Martha, Mary, and the Better Part: A Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11, Year C)

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Whenever I hear the story of Mary and Martha, I find myself thinking about two of my aunts—my dad’s sisters—who in an earlier age were called old maids. I think especially of my dad’s oldest sister. She was the oldest daughter in a family of 11 children. She only went to high school for a year, because getting there proved to be just too difficult (it was six miles away). She spent her life taking care of her younger siblings. Then as they left the home, she continued to care for her parents, and the one sister and brother who remained on the farm. Of course, she also took care of us—her nieces and nephews when we came to visit. When her mother and brother died in the space of a year and a half, Dorothy suddenly was left without much to do.

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Madison Early Music Festival

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I’ve been enjoying Madison’s musical riches this summer. First there was the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. This week, it’s the Madison Early Music Festival. We attended the concert on Tuesday evening by Liber. The program was entitled Flyleaves and focused on music found in random manuscript pages. Much of the music was transcendent and there were several surprises. There were the usual Marian hymns but also a hymn to the Trinity, and others in praise of Ss. Catherine and Barbara.

The concert ended with an Ite Missa Est from the chapel of King Edward III, c. 1350-1360. It was remarkable and left me wondering if other sections of that mass setting survived.

Last night we heard Benjamin Bagby perform Beowulf. What a delight! It’s been over a decade since I taught the text in Humanities. To be honest, I always found it difficult to get a handle on. Bagby’s performance accompanied by a replica early-medieval harp, was transfixing. Translations just don’t convey the beauty of the language and to hear it, with supertitles above, is to experience something of the otherness of the world of Beowulf. Part of its inaccessibility to me was that it seemed to take place in a world very different than the early medieval world with which I was familiar. Of course that’s because the early medieval world I know is literate, Christian, and Latinate.

The other interesting thing for me last night was discovering how religious and how biblical the text is. Commentators are quick to point out that the poem does not articulate a particularly “Christian” perspective, that it seems careful to reference stories from the early chapters of Genesis, and its God seems shaped by those chapters. The Biblical imagery at times seems to lie lightly on the text as a whole. But there are also clear moments where the author is critical of his characters for their paganism and alludes to the thorny question for later generations of Christians whether their ancestors were damned.

The crisis in Religious Studies

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Well, perhaps crisis is too strong a word, but there is a growing debate over the academic study of religion. It’s not new by any means. In fact the study of religion is fairly young as academic disciplines go. It only really became a department in most liberal arts colleges and universities in the second half of the twentieth century and then only haltingly. It had to struggle against the fields of biblical studies and theology. It struggles still.

The debate has become more intense in the last decade or so as a number of scholars have gone to war against theology in religious studies. This may seem all rather esoteric but at the heart of the debate is the role of “believers” and “belief” in the academic study of religion.

Ivan Strenski is one of those scholars and he makes the case again in an essay on Religion Dispatches. The full essay is here. He is commenting on a conference, organized by a Philosophy Department around Charles Taylor’s work. What Strenski points out is that most of the participants in the conference have little notion of what religion is. Furthermore, there is among scholars of religion, and in the wider academy, considerable uncertainty about what scholars of religion should do. Strenski cites the example of Stanley Fish, who wanted to create a religion department staffed exclusively by scholars who were practitioners. That’s nonsense of course. We don’t expect scholars of literature to be poets, musicologists to be musicians. In fact, most of us would probably assume that objectivity (whatever that is) about one’s field of study is at least a goal for scholars, teachers, and students.

The problem facing Religious Studies is made clear by the other post on Religion Dispatches. It addresses the recent case of an adjunct professor, a Roman Catholic priest, whose salary is paid by an outside Catholic organization. He taught courses at the University of Illinois and came under fire for an email he sent to his students in which he used Natural Moral Law to argue against homosexual activity.

This is precisely what incenses scholars like Strenski. Should a public university support sectarian teaching for credit? We struggled with the same question when I taught at Furman University, which had severed ties with the South Carolina Baptist Convention in the early 1990s. We occasionally received requests from students to grant major credit for courses they took at local seminaries. Typically, we denied it. Still, there were those in the department whose teaching was (and is) overwhelmingly theological.

And I will admit that I often came to class after 2005 wearing a clerical collar. But few students ever complained that I was attempting to indoctrinate them or that I was teaching from an Episcopal perspective. Far from it. Most of them thought I was an atheist.

Still, I do think that Religious Studies, as an academic and humanistic discipline, needs to draw a bright line between what happens in it as a discipline, and the theological and biblical studies that largely function in support of the institutional churches, and in support of the spiritual quests of students.

In fact, it’s not that hard that to negotiate that path. The easiest way is to begin by acknowledging to oneself and to one’s students, that one’s perspective is a product of one’s own faith, intellectual and spiritual development and by definition narrow and not omnipotent.

Women Bishops in England!

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Well, not quite so fast. General Synod today voted to accept the plan for implementation of women bishops. It now goes to the dioceses for comment and input, and will come back before General Synod in 2012, I believe. There is much consternation among conservatives and speculation among some observers that a mass exodus will ensue. Truth be told, all I know about the Church of England is what I read in blogs, so I’m hardly an expert prognosticator.

Much of the news in the past few days has had to do with the defeat of the Archbishops’ amendment, which would have provided for something of a two-track episcopacy, in deference to those who refuse to believe women can be bishops (or priests, for that matter). Many think that the amendment’s defeat, coming on top of the disastrous outcome for the renewed push to appoint Jeffery Johns (gay, but celibate) as Bishop of Southwark, has dealt a body-blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s prestige and authority. I have no idea if that’s true. I do know that the ABC has lost considerable support on this side of the Atlantic.

I find two things surprising. First is that the Archbishops’ Amendment was defeated by votes from the clergy (it had to pass in all three orders–bishops, clergy, and lay). Second, the overwhelming majority by which the overall measure passed: 374 in favor, 14 against, 17 abstentions.

I’m all for trying to accommodate, and indeed retain minority viewpoints within the larger church, but the noes and abstentions amount to less than 10% of the total votes cast. That’s not a minority. All of the years of bending over backward to accommodate oponents of women’s ordination is little more than allowing the tail to wag the dog.

Let’s see how many clergy actually swim the Tiber.

Do This and You will Live: A Sermon for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (proper 10, Year C)

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I don’t know about you, but the parable of the Good Samaritan annoys me. It especially annoys me, since I’ve been ordained a priest. It’s at the back of my mind every time I walk out the door, every time someone stops me to ask me for money. It popped into my mind yesterday, as Corrie and I were walking to the Farmer’s Market, and passed someone sleeping in the grass. As we went by, Corrie asked me, “He is breathing, isn’t he?” We didn’t give it another thought; although I’ll admit, I did look for him when as we made our way home an hour or so later. Continue reading →

Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate

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I finally got around to reading Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. It was published in 2009 and consists of his Terry Lectures on Religion and Science, given at Yale University. In fact, it’s a direct attack on the arguments of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, whom he has renamed “Ditchkins.” Eagleton is quite humorous and uses his wit effectively.

What’s perhaps most effective about the work is that he agrees with many of Ditchkins’ arguments against religion, but nevertheless takes them to task for their “faith” in rationality. Aside from the humor, which occasionally had me bursting out in laughter, there is a serious argument here. Eagleton links Christian theology to Marxism and uses both to level criticism at capitalism, postmodernism, and neoconservatism. He concludes:

The distinction between Ditchkins and those like myself comes down in the end to one between liberal humanism and tragic humanism. There are those like Ditchkins who hold that if we can only shake off a poisonous legacy of myth and superstition, we can be free. This in my own view is itself a myth, though a generous-spirited one. Tragic humanism shares liberal humanism’s vision of the free flourishig of humanity; but it holds that this is possible only by confronting the very worst. (pp. 168-169)

Eagleton, whose own religious convictions remain unclear throughout the work, has some powerful things to say about the New Testament idea of following Jesus:

The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don’t end up dead, it apears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body. Those who do not see this dreadful image of a tortured innocent as the truth of history are likely to adopt some bright-eyed superstition such as the dream of untrammeled human progress…  (pp. 27-28)

The chapter on “Faith and Reason” especially deserves close attention. He works with Charles Taylor, Badiou, other philosophers, as well as Thomas Aquinas, to show that rationality itself requires certain prior commitments.


Corrie’s write-up of Monday night’s party/shelter meal

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WHAT A PARTY!

An elderly gentleman dancing with two little girls as Jim spontaneously conducted the band. Ginny giving a little TLC to a frightened, newly homeless 19 year-old. Neighbors from the Lorraine pitching in, as well as in and out-of-town family and friends (from as far away as Colorado and France!). A fury of egg deviling, tomato slicing and mac n’cheese engineering on one side of the kitchen. Later on the other, a NYC-trained chef, at least 3 Harvard PhDs, and an experienced shelter meal cook and painter extraordinaire trying to keep up with demand as the irrepressible Emma and others delivered plates to some 85 guests from the shelter and off the street. (Expecting around 65, we got “slammed” as they say in the culinary world. But we got everybody well fed in the end.) And, a vision of heaven: two long tables filled with the most exquisite-looking pies imaginable (and tasting even better).

Actually, the whole thing was a vision of heaven or at least, what the Kingdom of God should look like: people from all walks of life coming together to make this thing we call “church” (a free translation of ekklesia could be “party”) happen: feeding as we are fed by God and by the neighbors we serve and with whom we share more in common than we sometimes realize. This is how grace—and Grace—happen.

There are so many to thank. Somewhere around 45 Grace members and community volunteers who at one point or another (and many throughout) helped with set up, cooking, clean up, hosting and serving. And even more of you were present via your donations for the meal. That support not only made this meal possible, but it has helped give some relief our very meager Shelter Meal budget. (Did you know that Sarah and Sparky make the monthly meal—often feeding 150 guests—with a budget of less than $250/month?) There was the vivid presence of our Sunday School children who, with Carrie Scherpelz’s help, made banners of themselves welcoming our guests (see them still in Guild Hall). As always Russ was indispensable and Sheila and Janet kept communication and accounting flowing smoothly. Special thanks to Deb Barber for the extra help with Second Harvest and for providing (along with many of you) all that lemonade. And to Greg and Stephen—who brought heaven out of a “hotter than…” kitchen in a pie shape—well, the swoons and smacks of delight on Monday evening said it all.

And we are so grateful and honored by the help of the following local artists/artisan, farmers, and restaurateurs:

  • Smoky Jon’s Barbecue, especially manager Joel who came in on his day off after the busiest weekend of the year to do the meat for us. Joel wanted to do it because he was once a shelter guest.
  • Tony and Julie Hook of Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point who gave us a generous discount on their award-winning cheeses. And their neighbors Mike and Marcia Bingham of Bingham Horticulture who did the same for their beefsteak tomatoes.
  • And our musicians, some of whom play regularly at the Contra Dances held in this room: Hollie Benton, Roger Diggle, Michael Kuharski, Carol Ormand, and Gregg Sanford, who put the group together. And all present were charmed and inspired by their children Callie and Nellie, who presented a quart jar full of donations they had collected for the Shelter Meal. Before we could even write to thank them, they volunteered to do it again.

The party isn’t over. We are called to make it happen every month. Perhaps we can’t always do it this elaborately. (Or can we?) But we must do it this collaboratively. …

Proper 9 Year C

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July 4, 2010

I’ve never really been a big fan of the 4th of July. I’m not that patriotic in the first place–maybe it’s because I graduated from high school in 1976 and we had to wear red white and blue graduation gowns. Over the years I’ve come to think that the primary purpose of the 4th of July is to provide sales for fireworks vendors. I’ll be curious to hear what it sounds like tonight. In fact, growing up, the main reason I looked forward to Independence Day was that it was a day off of working for my dad building and renovating houses, and on my summer calendar on which each day of work was marked off, it meant I had made it through one full month and only had two more months to go.

It’s always a sensitive issue about whether, or how much, to focus on the national celebration in our worship; but it’s even more curious when Sunday falls on the 4th as it does today. In fact, there’s a temptation to conflate Christianity with patriotism. I’m sure it happens here in Wisconsin, too, but churches in the South would advertise their patriotic celebrations on the Sundays closest to Memorial Day and July 4, promising visits from armed forces color guards, patriotic music, and the like. There was one Baptist Church in Greenville that lined its property from one end to another with a display of American flags.

We won’t have any of that, you can be sure, as long as I’m at Grace, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the traditional rituals of barbecue and fireworks. I certainly will later today. But that’s for then. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with giving thanks to God for all of the blessings bestowed on our nation over the centuries, for the freedoms we enjoy and for the lives we live. But that’s only part of the story. As Christians, we need also to acknowledge that God’s favor is not unique to our country. Moreover, while I’m no fan of the Freedom from Religion folk, I agree wholeheartedly with the ad I saw on the side of a bus this week. It was a quotation from President John Adams (who was a Unitarian, not a Christian, by the way). It said something to the effect that the US was not founded as a Christian nation.

This morning, let’s keep our focus on the scriptures that were put before us. I hope that as you listened to the first lesson, the story of Elisha and Naaman, you were intrigued by the way in which this story deals with questions of nationalism and religious identity—questions that come to the forefront on today’s national holiday.

Aram and Israel were neighbors. Occasionally they cooperated with each other to repel common threats; often, though, they quarreled with one another. The story suggests that Israel was weaker than Aram. The story plays off of ancient near-eastern assumptions about the relationship between religion and the state. Even at this stage in Israel’s history, few people believed that their God, Yahweh, was the ruler of the universe. Instead, their God was their God, while other peoples worshiped other gods. Religion, nationalism, and ethnic identity were all bound together. So Naaman’s arrival in Israel constituted a foreign-policy crisis, evidenced by the terrified response of Israel’s king.

Still, Elisha is able to extricate the king from the quandary by offering to heal Naaman. Naaman comes to him, but instead of doing what prophets do, namely make a big show of their power, Elisha simply instructed Naaman to wash in the Jordan. Naaman’s response is typical of a patriot—aren’t our rivers better than yours? It’s only after further persuasion from his Israelite slave girl that he accedes to Elisha’s commands, washes and is cleansed.

Although the reading this morning ends there, the story doesn’t. Naaman returns to Elisha and proclaims his faith in Israel’s and Elisha’s God: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” He wants to give Elisha a reward, but when Elisha refuses, asks that he might take two wagonfuls of earth from Israel so he can worship God on the holy land of Israel. He also asks pardon in advance for having to worship the gods of Aram with the king of Aram.

The mention of taking dirt to Aram underscores the connection in the ancient near East between the land and the gods. But it’s not just the biblical tradition in which that connection is made. Other religions do the same. Most of the world’s religions have a profound sense that there is some sacred ground. It’s no accident Israel is called the Holy Land by many Christians. It’s also no accident that Muslims, throughout the world, pray in the direction of Mecca, and have as a life goal making the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Even Hinduism has something similar. There’s a story about one of the leading princes of India who was invited to attend Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, celebrating her 60 years as queen. He came, but he had to bring with him his yacht, on which was brought enough soil from India that he would not have to risk impurity by walking on English soil.

This tendency is not just, perhaps not primarily religious, although as a former scholar of religion, it galls me to say that. There is something deeply human about our connection with the land, be it the land of our ancestors, our family property, our nation. We imbue it with sacred significance. We ourselves are rooted to that land, rooted in the land, even if we have never owned a piece of it ourselves.

How very different is the attitude expressed in the gospel today. As we have already seen this summer, Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem. He and his disciples are on the way, on the road, from Galilee to meet their uncertain fate in the capital city. There is a sense of urgency in that mission, in that journey, and in today’s gospel, we see Jesus extend that sense of urgency from himself to his disciples.

In fact, this is one of those scriptural passages over which scholars have had sharp disagreements over the years. Many think that this commissioning of the seventy cannot be traced back to Jesus himself, but rather reflects concerns and strategies of early Christians in the first generations of the faith. There are strong parallels in early Christian literature to the exact instructions Jesus gives his disciples here and they reflect many of the concerns in early Christianity about the lifestyle and support of itinerant missionaries

The instructions Jesus gives are quite austere. He stresses the danger and urgency of the mission: “See, I am sending you like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals and greet no one on the road.”  The seventy are to accept the hospitality of towns and people who receive them, but they are also to dramatically reject those towns that reject them; symbolizing that rejection by shaking the dust from their sandals.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition, isn’t. Naaman, who wants to take some earth from Israel with him when he goes home, so he can worship the God of Israel, and the seventy who are instructed to rid their sandals of earth from those villages that reject them. Both are natural human tendencies and we can imagine ourselves, perhaps, doing something quite similar; in the one case holding on to something that has deep emotional ties for us, in the other, dramatically symbolizing our break with relationships or places that no longer nourish us.

But there’s something else to which we should attend and in a way this leads us back to where we began, reflecting on our national celebration. The sending of the seventy is not just a story about Jesus commissioning the disciples, although it is that. It says something about the way we, as his disciples in the contemporary world, should live. We tend to imagine that what Jesus had to say was meant only for those who walked with him, even the twelve. But for Jesus, for Luke, for the early church, all of those who followed Jesus were his disciples. All were called to make that journey and that idea continues to challenge us to look ahead, not back, to act with urgency. As humans, our very natural tendency is to stay in our comfort zones, to make a life that is safe and secure for ourselves and our families. But Jesus calls us to move out into the world, to take the message of the good news of the kingdom of God into the world, to travel with no purse, no bag, or sandals.

The Spirit blows where it wills

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In February, The Isthmus published an article by Joe Tarr about the Men’s Drop-In Shelter at Grace Church. It was titled “Bleak House” and it aroused considerable anger among supporters of Porchlight and the shelter. It also raised issues about conditions in the shelter. There were already conversations taking place among churches and social service agencies about homelessness in Madison but the article galvanized interest. For example, we have probably had a half-dozen meetings at Grace about the shelter, homelessness, and what our role as a parish is.

Many people lashed out at The Isthmus. Complaints centered around the author’s unfairness and narrow perspective. Looking back, it’s clear to me that the wagons were circled in protection of Porchlight’s work.

The week after the article appeared, I received a call from someone at Epic Systems. They had read the article and wanted to help. I put them in touch with Steve Schooler, executive director of Porchlight. A few weeks later, a group of people from Epic toured the shelter at Grace, as well as other Porchlight facilities. A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a meeting with Porchlight management and Epic to go over their proposal. As The Isthmus reported this week, Epic is proposing to fund and oversee major renovations to the space at Grace.

Often, when things we love, have deep commitment to, and have worked hard for, come under criticism, our tendency is to react viscerally. We want to protect what we love and work for. But almost every project, every institution, every agency, can be improved. Criticism is not just destructive; it can open up new possibilities. Had Joe Tarr not written that article, Epic would not have become involved.

Thanks to him, to Epic, and to everyone who works so hard to help make the shelter a place of refuge for homeless men.

We never know what might emerge from things that on the surface seem negative. As Jesus said in John 3: “The [Spirit] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

Waterboarding was torture–until Bush and Cheney said it wasn’t

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I don’t often blog about things that might seem political, because there are many others who do. Occasionally, however, items come to my attention that demand a theological response. This is one of them. The US’s resort to torture in the wake of 9/11 is outrageous. Of course, the Bush Administration claimed that waterboarding wasn’t torture, and in the wake of that claim the Mainstream Media quit using the word torture. Now a Harvard study backs up what had been anecdotal evidence. The salient quote (from Andrew Sullivan):

Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding. From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27).

By contrast, from 2002‐2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture.

A spokesperson for the  New York Times responded with the following statement:

“As the debate over interrogation of terror suspects grew post-9/11, defenders of the practice (including senior officials of the Bush administration) insisted that it did not constitute torture. When using a word amounts to taking sides in a political dispute, our general practice is to supply the readers with the information to decide for themselves. Thus we describe the practice vividly, and we point out that it is denounced by international covenants and in American tradition as a form of torture.”

The Times spokesman added that outside of the news pages, editorials and columnists “regard waterboarding as torture and believe that it fits all of the moral and legal definitions of torture.” He continued: “So that’s what we call it, which is appropriate for the opinion pages.”

White is white, except when it’s black.

And torture should matter to every Christian for two reasons. First, because our faith is dependent on the act of torture; crucifixion is nothing more than execution by torture, and as I’ve said before, one of the first things Constantine did after legalizing Christianity was to outlaw crucifixion as means of capital punishment. The second reason is because of all of the torture done over the centuries against Christians and in the name of Christianity. It took a very long time, nearly two millennia, for Christians to learn that faith could not be coerced, and that confessions gained under torture were of no use. One of the most chilling moments I ever had as a teacher was in my last semester at Furman. As we were discussing court records of witchcraft interrogations and the outlandish confessions extracted by means of torture, one of the students asked, “Why would anyone use torture?” Why indeed?