Episcopal Leaders speak out on today’s Supreme Court rulings

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori:

The Episcopal Church is presently engaged in a period of study and dialogue about the nature of Christian marriage.  This work is moving forward, with faithful people of many different perspectives seeking together to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit.  However, our Church has taken the position that neither federal nor state governments should create constitutional prohibitions that deny full civil rights and protections to gay and lesbian persons, including those available to different-sex couples through the civic institution of marriage.

Accordingly, I welcome today’s decision of the United States Supreme Court that strikes down the 17-year-old law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex civil marriages granted by the states.

Bishop Lee of the Diocese of Chicago:

“These Supreme Court rulings concern civil marriage, not the Christian sacrament. But I invite Christians who may struggle with the decision to consider that the union of two people in heart, body and mind is capable of signifying the never failing love of God in Christ for the church and the world. These faithful unions, no matter the sex of the partners, can be sources and signs of grace, both for the couple and for the wider community. When we see and celebrate those signs, we testify to the love and mercy of God that overcomes all our divisions and differences.”

Bishop Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles

Gay Clark Jennings, President of the House of Deputies

Bishop Kirk Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona:

Our country has come closer to a truth which has been ours as Christians from the beginning, that God loves everything and everyone God has made, and that we are called to reflect God’s love for us in how we love each other. Our country is now one step closer to making that possible for everyone. Today Love won.

Are we living among the tombs? A Sermon for Proper 7, Year C

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When we read stories of Jesus casting out demons, we come up against the great chasm that separates western secular culture from the worldview and culture of Hellenistic Palestine. There are some in America who believe in the reality of demons, Christians who seek through prayer and other rituals to cast evil spirits out of people they believe are possessed by demons. There was even something of a media stir a few weeks ago caused by speculation that Pope Francis had performed an exorcism on someone at a service in Rome. Some Vatican officials were quick to deny it. Most of us, however, regard the notion of demons and evil spirits as relics of a pre-modern, pre-scientific worldview and we’re probably pretty quick to interpret the symptoms of someone like the man in our gospel story today as some form of mental illness.

So when we hear a story like this one of the Gerasene demoniac, we probably dismiss it, don’t even pay close attention to it, because it is so alien to our worldview and context. Some of us, if we want to make sense of it, will try to psychologize it—to seek some deeper meaning in the contours and details of the story and interpret it as having to do with our “inner demons” or some such. While there is some merit in such approaches, it is important to recognize that for the gospels, the fact that Jesus cast out demons was an absolutely central aspect of his ministry. It was clear evidence that he had power over the forces of evil. It was also a sign that his ministry was ushering the reign of God.

This story operates on several levels. First of all, geography. While the precise location of the city isn’t clear (Matthew calls it Gadara), Jesus is clearly operating in Gentile territory—for the first time in Luke. The presence of a herd of swine is evidence of that. He and his disciples have crossed over the Sea of Galilee, and at the end of the story, they will return to Galilee. It’s almost as if the point of the journey was this encounter, this healing.

The second level is that of the demoniac. His description, naked, living among the tombs, is the description of someone who has lost his identity. He has no home, no family, no place in society. He might as well be dead, which may be one reason he’s living among the tombs.

The third level is that of the demons, and the herd of swine. When Jesus asks the demon for its name, they reply, “Legion, for we are many.” Fearful that Jesus might return them to the abyss, which in the ancient world was the dwelling place of demons, they ask him to cast them into a nearby herd of pigs, and promptly stampede into the sea to perish. The name Legion brings to mind the Roman army and while it’s likely that we are meant to think that there are as many demons as soldiers in a legion (6000), it’s also possible that the story as a whole is meant to convey a confrontation between Jesus and the Roman Empire. Coincidentally, one of the legions stationed in Palestine had as its figurehead a boar, and more generally, a fertile sow was one of the ancient symbols of Rome. So while Jesus is confronting the powers of the demonic, he is also confronting imperial power in this story.

The story ends in an odd fashion, completely consistent with its overall strangeness. The man is restored to his senses Luke describes him sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind. When the people see him healed, they are fearful and beg Jesus to leave them. He does so, returning by boat with his disciples to Galilee. But before he departs, the healed man begs Jesus to allow him to come along. Jesus tells him no, instead, he should proclaim what God had done for him, so the man returns to his home, “proclaiming throughout the city all that Jesus had done.”

There is a great deal that is intriguing in this story, but what I’m most struck by this week is the fear of the city’s residents. They see the demoniac clothed, in his right mind, and sitting at Jesus’ feet, and they are afraid. Now many commentators will say that their fear was caused by the news of the pigs being drowned in the sea, or by the possibility that their economic livelihood was at stake if Jesus continued to perform such mighty acts among them. I’m not so sure.

Jesus is a foreigner here, an outsider. He comes for no apparent reason, or perhaps only for this reason, to encounter this man who was possessed by demons. He heals him, restores him to his senses and to his community and in so doing he isn’t threatening a way of life or economic well=-being, he is threatening the very order of the universe. He demonstrates his power over the forces of evil, demonstrates that many of the assumptions the inhabitants of this place held dear, can no longer be taken for granted. If the demons obey him, what else might he be capable of? What other trouble might he stir up?

Now the story begins to challenge us and our assumptions. As hard as it may be for us to believe that Jesus cast out demons, it may be even harder for us to believe that Jesus Christ continues to work in that way in the world today. It’s almost unimaginable to us that the reign of God, proclaimed by Jesus Christ nearly two thousand years ago and demonstrated with his mighty acts, may be in our midst already. It’s hard to believe that our faith, our community can work miracles like Jesus did; that we have power over the forces of evil in the world; that we can restore people to their right minds.

In fact, of the characters in this story we’re more like the Gerasenes than the possessed man. We’re more like those people who saw evidence of Jesus’ power and proclamation, grew fearful, and asked him to leave their country. It’s likely that we’re more comfortable in the place we are, whether as individuals or as a congregation, than we would welcome the frightening, world-changing power of Jesus Christ in our midst.

As a congregation, we are at a crossroads. In a sense, we may even be living among the tombs, if by tombs we mean the monuments previous generations built for themselves. Jesus comes to us, comes among us, and offers us new life, the vision of a way forward into the future. Will we risk following him into the unknown, with no signposts to lead us forward? Will we risk the possibility that as we follow him into the future, we will experience new forms of life, new ways of being, encounters with all sorts and conditions of people? Or will we ask him to leave us alone, so we can continue to live among the tombs?

A prayer for Bob–A prayer for all of us

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The prayer I read at tonight’s vigil:

Gracious God, whose son Jesus Christ was born in a stable because there was no room in an inn, whose family fled violence as refugees in a foreign land, who said, “foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” we pray this evening for our friend, neighbor, our brother Bob, who was attacked while sleeping and now lies in a hospital bed near death. We ask that you surround him with your loving presence and give him healing and strength. We pray too for all of those who are providing for his care: doctors, nurses and others who tend his body, that they may have the necessary skill and wisdom but above all compassion as they care for him. We pray too for the man who attacked him, that he may seek forgiveness for whatever led him to this heinous act, and that he too might know and experience your love and grace. We lift up to you all of those who are sleeping on the streets, in their cars or in shelters this evening that their hope is kindled, their faith renewed, and that they might experience the warm embrace of a just community. We pray for all of us here, and all of those who are with us in spirit, that we may be renewed by your grace and power to speak more boldly and act more resolutely on behalf of those in our community who have no place to lay their head. We pray for this neighborhood, the city and the county, that we may create here a community in which everyone has safe shelter, food to sustain them, and we all can flourish together.

All this we ask in the name of the one who stretched his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, even Jesus Christ, Amen.

Update on the beating victim

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In my lectionary reflections yesterday, I mentioned the severe beating Monday night of a homeless man on Capitol Square. We’re hearing today that the alleged assailant has been taken into custody. There were also stories circulating that he had died from his injuries but apparently that’s not the case.

I’ve been asked by a number of people, including the news media, if I have any more information, but I don’t. All I can say at this point is that this incident points out the absolute vulnerability of homeless people on the streets. We think about that in the winter when there are snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures. It’s true year-round, though. Sleeping on a bench, or in the grass, or hiding in the woods, you’re on your own, with the only security your personal vigilance, your fists, and if you’re lucky, a buddy or two who might also be looking out for you.

There will be a candlelight vigil this evening at 7:00 pm at the Capitol. More info on that here. He needs our prayers, and our community needs our prayers as well.

Living among the tombs: Lectionary Reflections for Proper 7, Year C

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This week’s readings are here. My sermon from 2010 is here.

Late last night, a homeless man sleeping on Capitol Square was severely beaten. According to news reports, he suffered life-threatening injuries. I learned about this while I was studying and reflecting on the gospel story for Sunday–Jesus’ exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac. He too was homeless, without a house. In the ancient world that meant he was without family or property, a given identity, and a place from which to exercise his personal and communal rights and responsibilities, his moral obligations.

The possessed man is described in pitiable detail–he wore no clothes; he didn’t live in a house but in the tombs. He was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles but when the demon overcame him, he would break his bonds and run into the wilderness. To twenty-first century readers, this description sounds like mental illness.

On one level, the story of this exorcism is very alien to us. Most of us don’t think we inhabit a world in which demons possess people or could be driven out and forced to possess a herd of pigs. But at the same time, this man’s description is not all that strange. We are accustomed to see people dressed in rags and tatters on the streets of our city. Sometimes they have mental illness that creates awkward moments for us when they begin speaking to us as we pass by. We would prefer that they be anywhere except on the busy sidewalks of downtown Madison.

There’s more to the story I heard today that I’m sure we will learn in the days to come–who the victim was, perhaps who attacked him and why. And I don’t want to imply in any way that the victim could be compared to the possessed man in the gospel story, except in this way: both were homeless and outcast from society.

Jesus does much more in this story than cast out a demon. He restores the man to society to his family. He is healed, saved, made whole. The text describes him clothed, of sound mind, and sitting at Jesus’ feet. The latter tells us he has become a disciple. He wants to follow Jesus but Jesus tells him that he has a different mission–to return to his home and declare what God has done for him.

Today, as I was thinking of homeless men and possessed men, and about living in tombs, I was reminded of another reference to tombs in the gospel–not the burial place of Jesus, but rather Mt. 23:27

For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth

In this verse and the discourse from which it comes Jesus is contrasting the outward appearance of righteousness with internal hypocrisy. My question this afternoon is: Who is living in the tombs? Is  it the homeless man, the demoniac, or is it us?

Barth’s advice to a pastor

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“But if I had to begin anew for myself as a young pastor, I would tell myself every morning, well, here I am; a very poor creature, but by God’s grace I have heard something. I will need forgiveness of my sins everyday. And I will pray, God, that you will give me the light, this light shining in the Bible and this light shining into the world in which humanity is living today. And then do my duty.”

– Karl Barth, from KYRIE ELEISON: Karl Barth and the Pastorate

 

Do we see this woman? A homily for Proper 6, Year C, 2013

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It’s a familiar story; versions of it in the other gospels. Full of drama, more than a little eroticism. Listening to it, we become spectators to a drama that is playing out. We are almost voyeurs, but also perhaps a little embarrassed by the woman’s actions which seem inappropriate and out of place at a dinner in the home of a respectable leader in the town and probably the synagogue. But its drama and intimacy pull us in as it has enticed Christians for nearly two thousand years. We want to know who this woman was, what sin she committed. We also want to know what happens next. And so in the history of interpretation and the history of Christianity, she becomes Mary Magdalene, the prostitute turned penitent, with the long flowing hair. Over the centuries, this wasn’t invented by Dan Brown, we speculate that there was some sort of special relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Continue reading →

More on decline in the Southern Baptist Convention: A mirror image of the Episcopal Church?

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Jonathan Merritt offers advice to the SBC. Some of it might be of interest to Episcopalians.

Of note:

If you review the resolutions, reports, and microphone grandstands of the SBC’s annual meeting during recent years, you’ll find a lot of energy expended on secondary things. The Associated Pressreported this week on how debates over Calvinism is dividing the Convention. Add to this recent squabbles over the “sinner’s prayer” and other lesser issues, and you have a denomination that spends major energy over minor issues.

The SBC’s resolution history also seems to bear this out. There was the ineffective 1997 boycott on Disney, a resolution to retain the traditional method of calendar dating (B.C. / A.D.) in 2000, and a 2011 resolution disapproving of the revision to the world’s most popular Bible translation (NIV), which requested that LifeWay Christian Stores stop carrying it. (One year later, LifeWay still sells the translation.)

If the Southern Baptist Convention wants to regain the credibility, interest, and relevance it has lost, the denomination must learn to put first things first. Namely, sharing the gospel through missions and showing the gospel through acts of service, compassion, and justice.

And this:

Of the 117 resolutions passed by the denomination at their annual meeting since 2000, a breathtaking 70 of them have been political. This includes a 2003 resolution endorsing President Bush’s war in Iraq, a 2008 resolution taking a position in the so-called “War on Christmas,” and a 2009 resolution titled “On President Barack Hussein Obama.”
He concludes:
The denomination must now decide whether to chart a new path for the sake of its future or maintain its current course. But one thing is certain. When the convention gathers for its annual meeting in another decade, people will still be talking. The question is now, “Will anyone be listening?”

Bad Girls of the Bible–Well, No! Lectionary Reflections on Proper 6, Year C

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This week’s readings are here. My sermon from 2010 on these texts is here.

In our readings this week, we encounter three women. One, Jezebel, is clearly understood to be evil. She has already encouraged her husband, King Ahab of Israel, to worship and promote Baal. Now she subverts justice and orchestrates the murder of  the owner of a vineyard simply because Ahab covets the property.

In the alternative reading from the Hebrew Bible, from the track we will be following this summer and fall, we hear the end of the story of David’s rape of Bathsheba and his murder of her husband and of Nathan’s prophetic judgment against David and his house.

And the gospel story is Luke’s account of Jesus’ anointing. An unnamed woman, a sinner, interrupts the dinner at Simon’s house, anoints Jesus’ feet with oil, and wipes them with her hair. After Jesus’ host Simon questions her actions, Jesus tells a parable that sheds light on what she has done. He concludes by saying, “Her sins are forgiven,” and tells her, “Go, your faith has saved you.”

The lectionary’s coupling of the David/Bathsheba story with the anointing presupposes us to imagine that the woman’s sin was sexual. That inclination is strengthened by the highly sexualized act of wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair. The tradition has named this woman Mary Magdalene (although Luke makes no such connection) and has also generally understood her to be a prostitute. But leaping to that conclusion is going much further than the text permits. There are lots of sins that aren’t sexual and we ought to remember that in 1st century Judaism, “sin” meant breaking Torah, which could have been any of the 613 commandments listed by the later rabbis.

There’s something even more curious in the text. The way the gospel writer describes her suggests that something else might be going on. As one commentator translates it, “a certain woman was in the city a sinner.” The word order seems to imply that she was regarded in the city as a sinner. That is to say, we cannot be certain that she is a sinner. All we know is that the city thinks she’s a sinner. This might help to explain Simon’s internal response to the woman’s actions. He wonders why Jesus doesn’t know that she’s a sinner. Her sins are or were not obvious. And the verb tenses suggest that whatever her sins might have been, she is no longer sinning; she has been forgiven already. Her actions in anointing Jesus are expressive of the her love and gratitude at having been forgiven of her sins.

Jesus said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” Simon saw a sinner; Jesus saw a forgiven and loving woman, a disciple. Is that what we see, a woman who, like the women Luke mentions in the first verses of chapter 8, women who followed Jesus alongside the twelve and the other disciples, women who ministered to him and the others out of their resources?

 

God’s Intrusive Grace: A Homily for Proper 6, Year C

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What is a prophet? It’s often difficult for me to imagine how ordinary churchgoers conceive or understand such central ideas to the biblical story and Christianity as that of prophecy. My guess is that what comes to mind first for many of you is the image of someone who predicts the future, whether that’s a conservative Christian warning us of the imminent return of Jesus Christ, or of a Hebrew prophet proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. Others of you may have in mind a leader or activist for social justice—a Martin Luther King Jr., for example.

Our readings bring us smack up against the idea and reality of prophet, and of its important for the story of the Hebrew Bible and the story of Jesus. At the end of today’s gospel, the people proclaim, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably upon his people.” Even casual attention to the readings this morning should see the obvious connection between the gospel story and the story of Elijah we heard read from I Kings.

We heard last week the great story of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Elijah presents us with something of a conundrum because we don’t see him doing a lot of the sort of prophecy that’s preserved in books like Isaiah and Amos. We see him railing against King Ahab of Israel’s worship of Baal and his support of Baal’s cult but for the most part, we see him doing the sort of mighty works he did in last week’s reading, calling down fire from heaven to consume the altar. Earlier in this chapter, he has been visiting this same widow and her son. It’s during a drought and Elijah discovers that they have enough oil and meal to make bread for one day. Miraculously, the provisions last while Elijah stays with them, so they do not die of hunger.

But now, in today’s story, the widow’s son has fallen ill, so ill that he seems not to have breath in him (note that it doesn’t say he died). Elijah brings him back to life, and the widow proclaims Elijah a man of God.

In the portion from the Gospel of Luke we heard, we have what is a perfect bookend to the Elijah story. Both occur in the same geographical area; both involve widows. Elijah’s resuscitation of the widow’s son is undoubtedly behind the way Luke shapes his story so that his readers can see the connection between Jesus and Elijah, indeed between Jesus and all of the Hebrew prophetic tradition.

From the outset of Jesus’ ministry, Luke has stressed Jesus’ ties to the prophetic traditions. At his first public sermon, Jesus reads from Isaiah,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

After reading these words, Jesus says, “today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The statement at the end of the story, that God has looked favorably on God’s people, is a clear reminder of what Jesus

Jesus is not just a prophet, either for Luke or for us; and while Luke amplifies the resonances between Jesus and the prophets, he also distinguishes clearly between them. It is here, for the first time in the gospel, that Luke refers to Jesus as Lord. For his readers, that title would have hearkened back to the Hebrew Bible’s use of Lord to refer to God, but it would also have reminded them of the emperor’s title.

Both of those echoes suggest power and might, but Luke rejects implication. After referring to Jesus as Lord, Luke continues, “and he had compassion on her, literally “he was moved in his guts.” Luke is telling us that Jesus’ Lord-ship is recognized not with the trappings of power, wealth, and grandeur, but in his ministry among the lowly and downtrodden. Jesus is recognized as Lord by his compassion and mercy.

Jesus came to the village of Nain, walking with his disciples. As they arrived, they encountered another procession, a burial procession, as a widow led her friends and neighbors out to bury her son. In fact, think about it a moment. You’re in the midst of deep grief. It’s not just that a loved one has died, though that is an immeasurable loss. Luke mentions that this is the woman’s only son, which means that without either husband or son, this woman is probably left destitute, with no support system. In the midst of this burial procession, a stranger bursts in, interrupting, stopping the inevitable walk toward the cemetery.

Luke makes clear that Jesus’ attention is on the widow, not on the dead son. Three times in a single verse he uses the feminine pronoun:

“When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” And after Jesus brings the man back to life, Luke says that “he gave him to his mother.” So the focus in this story is less on the raising of the dead son, than on  Jesus’ compassion for the man’s mother.

The extraordinary had come into her life, visiting death upon her and confronting her with an uncertain and challenging future. But Jesus intervened in that procession and in that future, bringing something completely new and unexpected, restoring life and hope to her son and to her.

I’m struck by all of the ways in which we are in places similar to that in which the widow of Nain found herself. Many of us face such uncertainty in our personal lives. For some of us, like the widow, our grief and pain is quite real. Many others of us look ahead into challenging and uncertain futures. We worry about what the next stage of our life will bring. Some of us are focused on larger questions facing this congregation—questions related to the proposed master plan and our future ministry and mission. Some of us are struggling with the Bishop’s letter on same sex blessings, on what that might mean for ourselves or for our loved ones. Some of us are thinking about the widow of Nain, and of widows and orphans in our society, and the collapsing safety net that threatens their futures and their well-being.

We may be so focused on some or all of these questions and concerns, so focused on the mourning processions, real or figurative, in which we are walking, that we fail to see the prophet walking towards us. We don’t notice him stopping the procession, putting his hand on our griefs and worries; we don’t notice the compassion as he reaches out to us. We may not welcome that interruption. It may only be an annoyance.

But here he comes, stopping the procession, stopping us. And here he is stopping us short wherever we are, with the promise of new life and grace. God’s grace intrudes, breaking into our worries and concerns, our grief and our pain, restoring us to life, bringing us new hope and grace. Wherever we are this morning, in our struggles, in our journeys, in our pain and fear, may God’s grace come to us, enliven and restore us, that we too might be able to say “God has looked favorably on God’s people.”