Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Reflections on my first preaching experience...

I'm still processing my first experience with preaching, on many levels. I really enjoyed the preparation process and I really felt it was spiritually edifying to me to take the time to study a bit more in-depth about the scriptures and really sort of meditate on them throughout the week, letting my thoughts percolate about what I was going to say about them, and allowing the various events of my life to spur reflections on the scripture.

Then, when I actually delivered the sermon, I felt that it went well, and I got pretty much nothing but positive feedback from everyone (with a few comments that I could speak even more slowly or add in pauses to let the statements I was making really sink in). I was slightly nervous at the 8:00 service, but by the second time around at the 10:30 service, I was more completely relaxed and comfortable up there "preaching the Word."

On some level I was unprepared for the level of positive feedback I did get, with some pretty high compliments from several people (someone passed along a comment that someone had said it was the best sermon they'd ever heard! Yipes!!). Having not been trained formally in preaching nor public speaking, I wasn't expecting this kind of affirmation. And it felt good. It really did. Almost too good.

I have always been someone who has thrived upon and thirsted for the approval of others. I was always the good little student, straight As, who cried over her first B+ in third grade. And when I do get that approval, I tend to pride myself on it. I thought very highly of my stellar academic achievement, and did more than my share of patting myself on the back for my A papers, my magna cum laude graduation from college (only several tenths of a point away from a summa cum laude designation... something that bothered me a bit -- that I didn't get the HIGHEST level of awards). When I do well on a paper or a project or a presentation, I get a sense of deep satisfaction at knowing I've done a great job and enjoy basking in the glow of people telling me so. The only problem is, I think these behaviors have very little to do with worshipping God and giving glory to God.

It has always seemed a bit strange to me how in the mainline churches (like the Lutheran church in which I grew up), the tradition is to file out of the church after the service, greeting the pastor with a handshake and complimenting him (or her) on his (or her!) sermon. "Enjoyed your sermon," someone will say. "Great sermon," someone else will say. These kinds of compliments seem spiritually vacuous to me. It sounds and feels more like complimenting someone on their rhetorical skills than anything to do with any communication of the word of God. They may as well be saying, "Nice speech!" After someone delivers a graduation address, people say, "Good job!" After someone gives an enlightening or entertaining presentation, someone says, "I enjoyed your presentation." But "Good job, I enjoyed your SERMON??" I have always been uncomfortable with this language.

First of all, if people have ENJOYED your sermon, have you really communicated anything of significance to them? I guess I see the role of the preacher as spurring people to think more, of prodding them to action, even when those actions may be difficult to take. Of calling people to a higher standard of living and loving than what they are currently displaying. But if a preacher does this, people may not always ENJOY his or her sermons. Now, I'm not saying that preaching should be ALL ABOUT just calling people to behave differently or live their lives to a higher standard -- certainly there is also an equally important element of communicating assurance and hope in the promise of forgiveness and redemption that makes Christianity so very powerful.

Secondly, this kind of praise seems too focused on the person and not focused enough on God. Instead of saying, "God really spoke to me through your sermon," or "I really needed to hear that today," or "this really got me thinking," the praise and credit is given to the person and not to God. Especially for someone as used to basking in the praise of others as I am (especially in matters of writing), I feel like people praising ME for my sermons is a very dangerous thing. It would be all too easy for this praise to go to my head... indeed, for a few moments after the services last Sunday, I beamed and internally stroked my ego -- "Look at me, I gave a great sermon!" I said to myself. "Wow, you really did a good job here today."

What I was forgetting at the time was that any gifts I have for writing and speaking do not come from me, but from God alone. On some level, I have never really understood people's praise and admiration of my writing, since to me it doesn't seem difficult at all. Being an English major seemed an "easy" major choice to me, and I almost felt guilty for taking that choice over something more challenging and difficult like my science major friends. However, a biology major friend of mine once confessed to me her dread of writing English papers and how she thought my major was really more difficult than hers! I couldn't understand what she could mean about writing a paper being difficult for her. Writing has ALWAYS come easily to me; it has never been anything I have had to work for. This alone should be enough to convince me that it is a gift of God and not of me, and yet throughout my life I have prided myself on my writing abilities.

It is those things which come most naturally to us that I feel are most clearly of God and not of us. In essence, then, I am taking credit for something that I can lay no claim of ownership to, since there has been no effort exerted on my part to develop this skill -- and I feel like praise of my abilities in this area would only lead to an inflated ego on my part and a decreased ability to really hear the voice of God.

I feel like preaching should have very little to do with the preacher and everything to do with listening for the Word of God -- whether you're the one giving the sermon or the one sitting in the pews. I may have some knowledge of the historical background of the scriptures that I was able to "teach" to people in my sermon, but I was preaching to myself as much as I was preaching to the congregation when I talked about being joyful in proclaiming Christ as Lord and King and about holding on to the eschatological hope for the ultimate righting of all wrongs. I don't know that information on any kind of REAL level -- I don't feel it in my bones, I don't live my life as if I know it's true -- I needed to hear my own words as much as, if not more so, than many people in the congregation.

I think in the immediate "aftermath" of the sermon, I wasn't as aware of this as I've come to be over the past week or so of reflection, which is why I think I began to feel like somewhat of a fake later on in the week. When I wrote the sermon, I truly felt and believed everything that I said and proclaimed and felt joyful at sharing these truths with the congregation. Several days later, I was sitting in the undercroft watching the altar guild polish the silver for Advent and talk over the tiniest details of liturgics and suddenly feeling like, "What the heck are we DOING??? Sitting in this building and placing all these nice metal pieces in certain orders and dotting our i's and crossing our t's and whatnot and truly believing that somehow these things please God? What does ANY of this have to do with God???"

Suddenly it all felt like a farce to me. I stepped back and observed this seemingly absurd scene -- people parading around in robes, lifting certain pieces of silver at the opportune times, someone standing up and claiming to have some kind of authority to talk about "God's word" to the people -- and all of it within this isolated and insular community. Is this really what serving and worshipping God is about? Going into a building and talking ABOUT God a lot? Where is God in all this?

And then I thought about how just a few days earlier, I was standing there in my robes proclaiming something about joy and redemption and Christ being Lord and King of all, and today I felt like I couldn't be farther from knowing and embodying that truth. How could I ever call myself a preacher, as a deacon or a priest or even as a lay person, I wondered? I'm nothing but a fake! Do I even believe ANY of this stuff?

I think the enormity of the theology I was proclaiming on Sunday suddenly came crashing down on me on Wednesday. I had conflated myself with the words of my sermon and admonished myself when I didn't FEEL those words to be true constantly and without question at all times. I forgot that I was not claiming to speak for MYSELF in the sermon, but "in the name of Christ." That it was not Tracy Wells's ideas I was trying to communicate, but the Word of God as I best understand it through Scripture. And that since these were NOT my words that I was proclaiming, it was fairly natural that I would not feel at all times just hunky-dory about proclaiming them.

I came to realize that I did not preach my sermon, it preached me -- or rather, God preached through me. I needed to hear the words coming out of my mouth as much as everyone else did.

And this is why I would greatly appreciate it if people wouldn't compliment me on "my sermon" in such a way that gives glory to me rather than to God. If the focus is on me, then I'm just a pretty sorry fake and hypocrite, parroting words that I don't embody and that I'm not even sure I believe at times. But if the focus is on God, then I'm a broken, imperfect earthly vessel that the eternal God nevertheless sometimes chooses to use to express God's truths to God's people. The enormity of that fact is anything BUT arrogance-inducing. It is the greatest humbler I have ever known.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Silence.

Note (1/22/10): This was first written as part of an early draft of the post, "It's Time to Go Home," and this version was not posted back in 2006, but there was a significant amount of reflection here on silence that I felt it merited its own posting. It was actually written in March, when I was working on "It's Time to Go Home," but I gave it an arbitrary date here and moved it earlier so as to not have too much repetition, if this one were to appear right next to "It's Time to Go Home."

When I first arrived in Omaha for the Resurrection House internship program back in late August, the first thing they did was take us on a retreat out at a Benedictine retreat center in Schulyer, NE. At the end of the first day of the retreat, our director announced that the second day of the retreat would be a silent day.

"Now, there are two ways we can do this," he said. "We can be silent all day except for meals, when we can talk, or we can be silent all day, including meals. What do y'all prefer?"

I was horrified. A SILENT day????? I'm supposed to NOT TALK, ALL DAY??? How would this be PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE for me? (Many of you know my reputation for being able to talk a million miles an hour, to a brick wall if it would listen to me.)

"Well, we HAVE to talk at meals," I said anxiously. "I mean, I can't NOT TALK for an ENTIRE DAY!"

So, it was agreed. We would talk at meals.

So, our day of silence started. And I found that after about an hour and a half to two hours, I was finally able to quiet the inccessent internal chatter in my mind (using some techniques I'd learned from Buddhists, actually) and to just BE. By the next afternoon at lunch, I was actually a bit reluctant to have to meet up with the rest of the crowd and talk to them... and by dinnertime, I didn't even want to SEE them.

I soaked up the silence and began to notice the little things that I usually ran past at 100 miles an hour. The wind blowing through the fields of corn, the birds and grasshoppers and the life that teemed throughout the landscape. I sat and watched a sunset over the vast fields and stared at length at a bird perched on a corn stalk. The image was so imprinted in my memory that when I went inside, I was able to recreate that image in a drawing (using the crayons they had provided us as an essential tool of our retreat :o) simply from memory. I wrote in my journal next to the drawing,

"You have to really see things to create art. To observe the details and intricacies of life. To listen to the earth. To be able to create from the mind, and not just mimicking or copying what is before your eyes. Create from memory, not from a photograph or live scene... in order to do this you have to really see."

I think was I was getting at here was how intensely I was present in the moment that I was able to remember the details of that scene in order to draw it; that had I not taken the time to slow down and look and listen and watch, I would have completely missed the fact that the bird was even sitting on the corn stalk in the first place. This idea of being present to the moment is what Buddhists mean when they speak of "mindfulness."

By the end of the retreat, I was sold on silence. I still don't seek it often enough, and my life is still too filled with chatter, literal and figurative, but that retreat taught me the value of simply stopping to be. In a very real way, it changed my life.


Monday, October 9, 2006

The power of an attitude

I would have written this post on Thursday evening, if I hadn't been working on finishing my sermon after I got home from my volunteer hours at the homeless shelter downtown. I really should have written it before now, because even now some of the details are already fading from my memory. But I'll try to capture as much as I can, since this event made such an impression on me...

Thursday afternoons are my day to volunteer at one of the homeless shelters downtown. After I leave the church at 2 p.m., I drive into Omaha and head to the Siena Francis House, where I spend the next several hours doing whatever the volunteer coordinator has for me to do, and then help serve the nightly meal at the shelter.

The meal is quite the efficient operation! There are four seatings: 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 and 6:30, and each seating can serve 60 people. Towards the end of the month, each seating is nearly always full. This week, the first Thursday of the month, I noticed there were noticeably less people at the later seatings. I guess those monthly paychecks hadn't run out yet.

This particular Thursday, I had been sitting at the front desk in the day shelter, which is basically a place for people to sit during the day who have nowhere else to go -- homeless people who are either waiting to hear back from possible job opportunities or people who are either unwilling or physically unable to seek employment. Some of the people who are regulars at the day shelter have been there for 15 years or more, some of the staff have told me. The day shelter area was built in response to community complaints of the homeless hanging out in a park near an area mall... so now they sit in their little room with a T.V. down a side street off in a corner of a forgotten section of Omaha... out of sight, out of mind? Perhaps.

One of the things I like about the Siena Francis House is that nearly all the staff members are people in the (drug and alcohol) recovery program that is also housed at the shelter. I sat and chatted with the rest of the front desk staff, who quickly gave me what I gathered was the lowest job on the totem pole -- manning the front door button. This meant it was my job to sit there and press the buzzer to let people in as they came to the front door, freeing up the rest of the front desk staff to run errands and tend to other things. In any case, I did this for about two hours and then headed next door to the larger shelter building to get ready to serve dinner.

As I walked up to the shelter, I said hello to a young man sitting on the steps. He said hello back, and I asked him how he was doing. "TIRED!!" he exclaimed. He told me he had just gotten out of jail that morning, gone straight to work, and now had come here, because he didn't really have anywhere else to go. "I guess this is the place, you know?" he said. He asked me where he was supposed to go, and I pointed him to the shelter's front desk.

"I guess you should talk to people at the desk; I'm not really sure what the intake procedures are around here," I said. "I'm just a volunteer."

He seemed interested, "Oh yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I come here on Thursdays and help out with various things and then help to serve the meal." I told him a little bit about the Resurrection House program and what I was doing, considering ministry and whatnot.

He looked at me with considerable interest. "Oh yeah? That's really great. Yeah! That's really great. You don't find too many people willing to do that kind of thing these days. That's just great. Alright! Yeah!" He nodded and smiled at me. "You're the first person I've met here," he told me.

We exchanged names and handshakes (his name was Fred), and I walked in with him and pointed him to the front desk, thinking that was the last I'd see of him for the evening. I went on to the kitchen and walked back to the back, meeting up with the volunteers for the night, a crew of college and graduate students from nearby Creighton University, and introducing myself and getting to know them a bit as we got our assignments and "postings" for the evening -- who would be spooning the food onto the trays, who would be serving the trays to the tables, and so forth.

Suddenly, before I even knew it, I turned around, and there was Fred!

"I decided to help volunteer," he said.

"Oh, great!" I said. "Good for you!"

"Yeah," he said. "You know, I told God, I said, if I get through this, I'm going to start doing what I know you want me to do. So here I am." He nodded at me, acknowledging silently my earlier comments about working in a church and discerning my "call." He asked me more about the program and about what I did at the church. I told him some of the details of things that I do, and mentioned that I would be preaching on Sunday.

"For real??" he laughed and looked tickled to death. "You're going to be PREACHIN'? Really? Man, I want to see that!! I gotta see that! Where is this church? I'm gon' come!"

He continued to laugh and look generally amused, asking me if I was going to be "hollerin'" or something (I can't remember the exact word he used, but something that connoted a very fired-up, empassioned, call and response kind of preaching.) I laughed and said that no, that wasn't quite the kind of preaching I'd be doing in an Episcopal Church!

Throughout the rest of the evening, he continued to say how much he wanted to come hear me preach. I thought about offering to give him a ride, but then my "safety" filter kicked in -- ok, I just met this guy, I don't know anything about him, and if I come get him it would just be me and him in the car... ok, probably not the best idea. I feel like I can generally get a good sense about people, and he seemed to truly be a genuinely nice guy, but I guess that's what they say about all the ax murderers too, huh?

He picked up on my hestitation and said that it would be his goal to convince me, after I'd known him a while, that he wasn't a killer. (I never said that was my hestitation, but I guess he figured out why I as a single woman would be wary of going somewhere with him alone. And I hated to have that wariness, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to wind up having something happen to me, either. And he seemed to understand -- "I know, you just met me," he said.) But he said he was going to call the priest at the church and see if someone could come and get him.

In any case, Fred and I wound up standing next to each other in the serving line all evening. He scooped the gravy onto the mashed potatoes, passed the trays to me, and I deposited a nicely drained ladel of peas and carrots. We chatted the whole evening over those pototoes and peas, and I found out that his "fresh out of jail" job was working construction (through some very animated descriptions of his first attempts at jackhammering some asphalt!), and that he apparently had a failed marriage and a kid somewhere (because he mentioned child support). He said he wanted to go see more theater (he mentioned Hairspray, which is in town this week, but was shocked to find out that the tickets would be upwards of $60. "Man, do you know how many hours I'd have to do this *makes jackhammer motions* to be able to pay for that???" he exclaimed.) We talked about the social constraints of being an ordained person -- "Man, if I'd known you were a preacher when I first met you, I would have been like, HMMMM," he said, making a kind of skeptical face. "But I found out you were a nice person BEFORE you said you were gonna be a preacher." He said he hoped I did become a "preacher," because he'd never had a friend as a preacher before. "I could be like, 'look, Mom, this is my friend. She's a preacher!!'" He seemed just delighted and amused by this prospect.

Through the entire evening, I was amazed by the upbeat attitude and friendliness of this man. And for someone who had just worked an entire day in construction, after having just gotten out of jail (and after having told me how tired he was when we first me), to agree to stand up for another two hours on his feet and help serve a meal to others, and to have an incredibly upbeat attitude through the whole thing (heck, he was a happier person than me!), just really made an impression on me. I've served dinner some weeks when the volunteers kind of smile at each other and don't really talk much, but by the end of this evening, due largely to Fred's outgoing personality and friendly laugh and smile, the entire group of volunteers felt like a community.

He brought the Creighton students into the conversation with seemingly insensitive and non-P.C. questions about their ethnic origins ("What are you, Asian? Do you speak Asian?") and ribbing a Japanese-American girl relentlessly because she couldn't speak Japanese ("I'm fourth-generation!!!" she kept saying.) I shot right back with asking Fred if he spoke any Swahili or Yoruba or anything -- I mean, he's from AFRICA, right?? Why doesn't he speak any African languages, then? ;o) One of the girls was actually FROM China and did speak Chinese, and so he learned how to say, "How are you?" in Chinese. "Hey man, that's pretty cool!" he laughed.

After all the people had been fed, we volunteers sat down to our own helpings of the fish, potatoes, peas and carrots, and day-old pastries and laughed and joked over dinner like old friends. Other weeks I've been there, I've sat and eaten dinner with other volunteers and not said one word the entire time. But with Fred's magnetic personality, we were all drawn in to the conversation and community.

I came home that night with my spirits truly lifted. I felt like my day had been much better for having met Fred. He had brought a bit of light and life into my world. He radiated a true joy and interest and concern and compassion for people. And given everything he had been through, it was truly inspiring to see. I couldn't help but think that Fred might make a mighty good minister himself! He was certainly the one doing the ministering that particular night.

Sunday, October 8, 2006

Sermon - Proper 22, Year B

Well, this is the sermon that I WOULD have delivered this morning, if I hadn't been too sick to barely stand up :o(

And now, back to bed for me....

~Tracy
-----
Sermon for Oct. 8, 2006
Genesis 2:18-24 Link to text of this passage (NRSV)
Mark 10:2-9 Link to text of this passage (NRSV)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Redeemer.

The Old Testament reading and the Gospel for this morning are some of the most well-known passages in the Christian scriptures. Even many people who do not attend church regularly are probably familiar with these passages, having heard them recited numerous times at weddings in the Christian tradition: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

Some parts of these passages, like the closing line from Mark, are even integrated directly into the wedding service -- after pronouncing a couple husband and wife, the priest or minister often says, "Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." (Mark 10:9)

For centuries, these passages have informed Christians' understandings of the sacredness of marriage. In the Book of Genesis, we read about the origins of marriage and human companionship in the very order of creation, as a part of God's original design for human relationships. And in the Gospels, we see Jesus affirming faithful and lasting marriage as in line with God's intentions for the human experience.

However, these same passages that affirm the goodness of deep and intimate human companionship have been used, in the past and still today, to justify human relationships that are NOT good or life-giving.

The Genesis 2 passage we read today has been used to justify views of women as inferior to men. And though the lectionary for today cuts off the passage from Mark after the "let no one separate" line, in verses 10 and 11 Jesus goes on to elaborate: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." (Mark 10:10-11) Verses like these have been misused in encouraging women (and men) to remain in abusive marriages rather than get a divorce.

Given this history of what I would call the "theologically abuse" interpretation of these scriptures, it is no wonder that some Christians prefer to stay away from them. I will be traveling to Louisville, Ky. next weekend for my college roommate's wedding. On Saturday, she will be marrying a recently-ordained Methodist minister. When they were choosing scripture passages for their ceremony, my friend wanted to use this passage from Genesis 2, but her fiancé refused, saying it was too patriarchal.

How many of you have heard someone say that since the scripture tells us that woman was created to be a "helper" to man, that a woman's role is to wait on her husband hand and foot? Or that since woman was created second, and since she was created FROM the man, that she is therefore inferior to him?

Much of the interpretation about a woman's proper 'role' or 'place' in the scheme of creation as illustrated in Genesis 2 centers on the words used to describe what exactly God is creating for the man when he creates the woman. One of the things I learned in my Hebrew class in college is that sometimes the translation of just ONE or TWO words can make a huge difference in the meaning of a passage. My Hebrew professor used to tell us that his goal in teaching us biblical Hebrew was to get us to a point where we were no longer "slaves to the translation." Having access to the Bible in its original language frees us from the biases inherent in any English approximation of the meaning of the Hebrew words. This is one of those instances. Now, I promise I won't be this tedious every time I preach, but bear with me here on a little word study, because it has such important ramifications for how this passage is used and understood.

In the original Genesis text, written in Hebrew, the phrase used to describe the woman is 'ezer kenegdo. To give you an idea of the variety of ways this phrase can be translated, let's look at several different translations of this phrase:

Our lectionary uses the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which translates that phrase as "a helper as his partner."

King James Version (KJV): "a help meet for him."
New International Version (NIV): "a helper suitable for him."
Contemporary English Version: "a suitable partner for him."
Holman Christian Standard Bible: "a helper who is like him."

Obviously, "a suitable partner for him" has a much different connotation than "a help meet for him." Now, you might wonder, is the Contemporary English version translating the word as "partner" simply to be more "P.C." in the modern world, when text REALLY meant for a woman to be a "helper" to the man? If we look at the original meanings of the Hebrew words, it will help us to understand where these different translations are coming from.

'Ezer is the word often translated as "help" or "helper," but it does not mean a "helper" who is an inferior servant to another. In fact, the only other uses of 'ezer in the Old Testament are in describing the "help" that comes from God or military allies. In the psalms, we often hear things like, "The Lord is my help and my salvation." The Hebrew word for "help" in that context is the same as the word used to describe the woman in Genesis 2. The word 'ezer comes from a root that means to surround, protect, or defend; to "aid" or "help" as an army would "help" a city being sieged by an enemy. It connotes strength and power. The scripture is not referring to a "woman, go get my dinner" kind of "help" here! And isn't it interesting that a word elsewhere associated with God and military power is used to describe the how the woman will relate to the man, given our traditional ideas that a man is the one who "protects" or "defends" a woman?

The second word of the phrase used to describe the woman is kenegdo. This passage is the only place this word appears in the Bible, and its meaning is a bit less clear. It can be translated several different ways: opposite, against, corresponding to, face to face, matching, or counterpart to. As we saw earlier, the King James Version translates this phrase as "I will create a help meet for him." Although "help meet" (which later became "help MATE") has been used as a noun meaning a serving, submissive wife, in this context, "meet" actually describes the KIND of "help" God is going to create for the man.

Here's a case where knowledge of "Rite I" English is going to help you. When we begin the Eucharistic prayer and the priest says, "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God," in the Rite I liturgy, we all respond, "It is meet and right so to do." Do you know what "meet" means there? It means "suitable" or "appropriate" -- it is suitable or appropriate to give thanks to God. In this passage from Genesis, the translators of the King James Version were telling us -- in 16th century British English -- that in the creation of woman, God is creating a "SUITABLE or appropriate help" for the man. In fact, that's just what the New International Version (NIV) says: "I will make a helper suitable for him."

But other scholars say that "suitable" is not really the best translation of the original Hebrew word, kenegdo. Remember, that phrase literally means "face to face," "corresponding to," or "counterpart." As revisions were made in more recent translations, scholars translated the phrase "a helper as his partner" (NRSV) or "a helper who is like him" (Holman Christian Standard Bible), since the Hebrew word connotes a sense of corresponding or matching -- a sense of equality that is more accurately represented in English by our word "partner."

Since the word for help (ezer) was often used to describe the kind of help in which the giver of the help was greater than the one receiving it, as in God helping us, the use of kenegdo is a qualifier -- the woman is to be a help, but a help corresponding to the man, not a help greater than the man, as God helps people, but a human-to-human helper. This word establishes a sense of equality and sameness between the man and the woman -- they are on the same level, the same playing field. One is not higher than the other in the way that God is a higher help to us. Maybe with this understanding of the Hebrew words' meaning, my friend's fiancé might reconsider his labeling of this passage as "too patriarchal" for use in his wedding!

So when Jesus references this passage of scripture in his answer to the Pharisees' question on divorce, he is calling forth all these notions of the sacredness of the healthy and life-giving partnership between men and women that that the original Hebrew scriptures intended.

When Jesus goes on in verses 10 and 11 to say that anyone who divorces someone and marries someone else commits adultery, he is using strong language to drive home his point. This is another instance, just like the passage Father Bob preached on last week where Jesus said to cut off your hand if it causes you to stumble, where we must take this passage of scripture in the context of everything else we know about Jesus. Do you think Jesus would want a woman (or a man) to stay in a relationship that had become physically, emotionally or spiritually abusive? I don't think so! In making this strong statement against divorce, Jesus is not saying that divorce NEVER permissible -- in fact, he acknowledges that the law of Moses does allow for divorce, but he says that this provision was given to people because of their "hardness of heart." Obviously, people are not perfect, and sometimes our hearts ARE hardened and it is impossible for us to work things out with another person. Jesus acknowledges that fact. But this does not mean that this is what God WANTS human relationships to be. Jesus affirms that God's INTENTION for marriage is for "the two to become one" in a long-lasting, healthy and life-giving partnership, and he uses strong language to emphasize that this commitment should be taken seriously.

But the message in these scriptures reaches beyond just issues of marriage and divorce; it also speaks to the way all human beings are to relate to one another. My friend who is getting married next weekend said one of the main reasons she wanted to use the Genesis passage in her ceremony was because of its assertion that "it is not good for man (or any person) to be alone." She said she remembered back when she was a "lonely pre-teen" that it meant a lot to her when she heard someone interpret this passage, saying that "being alone was the first thing God ever condemned." God intends for us to live together in life-giving partnerships, whether marriage or friendships, and to be each other's ezer, each other's help -- each other's strength and power in times of trouble. We can live out the spirit of these scriptures in our relationships with others no matter what our marital status, remembering that God's intention for humanity is that we should live in life-giving community with one another.

Let's close with prayer.

Lord, we thank you for bringing us together in this community as partners in your service. Help us to be an ezer, a help and strength, to one another as we do the work you call us to do in the world, while always seeking also that help that comes only from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Early thoughts on the possibility of ordination...

Some days I think, "Yeah, I'll probably wind up as a priest." I just get this sneaking suspicion that that's where I'm headed.

I love wearing the robes (oh, excuse me, the alb), love being a part of the liturgy (I literally get teary-eyed sometimes just watching people come forward for communion. I LOVE that. And that's been pretty consistent for the past several years, throughout my time at St. James. It's been a lasting love of the Eucharist, not just a momentary, fleeting moment of being touched or whatever.) I love being involved in the life of the church. I love doing activities and just being there. It was like that at St. James and it feels the same way here (although I must admit it's a little strange not having a life outside of the church -- like, an actual job I have to go to or anything in the 9-5 world.)

But then there are those things I fear would be stumbling blocks for me in my path to ordination:

* My views on other religions. Can I be a non-exclusivist in my theology and be a priest? Does the very fact that I'm asking this question belie the fact that I still think exclusivism is the only "true" Christian perspective?

* My tendency to want to shake things up. Tradition? Whatever. LOL. No, not "whatever," but like... do I give it enough credance to be accepted/taken seriously by the church as a candidate for ordination?

* The "priestly powers" thing. (i.e., that only priests can say the words that consecrate the Eucharist, or that priests can "bless" things.) I just don't buy it. I'm coming more and more to buy the consubstatiation/transubstantiation thing (that is, that the bread and wine actually either become the body and blood of Christ during the Eucharist, or that the "real presense" of Christ dwells in the elements after they have been consecrated. That the Eucharist is not merely symbolic, a mere symbol and remembrance of the "last supper," but an actual SACRAMENT, a physical vehicle of God's grace in the world.), but to say that only a priest has the "magic words" or "magic powers" to do this is just... ehh. "Oh, the priest won't be here, so we have to do Morning Prayer instead of the Eucharist." What? AHHH!

* Some of my other theology:
i.e. -- I don't believe Jesus "had to die" on the cross for our sins, to fix some kind of cosmic imbalance or to appease the wrath of God. "Just say no" to substitutionary atonement! But I don't know just quite how I understand his death. As a victory over death -- the resurrection. But the death itself as having salvific power? My money's on the resurrection, not on the death. And why, then, did he have to die that way?? I don't know. I guess this is where I'm glad I'm in a high-church, sacramental place where I can say stuff like, "Oh, it's a mystery." I mean, it's interesting, this need to explain why or how. We do the same thing with the human deaths we encounter in our own lives -- trying to explain why that person was taken from us... when I think we just really have to rest in the uncertainty of not knowing why, but knowing that the powers of death have no hold on us anymore. I mean, we don't have to understand the specific details or significance of Jesus's crucifixion and death to know that he was resurrected. Maybe we should just accept the crucifixion and death as a fact (the suffering and all), just the way lots of crap goes down in the world every day that we don't have explanations for... and yet, somehow even without those explanations, we can still see evidence of and affirm that life triumphs over death, that "even when we're most sure love can't conquer all, it seems to anyway" (to quote from Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.)

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Praise Songs, PowerPoint, and... Episcopal Liturgy????

At the church growth conference in Grand Island in September, there was a lot of discussion about music. All the worship in the weekend was led by a praise band from St. Andrews in Omaha, and most of the songs were songs I had sung in the Evangelical communities in late high school and early college. This was slightly disturbing to me, because one of the main reasons I left those communities was that that style of worship wasn't spiritually edifying to me anymore and because of some of my disagreements with certain theologies many of those groups hold. I came to the Episcopal Church looking for an alternative, for something different, and now it seems that the "praise songs" are creeping in even to the Episcopal Church.

It was very odd to sit in a conference room and listen to a praise band sing in between various parts of the Episcopal liturgy and to see the words to the liturgy projected on PowerPoint screens. The Episcopal liturgy on POWERPOINT??? I'm sorry, there's just some kind of cognitive dissonance there for me! At one point they even had incense going. Incense, priests in vestments... and... PowerPoint??!?!

Not that there's anything WRONG with PowerPoint, of course, it's just the associations I have with it from my past. I also realized that there's nothing really wrong with many of the songs I used to sing during that time period of my life... in many ways the theology found in them isn't objectionable to me, but I DO worry about using ONLY the praise songs from the contemporary Christian radio stations and whatnot (which is where they said they were getting most of their music).

So many of these songs used often in the Evangelical communities are highly individualistic, and focus almost solely on the majesty and grandeur of God, and paint Jesus as entirely divine, with little attention to his humanity (this may not be true of their theology as a whole, but it seems to be true of the songs). While all these things are all well and good, one of the things I really appreciated about the Episcopal Church when I first became involved with it in Boston was its focus on serving the poor and concern with social justice. At St. James, this theology was reflected in much of our music -- which was NOT all traditional Anglican hymns, but was also not contemporary praise songs either.

For an example of what I'm talking about, let's look at two different songs that could be sung in the context of a Christian worship setting. The first, "Prince of Peace," is a common praise hymn in Evangelical circles, and was one of my favorites when I was a part of one of those communities. The second, "God is in the daily struggles," is a hymn written by Pat Michaels, the music director at St. James Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Mass.

Prince of Peace
You are Lord of Lords
You are King of Kings
You are mighty God
Lord of everything
You're Emmanuel
You're the great "I Am"
You're the Prince of Peace
Who is the Lamb
You're the living God
You're my saving grace
You will reign forever
You are Ancient of Days
You are Alpha, Omega, beginning and end
You're my savior, Messiah, redeemer and friend
You're my Prince of Peace
And I will live my life for you

God is in the Daily Struggles
God is in the daily struggles
Of the poor and dispossessed;
Just as in the ancient stories,
signs and wonders still attest:
food and freedom, food and freedom --
God supplies them on their quest.

In the desert-land, as strangers,
powerless as refugees,
fleeing politics of danger
former slaves but newly freed --
bread for bodies, bread for bodies! --
God provided for their need.

Jesus lived among the poorest,
raising hope that all be fed
asking God to nourish wholeness:
"Give us now our daily bread."
Many thousands, many thousands
ate the feast that God had spread.

At the great commission dinner,
that this feeding ministry
might live on in saint and sinner,
Jesus said, "Remember."
(Feed the hungry, feed the hungry.)
"When you eat, remember me."

Still the poor are God's beloved,
still the poor are sign and key
showing Christians what is needful,
what God's realm is meant to be.
Hear the calling, hear the calling,
"Feed me now and set me free."

Now, if the example of these two hymns doesn't show you how strikingly different the theology presented in different songs can be, I don't know what will! The first song is entirely about God as other-worldly, as divine "king on high," and about the speaker's "personal relationship" with God ("my savior, Messiah, redeemer and friend"). It is about proclaiming all the things God (or more specifically, Jesus) is, and affirming Jesus's significance in that person's life. Now, I would argue that if Jesus truly is significant in one's life, that one's life should reflect the kind of scripturally sound calling and ideas represented in the second hymn. The second hymn is set to the tune of a traditional hymn (I can't remember which one right now), but with different words. So it's not exactly a "contemporary praise song," but it does bring a fresh take on a familiar hymn tune. Other songs we sang at St. James weren't even hymn tunes at all, but African praise songs or Asian-influenced music.

My concern, then, is that using these "contemporary praise songs" in Episcopal churches might lead to a theology that looks too much like "Prince of Peace" and not enough like "God is in the daily struggles."

I think it's a mistake to think that just because the megachurches are herding in thousands of people every Sunday that we should just imitate what they're doing. Just because something is drawing in large numbers doesn't mean that there is any value to it. Now, I'm not saying there is NO value in what the megachurches have to offer, but I'm just pointing out an error in logic. Thousands of people might herd into a stadium to go to a Marilyn Manson concert, but does this mean that this is something we should imitate? Drawing in mass numbers of people does not necessarily indicate quality or goodness of an event or program. This is not to compare megachurches to Marilyn Manson concerts (That would be quite laughable!!), but just to say that as Episcopalians (and other "mainline" Christians), we should be wary of just running to follow the herds into what everyone else is doing simply because there are mass numbers of people being drawn into that culture.

Instead of focusing on and worrying about all the people who are attending megachurches (and not OUR churches) every week, we should focus on all the people who do not attend ANY church every week. Many of these people are turned off to Christianity precisely by the type of model offered in the megachurches; not everyone is drawn to that type of "entertainment" Christianity. Some people see it as inauthentic or may have had an experience where they were part of a huge, large church and then when the times got tough (like when they lost a family member or something), no one in the church even knew their name or were there to offer help, because instead of a community, they were just another spectator in the auditorium every week. Again, obviously this is not the case with ALL megachurches, but I have heard these kinds of stories from people and experienced some of these kinds of disillusions myself.

My point is that the megachurch model doesn't work for everyone. Instead of trying to imitate things they're doing, we should focus on how we as the Episcopal Church (and other mainline churches) can offer an alternative, a viable, welcoming and relevant alternative. Whatever you want to call us -- "mainline," "liberal," "progressive," "moderate" -- I think we have something to offer to the wider "catholic church" (lowercase "catholic," meaning the church as a whole, including ALL Christians of all denominations).

Worrying too much about the success of the megachurches or trying to imitate them will only stifle our God-given role in the world, I believe, of being a different voice to the faithful. We need to turn our eyes outward to those who are not within the fold and not try to reach out to the same segment that the megachurches have already "cornered the market" on, so to speak. Sure, there are thousands of people attending megachurches every week, but there are even MORE people who are not attending church at all and who are not a part of any kind of meaningful faith community. I think we have a way of being Christian that is different and may offer them a place where they feel they can truly fit in and find an experience of God and God's peace and forgiveness. And isn't that what we're ALL after, mainliners and Evangelicals alike? Do we really want to sacrifice that possibility for outreach by mindlessly mimicing someone else's model?

Church Growth: It's about the PEOPLE!

During the last weekend in September, I went to a "church growth" conference sponsored by the Diocese of Nebraska in a town called Grand Island (it is my personal mission while I'm here to find out why on earth there is a town called "Grand Island" in the middle of NEBRASKA, but that's beside the point).

The event was quite an eye-opener. There were probably only around 15 people of the nearly 200 people at the conference who were under the age of 60. Just looking around the room, it was obvious why the Episcopal Church needs to worry about church growth.

It was very strange to sit in this room and listen to a bunch of older people scratch their heads about what the "young people" want in the church and realize that I was one of those "young people" being objectified and discussed as if I wasn't even there. It was a similar feeling I'd felt in some interfaith conferences where they were SO excited to welcome the "young people," it actually made you feel like there was something STRANGE about you for being a young person involved in this group, when previously you had just been feeling like a normal human involved in something meaningful to you. But now, suddenly, the spotlight was on. "What do YOUNG PEOPLE want?" "Oh, we're so glad to have the YOUNG PEOPLE involved!" There's definitely an element of tokenizing going on there. Maybe these experiences can give me some glimpse into how minorities can sometimes feel tokenized!

In any case, it was also very strange to me, given my Evangelical background, to see a room full of people utterly puzzled over church growth. What a different picture from the evangelical, non-denominational churches I used to attend, which were teeming and bursting at the seams with the under-40 crowd. The focus at those churches was on evangelism -- sometimes a bit TOO much, I thought, but it was never unclear why we were there -- to share the love of God in Christ with our fellow human beings. This was the root and ground of everything that was done in those churches.

By contrast, when our keynote speaker, Charles Fulton, the director of congregational development at the Episcopal Church's headquarters in NYC, asked the group why they wanted their churches to grow, people started offering responses that were very telling:

"To get someone else to take over all these programs I don't want to do anymore."
"Um... it's more fun when more people are around?"
"Because we need more money!"

Not ONE SINGLE PERSON in the room said ANYTHING about sharing the love of God with people as a reason they wanted to grow. NOT ONE.

This was HIGHLY disturbing to me. Now, granted, I didn't say it either (although I was about to), so maybe there were some other people in the audience who felt the same way as I did but just didn't speak up out loud. But these answers, I thought, were very telling about what "the church" as an institution has become bogged down in -- the minutia, the details, the finances.

But somehow, Evangelicals have managed not to fall into this trap. They maintain HUGE buildings and still maintain a strong sense of purpose. Now, they might not have as much of a focus on social outreach as I might think they should, but that's really more a matter of interpretation about HOW to share the love of Christ verses losing sight of the fact that we're even supposed to be sharing the love of Christ at all and not just maintaining some kind of non-profit organization.

This kind of thing is one of the reasons why I left mainline churches in the first place -- because there seemed to be a lack of passion, a lack of feeling, a lack of really UNDERSTANDING the message of the Gospel. Now, I have since found people who really "get it" in mainline churches -- there ARE people who really love Jesus and wish to share God's love with others in mainline churches, believe it or not! (Evangelicals out there -- it really is true, I promise!) But there are also people who go to church just because "that's what you do" or because it's tradition... and these are the type of people I think most easily get bogged down in details and make comments like, "um.. it's more fun when more people are around?" or "We need more money!" when asked about why they want to bring in more people to their church. If you don't have a personal, vibrant faith informing your actions, church IS going to turn into a social club or a non-profit organization.

Now, praise God, Charles Fulton gets it. He immediately struck down their responses, saying that those kinds of responses were exactly the type of attitude one should NOT have if one really wants to grow their church. If you approach someone for their money and their time, they're not going to see right through that. "Welcome to our church -- come join us and we'll make you tired and poor!" Who would want to sign up for that?!

And I would add, my GOD, people. This is as bad as the "friendship evangelism" that always made me uncomfortable amongst the Evangelicals -- making friends with someone for an ulterior motive (just to convert them to Christianity), not out of a genuine desire to know them and respect them for who they were. With some of these mainliners, they're reaching out to people JUST to get their money and make their budget. It's just this type of mindset that makes people like my father suspicious of all organized religion. What about reaching out to people just to show them that an authentic community can exist where they are accepted for who they are, about sharing the message that God accepts them for who they are and loves each individual, unique person? What about ACTUALLY CARING about the PEOPLE instead of seeing them as a number, either as a notch in the "convert belt" or as a dollar sign on the budget?

I nodded vigorously as Fulton talked about approaching people as PEOPLE -- if we show we care about the PERSON, all the rest will follow. If they find a place where they feel they are truly cared for and spiritually fed, they will WANT to give their money. But they're not going to join a church just to give their money away! You have to start with the person and not focus on the monetary aspects. That can't be the focus of your evangelism efforts if you want to be able to authentically share the love of Christ with people.

Fulton called everyone in the room back to our mission as the church in the world -- why do we (the church) exist? he asked us. What is our purpose? What did Jesus die for? "Our ministry is about PEOPLE," he said, "it's not about buildings, it's not about programs, it's not about dioceses, it's not even about the Episcopal Church!" Amen, Charles! Preach it, brother!

It's about sharing the love of God with others. Sounds pretty basic and foundational to Christianity, huh? Disturbing how easily we can lose touch with that purpose.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Impacting lives

As part of our program here, we are required to participate in the EfM (Education for Ministry) class at Church of the Resurrection (the church that sponsors our program -- we live next door to that church). Education for Ministry is a kind of "div school lite" program for lay people in the Episcopal Church, with curriculum materials provided by The University of the South (Sewanee) in Tennessee, where there is also an Episcopal seminary.

The course meets on Monday nights from 7-10 p.m., so we had a meeting tonight. The folks from Church of the Resurrection are in the second year of the program, which is studying the New Testament, so Denise (the other Resurrection House intern) and I joined in on the second year, even though we haven't taken the first year (which is the Old Testament, as you might guess). At the meetings, we discuss the readings for the week, which give history and context to the scriptures, and then have time for "theological reflection" and sharing our own spiritual journeys. Right now they have us doing something called "stepping stones," where we are to write about our life's journey in terms of "stepping stones" -- what are the significant events and/or periods of time in our lives that led us to be the person we are today? Each week, different members of the course will share some of their stepping stones with the rest of us.

Tonight, a rather soft-spoken and gentle middle-aged woman shared some of her story with us. She wanted to go near the beginning of the course because she will be leaving us before the year is over; she and her family are currently in the process of selling their house and will be moving to be close to some family member of hers who is very ill. I can't remember all the details, but I know she has lost some family members recently and there are all kinds of illnesses and other issues affecting her family and friends right now. Part of the exercise was to write about the "present period" of your life and what the characteristics of it are and so forth, and she said that she couldn't even do this part of the excercise because it was too painful. And yet she shows up every week for class with a smile on her face and is eager to continue learning as long as she can.

I was sitting next to her at the table as she read from her prepared "script" to the rest of us about several of her "stepping stones" -- culminating in her joining the Church of the Resurrection a few years ago. She spoke beautifully about how the "road" of her journey was in disrepair, with many cracks and potholes, when she first came to Resurrection, and how the community there had ministered to her and helped her find comfort in her faith. She spoke very highly of Mother Judi, the rector at Church of the Resurrection, saying some very beautiful things -- Mother Judi "sees the light of Christ in me and inspires me to see it in others," she said. She said something about how coming to the Church of the Resurrection, she feels like she has really encountered Christ when she listens to Mother Judi preach and when she shares in the Eucharist at the table. I'm not doing her words justice here, but it was really beautiful.

And I just sat there having to pinch the insides of my arms to keep from crying, simply overcome by the beauty of what this woman was witnessing to -- the impact one person can have on another's life, and the immense privilege of being able to share the love of Christ with others. I thought about how amazingly powerful and deeply meaningful and significant it is to serve that role (minister) in someone's life, whether ordained or not. But I was also struck by the special significance of the minister in this particular situation... I mean, with the authority that an ordained person carries, speaking to others about their value in Christ, assuring others that the light of Christ shines within them, for some people may have more weight coming from a priest than if a non-ordained person says it. It is certainly a position of power and authority that can be abused, but it can also be incredibly live-giving.

Or maybe it's not that aspect that struck me as significant about the priesthood; it's just the privilege of being able to live an entire life focused on this kind of explicit "ministry," rather than the other types of "broadly defined" ministries that may or may not directly involve discussion of religion and faith -- teaching, working in a food pantry, social services work, etc.

Or perhaps it's the accountability of being an ordained person -- you're going to think twice about your actions and your attitude when you're wearing the collar, because you know you're representing the faith to others. You can't just fade into the woodwork and not respond to the needs you see in front of you, because you are an ordained and VISIBLY accountable minister of Christ in the world. I now think I am beginning to understand the spiritual significance of other faiths that require outward and visible signs of the faith from their followers, from the Sikh turban to the Muslim hijab (headscarf).

In the Resurrection House program, they're up front about the fact that they don't expect that everyone who goes through this program will seek ordination at the end of this year. Of course they want us to consider it, but it is not EXPECTED that that is the conclusion we will come to. They obviously can't know what God is calling us to. The program is to help us discern what our "ministry" is, and this may or may not be ordained. My "ministry" could be teaching high school English. But, if that were the case, I would not be able to talk about faith as explicitly as I could if I were an ordained minister. I could still be involved in the church and so forth, but my very JOB would not explicitly be about discussing faith and "ministering" to people in the traditional sense. I might feel that my teaching and mentoring these adolescents was a way to serve God, and no doubt it would be, but I'm trying to figure out if I would feel most fulfilled in a job where I was dealing more explicitly with faith on a day to day basis.

Speaking of teaching, it is significant that the woman sharing her story tonight also mentioned a comment from one of her high school teachers as a very significant part of her life, a comment her teacher had made about how her caring spirit and personality would touch the lives of all who she encounters. She said that on the days when she feels she is not being the most effective or making much of a difference in the world, she always remembers her teacher's words to her when someone will say, "you really brightened my day," or "thanks for making me laugh." That, too, nearly brought tears to my eyes as I thought about the very deep and profound impact teachers can have on their students' lives, even as those students grow up and become adults with families and very complex lives... something a teacher said when you were 12 or 16 can still stick with you for the rest of your life. There is truly amazing potential to impact lives through teaching as well.

I have some experience with teaching, through my student teaching experience, but I am only just now beginning to explore what it would be like to be a minister (or rather, a priest. I guess I better start getting used to being all "high church" if I'm going to stick with this Episcopalian thing!) I get to "try on" this role for the next 9 months (I've already started "vesting up" and wearing my liturgical robes during the services -- which, I have to tell you, is tons of fun. I should write an entry soon just on the robes.) Leading worship, going to diocesan events, visiting elderly parishoners in nursing homes, visiting people on their death beds in the hospitals, helping teach the high school Sunday School class, proofreading the bulletin for typos... there are all KINDS of things involved in this job. There's always something different to be done each day, which so far I think I really like... but it's only been two weeks that I've been at this church! We'll see what I'll think in a few months! But all I know is that I've already realized even more deeply the profound impact a priest can have on someone's life, and that has drawn me in, has "hooked" me for the ride I'm about to undertake.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

A space for reflection

Hi everyone.... I've created this new blog just for recording my personal reflections on the vocational discernment process that I'll be undergoing in the Resurrection House program this year.