Entertaining Angels and Strangers: A Sermon for Proper 11, Year C, July 21, 2013

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Proper 11, Year C

July 21, 2013

Take a minute. Look around the pews a minute. If you’re a visitor this morning, never been here before, were you welcomed? Did anyone greet you, ask your name, thank you for coming? If you’ve been coming a few months or even years, do you know the names of the people sitting next to you in the pews? If you’re a long time member, is there someone you’ve seen before, perhaps many times, but don’t know their names or anything about them? Well, here’s your opportunity. Take a few minutes—don’t start chatting with someone you know, start chatting with someone you don’t know. Continue reading →

The rose-colored glasses of progressive Christians

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Earlier this week, my twitter and facebook feeds were awash with likes, shares, and retweets of an article in which the author urged mainline churches (especially, presumably, Episcopalians) not to abandon traditional forms of worship to accommodate young adults. She urged us to change wisely.

Towards the end of the week, there was a similar response to a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute that claims there are more religious progressives (23%) among the millennial generation than religious conservatives (17%, with 22% unaffiliated). Of those aged 67-88, only 12% are progressive while 47% are conservative.

In the midst of a dominant narrative of long-term decline among mainline Christianity, such stories reassure us that we’re on the right track. We don’t have to do anything about our liturgy or worship to adapt to the tastes of a changing culture. In fact, the culture is changing in our direction–if the trend continues, in a few decades there will be more progressive Christians than conservative Christians!

But a closer look at the numbers tells a different story. Among those classified in the survey as “religious progressives” are people “who are unaffiliated with a religious tradition but claim religion is at least somewhat important in their lives” (18% of the overall total) as well as non-Christians (13%). Both of the latter are no doubt going to continue to grow in the coming decades as the number of affiliated Christians continues to drop. If the designers of the survey had divided things up a little differently and defined the religiously unaffiliated as non-religious, the percentages would have been quite different.

And the same is true of the lovely piece proclaiming the appeal of traditional liturgy to young adults. For every article that makes such claims, there are probably a thousand or ten thousand stories of young people who find our liturgy and institutional life stultifying and meaningless. And Dilley herself pointed to what is a distinct possibility:

Even so, your church (and your denomination) might die. My generation and those following might take it apart, brick by brick, absence by absence.

Grasping at straws isn’t the answer. Facing the future and creatively responding to its possibilities and challenges, is.

Sitting at Jesus’ feet: Model Discipleship in Luke. Lectionary Reflections for Proper 11, Year C.

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This week’s lessons are here.

A brief story from the gospel this week but one that has carried a great deal of freight in the History of Christianity. In recent decades, it’s been a particular focus of feminist interpretation and reflection. In the tradition, Martha and Mary have stood as ideal types for the active and contemplative life, or the contrast between social activism and single-minded attention on the love of God. It’s hard for us to read or hear this passage without projecting Mary and Martha on to our own experience, and ask our selves whether we are a “Mary” or a “Martha.” If we’re a “Martha,” should we stop and try to be more like “Mary?”

I’m reading this passage in light of an earlier incident in Luke’s gospel that caught my attention. After Jesus cast the demons out of the Gerasene demoniac, the villagers found him “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” (Lk 8:35)  In this case, the healed man begged Jesus to allow him to go with him, but Jesus told him to go home and tell people what God had done for him.

Like him, Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet. Jesus commends her behavior to Martha, declaring, “she has chosen the better part.” We don’t see either Mary or Martha following Jesus but it’s important that Martha is described performing “diakonia,” service, in our translation that was the “many tasks” that distracted her. In Acts 6, a similar dynamic can be seen. The twelve complain, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables” (Acts 6:2). As a result, seven deacons were appointed to distribute food to the poor and widows. Martha is the deacon, Mary the servant of the word; but in our story, Martha has a voice, Mary remains silent (like other women in Luke and Acts), while Martha is silenced by the Lord (as Paul in Acts 8 silenced the slave girl).

Luke wants female disciples to be silent and sit at Jesus’ feet. He even tries to downplay the importance of their diakonia (service) as hosts, founders, maintainers of house churches in Acts. This story may partly be a projection of that reality and the tension that surrounded it from the Early Church back on to Jesus’ own ministry.

In the Gospel of John, Mary and Martha appear as the sisters of Lazarus. They are friends of Jesus. In John, Martha is not silenced. She makes one of the great Christological statements, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Do these different stories offer insight into the way Martha and Mary were understood in the first decades of Christianity? Do they provide evidence of Martha not just as a disciple but as a deacon (a minister of hospitality and the Eucharist) but also as a preacher of the Gospel? And did Luke try to suppress that tradition?

Seeing with the eyes of Christ: A sermon for Proper 10, Year C

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A few years ago, I was on my way to celebrate at the midweek service at the parish church I was then serving. I was running late, probably because I was coming from another commitment at my other job. St. James is on top of Piney Mountain, which is actually something of a hill, and the road that leads to it, like most roads in hilly territory, was curvy and windy. Continue reading →

MLK on the Good Samaritan and fixing the Jericho Road

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Dr. King told Andrew Young then, “….Andy, I think the Good Samaritan is a great individual. I of course, like and respect the Good Samaritan….but I don’t want to be a Good Samaritan.”

Dr. King continued, “…you see Andy, I am tired of picking up people along the Jericho Road. I am tired of seeing people battered and bruised and bloody, injured and jumped on, along the Jericho Roads of life. This road is dangerous. I don’t want to pick up anyone else, along this Jericho Road; I want to fix… the Jericho Road. I want to pave the Jericho Road, add street lights to the Jericho Road; make the Jericho Road safe (for passage) by everybody….”

Not all atheists are created equal

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Salon reports on a new study that reveals the complexity within the general grouping of “atheists and non-believers.” Most interesting for church folk is this:

6. Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. While you might think the anti-theist is the non-believer type that scares Christians the most, it turns out that it may very well be the Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. This group, making up 12.5 percent of atheists, doesn’t really believe in the supernatural, but they do believe in the community aspects of their religious tradition enough to continue participating. We’re not just talking about atheists who happen to have a Christmas tree, but who tend to align themselves with a religious tradition even while professing no belief. “Such participation may be related to an ethnic identity (e.g. Jewish),” explain researchers, “or the perceived utility of such practices in making the individual a better person.”

Huffington Post also reports on the study. The study itself can be found here.

Its description of the “Ritual Atheist/Agnostic” includes this observation:

The Ritual Atheist/Agnostic individual perceives ceremonies and rituals as producing personal meaning within life. This meaning can be an artistic or cultural appreciation of human systems of meaning while knowing there is no higher reality other than the observable reality of the mundane world. In some cases, these individuals may identify strongly with religious traditions as a matter of cultural identity and even take an active participation in religious rituals.

This is hardly a new phenomenon but it’s still worth pondering the significance of it for matters like church growth and congregational development, not to mention evangelism.

Benedict of Nursia, 547, on prayer

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Today is the feast day of St. Benedict of Nursia, the author of the Rule that has shaped Western monasticism for nearly fifteen hundred years (to call him the “founder” of the Benedictine order is somewhat misleading). While looking for something from the Rule to read for our mid-week Eucharist, I came across the following (from ch. 20, “On Reverence in Prayer”):

Whenever we want to ask some favor of a powerful man, we do it humbly and respectfully, for fear of presumption. How much more important, then, to lay our petitions before the Lord God of all things with the utmost humility and sincere devotion. We must know that God regards our purity of heart and tears of compunction, not our many words. Prayer should therefore be short and pure, unless perhaps it is prolonged under the inspiration of divine grace.

Madison Episcopal History, Part 1

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Later this month, we’ll be celebrating the 175th anniversary of the first Episcopal worship service in Madison, WI. As I was looking through old prayer books for hymns that might be suitable, I came across the following:

1 When, Lord, to this our western land,
Led by Thy providential hand,
Our wandering fathers came,
Their ancient homes, their friends in youth,
Sent forth the heralds of Thy truth,
To keep them in Thy Name.

2 Then, through our solitary coast,
The desert features soon were lost;
Thy temples there arose;
Our shores, as culture made them fair,
Were hallowed by Thy rites, by prayer,
And blossomed as the rose.

3 And O may we repay this debt
to regions solitary yet
Within our spreading land:
There, brethren, from our common home,
Still westward like our fathers, roam;
Still guided by Thy hand.

4 Saviour, we own this debt of love:
O shed Thy Spirit from above,
To move each Christian breast;
Till heralds shall Thy truth proclaim,
And temples rise to fix Thy Name,
Through all our desert west.

It was written by Henry Ustick Onderdonk (1789-1858), Bishop of Pennsylvania and a member of the committee that prepared the first collection of hymns for the American Book of Common Prayer. In the Prayer Book I am using, it was appears with the instruction, “For Missions to the new settlements in the United States.”

Accounts of that first service include the fact that apparently no one in attendance was able to carry a tune, so they decided not to sing hymns. But the one that appears above might have been appropriate for the occasion, although “our desert west” hardly describes Madison in 1839. It was surrounded then as now by lakes.

Reading the Good Samaritan in the Context of Luke’s Gospel: Lectionary Reflection on Proper 10, Year C

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This week’s readings are here.

Working through the lectionary’s gospel readings this summer, I’ve been intrigued by the ways in which Luke interweaves various themes, ideas, even vocabulary, throughout the gospel (and even Acts). The many resonances with the whole of his work create rich resonances and invite new interpretations. Looking at particular texts from the wider perspective of both Luke and Acts helps us to see new things in old and familiar stories.

I would like to highlight several elements that I’m pondering this week as I work on my sermon for Sunday. First of all, Samaritans. Luke’s gospel includes three references to Samaritans; all of them take place in the central travel section (9:51-19:27). The first we’ve already seen, the Samaritan village that refused to welcome Jesus. The third takes place near the end of the journey, when Jesus heals ten lepers (17:11-19). Only one of them turns back, praises God, and thanks Jesus. Luke adds the comment, “And he was a Samaritan.” Is Luke making a comment about the inclusion of Samaritans within this new community? In the latter two instances, the actions (and faith) of Samaritans are contrasted with those of observant Jews.

The second intriguing item is that the word “inn” appears in only two contexts in Luke’s gospel–in the nativity story and here. Should that open up the possibility of a Christological interpretation of the parable; i.e., that one way of reading it is to see Jesus as the man who fell among thieves? An interesting article by Mike Graves (available here to seminary alumni) develops the Christological themes–both Jesus and the man were beaten, stripped, abandoned.

A third bit is the reference to Jericho. Jericho appears again at the very end of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, when Jesus encounters Zacchaeus. And where Jesus “goes up to Jerusalem” (a phrase repeated throughout the travel narrative), the parable begins “a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”

And finally, Jesus says the Samaritan was moved with pity when he saw the man, using the same word Luke uses of Jesus in 7:13 of the widow who is about to bury her son, and of the father in the parable when he sees the prodigal son returning.

Overstay your welcome! A Sermon for Proper 9, Year C

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In the more than thirty-five years since I graduated from high school, I’ve lived in six different states and one foreign country. In that, my experience is probably not all that untypical of those of you sitting in the pews this morning. Sure, there are a number of you who were born and raised here in Madison, a number of you who were baptized and confirmed here, but we live in a mobile society, much more mobile for the most part than previous generations (immigration notwithstanding. We also often think of our spiritual lives in terms of journey, so often in fact that it becomes almost a cliché. Still, I doubt that many of us draw parallels between our spiritual journeys and the circumstances or life choices that have contributed to our moves across the country, the continent, or even oceans. Continue reading →