiah’s vision is completely new—Yahweh will create new heavens and a new earth; Jerusalem will be transformed into a city in which there will be no tears; no infant will die before her time, people will live long lives. Even the natural world will be transformed into a place of peace and serenity. It’s a vision of a creation restored to what God had intended for it; a created world, at peace and harmony. The only hint of something else are the words, and the serpent, he shall eat dust. It’s a reminder of the Garden of Eden, of the curse Yahweh placed there on the serpent. But now the serpent is subjugated, excluded permanently from this new Eden.

This vision may seem far from the world in which we live, but it is a vision we see in faith, a vision of the universe as God intends it, and as God is working it out even now. Our faith proclaims that God is present in this world and in our daily lives, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary. It is a vision that should not only sustain us in our hope, but show us how we need to participate in God’s unfolding love of the world. Amen.