Sermon delivered on my last Sunday at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN -- Sunday, August 30, 2015 (14th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 17).
(Song of Solomon 2:8-13, James 1:17-27)
Our first reading today comes from the Song of Solomon, that great love poem of the Hebrew scriptures, and is perhaps best known for its use at weddings. But at this particular time in my life and in the life of the community at St. Paul’s, I am struck by another aspect of this poem – its emphasis on change and seasons.
“Now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come” (Song of Solomon 2:11-12).
Although the poem describes physical aspects of the earth’s changing with the seasons – from winter to spring, from rain to flowers – perhaps there is a deeper metaphorical message. The lovers can celebrate their love with joy and go away together because “the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” Perhaps the “winter” was a difficult time in their relationship; perhaps the “rain” was external stressors beating in from every side.
In any case, this passage points us to change – change in seasons, change in dynamics of relationships, and a recognition of the impermanence of everything in life, even of our lives themselves. It reminds me of another passage from the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible that gives voice to this theme more fully. Made famous by Pete Seeger setting it to music in the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” in the 1960s, the words are from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
This passage resonated with me as I thought about taking my leave from you after three years serving together in ministry, and as this congregation goes through significant changes in leadership. “To everything there is a season.” A time to arrive, a time to depart. A time to welcome new people, and a time to say goodbye. A time to remember and honor the past, and a time to move forward and look to the future. Having just packed up my office, I know quite a bit about “a time to keep, and a time to throw away,” and perhaps rather than stones, “a time to throw away books, and a time to gather books together.”
This passage reminds us that no state of being lasts forever, whether it be positive or negative. Although we might bristle at the suggestion that there is “a time to hate” and a “time to kill,” I read this passage as describing the reality of human existence in this world, not necessarily the ideal or how it will be in the next life. In this life, nothing lasts forever. In this life, we experience seasons of good things and seasons of bad things. There are times of weeping and times of laughing. When we’re weeping, thinking that there will be a time to laugh in the future may bring us hope, and help get us through the tough times. When we’re laughing, we always realize that at any moment, something could happen that will send us back into crying again. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary, no matter how permanent it may seem to us in the moment. Even our buildings and monuments that outlast generations of people are subject to the destructive forces of nature. As a line in our closing hymn today says, “Though with care and toil we build them, tower and temple fall to dust.”
But our epistle reading from James reminds us of what is truly eternal. “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). With God there is “no variation or shadow due to change.” It is only in God that we find permanence, constancy, a true illustration of the word “forever.” Although “tower and temple fall to dust,” in the hymn text we go on to proclaim, “But God’s power, hour by hour, is my temple and my tower.” In the midst of this ever-changing tide of seasons that flows through our lives, bringing good and bad, life and death, we must always remember to turn our attention to the one “fixed point” in the midst of all the changes: God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s power, God’s eternal presence, the fount of all being, sustaining and guiding us as our life unfolds.
One of my favorite prayers in the prayer book is in the service of Compline, that service in the Daily Office intended for use right before bedtime. It says:
“Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (BCP 133).
“We who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life” – that is such a vivid turn of phrase, isn’t it? Who among us can’t relate to the feeling of being “wearied by the changes and chances of this life” – this life which can change in an instant, in which things we spend hours and years building can be destroyed overnight, this life in which friends and relatives can betray our trust, drift away from us, or get sick and die, this life which offers us no guarantees except for the fact of change itself.
But even in the midst of all that, God remains constant. As the collect says, we can rest in God’s “eternal changelessness,” that solid foundation at the center of our faith. And as Christians, we are an Easter people, a Resurrection people. Change and transformation are at the heart of what we understand God to be about in the world, bringing new life from death. The year I graduated high school, the song “Closing Time” by SemiSonic was at the top of the radio playlists, and I have always remembered a line from that song during times of transition in my life: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” SemiSonic didn’t come up with that line; it is actually an ancient saying often attributed to the 1st century Roman philosopher Seneca. But it could very well be the slogan for the Christian faith: “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Or as Jesus puts it in the Gospel of John, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
On Ash Wednesday and at every funeral liturgy we are reminded that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” As we commend a loved one to the Lord, we say to God: “You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return” (BCP 499). Our opening hymn today reminded us, in words that echo lines from the psalms and the prophet Isaiah, that “we blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree; then wither and perish, but nought changeth thee.”
Nought changeth thee. The author of the letter to the Hebrews put it this way: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The scriptures say in various places that Christ is our foundation, our cornerstone, our rock. God is the one thing we can count on not to change, no matter what. But for everything else, there is a season…
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Sunday, August 2, 2015
How much easier it is to see faults in others than in ourselves!
Sermon delivered Sunday, August 2, 2015 (10th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 13, Year B), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN.
(2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a, Psalm 51:1-13)
In our reading from the Hebrew Bible last week, we heard about David’s affair with Bathsheba. The concluding sentence of that reading was, “In the letter [David sent to the general, he] wrote, ‘Set Uriah [Bathsheba’s husband] in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.’” If it seemed a little odd to you that our response to this reading was, “Thanks be to God!”, your discomfort should be assuaged by the way the story continues in this week’s reading. David might be remembered as one of Israel’s great kings and “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), but he doesn’t get away with adultery, deceit and murder without a stern rebuke.
In this week’s lesson, the prophet Nathan confronts David about his actions. But the way he does so is very clever. Instead of accusing David directly of his indiscretions, which probably would have made David defensive and unable to hear his critique, Nathan instead tells David a story. “There once was a rich man,” he says, “who had many possessions. This man had access to anything he could possibly want, but when a traveler came by seeking shelter and food, the rich man didn’t offer him anything from his own possessions, even though he had plenty to spare. Instead, he stole a lamb from his neighbor, a poor man who had barely enough to provide for his family. The rich man killed and prepared the poor man’s lamb as food for the traveler. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the lamb was not just livestock to his neighbor; it was like a member of his family, a beloved companion animal who was ‘like a daughter to him.’”
When David hears this story, he is outraged. He says to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” The Hebrew phrase that is translated “the man who has done this deserves to die” literally says, “this man is a son of death.” Calling someone a “son of death” was not a legal judgment indicating that the person deserved the death penalty, but an attack on a person’s character, a colloquialism used to disparage people.
So David has walked right into Nathan’s trap. “This man did WHAT?” he says. “What a dirty, rotten, no good…” you fill in the blank with your choice of insults. The names David calls the rich man in the story probably weren’t the G-rated version I’m choosing to give from the pulpit, if you get my drift. And then Nathan sticks it to him with his “gotcha” line – “You are the man! This story is an illustration of what you’ve done, you dirty, rotten, no good – hey, you said it, not me – rich man with all the abundance in the world of goods and possessions and many wives already at your service in your lavish palace – and yet you pick out the only wife of one of your men at battle, sleep with her, and then have her husband killed so you can take her for yourself. Yeah, the rich man in the story is a ‘son of death,’ alright – and that rich man is YOU!”
Nathan’s approach works. Rather than becoming angry and defensive, David’s eyes are opened and he acknowledges his guilt. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he admits, and, according to tradition, promptly pens the 51st psalm. The psalm we read this morning, that famous psalm of repentance, that psalm that we read every year on Ash Wednesday as we begin the season of Lent and acknowledge our own sins and repent before God, is attributed to King David, and tradition holds that he wrote it right after Nathan confronted him about his affair with Bathsheba.
Nathan’s use of an indirect story to confront David about his sin works because it is so often easier to see faults in others than it is to recognize them in ourselves. David can clearly see what the “rich man” in the story has done wrong, even when he is blind to his own sin. It is always easier to point out what others have done wrong in any conflict or argument than to seriously consider what role we have played in contributing to the issue. Sometimes seeing ourselves portrayed in caricature in a story allows our eyes to be opened to truths about ourselves that otherwise may be difficult to face.
A Jewish rabbi and therapist named Edwin Friedman, who specialized in family systems theory and applying that theory to congregational life, published a series of modern-day parables called “Friedman’s Fables” in the early 1990s. These parables were designed to open our eyes to the dynamics of unhealthy relationships within families or congregations. I’d like to share one of them with you today, because they are a sort of modern equivalent to Nathan’s use of a parable to help David to see his sin. This one is called “A Nervous Condition,” and it may give some of you an experience of what David must have felt when he realized he was the rich man in Nathan’s parable. See if you can see yourself or anyone you know in this fable:
[Read “A Nervous Condition,” from Edwin H. Friedman, Friedman’s Fables (New York: Guilford Press, 1990). I'm not sure whether it would violate copyright rules to post the story in its entirety here in written form, so I'm not posting it. But you can hear the whole story if you listen to the audio file of the sermon, linked above.]
The discussion questions included in the back of the book summarize this fable with the following moral: “Beware the insensitivities of the sensitive.” Having always been a very sensitive person from the time I was a child, this parable probably hit me as hard as Nathan’s story hit David when I first read it many years ago. My eyes were suddenly opened as to how my sensitivity could have a negative impact on others. I have since done a lot of internal work to try to recognize when my sensitivity may be inadvertently hurting others, and to claim responsibility for my own feelings rather than blaming my state of mind or reactions on others.
Friedman’s basic thesis in all of his family therapy and congregational work is that a system – whether it be a family, a workplace, a congregation, or a country – is only as healthy as its leaders, and that the key to successful leadership is not learning how to manage one’s children or employees or parishioners or constituents, but learning how to manage oneself. If we are able to become differentiated – that is, to become defined by our own sense of identity that comes from a place of deep internal conviction rather than being defined by the feelings, opinions, and reactions of others – then we automatically have a positive effect on the system, even without directly trying to change anything about it. Friedman suggests that sometimes rather than taking the “problem child” or “problem person” into therapy, if the person who sees the problem in others can begin to work on themselves, their own internal work can change the system enough so that the “problem person” begins to change even without making any intentional effort themselves. It is an illustration of Jesus’s advice in the Sermon on the Mount: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” In other words, if you want others to address their faults, work first on addressing your own.
The work of faith is the work of serious reflection and self-examination. While we are called to work for reconciliation and peace and justice and righteousness in the world around us, that work must first start with ourselves. The old cliché about “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” has more truth to it than we realize. Or the one about “charity begins at home.” One way we can all work to change the world is to work on changing ourselves. It’s the only thing we really can change, after all. So as our eyes are opened to the faults in others, let us see that as an invitation to look more closely at the faults in ourselves. With much prayer and discernment, and with the help of a trusted guide like a therapist or spiritual director, we can change the world, one repentant sinner at a time.
(2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a, Psalm 51:1-13)
In our reading from the Hebrew Bible last week, we heard about David’s affair with Bathsheba. The concluding sentence of that reading was, “In the letter [David sent to the general, he] wrote, ‘Set Uriah [Bathsheba’s husband] in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.’” If it seemed a little odd to you that our response to this reading was, “Thanks be to God!”, your discomfort should be assuaged by the way the story continues in this week’s reading. David might be remembered as one of Israel’s great kings and “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), but he doesn’t get away with adultery, deceit and murder without a stern rebuke.
In this week’s lesson, the prophet Nathan confronts David about his actions. But the way he does so is very clever. Instead of accusing David directly of his indiscretions, which probably would have made David defensive and unable to hear his critique, Nathan instead tells David a story. “There once was a rich man,” he says, “who had many possessions. This man had access to anything he could possibly want, but when a traveler came by seeking shelter and food, the rich man didn’t offer him anything from his own possessions, even though he had plenty to spare. Instead, he stole a lamb from his neighbor, a poor man who had barely enough to provide for his family. The rich man killed and prepared the poor man’s lamb as food for the traveler. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the lamb was not just livestock to his neighbor; it was like a member of his family, a beloved companion animal who was ‘like a daughter to him.’”
When David hears this story, he is outraged. He says to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” The Hebrew phrase that is translated “the man who has done this deserves to die” literally says, “this man is a son of death.” Calling someone a “son of death” was not a legal judgment indicating that the person deserved the death penalty, but an attack on a person’s character, a colloquialism used to disparage people.
So David has walked right into Nathan’s trap. “This man did WHAT?” he says. “What a dirty, rotten, no good…” you fill in the blank with your choice of insults. The names David calls the rich man in the story probably weren’t the G-rated version I’m choosing to give from the pulpit, if you get my drift. And then Nathan sticks it to him with his “gotcha” line – “You are the man! This story is an illustration of what you’ve done, you dirty, rotten, no good – hey, you said it, not me – rich man with all the abundance in the world of goods and possessions and many wives already at your service in your lavish palace – and yet you pick out the only wife of one of your men at battle, sleep with her, and then have her husband killed so you can take her for yourself. Yeah, the rich man in the story is a ‘son of death,’ alright – and that rich man is YOU!”
Nathan’s approach works. Rather than becoming angry and defensive, David’s eyes are opened and he acknowledges his guilt. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he admits, and, according to tradition, promptly pens the 51st psalm. The psalm we read this morning, that famous psalm of repentance, that psalm that we read every year on Ash Wednesday as we begin the season of Lent and acknowledge our own sins and repent before God, is attributed to King David, and tradition holds that he wrote it right after Nathan confronted him about his affair with Bathsheba.
Nathan’s use of an indirect story to confront David about his sin works because it is so often easier to see faults in others than it is to recognize them in ourselves. David can clearly see what the “rich man” in the story has done wrong, even when he is blind to his own sin. It is always easier to point out what others have done wrong in any conflict or argument than to seriously consider what role we have played in contributing to the issue. Sometimes seeing ourselves portrayed in caricature in a story allows our eyes to be opened to truths about ourselves that otherwise may be difficult to face.
A Jewish rabbi and therapist named Edwin Friedman, who specialized in family systems theory and applying that theory to congregational life, published a series of modern-day parables called “Friedman’s Fables” in the early 1990s. These parables were designed to open our eyes to the dynamics of unhealthy relationships within families or congregations. I’d like to share one of them with you today, because they are a sort of modern equivalent to Nathan’s use of a parable to help David to see his sin. This one is called “A Nervous Condition,” and it may give some of you an experience of what David must have felt when he realized he was the rich man in Nathan’s parable. See if you can see yourself or anyone you know in this fable:
[Read “A Nervous Condition,” from Edwin H. Friedman, Friedman’s Fables (New York: Guilford Press, 1990). I'm not sure whether it would violate copyright rules to post the story in its entirety here in written form, so I'm not posting it. But you can hear the whole story if you listen to the audio file of the sermon, linked above.]
The discussion questions included in the back of the book summarize this fable with the following moral: “Beware the insensitivities of the sensitive.” Having always been a very sensitive person from the time I was a child, this parable probably hit me as hard as Nathan’s story hit David when I first read it many years ago. My eyes were suddenly opened as to how my sensitivity could have a negative impact on others. I have since done a lot of internal work to try to recognize when my sensitivity may be inadvertently hurting others, and to claim responsibility for my own feelings rather than blaming my state of mind or reactions on others.
Friedman’s basic thesis in all of his family therapy and congregational work is that a system – whether it be a family, a workplace, a congregation, or a country – is only as healthy as its leaders, and that the key to successful leadership is not learning how to manage one’s children or employees or parishioners or constituents, but learning how to manage oneself. If we are able to become differentiated – that is, to become defined by our own sense of identity that comes from a place of deep internal conviction rather than being defined by the feelings, opinions, and reactions of others – then we automatically have a positive effect on the system, even without directly trying to change anything about it. Friedman suggests that sometimes rather than taking the “problem child” or “problem person” into therapy, if the person who sees the problem in others can begin to work on themselves, their own internal work can change the system enough so that the “problem person” begins to change even without making any intentional effort themselves. It is an illustration of Jesus’s advice in the Sermon on the Mount: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” In other words, if you want others to address their faults, work first on addressing your own.
The work of faith is the work of serious reflection and self-examination. While we are called to work for reconciliation and peace and justice and righteousness in the world around us, that work must first start with ourselves. The old cliché about “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” has more truth to it than we realize. Or the one about “charity begins at home.” One way we can all work to change the world is to work on changing ourselves. It’s the only thing we really can change, after all. So as our eyes are opened to the faults in others, let us see that as an invitation to look more closely at the faults in ourselves. With much prayer and discernment, and with the help of a trusted guide like a therapist or spiritual director, we can change the world, one repentant sinner at a time.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
We must care for ourselves in order to care for others; but we can't care for ourselves without caring for others
Sermon delivered Sunday, July 19, 2015 (8th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 11, Year B), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN.
(Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)
"Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while."
This is what Jesus says to the disciples in today’s Gospel reading. As Jesus’s reputation had grown, their ministry had gotten overwhelming. More and more people were seeking Jesus out, for spiritual advice, for healing, and probably many were coming just to gawk at this miracle-worker. The scriptures tell us that “many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”
I’m sure many of you know that feeling. That feeling of pressure, anxiety – of suffocation, almost – when you realize that you have more to do than can possibly be done. When you’re cranky and irritable and your stomach growls and suddenly you realize you’ve been working so hard you forgot to eat lunch. I know I’ve been there. It’s one of the reasons my husband always reminds me, particularly on Sundays, not to forget to schedule time to eat!
As 21st century American churchgoers, we have two strikes against us when it comes to avoiding that frenzied feeling. The first is our secular work culture, which values productivity above all else, where our worth is measured by how much we can get done, how much money we can make, how many reports we can process in an hour. If that wasn’t bad enough, those of us who seek to be good Christians have the added pressure of a church culture that teaches us that we should always put others before ourselves, that holds up an ideal of “selflessness” and often denigrates any focus on oneself as “selfish” and somehow inherently sinful. This double-whammy of pressure makes it very difficult for most of us to attend to our own needs. Not only should we be accomplishing as much as possible in our work and our ministries, but we shouldn’t give much thought or attention to ourselves, because God has told us not to. I’m sure many of you are familiar with scripture passages like these:
From Philippians chapter 2: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)
Or this one, from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1: “Do not seek your own advantage, but that of others.” (1 Corinthians 1:24)
Or the words of Jesus in the Gospels, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
In looking up some of these passages online, I found many articles from Christian websites advocating for just the kind of self-denigration I’m speaking of here. One article unequivocally stated, “Self-centeredness and self-love are totally antithetical to the teachings of Scripture.”
Certainly, following Jesus requires a kind of “dying to self,” as the biblical metaphor puts it, a relinquishing of control and the sinful desires that drive us to seek our own gain at the expense of others. But is self-love the same thing as self-centeredness? Unfortunately, the church has all too often assumed that it is, and this has led us to a church culture in which we are not expected to take care of ourselves, in which it is more highly valued for us to sacrifice our very well-being – emotionally, physically, and spiritually – in our desire to serve others than it is to tend to our own health. This overemphasis on serving others, coupled with the Christian metaphors about sacrifice and dying to self, have led to a religious context in which the goal is the flourishing of others at the expense of self, rather than the flourishing of all people, including ourselves.
But I do not believe Jesus ever taught that our call to care for others meant that we should neglect to care for ourselves. This passage from Mark’s Gospel is just one of many places where Jesus encourages the disciples to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” and perhaps an even stronger testimony to his endorsement of self-care is that he modeled this behavior himself. The scriptures tell us that Jesus “often withdrew to deserted places and prayed” (Luke 5:16).
Both Jesus’s instruction to the disciples to find quiet time alone for prayer and rest and his own claiming of this time for himself come in the context of overwhelming need. When the crowds are pressing in on him, when everyone is clamoring for his attention, Jesus doesn’t try to solve everyone’s problems or cure everyone’s illnesses. Instead, he takes the time he needs for himself and encourages the disciples to do so as well, despite the endless stream of people seeking them out and waiting for them wherever they go. It is precisely the times when it would have been most difficult for them to take a break that Jesus does so and encourages his disciples to do the same. He doesn’t say, “Well, after all these crowds have dispersed, when we’ve taken care of all their needs, then we can rest and take care of our own.” He doesn’t say this because he knows a fundamental truth of the human experience that is becoming more and more recognized today – that we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. That we can only take care of others to the extent that we are able to take care of ourselves. That we only have something to give when we have taken the time to receive, to refresh and renew our own health, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
This is why we are seeing an increasing emphasis in the church on things like silent retreats and sabbaticals. Contrary to the old model of clergy being expected to be available to everyone 24 hours a day, seminaries are now teaching clergy the importance of self-care, and encouraging us to support it among our parishioners as well. We are encouraged to take time for ourselves and to model for you the importance of doing the same in your own lives. So as we all bid farewell to Monna last Sunday as she began her three-month sabbatical, I hope it got you all thinking about the value of rest, retreat, renewal, and reflection in your own lives. The concept of sabbatical time away from work is becoming more popular, not just in academic and church contexts, but across a variety of fields. Many companies now offer employees sabbatical leave time because they realize that their employees are actually MORE productive and have more to give to the company when they take the time to care for themselves than they are when they sacrifice their own health for the sake of their work. The airline industry has reminded us of the essential wisdom of this truth in their safety videos that instruct us to put our own oxygen mask on first before assisting others. This is not a matter of valuing our own lives more highly than others, but a practical matter of survival. If we cannot breathe ourselves, we cannot expect to help others to breathe either.
But there is a flip side to this truth as well. Just as we cannot help others unless we first help ourselves, we also cannot help ourselves unless we also help others as well. It is not a matter of either/or, but a matter of both/and. It is no better to help ourselves at the expense of others than it is to help others at the expense of ourselves. As leaders of movements for human liberation across the globe have noted, our freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of others. We cannot be free while our brothers and sisters are in chains. We cannot truly live while our brothers and sisters are dying. We cannot morally put our own oxygen mask on and then neglect to help others with theirs.
Lilla Watson, a spokewoman for an activist group of Aboriginal people in Australia in the 1970s, once famously said to those seeking to aid her community, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” The scriptures put it this way, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12: “If one member [of the body of Christ] suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26) We are part and parcel of one another in the body of Christ. What we do affects one another, and as such our salvation is always ultimately communal rather than individual in nature. We can’t reach the kingdom of God without being willing to bring all of God’s children along with us.
Nashville singer-songwriter Tom Kimmel co-wrote a song with Danish songwriter Klaus Caprani that captures this truth. The title of the song is, “No One Gets to Heaven (If Anybody Else is Left Behind),” and it goes like this:
“Last night I dreamed my daddy woke me up and took me by the hand
And walked me down the hill and through the woods to where a little chapel stands
And everyone we knew was there, and they all seemed so happy we came by
The deacon shook our hands and then he led us to our seat beside the aisle
The preacher started talkin’ and everybody leaned in close
He said there is a light in the dark when we need it the most
And there is a way through this world if we keep this in mind:
No one gets to heaven if anybody else is left behind.
No one gets to heaven if anyone is lost along the way
And it’s so easy to doubt it, so now let us join hands and pray
We’ll meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by
And no one gets to heaven if anybody else is left behind.”
Our liberation is bound up with others’ liberation. It is important to remember this precisely during those times when we want to focus solely on ourselves. Sometimes when we are awakened to our need to care for ourselves, we can be tempted to walk away from all other commitments and focus only on ourselves. When things get difficult, we think, “I just can’t handle this anymore; I’ve got to take care of myself.” Although that certainly may be true for a time, and given how serious the imbalance of focusing on others verses yourself has been, you may need a considerable amount of time to focus only on yourself. But even in those times, it’s important to remember that in order to be true to the Gospel and our calling as Christians, we must at some point return to the service of others, using the care and love that has healed us to heal others. Because our healing is bound up with others’ healing. Our liberation is bound up with others’ liberation. No one gets to heaven if anybody else is left behind.
(Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)
"Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while."
This is what Jesus says to the disciples in today’s Gospel reading. As Jesus’s reputation had grown, their ministry had gotten overwhelming. More and more people were seeking Jesus out, for spiritual advice, for healing, and probably many were coming just to gawk at this miracle-worker. The scriptures tell us that “many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”
I’m sure many of you know that feeling. That feeling of pressure, anxiety – of suffocation, almost – when you realize that you have more to do than can possibly be done. When you’re cranky and irritable and your stomach growls and suddenly you realize you’ve been working so hard you forgot to eat lunch. I know I’ve been there. It’s one of the reasons my husband always reminds me, particularly on Sundays, not to forget to schedule time to eat!
As 21st century American churchgoers, we have two strikes against us when it comes to avoiding that frenzied feeling. The first is our secular work culture, which values productivity above all else, where our worth is measured by how much we can get done, how much money we can make, how many reports we can process in an hour. If that wasn’t bad enough, those of us who seek to be good Christians have the added pressure of a church culture that teaches us that we should always put others before ourselves, that holds up an ideal of “selflessness” and often denigrates any focus on oneself as “selfish” and somehow inherently sinful. This double-whammy of pressure makes it very difficult for most of us to attend to our own needs. Not only should we be accomplishing as much as possible in our work and our ministries, but we shouldn’t give much thought or attention to ourselves, because God has told us not to. I’m sure many of you are familiar with scripture passages like these:
From Philippians chapter 2: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)
Or this one, from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1: “Do not seek your own advantage, but that of others.” (1 Corinthians 1:24)
Or the words of Jesus in the Gospels, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
In looking up some of these passages online, I found many articles from Christian websites advocating for just the kind of self-denigration I’m speaking of here. One article unequivocally stated, “Self-centeredness and self-love are totally antithetical to the teachings of Scripture.”
Certainly, following Jesus requires a kind of “dying to self,” as the biblical metaphor puts it, a relinquishing of control and the sinful desires that drive us to seek our own gain at the expense of others. But is self-love the same thing as self-centeredness? Unfortunately, the church has all too often assumed that it is, and this has led us to a church culture in which we are not expected to take care of ourselves, in which it is more highly valued for us to sacrifice our very well-being – emotionally, physically, and spiritually – in our desire to serve others than it is to tend to our own health. This overemphasis on serving others, coupled with the Christian metaphors about sacrifice and dying to self, have led to a religious context in which the goal is the flourishing of others at the expense of self, rather than the flourishing of all people, including ourselves.
But I do not believe Jesus ever taught that our call to care for others meant that we should neglect to care for ourselves. This passage from Mark’s Gospel is just one of many places where Jesus encourages the disciples to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” and perhaps an even stronger testimony to his endorsement of self-care is that he modeled this behavior himself. The scriptures tell us that Jesus “often withdrew to deserted places and prayed” (Luke 5:16).
Both Jesus’s instruction to the disciples to find quiet time alone for prayer and rest and his own claiming of this time for himself come in the context of overwhelming need. When the crowds are pressing in on him, when everyone is clamoring for his attention, Jesus doesn’t try to solve everyone’s problems or cure everyone’s illnesses. Instead, he takes the time he needs for himself and encourages the disciples to do so as well, despite the endless stream of people seeking them out and waiting for them wherever they go. It is precisely the times when it would have been most difficult for them to take a break that Jesus does so and encourages his disciples to do the same. He doesn’t say, “Well, after all these crowds have dispersed, when we’ve taken care of all their needs, then we can rest and take care of our own.” He doesn’t say this because he knows a fundamental truth of the human experience that is becoming more and more recognized today – that we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. That we can only take care of others to the extent that we are able to take care of ourselves. That we only have something to give when we have taken the time to receive, to refresh and renew our own health, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
This is why we are seeing an increasing emphasis in the church on things like silent retreats and sabbaticals. Contrary to the old model of clergy being expected to be available to everyone 24 hours a day, seminaries are now teaching clergy the importance of self-care, and encouraging us to support it among our parishioners as well. We are encouraged to take time for ourselves and to model for you the importance of doing the same in your own lives. So as we all bid farewell to Monna last Sunday as she began her three-month sabbatical, I hope it got you all thinking about the value of rest, retreat, renewal, and reflection in your own lives. The concept of sabbatical time away from work is becoming more popular, not just in academic and church contexts, but across a variety of fields. Many companies now offer employees sabbatical leave time because they realize that their employees are actually MORE productive and have more to give to the company when they take the time to care for themselves than they are when they sacrifice their own health for the sake of their work. The airline industry has reminded us of the essential wisdom of this truth in their safety videos that instruct us to put our own oxygen mask on first before assisting others. This is not a matter of valuing our own lives more highly than others, but a practical matter of survival. If we cannot breathe ourselves, we cannot expect to help others to breathe either.
But there is a flip side to this truth as well. Just as we cannot help others unless we first help ourselves, we also cannot help ourselves unless we also help others as well. It is not a matter of either/or, but a matter of both/and. It is no better to help ourselves at the expense of others than it is to help others at the expense of ourselves. As leaders of movements for human liberation across the globe have noted, our freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of others. We cannot be free while our brothers and sisters are in chains. We cannot truly live while our brothers and sisters are dying. We cannot morally put our own oxygen mask on and then neglect to help others with theirs.
Lilla Watson, a spokewoman for an activist group of Aboriginal people in Australia in the 1970s, once famously said to those seeking to aid her community, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” The scriptures put it this way, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12: “If one member [of the body of Christ] suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26) We are part and parcel of one another in the body of Christ. What we do affects one another, and as such our salvation is always ultimately communal rather than individual in nature. We can’t reach the kingdom of God without being willing to bring all of God’s children along with us.
Nashville singer-songwriter Tom Kimmel co-wrote a song with Danish songwriter Klaus Caprani that captures this truth. The title of the song is, “No One Gets to Heaven (If Anybody Else is Left Behind),” and it goes like this:
“Last night I dreamed my daddy woke me up and took me by the hand
And walked me down the hill and through the woods to where a little chapel stands
And everyone we knew was there, and they all seemed so happy we came by
The deacon shook our hands and then he led us to our seat beside the aisle
The preacher started talkin’ and everybody leaned in close
He said there is a light in the dark when we need it the most
And there is a way through this world if we keep this in mind:
No one gets to heaven if anybody else is left behind.
No one gets to heaven if anyone is lost along the way
And it’s so easy to doubt it, so now let us join hands and pray
We’ll meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by
And no one gets to heaven if anybody else is left behind.”
Our liberation is bound up with others’ liberation. It is important to remember this precisely during those times when we want to focus solely on ourselves. Sometimes when we are awakened to our need to care for ourselves, we can be tempted to walk away from all other commitments and focus only on ourselves. When things get difficult, we think, “I just can’t handle this anymore; I’ve got to take care of myself.” Although that certainly may be true for a time, and given how serious the imbalance of focusing on others verses yourself has been, you may need a considerable amount of time to focus only on yourself. But even in those times, it’s important to remember that in order to be true to the Gospel and our calling as Christians, we must at some point return to the service of others, using the care and love that has healed us to heal others. Because our healing is bound up with others’ healing. Our liberation is bound up with others’ liberation. No one gets to heaven if anybody else is left behind.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Passing the Love of Women: David, Jonathan, and Same-Sex Marriage
Sermon delivered Sunday, June 28, 2015, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. 5th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 8, Year B (2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27)
If you listen to the video, listen all the way to what I said at the announcements after the end of the sermon.
In our readings from the Hebrew Bible over the past few weeks, we have been hearing stories from the life of David. Last week we heard the story of David’s defeat of Goliath and his first introduction to King Saul and his son, Jonathan. Today we read the story of David’s mourning over Saul and Jonathan’s death.
It may come as a surprise to some of you, but readers of 1 and 2 Samuel have long debated whether the relationship between David and Jonathan was more than just friendship. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the country and the fact that General Convention will be considering changing the canons – that is, our church law – to allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages in states where it is legal – which is now all states – I felt like I couldn’t ignore the “elephant in the room” in our scriptures this Sunday and not address David and Jonathan’s relationship.
Now, I sincerely apologize if this makes some of you uncomfortable or angry. My intention is not to be inflammatory or disrespectful of scripture in any way. I truly believe that the Spirit is speaking through this uncanny series of events – this passage coming up in the lectionary at the exact time as this issue is being considered by both church and state. You all know from hearing me preach for three years that I am a very lectionary-based preacher, as all our clergy are. I always base my sermons on the scriptures for the day, and nothing bothers me more than hearing a preacher get up and preach a sermon that has no connection at all to the scriptures that were just read. So I certainly hope that you do not perceive this sermon in that way. This is truly an attempt to delve more deeply into the scriptures and relate them to our context today, which is what I attempt to do with every sermon I preach.
If you have ever experienced same-sex attraction and are familiar with the story of David and Jonathan, you are likely already aware of the idea that their relationship was romantic. It has been read that way in gay circles for years. But if you have never fallen in love with someone of the same sex, you probably never would have thought to think that David and Jonathan were anything more than close friends. So let me highlight for you the parts of their story that lead some people to think this:
In last week’s reading, we heard this passage about David and Jonathan’s first meeting:
“When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and bow and his belt” (1 Samuel 18:1-4).
This passage is actually one of the scripture options given for use in the liturgy for blessing same-sex unions that General Convention approved in 2012. The intense language in this passage about David and Jonathan’s souls being “bound together” at their first meeting, their making a covenant with one another, Jonathan giving David all his prized possessions, and David moving into Jonathan’s house, are seen by some as an indication that there was more going on here than mere friendship, especially since, as rivals for the throne, David and Jonathan would have had every reason to hate one another.
And in fact, Jonathan’s father Saul does come to hate David. He sees in David a threat to his lineage and is aware that God’s favor has moved from him to David, and he is angry that his son Jonathan will not become king, so he spends the rest of his life trying to kill David. And through it all, Jonathan sticks by David, against the will of his father. He warns David about his father’s murderous plans and reaffirms his covenant with him. In chapter 20 of 1 Samuel, Jonathan says to David:
“‘If I am still alive, show me the faithful love of the Lord; but if I die, never cut off your faithful love from my house, even if the Lord were to cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.’” (1 Samuel 20:14-15).
David remains true to this covenant, even taking Jonathan’s son into his own home after Jonathan’s death and giving him all the rights of the royal family that he would have if he were David’s own son.
The scripture tells us that in reiterating and reaffirming this covenant, “Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him; for he loved him as he loved his own life.” (1 Samuel 20:17)
After Jonathan returns home and his father Saul realizes Jonathan is defending David, Saul becomes enraged. The scripture says:
“Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan. He said to him, ‘You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?’” (1 Samuel 20:30)
As one commentary on this text said, “Many gay men have experienced dinner conversations that sounded very similar to this one.” Although it’s probably not fair to make this direct comparison, since it’s not good scholarship to read modern-day experiences into ancient texts, Saul’s outburst does seem to indicate that there was something physical about David and Jonathan’s relationship, with his reference to the “shame of your mother’s nakedness,” since phrases like this often had sexual connotations in the Hebrew scriptures.
And then, in today’s passage from the Hebrew Bible, David says this as he mourns over the loss of Jonathan:
“I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)
Given all the other pieces of the puzzle, many have concluded that David’s assertion that Jonathan’s love was better to him than the love of women was not simply an ancient Near Eastern way of saying “Bros before hos, man,” but an expression of the fact that their love was of the same sort as his love for women, but yet of a deeper or more intense nature. (As an aside, if you’re not familiar with the phrase “Bros before hos,” it’s a saying used often by straight men in my generation or younger to express the sentiment that a man’s male friends (bros) should take priority over whatever woman or women he happens to be in relationship with at the moment (who are, not very flatteringly, referred to as “hos” in this expression), since the male friends will always be there for him, while romantic relationships will come and go.)
Ok, so for every scripture passage I’ve quoted here, there are arguments from the other perspective as to why these passages do NOT indicate that David and Jonathan’s relationship was anything more than a friendship. I’ve read the arguments on both sides and I’ve read the entire section of scripture that deals with their relationship myself (if you want to read the whole thing for yourself too, it begins in 1 Samuel, chapter 17 and continues through the first chapter of 2 Samuel). After taking all perspectives into consideration, I find that I can’t deny that there seems to be something more than friendship going on here, but perhaps that’s because I know the difference between a close friendship with someone of the same sex and something more.
I have many close female friends who are dear to me, but a number of years ago, I began to realize that my feelings for one particular friend were different from my feelings for my other friends. Our friendship was particularly close and intense, and I realized that the way I talked about her and behaved toward her was more like the way I’d talked about and behaved toward the guy I dated in high school, the only romantic relationship I’d had so far in my life. Although I was already supportive of my friends who were gay and lesbian, I never thought that I was in that category, until these feelings started emerging. Nothing ever came of them, because she was already in a committed relationship, and I never told her how I felt. And a few years later, God brought my husband into my life and I fell in love with him and we married. Since I take seriously the lifelong, exclusive commitment of marriage, I know I will never be in a romantic relationship with a woman at this point. But I’ve always wondered how my life would have been different if God had given me a woman to love instead of a man.
I’ve never shared this with anyone outside of a few of my closest friends. Most of my family have never heard this story. I’m choosing to share it publicly with you today because unlike our brothers and sisters who are exclusively attracted to members of the same sex, those of us who have discovered we are able to be attracted to members of both sexes are able to “hide,” so to speak. If we happen to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex, we never have to tell anyone that we once felt that way about someone of the same sex. Kenji Yoshino, a civil rights lawyer at Yale, calls this phenomenon “covering” – anything we do to downplay the “different” aspects of ourselves to fit into the mainstream. For me, it was easier to “cover” than it was to be open. But by doing that, I betrayed my brothers and sisters who cannot “cover,” whose differences are a matter of physical appearance or other qualities they cannot otherwise change or hide.
I am by no means trying to make an argument that there were same-sex marriages in biblical times. Our modern-day understanding of same-sex marriage simply did not exist during that time and it is dishonest scholarship to try to read our current social context into ancient times. And we have no way of really knowing whether the relationship between David and Jonathan was more than friendship or not. But on this historic weekend, I wanted to at least open the conversation about the fact that people who deeply love God and seek to honor and follow him with their lives can and do fall in love with people of the same sex, a love that binds their souls to one another.
The Episcopal Church’s Task Force on the Study of Marriage, which has met for the past three years to study the history, theology, and biblical framework surrounding marriage, has concluded that what distinguishes marriage from other more casual forms of relationship is “the commitment to a lifelong, loving, faithful relationship,” and what makes a marriage Christian is the fact that the members of the couple seek to pattern their lives toward each other and toward the community around them as a reflection of the self-giving love of Christ for the church. What makes a marriage holy is that the two people “see in each other the image of God.”
Now, I understand that some of you will insist that the two people in a marriage should be a man and a woman, and I want you to know that my respect for you is not and will not be lessened if that is your view. I was recently talking with my husband, who has mixed and uncertain feelings about same-sex marriage, and we tried very hard to listen to one another and understand why this issue is so emotionally charged for both of us. The light bulb finally went on for me when my husband said, “It’s like suddenly being told all the rules have changed. Everything you thought you knew and understood, everything you’d always been taught was wrong, is suddenly ok.” I could relate to how disorienting and disturbing that feeling is, and that conversation helped me to understand where he was coming from. In a committed relationship, diversity of opinion is what keeps the relationship growing and alive.
It is my hope that we can have these kinds of open conversations with one another in the coming weeks, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision and whatever General Convention will decide. I hope you will share your stories honestly and from your hearts. I hope you feel safe enough with the community here to have those conversations. And I hope that we all remember that no matter how different our feelings and opinions are on this issue, we are still brothers and sisters in Christ. We still share a common table and a common faith. We all gather here each week because we love and seek to follow Jesus. And after all, our baptism is the most important “marriage” in any of our lives – when we are “made one” not with any human partner, but with Christ. Each week when we come forward to receive the Eucharist, we reaffirm our commitment to that “love divine, all loves excelling,” that is only found in God. May the foundation of all our relationships, romantic and platonic, be always rooted and grounded in God and God’s infinite love for us.
If you listen to the video, listen all the way to what I said at the announcements after the end of the sermon.
In our readings from the Hebrew Bible over the past few weeks, we have been hearing stories from the life of David. Last week we heard the story of David’s defeat of Goliath and his first introduction to King Saul and his son, Jonathan. Today we read the story of David’s mourning over Saul and Jonathan’s death.
It may come as a surprise to some of you, but readers of 1 and 2 Samuel have long debated whether the relationship between David and Jonathan was more than just friendship. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the country and the fact that General Convention will be considering changing the canons – that is, our church law – to allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages in states where it is legal – which is now all states – I felt like I couldn’t ignore the “elephant in the room” in our scriptures this Sunday and not address David and Jonathan’s relationship.
Now, I sincerely apologize if this makes some of you uncomfortable or angry. My intention is not to be inflammatory or disrespectful of scripture in any way. I truly believe that the Spirit is speaking through this uncanny series of events – this passage coming up in the lectionary at the exact time as this issue is being considered by both church and state. You all know from hearing me preach for three years that I am a very lectionary-based preacher, as all our clergy are. I always base my sermons on the scriptures for the day, and nothing bothers me more than hearing a preacher get up and preach a sermon that has no connection at all to the scriptures that were just read. So I certainly hope that you do not perceive this sermon in that way. This is truly an attempt to delve more deeply into the scriptures and relate them to our context today, which is what I attempt to do with every sermon I preach.
If you have ever experienced same-sex attraction and are familiar with the story of David and Jonathan, you are likely already aware of the idea that their relationship was romantic. It has been read that way in gay circles for years. But if you have never fallen in love with someone of the same sex, you probably never would have thought to think that David and Jonathan were anything more than close friends. So let me highlight for you the parts of their story that lead some people to think this:
In last week’s reading, we heard this passage about David and Jonathan’s first meeting:
“When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and bow and his belt” (1 Samuel 18:1-4).
This passage is actually one of the scripture options given for use in the liturgy for blessing same-sex unions that General Convention approved in 2012. The intense language in this passage about David and Jonathan’s souls being “bound together” at their first meeting, their making a covenant with one another, Jonathan giving David all his prized possessions, and David moving into Jonathan’s house, are seen by some as an indication that there was more going on here than mere friendship, especially since, as rivals for the throne, David and Jonathan would have had every reason to hate one another.
And in fact, Jonathan’s father Saul does come to hate David. He sees in David a threat to his lineage and is aware that God’s favor has moved from him to David, and he is angry that his son Jonathan will not become king, so he spends the rest of his life trying to kill David. And through it all, Jonathan sticks by David, against the will of his father. He warns David about his father’s murderous plans and reaffirms his covenant with him. In chapter 20 of 1 Samuel, Jonathan says to David:
“‘If I am still alive, show me the faithful love of the Lord; but if I die, never cut off your faithful love from my house, even if the Lord were to cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.’” (1 Samuel 20:14-15).
David remains true to this covenant, even taking Jonathan’s son into his own home after Jonathan’s death and giving him all the rights of the royal family that he would have if he were David’s own son.
The scripture tells us that in reiterating and reaffirming this covenant, “Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him; for he loved him as he loved his own life.” (1 Samuel 20:17)
After Jonathan returns home and his father Saul realizes Jonathan is defending David, Saul becomes enraged. The scripture says:
“Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan. He said to him, ‘You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?’” (1 Samuel 20:30)
As one commentary on this text said, “Many gay men have experienced dinner conversations that sounded very similar to this one.” Although it’s probably not fair to make this direct comparison, since it’s not good scholarship to read modern-day experiences into ancient texts, Saul’s outburst does seem to indicate that there was something physical about David and Jonathan’s relationship, with his reference to the “shame of your mother’s nakedness,” since phrases like this often had sexual connotations in the Hebrew scriptures.
And then, in today’s passage from the Hebrew Bible, David says this as he mourns over the loss of Jonathan:
“I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)
Given all the other pieces of the puzzle, many have concluded that David’s assertion that Jonathan’s love was better to him than the love of women was not simply an ancient Near Eastern way of saying “Bros before hos, man,” but an expression of the fact that their love was of the same sort as his love for women, but yet of a deeper or more intense nature. (As an aside, if you’re not familiar with the phrase “Bros before hos,” it’s a saying used often by straight men in my generation or younger to express the sentiment that a man’s male friends (bros) should take priority over whatever woman or women he happens to be in relationship with at the moment (who are, not very flatteringly, referred to as “hos” in this expression), since the male friends will always be there for him, while romantic relationships will come and go.)
Ok, so for every scripture passage I’ve quoted here, there are arguments from the other perspective as to why these passages do NOT indicate that David and Jonathan’s relationship was anything more than a friendship. I’ve read the arguments on both sides and I’ve read the entire section of scripture that deals with their relationship myself (if you want to read the whole thing for yourself too, it begins in 1 Samuel, chapter 17 and continues through the first chapter of 2 Samuel). After taking all perspectives into consideration, I find that I can’t deny that there seems to be something more than friendship going on here, but perhaps that’s because I know the difference between a close friendship with someone of the same sex and something more.
I have many close female friends who are dear to me, but a number of years ago, I began to realize that my feelings for one particular friend were different from my feelings for my other friends. Our friendship was particularly close and intense, and I realized that the way I talked about her and behaved toward her was more like the way I’d talked about and behaved toward the guy I dated in high school, the only romantic relationship I’d had so far in my life. Although I was already supportive of my friends who were gay and lesbian, I never thought that I was in that category, until these feelings started emerging. Nothing ever came of them, because she was already in a committed relationship, and I never told her how I felt. And a few years later, God brought my husband into my life and I fell in love with him and we married. Since I take seriously the lifelong, exclusive commitment of marriage, I know I will never be in a romantic relationship with a woman at this point. But I’ve always wondered how my life would have been different if God had given me a woman to love instead of a man.
I’ve never shared this with anyone outside of a few of my closest friends. Most of my family have never heard this story. I’m choosing to share it publicly with you today because unlike our brothers and sisters who are exclusively attracted to members of the same sex, those of us who have discovered we are able to be attracted to members of both sexes are able to “hide,” so to speak. If we happen to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex, we never have to tell anyone that we once felt that way about someone of the same sex. Kenji Yoshino, a civil rights lawyer at Yale, calls this phenomenon “covering” – anything we do to downplay the “different” aspects of ourselves to fit into the mainstream. For me, it was easier to “cover” than it was to be open. But by doing that, I betrayed my brothers and sisters who cannot “cover,” whose differences are a matter of physical appearance or other qualities they cannot otherwise change or hide.
I am by no means trying to make an argument that there were same-sex marriages in biblical times. Our modern-day understanding of same-sex marriage simply did not exist during that time and it is dishonest scholarship to try to read our current social context into ancient times. And we have no way of really knowing whether the relationship between David and Jonathan was more than friendship or not. But on this historic weekend, I wanted to at least open the conversation about the fact that people who deeply love God and seek to honor and follow him with their lives can and do fall in love with people of the same sex, a love that binds their souls to one another.
The Episcopal Church’s Task Force on the Study of Marriage, which has met for the past three years to study the history, theology, and biblical framework surrounding marriage, has concluded that what distinguishes marriage from other more casual forms of relationship is “the commitment to a lifelong, loving, faithful relationship,” and what makes a marriage Christian is the fact that the members of the couple seek to pattern their lives toward each other and toward the community around them as a reflection of the self-giving love of Christ for the church. What makes a marriage holy is that the two people “see in each other the image of God.”
Now, I understand that some of you will insist that the two people in a marriage should be a man and a woman, and I want you to know that my respect for you is not and will not be lessened if that is your view. I was recently talking with my husband, who has mixed and uncertain feelings about same-sex marriage, and we tried very hard to listen to one another and understand why this issue is so emotionally charged for both of us. The light bulb finally went on for me when my husband said, “It’s like suddenly being told all the rules have changed. Everything you thought you knew and understood, everything you’d always been taught was wrong, is suddenly ok.” I could relate to how disorienting and disturbing that feeling is, and that conversation helped me to understand where he was coming from. In a committed relationship, diversity of opinion is what keeps the relationship growing and alive.
It is my hope that we can have these kinds of open conversations with one another in the coming weeks, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision and whatever General Convention will decide. I hope you will share your stories honestly and from your hearts. I hope you feel safe enough with the community here to have those conversations. And I hope that we all remember that no matter how different our feelings and opinions are on this issue, we are still brothers and sisters in Christ. We still share a common table and a common faith. We all gather here each week because we love and seek to follow Jesus. And after all, our baptism is the most important “marriage” in any of our lives – when we are “made one” not with any human partner, but with Christ. Each week when we come forward to receive the Eucharist, we reaffirm our commitment to that “love divine, all loves excelling,” that is only found in God. May the foundation of all our relationships, romantic and platonic, be always rooted and grounded in God and God’s infinite love for us.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Overcoming Adversity
Sermon delivered Sunday, June 21, 2015, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN at The Gathering Eucharist (alternative service), 10 a.m., held outside the side courtyard (usually in Otey Hall). 4 Pentecost, Proper 7, Year B (1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 2 Cor. 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41)
The loose offering from this service was designated for the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund, to provide support to the families of the victims of the shootings in Charleston, SC.
Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.
Paul’s list in today’s passage from 2 Corinthians of all he has endured for the sake of the Gospel is not exactly a great selling point for following Jesus. “Come join us, and you too can experience afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger!” Oh goodie, where do I sign up?
Many of us often think that if we are following God and doing all the right things, no harm will come to us, and perhaps it’s not surprising we think this way, since there are many parts of the scriptures that affirm this correlation between good behavior or righteousness and prosperity and safety. Countless times throughout the “wisdom literature” of the Bible, which includes the books of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the psalms, we hear some version of the idea that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will perish, that those who follow God will be rewarded and those who do not will be punished. That certainly sounds like an appealing system, one where our experiences are predictable and directly related to our actions, where people “get what they deserve,” so to speak, where the world is just.
But the reality of life is often quite different. It is easy to claim from an abstract philosophical perspective that we will be rewarded if we do good and punished if we do bad, but often our experiences don’t line up with those beliefs. A pillar of the community who has supported countless people and changed lives receives a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and is dead within six months. A tornado drops out of nowhere and destroys the home of a young, struggling family who had just managed to purchase their first house. A young man from my hometown in South Carolina walks into a church in Charleston and kills nine people while they are gathered for prayer and Bible study.
Our reaction when we encounter such tragedies is often, “Why me?” or “Why them?”– especially if we think we or they were good people who didn’t “deserve” this. We can see this reaction from the disciples in today’s Gospel passage. Despite the fact that they have done everything “right” by following Jesus and doing what he asked in getting into the boat to cross to the other side of the lake, they are indignant with him when they encounter calamity along the way. When a storm threatens to capsize their boat, they wake up Jesus with the accusing statement, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” This is often our reaction to what we see as undeserved suffering. “What did I ever do to you, God? Do you not CARE that we are suffering? Why don’t you do something to stop it?” But our passage from 2 Corinthians offers another approach.
The suffering Paul and his companions experienced is not insignificant. We’re not talking about so-called “first world problems” like getting pickles on their sandwiches when they asked for no pickles, or their houses being so big they had to get two wireless routers. We’re talking some pretty horrific things -- afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger – and yet, he nonetheless proclaims that even in the midst of such suffering, they are truly blessed. No matter how awful their circumstances may appear from the outside, they are able to continue to praise God because they know the paradoxical truth of the Gospel, that through suffering can come new life, that there can be blessings even in the most unspeakable suffering. Although they are punished, they are not killed; although they are sorrowful, they always rejoice even in the midst of it; although they are poor, they are making many rich – maybe not literally, but in the truest sense of the word, through spiritual transformation; although they have nothing by physical standards, they actually possess everything that matters by spiritual standards through their faith in Jesus Christ and the assurance of new life that they have through him. No matter what people may say about them or what suffering they might encounter, their faith is not shaken.
Our passage from the Hebrew Bible today also gives us an example of keeping the faith in the midst of adversity. In the classic story of David and Goliath, David does not cower before a seemingly unconquerable obstacle. Though he is young and small and by all external standards seems a poor match for the giant warrior Goliath, he steps forward and agrees to meet Goliath’s challenge, trusting that God is with him despite his youth and lack of experience in battle.
Paul’s inspiring proclamation of faith and David’s heroism stand in direct contrast to the disciples in the Gospel passage, who panic in the face of the storm, who expect Jesus to keep them from ever suffering, who cannot trust that they will come through the storm with God’s help.
Where are you in these stories? Are you cowering with the disciples in the boat or proclaiming faith boldly in the midst of adversity with Paul? Are you like the disciples indignant that trouble has come their way, or like David striding confidently forward with only a few stones to defend himself?
Those of us who have had the good fortune of not experiencing much pain and suffering in this life are more likely to find ourselves cowering and indignant with the disciples in the boat when trouble comes our way. But those of us who have been people of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3) are likely to know something about what it takes to muster up courage and faith in the midst of adversity.
This weekend, the world is watching and mourning with our brothers and sisters in the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, after the horrific shootings there on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in the black church are no strangers to suffering and grief. Their list of all they have endured over the years in terms of violence and intimidation could rival Paul’s list from 2 Corinthians, especially during the years of slavery and the civil rights movement: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. This list, foreign to so many of us in predominantly white churches, is all too familiar to many of our brothers and sisters in the black churches. And yet, somehow, many of them have managed to draw upon a deep reserve of faith that has seen them through these adversities and kept their hearts from being hardened by resentment and hate. On Friday, at the court hearing of shooter Dylann Roof, family members of those killed gathered to speak to him and told him they forgave him. What kind of faith gives you the strength to look your mother or son’s killer in the eyes and say, “I forgive you, may God have mercy on your soul?” Faith that has been refined through hardship; faith that knows that hate will never drive out hate, only love can do that; faith that knows that God can make a way where there is no way, as the saying goes.
And that’s exactly the kind of faith Paul and David had in our readings for today. They put their trust in God and drew upon the resources they had to find a way when many would have said there was no way.
In the story of David and Goliath, there is one small detail I have always overlooked that I’d like to lift up as a metaphor for our own abilities to overcome adversity. After rejecting Saul’s heavy armor because he wasn’t used to it, David goes to the river and picks out five smooth stones that he carries with them as his only weapons as he goes out to meet Goliath. Rather than putting his trust in the sword and spear and javelin, as his enemies did, David put his trust in God, and walks out completely unprotected, holding only a few stones. But those seemingly ineffective weapons actually give him victory over the giant.
The question in our walk of faith is not if we will suffer, but when. It’s not, “What can we do to avoid suffering?”, but, “How will we deal with suffering when it comes?” What resources will we draw upon to enable us to be able to say with the members of Emmanuel AME and the apostle Paul, “we are punished, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything”? Those resources might be our faith, the scriptures, our friends and families, a good counselor or spiritual director, spiritual practices that ground and center us, a special place we can go that brings us peace and comfort, or any number of other things. Those resources are the “stones” in our arsenal, or in our “toolkit,” if you prefer a less violent metaphor, that we put in our shepherd’s bag to take with us as we walk boldly toward the obstacles and the adversities that come our way.
What are your five smooth stones that you take with you to confront the adversities in your life? What resources help you to defeat the giant enemies in your spiritual walk?
In your bulletins you may have noticed a yellow piece of paper labeled, “My Five Smooth Stones.” If you noticed it, you probably had no idea what that was about, but now it should all be becoming clear to you. I’d like to invite you all to take a few moments to reflect on what your five smooth stones are (it doesn’t have to be exactly five; it could be more or less) that equip you to face adversity with faith and courage. And as you do that, I’ll be passing around this bowl full of candy stones, and ask you to each take a few to remind you of those resources in your lives that keep you strong. And if you’re missing any resources or think of ones you don’t have, make a commitment to reaching out and establishing those support systems for yourselves so you will be ready for the next giant or storm that comes your way.
The loose offering from this service was designated for the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund, to provide support to the families of the victims of the shootings in Charleston, SC.
Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.
Paul’s list in today’s passage from 2 Corinthians of all he has endured for the sake of the Gospel is not exactly a great selling point for following Jesus. “Come join us, and you too can experience afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger!” Oh goodie, where do I sign up?
Many of us often think that if we are following God and doing all the right things, no harm will come to us, and perhaps it’s not surprising we think this way, since there are many parts of the scriptures that affirm this correlation between good behavior or righteousness and prosperity and safety. Countless times throughout the “wisdom literature” of the Bible, which includes the books of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the psalms, we hear some version of the idea that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will perish, that those who follow God will be rewarded and those who do not will be punished. That certainly sounds like an appealing system, one where our experiences are predictable and directly related to our actions, where people “get what they deserve,” so to speak, where the world is just.
But the reality of life is often quite different. It is easy to claim from an abstract philosophical perspective that we will be rewarded if we do good and punished if we do bad, but often our experiences don’t line up with those beliefs. A pillar of the community who has supported countless people and changed lives receives a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and is dead within six months. A tornado drops out of nowhere and destroys the home of a young, struggling family who had just managed to purchase their first house. A young man from my hometown in South Carolina walks into a church in Charleston and kills nine people while they are gathered for prayer and Bible study.
Our reaction when we encounter such tragedies is often, “Why me?” or “Why them?”– especially if we think we or they were good people who didn’t “deserve” this. We can see this reaction from the disciples in today’s Gospel passage. Despite the fact that they have done everything “right” by following Jesus and doing what he asked in getting into the boat to cross to the other side of the lake, they are indignant with him when they encounter calamity along the way. When a storm threatens to capsize their boat, they wake up Jesus with the accusing statement, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” This is often our reaction to what we see as undeserved suffering. “What did I ever do to you, God? Do you not CARE that we are suffering? Why don’t you do something to stop it?” But our passage from 2 Corinthians offers another approach.
The suffering Paul and his companions experienced is not insignificant. We’re not talking about so-called “first world problems” like getting pickles on their sandwiches when they asked for no pickles, or their houses being so big they had to get two wireless routers. We’re talking some pretty horrific things -- afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger – and yet, he nonetheless proclaims that even in the midst of such suffering, they are truly blessed. No matter how awful their circumstances may appear from the outside, they are able to continue to praise God because they know the paradoxical truth of the Gospel, that through suffering can come new life, that there can be blessings even in the most unspeakable suffering. Although they are punished, they are not killed; although they are sorrowful, they always rejoice even in the midst of it; although they are poor, they are making many rich – maybe not literally, but in the truest sense of the word, through spiritual transformation; although they have nothing by physical standards, they actually possess everything that matters by spiritual standards through their faith in Jesus Christ and the assurance of new life that they have through him. No matter what people may say about them or what suffering they might encounter, their faith is not shaken.
Our passage from the Hebrew Bible today also gives us an example of keeping the faith in the midst of adversity. In the classic story of David and Goliath, David does not cower before a seemingly unconquerable obstacle. Though he is young and small and by all external standards seems a poor match for the giant warrior Goliath, he steps forward and agrees to meet Goliath’s challenge, trusting that God is with him despite his youth and lack of experience in battle.
Paul’s inspiring proclamation of faith and David’s heroism stand in direct contrast to the disciples in the Gospel passage, who panic in the face of the storm, who expect Jesus to keep them from ever suffering, who cannot trust that they will come through the storm with God’s help.
Where are you in these stories? Are you cowering with the disciples in the boat or proclaiming faith boldly in the midst of adversity with Paul? Are you like the disciples indignant that trouble has come their way, or like David striding confidently forward with only a few stones to defend himself?
Those of us who have had the good fortune of not experiencing much pain and suffering in this life are more likely to find ourselves cowering and indignant with the disciples in the boat when trouble comes our way. But those of us who have been people of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3) are likely to know something about what it takes to muster up courage and faith in the midst of adversity.
This weekend, the world is watching and mourning with our brothers and sisters in the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, after the horrific shootings there on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in the black church are no strangers to suffering and grief. Their list of all they have endured over the years in terms of violence and intimidation could rival Paul’s list from 2 Corinthians, especially during the years of slavery and the civil rights movement: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. This list, foreign to so many of us in predominantly white churches, is all too familiar to many of our brothers and sisters in the black churches. And yet, somehow, many of them have managed to draw upon a deep reserve of faith that has seen them through these adversities and kept their hearts from being hardened by resentment and hate. On Friday, at the court hearing of shooter Dylann Roof, family members of those killed gathered to speak to him and told him they forgave him. What kind of faith gives you the strength to look your mother or son’s killer in the eyes and say, “I forgive you, may God have mercy on your soul?” Faith that has been refined through hardship; faith that knows that hate will never drive out hate, only love can do that; faith that knows that God can make a way where there is no way, as the saying goes.
And that’s exactly the kind of faith Paul and David had in our readings for today. They put their trust in God and drew upon the resources they had to find a way when many would have said there was no way.
In the story of David and Goliath, there is one small detail I have always overlooked that I’d like to lift up as a metaphor for our own abilities to overcome adversity. After rejecting Saul’s heavy armor because he wasn’t used to it, David goes to the river and picks out five smooth stones that he carries with them as his only weapons as he goes out to meet Goliath. Rather than putting his trust in the sword and spear and javelin, as his enemies did, David put his trust in God, and walks out completely unprotected, holding only a few stones. But those seemingly ineffective weapons actually give him victory over the giant.
The question in our walk of faith is not if we will suffer, but when. It’s not, “What can we do to avoid suffering?”, but, “How will we deal with suffering when it comes?” What resources will we draw upon to enable us to be able to say with the members of Emmanuel AME and the apostle Paul, “we are punished, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything”? Those resources might be our faith, the scriptures, our friends and families, a good counselor or spiritual director, spiritual practices that ground and center us, a special place we can go that brings us peace and comfort, or any number of other things. Those resources are the “stones” in our arsenal, or in our “toolkit,” if you prefer a less violent metaphor, that we put in our shepherd’s bag to take with us as we walk boldly toward the obstacles and the adversities that come our way.
What are your five smooth stones that you take with you to confront the adversities in your life? What resources help you to defeat the giant enemies in your spiritual walk?
In your bulletins you may have noticed a yellow piece of paper labeled, “My Five Smooth Stones.” If you noticed it, you probably had no idea what that was about, but now it should all be becoming clear to you. I’d like to invite you all to take a few moments to reflect on what your five smooth stones are (it doesn’t have to be exactly five; it could be more or less) that equip you to face adversity with faith and courage. And as you do that, I’ll be passing around this bowl full of candy stones, and ask you to each take a few to remind you of those resources in your lives that keep you strong. And if you’re missing any resources or think of ones you don’t have, make a commitment to reaching out and establishing those support systems for yourselves so you will be ready for the next giant or storm that comes your way.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
The Lord has chosen YOU!
Sermon delivered Sunday, June 14, 2015, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN
3 Pentecost, Proper 6, Year B (1 Samuel 15:34-16:13)
What does it mean to be "chosen" by God?
In the Hebrew scripture for today, we heard the story of God choosing David to replace Saul as king of Israel. God tells Samuel he has chosen one of Jesse’s sons to be the next king, so Samuel goes to visit Jesse and find the chosen one. One by one, Jesse’s sons come before Samuel, but Samuel hears from God that none of these are the chosen one. He finally finds out that there is one more son that no one has thought to bring in, since he is young and is out tending the sheep. When this youngest son, David, comes before Samuel, he knows instantly that this is the one God has chosen as the next leader of Israel.
I don’t know about you, but in today’s day and age, I think many people tend to be skeptical about people or communities who claim to be “chosen by God.” If that person is the chosen one, who is everyone else? The non-chosen ones? The rejected ones? The not-good-enough ones? Language about being “chosen” can easily lead people to believe they are superior to others, to take being “chosen” as an indication that they are better than those who are not chosen, that David was somehow better than his brothers, for example, because God chose him rather than any of them.
That’s certainly one way of interpreting what it means to be “chosen by God” – that we are the special ones, that we are superior to others, that God loves us more than God loves everyone else – and certainly there is scriptural precedent for holding such a perspective. But I prefer another narrative in scripture that reminds us that we are ALL people of God, that God’s temple is a house of prayer for ALL nations, not just the Israelites, that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35), that we are ALL chosen by God; it’s just that we are not all chosen to do the same thing. Claiming to be "chosen by God" only becomes a problem when we believe that the thing God has chosen us to do is better than the things God has chosen other people to do.
My grandfather, who was not a church-going man himself, used to say, "What a good thing it is that God made us all different -- that's what makes the world go 'round." Or, as the letter to the Ephesians puts it:
"[E]ach of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13)
Paul’s metaphor about the church as the body of Christ emphasizes how essential diversity is within the community. We need all parts of the body to function effectively. If we all tried to do the same things, not much would get done. Just because David’s brothers were not chosen to be king did not mean that God did not have a plan for their lives, or that God valued them less than God valued their brother.
Each of us has particular gifts that God has given us to use for the building up of the body of Christ. No one gift is better than any of the others. Even this passage from Ephesians is quite limiting, since it talks about people being called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers -- but God also chooses people to be health care workers and architects and BBQ or English tea volunteers and vestry members and gardeners and finance committee members. What role has God chosen you to play in building up the body of Christ? Where do your gifts lie in serving God and bringing others to the knowledge and love of God? (As an aside, if you’re not quite sure of the answer to that question, I invite you to consider joining our next group of Faith Leaders, which will begin in the fall. Faith Leaders is an eight-month-long program for adults that meets weekly and helps people discern what their gifts are and how God is calling them to use their gifts in the world.)
In my own experience of discerning my call to the priesthood, I have come to believe that at any given time, God is calling us to a particular path that will bring us to a place of abundant blessing if we choose to follow it. I believe God will still be with us and work good in our lives even if we do not choose that path, but I do believe that we will find more fulfillment and abundant blessings if we do follow the tug of God’s call, however impractical it may seem.
In late college and the beginning of graduate school, I planned to pursue a career in journalism. I knew I loved studying religion, and I was also a good writer, so I thought I would combine these two things and become a religion reporter for a newspaper. My experiences in the world of journalism were all rewarding in some sense, but while I was writing articles and copy editing newspaper pages, I couldn't shake the sense that there was something else that I should be doing. From the first time I began to read the Bible in earnest in late high school, I had been struck by Jesus's injunction to reach out to the poor. Passages from Scripture like, "If you love me, feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17), and "whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), would ring in my head as I walked past homeless people begging for change on the streets.
Finally, I listened to the call and began to volunteer with an outdoor church for the homeless in Cambridge, Massachusetts, similar to the Church in the Yard here in Nashville. You’ve heard me mention this ministry in sermons before. Although I had no idea what to say or do as I interacted with the people on the streets and I felt completely unqualified and incompetent to do that ministry, it certainly brought me much closer to God than journalism ever had. After I wrote some reflections about my experiences with the Outdoor Church, some of my mentors suggested that I might consider ordained ministry. Although every practical bone in my body told me it was time to get a "real job" and start making money to pay off my educational debt, I felt drawn to devote intentional time to discern whether or not I was called to ordained ministry. So, I decided to take a year to reflect and pray through one of the Episcopal Service Corps internship, designed to help young adults in their 20s and early 30s discern their vocational call. Although I wanted to stay in the northeast, in Boston or New York, it turned out that the place God had for me was in Omaha, Nebraska. I could have turned down the opportunity because Omaha was not where I wanted to be, but I’m so glad I didn’t, because it became obvious to me once I arrived and met the wonderful people there who supported me in my discernment that I had found the place of deep blessing that God had for me at that time.
Listening to God's call is not often easy or practical, in my experience. But when God chooses us to do something, we actually have very little choice in the matter. From comparing notes with others in the field of ordained ministry, I have heard countless stories of people who have denied their calling for many years, pursuing another career, until finally they were able to accept and begin to live into that place of deep blessing to which God had been calling them all their lives. Like Jonah, we are finally unable to run from our calling, however scared we might be to accept it.
Accepting that we are chosen by God can be difficult, especially since we often mistakenly think that we cannot be chosen unless we are of a certain level of righteousness and holiness. But the only thing we have to do to disabuse ourselves of that notion is to return to the study of scripture. None of the people chosen by God in scripture were perfect. Think about David, who we read about today. The “spirit of the Lord was mightily upon David,” and yet he still wound up committing adultery and having the husband of his lover killed in battle so he could have her for himself. Not exactly model behavior. But he was still chosen by God to do the role he was called to do.
One of my favorite quotes about our reluctance to accept that we are chosen by God is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but was actually written by Marianne Williamson, an author and minister in the Unity Church. She writes,
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
I believe this is what happens when we begin to follow the path that God has prepared for us -- we are brought face to face with our belovedness and are liberated from our fear. God begins to pry open our hearts to accept God's love and to offer it to others. It may not always be the path we would have expected to take, and it may not be the path that others would have us take -- but it is the path God calls us to nonetheless. And it is an invitation to a place of great blessing.
My prayer is that each of you would find that path, that place of great blessing, in your own lives, and in doing so you would find yourselves face to face with a God who loves you and who chooses you - every day and every hour - to represent God's love to the world.
The Lord has chosen YOU. So, "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify God in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
3 Pentecost, Proper 6, Year B (1 Samuel 15:34-16:13)
What does it mean to be "chosen" by God?
In the Hebrew scripture for today, we heard the story of God choosing David to replace Saul as king of Israel. God tells Samuel he has chosen one of Jesse’s sons to be the next king, so Samuel goes to visit Jesse and find the chosen one. One by one, Jesse’s sons come before Samuel, but Samuel hears from God that none of these are the chosen one. He finally finds out that there is one more son that no one has thought to bring in, since he is young and is out tending the sheep. When this youngest son, David, comes before Samuel, he knows instantly that this is the one God has chosen as the next leader of Israel.
I don’t know about you, but in today’s day and age, I think many people tend to be skeptical about people or communities who claim to be “chosen by God.” If that person is the chosen one, who is everyone else? The non-chosen ones? The rejected ones? The not-good-enough ones? Language about being “chosen” can easily lead people to believe they are superior to others, to take being “chosen” as an indication that they are better than those who are not chosen, that David was somehow better than his brothers, for example, because God chose him rather than any of them.
That’s certainly one way of interpreting what it means to be “chosen by God” – that we are the special ones, that we are superior to others, that God loves us more than God loves everyone else – and certainly there is scriptural precedent for holding such a perspective. But I prefer another narrative in scripture that reminds us that we are ALL people of God, that God’s temple is a house of prayer for ALL nations, not just the Israelites, that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35), that we are ALL chosen by God; it’s just that we are not all chosen to do the same thing. Claiming to be "chosen by God" only becomes a problem when we believe that the thing God has chosen us to do is better than the things God has chosen other people to do.
My grandfather, who was not a church-going man himself, used to say, "What a good thing it is that God made us all different -- that's what makes the world go 'round." Or, as the letter to the Ephesians puts it:
"[E]ach of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13)
Paul’s metaphor about the church as the body of Christ emphasizes how essential diversity is within the community. We need all parts of the body to function effectively. If we all tried to do the same things, not much would get done. Just because David’s brothers were not chosen to be king did not mean that God did not have a plan for their lives, or that God valued them less than God valued their brother.
Each of us has particular gifts that God has given us to use for the building up of the body of Christ. No one gift is better than any of the others. Even this passage from Ephesians is quite limiting, since it talks about people being called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers -- but God also chooses people to be health care workers and architects and BBQ or English tea volunteers and vestry members and gardeners and finance committee members. What role has God chosen you to play in building up the body of Christ? Where do your gifts lie in serving God and bringing others to the knowledge and love of God? (As an aside, if you’re not quite sure of the answer to that question, I invite you to consider joining our next group of Faith Leaders, which will begin in the fall. Faith Leaders is an eight-month-long program for adults that meets weekly and helps people discern what their gifts are and how God is calling them to use their gifts in the world.)
In my own experience of discerning my call to the priesthood, I have come to believe that at any given time, God is calling us to a particular path that will bring us to a place of abundant blessing if we choose to follow it. I believe God will still be with us and work good in our lives even if we do not choose that path, but I do believe that we will find more fulfillment and abundant blessings if we do follow the tug of God’s call, however impractical it may seem.
In late college and the beginning of graduate school, I planned to pursue a career in journalism. I knew I loved studying religion, and I was also a good writer, so I thought I would combine these two things and become a religion reporter for a newspaper. My experiences in the world of journalism were all rewarding in some sense, but while I was writing articles and copy editing newspaper pages, I couldn't shake the sense that there was something else that I should be doing. From the first time I began to read the Bible in earnest in late high school, I had been struck by Jesus's injunction to reach out to the poor. Passages from Scripture like, "If you love me, feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17), and "whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), would ring in my head as I walked past homeless people begging for change on the streets.
Finally, I listened to the call and began to volunteer with an outdoor church for the homeless in Cambridge, Massachusetts, similar to the Church in the Yard here in Nashville. You’ve heard me mention this ministry in sermons before. Although I had no idea what to say or do as I interacted with the people on the streets and I felt completely unqualified and incompetent to do that ministry, it certainly brought me much closer to God than journalism ever had. After I wrote some reflections about my experiences with the Outdoor Church, some of my mentors suggested that I might consider ordained ministry. Although every practical bone in my body told me it was time to get a "real job" and start making money to pay off my educational debt, I felt drawn to devote intentional time to discern whether or not I was called to ordained ministry. So, I decided to take a year to reflect and pray through one of the Episcopal Service Corps internship, designed to help young adults in their 20s and early 30s discern their vocational call. Although I wanted to stay in the northeast, in Boston or New York, it turned out that the place God had for me was in Omaha, Nebraska. I could have turned down the opportunity because Omaha was not where I wanted to be, but I’m so glad I didn’t, because it became obvious to me once I arrived and met the wonderful people there who supported me in my discernment that I had found the place of deep blessing that God had for me at that time.
Listening to God's call is not often easy or practical, in my experience. But when God chooses us to do something, we actually have very little choice in the matter. From comparing notes with others in the field of ordained ministry, I have heard countless stories of people who have denied their calling for many years, pursuing another career, until finally they were able to accept and begin to live into that place of deep blessing to which God had been calling them all their lives. Like Jonah, we are finally unable to run from our calling, however scared we might be to accept it.
Accepting that we are chosen by God can be difficult, especially since we often mistakenly think that we cannot be chosen unless we are of a certain level of righteousness and holiness. But the only thing we have to do to disabuse ourselves of that notion is to return to the study of scripture. None of the people chosen by God in scripture were perfect. Think about David, who we read about today. The “spirit of the Lord was mightily upon David,” and yet he still wound up committing adultery and having the husband of his lover killed in battle so he could have her for himself. Not exactly model behavior. But he was still chosen by God to do the role he was called to do.
One of my favorite quotes about our reluctance to accept that we are chosen by God is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but was actually written by Marianne Williamson, an author and minister in the Unity Church. She writes,
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
I believe this is what happens when we begin to follow the path that God has prepared for us -- we are brought face to face with our belovedness and are liberated from our fear. God begins to pry open our hearts to accept God's love and to offer it to others. It may not always be the path we would have expected to take, and it may not be the path that others would have us take -- but it is the path God calls us to nonetheless. And it is an invitation to a place of great blessing.
My prayer is that each of you would find that path, that place of great blessing, in your own lives, and in doing so you would find yourselves face to face with a God who loves you and who chooses you - every day and every hour - to represent God's love to the world.
The Lord has chosen YOU. So, "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify God in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
Sunday, June 7, 2015
But all the cool kids are doing it!
Sermon delivered Sunday, June 7, 2015, at The Gathering (alternative Eucharist) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. 2 Pentecost, Proper 5, Year B (1 Samuel 8:4-20, Mark 3:20-35)
I’m sure at some point in our lives, most of us have experienced some version of this conversation:
Child: “Hey Mom, this guy Jason invited me to a party this weekend. Can I go?”
Parent: “Um, isn’t Jason the one who has those huge parties at his house when his parents aren’t even home? The ones where the neighbors called the cops last year? I don’t THINK so. Some parents might allow that kind of stuff, but not while you’re under my roof you won’t go to a party like that.”
Child: “But all the cool kids are doing it!”
Parent: “If the cool kids all jumped off a bridge, would you?”
How many of you have ever had a conversation like this, whether you were playing the role of the child or the parent?
Well, in some ways that conversation is what’s going on in our reading from the Hebrew scriptures today. The people of Israel ask Samuel to appoint them a king so they can be like everyone else. “Come on, Samuel, all the cool kids are doing it,” right? You heard the story in the first reading, but here’s a little refresher for you:
Elder 1: “Hey Samuel, you’ve done a pretty good job of leading Israel as prophet and judge, but you’re getting old, and actually, we really kinda question your judgment in appointing your sons as the next judges.”
Elder 2: “Yeah, I mean, we love you and everything, but let’s just say that the apple seems to have fallen pretty far from the tree. Your sons have been engaged in some questionable and corrupt behavior.”
Elder 3: “So we’ve got an idea – why don’t you appoint a king to rule over us? Then we could be like all the other nations!”
Samuel: “Um, I don’t THINK so. There’s a reason God never intended for you to have a king. You’re supposed to be different from all the other nations. God is your king!”
Elders: “But we want to be like everyone else!”
Samuel: “Ok, but if I appoint a king over you, he’s going to take the best of your stuff and send your children to war.”
Elders: “We don’t care! All the cool kids are doing it!”
The biblical stories and Jewish and Christian lore glorify the Israelite monarchy so much that it’s easy to forget that God never intended for Israel to have kings in the first place. The early history of the Israelites in the biblical texts emphasizes quite often that the people did not have a king, by God’s design, because this was to remind them that God was their king. Instead, they were governed by a series of “judges,” who were charismatic leaders raised up by God to deal with issues as they arose among the people and to serve as mediator between God and the people. Their scope of influence was broader than the way we understand the term “judge” in the modern American legal system; these leaders would often also lead the people into battle and work to preserve the physical security of the people as well as mediate disputes. But their power was still much more limited than a king’s would have been.
Israel was governed by a series of judges for about 125 years, from after Joshua conquered the land of Canaan until the establishment of the monarchy that we hear about in today’s reading. When the people of Israel asked for a king, they were asking for a much more structured, centralized form of government, with a large amount of power concentrated in the hands of one person. The reason Samuel was upset that they made this request was not only that they were rejecting one of the things that made them distinctive from the surrounding peoples, but because in doing so, they were also implicitly rejecting God. By asking for a human ruler instead, the people were indicating that God was no longer good enough in God’s governance of them. They thought they had a better idea. And they got that idea from looking around at what everyone else was doing.
We human beings are so susceptible to this, aren’t we? Though much has changed since the time of Samuel and Saul, one thing that hasn’t changed much is human nature, especially this tendency to compare ourselves to others and to want to be like everyone else. Whether it’s adults trying to “keep up with the Joneses” or teenagers wanting to be “like the cool kids,” most of us seem to have an innate desire to belong, to be seen as “one of the group.” It is hard to stand out and be different, and yet that is often what following God requires us to do.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus serves as a perfect contrast to the elders in the first reading. Jesus acts in ways that make him stand out as different from those around him, but unlike the elders in our first reading, he is not insecure about this difference. When people start saying he’s crazy and demon-possessed, he doesn’t let this shame him into acting more “normal.” He doesn’t say, “Oh my goodness, people think I’m crazy; I’d better change my behavior so I can fit in and be like the cool kids!” Instead, he defends himself against the accusations of demon-possession and stands firm in his identity. He knows who he is and what he is called to do and he doesn’t let what everyone else thinks about him influence him or affect him.
Not only does he reject society’s pressure to act like everyone else, in this passage he also redefines what it means to belong. When his mother and brother and sisters come looking for him, presumably to try to “restrain him,” as the beginning of the passage tells us, he doesn’t respond to their anxiety or their attempts to control his actions. Instead, he looks around at those gathered with him, those have left everything to follow him, those who are not held captive by a need to do only what is societally acceptable, and says, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” He redefines what it means to belong. In the kind of community God wants us to create, we find our sense of belonging not by trying to be like everyone else, or doing what all the cool kids are doing, but by following God.
So now it’s your turn. You all are the sermon illustrations today! I want to know what your experiences are with feeling a need to do what everyone else is doing, and what your experiences are with finding your sense of belonging from following God rather than from trying to be like everyone else.
At this point during the worship service, people were handed a piece of paper with these two questions to respond to. They were given the opportunity to respond by posting on Facebook, writing in a journal, or creating some kind of artistic, visual response, and were invited to bring their responses forward to post on a cork board at the front of the room. If you're reading this sermon online only, you're invited to participate in this process by responding to these questions in the comments section below or on Facebook (if you're reading it there.):
Take a few moments to reflect on a time in your life when you wanted to do something in order to be like someone else. It could be a story from any age or stage in your life. When have you wanted to do something just to “fit in” or because you saw someone else doing it and wanted to be like them? What did you want to do?
Then, reflect on a time in your life when you did what you knew God was calling you to do, even if it made you different from everyone else. Have you experienced what it means to find your sense of belonging by following God’s will rather than by trying to be like everyone else? What did you do? What gave you the strength and courage to do what God was calling you to do?
At the end of the time of response, I concluded the sermon with this:
Thank you all for sharing your stories with us and for being living sermon illustrations today. Take time to stop and look more closely at the board after you come up and receive communion, and go on the St. Paul’s Facebook page later and read others’ stories. As you receive the gift of others stories and responses, “hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” through the scriptures and through your own lives.
I’m sure at some point in our lives, most of us have experienced some version of this conversation:
Child: “Hey Mom, this guy Jason invited me to a party this weekend. Can I go?”
Parent: “Um, isn’t Jason the one who has those huge parties at his house when his parents aren’t even home? The ones where the neighbors called the cops last year? I don’t THINK so. Some parents might allow that kind of stuff, but not while you’re under my roof you won’t go to a party like that.”
Child: “But all the cool kids are doing it!”
Parent: “If the cool kids all jumped off a bridge, would you?”
How many of you have ever had a conversation like this, whether you were playing the role of the child or the parent?
Well, in some ways that conversation is what’s going on in our reading from the Hebrew scriptures today. The people of Israel ask Samuel to appoint them a king so they can be like everyone else. “Come on, Samuel, all the cool kids are doing it,” right? You heard the story in the first reading, but here’s a little refresher for you:
Elder 1: “Hey Samuel, you’ve done a pretty good job of leading Israel as prophet and judge, but you’re getting old, and actually, we really kinda question your judgment in appointing your sons as the next judges.”
Elder 2: “Yeah, I mean, we love you and everything, but let’s just say that the apple seems to have fallen pretty far from the tree. Your sons have been engaged in some questionable and corrupt behavior.”
Elder 3: “So we’ve got an idea – why don’t you appoint a king to rule over us? Then we could be like all the other nations!”
Samuel: “Um, I don’t THINK so. There’s a reason God never intended for you to have a king. You’re supposed to be different from all the other nations. God is your king!”
Elders: “But we want to be like everyone else!”
Samuel: “Ok, but if I appoint a king over you, he’s going to take the best of your stuff and send your children to war.”
Elders: “We don’t care! All the cool kids are doing it!”
The biblical stories and Jewish and Christian lore glorify the Israelite monarchy so much that it’s easy to forget that God never intended for Israel to have kings in the first place. The early history of the Israelites in the biblical texts emphasizes quite often that the people did not have a king, by God’s design, because this was to remind them that God was their king. Instead, they were governed by a series of “judges,” who were charismatic leaders raised up by God to deal with issues as they arose among the people and to serve as mediator between God and the people. Their scope of influence was broader than the way we understand the term “judge” in the modern American legal system; these leaders would often also lead the people into battle and work to preserve the physical security of the people as well as mediate disputes. But their power was still much more limited than a king’s would have been.
Israel was governed by a series of judges for about 125 years, from after Joshua conquered the land of Canaan until the establishment of the monarchy that we hear about in today’s reading. When the people of Israel asked for a king, they were asking for a much more structured, centralized form of government, with a large amount of power concentrated in the hands of one person. The reason Samuel was upset that they made this request was not only that they were rejecting one of the things that made them distinctive from the surrounding peoples, but because in doing so, they were also implicitly rejecting God. By asking for a human ruler instead, the people were indicating that God was no longer good enough in God’s governance of them. They thought they had a better idea. And they got that idea from looking around at what everyone else was doing.
We human beings are so susceptible to this, aren’t we? Though much has changed since the time of Samuel and Saul, one thing that hasn’t changed much is human nature, especially this tendency to compare ourselves to others and to want to be like everyone else. Whether it’s adults trying to “keep up with the Joneses” or teenagers wanting to be “like the cool kids,” most of us seem to have an innate desire to belong, to be seen as “one of the group.” It is hard to stand out and be different, and yet that is often what following God requires us to do.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus serves as a perfect contrast to the elders in the first reading. Jesus acts in ways that make him stand out as different from those around him, but unlike the elders in our first reading, he is not insecure about this difference. When people start saying he’s crazy and demon-possessed, he doesn’t let this shame him into acting more “normal.” He doesn’t say, “Oh my goodness, people think I’m crazy; I’d better change my behavior so I can fit in and be like the cool kids!” Instead, he defends himself against the accusations of demon-possession and stands firm in his identity. He knows who he is and what he is called to do and he doesn’t let what everyone else thinks about him influence him or affect him.
Not only does he reject society’s pressure to act like everyone else, in this passage he also redefines what it means to belong. When his mother and brother and sisters come looking for him, presumably to try to “restrain him,” as the beginning of the passage tells us, he doesn’t respond to their anxiety or their attempts to control his actions. Instead, he looks around at those gathered with him, those have left everything to follow him, those who are not held captive by a need to do only what is societally acceptable, and says, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” He redefines what it means to belong. In the kind of community God wants us to create, we find our sense of belonging not by trying to be like everyone else, or doing what all the cool kids are doing, but by following God.
So now it’s your turn. You all are the sermon illustrations today! I want to know what your experiences are with feeling a need to do what everyone else is doing, and what your experiences are with finding your sense of belonging from following God rather than from trying to be like everyone else.
At this point during the worship service, people were handed a piece of paper with these two questions to respond to. They were given the opportunity to respond by posting on Facebook, writing in a journal, or creating some kind of artistic, visual response, and were invited to bring their responses forward to post on a cork board at the front of the room. If you're reading this sermon online only, you're invited to participate in this process by responding to these questions in the comments section below or on Facebook (if you're reading it there.):
Take a few moments to reflect on a time in your life when you wanted to do something in order to be like someone else. It could be a story from any age or stage in your life. When have you wanted to do something just to “fit in” or because you saw someone else doing it and wanted to be like them? What did you want to do?
Then, reflect on a time in your life when you did what you knew God was calling you to do, even if it made you different from everyone else. Have you experienced what it means to find your sense of belonging by following God’s will rather than by trying to be like everyone else? What did you do? What gave you the strength and courage to do what God was calling you to do?
At the end of the time of response, I concluded the sermon with this:
Thank you all for sharing your stories with us and for being living sermon illustrations today. Take time to stop and look more closely at the board after you come up and receive communion, and go on the St. Paul’s Facebook page later and read others’ stories. As you receive the gift of others stories and responses, “hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” through the scriptures and through your own lives.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
The Trinity: An unexplainable, intellectual headache
Sermon delivered Sunday, May 31, 2015 (Trinity Sunday, Year B) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 29, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17).
Today is Trinity Sunday, one of the seven major feast days of the church year. It is the only major feast day dedicated to a doctrine or an idea or concept rather than an event in the life of Jesus or the church, and as such, I have to warn you that today’s sermon, by nature, is bound to be a bit abstract.
I also have to warn you that it may make your brain hurt. This is a hazard of any serious theological exploration, since theology is an attempt to explain and understand God, which is by definition an impossible task, since God is always beyond human understanding. I don’t know about you, but as I bump up against the limits of my capacity to conceptualize abstract and unseen realities, my brain always starts to hurt a bit. It’s too bad none of the drug companies have yet developed a pill for alleviating intellectual headaches!
The Trinity is notoriously difficult to understand and explain. It always comes up in interfaith dialogue, since one of the things that non-Christians are most puzzled about when looking at Christianity from the outside is how the largest faith in the world manages to not be able to do simple math. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God, but there is only one God? 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? It appears that the church as a whole never made it out of first grade! When Jews or Muslims or Sikhs ask Christians to explain the Trinity, they’re likely to get an uncomfortable smile and a laugh from their Christian conversation partner. Some Christians get touchy when asked this question by a non-Christian, since they believe the non-Christian may be asking them this question order to trip them up and make them look stupid, to “debunk” their faith, so to speak. In our desire to make our faith appear intellectually respectable, we’re afraid to let out the secret that none of us really understands the Trinity.
But this confusion and consternation about the Trinity goes back to the earliest days of the church. In the first few centuries after Jesus’s death, his followers argued, debated, and even fought violently over how to reconcile a belief that Jesus was divine with the traditional monotheism, that is, belief in one God, that was foundational to the Jewish faith out of which Christianity arose. The testimony of the texts that the community was beginning to regard as authoritative and sacred and would come to be defined as Christian scripture (the texts now in our New Testament) supported identifying both the person of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that descended upon his followers at Pentecost as Lord and God. But how could Jesus and the Spirit both be God, and what was their relationship to the God of Israel, as Jews had understood him before the coming of Jesus? In defining the doctrine of the Trinity, the church attempted to make sense of these mind-boggling questions.
The understanding the church came to affirm in the Nicene Creed in the year 325 AD, clarified later in the Council of Chalcedon and the Athanasian Creed, in the 5th and 6th centuries, respectively, is that there is one God, but that one God consists of three “persons” that are co-eternal and co-equal. They all have the same attributes and qualities and are equally worthy of devotion and worship – and all three are “fully God” in and of themselves – but yet these three “persons” are still separate and distinguishable from one other. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit. All three persons of the Trinity are God, but none of the persons is the same as any of the others, and they are still one God, not three.
I told you this was going to make your brain hurt.
In an attempt to alleviate this intellectual headache, well-meaning people throughout the ages have crafted various analogies to try to explain the Trinity. Unfortunately, none of them actually illustrate the “orthodox” doctrine of the Trinity – the “official” view the church eventually upheld as true doctrine – but one of the heresies – a way of understanding the Trinity that the church ultimately came to reject. You’ve probably heard some of these analogies; in fact, you may even use one of them to make sense of the Trinity in your own mind. If so, I apologize, but I’m about to burst your bubble.
Let’s take this one: the Trinity is like water – just as the molecular formula H20 can be in a solid, liquid, or gaseous state (as ice, water, or steam), but still be H20 no matter which state it is in, so God is still God no matter whether in the form of Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
Or what about this one: the Trinity is like the way we have multiple identities in our relationship with the world. So, I am a daughter and a wife and a friend – but I am still Tracy, no matter which relationship someone primarily knows me in. In the same way, God is always God, whether he is in relationship with us as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
Those sound great, don’t they? And they make sense. But the problem is that they’re heresies. They illustrate not an orthodox view of the Trinity, but modalism, an ancient heresy condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Modalism holds that there is one God who has different “modes of being” – that God can appear or relate to us as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit, but ultimately it is the same God, just appearing in different forms. This makes a lot of logical sense and clearly affirms the oneness of God. In fact, you’ll hear many modern Hindus talk this way about how they understand their many gods being various manifestations of the one universal God, simply appearing in different forms. But the church rejected this understanding of God. Instead, it upheld a belief in something much more illogical. It said that while the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God, the Father is NOT the Son and the Son is NOT the Spirit – they are each distinct entities separate from one another, not God manifesting himself to us in different ways.
Ok, so what about this one? The Trinity is like a stream of light. There are three components – the light’s source, the beam of light, and the spot produced when the beam hits an object. The Father is the source, Jesus is the beam of light that connects God to the object (us), and the spot is the Holy Spirit that lives in us when the light hits us.
Ah, much more deep and complex than the first two analogies, huh? But sorry – another heresy! This time we’re dealing with Arianism, a heresy condemned at the Council of Nicaea and named after Arius, one of its major proponents. This view holds that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are creations of the Father – that there was a point in time where there was only God the Father, and later God created the Son and the Holy Spirit. Again, this makes a lot of logical sense and affirms the oneness of God – that there was an original creator God in pure oneness, and these other divine beings “emanated” from that one creator God. But the church rejected this understanding of God, too, and instead affirmed something much more illogical – that the Son and the Spirit were both “co-eternal” with the Father – that is, that they both have always existed, since before time began. This is why the Nicene Creed makes such a big deal out of Jesus being “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father” – although I’m still not entirely clear on how being “begotten” is different from being “made,” but clearly they were trying to make a distinction there to show that Jesus was not created – he always existed and was involved in the very creation of the world – and thus the Creed emphasizes, “through him all things were made.”
Ok, one more, just for fun. How about this one? The Trinity is like 3-in-1 shampoo. (I’m not making this stuff up, people. This is actually an analogy that has been used to try to explain the Trinity!) The 3-in-1 shampoo comes out of the bottle onto your hand as one liquid, but it is simultaneously shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. In a similar way, the Trinity is one God (like the liquid) but it is simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
There! That’s a better explanation, right? Because we’re affirming that God is all three things at once, not merely taking on different forms or modes of being. But nope – heresy again! This time, it’s the heresy of tritheism – the belief in three gods. If you really think it through, the 3-in-1 shampoo is not actually one substance, it is three substances combined in one bottle. Each of the substances are unique and separate – shampoo, conditioner, and body wash – they are three separate things, not the same in substance or essence or being – the Greek word here is “ousia” – and the Council of Nicaea affirmed that the Son and the Spirit are “homoousia” – of the same essence – made of the same “stuff” – as the Father.
So – what are we left with? A whole lot of dense theological language that seems to make no sense, with no real helpful analogies to explain it. And perhaps that’s as it should be. I think it’s no accident that the church consistently chose the explanation that made the least logical sense as they were trying to name and define God. It is as if they intentionally built into their definition of God a limit on human pride. For when we think we understand God, when we are sure we know exactly how God works and exactly what God’s nature is, we have essentially put God in a box. We have limited God, which by definition makes God no longer God.
To me, the fact that there are no good analogies for the Trinity is an affirmation of the fact that God is ultimately beyond our understanding, and we can’t neatly define God by way of a cute little metaphor like 3-in-1 shampoo. The Trinity is a mind puzzle, a theological conundrum that will keep us thinking and wondering for years to come. If theologians haven’t nailed it down in over 2,000 years, I’m pretty confident in saying you and I won’t be successful in making any real sense of it either. And for me, every time I bump up against the limits of my human capacity to understand, and my brain begins to hurt, it reminds me that God is so much more than I can ever begin to imagine. It stirs in me a sense of awe and wonder that drives me to my knees in worship.
So perhaps we have discovered an antidote for the intellectual headache after all – we can stop our brains from hurting so much by embracing mystery in worship and adoration. In that spirit, I’d like to invite you into a time of worship and contemplation during the period of silence that always follows our sermons. Let go of the hard work of trying to understand the Trinity and simply be still and rest in the presence of God.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
"I have other sheep that are not of this fold:" Sharing Christ through interfaith dialogue
Our lectionary for today presents us with two of the most frequently cited passages on the topic of Christianity’s relationship to other religions. From Acts 4: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) and from John 10: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also” (John 10:16). In the volumes that have been written about how Christians should approach people who follow other religious paths, these two passages inevitably come up. The Acts passage is cited by those who believe we should convert all non-Christians to Christianity, and the passage from John is cited by those who believe Jesus might already have a relationship with people of other religions without their explicit conversion to Christianity.
In the academic study of religion, there is an entire discipline called “theologies of religion,” which has to do with how people make theological sense of the fact of religious diversity. What does the existence of other religions say about my religion? What is God’s relationship with people who follow a different religious path than I do? Is it possible for people of other religions to be “saved” without following my religion?
Classically, scholars have grouped the way people answer these questions into three basic categories: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Allow me to briefly define these terms before we return to examining the scripture at hand.
Exclusivist theology holds that there is only one true religion, and that everyone must convert to that religion in order to be “saved.”
Inclusivist theology holds that salvation comes through one particular religion, but acknowledges that people who follow other religions may achieve salvation without converting to that religion. How is this possible? Well, inclusivists generally understand any saving power of God at work in the world to be part of their religious framework, whether or not people acknowledge and name it as such. Thus, an inclusivist Christian would say that salvation always comes through Jesus Christ, but that Jesus may save Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus through their own religious metaphors and understandings.
Pluralist theology holds that there is only one truth, but that all religions are equally valid ways to access that truth. The analogy is often given of one mountain with many paths on it, but all of which ultimately lead to the same spot on the summit. Thus, no matter which path you follow, you will reach the same end.
Returning to our scriptures at hand, the passage from Acts is clearly of the exclusivist perspective: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The passage from John sounds like it might be pluralist: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also” (John 10:16) -- as pluralist theologians often cite this passage, but we have to go on to read the rest of the passage in context. The entire verse says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” So while Jesus is bringing in these “other sheep,” they are still listening to him and following him, ultimately coming to be part of the “one flock” that is the church, which makes this passage inclusivist, not pluralist. Although much ink has been spilled over who exactly the “other sheep” are in this parable, if they are taken to refer to people of other faiths, we still must acknowledge that in this vision, those people of other faiths ultimately come to follow Jesus.
Given my interest in and passion for interfaith dialogue, you might have guessed that I have devoted quite a bit of time to pondering these passages, and others like them elsewhere in the Bible. In my study, I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe it is possible to argue for a pluralist theology with scriptural support. While there might be certain aspects of a pluralist theology that appeal to me, and while there are Christian theologians who hold a pluralist theology of religions, I think that if we are going to remain faithful to the New Testament, the furthest we can go in our theological openness to other faiths is an inclusivist perspective like that expressed in John 10: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16). People of other faiths may be part of Jesus’s “other sheep,” but they will ultimately come to be part of the “one flock” under the “one shepherd” – whether that happens explicitly in this lifetime or not.
Christians often see a tension between evangelism and interfaith dialogue – arguing that the moratorium on proselytizing often required as a “ground rule” of interfaith dialogue conflicts with our call to proclaim the Gospel to others. But I’m not convinced that there has to be a conflict between the two. As a Christian, our goal should always be to share our love of Jesus with others, whether through evangelism or interfaith dialogue. If someone is interested in learning about Christianity and feels drawn to follow Jesus, I am delighted to invite them to learn more about the faith and will encourage them to unite themselves with Christ in baptism. It has been one of the highlights of my ministry to accompany an adult catechumen, Sharmila Patel, on her journey of faith this year and watch her become a Christian through baptism at the bishop’s visit last week. But I also believe we can authentically and powerfully share Christ with people of other religions even if they do not decide to become a Christian and be baptized.
An example of this from my own experience is my relationship with my friend and colleague Valarie Kaur, who is a follower of the Sikh religion and a nationally-known interfaith leader and speaker. You may remember that I have mentioned her in sermons before; she and I have had a long and complex interfaith friendship that has stretched us both to grow spiritually.
In 2007, I was doing an internship with a parish in Nebraska as part of my year of discernment for the priesthood, and Valarie participated in an interfaith Stations of the Cross project I presented as the Lenten series for that year. Based on a similar project organized in the Church of England a few years prior, my interfaith Stations of the Cross project invited people of different religions to take one of the classic Stations of the Cross and reflect on it through the lens of their own faith. So, for instance, a Muslim participant made a connection between Jesus’s death on the cross and the execution of one of the martyrs of his own faith.
Valarie was the Sikh participant in the project, and she took the first station, “Jesus is Condemned to Die.” In it, she reflected on the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man shot and killed in Arizona just four days after 9/11 by a man who thought he was a terrorist because of the turban and beard he wore as part of his Sikh faith. Participants were encouraged to write a meditation generic enough that it could be read as describing either the event from the non-Christian faith or the story of Jesus’s crucifixion. This is what Valarie wrote for the first station, “Jesus is Condemned to Die”:
“They were afraid of the ones they could not understand. They reached for their weapons and marched in the streets. ‘You are the enemy,’ they said to the man with light in his eyes. His face shone with God, but they could not see the divine in him. They could only see strangeness. The man was condemned, but he accepted God’s will and turned to God and said, ‘God, I am ready for you to use me in whatever way you wish.’ There was blood on the ground when he died, and the ones who knew him gathered at his grave and wept. The women and men took comfort and sang in the streets, ‘He died so that others would not,’ and the echo tried to confirm it: ‘He died so that others would not.’”
Everything about this meditation – the condemned man accepting God’s will, those who knew him seeing greater meaning in his death – was a description of the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 21st century Indian-American Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona, but the similarities between this story and the condemnation and death of a 1st century Jewish Palestinian man we Christians call our Lord and Savior were striking, to me and to the congregation who participated in the study – and to Valarie herself. She wrote this reflection on what the experience of participating in the project was like for her:
“As a 26-year old Sikh American who had many childhood encounters where friends and teachers tried to convert me to Christianity, I did not feel that Christian theology spoke to the heart of my own experience - until I wrote this reflection. I discovered that the themes of suffering, sacrifice, and service defined not only the Christian story but the human story - and the way I understand my own life experience.”
The Sunday after that Wednesday night program, Valarie attended church with me for the first time. Although I’d been to Sikh services with her before, she’d always somehow respectfully declined my invitations to attend church, perhaps because she had a negative taste in her mouth for Christianity after her childhood experiences with Christians telling her she was going to hell. But this time she agreed, and she chose to come forward and receive communion during the service. As we pulled out of the parking lot after church, she grabbed my arm and said to me with tears in her eyes, “Tracy, now I understand why you want to be a priest.” She later told me that her experiences at my parish in Nebraska that week were some of the most powerful experiences of spiritual belonging she’d ever felt, something she never expected to find in a community of Christians.
My more evangelical brothers and sisters might say that because Valarie has not become a Christian, I have not effectively “shared Christ” with her. But to me, the experience we had that winter in Nebraska was one of the most powerful and effective ways I have ever “shared Christ” with anyone. An intentionally interfaith encounter more effectively communicated the story of Christ to someone who is not a Christian than any overt attempts to convert her ever did. So as a good Anglican, taking into account reason as well as scripture and tradition in formulating my theology, I have come to identify as an inclusivist in terms of my theology of religions. When I read today’s Gospel passage, I believe deeply that Valarie and others like her are included in those “other sheep” that also belong to Jesus.
In the academic study of religion, there is an entire discipline called “theologies of religion,” which has to do with how people make theological sense of the fact of religious diversity. What does the existence of other religions say about my religion? What is God’s relationship with people who follow a different religious path than I do? Is it possible for people of other religions to be “saved” without following my religion?
Classically, scholars have grouped the way people answer these questions into three basic categories: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Allow me to briefly define these terms before we return to examining the scripture at hand.
Exclusivist theology holds that there is only one true religion, and that everyone must convert to that religion in order to be “saved.”
Inclusivist theology holds that salvation comes through one particular religion, but acknowledges that people who follow other religions may achieve salvation without converting to that religion. How is this possible? Well, inclusivists generally understand any saving power of God at work in the world to be part of their religious framework, whether or not people acknowledge and name it as such. Thus, an inclusivist Christian would say that salvation always comes through Jesus Christ, but that Jesus may save Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus through their own religious metaphors and understandings.
Pluralist theology holds that there is only one truth, but that all religions are equally valid ways to access that truth. The analogy is often given of one mountain with many paths on it, but all of which ultimately lead to the same spot on the summit. Thus, no matter which path you follow, you will reach the same end.
Returning to our scriptures at hand, the passage from Acts is clearly of the exclusivist perspective: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The passage from John sounds like it might be pluralist: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also” (John 10:16) -- as pluralist theologians often cite this passage, but we have to go on to read the rest of the passage in context. The entire verse says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” So while Jesus is bringing in these “other sheep,” they are still listening to him and following him, ultimately coming to be part of the “one flock” that is the church, which makes this passage inclusivist, not pluralist. Although much ink has been spilled over who exactly the “other sheep” are in this parable, if they are taken to refer to people of other faiths, we still must acknowledge that in this vision, those people of other faiths ultimately come to follow Jesus.
Given my interest in and passion for interfaith dialogue, you might have guessed that I have devoted quite a bit of time to pondering these passages, and others like them elsewhere in the Bible. In my study, I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe it is possible to argue for a pluralist theology with scriptural support. While there might be certain aspects of a pluralist theology that appeal to me, and while there are Christian theologians who hold a pluralist theology of religions, I think that if we are going to remain faithful to the New Testament, the furthest we can go in our theological openness to other faiths is an inclusivist perspective like that expressed in John 10: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16). People of other faiths may be part of Jesus’s “other sheep,” but they will ultimately come to be part of the “one flock” under the “one shepherd” – whether that happens explicitly in this lifetime or not.
Christians often see a tension between evangelism and interfaith dialogue – arguing that the moratorium on proselytizing often required as a “ground rule” of interfaith dialogue conflicts with our call to proclaim the Gospel to others. But I’m not convinced that there has to be a conflict between the two. As a Christian, our goal should always be to share our love of Jesus with others, whether through evangelism or interfaith dialogue. If someone is interested in learning about Christianity and feels drawn to follow Jesus, I am delighted to invite them to learn more about the faith and will encourage them to unite themselves with Christ in baptism. It has been one of the highlights of my ministry to accompany an adult catechumen, Sharmila Patel, on her journey of faith this year and watch her become a Christian through baptism at the bishop’s visit last week. But I also believe we can authentically and powerfully share Christ with people of other religions even if they do not decide to become a Christian and be baptized.
An example of this from my own experience is my relationship with my friend and colleague Valarie Kaur, who is a follower of the Sikh religion and a nationally-known interfaith leader and speaker. You may remember that I have mentioned her in sermons before; she and I have had a long and complex interfaith friendship that has stretched us both to grow spiritually.
In 2007, I was doing an internship with a parish in Nebraska as part of my year of discernment for the priesthood, and Valarie participated in an interfaith Stations of the Cross project I presented as the Lenten series for that year. Based on a similar project organized in the Church of England a few years prior, my interfaith Stations of the Cross project invited people of different religions to take one of the classic Stations of the Cross and reflect on it through the lens of their own faith. So, for instance, a Muslim participant made a connection between Jesus’s death on the cross and the execution of one of the martyrs of his own faith.
Valarie was the Sikh participant in the project, and she took the first station, “Jesus is Condemned to Die.” In it, she reflected on the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man shot and killed in Arizona just four days after 9/11 by a man who thought he was a terrorist because of the turban and beard he wore as part of his Sikh faith. Participants were encouraged to write a meditation generic enough that it could be read as describing either the event from the non-Christian faith or the story of Jesus’s crucifixion. This is what Valarie wrote for the first station, “Jesus is Condemned to Die”:
“They were afraid of the ones they could not understand. They reached for their weapons and marched in the streets. ‘You are the enemy,’ they said to the man with light in his eyes. His face shone with God, but they could not see the divine in him. They could only see strangeness. The man was condemned, but he accepted God’s will and turned to God and said, ‘God, I am ready for you to use me in whatever way you wish.’ There was blood on the ground when he died, and the ones who knew him gathered at his grave and wept. The women and men took comfort and sang in the streets, ‘He died so that others would not,’ and the echo tried to confirm it: ‘He died so that others would not.’”
Everything about this meditation – the condemned man accepting God’s will, those who knew him seeing greater meaning in his death – was a description of the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 21st century Indian-American Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona, but the similarities between this story and the condemnation and death of a 1st century Jewish Palestinian man we Christians call our Lord and Savior were striking, to me and to the congregation who participated in the study – and to Valarie herself. She wrote this reflection on what the experience of participating in the project was like for her:
“As a 26-year old Sikh American who had many childhood encounters where friends and teachers tried to convert me to Christianity, I did not feel that Christian theology spoke to the heart of my own experience - until I wrote this reflection. I discovered that the themes of suffering, sacrifice, and service defined not only the Christian story but the human story - and the way I understand my own life experience.”
The Sunday after that Wednesday night program, Valarie attended church with me for the first time. Although I’d been to Sikh services with her before, she’d always somehow respectfully declined my invitations to attend church, perhaps because she had a negative taste in her mouth for Christianity after her childhood experiences with Christians telling her she was going to hell. But this time she agreed, and she chose to come forward and receive communion during the service. As we pulled out of the parking lot after church, she grabbed my arm and said to me with tears in her eyes, “Tracy, now I understand why you want to be a priest.” She later told me that her experiences at my parish in Nebraska that week were some of the most powerful experiences of spiritual belonging she’d ever felt, something she never expected to find in a community of Christians.
My more evangelical brothers and sisters might say that because Valarie has not become a Christian, I have not effectively “shared Christ” with her. But to me, the experience we had that winter in Nebraska was one of the most powerful and effective ways I have ever “shared Christ” with anyone. An intentionally interfaith encounter more effectively communicated the story of Christ to someone who is not a Christian than any overt attempts to convert her ever did. So as a good Anglican, taking into account reason as well as scripture and tradition in formulating my theology, I have come to identify as an inclusivist in terms of my theology of religions. When I read today’s Gospel passage, I believe deeply that Valarie and others like her are included in those “other sheep” that also belong to Jesus.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Be angry, but do not sin -- a reflection on the "heart-anger" of Jesus and the prophets
Sermon delivered Sunday, March 8, 2015 (3rd Sunday in Lent, Year B), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Exodus 20:1-17, Ps. 19, 1 Cor. 1:18-25, John 2:13-22).
“Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables” (John 2:15, NRSV).
The story of Jesus “cleansing the temple,” as today’s Gospel passage is often called, gives us glimpse of a side of Jesus that can make us uncomfortable: his anger. Popular images of Jesus tend to picture him as quiet and serene, holding soft, fluffy lambs or cradling children, or sitting in a field of lilies like the image we have in this stained glass window up front here. You don’t see many stained glass windows showing an image of Jesus chasing people and animals with a whip! Even a quick Google search for images of “angry Jesus” pulled up thousands of images where Jesus looks only mildly miffed, or perhaps not even angry at all, but simply serious. This picture (see image at right) was the only picture I could find of a depiction of Jesus where his face showed something recognizable as actual anger.
Why this reluctance to acknowledge that Jesus got angry sometimes? Well, for one thing, we generally do not think of anger as a good thing. The church has historically named anger as one of the seven deadly sins, and if we claim that Jesus lived among us as “one without sin,” then if anger is a sin, surely Jesus could never have ever gotten angry. This story makes us uncomfortable because it’s embarrassing when the Son of God suddenly starts acting like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum, so our strategy for dealing with it has generally been to either avoid talking about it and try to distract the masses with other, nicer stories about Jesus: “Look over here! Jesus said to love the little children and let them come unto me!” – or to spiritualize the story by saying that Jesus wasn’t really mad when he did this, that it was a purely symbolic action to show that his death would do away with the system of animal sacrifice or that his message was really about our need to cleanse the “temple” of our bodies and purify our thoughts and intentions in worship rather than an instance of him losing his temper.
But to the discerning reader, none of these responses to the story seem to hold much water. It seems pretty clear that this is a story about an angry Jesus, and besides that, we have all those images of an angry God in the Hebrew Bible to deal with as well. Anger is not a concept foreign to God, at least not as the Judeo-Christian tradition has understood God throughout the centuries. So have we simply projected human thoughts and feelings like anger onto God, or is anger actually an attribute of God?
And if anger is an attribute of God, how did it become labeled as a sin for humanity? Is there a way to be angry as a human being and not be sinful? It is interesting that we read this story of Jesus’s anger during the season of Lent, a season when we are encouraged to name and acknowledge our sins and repent of them. If we have been doing that this Lent, anger has probably appeared many times on our list of sins as we reflect on our lives, and we’re probably trying to think of ways to not be angry or to let go of our anger. But perhaps this story about Jesus’s anger offers us another approach to our anger, an approach that seeks not to repress or deny it, but to redeem it, to direct it toward holy purposes.
If we examine scriptural perspectives on anger, the Bible does not say unequivocally that all anger is sinful. Certainly, it gives many warnings about the close connection between anger and sin, especially in the wisdom literature like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Proverbs 29:11 (NIV) says, “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control,” and Ecclesiastes 7:9 (NIV) says, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.” The New Testament epistles warn against the dangers of anger as well: James writes that we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:19-20, NIV), and the author of Colossians instructs the people to “rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (Colossians 3:8, NIV). Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that love is “not easily angered” (1 Corinthians 13:5), and Jesus himself warns against anger when he says in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21). So how do we square this teaching of Jesus with his actions in today’s Gospel passage? All four Gospels record the incident in the temple, so we can’t say that the author of Matthew’s Gospel was unaware of it as he simultaneously recorded Jesus’s words about not being angry in the Sermon on the Mount. So how can both be an accurate representation of Jesus’s teachings and actions, of the message he taught and embodied?
Perhaps the key lies in a distinction implied in a passage from Ephesians where the author is instructing the community on proper Christian behavior. In chapter 4, verses 26-27, he writes, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” The wording of this instruction indicates that although the author sees a close connection between anger and sin, he still believes it is possible to be angry but not sin. And I find it interesting that the 10 Commandments, which we heard in our first reading for today, do NOT include a prohibition against anger per se. Despite the fact that Jesus says in his commentary on the 10 Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister is liable for judgment, there is not a commandment that says, “Thou shalt not be angry.” I believe Jesus’s point in his rhetorical intensifying of the commandments is not to say “thou shalt not be angry,” which really would not be humanly possible or realistic, but to remind us that we should purify our inner thoughts as well as our outward actions. His point is that even if we refrain from killing, if we are seething with hateful thoughts toward our neighbor, we are still doing a kind of violence toward them.
Robert Masters, a psychologist in Vancouver, Canada, has written about the distinctions between different kinds of anger and the debate about whether openly expressing anger is a good or a bad thing psychologically. While secular psychological literature tends to teach that it is better to control anger than to openly express it, he points out that religious literature includes examples of anger that can be used for good, the kind of “anger without sin” that we have been considering. He calls this kind of anger “heart-anger,” which he defines as anger that is rooted not in a selfish sense of wrongs done to me, but in a deep concern for others and what is right for society as a whole. Heart-anger, he writes, is a kind of “wrathful compassion – a potent, often fiery caring” [1]. He specifically uses the example of Jesus cleansing the temple as an illustration of heart-anger, and also puts the anger of the Hebrew prophets in this category, as well as the anger of various Eastern sages at their disciples [2].
This heart-anger, however, is not simply a raging against the injustices of the world. It is not exactly what we mean when we talk about “righteous anger,” which too often seems to be “self-righteous anger” rather than anything truly sacred. People have rightly observed that those who fight injustice out of a sense of deep anger often wind up in a miserable state of mind, constantly angry people who seem to have no peace and whose life is centered around the very thing they are fighting against. Thus, an anti-war protester’s life is all about war, and their techniques, however different, often mirror the very behaviors they say they want to eliminate in others. Heart-anger, as Masters describes it, is a highly advanced mental and emotional state that requires much intentional spiritual discipline to cultivate. Those who express heart-anger have the ability to completely and fully control their anger, but they make the conscious choice to express it openly and fully because “sometimes what is needed in order to awaken others is a shock” [3]. Heart-anger is a spiritual anger, and spiritual anger always has the objective of stimulating repentance and thus contributing to the spiritual growth of the person [4]. It is not unlike what we might call “tough love,” doing something we know will appear hurtful to another person because we know it is ultimately for their own good, like Annie Sullivan imposing strict disciplinary measures on the deaf and blind Helen Keller to help her crack the code of sign language pressed into her palm to open her world to the gift of communication with others [5]. Masters writes that heart-anger is “pure compassion in action” [6]. Building on the paradoxes expressed in our epistle reading for today from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we might add that just as “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25), so God’s anger is more compassionate than human compassion.
Given the close connection between anger and sin, however, we should be careful about using the concept of heart-anger to justify and sanctify our all-too-often unholy expressions of anger. We should not fool ourselves into thinking we are expressing heart-anger when what we are actually doing is venting unrefined, destructive anger. Masters says that the goal of the expression of heart-anger is always healing and intimacy [7], and that expressing heart-anger requires a high degree of self-awareness, which is cultivated in an ongoing spiritual practice like meditation or contemplative prayer that allows us to examine our anger and be aware of the root cause and nature of it before we begin to give expression to it [8].
The good news, however, is that it is possible to cultivate anger without sin. So when we feel our tempers flare, we can take a deep breath, think about whether our anger is rooted in selfish or unselfish concerns, and pray that we can direct our anger toward spiritual use, like Jesus in the temple or the prophets calling the people to repentance. We can turn to Jesus and pray that our once-angry human Savior would activate in us the anger redeemed through his incarnation, an anger that is pure compassion in action.
[1] Robert Augustus Masters, “Compassionate Wrath: Transpersonal Approaches to Anger,” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2000 (Vol. 31, No. 1), 34.
[2] Ibid., 39.
[3] Ibid., 42.
[4] Ibid., 43 (quoting Tibetan spiritual master Marpa).
[5] Helen Keller example given in Jim McGuiggan, Celebrating the Wrath of God: Reflections on the Agony and the Ecstacy of His Relentless Love, (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press, 2001), 69.
[6] Masters, 48.
[7] Ibid., 44.
[8] Ibid.
“Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables” (John 2:15, NRSV).
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| "Angry Jesus" by Manuel Guzman |
Why this reluctance to acknowledge that Jesus got angry sometimes? Well, for one thing, we generally do not think of anger as a good thing. The church has historically named anger as one of the seven deadly sins, and if we claim that Jesus lived among us as “one without sin,” then if anger is a sin, surely Jesus could never have ever gotten angry. This story makes us uncomfortable because it’s embarrassing when the Son of God suddenly starts acting like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum, so our strategy for dealing with it has generally been to either avoid talking about it and try to distract the masses with other, nicer stories about Jesus: “Look over here! Jesus said to love the little children and let them come unto me!” – or to spiritualize the story by saying that Jesus wasn’t really mad when he did this, that it was a purely symbolic action to show that his death would do away with the system of animal sacrifice or that his message was really about our need to cleanse the “temple” of our bodies and purify our thoughts and intentions in worship rather than an instance of him losing his temper.
But to the discerning reader, none of these responses to the story seem to hold much water. It seems pretty clear that this is a story about an angry Jesus, and besides that, we have all those images of an angry God in the Hebrew Bible to deal with as well. Anger is not a concept foreign to God, at least not as the Judeo-Christian tradition has understood God throughout the centuries. So have we simply projected human thoughts and feelings like anger onto God, or is anger actually an attribute of God?
And if anger is an attribute of God, how did it become labeled as a sin for humanity? Is there a way to be angry as a human being and not be sinful? It is interesting that we read this story of Jesus’s anger during the season of Lent, a season when we are encouraged to name and acknowledge our sins and repent of them. If we have been doing that this Lent, anger has probably appeared many times on our list of sins as we reflect on our lives, and we’re probably trying to think of ways to not be angry or to let go of our anger. But perhaps this story about Jesus’s anger offers us another approach to our anger, an approach that seeks not to repress or deny it, but to redeem it, to direct it toward holy purposes.
If we examine scriptural perspectives on anger, the Bible does not say unequivocally that all anger is sinful. Certainly, it gives many warnings about the close connection between anger and sin, especially in the wisdom literature like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Proverbs 29:11 (NIV) says, “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control,” and Ecclesiastes 7:9 (NIV) says, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.” The New Testament epistles warn against the dangers of anger as well: James writes that we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:19-20, NIV), and the author of Colossians instructs the people to “rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (Colossians 3:8, NIV). Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that love is “not easily angered” (1 Corinthians 13:5), and Jesus himself warns against anger when he says in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21). So how do we square this teaching of Jesus with his actions in today’s Gospel passage? All four Gospels record the incident in the temple, so we can’t say that the author of Matthew’s Gospel was unaware of it as he simultaneously recorded Jesus’s words about not being angry in the Sermon on the Mount. So how can both be an accurate representation of Jesus’s teachings and actions, of the message he taught and embodied?
Perhaps the key lies in a distinction implied in a passage from Ephesians where the author is instructing the community on proper Christian behavior. In chapter 4, verses 26-27, he writes, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” The wording of this instruction indicates that although the author sees a close connection between anger and sin, he still believes it is possible to be angry but not sin. And I find it interesting that the 10 Commandments, which we heard in our first reading for today, do NOT include a prohibition against anger per se. Despite the fact that Jesus says in his commentary on the 10 Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister is liable for judgment, there is not a commandment that says, “Thou shalt not be angry.” I believe Jesus’s point in his rhetorical intensifying of the commandments is not to say “thou shalt not be angry,” which really would not be humanly possible or realistic, but to remind us that we should purify our inner thoughts as well as our outward actions. His point is that even if we refrain from killing, if we are seething with hateful thoughts toward our neighbor, we are still doing a kind of violence toward them.
Robert Masters, a psychologist in Vancouver, Canada, has written about the distinctions between different kinds of anger and the debate about whether openly expressing anger is a good or a bad thing psychologically. While secular psychological literature tends to teach that it is better to control anger than to openly express it, he points out that religious literature includes examples of anger that can be used for good, the kind of “anger without sin” that we have been considering. He calls this kind of anger “heart-anger,” which he defines as anger that is rooted not in a selfish sense of wrongs done to me, but in a deep concern for others and what is right for society as a whole. Heart-anger, he writes, is a kind of “wrathful compassion – a potent, often fiery caring” [1]. He specifically uses the example of Jesus cleansing the temple as an illustration of heart-anger, and also puts the anger of the Hebrew prophets in this category, as well as the anger of various Eastern sages at their disciples [2].
This heart-anger, however, is not simply a raging against the injustices of the world. It is not exactly what we mean when we talk about “righteous anger,” which too often seems to be “self-righteous anger” rather than anything truly sacred. People have rightly observed that those who fight injustice out of a sense of deep anger often wind up in a miserable state of mind, constantly angry people who seem to have no peace and whose life is centered around the very thing they are fighting against. Thus, an anti-war protester’s life is all about war, and their techniques, however different, often mirror the very behaviors they say they want to eliminate in others. Heart-anger, as Masters describes it, is a highly advanced mental and emotional state that requires much intentional spiritual discipline to cultivate. Those who express heart-anger have the ability to completely and fully control their anger, but they make the conscious choice to express it openly and fully because “sometimes what is needed in order to awaken others is a shock” [3]. Heart-anger is a spiritual anger, and spiritual anger always has the objective of stimulating repentance and thus contributing to the spiritual growth of the person [4]. It is not unlike what we might call “tough love,” doing something we know will appear hurtful to another person because we know it is ultimately for their own good, like Annie Sullivan imposing strict disciplinary measures on the deaf and blind Helen Keller to help her crack the code of sign language pressed into her palm to open her world to the gift of communication with others [5]. Masters writes that heart-anger is “pure compassion in action” [6]. Building on the paradoxes expressed in our epistle reading for today from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we might add that just as “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25), so God’s anger is more compassionate than human compassion.
Given the close connection between anger and sin, however, we should be careful about using the concept of heart-anger to justify and sanctify our all-too-often unholy expressions of anger. We should not fool ourselves into thinking we are expressing heart-anger when what we are actually doing is venting unrefined, destructive anger. Masters says that the goal of the expression of heart-anger is always healing and intimacy [7], and that expressing heart-anger requires a high degree of self-awareness, which is cultivated in an ongoing spiritual practice like meditation or contemplative prayer that allows us to examine our anger and be aware of the root cause and nature of it before we begin to give expression to it [8].
The good news, however, is that it is possible to cultivate anger without sin. So when we feel our tempers flare, we can take a deep breath, think about whether our anger is rooted in selfish or unselfish concerns, and pray that we can direct our anger toward spiritual use, like Jesus in the temple or the prophets calling the people to repentance. We can turn to Jesus and pray that our once-angry human Savior would activate in us the anger redeemed through his incarnation, an anger that is pure compassion in action.
[1] Robert Augustus Masters, “Compassionate Wrath: Transpersonal Approaches to Anger,” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2000 (Vol. 31, No. 1), 34.
[2] Ibid., 39.
[3] Ibid., 42.
[4] Ibid., 43 (quoting Tibetan spiritual master Marpa).
[5] Helen Keller example given in Jim McGuiggan, Celebrating the Wrath of God: Reflections on the Agony and the Ecstacy of His Relentless Love, (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press, 2001), 69.
[6] Masters, 48.
[7] Ibid., 44.
[8] Ibid.
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