Author Archives: djgrieser

Unknown's avatar

About djgrieser

I have been Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, WI since 2009. I'm passionate about Jesus Christ and about connecting our faith and tradition with 21st century culture. I'm also very active in advocating for our homeless neighbors.

Two Processions

Posted on by
Reply

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”

Posted on by
Reply

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”

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Extravagant Gestures: A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Music to accompany writing a sermon on the Fifth Sunday of Lent

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Radical Orthodoxy; or the search for a theological voice

Posted on by
Reply

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.

The lives and actions of bishops.

Posted on by
Reply

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.

The Prodigal Son–A Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

“Welcome, Wanderer, Welcome”

Posted on by
Reply

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