We Are Perishing: A Sermon for the Sunday after the #CharlestonMassacre (Proper 7, Year B)

Posted on June 21, 2015 by djgrieser

They were gathered in a safe place, meeting as they had many times before, perhaps countless times, for a bible study. They had come together to study what was probably for most of them, a familiar text. The passage was Mark 4:16-20, just a few verses before the Gospel reading we just heard. They were in a familiar place among people they loved. They were joined this night by a stranger, a newcomer. They welcomed him in and for an hour he sat and listened. At the end of the hour, he shot nine of them dead. Emanuel AME Church was a safe place, a sanctuary no longer.

But then, throughout its history, it had never been a sanctuary The history of the AME church began when African-Americans left the Methodist church because of their treatment by whites. Emanuel Church had been burned down in 1822, after one of its founders, Denmark Vesey, was implicated in a slave rebellion plot. After being rebuilt, was closed in 1834 when Charleston banned African-American church services. In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, Emanuel was re-founded. In the 1960s, it became a center of the Civil Rights movement.

The church is not a sanctuary; it’s not a safe place. After hearing of the shootings, I emailed the pastor of a local AME congregation to offer my support, sympathy, and prayers. As I tried to craft the few sentences, I imagined the fear he and members of his congregation will experience the next time they gather for bible study.

For African-Americans, there is no sanctuary, no safe place. Among the many things I’ve read since the Charleston massacre were words written by newly-ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Church Broderick Greer who wrote,

black people can’t walk to a convenience store, ask for assistance after a car accident, play with a toy gun or study the Bible without the looming reality of the violent white gaze.

I didn’t want to write this sermon. It seems like all I’ve been thinking about, talking about, preaching about for the last months has been racism. Racism has been in the news across the country and in our city and I know most of us would like to turn our attention elsewhere, to take our gaze off the ugly side of American history and society, to put our original sin of racism back in the furthest corners of our hearts and minds, where it’s always lurked.

But we can’t because events like the Charleston Massacre bring it back to light, bring our sin and guilt back to our consciousness and demand we pay attention, demand we address it. We’re gathered here this morning in this place, at an hour that Dr. King called the most segregated hour in American, an hour when Christians across the country are gathered for worship, an hour where, even in Charleston, at Emanuel AME Church, members of that congregation have gathered with the wounds and grief still raw, gathered to worship God, to ask why.

We seek God’s will moving forward, we strive to be the body of Christ, in this place and across the country. But Christ’s body was broken on the cross, as bodies, black bodies have been broken for four hundred years in this country, broken by the chains and whips of slavery, broken by the nooses of lynchings, the hatred and oppression of Jim Crow, and the ongoing racism of White America. The body of Christ is broken in America, broken by us, by our racism, violence, complacency, and privilege.

On this day, in this context, we may cry with Jesus’ disciples, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” This rich, familiar story of Jesus calming the storm from Mark’s gospel speaks to us in our painful situation. Mark’s brief story is full of important detail and symbolism, not least in the very way he places it in his larger narrative. Jesus has just been teaching his disciples and the crowd, telling them parables. In Mark, this is Jesus’ only extensive use of parables. The crowd listening was so large that Jesus taught from a boat in the lake. Now at the end of the day, Jesus tells his disciples to cast off and cross the lake. It’s odd, really, if you think about it, that they would undertake this lake crossing in the evening. They are crossing what could easily became a dangerous lake, and they will come into foreign, unknown territory on the other side, Gentile territory, where they will encounter a man possessed with demons.

Jesus decides to take a nap in the stern, while the disciples, presumably, do the hard work of rowing or sailing the boat. A storm comes up. One of the things that strikes me in Mark’s version of this story is how he depicts Jesus—sleeping on a cushion in the midst of a mighty storm. Mark presents us with an image of Jesus at ease, comfortable, resting, while all around him is struggle, noise, and tumult. Jesus sleeps while the boat is being swamped by the waves. Only then, as all looks lost, do the disciples come and wake him, asking him the question, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

Awakened, Jesus says simply, “Peace be still.” And as dead calm comes upon the lake, Jesus asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” This is the first mention of the disciples’ fear in the story and it invites us to wonder whether their fear was caused by the storm, or by the fact that Jesus calmed it. Their final question, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

Was it the storm that caused their fear, or was it that Jesus brought the storm to an end? Which power is more frightening, more awesome, the power of a storm or the power of the one who can calm the storm?

Our tendency is to focus on the miraculous in this story, on Jesus’ power to calm a storm. On one level, it’s a story like other miracle stories in Mark’s gospel. Indeed, the word Mark uses for Jesus’ actions in calming the storm—he rebuked it—is the very same word Mark used of Jesus in the very first miracle story he records, when Jesus casts out the unclean spirit from a man in chapter 1.

While we’re tempted to focus on the power displayed in these miracles, seeing them as evidence of Jesus’ divine nature and identity, Mark uses them for a rather different purpose. This story ends with the question, “Who is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?” Even after this display of Jesus’ power, the disciples are uncertain of Jesus’ identity.

In fact, it’s interesting that the word “disciple” is used only once in this story, at the very beginning, in Jesus’ instructions to them to go to the other side. They’re in the boat with him, but it’s not at all apparent that they really know who he is, or who they are in relation to him—the only clue is that they call him “Teacher” (In Matthew’s version of the same story, they address him as “Lord.”)

And here, I think, is where we can find help for us in our situation. Look at those disciples in the boat. We look to our faith, our relationship with Jesus, the church, for solace, support, help in time of need, and yes, sanctuary. We want the church to be a safe place in the midst of the storms of life. Of course, some times it is, and needs to be. Some times, we need to recognize that the places we think are sanctuaries, places that are sanctuaries, safe places for us, are places of danger and violence, fear and foreboding for others. Sometimes, making our safe places safe for others, means that we need to leave our comfort zones or protective shells.

But even if we need those safe places, they aren’t necessarily the places to which Jesus is calling us. Other times, perhaps most of the time, Jesus is calling us forward across the lake, into new territory. To be his disciples means following him into those places of discomfort and fear.

Can you imagine what must be going through the hearts and minds of the folks gathered at Emanuel AME church in Charleston this morning, as they grieve, and fear. Can you imagine what it must be like for African-American Christians in this city and across the country as they gather for worship—as they grieve and fear? How many of them are asking, “Teacher, do you not know that we are perishing?”

And we, the white church, white America, do we even know that we are perishing?

We must perish. Our complacency and privilege must perish. We must tear down the walls that separate us from our brothers and sisters. Only then can we cross over with them into new territory where racism no longer exists, where justice reigns, and there is peace.

South Carolina and America

Posted on June 20, 2015 by djgrieser

I lived in South Carolina for ten years, moving there just as the debate over the Confederate flag was reaching fever pitch. Although I don’t know Charleston well, the massacre at Emanuel AME Church hit home to me in unexpected ways. From social media, I learned that friends and colleagues had studied with Rev. Pinckney at Lutheran Southern Theological Seminary. I also read about the bomb scare at Allen AME Church in Greenville on Thursday. Greenville was the city where I worked for ten years.

I’ve also been reading a great deal about the continuing presence of the confederate flag on the grounds of South Carolina’s Capitol and the renewed effort to remove it. Over my years in the South, I developed a visceral fear of it–avoiding people and places where it was displayed. But the flag is only the most visible symbol of a deeper problem. As John Stewart mentioned in the monologue I linked to in a previous post, in the South, African-Americans are forced to drive on streets named for Confederate Generals. I drove on one such street everyday–Wade Hampton Boulevard in Greenville. It’s named after the Confederate General and first white governor of South Carolina after reconstruction. Indeed, Hampton helped to orchestrate the white takeover of the state through his involvement with the paramilitary group the Redshirts. There is also, by the way, Wade Hampton High School. The familiarity and ubiquity of the name helped to obscure the reality of who he was and what he’d done.

I remember standing in line at the polls on Election Day in 2008, less than a mile from that school. The electorate there was probably 75%or 80% white, mostly working class. We came dressed as we were, for work, or for errands, many in shorts and T-shirts. The whites, most of them, seemed apprehensive. The blacks who came brought their whole families. There were grandparents with their grandchildren, wanting them to witness history. There was a young man, 18 or 19 years old, casting his first vote. He wore a suit and tie. Just as one could sense the apprehension among any of the whites, the hope of the African-Americans was palpable. They saw, the older ones the first time in many years, for the younger, for the first time ever, the possibility of a different future, a different nation, a different state.

One of the difficult things for northerners to understand is the complicated way racism plays out in the South. I don’t fully understand it, can’t hope to but I do know that there’s the possibility today for a real reckoning with the legacy and present reality of racism in South Carolina. But if that reckoning only takes place in the context of a debate over the confederate flag, it will fail. It will fail to address the racism that is at the heart of the state and the region. It will fail to address 450 years of violent subjugation of African-Americans of which the Charleston Massacre is only the most recent incident.

If there’s a a national focus on what’s wrong with South Carolina, we will escape the necessary reckoning with our national sin of racism. For racism isn’t a regional problem. It’s a national one. There may be subtle differences between South and North but racism pervades our nation. We in the North have been willing to say too often that it’s a problem for the South or that the work of undoing it is done–whether with victory in the Civil War, or Reconstruction, or the Civil Rights Movement. Unfortunately, racism is too pervasive, too insidious, to be undone by a single act or movement.

From my friend, the Rev. Michael Sullivan: We are all South Carolina

But to think that South Carolina has the monopoly on racism and the institutionalized, unacknowledged, systemic degradation of humanity is a part of our American problem.

Jack Hitt (a native of Charleston), on The New Yorker blog, offers some additional historical background.

From Tiffany Stanley (Religion and Politics), who grew up in South Carolina:

History pervades Charleston, but publicly it often offers a selective memory. The city and the state have been slow to reckon with their legacies. Just off the coast, the first shots of the Civil War rang out. By some estimates, nearly half of all Africans who were brought to America during the slave trade entered through the ports of Charleston and its surrounding areas. The legacy of racism, of Jim Crow, and of slavery’s brutality mark each cobblestone step and grand home that still stand. And yet, visitors are too often given a sanitized image of the Old South—genteel accents, hoop skirts, and sweetgrass baskets.

Of course, the target of that sanitized history is not just Charlestonians. It’s us. It’s all of those tourists from other parts of the country and the world who come to visit. I remember taking a tour of a a plantation house in Virginia some years ago, during which the tour guide kept referring to the “servants.” Slavery, the labor and people that made that house and lifestyle possible, had been completely erased from the story.

Naming the Horror–Racism

Posted on June 19, 2015 by djgrieser

This unimaginable horror–perpetrated by someone so steeped in racism and racial hatred that he identified with South African apartheid as well as the Confederate States of America–perpetrated by someone who killed nine people after sitting with them and praying with them for an hour …

This horrific act has opened the wound that lays bare the racism at the heart and soul of America, a racism that expresses itself in ways large and small, from little daily indignities to state-sanctioned murder, that makes African-Americans fear for their lives whether they are running an errand to a convenience store, playing in a park, or praying in a church.

Words cannot express the horror, not only the horror of these acts that take place on a continual, relentless basis, but the horror that is at the heart of our nation, our society. But words are what we have, and we have people who can give expression to the horror at the heart of our nation, and the horror that it is to live as an African-American in this nation.

Among those words that have moved me in the past two days:

from Osagyefu Sekou:

They were killed because of their love. They welcomed a stranger and gave him a home as he plotted their demise. This is the best of black church — unconditional love. To love in the face of white supremacy is nothing less than a revolutionary act.

From Stacia l. Brown:

When we doubt, the friends who believe alongside us are often the light that keep us drawing nigh, lest we float away. We hold onto them when horror rushes in. We remind them, “Whatever you do, don’t let go of the Word.” In that moment, they are the Word in motion. And if we must die, for welcoming the troubled white supremacist 21-year-old whose boyish face looks as innocent as the brain behind it is wicked, if we must die for praying alongside him, if we must continue waging a war as unfathomable as it is unseen, there is no one better to be with in the end, than the people who kept us feeling closest to God when we felt farthest away.

From Broderick Greer:

There is nothing isolated about the violence exacted upon black people by law enforcement officers, vigilantes or terrorists. When police officers or extrajudicial neighborhood watchmen shoot dead descendants of this nation’s formerly enslaved population, they are recommitting themselves to the white American tradition of squashing out black life at every juncture possible. Over the past three years alone, I’ve learned that – in the social economy of white American supremacy – black people can’t walk to a convenience store, ask for assistance after a car accident, play with a toy gun or study the Bible without the looming reality of the violent white gaze.

and Jon Stewart:

“I honestly have nothing other than sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though that by acknowledging it — by staring into — we still won’t do jack shit.”

Laudato Si–some extracts from Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment

Posted on June 18, 2015 by djgrieser

Some things I extracted while reading (the entire document is here). America has lots of commentary.

Paragraph 2:

This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.

Quoting Patriarch Bartholomew:

As Christians, we are also called “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours on a global scale. It is our humble

conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet”.

Reflecting on the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi:

If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.

The effects of climate change on the poor (paragraph 25):

Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited. For example, changes in climate, to which animals and plants cannot adapt, lead them to migrate; this in turn affects the livelihood of the poor, who are then forced to leave their homes, with great uncertainty for their future and that of their children. There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation.

on the loss of biodiversity (paragraph 33):

Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give

glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.

on the limits of communication technology (paragraph 47:

True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature. Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences.

From paragraph 49:

Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Sister Earth cries out (paragraph 53):

These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness. The problem is that we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis.

The Light offered by faith (paragraph 63):

Given the complexity of the ecological crisis and its multiple causes, we need to realize that the solutions will not emerge from just one way of interpreting and transforming reality. Respect must also be shown for the various cultural riches of different peoples, their art and poetry, their interior life and spirituality. If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of the sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out, and that includes religion and the language particular to it.

On the biblical understanding of creation (paragraph 66):

The creation accounts in the book of Genesis contain, in their own symbolic and narrative language, profound teachings about human existence and its historical reality. They suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbour and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin. The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations. This in turn distorted our mandate to “have dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), to “till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). As a result, the originally harmonious relationship between human beings and nature became conflictual (cf. Gen 3:17-19).

Paragraph 76:

In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the word “creation” has a broader meaning than “nature”, for it has to do with God’s loving plan in which every creature has its own value and significance. Nature is usually seen as a system which can be studied, understood and controlled, whereas creation can only be understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of the Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which calls us together into universal communion.

Creation is of the order of love (paragraph 77):

The universe did not emerge as the result of arbitrary omnipotence, a show of force or a desire for self-assertion. Creation is of the order of love. God’s love is the fundamental moving force in all created things: “For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it” (Wis 11:24). Every creature is thus the object of the Father’s tenderness, who gives it its place in the world. Even the fleeting life of the least of beings is the object of his love, and in its few seconds of existence, God enfolds it with his affection.

The ultimate destiny of the universe (paragraph 83):

The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator.

God’s caress (paragraph 84):

The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God.

A Universal Communion (paragraph 94):

A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings. It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking, unconcerned about the poor, or undertaking to destroy another human being deemed unwanted.

`The Gaze of Christ (paragraph 99):

From the beginning of the world, but particularly through the incarnation, the mystery of Christ is at work in a hidden manner in the natural world as a whole, without thereby impinging on its autonomy.

Technology: Creativity and Power (paragraph 102):

Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.

The Crisis and Effects of Modern Anthropocentrism (paragraph 118):

But one cannot prescind from humanity. There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology.

Paragraph 119:

Christian thought sees human beings as possessing a particular dignity above other creatures; it thus inculcates esteem for each person and respect for others. Our openness to others, each of whom is a “thou” capable of knowing, loving and entering into dialogue, remains the source of our nobility as human persons. A correct relationship with the created world demands that we not weaken this social dimension of openness to others, much less the transcendent dimension of our openness to the “Thou” of God. Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than romantic individualism dressed up in ecological garb, locking us into a stifling immanence.

Practical Relativism (paragraph 123):

When human beings place themselves at the centre, they give absolute priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative. Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human power, the rise of a relativism which sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate interests. There is a logic in all this whereby different attitudes can feed on one another, leading to environmental degradation and social decay.

The need to protect employment (paragraph 128):

We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. Yet the orientation of the economy has favoured a kind of technological progress in which the costs of production are reduced by laying off workers and replacing them with machines.

The Common Good (paragraph 157):

Underlying the principle of the common good is respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his or her integral development. It has also to do with the overall welfare of society and the development of a variety of intermediate groups, applying the principle of subsidiarity. Outstanding among those groups is the family, as the basic cell of society. Finally, the common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues. Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good.

The myopia of power politics: (paragraph 178):

A politics concerned with immediate results, supported by consumerist sectors of the population, is driven to produce short-term growth. In response to electoral interests, governments are reluctant to upset the public with measures which could affect the level of consumption or create risks for foreign investment. The myopia of power politics delays the inclusion of a farsighted environmental agenda within the overall agenda of governments. Thus we forget that “time is greater than space”,[130] that we are always more effective when we generate processes rather than holding on to positions of power. True statecraft is manifest when, in difficult times, we uphold high principles and think of the long-term common good. Political powers do not find it easy to assume this duty in the work of nation-building.

Rejecting a magical conception of the market: (paragraph 190):

Once more, we need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human intervention. Moreover, biodiversity is considered at most a deposit of economic resources available for exploitation, with no serious thought for the real value of things, their significance for persons and cultures, or the concerns and needs of the poor.

Redefining our notion of progress (paragraph 194):

Put simply, it is a matter of redefining our notion of progress. A technological and economic development which does not leave in its wake a better world and an integrally higher quality of life cannot be considered progress. Frequently, in fact, people’s quality of life actually diminishes – by the deterioration of the environment, the low quality of food or the depletion of resources – in the midst of economic growth. In this context, talk of sustainable growth usually becomes a way of distracting attention and offering excuses. It absorbs the language and values of ecology into the categories of finance and technocracy, and the social and environmental responsibility of businesses often gets reduced to a series of marketing and image-enhancing measures.

compulsive consumerism (paragraph 203):

Compulsive consumerism is one example of how the techno economic paradigm affects individuals. … This paradigm leads people to believe that they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume. But those really free are the minority who wield economic and financial power. Amid this confusion, postmodern humanity has not yet achieved a new self-awareness capable of offering guidance and direction, and this lack of identity is a source of anxiety. We have too many means and only a few insubstantial ends.

paragraph 204:

When people become self-centred and self enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume. It becomes almost impossible to accept the limits imposed by reality. In this horizon, a genuine sense of the common good also disappears. As these attitudes become more widespread, social norms are respected only to the extent that they do not clash with personal needs.

Overcoming individualism (paragraph 208):

We are always capable of going out of ourselves towards the other. Unless we do this, other creatures will not be recognized for their true worth; we are unconcerned about caring for things for the sake of others; we fail to set limits on ourselves in order to avoid the suffering of others or the deterioration of our surroundings. Disinterested concern for others, and the rejection of every form of self-centeredness and self-absorption, are essential if we truly wish to care for our brothers and sisters and for the natural environment. These attitudes also attune us to the moral imperative of assessing the impact of our every action and personal decision on the world around us. If we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society.

Environmental Education (paragraph 211):

Only by cultivating sound virtues will people be able to make a selfless ecological commitment. A person who could afford to spend and consume more but regularly uses less eating and wears warmer clothes, shows the kind of convictions and attitudes which help to protect the environment. There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions, and it is wonderful how education can bring about real changes in lifestyle.

paragraph 212:

We must not think that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknown to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread. Furthermore, such actions can restore our sense of self-esteem; they can enable us to live more fully and to feel that life on earth is worthwhile.

Ecological Conversion (paragraph 217):

the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion. It must be said that some committed and prayerful Christians, with the excuse of realism and pragmatism, tend to ridicule expressions of concern for the environment. Others are passive; they choose not to change their habits and thus become inconsistent. So what they all need is an “ecological conversion”, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.

A community conversion (paragraph 220):

This conversion calls for a number of attitudes which together foster a spirit of generous care, full of tenderness. First, it entails gratitude and gratuitousness, a recognition that the world is God’s loving gift, and that we are called quietly to imitate his generosity in self-sacrifice and good works … It also entails a loving awareness that we are not disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in a splendid universal communion. As believers, we do not look at the world from without but from within, conscious of the bonds with which the Father has linked us to all beings.

Christian Spirituality I(paragraph 222):

Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption. We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that “less is more”. A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment. To be serenely present to each reality, however small it may be, opens us to much greater horizons of understanding and personal fulfilment. Christian spirituality proposes a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little. It is a return to that simplicity which allows us to stop and appreciate the small things, to be grateful for the opportunities which life affords us, to be spiritually detached from what we possess, and not to succumb to sadness for what we lack. This implies avoiding the dynamic of dominion and the mere accumulation of pleasures.

Peace (paragraph 225):

An adequate understanding of spirituality consists in filling out what we mean by peace, which is much more than the absence of war. Inner peace is closely related to care for ecology and for the common good because, lived out authentically, it is reflected in a balanced lifestyle together with a capacity for wonder which takes us to a deeper understanding of life. Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amid constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, or the cult of appearances?

paragraph 226:

We are speaking of an attitude of the heart, one which approaches life with serene attentiveness, which is capable of being fully present to someone without thinking of what comes next, which accepts each moment as a gift from God to be lived to the full.

civic and political love (paragraph 231):

Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world. Love for society and commitment to the common good are outstanding expressions of a charity which affects not only relationships between individuals but also “macro-relationships, social, economic and political ones” … social love moves us to devise larger strategies to halt environmental degradation and to encourage a “culture of care” which permeates all of society. When we feel that God is calling us to intervene with others in these social dynamics, we should realize that this too is part of our spirituality, which is an exercise of charity and, as such, matures and sanctifies us.

discovering God in all things (paragraph 233):

The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.

The Sacraments (paragraph 235):

The Sacraments are a privileged way in which nature is taken up by God to become a means of mediating supernatural life. Through our worship of God, we are invited to embrace the world on a different plane. Water, oil, fire and colours are taken up in all their symbolic power and incorporated in our act of praise. The hand that blesses is an instrument of God’s love and a reflection of the closeness of Jesus Christ, who came to accompany us on the journey of life.

The Sabbath (paragraph 237):

On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, the “first day” of the new creation, whose first fruits are the Lord’s risen humanity, the pledge of the final transfiguration of all created reality. It also proclaims “man’s eternal rest in God”.[168] In this way, Christian spirituality incorporates the value of relaxation and festivity. We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity. Rather, it is another way of working, which forms part of our very essence. It protects human action from becoming empty activism; it also prevents that unfettered greed and sense of isolation which make us seek personal gain to the detriment of all else.

The Trinity (paragraph 238):

The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships. This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfilment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.

read it all here:

General Convention 2015

Posted on June 16, 2015 by djgrieser

It’s less than two weeks away. I’ve been surprisingly disengaged from the whole thing, probably because of everything that’s going on in Madison and at Grace but I’m sure I’ll be paying close attention to the proceedings. It’s taking place against the backdrop of fast-paced and disorienting cultural change. It’s quite possible that the Supreme Court will make public its ruling on same sex marriage while General Convention is in session. But over everything looms the reality of enormous change in how Americans relate to religion and to religious institutions. The big news on the religion front this week will be Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment and I wonder whether its publication will have any impact on General Convention. I hope to have more to say about thoese issues in the next couple of days, but for now, I thought that I should at least get some of the most important resources out to readers of this blog (and to folks at Grace) who might otherwise not have access to them.

It will be interesting to see whether the Episcopal Church can begin to reshape itself for the new world in which we live.

General Convention’s Website is here.

Information about the nominees for Presiding Bishop is here.

The Blue Book contains all of the legislation and reports of the various interim bodies

Blogs to follow:

Acts 8 Moment

Scott Gunn

The Diocese of Milwaukee’s deputation has its own website and Facebook page

In addition to electing a new Presiding Bishop, among the most important issues under discussion will have to do with restructuring the church and marriage (including same-sex blessings).

Give us a King! A Sermon for Proper 5, Year B, 2015

Posted on June 7, 2015 by djgrieser

As we enter the long season after Pentecost, our scripture readings shift gears. After spending the season of Easter, and in fact the last several Sundays of Lent as well, in the gospel of John, we are back to the gospel of Mark which we will focus on for the rest of the liturgical year, except for a brief foray during August back to John. The lectionary gives us alternatives for the Hebrew Bible reading. One is a series of readings that were selected because they relate in some way to the gospel reading. The other choice, the one we’ll be following this summer, is a semi-continuous reading. This year, in the second year of the lectionary cycle, this track of readings focuses on stories from the period of the monarchy. Continue reading →

Trinity and Beloved Community: A Sermon for Trinity Sunday, 2015

Posted on May 31, 2015 by djgrieser

On Friday evening, Corrie and I attended the gathering at the Alliant Center where the Rev. Alex Gee and others introduced “Our Madison Plan” the culmination of more than a year’s work of conversation, research, and planning in the effort to address the racial disparities in Madison and Dane County. As I stood listening in the packed room, I reflected on the challenges that we face as a community. It’s not just race and class that divide us; it’s not just the wide disparities in opportunity and educational achievement. As Rev. Gee pointed out, there is a deep cultural challenge that we face. Although he was addressing the challenges in the African-American community, his analysis extends to American society in general. Continue reading →

The Book of Common Prayer

Posted on May 27, 2015 by djgrieser

The Commemoration of the First Book of Common Prayer is observed on “a weekday after Pentecost.” In our calendar this year, that means it is observed today (Monday was the Venerable Bede, yesterday, Augustine of Canterbury. The collect for this day reads:

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your Church: Make us always thankful for this heritage; and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

From Alan Jacobs, The Book of Common Prayer, A Biography:

But a religious book is limited in its ability to learn because it is concerned to teach; and a prayer book especially wants its teaching to be enacted, not just to be absorbed. It cannot live unles we say its words in our voices. It can learn with us, but only if we consent to learn from it. There are relatively few, now, who give that consent to the Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer’s book, and its direct successors will always be acknowledged as historical documents of the first order, and masterpieces of English prose, but this is not what they want or mean to be. Their goal–now as in 1549–is to be living words in the mouths of those who have a living faith (p. 194)

I said this while reflecting on Jaobs’ book a couple of years ago:

As I was reading, I was reminded again of the role the Book of Common Prayer has played in my own spiritual journey. It was the means of my conversion to Anglicanism and it continues to shape my spirituality and my religious experience. Its language and prayers have become my own. In other words, if Cranmer’s goal in 1549 was to make the Book of Common Prayer “living words in the mouths of those who have a living faith,” it still holds that power. I see that same power in those among who I minister as well. I sometimes think that liturgical reformers and those who would do away with the BCP altogether lack faith in its transformational power and lack faith too, in the power of people to re-appropriate its language and imagery to meet their particular needs and contexts.

I’m struck by the last couple of sentences considering the rumblings going through the church right now about Prayer Book revision as well as the various resolutions the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music have submitted to General Convention (You can read incisive commentary on those revisions from Scott Gunn here). It seems to me that before undertaking such changes, whether tinkering around the edges or full-scale revision, we need to think carefully and creatively about the role of the Book of Common Prayer in our common life in the twenty-first century.

On the one hand, there’s a tendency to fetishize the BCP (whether the 1662, the 1928, or I suppose, even the 1979), to regard a particular version as normative for all time. On the other hand, there’s another tendency to want to revise it regularly. At the same time, it’s important to recognize that as the institutional church collapses, the things that bind it together may lose their power as well. That is true of the Book of Common Prayer. Can its language, disciplines, and rituals continue to shape people when they no longer experience it as a “book?” And what might its demise mean for Anglicanism as a living tradition within Christianity?

It’s not the Birthday of the Church! A Sermon for Pentecost, 2015

Posted on May 25, 2015 by djgrieser

One of the things that most annoys me about contemporary popular Christianity is the domestication of our practices, or really the infantilization of them. In our attempt to help outsiders make sense of what we do and what we believe, we have a tendency to dumb things down. It may also be that language and imagery developed to help children understand our worship, practices, and doctrine have become so ingrained that as adults we reach to them as well. Continue reading →

So, Back to Square 1? Or Capitol Square?

Posted on May 20, 2015 by djgrieser

Reports are that the courts have ruled in favor of the Town of Madison in its dispute with Dane County over locating a Day Resource Center on Martin St. Will the County appeal?

In any case, it’s almost June and we’ve got five months to come up with a solution for next winter. How long has this been going on?

Let’s see if the city and county can bury the hatchet, work with homeless advocates and service providers and come up with a permanent solution for a Homeless Day Resource Center in the downtown .

Preaching Grace on the Square

Scripture, Tradition, Theology, Random Thoughts from Capitol Square in Madison, WI