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| Out of Nowhere, by Lane Denson, Southern Sage and Jazz Musician |
Door:Pentecost 13/16C Luke 13.22-30
There are some questions that I'd rather not be asked, and there are some I'd rather not ask. There is one in today's Gospel I'd like very much to avoid altogether.
Jesus is journeying and teaching on his way to Jerusalem. I like that image, but some guy has to spoil it by stopping and asking him, "Lord will those who are saved be few?" Jesus's answer brings up images not all that bucolic as is that of Jesus sauntering along peacefully. Especially when his answers suggest, "Very few, that's who."
That narrow door he brings up is that Christian symbol I remember from my childhood as altogether frightening, and it's still haunting enough. Regardless of our connections or how many bishops we've made friends with or with whom we may have consorted, we profligates will never be able to squeeze through. Jesus has his own rules. I don't know why Jesus had to go and spoil a nice walk like that. Or why those who choose our Sunday readings had to call up that story when it's so hot outside and they have so many others available, but there it is, not the kind this Episcopalian likes to talk about.
The door to salvation is so narrow that most of us religiously overweight types will never be able to get through. What may be even worse is that we more than likely will get stuck in the trying. But try, we must. "Strive to enter by the narrow door," Jesus says. You won't be able to enter, but strive, anyway. No matter how many parish
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cover dish suppers you've served and eaten, tuna fish casserole is simply not the nectar of the gods, never was, and never will be.
There's a denomination that used to insist that only 144,000 humans could be saved. When their membership topped that figure, they simply recalculated and increased the odds.
The truth we like to believe is that salvation is by grace, not by merit or numbers. On the other hand, we do live in a society that measures life just the opposite, that measures membership by zip codes and citizenship by birth certificates. The door through which we are welcomed, be it by a certain virtue, or by hard work, or by age, is no less to be tried, but not to be obsessed about, confronted, but not ignored or despaired over. The better part of valor seems to me that the way to it and through it is by journeying and teaching with Jesus right there on the Way.
Our Baptismal Covenant contains all the steps consistent with journeying as a Christian and teaching by willing to keep those commitments. Asking about who will be saved may be only natural, but it seems to me like the disciples asking who can sit at Jesus's right hand. If I remember, neither did that get a very encouraging answer. But for me, I'm betting on Jesus, not my virtue.
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| Buddy Stallings. Vicar of St. Bartholonew's Church, NYC |
Yes, I MIGHT Be Wrong ....
Recently I made myself go see Restrepo, a documentary about American troops in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan. Far, far from Hollywood, this film follows the lives of a platoon of soldiers in a hacked-out hole on a mountainside in what the captain of the platoon refers to as the "deadliest place on earth." It is not for the faint of heart - watching the film is not, and I can't begin to imagine what living it would be like.
Anything I say about why we are there or about what we should be doing is so ill informed that even I have enough sense not to voice it. I think I prefer the arrogance of youth, when understanding an issue is not a prerequisite for pontificating about it. Come to think of it, of course, that behavior is hardly the exclusive domain of the young. If only it were so!
As I watched those young brave Americans risking, and some of them losing, their lives to protect our democracy, our freedom, our way of life -- to protect and preserve something -- I could not resist thinking about the cultural wars which are dividing this country. Hardly anyone killed; and, yet, the violence associated with them is undeniable. The hatred, pain and anger in the faces of those protesting the building of the cultural center and mosque in downtown New York City startle and disturb me. The immigration battle is so fear ridden that good people find themselves supporting positions they would never hold under another set of
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circumstances. Gay marriage, though now temporarily on hold for its inevitable trek to the Supreme Court, separates people as though the marriage between two people of the same sex will tear not just society apart but the outraged individuals themselves.
On each one of these hot button issues, I unquestionably base my position on what I believe to be true about God. And as hard as it is for me to accept, it is equally true that many who disagree with me base their conclusions on their experience of God. Admitting that does not change the fact that I am going to fight hard for religious freedom, hard for generous immigration policies, and hard for the recognition of lesbian and gay couples' right to marry. What it means is that I will acknowledge the fact that I could be wrong. In my heart I don't think I am; in fact, I am willing to risk everything on what I hold to be true about God.
I know that I do not have the last word. Maybe if enough of us on both sides can acknowledge that much, maybe if enough of us can admit that even our most cherished beliefs could be wrong, then at least the violence and mean-spiritedness of our culture wars might be diminished. Maybe, just maybe, these conversations could become discourses that seem worthy of the young men and women whose lives are being sacrificed to support such a freedom.
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I am pining for more than just public civility; I am pining for humility in my life and in the life of the country I love.
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| Brian's Reflection, by Brian Orrock McHugh |
What a Difference Imagination and Motivation Make!
If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work but rather, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
THAT is what “religion”, as the handmaiden of Faith, should be about! Teaching us “to long for the endless immensity of the sea”.
The Church is “a ship”. We should be building it. But alas we keeping trying to build it by “herding people together to collect wood “ and assigning them “tasks and work”. We Christians who are “being the church” does mean that we have to build. But we too often forget the Essence.
The Longing! That is the Essence!!!!
This principle is so very true of so many human things! Relationships, Love, Charity, etc. The building of them does require that we remember the Heart of it all: “seeing” and “longing for “the endless immensity of the Sea”. The Universe and Ourselves are two of those Immensities. “God”, properly understood, is as well.
Are you a Builder of Ships? Are you a person longing to set sail on the Immense Sea?
Paint the “endless Immensity”. Seek it.
The “Ship” will build Itself.
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| Poet and writing teacher Elizabeth Ayres (http://www.creativewritingcenter.com) hosts the radio program, Soundings, Monday evenings at 8:30 p.m. eastern time at www.wryr.org |
Mimosa Moment
The blooms made me stop, the scent made me linger, the buds made me wonder about almost everything.
I know, I know, it isn’t fair. You’re already asking, Who, what, where? When, how, why?
Let’s start over.
It was sometime in July. All the roads were lined with effervescence of mimosa. Flowers like fans, ballerinas, balloons, butterflies, I couldn’t help myself, I had to get up close to one, so I parked my car on a grassy knoll, scrambled over a ditch, up a hill, into a whorl of scent as delicate as pink cobwebs, as fragile as blushing soap bubbles, I thought, How is it I have lived so long burdened by gravity when all along a nirvana of weightlessness has been waiting for me, disguised as a simple perfume?
I plucked one gossamer blossom. Tickled my cheek into a fuzzy giggle with it. Painted the flesh of one arm incandescent with a fairy brush of it. I couldn’t fathom how something so small and gentle could grip my heart like a strong fist. Could make me want to pitch a tent. Spend the rest of my life there, a devotee of Mimosa.
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I would sleep at night on green feathers, under a blanket soft as sunrise. Every morning I would wake, ready to go out and preach Mimosa to our harsh, our strident, our dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest, looking-out-for-number-one world. Billions of people would convert to Mimosa, coining new phrases for old values like tenderness and compassion. We would abandon force as a path to change and learn the power of cooperation, but as I stepped up to the podium to accept my Nobel Peace Prize, a bumblebee landed on an eye-level branch, and that’s when I noticed the buds.
Tight green knobs, impenetrable verdigris knots, solid, infrangible nodes from which nothing could emerge and yet, from each hard pebble an effusion of soft threads had burst. A silky, extravagant testament to the unlikely. As astonishing a witness to surprising potential as pink cobwebs of morning spun from the black silk of night.
That was July, this is August. Just passing, the season for mimosa, and just passing, a woman I know, who would have become a dear friend except the impenetrable knot of sickness claimed her first. The last time I saw her, she lay in bed stroking her cat’s white fur with fingers thin as twigs. The trees beyond her bedroom window seemed to reach in and stroke us both, a peaceful, consoling moment, and although she is leaving behind the pebble of her body, I know her soul will blossom into a surprise of potential.
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as pink cobwebs of morning spun from the black silk of night.
That was July, this is August. Just passing, the season for mimosa, and just passing, a woman I know, who would have become a dear friend except the impenetrable knot of sickness claimed her first. The last time I saw her, she lay in bed stroking her cat’s white fur with fingers thin as twigs. The trees beyond her bedroom window seemed to reach in and stroke us both, a peaceful, consoling moment, and although she is leaving behind the pebble of her body, I know her soul will blossom into a surprise of potential.
Religion wants to teach us there is life after death. Wants to teach us tenderness and compassion as well. Most of us seem not to have learned those lessons, so maybe after all we should all convert to Mimosa, which proclaims what it also proves: that just beyond the hard, tight bud of the present, an extravagant and improbable future awaits. Amen.
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| Clergy Family Confidential by Tim Schenck |
"We Are the Model of Today's Episcopalian"
My new curate (how long must I refer to her as new?), Anne Emry forwarded the following gem that her mother found amongst her grandmother’s papers. It was slightly dated so I freshened it up but only barely. It’s amazing how much of this still resonates. Titled “We are the Model of Today’s Episcopalian,” it is (naturally) sung to the famous tune of a similar name from Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.
I have no idea who initially authored this or even where it came from — any insights would be welcome. In the meantime enjoy, feel free to share, and haul it out the next time your parish holds one of those dreaded “talent shows.” Your organist/choirmaster will love you for enlisting the entire choir (click here for a clear example of what I mean).
We Are the Model of Today’s Episcopalian
We are the model of today’s Episcopalian,
We’re broad and high and low and wide and somewhat bacchanalian,
We’re mystical, political, we’re secular and clerical;
We can be charismatic but we seldom get hysterical.
We’re traditional and modernist and Socialist-monarchical;
We’re catholic and protestant and not too hierarchical;
About gay bishops we are teeming with a lot of views
As well as on the Prayer Book that our bishops say we gotta use.
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Chorus: As well as on the Prayer Book that our bishops say we gotta use.
We’re prosperous. By daily work our stewardship is merited,
Abetted by the little bit that some of us inherited;
In monetary matters we are very economical;
The portion that we give the church is best described as comical.
Chorus: In monetary matters we are very economical; the portion that we give the church is best described as comical.
We’re very well acquainted, too, with matters ecumenical,
In spite of being vague about our vows catechumenical.
A knowledge of our church remains to most of us a mystery.
(Someday we’ll take the time to learn our heritage and history!)
Don’t ask us what we mean by our responses doxological;
They sound so grand they must mean something highly theological!
In short, we’ve just a smattering of elementary Sunday School.
Including many cheerful facts about the meaning of The Golden Rule.
Chorus: Including many cheerful facts about the meaning of The Golden Rule.
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For our theologic knowledge, though we’re open and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still in matters practical that we all dabble daily in,
We are the very model of today’s Episcopalian!
Chorus: But still in matters practical that we all dabble daily in, we are the very model of today’s Episcopalian!
We are the very model of today’s Episcopalian!
We do our work while modestly proclaiming our own praises in
Committee and Convention. We’re a confident and cheerful band.
Get four of us together and you’ll always find a fifth on hand.
We’re known for our diversity and heterogenity,
(Please don’t confuse that word with sexual spontaneity!)
On controversial subjects you will seldom find that two agree
Episcopalians are each the World’s Leading Authoritee.
Chorus: Episcopalians are each the World’s Leading Authoritee.
We’re educated, talented, creative, and professional;
So proud of our humility we don’t need the confessional.
We are very open-minded in all matters strange and alien.
We’re only narrow-minded towards another ‘piscoplian.
Chorus: We are very open-minded in all matters strange and alien. We’re only narrow-minded towards another ‘piscoplian.
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